Hi my name is Stephanie Shreeve and I’m the nutritionist with the British Gas Disability swimming team. I’m here to give you a few nutritional hints and tips on how to perform in the SwimBritain Challenge.
So the best food to be eating to support your training, we’re looking at plenty of fruit and veg, 5-7 portions a day, fish, chicken, so all your kind of unprocessed lean meats and also carbohydrates these are really key. Carbs aren’t the enemy, you need to remember that. They are there to support your training and help you refuel after a session. But you’re looking at more of your unprocessed carbohydrates, so your brown pastas, rices - more energy sustaining which aren’t going to give you the highs and lows.
Hydration is really important you need to be aiming for at least two litres a day and that’s separate to training, so anything you do with training is an additional to that.
Carbohydrates are really key before training, this is kind of there to refuel you before your training session. You need to have these maybe about an hour before - some good examples would be something small and light that which is not obviously going to be heavy on your stomach. Maybe a banana, a piece of toast, a bit of fruit and yoghurt.
Hydration during training is really key, however you probably don’t need to drink as much as you maybe think, I’d say aim to drink about 500ml and that should be adequate.
So, the best foods to eat after training to kind of help your recovery were looking at things with protein in there so maybe yoghurt, a glass of milk but you need to have that along a carbohydrate to kind of aid the uptake of that protein. A glass of milk with a banana, a yogurt with a piece of fruit, something along those lines which aren’t too heavy on your stomach which you can bring to the pool with you and then eat afterwards. You’re kind of looking, if you can, to eat them within half an hour of that session to get the main benefits from that protein.
