Game on? Try carbs!

                  (By Lisa Sarah John, Courtesy Bangalore Times, Oct 30, 2006)

 Today, research shows that besides your own natural talent for a sport, what you eat on a long-term basis as well as your meals three days before your event have a tremendous influence on your performance. It is very important for a cricketer, for instance, to concentrate on a high carbohydrate diet three days before a match. Over 60-70 per cent of the food should be carbohydrate (fruit, sugar, vegetable and cereals). This gets converted to glycogen and stored in the muscles, from where energy is taken for the spurts of high-intensity activity — bowling, batting, or fielding.

For this, make a conscious effort to cut down on fatty food three days prior to the event. Your ideal breakfast should be a glass of skimmed milk with bread and jam, or idli and sambar, or oats porridge or cereal and milk. A boiled egg is fine but sausages, bacon, etc should be avoided. Top up the breakfast with fruit or fruit juice.

Carry juice diluted with glucose or a sports drink, but avoid concentrated or aerated drinks during the event. Between events, snack often on fruit — banana, dates, raisins. Jelly and crackers are also fine. Chocolates and nuts are definite no-nos as they are high fat and feel heavy in the stomach. Lunch too, should be high in carbohydrate, moderate in protein but low in fat. Curd rice, dry roti with dal, vegetable sandwiches, macaroni and tomato sauce with a little cheese added are some options. But try to increase your rice or roti intake and avoid the non-veg or keep it to a minimum.

Many eat less during the event saying they don’t want to feel heavy. If you fill up on carbs, they are digested fast. Only fat takes 6-8 hours to get digested and feels heavy in the stomach. After the event too, do not neglect your eating. You should eat 100 gms of carbohydrate with 5-10 gms of protein within half an hour of an event. This can be a milk shake or lassi plus four slices of bread and jam or 5-6 idlis with sambar and some fruits. Later that night, dinner too must be a high carbohydrate meal that’s low on fat. Fruit and milk at bedtime is also a good way to load up on carbohydrates.

On a match day, eat thrice before the game — milk and fruit at 6am, breakfast at 8am, and juice and some glucose biscuits at 9.30. During play — have plenty of water, juice, a sports drink and fruits. Have a good lunch and continue to drink water or juice till the game is over. Follow this with eating thrice again. That is, milk at 6pm, sandwiches and fruit and a good carbohydrate dinner at 8pm and milk and fruit at bedtime.

 

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