As a board certified sport dietitian who specializes in fueling the endurance athlete, I find it critically important that athletes develop appropriate daily eating and sport nutrition habits to support an extremely active lifestyle. It's important to remember that your extreme exercise routine (which you call training) is also very stressful on your body.
Although we need to stress the body for it to physically adapt, the human body can not tolerate too much stress without adequate fuel, hydration and proper nutrients.
When Triathlete Magazine gave me the topic of "x-fueling mistakes that triathletes make", I struggled not because I couldn't select the mistakes but that I only had 500 words for this article.
With the experience of working with many endurance athletes, I see common fueling mistakes time and time again. However, I find that more mistakes are made due to misinformation and poor planning than by no information.
Clearly, in our society we do not struggle with lack of information on any given topic. Instead, there is information overload on everything which makes figuring out what works best for you, extremely difficult.
Making the investment to work with a professional who specializes in the area of your concerns/struggle is often the best way to truly understand what will work best for you and your body.
To be honest, I find that most endurance athletes develop bad habits overtime throughout a season. One long workout is rewarded with x-food and then x-food becomes desired after every long workout. Or, the athlete starts off with good intentions for proper sport nutrition, meal planning and recovery but overtime, those strategies are forgotten as the athlete gets "too busy".
These bad habits that are developed overtime are due to a variety of reasons but I find that most endurance athletes leave less time for proper meal planning/prep, feel rushed or constantly on the go, are constantly looking for a quick fix (or the cutting edge) and jumping from one approach to another, put too much on the daily plate (feeling exhausted, drained and overwhelmed) and push aside healthy lifestyle habits (or never create) in an effort to just go through the motions in order to check off workouts.
Here are 4 of the common fueling mistakes that I find that athletes make throughout a season.
It's far too common that athletes become very robotic with their lifestyle and training, thus sabotaging their potential to make huge performance gains overtime.
Sadly, I find that many athletes underperform in almost every workout, not because of a lack of passion and dedication for training but because daily and sport nutrition are limiting overall health and/or the ability to improve athletic performance.
If you find you “need” caffeine pills or energy drinks to fight fatigue or to get through a workout, you are developing an unhealthy dependence on caffeine which could be masking an underlying issue like underfueling, sleep deprivation, stress or overtraining.
Rewarding with junk food after a long/hard workout not only increases cravings for unhealthy foods but undermines the importance of developing appropriate fueling and hydrating habits around/during workouts.
While there is nothing wrong with the occasional indulgence, coaxing yourself to get through a workout with the anticipation of guilt-free unhealthy or excessive eating may create a dysfunctional relationship with food. Stop habitually using food for reward (when exhausted) or punishment (bad workout) and thank your body for giving you a great workout, then treat yourself with a massage or Epson salt bath.