Nutrition science has provided a lot of performance food options in recent years. If you're an outdoor athlete who needs a quick, easy energy infusion, you'll find many convenient choices to fuel your ambitions.
Before, During and Recovery
The most significant trend in the performance-food category is its sophistication. Now you can fine-tune your nutrition intake with food choices engineered to enhance every stage of a workout or outdoor excursion—before, during and after (the recovery phase).
The online product page for each performance food product offered at REI includes a best-use designation. They are:
Before Workout
These foods or beverages are formulated to provide an elevated, consistent energy level over an extended period of time. They typically include a balanced mix of complex carbohydrates, proteins and fiber. Some are suitable for eating minutes before activity begins, though a longer lead time (1 to 2 hours) is often recommended.
During Workout
These are designed for easy digestion and absorption into your bloodstream. The goal is to provide sustained energy through a gradual rise (not a spike) in energy followed by a similarly gradual decline. Chews, gels and beverages are favorites due to their simplicity and agreeable taste.
Recovery Phase
These are fortified with proteins, amino acids and other muscle-restoring elements to help hasten the repair and restoration of cells in your body.
Many products can serve more than one of these functions. But these general designations can help guide you to choices best suited to your needs.
How many of these items do you need? It depends on the intensity of your activity or workout. For a light training run, for example, you may not need any. A more moderate run, a half-day hike or a standard training ride may call for just a single item from one of these categories. The more demanding (and prolonged) your activity, the more options your body may likely need to sustain peak performance.
What do these products offer that traditional foods cannot?
* Easy portability. Bananas, as great as they are as energy boosters, quickly get beat up when transported in your pack.
* Long shelf life. No refrigeration (or similar food-handling precautions) needed.
* Convenience. What you need (concentrated, specialized nutrients), when you need it (any time you choose) and where you need it (any place you choose).
Which items are best suited for you? We suggest you experiment with various products. Stick with the ones that:
* deliver the best results for you
* feel most comfortable in your stomach
* offer the most appealing flavor and texture for your tastes.
Women's and Kids' Options
The Luna brand has for years targeted women's nutritional needs. Their new Luna Sport brand adds beverage and gel options to fit smaller jersey pockets and lighter caloric needs.
Junior athletes also need healthy, energy-rich foods but they don't always enjoy the taste of adult energy products. Now there are options with flavors designed to suit a child's palate.
Shop REI's selection of kids' energy food.
Energy Bars
Power Bar
These are a good choice when preparing yourself for endurance activities (generally, any moderately intense aerobic endeavor lasting at least 90 minutes). In most cases, they are recommended for before-workout and recovery-phase use.
Bars are commonly high in carbohydrates, low in protein and fat—a good combination to consume just before starting an extended activity (or during an extended rest break). Bars with slightly higher fat and protein content are a good to eat an hour or more before a workout or anytime after it. The high-grade carbs in bars provide an endurance boost during a workout; afterwards, they help replenish glycogen (energy reserves) in muscles.
With varying quantities of fat included (up to 15 or 20 grams in some items), energy bars are the only performance-food option that serves to quell hunger pangs, though they do so only modestly and briefly.
Energy bars are not the same as meal-replacement bars or snack bars. Still, hikers often use an energy bar as an on-the-go midday snack during a rest stop. This allows them to save time while addressing hunger and energy issues at the same time.
Drink water when eating an energy bar. Bars are usually dense and chewy and are easier to digest with generous water intake. Avoid washing them down with a performance beverage. Consuming too many carbohydrates at once can slow your body's ability to absorb them.
Shop REI's selection of energy bars.
Energy Bites/Mini Bars
These offer the same nutrition as the bars but in a smaller size. Choose these if you want fewer than 250 calories per serving or prefer to get the majority of your calories from a beverage.
Organic Bars
Many performance food choices now offer a high percentage of organic ingredients in their products. REI offers a wide variety of organic options.
Shop REI's selection of organic bars.
Raw Foods
While most performance foods are not excessively processed, a new subcategory of energy bars features minimal processing-or no processing at all. These bars include whole, uncooked, energy-inducing foods (nuts, seeds, fruits) that are chopped, pressed and compacted into a single-serve package. For on-the-go food purists, this is a great convenience.
