It’s a familiar scenario - you train three, four or five times a week and watch what you eat yet you feel you have less energy as well as carrying an extra few pounds.

Have you ever thought your metabolism, your calorie burning furnace, could be stuck on low? Especially if you’re older than 30 years, after which your metabolism begins to drop about one percent per year. You don’t have to take this lying down; you can fight back, as you can boost your metabolism in several ways.

Your metabolism is the rate at which your body burns calories. It is broken down into three main burners;

Basal Metabolism
Sometimes called your resting metabolism, is the largest burner. It accounts for about 60 percent of the calories you expend each day. You burn these calories simply to exist, including when you’re sleeping.

Activity Metabolism
Is the second burner and makes up about 30 percent of your daily calorie burn. These are calories you burn during swimming, biking and running, as well as other activities such as sweeping the floor, walking upstairs or mowing the lawn.

Thermic Metabolism
Is the final burner and accounts for the calories you expend digesting food and since certain foods take more energy (calories) to digest, you’ll want to emphasise them whenever possible.

If you work it right a good metabolism boosting programme will turn on the heat on all three burners. Best of all, a few simple changes to your training routine and eating habits will have you on your way to becoming a leaner and faster athlete!

Run Fast
Adding speed sessions to your programme is one of the best ways to crank up your metabolism. Hard running burns lots of calories (activity metabolism) and comes with an after burn dividend (raised basal metabolism), but it has to be hard. Metabolism can remain elevated for at least a couple of hours after a session, assuming the session was somewhat ‘taxing’. These hard sessions are best completed once you’ve established a good period of longer slower base running but will incinerate calories and rev up your metabolism in the process. Some example workouts ( once a week) could be six to eight 400’s at your best one-mile pace; four or five 800’s at 5k race pace or three or four mile repetitions at 10k race pace.

Train Twice
It may sound somewhat over the top if you’re not a serious competitive racer, but twice day training can be very rewarding. It’ll raise your metabolism for extended periods of time thanks to two after burn peaks during the day not to mention the fact that you’ll burn more calories because of the extra exercise. Try to mix a morning swim session with either a run or bike session in the evening. Make sure you eat and drink steadily throughout the day to ensure you’re energised and hydrated.

Seek Protein
Protein generally takes longer to digest, meaning you’re burning more calories while your body is breaking it down. Try to eat some protein every meal and snack time. It doesn’t have to be a steak or chicken breast, it could be poached eggs for breakfast, or cottage cheese or low fact yoghurt instead of white breads. This will increase your thermic metabolism by up to a third during the day.

High Fibre All Year Round
Just like protein, high-fibre foods increase thermic metabolism because the fibre slows digestion, resulting in a higher calorie burn rate. Healthy high-fibre foods to eat throughout the day include beans, fresh fruits and vegetables and whole-grain breads and pastas.
Stay Fluid
Dehydration slows your thermic metabolism because your stomach needs water to digest food. It also causes fatigue, which will definitely hamper your activity metabolism. Try for at least eight glasses of water a day.

Eat Early and Often
Skipping breakfast further decreases your thermic metabolism which is already low because you haven’t eaten since the night before. It also tends to slow your activity metabolism because you have less energy, making you more likely to use a lift instead of stairs. A good breakfast should include protein, carbohydrates and some fat, and contain enough calories to keep hunger at bay until your mid morning snack.

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Throughout my days as a Personal Trainer I’d be often asked the question ‘Does exercise first thing in the morning burn more body fat?’.

This is an interesting question that not only effects those just interested in fitness but more so us, as multi-sport athletes, as most of us try to sneak a morning session in before our daily chores, but perhaps don’t understand the possible negative effects.

Fair enough, if fat loss is your main goal, exercising on an empty stomach, such as first thing in the morning, may encourage your body to burn slightly more fat for fuel. Research suggests that insulin levels are at their lowest and glycogen levels are at their highest after an overnight fast. This increases the amount of fat that leaves your fat cells and travels to your muscles, where the fat is burned. On the downside, you may fatigue sooner or drop your exercise intensity and therefore end up burning fewer calories, and less body fat.

