Athletes require special support.  Overlooking the impact of your diet means injuries can occur more easily and will take longer to heal.  Using food to address tissue and joint wear and tear, vitamin and mineral loss, and free radical formation only adds to performance.  Rather than focusing solely on volume, get more out of food by choosing nutrient-dense options like eggs, whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, bone broths, and coconut oil.  These choices alongside superfoods like nutritional yeast, spirulina, and goji berries, help meet your body’s higher needs for vitamins (for energy and to combat inflammation) and antioxidants (to repair the damage strenuous exercise can cause).  Healthy fats such as fish and flax oil are indispensable for lubricating joints and minimizing inflammation.  Magnesium-rich foods like almonds and avocados are necessary for their muscle contraction and relaxation properties, helping prevent distracting and painful charley horses.  Adequate amounts of B vitamins (removed when whole grains are processed into white bread, white flour, white rice, etc.) are imperative, as they are the first vitamins depleted when your body is under the physical and mental stress of training and racing.  Because athletes need many nutrients at higher-than-average levels, they simply may not be able to eat enough food to meet their body’s needs.  A B-vitamin complex, omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, and a mineral supplement can all be added to one’s routine- though they should not be used in place of a healthy diet.

Before and During a Race

Eating before and during an endurance competition is a challenge for many athletes.  A sandwich may be too heavy for one person and just right for another.  During training, find out what works for your body and stick with that on race day.  Miso soup or chicken broth will nourish your body with minerals and electrolytes.  A couple spoonfuls of coconut oil are easy to digest and provide a sustained energy source.  Berries, bananas, mangoes, or citrus fruits give you an energy spike without a subsequent energy crash.  During the race, a periodic snack on dried fruit may be just enough to boost you without making you feel heavy, or you may choose to rely on an energy gel like this one.

Post-Workout Recovery Food

Proper nutrition before, during, and after the race stocks your body with the nutrients it needs.  Immediately post-race an endurance athlete will need to replace lost fluids, minerals, vitamins, and sugars.  Water, an electrolyte drink (look for one that also contains B vitamins, vitamin C, and minerals, without excessive sugar or artificial colors), complex carbohydrates (fruits and vegetables), and healthy proteins and fats are nourishing choices to refuel and repair your body.

Origin’s Energy Gel Recipe

• 1 cup Brown Rice Syrup (try Lundberg’s Organic Sweet Dreams Brown Rice Syrup)
• 1/2 cup Barley Malt (try Eden’s Organic Barley Malt syrup)
• 1/4 cup Unrefined Coconut Oil
• 1/4 cup Organic Creamy Peanut Butter, all natural variety (without hydrogenated oils or sugar added)
• 1 tsp Sea Salt
• 1/4 cup hot water

1. Use a make-shift double boiler by placing a glass jar inside a saucepan. Fill the saucepan with water so that the jar is a little more than half immersed.
2. Combine all ingredients except for the hot water into the jar. Turn heat to med-low and warm mixture, stirring frequently, until it is runny and well combined, about 10 minutes.
3. Remove from heat, then remove the jar from inside the saucepan. Add the hot water to the mixture in the jar, stir and shake vigorously until well combined and no separation occurs.  Let cool.
4. Fill gel containers as needed for workouts. Store extra gel in the jar with a lid in a cool, dry place.

Yields 18 fluid ounces

The gel will stay liquid enough to easily squirt from your tube-like container during workouts or races. In cold weather, the gel may become quite thick. Test it out, you may need to add a little more water for a thinner consistency in cold weather, or try storing it close to your body for heat during a workout.

Low-down on the Nutrition

One ounce of this gel contains 150 calories, 24 grams of carbohydrates, 1.8 grams of protein, and 5 grams of fat-  ratio of approximately 64% carbohydrates, 5% protein, and 30% fat. Mostly carbohydrates, but enough protein and fat to balance your blood sugar and keep it from spiking or dropping during a workout or race- which is crucial to maintain your energy!

Brown Rice and Barley Malt Syrups

The brown rice syrup, the main ingredient in the gel, is 46% complex carbohydrates (polysaccharides), 29% maltose (a disaccharide), and 25% glucose (a simple sugar). Brown rice syrup also provides .46 g of protein in 2 TBSP. The barley malt syrup is 76% maltose, 16% glucose, 6 % sucrose (a disaccharide), and 2% fructose (a simple sugar). Barley malt syrup also provides nearly 3 g of protein in 2 TBSP. Both of these syrups are slow and easy to digest and provide the body with an immediate burst of necessary energy (due to the simple sugars), and then lasting carbohydrates (the poly and disaccharides) to refuel your cells. These syrups are about half as sweet as sugar to the taste.

