Optimum Nutrition Spring 2018 PREVIEW

MOVE IT
Bananas or a boiled egg? When it comes to the food that fuels your workout, which one reaches
the winning line first? Alice Ball looks at the debate over macronutrients for effective exercise
I’m in the changing rooms of one of
those boutique fitness classes — the
‘you pay bucks for us to kick your
ass’ kind. Despite a stressful morning,
I’ve remembered to grab a banana to
eat before the torture begins. After all,
pre-workout carbs are vital, right? But to
my left is a woman with a physique that
says, ‘I do this every day’ tucking into
two boiled eggs before the class. “Hang
on,” I think to myself. “Have I got this all
wrong?”
When we work out, our body requires
fuel. Food is stored in the body as
glycogen and broken down into glucose
during exercise, feeding the muscles
with energy. We can get glycogen from
most food groups, but carbs are thought
to convert to glucose more easily than
protein or fat. As a result, carbohydrates
are considered to be the energy food;
which is why we often see marathon
runners eating bowls of porridge or
bananas before their race. This is known
as carb-loading; consuming large
quantities of carbohydrates in the run
up to an event to increase the amount of
glycogen in the body. The result? They
can perform for longer without ‘hitting the
wall’.
The body naturally contains enough
glycogen to run the course of an hour’s
workout or 10 km run. But for distance
48 OPTIMUM NUTRITION | SPRING 2018