Every athlete knows, what diet plays a vital role in helping you get the most out of your workout. However, your diet can actually help prevent injuries. Here are just a few diet tips to help you stay healthy and active.
Eat Enough Calories
One of the biggest mistakes athletes make is not eating enough calories during the day.
Your body needs calories to keep your energy up and your muscles strong. When you don’t eat enough calories during the day, your body goes into a catabolic state. Catabolism prevents your body from properly being able to repair tissue damage that occurs during workouts. Slow muscle recovery greatly increases your chances of injury.
To avoid this, you don’t need to obsessively count every single calorie. Just make sure to stay aware of how much you eat a day in relation to how much you are exercising.
Get Enough Calcium
Our bones are one of the most important and vulnerable parts of our body. That’s why it’s so important for athletes to make sure they have a high bone density. To keep your bones strong, make sure you are receiving between 1,000 to 1,300 mg of calcium a day.
Getting enough calcium every day is a great way to help maintain bone density and avoid bone fractures or breaks.
Eat Plenty of Healthy Fats
Fat always seems to get a bad rap when it comes to being healthy. However, it’s important to remember that there is such a thing as ‘good’ fat.
Good fats can help to create healthy cell membranes and can help prevent serious inflammation in the muscles. Fats are so important that a recent study conducted by the University of Buffalo found that in the eating habits of 86 runners, fat intake was the single most important dietary predictor of injury.
The two best types of fat for your body are monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. These fats can be found in foods like olive oil, avocados, almonds, tofu, salmon, walnuts and soymilk.
Obviously, the fats to avoid are saturated and trans fats. These are most common in fried foods, chicken skin, cheese, beef, butter and pizza (basically everything you want to eat, but shouldn’t).
