Eating for Success: Periodization and Goals

Eating is an integral part of an athlete’s day.  Not only do we eat each day to stay alive, but also nutrition is tightly coupled with performance. To train and race well an athlete also has to eat well. However, when it comes to exercise not all athletes have the same goal. Some train to improve fitness and compete while others run to lose weight. Although both of these goals can be accomplished through endurance training, the nutrition strategies that accompany these goals are very different. In fact, nutrition for performance and nutrition for weight loss are at opposite ends of the spectrum. 

Periodization

To determine how to eat to meet your goals as an athlete, you must first define what your goals are. Is losing weight your primary goal? Or do you want to be competitive and race? Or both? I work with many athletes who want to race fast and lose weight. To accomplish both of these goals I first have the athlete define his or her race season by picking key races during the year. I also have the athlete define the off-season, where racing and fitness aren’t the top priority. This is referred to as periodization- the systematic planning of physical training. Periodization is characterized by cycling of training blocks to reach a peak during the season. Periodization was based on Hans Selye’s model, the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS), which describes the biological response to stress. A body cannot handle the high level of stress accompanying a peak training block week after week. Thus, rest and cycling through high volume, easy training, and intensity blocks are an important part of a training plan. The off-season is just as important as the heavy training blocks; without proper rest and a chance to ‘reset’ both physically and mentally, an athlete will not continue to improve. Burnout, injuries, illness, and stagnated performance often accompany a year-round training and racing plan.

Further, an off-season allows an opportunity to address other areas that need attention, such as improving body composition, flexibility, or strength. For an athlete who has more than one goal during the year, periodization allows for planning to reach different goals. For example, an athlete may use nutrition to fuel performance during the competitive race season while during the off-season the athlete may eat to lose weight. By using periodization throughout the year, both goals can be accomplished through careful planning. Most often, working with a nutrition expert and/or a coach is helpful to develop a plan for success. 

Define Your Off-Season

So how do you decide when to take some down time? It can be tough to decide with the increase in races all year-round. Some questions you can ask yourself to help decide are:  

• When do most of the competitive races occur? 
• How many months of training are required before you are ready to race? 
• What other life events do you have that might interfere with training or racing? 

After you’ve thought about the timing and what makes most sense for you, create a rough draft calendar. Just take a blank sheet of paper and write a list of all twelve months. Pick the races that you’d like to enter this year and write them in your calendar. Keep in mind the time it takes to build up to each race and to recover. Pick a reasonable amount of races. It helps to work with a coach who can look over your race plans from an outside perspective. It might sound fun to race every weekend, but, realistically, performance will be compromised because there isn’t enough time to train and recover. Once you’ve picked your key races for the year, work backwards. How long do you need before the competitive season to get in shape and be race-ready? For some athletes it only takes a few weeks, while for others it can take a few months. Note this time on your calendar as your pre-race period. Now that you’ve defined your pre-race and race season, there should be a couple months left in the year. Those are your off-season months. Plan for them. Don’t be tempted to plug in a race or two just because your calendar is blank. Mark your off-season months off as you would your race season. They are just as important.

For many athletes, the desired off-season is during the winter. There are fewer endurance races and training is generally not as pleasant. Winter can be a great time for an off-season, but it can also be a challenging time for weight loss. Since it’s colder and gets dark earlier, our natural tendency is to stay indoors. Compared to summer, physical activity and energy expenditure are usually lower in the winter months, making weight loss difficult. Also, the holiday season can be a nutrition barrier with holiday parties, rich food, and cocktails. Despite these challenges, weight loss can be accomplished during the winter. The key is making it a priority and sticking to a plan. Again, working with a nutrition expert can be helpful because there is someone to hold you accountable.

Whatever you decide is your off-season, stick with it. Don’t be tempted to change to fit what others are doing. Be confident in your decision and plan the time that will work best for YOU. 

Define Your Goals

Once you’ve made a schedule for the year the next step is to define your goals. Goal setting requires laying out specific strategies and steps to reach the desired outcome. Most goals fail because they are not specific enough and don’t have a time deadline. It’s hard to work towards a goal such as “I want to get healthier”. Why? Because the goal is too vague and there are not specific steps established to reach the goal. When setting goals it’s helpful to use the acronym SMART, which stands for specific, measureable, action-oriented, realistic, and time-oriented. Using each component of the SMART goal setting technique clearly defines that goal, the steps you will take to reach it, and the deadline you are setting to reach the outcome. If we rewrite the goal “I want to get healthier” using SMART goals, it becomes “I want to lose 5 pounds by March 1^st, 2014. I will accomplish this goal by adding 1 serving of vegetables to each meal and cutting out processed foods when I snack. I will also continue to run 3 days per week and strength train 1 time per week. I will weigh myself each week to assess progress.” Much more long winded, but also much more tangible. Setting a SMART goal makes you much more likely to work towards the goal because there is a specific plan and a deadline to achieve the goal. For athletes this goal might be a nutrition, weight loss, or fitness goal. 

