Let’s clear something up.
“Eating more” isn’t a complete performance strategy.
Neither is just pushing a bunch of sugar during your runs and ignoring the rest of your day.
And if you’re relying on either of those methods, that might be why you’re struggling with recovery.
We all know that increased fueling will bring increased performance.
(And if you didn’t… you do now.)
But when it comes to fueling as an athlete, you need both quantity and timing.
One without the other just isn’t complete.
Let’s look at both of them.
On one side, you have the “But I’m Eating More…” group:
While that might be true – and in my experience, it often isn’t – it’s still not enough.
You also have to spread that food effectively throughout your day.
There’s a reason intermittent fasting works so well as a short-term weight loss strategy.
(And no, it’s not some magic bullshit about autophagy.)
When you restrict your feeding window, it’s challenging to get in enough high-quality nutrients.
If it can be a struggle to eat a normal amount of food in a restricted feeding window, do we think it might be even more challenging for an athlete who should be consuming almost 50% more than the sedentary desk worker down the hall?
Yea.
It might be.
Not to mention, if you try to jam 4000 calories into your face at dinner, it doesn’t do great things for your digestion.
As we move more, we have to eat more.
At least if you care about your performance and recovery.
You also need to spread that fuel effectively throughout your day.
If you don’t, you’re more likely to either undereat and get injured, or consume the majority of your food from pizza.
And while I’m not against pizza…
You still need some protein and fiber.
You also have the “But I’m Fueling My Runs…” group:
While I support trying to push a shitload of sugar on your runs, it’s just not enough.
You also need to increase food intake throughout the rest of your day.
Pushing 60+ grams of carbs per hour on a training run is a great way to improve your performance and get a jump start on recovery.
I’m genuinely stoked to be living through a carbohydrate revolution, and I couldn’t be happier that the whole low-carb-for-athletes thing seems to be falling apart.
But it doesn’t remove the need for other things throughout the rest of your day.
As an athlete, you just need a shitload of food.
Often, you need to eat so much that it becomes tedious.
I love food and I have a much better relationship with it than I used to…
But I’ll be the first to say that finding the time to actually eat enough throughout my day is a chore.
And this is coming from someone who actually enjoys cooking.
For those who don’t, it’s often like a second job.
But a second job where you don’t really even get to experience the benefits, just the lack of negatives.
Because when fueling goes well, we don’t notice.
Things just continue on as they’re “supposed to.”
It’s only when we fail to fuel appropriately that we notice all the problems.
The injuries.
The pains.
The shitty performances…
For most people, there’s little actual reward for fueling well.
Just a “lack of punishment.”
Which is a pretty shitty motivator.
Yet that doesn’t make it any less necessary.
Eating well is part of being an active, athletic human being.
If you’re pushing yourself and trying to improve, you’re going to need to eat.
Probably a lot.
You’re going to need to spread those calories throughout your day and fuel your runs and try to eat some protein and vegetables in addition to all the gels and gummies you eat while running.
If you don’t do all of that…
You’re not going to perform very well.
Or even worse, you’re going to get injured.
I know it’s tough, but the alternatives are even worse.
(At least for me.)