Exercise and the nutritional foundations support each other, but when exercise becomes such an important part of your life you will want to continue thinking about how to best support your body for the work it is doing for you.

Hydration and Mineral Balance – The basic rule of thumb for being properly hydrated is ½ your body weight in ounces per day, plus additional replenishment for physical activity and diuretic substances such as coffee, tea, and fruit juices. When training, it is especially important to replenish electrolytes that are lost through sweat and GI distress. An imbalance of minerals and even slight dehydration affect not only your performance but also your recovery and mental performance.

Digestion – It’s a north-to-south process that starts in the brain. The importance of being in a parasympathetic (rested) state while eating and during the digestion process cannot be understated! The brain orchestrates and kicks off the entire digestive process and it all goes south from there. Without the chemical triggers from the brain, you will have trouble absorbing the nutrients from your food and you will have symptoms of digestive distress. Leaky gut is very common in society but especially in athletes. Many situations, thoughts, and environmental factors stress the body. Believe it or not, exercise also causes stress in the body. Not all stress is bad, but when your body has more stress than it can metabolize, it manifests in other symptoms, such as a leaky gut. It has been shown that adding dietary and supplemental probiotics and prebiotics is beneficial for athletes that experience GI issues.

Blood Sugar Regulation – When you think of blood sugar issues, you typically think of diabetics, glucose medication, and processed foods. However, blood sugar dysregulation is responsible for waking you up in the middle of the night, causing cravings for sugary foods, and fatigue to name a few. Low blood sugar during an event can be extremely dangerous. You can also use carbohydrates strategically in your training regimen to fuel you and keep you balanced. It is the combination of types of sugars and their timing of them that will optimize your performance and find the proper macronutrient balance that will keep your blood sugar and hormones even and steady throughout the rest of your day.

Hopefully, this post has given you a few ideas you can take to not only improve your athletic performance but also improvements to your digestion and overall health!

¹Popkin BM, D’Anci KE, Rosenberg IH. Water, hydration, and health. Nutr Rev. 2010;68(8):439‐458. doi:10.1111/j.1753-4887.2010.00304.x

² Clark A, Mach N. Exercise-induced stress behavior, gut-microbiota-brain axis, and diet: a systematic review for athletes. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2016;13:43. Published 2016 Nov 24. doi:10.1186/s12970-016-0155-6

³ Pugh JN, Sparks AS, Doran DA, et al. Four weeks of probiotic supplementation reduces GI symptoms during a marathon race. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2019;119(7):1491‐1501. doi:10.1007/s00421-019-04136-3

Liver glycogen metabolism during and after prolonged endurance-type exercise.

Javier T. Gonzalez, Cas J. Fuchs, James A. Betts, Luc J. C. van Loon

Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. 2016 Sep 1; 311(3): E543–E553. Published online 2016 Jul 19. doi: 10.1152/ajpendo.00232.2016