This is where it gets interesting. More often than not as multi-sport athletes performance is our main goal. Exercising in a fasted state will almost certainly reduce your endurance. The same goes if muscular endurance type strength work is an important element in your training because after an overnight fast, when muscle glycogen and blood glucose levels are low, your muscles will burn more protein for fuel. So you could end up losing hard earned muscle.

The solution to this problem for us multi-sport athletes is simple. Try to consume a light meal before training. If you can’t fit a meal in due to timescales, at least take on board a cereal type bar and a sports drink of some description. Remember my post on race day breakfast?

For me, I have to eat something before exercise in the morning regardless of the type of training session. Even if time is tight I try to have a piece of fruit before dashing out for a run. I accept that an individual’s needs and gastrointestinal abilities are different but if you can, try to eat as you’ll most definitely feel the benefit.

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Following on from my post last week on Understanding Energy, here’s ‘Part 2′, which explains the main energy sources, where they are stored and which is best.

Foods are made of different amounts of carbohydrates, fats, proteins and alcohol. Each of these nutrients provides a certain quantity of energy when it is broken down in the body. For instance, 1g of carbohydrate or protein releases about 4 kcal of energy, while 1g of fat releases 9 kcal, and 1g of alcohol releases 7kcal.

Fat is the most concentrated form of energy, providing the body with more than twice as much energy as carbohydrate or protein and also more than alcohol. However, it is not necessarily the ‘best’ form of energy for exercise. All foods contain a mixture of nutrients, and the energy value of a particular food depends on the amount carbohydrate, fat and protein it contains. For example, one slice of wholemeal brown bread provides roughly the same amount of energy as one pat (7g) of butter. However their composition is very different. In bread, most energy (75%) comes from carbohydrate, while in butter, virtually all (99.7%) comes from fat.

How does my body store carbohydrate?
Carbohydrate is stored as glycogen in the muscles and liver, along with about three times its own weight in water. Altogether there is about three times more glycogen stored in the muscles than the liver. The body can only store a relatively small amount of glycogen. The total store of glycogen in the average body amounts to about 500g; with approx 400g in the muscles and 100g I the liver. This store is equivalent to 1600-2000 kcal; enough to last one day if you were to eat nothing. Endurance athletes have higher muscle glycogen concentrations compared with sedentary people. Increasing your muscle mass will also increase your storage capacity for glycogen. The purpose of liver glycogen is to maintain blood glucose levels at rest and during prolonged exercise. Small amounts of glucose are present in the blood and in the brain and their concentrations are kept within a very narrow range, both at rest or during exercise.

How does my body store fat?
Fat is stored as ‘adipose’ (fat) tissue in almost every region of the body. A small amount of fat, about 300-400g is stored in muscles and is called intramuscular fat, but the majority is stored around the organs and beneath the skin. The average 70kg person stores 10-15kg of fat. Unfortunately, there is little you can do to change the way that your body distributes fat, but definitely change the amount of fat that is stored!!

How does my body store protein?
Protein is not stored in the same way as carbohydrate and fat. It forms muscle and organ tissue, so it is mainly used as a building material rather than an energy store. However, proteins can be broken down to release energy if need be, so muscles and organs represent a large source of potential energy.

Which fuels are most important for exercise?
Carbohydrates, fats and proteins are all capable of providing energy for exercise. They can all be transported to, and broken down in, muscle cells. Alcohol, however cannot be used directly by muscles for energy during exercise, no matter how strenuously you are working. Only the liver has specific enzymes needed to break down alcohol. You cannot break down alcohol faster by exercising harder either.
Proteins do not make a substantial contribution to the fuel mixture. It is only during very prolonged or very intense bouts of exercise that proteins play a more important role in giving the body energy.
The production of ATP during most fors of exercise come mainly from broken down carbohydrates and fats.

