Finding the right fitness food mix
What’s the best ‘‘fit fuel’’? Or rather, what’s the best food to eat to fuel your body when you’re keeping fit – whether you love to dance, surf, swim, do CrossFit?
This week I’ve gathered some tips, advice and meal ideas on this from two experts. I spoke with Dr Caryn Zinn, a dietitian and senior lecturer at AUT University. Then I also caught up with someone who loves keeping fit – Maz Quinn, a Kiwi surf champ, who is currently swapping his surfboard for sequinned dance outfits (and low V-neck lines!) as a contestant on TV3’s Dancing with the Stars.
‘‘One of the biggest issues is people think they need sports drinks, sports lollies and gels, but they generally don’t,’’ says Caryn Zinn, adding, ‘‘it’s different, however, if you are doing something like Ironman.’’
Her top tip for eating for health is to eat whole and unprocessed foods ‘‘and foods that do not come in packets’’.
She says fat as a nutrient ‘‘has been totally underestimated as an efficient fuel for exercise’’.
So she recommends people eat a balance of ‘‘good-quality carbs’’ from foods like vegetables, fruits, full-fat dairy products and legumes, ‘‘good proteins’’ from foods such as meat, chicken, fish and eggs, as well as ‘‘good fats’’ from sources such as nuts, avocados, olive oil and coconut oil.
‘‘Combine these in meals . . . and it’s good fuel for exercise,’’ she says.
These are also food sources that will help you to feel ‘‘full’’.
She tells me that if you eat something like bread a lot, this will leave you feeling ‘‘hungry’’ and then wanting more bread (and therefore more calories, with not a lot of good-quality nutrients).
‘‘Our bodies don’t need as many carbs as we tend to think,’’ she explains.
‘‘Whether you’re going to the gym, or going running or doing Zumba . . . three meals a day with some carbs, proteins and fats is more than enough to fuel you and keep you feeling energised while doing this exercise,’’ she says.
I also caught up with Maz Quinn to ask if he was fuelling his body differently now that he’s dancing more than surfing the waves at his home in Gisborne.
Surprisingly, he reckons he eats roughly the same whether he is out riding waves, or pumping weights doing CrossFit, or if he has his dancing shoes on while practising for the TV show.
He says his love of CrossFit has influenced what he eats a fair bit. This fitness craze is centred around the paleo diet (the diet that emulates the hunter-gatherer lifestyle of the past where you tend to eat ideally organic things like grass-fed meat, nuts, seeds, vegetables and some fruit).
So Maz says he eats a fair bit of meat, veg and fruit, but he doesn’t totally avoid carbs. For instance, one of his faves is having poached eggs on freshly buttered Vogel’s toast for breakfast.
As a snack he’ll often have oats, which he sometimes has a couple of times a day. He has this with full-cream milk zapped in the microwave and then topped with a sliced banana and a sprinkle of cinnamon. (This is also what I eat most mornings, but I add a teaspoon of ground linseed too and top my porridge with a heap of berries, usually blueberries, which have antioxidants and taste yum.)
Another snack the 38-year-old surfer loves is a good protein shake. His recipe: fullcream milk, protein powder, banana and oats. Yes, those go-to oats again, which he says a rugby player mate got him into: ‘‘They help fill me up,’’ he says.
Maz says he doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth and so doesn’t really have a problem with wanting to hit the cupboard for sweet snacks.
I wish I could say the same; I have a sweet tooth the size of the Empire State Building. So, if you’re like me then try some dark (good-quality) chocolate – just a few pieces and not the whole block.
Or check out a recipe book for ideas, like the newly released one by Wellington chef and CrossFit fan Sarah Dueweke. Her book is titled Primal Kitchen and there are some terrific food ideas in there that are healthy and paleo dietinfluenced.
I made the sweet kumara icecream at the weekend, and it has the same creamy texture as icecream but is spicy too. My kids even gave it the thumbs up! It’d be terrific paired with stewed cinnamon apples.
Rachel Grunwell is a mum, marathoner, yoga teacher, adventurer and a ‘‘wellbeing warrior’’. She writes a weekly column for Well & Good.