Eating at galas!!

[Martin-Y]

The parents insist on giving their children sandwiches, crisps, jelly and sweets to consume at poolside during galas (not all day open meets). At Aldershot saturday, one little lad managed to eat his way through a sandwich filled lunch box. I personally would prefer that they don't eat at galas and for several hours before as well, because I am not sure there is any benefit of food so close to swimming. Hydration yes, but trying to convince parents that their babies wont starve or sink is difficult. What advice can I pass on to the parents and is there a good reference document that I could use to make a point.

[Michael]

You MUST eat during galas!!:mad:

The human body digests and processes energy most effectively within 30 mins of exercise, Why? Because it needs to recover. If you don't eat after a race then how do you expect to perform in the next one!?!?

If you have a swimmer that is competing for 2 days and you tell them not to eat during galas then don't expect to see them in training for a week!! They'll be exhausted!! :eek:

Before a meet Complex Carbs are a must Pasta, Rice, Potatos etc.

Good Pool Snacks are Bananas, Jelly Cubes, and Sugary Sweets.

[Julia]

:D I agree with Michael. My swimmers always take a packet of jelly and 3 bananas plus drinks each.

[Steve]

No arguments about eating at galas - I find malt loaf pretty good for before/between sessions and also like bananas and cereal bars during galas.

However, I do think that sandwiches during sessions probably aren't a good idea :D

[BigFish]

Originally posted by Teman
The parents insist on giving their children sandwiches, crisps, jelly and sweets to consume at poolside during galas (not all day open meets).

I think Teman is talking about those small 2 hour league galas here, not all day open meets. Do you really have time to eat all that at a small league gala?

I agree about eating during open meets, but surely not during a small league gala where you're only going to be swimming the odd 50/100 during the entire thing!

Sorry Julia, but I wouldn't have time to eat that much.

[swimmer]

Good Pool Snacks are Bananas

no offence Michael, BUT WHAT PLANET DO U LIVE ON! bananas are among the WORST foods to eat at galas - they take 5 hours to digest!

Good Pool Snacks are Bananas

[Chris]

Taken from the site of USA Swimming (http://www.usswim.org):

Speedo Tip of the Week

Tip of the Week
Fuel your body for optimal performance
his week’s Speedo Tip of the Week was submitted by Charlene Boudreau, USA Swimming’s Sports Science Laboratory Manager, who offers some advice on how to fuel yourself for optimal performance.

What you eat on the day of a meet is important, but it won’t save the day if you haven’t been taking care of your body in the days leading up to the meet. Preparing your body nutritionally for competition is like preparing a race car for performance: A race car driver wouldn’t show up at the Indy 500 without gas. But he also wouldn’t bring a car that isn’t already in impeccable working condition. Here’s the strategy:

1. Preventative Maintenance - What you eat on a daily basis highly affects your performance day-to-day. Follow the guidelines proposed for adequate nutrition: 60% carbs, 15% protein, and 25% fat. Choose a variety of foods from the five food groups, and you will get the vitamins, minerals AND energy you need to perform on a daily basis.

2. Specialized Preparation - In the two to three days prior to a meet, focus more on eating carbs, especially complex, high-Glycemic Index carbs (bread, bagels, grain cereals, white rice, pasta, etc) and a little less on protein. Keep the fat intake consistent with your regular diet to minimize the amount of change.

3. Last Minute Details – Don’t let all that hard work and preparation go to waste. Come to the meet already fueled. Have a snack the night before…high-carb, of course, and add a couple of large glasses of water or sports drink to that. In the morning, drink more fluids to maintain hydration and eat what your stomach will tolerate. A carbohydrate-rich meal of about 250 calories at least one hour before swimming would be good. This could be two pieces of toast with jelly and a glass of orange juice, or a bagel with peanut butter and a cup of low-fat yogurt, or two pancakes with syrup and a half glass of juice. And don’t forget about the water.