When is protein used for energy?
Protein is not usually a major source of energy, but it may play an important role during the latter stages of very strenuous or prolonged exercise as glycogen stores become depleted. For example, during the last stages of an Olympic distance event, or Ironman, when glycogen stores are depleted, the proteins in muscles (and organs) may make up 10% of the body’s fuel mixture.

In future posts I intend to cover related topics such as why fatigue occurs, how it can be delayed and how you can get more out of your training by changing your diet.

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When you exercise, your body must start producing energy faster than it does when it’s at rest. The muscles start to contract more strenuously, the heart beats faster to pump the blood around the body more rapidly and the lungs work harder. All these processes require extra energy. Where does it come from and how can you make sure you have enough to last through a training session or race?

Before you can fully answer such questions, it is important to understand how the body produces energy and what happens to it. You need to understand what takes place in the body when you exercise, where extra energy comes from and how the fuel mixture used differs accordingly to the type of exercise.

What is energy and ATP?
Firstly we need to understand what energy is. Although we cannot see energy, we can see and feel its effects in terms of heat and physical work.

Energy is produced by the splitting of a chemical bond in a substance called adenosine triphosphate (ATP). This is often referred to as the body’s ‘energy currency’. It is produced in every cell of the body from the breakdown of carbohydrate, fat, protein and alcohol (four fuels that are transported and transformed by various biomechanical processes into the same end product).

ATP is a small molecule consisting of an adenosine ‘backbone’ with three phosphate groups attached. Energy is released when one of the phosphate groups splits off. When ATP looses one of its phosphate groups it becomes adenosine diphosphate, or ADP. Some energy is used to carry out work(such as muscle contractions), but most (around three quarters) is given off as heat. This is why you feel warmer when you exercise. Once this has happened, ADP is converted back into ATP. A continuous cycle takes place in which ATP forms ADP and then becomes ATP again.

The conversion of ATP and ADP.
The body only stores very small amounts of ATP at any one time. There is just enough to keep up basic energy requirements when you are at rest, sufficient to keep the body ticking over. When you start exercising, energy demand suddenly increases, and the supply of ATP is used up within a few seconds. As more ATP must be produced to continue exercising, more fuel must be broken down.

Where does energy come from?
There are four components in food and drink that are capable of producing energy; carbohydrate, protein, fat and alcohol. When you eat a meal or have a drink, these components are broken down in the digestive system into their various building blocks. Then they are absorbed into the bloodstream. Carbohydrates are broken down into small, single sugar units; glucose, fructose and galactose. Fats are broken down into fatty acids and proteins into amino acids. Alcohol is mostly absorbed into the blood.

The ultimate fate of all these components is energy production, although carbohydrates, proteins and fat also have other important functions. Carbohydrates and alcohol are used mainly for energy in the short term, while fats are used as a long term energy store. Proteins can be used to produce energy either in ‘emergencies’ (for instance, when carbohydrates are in short supply) or when they have reached the end of their useful life. Sooner or later all food and drink components are broken down to release energy.

In Part 2 next week we’ll look at energy sources and which fuels are most important for exercise.

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Many triathletes are body conscious and try to eliminate fat from their diets. If you avoid fatty foods such as red meat and dairy products, you will miss out on vital micronutrients such as calcium and iron.

We all need a certain amount of fat in our diets to make hormones amongst other things. Fat in foods is also an important source of the fat soluble vitamins A, D and E, while essential fatty acids will help to keep your immune system in peak condition.

Don’t avoid fats completely. Some dairy foods, meat and meat products can be high in fat and saturated fat but careful choices can keep your fat intake down.

Choose lean cut of non processed meats, remove visible fat from skins of poultry and stir-fry, bake, poach or steam. Red meat is an excellent source of iron, which helps transport oxygen around the body, and zinc, which is essential for a healthy immune system.

Skimmed milk, cottage cheese an low fat yoghurts provide a tiny amount of fat but are rich in calcium and are also a good source of protein. While oily fish such as salmon, sardines and mackerel are rich in essential fatty acids that are also important for the bodies immune system.

