jill
June 17, 2020
jill
June 17, 2020
I’m an avid gardener and I am blessed to tend my late father’s garden in the North West of Ireland.
It’s a glorious garden by all accounts. A beautiful range of blooms bursts with colour and form every single season.
The secret?
Mulch, mulch, mulch!
Dad added generous amounts of homegrown, nutrient-rich 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 day in, day out that helps create the conditions for performance season after season.
Performance nutrition is best built…
Said another way, performance nutrition is best built through a daily drip feed of:
Breakfast – Snack – Lunch – Snack – Dinner
There are numerous opportunities every day to make positive nutritional choices that your wise and adaptable body can use to support performance capability and wellbeing.
From a macronutrient point of view, carbohydrates fuel your day and your training, while proteins and healthy fats help build, maintain and repair the structures and systems that underpin performance.
Then there are the micronutrients, which we often forget about.
Our micronutrients
Small amounts of minerals such as manganese, molybdenum, copper and selenium play essential roles in normal physiological processes. Alongside vitamins and other nutrients, they support everything from energy metabolism and antioxidant defence to the maintenance and repair of body tissues.
We need these nutrients in relatively small amounts, but that doesn’t make them any less important.
Consistently meeting your nutritional needs helps support your body’s ability to train, recover and perform. You can fuel meticulously on the bike, but that doesn’t replace the nutritional foundations you build through your everyday diet.
But fear not. It doesn’t have to be complicated.
Start with a variety of whole, minimally processed foods, including vegetables, fruit, pulses, wholegrains, nuts and seeds. Where those foods are grown and how they’re produced can influence their nutrient content, but the principle is simple: give your body a good variety of nourishing foods, consistently.
You grow performance capability and physiological wellbeing from the ground up.
And speaking of nourishing foods, here’s a simple, crunchy, tasty and nutrient-rich lunch option for all you performers out there!
Chickpea Salad Sandwich
This is from the recipe book Oh She Glows by Angela Liddon
Ingredients
- 1 × 15 oz (approximately 425 g) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 2 celery stalks, finely chopped
- 3 scallions (spring onions), finely chopped
- ¼ cup (60 ml) dill pickle, finely chopped
- ¼ cup (60 ml) red pepper, finely chopped
- 2–3 tablespoons mayonnaise
- 1 garlic clove, chopped
- 1½ teaspoons yellow mustard
- 2 teaspoons fresh dill, minced, or 1 teaspoon dried dill (optional)
- 1½ teaspoons lemon juice
- Coarse black pepper and salt, to taste
Method
- Add the chickpeas to a large bowl and mash lightly with a fork, leaving some texture.
- Add the remaining ingredients and mix well. Taste and adjust the seasoning as needed.
- Serve on toasted wheaten bread, in a wholewheat wrap or alongside a generous salad. Choose whichever option best suits your appetite and fuelling needs.
It’s as simple as that!
Chickpeas bring plenty to the table. They’re a useful source of plant protein, complex carbohydrates, fibre and several micronutrients, including folate, magnesium and manganese. They also provide molybdenum, although the amount of selenium they contain can vary depending on where they’re grown.
Celery and red peppers add crunch, colour and additional nutrients. Red peppers, in particular, are an excellent source of vitamin C.
And that’s the beauty of putting different whole foods together. Each ingredient contributes something different, and the nutritional value of the meal comes from the combination.
What each ingredient gives you? Well, the list is endless and cumulative.
So, if you want to know how Joe still delivers what some called age-defying performances, here’s your answer.
Mulch!
Ready to build your performance from the ground up?
Good nutrition isn’t about finding one magic ingredient. It’s about understanding what your body needs and building everyday habits that support your health, training and recovery.
If you’d like to make your nutrition work harder on your behalf, I’d love to help you find an approach that fits your goals, your training and your life.
Get in touch with Nutrition with Jill and let’s start a conversation.
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