4. Show Time! The focus on meet day should not be on fueling your body for a race because you’ve already done that! Instead, focus your nutrition attention on eating foods that will maintain your energy throughout the day and eating them on a schedule that is least likely to impair your performance. Here are some suggestions:

One hour or less between events: easily digestible high-carb, low-Glycemic Index foods (fruit juice, bananas, crackers, plain toast, sports drink)

Two to four hours between events: solid carbohydrate-dense, moderate- to high-Glycemic Index foods (bagels, English muffins, oatmeal, fruit juice, sports drinks)

More than four hours between events: solid carbohydrate-dense, high-Glycemic Index foods with protein added (low-fat yogurt, bagel with peanut butter, turkey sandwich with milk and/or sports drink)

And just to re-iterate:

One hour or less between events: easily digestible high-carb, low-Glycemic Index foods (fruit juice, bananas, crackers, plain toast, sports drink)

As told by the Manager of USA Swimming's Sports Science Laboratory :rolleyes:

[Martin-Y]

Yes I did mean short league galas where there isn't time to digest any food group that will have a worthwhile effect. In line with other intense less that 2 hour sports, food isn't an issue but hydration through the day and during is obviously very important. So, jelly is still popular. Thanks for the responses.

[mammamedley]

so long as they don't leave a mess on poolside!

[Michael]

Originally posted by swimmer


no offence Michael, BUT WHAT PLANET DO U LIVE ON! bananas are among the WORST foods to eat at galas - they take 5 hours to digest!



In the USA swimming article above it says BANANAS, the Americans know a think about swimming don't they!? :D :devil:

[swimmer]

In the USA swimming article above it says BANANAS, the Americans know a think about swimming don't they!?

well in this case mayby not, because anyone with a logical brain and a bit of knowledge about bananas knows they take 4 hours to digest - hense if you eat one before your race your blood goes to the digestive system to digest the food rather than to the working muscles, hence you will develop cramp and fatigue earlier in your race! another fact about bananas that i suppose u don't know - they r toxic if brown and are bad for blood pressure/circulatory system etc. if brown. :devil:

[Chris]

You'll forgive my doubting you swimmer but I've always been one to trust the experts ;)

[James S]

Tell me please why jelly and jelly sweets? I know the swimmers are told to have these at meets and i don't doubt anything about it. I would simply like an explanation as to why/ what benefits etc.

Thanks

[Michael]

Originally posted by James S
Tell me please why jelly and jelly sweets? I know the swimmers are told to have these at meets and i don't doubt anything about it. I would simply like an explanation as to why/ what benefits etc.

Thanks

Basically, they are full of sugar, Instant Energy!

A Quick Plug! Nutrition Books are online at Bookstroke URL below.

[Julia]

Well, My kids like bananas, so do I. Instant energy for all that shouting I do on poolside. Sorry, 'projecting one's voice'.:o

[landlubber]

Does anybody know of a good source of info re nutrition and energy requirements? It's relatively straightforward to find out average daily MJ/kcal requirements, but I haven't been able to find out how much energy a 3 km training set uses up.

Any ideas?

[nsswimmer]

Originally posted by Michael


Basically, they are full of sugar, Instant Energy!



wait a minute!!!!! sugar is horrible for you at meets!!!! yes, they give you "instant energy." "instant" as in maybe 25 yards, if that!!!! my coaches have always told us NO SUGAR at meets or before them. bananas, yogurt, cereal, pasta, bagels, muffins, fruit, stuff like that, not oreos or candy!! they give you quick energy fast then just as fast completely drain you. esp. if ur a little kid, sugar makes you hyper. hyperness makes you jump around before your event. energy is drained right before your event. or, another scenario: sugar gives you an energy rush right before your race. you dive in, thinking, yes! i'm so full of energy! or some other weird thing and start swimming. 10 seconds in, the energy drains out, leaving you empty and with no energy. in any case, both are BAD BAD BAD

everything i've learned since i was little says sugar is terrible for you at meets. so is red meat (but that's another story). my friend on another team sez her coaches won't even let anyone on the team have soda for at least 1 week before a meet cuz of the high sugar content.

[swimusa]

Exactly, the carbohydrates produced by sugar only lasts while in the ATCPC stage of energy exertion (the first 30 seconds) so what good does it do you? It makes it harder to transition to the next stage EN-2 and more lactic acid builds up, adding more pain. Doesn't help.

