Is there a nutrition secret to going harder, faster, stronger, and longer? There is a whole mythology built up around “eating to perform": protein powders, carbohydrate back-loading, intermittent fasting, post-workout macronutrient ratios, etc. We've been told that carbohydrates are bad for us? But don’t we need carbohydrates to fuel our high-intensity training sessions? One of my teachers used to say, “most people don’t deserve carbohydrates, you can have carbohydrates in your diet, but they have to be clean carbohydrates.” The best way to determine if it’s a clean carbohydrate is to ask the questions, “did a caveman have access to it?
“If it doesn’t fly, doesn’t swim, doesn’t run or if it’s not green, don’t eat it.”
There is no such thing as an optimal one-size-fits-all approach to nutrition, and as health and fitness professionals, we can not prescribe the same diet for everyone. In the big picture of sustainable health, we need to work with our clients to make sure they have a diet that works in harmony with their activity levels. Food should help our clients build muscle and give them enough energy to explore all the fantastic ways their bodies can perform when fuelled correctly. Far too often, specific performance or weight loss goals distract both coaches and clients from the optimal health and longevity picture. When it comes to performance, it starts to seem like eating real food isn’t enough.
Can we eat real whole food for performance goals?
It’s often thought that real whole food diets like Paleo are only geared towards those who want to lose weight and improve longevity. The main problem with Paleo for performance-based goals is the tendency for the diet to be low-carb. This means training or competing with low glycogen, which years of research tell us reduces performance and can result in the over-training syndrome. Loren Cordain concedes this fundamental point in his book The Paleo Diet for Athletes where he says athletes to bend the rules by eating non-Paleo carbs before, during, and after training.
Although the human body can convert fat into energy, it's a prolonged process. Many endurance athletes have seen improvements in their aerobic-based sports performance by following a low-carb diet and becoming fat adapted. This makes sense as endurance sports require low levels of energy over extended periods.
Speed and power athletes participating in anaerobic-based sports (team sports, CrossFit, martial arts, sprinting, shot put, etc.) will require a much higher intake of carbohydrates. Why? Because fat CAN NOT be turned into energy without oxygen, hence it’s not going to fuel anaerobic (without oxygen) activities. You can read more about this in our earlier post energy systems part 5 aerobic kerbs cycle metabolic flexibility.
When looking to tweak a Paleo diet for performance goals, we need to take into account the nature of our client’s training. Glycogen is a highly-explosive-instant-fuel-source that produces both power and speed. Most people simply do not perform well in an anaerobic environment without consuming high amounts of carbohydrates. This holds true for both elite athletes and highly active people who exercise regularly.
What calories and macronutrients as best for performance goals?
The Paleo diet can be tweaked to provide different combinations of macronutrients for different athletic demands. If you need protein? Just add some additional animal foods. More fat? More coconut oil. More carbs? Try a plantain or two. You shouldn’t need to resort to non-Paleo foods to get anything if you don’t want to.
Clients who have athletic performance-based goals MUST start to eat enough total calories to fuel their activity. Clients need adequate calorie intake to improve their strength, speed, power, fitness, lean muscle mass, and more – and you might be surprised to know how much that is, so read on.
Note: You can use a standard formula that includes activity factor to determine the optimal calorie intake for each client that you’re working with. Clinical examples of these kinds of formulas include the Harris-Benedict Formula or the Mifflin-St. Jeor Formula.
Examples
Gender: Female
Age: 30
Weight: 65kg
Height: 165cm
Exercise: 4 x 60min Strength and Conditioning workouts per week
Job: Sedentary
Weekend: Moderately active with housework and walking
Required calorie intake: 2178calories per day to maintain her weight and keep performance at optimal levels. If she’s trying to build muscle, she will need to increase the calories. A far cry from the 1200, 1500, or even 1800-calorie diets so many women are on!
Gender: Male
Age: 34
Weight: 85kg
Height: 170cm
Exercise: 4 x 60min Strength and Conditioning workouts per week
Job: Moderately Active
Weekend: Moderately active playing with the kids and doing jobs around the house
Required calorie intake: 2890calories per day to maintain his weight and keep performance at optimal levels. If he's trying to build muscle, he will need to increase the calories.
Does this mean your clients need to count calories?
