The Secret to Performance Nutrition

Jill here – I’m an avid gardener and am blessed to tend, alongside my Mum, my late father’s garden, Fox Lodge.

It’s a glorious garden by all accounts. A beautiful range of blooms burst with colour and form every single season.

The secret? Mulch. Mulch. Mulch.

Dad added lots of homegrown, nutrient-dense compost every year for the 52 years he gardened. Thank goodness he made sure to leave me with clear instructions on how to ‘brew’ good compost.

It’s the quality of the soil that creates the bloom.

So it is with nutrition and performance. It’s what you eat every day that creates performance season after season.

Said another way, performance nutrition is best created via a daily drip feed of:

Breakfast – Snack – Lunch – Snack – Dinner.

There are numerous daily opportunities to reach for positive nutritional options that your wise and adaptive body can use to create performance capability and wellbeing.

From a macronutrient point of view complex carbohydrates fuel your day or training while proteins and healthy fats literally build and repair all aspects of your performance infrastructure.

It’s the micronutrients that we often forget about.

Micro amounts of things like manganese, molybdenum, copper, selenium, silica/silicon (to name just a few) have a significant and essential impact on your physiological ability to create performance and recovery.

If you make sure you drip feed these nutrients ‘day in-day out’ you’ll be well on your way. If you miss them your performance will eventually show it no matter how many grams of carbohydrate you feed yourself on the bike.

But fear not, it’s as simple as choosing whole, unprocessed foods grown in rich soil.

You grow performance capability and physiological wellbeing from the ground up.

Here’s a simple, crunchy, tasty and nutrient-dense lunch option for all you performers out there!

Chickpea Salad Sandwich (Serves 3)

1-15oz can chickpeas

2 stalks celery

3 scallions, finely chopped

¼ cup (60ml) dill pickle, finely chopped

¼ cup (60ml) red pepper, finely chopped

2-3-TBS mayonnaise

1 clove garlic, chopped

1.5-tsp yellow mustard

2-tsp minced fresh dill, 1tsp dried dill (optional)

1.5-tsp lemon juice

Coarse black pepper and salt to taste

1. Add all ingredients to a large bowl and mix. It’s as simple as that!

2. Serve with toasted wheaten bread/whole wheat wrap or lettuce wrap if wanting to keep carbohydrate low.

Chickpeas are one of the best plant sources of molybdenum, selenium, magnesium, B-vitamins and soluble fiber. They are also a great source of complex carbohydrate and protein.

Celery and red peppers are super high in antioxidants, vitamin C, K, A, copper, etc.

What each ingredient gives you, well, the list is endless and cumulative.

So if you want to know how Joe, at 61years old, is still delivering what some call ‘age defying’ performances?

Mulch. Mulch. Mulch.