[landlubber]

Originally posted by landlubber
Does anybody know of a good source of info re nutrition and energy requirements? It's relatively straightforward to find out average daily MJ/kcal requirements, but I haven't been able to find out how much energy a 3 km training set uses up.

Any ideas?

I don't know whether it's "cricket" to reply to my own post, but I've just found http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/teach_res/db/d0005b.htm

The important bit for me is that frontcrawl @ 2 km/h uses 27 kJ per kg of body mass per hour and breaststroke @ 4.3 km/h uses 218 kJ/kg/h. I'm sure there must be a way of adapting these for different speeds??

For those of you watching in black and white, 1 kJ = 0.24 kcal (approx) ;)

[swimusa]

what does "cricket" mean?

[nsswimmer]

i think it's a british thing. now i dont want anyone to get offended or anything, but could someone plz tell me the diff. between britain, great britain, and england??? i'm always getting mixed up. and where does wales fit in?? cuz i heard that wales is something entirely different...? thank you

[scswimmergal29]

I can attempt to explain it!! lol, I'm American tho, so it's probably not gonna be right!!

The official name is the United Kingdom of Great Britian and Northern Ireland, so I'm assuming Great Britian refers to England, Scotland, and Wales (they must be like provinces or something...regions??)...and that's about as much as I can tell ya lol, better for British person!!!

and I always thought bananas were good to eat at meets?? I always eat them cuz they always seem to help a lot...am I wrong?? (I just kinda skimmed the post)

[swimusa]

Ok, lets add to the whole what is Britain thing. SCswimmergal, you are right, the official name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland. It is made up of 2 kingdoms (England & Scotland) 1 principality (Wales) and 1 territory (Northern Ireland). England united with Wales in the 13th century, Scotland in 1603 (with the coronation of King James I), and Ireland with the Act of Union in 1801. In 1922, the Act of Secession granted all but 4 Irish counties independence forming Ireland. Those 4 Irish counties are Northern Ireland. For short, the nation is referred to as Britain, Great Britain, and the UK. Technically speaking, Great Britain is the island that situates England, Scotland, & Wales. It refers to the larger mass of land once controlled by the Britons, a group of people who originated in Northwest France (the Brittany or Bretagne region). How that for a Yank?

[landlubber]

To refer to something as not being cricket is a little used and archaic slang term for being against the rules. The cricket referred to is the game, not the insect:D

SwimUSA is nearly spot on with his potted history of the UK - really good for a yank and far better than most limeys could do (do you really call us limeys?). A good site is the CIA fact book http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html

[BigFish]

Originally posted by landlubber
To refer to something as not being cricket is a little used and archaic slang term for being against the rules.
Or perhaps more accurately, against the spirit of the rules rather than the letter of the rules.

[pippie]

i always eat at gala
other wise i dont have ne energy even if it is like a minor gala
:rainbow: :rainbow: :rainbow: :rainbow: :rainbow: :rainbow:

[nsswimmer]

Originally posted by landlubber
(do you really call us limeys?).

no, we just call u "british" i guess!! lol i think "limeys" is probably a few hundred years ago. doesn't it hav something to do with scurvy?? and that came from sailing. so i'm guessing it's kinda old.

[splash]

Originally posted by swimmer
BUT WHAT PLANET DO U LIVE ON! bananas are among the WORST foods to eat at galas - they take 5 hours to digest!



I would disagree with that a lot cause it has energy in it and if u just take bytes of a banana then it would not horm at all. So i would agree with Micheal sorry.

[super_fish88]

I thought bananas were good for you too!

[swimusa]

They are if you eat them regularly in your diet. Not just before a meet or during one. They prevent cramping and regulate blood flow (or the potassium in them does).

[Steve]

Now I remember this argument about bananas from a while ago and I read an interesting article about them in a sports magazine just recently.

It seems that not very ripe bananas have more complex carbohydrates and hence take a longer time to break down, whereas your average ripe banana has a higher proportion of simple carbohydrates which are absorbed more quickly into the system.

Hence it seems eat unripe banas well before gala's and ripe bananas at the pool and everyone was right!

Also brown bananas have more potassium (IIRC)

[ktcute]

wow... now everyone knows about bananas... the whole sport is going bananas... maybe we could turn a cheesestring suit into a banana suit ?

nuff jokes about bananas.