It’s not something we recommend for most people. What it does mean, if athletic performance is a priority, you need to make a big effort to eat enough food and the right balance of macronutrients to fuel the body. Using apps like MyFitnessPal or Cronometer for a few days can give your clients a good idea of their daily calorie intake, but there is not a reason to weigh and measure your food all of the time.
What about macronutrient ratios?
First, let’s talk a little more about the macronutrients and the role they play in athletic performance, and then we can talk ratios.
Protein:
Protein often gets all of the attention in the fitness industry, and there is no arguing that it is crucial. However, your body doesn’t burn protein to do any kind of exercise. We need protein to build, repair, and maintain lean muscle. The amount of protein typically stays around the same (give or take a little) most days, adjusting carbs and fats is based on training intensity.
Higher protein intake is beneficial for most athletes, especially those looking to build muscle and lose fat. The evidence supports at least 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight for optimal muscle synthesis. Some studies have shown benefit from 1.8 to 3.0 grams per kilogram of body weight for protein intake. A range of 25-35% of calories from protein for athletes is generally recommended. It’s suggested that endurance athletes intake 1.2 to 1.6g per kilogram of body weight, and resistance and strength-training athletes ingest 1.8 to 3g per kilogram of body weight per day. Athletes can reach these recommended daily levels with mindful dietary choices. This amount of protein ensures you are getting enough to aid recovery, but not too much to where you have no room left for essential carbohydrates and fats.
Clients with performance-based goals should aim for a minimum of 115grams of animal protein per meal, which is approximately a palm-sized portion. Many athletes will need a fourth meal and protein-dense snack to hit that higher protein goal, and for breakfast, they’re also going to need something more than a couple of eggs.
Protein powders can be helpful to boost protein intake. When you’re talking about 200 grams of protein a day, it can be challenging to reach that target just by eating animal protein alone. We recommend a protein powder called Pure Paleo by Designs for Health. It’s a complete protein that’s made from beef, it’s well-tolerated by most, and it has the advantage of having protein from glycine, which protects against the possible harmful effects of eating too much methionine, which is an amino acid that comes from lean protein sources. Pure Paleo contains about 21 grams of protein per serving. We have covered the best protein supplement for athletes in a separate post.
There is no need to get fixated on protein. Protein SHOULD NOT be your primary source of calories, and you can get plenty of protein from a Paleo diet, even for muscle-building exercises. Most people DO NOT need to start using protein powders - they aren’t necessary, and they’re not ideal for optimal health.
Carbohydrates:
Huge bowls of pasta aren’t necessary for athletic performance, but very low-carb diets also aren’t great. Most highly active people perform best on a moderate amount of carbohydrates (20-30% of calories), especially if you’re working out at moderate to high intensity.
Far too often, people switch to an accidentally low-carb Paleo diet. They remove bread, cereal, pasta, cakes, and other sugary treats that are bad for their health, but they forget to replace these carbs with Paleo friendly carbs. Hello, accidental very-low-carb diet! If you have clients who have performance goals, you will need to make sure they are eating enough carbohydrates to fuel their needs.
Carbohydrates are essential for energy stores as well as helping muscles recover and rebuild. Don’t be afraid to increase your client’s carbohydrate intake as it will have a significant impact on both performance and recovery. Often clients can improve their body composition by increasing real whole food carbohydrates. If your clients are highly active, they're training 4+ times a week, and their goals are based on sports performance, you should be giving them a licence to eat more whole-food carbohydrates.
As the intensity of exercise increases, carbohydrate intake MUST increases as the glycogen stores are going to dictate speed, power, and stamina. However, if your client is performing long, slow and low-intensity workouts, fat is potentially going to be a better fuel source if they can tolerate it. Some people have trouble digesting fats, and people with adrenal fatigue or thyroid issues should not be following a low-carb diet.
Side note: There are some endurance-based athletes that perform well on a Ketosis diet. However, ketosis is not recommended for athletic performance in high powered anaerobic sports. There are some outliers who do just fine with a minimal-carb intake, but they are rare. Long-term low-carb diets can have detrimental impacts on our hormones and our health. As coaches, we need to make sure our clients are not putting their health at risk. Female clients should be VERY VERY VERY careful with a low-carb diet such as ketosis.