Unrefined Coconut Oil

I used coconut oil to run a marathon. Great stuff. I have a sensitive stomach when I workout, my body turns off digestion more than most. The morning of my big race, I ate two spoonfuls of coconut oil, a banana and miso soup. It was the perfect fuel for my marathon. Coconut oil belongs to a special class of fats called medium-chain fatty acids. These fats are not normally stored in your body as fat, but are instead quickly converted to energy. They also boost your metabolism. This makes unrefined coconut oil an excellent oil for weight loss and athletic performance, as it helps produce lean body mass.

Organic Peanut Butter

The Peanut butter provides valuable monounsaturated fats, protein, and flavor to the energy gel. Make sure to choose an all natural variety that only contains organic peanuts and salt. Avoid peanut butter with added sugar and hydrogenated oils (trans fat).

Sea Salt

Sea salt provides valuable minerals for electrolyte balance. A high quality sea salt is rich in potassium, magnesium, sodium chloride, and trace minerals.

To Better Rides

A balanced, nutritionally sound gel to keep you feeling strong and charged when it matters. I have been using this gel on mountain bike rides and love it.  It beats eating an energy bar that tends to sit in my stomach.  The inspiration for this gel recipe goes out to my brother Jarrett and husband Bryan, thanks for asking for it.

Carbohydrates All Turn Into Sugar

First, let’s talk about what carbohydrates are.  Vegetables, fruits, grains, breads, pasta, sweets, juices, sodas, beer, wine, potato chips and most other snack foods are all classified as carbohydrates.  They all break down into simple sugars in the body once we consume them.  But all carbohydrates are not created equally. Carbohydrate foods such as soda and candy are devoid of fiber and nutrients, and they contain a lot more sugar than vegetables or whole grains, causing our blood sugar to rise rapidly once eaten.  High blood sugar puts the body into red alert and our body sends a team to deal with it immediately.

The Power of Insulin

The most powerful member of that team is the hormone insulin.  Insulin has the very important job of regulating and transporting sugar in our blood.  We need a constant supply of sugar in our blood, but it is also dangerous to have too much.  Insulin protects our blood sugar levels by delivering sugar to areas of the body where it is needed for energy, or in excess, stores the sugar as fat.

It is very important for our brain to have a constant supply of sugar in order to function properly, so the body satisfies the brain’s need for sugar first.  Next, insulin takes sugar to our muscles to be burned for our physical needs of movement.  Our muscles also have the ability to store carbohydrates as glycogen for energy needs in the immediate future, so next, sugar goes into these glycogen stores.  If there is still sugar leftover, insulin puts it into fat storage, which typically goes to our waistline, or stores it as triglycerides (a “bad” type of cholesterol).

If we continually eat too many carbohydrates and the wrong kind of carbohydrates, our blood sugar is always spiking too high and then dropping too low instead of staying in a balanced state.  High blood sugar means high insulin levels.  High insulin levels mean intense sugar cravings.  Intense sugar cravings lead to an addiction to sugar and poor quality carbohydrate foods. That addiction leads to hypoglycemia, diabetes, adrenal exhaustion, mental instability and weight gain, to name a few.  High insulin levels also mean that another powerful hormone, glucagon, cannot do its work in burning fat.

Protein Creates Glucagon and Burns Fat

Glucagon’s job is to release stored carbohydrates from fat to be used as energy.  Eating protein rich foods triggers glucagon into action, but if insulin is too high, glucagon is blocked and cannot work.  If we choose high sugar carbohydrate meals and snacks without properly balancing protein, glucagon can’t work to break down fat stores because insulin levels are always high.  High insulin levels block glucagon.  Balanced insulin levels, hence balanced blood sugar, allow glucagon to work at burning fat.

Some Symptoms of Low Blood Sugar

• Craving for sweets
• Hunger
• Nervousness and irritability
• Exhaustion and drowsiness
• Depression
• Headaches
• Insomnia
• Forgetfulness, confusion, and indecisiveness
• Anxiety
• Heart palpitations and rapid pulse

Some Symptoms of High Blood Sugar

• Frequent urination
• Thirst
• Feeling weak or tired
• Blurred vision
• Dry mouth
• High blood pressure
• High cholesterol
• Weight gain
• Inflammation
• Fluid retention

Balancing Our Blood Sugar

Keeping your blood sugar balanced will keep insulin in check, glucagon working to burn fat, and will eliminate your sugar cravings once and for all.  In order to balance your blood sugar, you will need to eat healthy carbohydrates along with protein and fat with every meal and snack.  Healthy carbohydrate choices are vegetables, low sugar fruits and whole grains that are not refined.  Pair your choice of a healthy carbohydrate with a high quality protein such as chicken, turkey, or an egg, and a fat such as butter or avocado, every time you eat.  By doing this, you will avoid the blood sugar rollercoaster and avoid your body’s willpower being overrun by powerful hormones such as insulin.  You will lose weight because the hormone glucagon is able to do its work, and your sugar cravings will go away.  Freeing yourself from the addiction of sugar frees your mind so that you are relaxed, happy, confident and content; and frees your body to become energetic, strong, and on the road to optimal health.