I'm not a nutritional expert but (have you ever noticed how I say something like that before I give a lecture ;).

Digestion:

If you eat, blood gets diverted from muscle tissue etc, to digestive organs. When you exercise that blood is diverted back towards the muscles again. There probably is some reduction in flow to the muscles if you have something in your stomach, but how great it is, I don't know.

Insulin production:

Complex carbohydrates do not cause you blood sugar to climb sky high. Simple sugars (glucose) do. When your blood sugar climbs, insulin is produced by your body to reduce what would otherwise become dangerous levels of blood glucose.

Insulin has two effects:
1. It increases cells ability to take up glucose.
2. It causes glucose to be converted into glycogen in the liver.

Both these things make your blood sugar go down. So eating a very sugary food just before you were about to race may well be a foolish thing to do. This is not because it gives you short term energy in a race, but because in the medium term you actually find that your energy levels have fallen as a result of increased insulin production. This is what the glycemic index is all about.

Glycemic index:

Foods that are high on the glycemic index cause increased insulin production and hence lower blood sugar levels a while after consumption. These foods are digested fairly quickly, and leave you feeling hungry sooner than foods with lower glycemic index. The reduction in your blood sugar after eating a chocolate bar would explain why you feel "low" after the "sugar high" and no doubt explain why some people eat so many of the blasted things. They really are no good for you.

Recently we have been finding that foods we would expect to have a low glycemic index are in fact high on the glycemic index scale, such as pasta and white bread. However in order to maximise your options, foods that are neither too complex, and still floating round in your stomach, nor too sugary and reducing you blood sugar are probably a good compromise. Hence malt loaf probably isn't too bad....????

Glycogen

Your bodies most accessible store of fuel for respiration (the process where you use fuel to transfer energy) is called glycogen. Glycogen is stored in two places, the liver, and muscle tissue. After a hard workout or set, your most accessible reserves of fuel, your muscle glycogen, will be depleted. Serious depletion of muscle glycogen can cause severe fatigue that can last for days at a time. Hence not eating after a workout is a seriously bad idea. No food = no muscle glycogen = no training! I'm sure I don't have to spell out that low reserves of muscle glycogen is not going to help you in a race.

You wouldn't expect reserves to fall too low in a short period, however, you probably don't want to take any chances either. Elite athletes can deplete their muscle glycogen to particularly low levels, and hence have a particularly great need for food after training.

I think I got everything, I know the basic ideas, but I can't fill out the details... though I reckon the information is out there to find if you work at it...

[lane4]

:o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o

[ktcute]

can I have my coaches nutrition badge yet? ;)

[rogant stard]

Originally posted by ktcute
can I have my coaches nutrition badge yet? ;)

As long as we get to choose where to pin it ;)

[swimusa]

Ouch!

[ktcute]

I'd love that. Getting stabbed by coaches for knowing too much. How ironic :P

[lane4]

Watch out watch out, there's a troll about.

[Old Timer]

Going Bananas!
Sometimes I have found that with nerves and so on my daughter cannot manage to eat a whole banana (which I believe are excellent for energy) - and since then we have found packs of 'dried' but 'chewy' pieces of banana (from our local healthfood shop), she loves these and is happy to eat quite a few and the pack states that not only is nothing added and completely natural but out of 100g are 82g carbs. Sounds pretty good to me!

[nsswimmer]

wow. hmmm.. this is quite an old thread.. interesting to see it's been brought up again! ;D hehehe

lOL old timer i LOVE the dried bananas they're so yummy i swear!

[Dreama]

just point out to the parents that the moment their kid pukes in the water the gala is over for everyone else!

[Old Timer]

nsswimmer - hi - sorry to sound really thick, but, what does ''lOL'' mean?
Cheers Old Timer
PS : I don't let my kids eat so much that they'd puke....just enough to help them compete at their best, and not a load of junk food either.

[matt]

Originally posted by Old Timer
what does ''lOL'' mean?


Hi I'm obviously not nsswimmer but lol = Laugh out loud....usually

[nsswimmer]

yep =)

[Old Timer]

Cheers!