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The potential effects of caffeine are not exactly a recent phenomenon. Indeed, there is documentation to suggest that it has been used to enhance performance for more than 30 years. Every athlete may have a different opinion of caffeine intake but hopefully the information below may explain how this ‘drug’ can be used legally and effectively.

What does caffeine do?
Caffeine has a change in body function action on the human body so it is classed as a drug rather than a nutrient. It is found in certain drinks such as coffee (50-100mg per cup), tea (30-60mg per cup) and Cola (50mg per 330ml can). It is also added to a number of energy and sports drinks (around 100mg per 250ml can).

Caffeine acts on the central nervous system increasing alertness and concentration, which could be considered advantageous in many sports. It also stimulates adrenaline release and in doses above 5mg/Kg bodyweight, mobilises fatty acid release. This means that more fatty acids are used for energy and less glycogen (muscle energy stores). This could be especially for endurance type sports as it would spare glycogen and increase endurance.

What is the evidence for caffeine?
There is a huge amount of research evidence that caffeine improves performance. Positive effects have even been shown for doses within the legal limit. According to this research, in runners caffeine can improve performance by as much as 40%. One study with swimmers showed a 23 second improvement in a 21 minute swim. However, not all studies have shown positive results. Researchers in South Africa found that caffeine had no effect on performance during a 100km cycling time trial.

What are the side effects?
Caffeine’s side effects include anxiety, trembling, and sleeplessness, however some people are more susceptible to these than others.
Although caffeine is a diuretic, a daily intake of less than 300mg caffeine results in no larger urine output than water. At this level caffeine is considered safe and unlikely to have any detrimental effect on performance, or health. Taking caffeine regularly (e.g. drinking coffee) builds up your caffeine tolerance so you experience smaller diuretic effects.

If you decide to use caffeine, make sure that you are well hydrated before training or competition. Cutting down on caffeine for several days prior to competition may result in a more marked ergogenic effect(anything ergogenic is said to positively affect physical or mental performance). Then, immediately before exercise take approximately 150-200mg of caffeine from drinks such as coffee (1-2 strong cups) or an energy/sports drink (1-2 cans). This may help you to keep exercising longer and harder.

Is caffeine legal?
The IOC classes caffeine as a stimulant, but as it is a constituent of drinks it is permitted in doses that produce a level less than 12mg/ml in the urine. The amount needed to reach this legal limit varies from one person to the next but on average, its equivalent to 8 cups of coffee or 16 cans of cola.

Once again if you are experimenting with sports nutrition it is vital that the changes in your dietary intake are practiced prior to any competition.

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Over the weekend a chap in a tri forum requested some advice regarding the benefits of carbohydrate loading. Being a rather interesting topic I give him some advice and thought I’d share it with Trispace readers. May be useful to some of you in the run-up to Ironman UK.

Carbohydrate loading is a technique originally devised in the 60’s to increase the muscles glycogen stores above normal levels. With more glycogen available, you may be able to perform longer before fatigue sets in. This is especially advantageous in endurance events lasting longer than 90 minutes which makes the technique ideal for triathlon’s and duathlon’s. It is unlikely to benefit if your event lasts less than 90 minutes as muscle glycogen depletion would not be a limiting factor to your performance.

The classic 6 day regime involves 2 bouts of glycogen depleting exercise separated by 3 days of low carbohydrate intake and followed by 3 days of carbohydrate intake and minimal exercise. The theory behind this is that the glycogen depletion stimulates the activity of glycogen synthetase, the key enzyme involved in glycogen storage, resulting in above normal levels of muscle glycogen when loading up.

This could have a number of drawbacks and could leave you feeling week, irritable or tired during the low carbohydrate phase.

The info below give’s you an example of what the classic regime looks like.

Day 1
Normal Training
Normal Diet

Day 2
Exhaustive Prolonged Exercise
Low Carbohydrate

Day 3
Taper Training
Low Carbohydrate

Day 4
Taper Training
Low Carbohydrate

Day 5
Taper Training
High Carbohydrate Diet

Day 6
Taper Training
High Carbohydrate Diet

Day 7
Taper Training
High Carbohydrate Diet

Day 8
RACE !