Eat for Your Goals

Once you have a goal defined the next step is to eat for that goal. As mentioned earlier, nutrition for performance is at the opposite end of nutrition for weight loss. Why? Because on one side energy stores are constantly replenished to prepare for competition and on the other side energy intake is reduced to lower energy balance and lose weight.

Eating for Performance. During the season, the goal of eating is to provide enough energy for training or racing and to replenish glycogen stores after exercise. Timing of intake is also important to consider- fueling should take place immediately before and after exercise. The goal is to provide enough energy to prevent catabolism (break down) of the muscles and tissues. Post-exercise, refueling aids in recovery and primes the body for the next exercise session. Without proper fueling, recovery and performance are compromised. 

During the season, carbohydrates intake should be 45-65% of total calories to provide adequate energy for training and racing. Foods should also be consumed immediately before, during, and after exercise to keep the body fueled. Again, carbohydrates are most important immediately before and during exercise. Post-exercise, a 4:1 ratio of carbohydrate to protein is ideal start the recovery process.  

Eating for Weight Loss

To lose weight, energy intake must be lower than energy expenditure. Exercise is one way to increase energy expenditure, and is often recommended as part of a weight loss plan to sustain a negative energy balance. However during weight loss, exercise is not the primary focus and nutrition does not revolve around exercise and recovery. Timing is still important, but it’s focused on appetite and sustained energy throughout the day. The goal during weight loss is to create an energy deficit, not to have energy available for exercise. 

Because weight loss focuses on a negative energy balance, exercise duration is often shorter and not as vigorous. Since post-exercise refueling may be delayed to help sustain a negative energy balance, exercise at a high intensity or long duration cannot be completed. The result of too much exercise with inadequate energy intake is catabolism of the muscles tissue. Loss of lean body mass during weight loss is not advised, as muscle mass requires more a higher energy to sustain and loss of muscle will negatively impact body composition (increased % body fat). Weight loss must be carefully planned out and exercise must be used as a tool to increase energy expenditure, not as a goal itself. 

Since weight loss goals are different between individuals, nutrition recommendations also vary. It’s best to seek out assistance from a nutrition expert to tailor the nutrition plan to meet your needs. One nutrient most weight loss plans emphasize is protein. The dietary recommendations for protein are 10-35% of total calories to come from protein. Protein is beneficial for weight loss because it helps keep you full longer, and helps to sustain lean body mass Thus, for weight loss the higher end of the 10-35% range for protein intake is recommended. 

To be successful as an athlete, it’s helpful to set goals and plan out the year. Once you’ve done that, then training and nutrition can be used to help accomplish those goals. Since the body is not capable of going full-force all year long and athletes may have more than one goal, the use of periodization for planning training and racing is helpful. The more specific a goal, and the more thought and planning that’s put into it, the more likely you will be to succeed. Similarly, nutrition should support your goals. Eating for performance and eating for weight loss are very different. Working with a coach and sports nutritionist can better help you design a plan and reach your goals as an athlete. 

Some common misconceptions concerning weight loss:

• Eating less will help you lose weight faster. Not true. In fact, too little can actually halt weight loss. A very low calorie diet will suppress metabolism, and lower the body’s baseline energy expenditure.

• Eating fewer meals each day will help with weight loss. Not necessarily. When energy intake is lowered it’s important to eat small meals throughout the day to keep energy levels up. Fasting all day will only cause you to make poor choices later in the day and will wreak havoc on metabolism and blood sugar. However, that doesn’t mean graze all day- choose the snack foods wisely and keep portions small.

• Protein is not important. Totally false! Protein is one of the most important nutrients to bump up when you want to lose weight. Protein helps with satiety following a meal, meaning you will feel full longer. Protein also helps maintain lean muscle tissue, which requires more energy to sustain than fat mass.

• More exercise = weight loss. Again, not true. Exercise is only one side of the spectrum. For successful weight loss both diet and exercise must be carefully planned and executed to achieve and sustain a negative energy balance. Merely increasing the amount of exercise will not result in weight loss.

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