How to Fuel Your Body for Skiing

If you plan on spending most of your day skiing – particularly when you’re on a skiing trip – it can be easy to forget to keep yourself fueled. After all, skiing can be exhilarating and fun, and somewhere in there we don’t remember that we’re exercising. When you’re burning more calories than usual, you should try to eat more, as well. This doesn’t mean you need to stuff your face in order to have a good time, but you should be mindful of your body’s energy demands. Here’s how to fuel your body for skiing.

Think about macronutrients. What are macronutrients? The “big” stuff: fats, carbohydrates, and proteins. Essentially, these are the foundations for both energy and structure in your body. You’ve needed them all your life; you’re definitely going to need them for skiing. That’s why you’ll want to be mindful that you include protein in each meal, including meat, eggs, and nuts. You’ll also want carbohydrates for energy (think fruit and whole grain breads), and fats (nuts, olive oil, and perhaps a guilty pleasure snack). Remember that fat has more energy per gram than protein and carbohydrates, so you’ll want to incorporate plenty of healthy fat like the fat available in olive oil.

Eat a big breakfast. If you don’t think you’ll be able to be properly mindful of a solid diet all day, it will be important to eat a large breakfast – even disproportionately large in comparison with your other meals. A breakfast of eggs, sausage, and whole wheat toast can be a great start to the day – plenty of protein, fat, and even carbohydrates. Even if you don’t want to think too hard about what you eat, remembering to eat a big breakfast will be a big step in the right direction for fueling your skiing.

Try to only drink water. Water is easy for the body to digest – in fact, it needs water for digestion. Drinking water as opposed to a sugary drink like a soda pop can help you feel energized instead of drained of energy. Even while you’re fueling your body, you want to make sure you have an easy time digesting all of the food. You can do this by eating unprocessed foods and drinking only water.

You won’t always be able to manage your food intake perfectly. But that doesn’t mean you can’t plan ahead and make sure you feel great while you’re skiing.

Photo Credits: afloden

Originally posted 2009-08-07 03:46:52.

This post involves:

calories, carbohydrates, drinking water, eggs, energy demands, fats, good time, guilty pleasure, macronutrients, olive oil, proteins, sausage, skiing, snack, soda pop, step in the right direction, water water, wheat toast, whole grain breads, whole wheat

... and focuses on:

exercise, health, ski basics, ski tips

Posted by Ski Snowboarder on March 1, 2010 in exercise, health, ski basics, ski tips. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.