Are You Underfuelling?

Want to get more from your workouts? It’s time to flip your diet on its head.

- Mary Comber

Do you struggle through your workouts or feel you’re not seeing results? If your usual day’s diet looks something like this – cereal or toast for breakfast, salad or soup for lunch, main meal for dinner – you could be underfuelling, says performance nutritionist James Collins. Like a car, your body needs fuel in the engine to perform at its best, but the typical working-day diet often just doesn’t provide the energy and nutrients your body needs to do the mileage.

‘I encourage the athletes I work with to fuel for the physical demands of their day,’ says Collins, author of new book The Energy Plan – Eat Smart, Feel Strong, Perform at Your Peak (Vermilion, £12.99). ‘This means increasing energy intake – in the form of lower-GI carbohydrates – earlier in the day for morning or afternoon training. Unless they’re competing in the evening, dinner is generally lower in fuel.’