8 Nutrition Tips for Enhancing Endurance

Whether you're training for a marathon, hitting the gym regularly, or just trying to keep your energy up throughout the day, what you eat plays a major role in your endurance. Fueling your body with the right nutrients can help you go farther, recover faster, and feel stronger. In this post, we’re diving into eight practical nutrition tips that can help boost your stamina, support your performance, and keep you energized from start to finish.

1. Carb-load don’t fat-load.

Carbohydrate-rich foods include cereals, fruits, juices, breads, rice, plain baked potatoes and pasta with tomato sauce. Carbohydrate choices that are higher in fat include donuts, cookies, buttery potatoes, ice cream, cheesy lasagna, and pepperoni pizzas. These fat-laden foods may taste great, but fat does not get stored as muscle fuel.

2. No last-minute hard training.

By resting your muscles and doing very little exercise the pre-event week, your muscles will have the time they need to store the carbohydrates and become fully saturated with glycogen (carbohydrate). You can only fully carb load if you stop exercising hard! 

You can tell if your muscles are well carb-loaded if you have gained 2-4 pounds pre-event. Your muscles store three ounces of water along with each ounce of carbohydrate. (This water will be released during the event and be put to good use.)

3. No last-minute dieting.

You can’t fully carb load your muscles if you are dieting and restricting your calories. You will have greater stamina and endurance if you are well fueled, as compared to the dieter who may be a few pounds lighter but sub optimally carbo-loaded.

4. Drink extra fluids!

You can tell if you are drinking enough fluids by monitoring your urine. You should be urinating frequently (every 2-4 hours); the urine should be clear colored and significant in volume. Juices are a good choice because they provide not only fluid and carbohydrates but have nutritional value. Save the sports drinks for during the event.

5. Eat tried and true foods.

If you drastically change your food choices (such as carbo-load by eating extra bananas), you may end up with intestinal distress. Simply eat a comfortable amount of the tried-and-true carbohydrates you’ve enjoyed during training. You need not stuff yourself. If you will be traveling to a far away event, plan ahead so you can maintain a familiar eating schedule despite a crazy travel schedule.

6. Eat a moderate amount of fiber.

If you eat a lot of white bread, bagels, crackers, pasta, and other food made of refined white flour, you may end up constipated. Include enough fiber to promote regular bowel movements, but not too much fiber or you’ll have the opposite problem. Moderate amounts of whole wheat bread, bran cereal, fruits, and vegetables are generally good choices.

7. Eat the morning of the endurance event.

You’ll need this fuel to maintain a normal blood sugar level. Although your muscles are well stocked from the foods you have eaten the past few days, your brain gets fuel only from the limited amount of sugar in your blood. When you nervously toss and turn the night before the event, you can deplete your blood sugar and, unless you eat carbs, you will start the event with a low blood sugar. Your performance will go downhill from there.

Plan to replace the energy lost during the night with a light to moderate breakfast as tolerated. This will help you avoid hitting the wall. Stick with tried-and-true pre-exercise foods: cereal, bagels, toast, fruit, energy bars and/or juice. These carb-based foods invest in fueling the brain, as well as staving off hunger. 

If a pre-event breakfast will likely upset your stomach, eat extra food the night before. That is, eat your breakfast at 10:00 p.m.

8. Consume carbohydrates during the event.

During the endurance event you will have more energy if you consume not only water, but also carbohydrate, such as sports drinks, gels, bananas or dried fruit. You should target about 100 to 250 calories/hour after the first hour to avoid hitting the wall. The slower you run, the more you need to fuel yourself during the event. 

Some athletes boost their energy intake by drinking diluted juices or non-carbonated sodas; others suck on hard candies or eat chucks of energy bar, animal crackers, and other easily digested foods along the way. Your muscles welcome this food; it gets digested and used for fuel during the event. And hopefully, you will have experimented during training to learn what settles best for you.

Looking for running support?

These tips are a great place to start if you're wanting to enhance your endurance and improve your running performance. If you're looking for personalized guidance and support on your running goals, consider scheduling a visit with a health coach at First Stop Health. They can provide guidance on everything from warming up and cooling down to walk/run ratios and choosing the right shoes. They can also help you build a nutrition plan that supports recovery and performance and offer strategies to overcome mental hurdles, so you stay motivated and see real progress toward your running goals.

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