Gels
Gu
Gels are very popular among hikers, cyclists, paddlers and runners for on-the-go (during-workout) use. They are syrupy, semi-liquid products--usually high concentrations of carbohydrates--that come in small, squeezable packages that bring to mind squeeze food tubes used by astronauts in the 1960s.
Their chief benefit? They swiftly deliver a very-easy-to-digest energy boost—offering perhaps the quickest energy input of any performance food option. Some gel-makers create specialized gels by add varying doses of caffeine (a potent fatigue-fighter) or sodium (for people sweating excessively due to high temperatures or humid conditions). Caffeine-enhanced products are usually clearly marked. If you prefer to avoid caffeine, take note when selecting gels.
Gel packets are small, very light (1 or 2 oz.) and easy to stash just about anywhere.
Shop REI's selection of gels.
Chews
Clif and Luna Bars
Some people find the gooey texture of gels less than appealing. Electrolyte chews were created for them. Chews are offered in varying consistencies. Some are like gumdrops, or gummy bears, and others are more like jelly beans.
They provide essentially the same function as a gel—infusing the body with carbohydrates (to delay fatigue) and electrolytes (to replenish stores of salts). Because their soft-yet-solid texture requires slightly more digestive work than a gel, their benefits may be slightly slower to impact your body. Chews are designed exclusively for the during-working stage of activity.
A recent addition to this category are the so-called Fastpak chews, which offer a convenient squeeze delivery of small chew blocks.
Shop REI's selection of chews.
Beverages
Recoverite
The beverage category, which launched the modern energy-food movement with the introduction of Gatorade in 1965, includes items that cover all the phases of activity—before, during and recovery.
Better known as "sports drinks," performance beverages brought the term "electrolytes" into the mainstream lexicon decades ago. Electrolytes are minerals, primarily salts, which exist in your blood and carry electrical impulses (such as muscle contractions) between cells. They are important to bodily processes that involve your heart, nerves and muscles.
Major electrolytes in your body include sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium. During hard or prolonged exercise, perspiration drains you body of electrolytes, particularly sodium and potassium. The typical result: fatigue and diminished performance. Performance beverages help prepare and sustain an athlete's body in sweaty conditions.
Beverages with high protein content (and thus higher caloric content) are designed more for recovery, although some beverage-makers assert that protein boosts endurance as well. Nutrients are rushed in liquid form to fatigued and depleted muscles, speeding their ability to rebound and provide a high level of performance the next day or later that same day.
Effervescent and Low-Calorie Beverages
These are a couple of relatively new twists on the performance beverage front.
Effervescent beverages come in tablet form and offer 2 benefits:
1) electrolyte replacement in a lower-calorie liquid and 2) a more reservoir-friendly concoction for people who enjoy sipping a flavored beverage through their hydration system. Effervescent tabs do not create the potential for gunking-up a reservoir the same way a high-carb powdered energy drink mix might. Most effervescent beverages also contain fewer calories than typical sports drinks.
Many trainers and nutritionists advise exercisers training at no more than a moderate level of intensity to drink diluted performance beverages or drinking water at the same time when drinking a full-strength performance beverage. A low-cal beverage can accomplish the same goal. Plus, by consuming fewer calories in their beverages, athletes can obtain rely on more on solid food for their caloric intake. Low-cal beverages also succeed at minimizing residue left inside a hydration reservoir.
Shop REI's selection of beverages.
Snacks
Since most performance foods offer sweet or fruity flavors, the snack bar (with a saltier flavor emphasis) now fills the salt-craving void for hikers and other outdoor athletes. These foods offer the convenience of a single-serving snack package that provides a healthier combination of ingredients than can be found on grocery-store shelves.
Shop REI's selection of snacks.
Supplements
One way to add vitamins and nutrients without any calories are performance supplements. These capsules can offer a variety of benefits depending on your needs. Be sure to follow the directions on the packaging for correct use.
Shop REI's selection of supplements.
Note: REI offers volume discounts on performance and snack foods.
link : http://www.rei.com/gearmail/gm041009_6/cm?cm_mmc=Email_com_gm-_-newsletter-_-041009-_-bt_energy
Contributor: Doug Peterson, REI Product Manager