Unfortunately, with so many variables, it’s impossible to give one “carbohydrate recommendation” for everyone. Your client’s specific carbohydrate needs will depend on their age, sex, activity level, and all the other factors affecting their recovery (sleep, stress, hydration, etc.). The best place to start is by adding Paleo-friendly carbs both pre- and post-training. Foods such as sweet potatoes, potatoes, pumpkin, taro, or fruit are great options.
Most of us do not need to “cheat” to get enough carbohydrates in our diet. However, we will need to eat A LOT of real whole food to reach our carbohydrate goals. Unlike highly processed carbohydrates, real whole food contains valuable vitamins, minerals, and co-factors that improve our health, recovery, and performance.
The exception: Most elite-level athletes who are training hard and preparing for the competition will struggle to eat enough real whole carbohydrate foods. Before the Beijing Olympics, Michael Phelps said he was chowing down on an insane 12,000 calories a day, or 4,000 calories per meal. “I think I had a pound of spaghetti, and I am not a spaghetti fan,” he said. “I forced myself to eat it.” To train and perform at an elite level requires athletes to make sacrifices, they must choose to eat “crap” because real whole food is simply not that calorie-dense. The idea that elite athletes are healthy is another misconception that we won’t cover in this post.
Fats:
Fat is often under-appreciated in mainstream nutrition advice, but the evidence shows that this is a big mistake. For one thing, if you’re eating a low-carb diet, you need to make up those calories somewhere, and fat is the way to go. Fat adapted aerobic athletes typically follow a low-carb, moderate protein and high-fat diet. The Paleo diet is defiantly a winner when it comes to the quality and quantity of healthy fats.
What are the Macronutrient Ratios for athletic performance?
The macronutrient ratios for sports performance goals will depend on the type and volume of activity. A good starting place for most clients with performance based goals.
Protein: 25-35% of calories
Carbohydrates: Needs depend on the type of sport and personal preference—the more anaerobic the sport, the higher the carbohydrate demands.
High-intensity sports benefit from higher carb intake (40 to 50% of calories)
Endurance sports may benefit from lower carb intake (10 to 20% of calories)
Majority of athletes will do best between 20 and 50% of calories from carbohydrates
Fats: The fat intake will make up the remainder of calories (15-65% of calories)
Examples:
165cm (5’5”), 59kg (130-lb.) female CrossFitter with fat-loss goals: 2,236 calories, 168g protein, 224g carbs, 75g fat
190cm (6’2”) 87kg, (191-lb.) male basketball player with muscle-gain goals: 3,838 calories, 288g protein, 384g carbs, 128g fat
177cm (5’9”), 68kg (150-lb.) male endurance cyclist on very low-carb/ketogenic diet: 3,150 calories, 198g protein, 79g carbs, 228g fat
Most people look at these numbers and struggle to visualise what 224g of carbs or 384g of carbohydrates looks like.
To reach 224g of carbs, your client would need to eat:
6 large sweet potatoes per day
Or 4.6 cups of plantain per day
Or 8.3 bananas per day
Or 9 apples per day
To reach 384g of carbs, your client would need to eat:
10.3 large sweet potatoes per day
Or 8 cups of plantain per day
Or 14.2 bananas per day
Or 15.3 apples per day
Carbohydrates are not the enemy they have been made out to be. Not all carbohydrates are equal, and if our clients are eating enough real whole foods, their performance, health, and body composition will improve. Most people look, feel and perform better on a moderate carbohydrate (20-30% of calories) intake unless they have neurological issues (epilepsy, Alzheimer’s, etc..), never blood sugar issues, mood disturbances, or digestive issues. Clients with weight loss goals can benefit from cycling on and off a low-carb diet (10-20% of calories), but their anaerobic performance will not be at its best. Sticking to a long-term low-carb diet can have detrimental impacts on our hormones, gut microbiome, health, and longevity. As health and fitness professionals, we have a responsibility to teach our clients about the impacts of their chosen diet.
If you’re health and fitness professional who is keen to learn more about Sustainable Health you might be interested in Protect The Asset. PTA is an online coaching course designed for health and fitness professionals to create fulfilment, freedom and financial abundance. As personal trainers, gym owners and coaches we want to help as many people as possible, but we don't want to compromise our health and relationships in the process.