Endurance athletes like long-distance cyclists, marathon runners, and swimmers have special nutrition requirements. If you carry out long exercises, you need to maintain a proper diet to ensure optimal performance. It will also help you recover quite nicely from the rigorous workouts. The problem then becomes recognizing what to eat, when to eat it, and how much you should eat. One good option that will help serve as fuel during long exercises and build up your endurance is carbohydrates. Those potato calories can be the one thing holding you up as you jog for hours on end. However, carbs are not necessarily the only foods that help keep you exercising for hours. Below are the different food categories to take note of when exercising for hours on end.
Carbs
These are the primary nutrients you need when you need to fuel for high-intensity exercises. Carbohydrates help supply the body with the required glucose that will help you sustain your energy for many years. When you eat carbs like potato, it contains resistant starch that is complicated to break down and therefore gets converted to energy that fuels your body during long exercises. The potato calories can keep you going for many hours. However, research has shown that endurance athletes tend to consume less than the necessary carb amount to support their training schedule.
Fat
This food category is another option to get the needed energy to fuel your long exercise schedule. However, unlike carbs, it is ideal for low-intensity exercises that might go on for long hours. Fat helps to support training sessions that are more focused on endurance than on speed. The best type of fat is monounsaturated fats, and they help increase the body’s HDL, which is good cholesterol like potato calories. This fat type can reduce your risk of heart disease or stroke. It also reduces inflammation and can promote brain and nervous system operation.
Protein
While protein doesn’t provide the energy you need to keep going for long hours of exercise; it helps maintain and repair muscles. Research indicates that this type of food is necessary in high amounts when engaging in exercises for long hours. It will provide your muscle with the needed strength to keep going through. After a rigorous training session in which the potato calories kept you going, your protein consumption will help your muscles recover.