If you decide to try carbohydrate loading, rehearse it during training to what works best for you. Never try anything new before an important race. You may need to try the technique more than once, adjusting the types and amounts of foods you eat.

The simplest way to plan your daily food intake is to divide the day into ‘windows’; before, during, and after exercise, and between training sessions. You can then work out how much and what type of carbohydrate to consume during each ‘window’ to optimise your performance and recovery.

A typical days intake should be along the lines of;

Before exercise aim for 2.5g of carbs per Kg of body weight.
During exercise lasting longer than 1hour, aim for 30 – 60g of carbohydrate per hour.
After exercise aim for 1g carbs per Kg of body weight.
Between training sessions aim for 5-10Kg of carbs per Kg of body weight, or 60% of energy.

The glycaemic index and carbohydrate food types is another topic in itself that I intend to cover which will help you determine you meal ‘window’ food types.

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Think of all the training and race preparation you’ve done before you get to the start of your first, or favourite Triathlon on the race calendar. Months of training have passed and many sacrifices made only for you to turn up on race day without having breakfast. Excuses don’t even come into the equation as arriving on the start line empty is likely to seriously dent your performance. Even on sprint races you should be eating a breakfast, but as the race distance increases, missing breakfast will definitely have a negative impact on your performance.

The night before race day try and eat a carbohydrate rich meal, containing plenty of rice, pasta or potatoes (brown rice or pasta is preferable) to top up glycogen (energy) stores in those all important muscles. Also avoid any diuretic drinks like strong coffee or even beer and aim to rehydrate with water throughout the evening.

Aim to eat breakfast two hours or so before your race start time (any closer to the start may increase your chances of stomach problems) and have a couple of slices of brown bread or a bowl of fibre cereal. Again try to stay as hydrated as possible with water, the jury’s out as to the benefits of caffeine before a race so I’ll leave that for another day!!

An energy gel 30 minutes before the start will ensure that your glycogen stores are topped up. Ensure drinks bottles on your bike contain some form of carb drink or have an energy gel once you’ve settled on the bike. The length of the event will dictate how much you should eat and drink but you should aim for at least 30g to 60g of carbs every hour.

Also remember that you shouldn’t be practising race day nutrition on the day of your race. Practice with the food’s or gel’s you intend to eat on race day during prior training sessions, this way you’ll have a plan about what you’re going to eat and drink and this alone will give you extra confidence for a successful race.

Happy eating!

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How often do you see people in gyms, pre race or even at work (?!?!?!?) reach for their bottles of isotonic sports drinks and guzzle them down. I wonder how many of them actually need an isotonic drink for the exercise session they are about to do, or even understand why an isotonic drink actually is actually called ‘an isotonic drink’?

So, why is an isotonic drink called ‘an isotonic drink’?

Osmolality is an index referring to the number of particles present in a solution. Blood plasma has an osmolality (or tonicity) of around 280 – 300 mOsm/kg. Drinks with a tonicity of 270 – 330 mOsm/kg are classified as being in balance with the body’s own fluids and are referred to as isotonic. These products provide a faster rate of absorption and contain the necessary electrolytes lost through increased sweating during intensive exertion. The tonicity of Lucozade Sport for example is 280 mOsm/kg, making it compatible with that of blood.

Next time you reach for an isotonic sports drink, just pause for a second and ask yourself, do I really need this for the session I am about to do?

Isotonic drinks should only be taken during exercise or competition if the session is longer than a hour, certainly if a race is longer than 90 mins or if a pre-exercise meal is not possible (such as early morning intensive training). If an adequate pre exercise/ race meal has been consumed, there is really no need to take an isotonic sports drink on board as carbohydrate (glycogen) stores should be sufficient for the mean time. If you feel the need to drink something, why not sip on good old H20, at least this way you’ll keep yourself hydrated for the session or race ahead.

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