This bell pepper-sweet potato-tomato soup is what I just had for lunch. I made it from scratch for last night's dinner and topped off the leftovers with some arugula today. In my day to day life I pay relative close attention to what I eat because I am vegan and eat no animal products. I adopted the vegan diet over three years ago, so I know pretty much exactly what I can eat as far as that goes. When it comes to the nutritional requirements of my new more active lifestyle, I find that I am somewhat clueless oftentimes. In every magazine and workout-book you find the same information: the body generates energy from carbohydrates during an endurance workout. During the exercise muscle tissue breaks down and the body needs protein to be able to rebuild the tissue and become stronger during that process. On top of that one needs to ingest "good" fats. That's basically a very short wrap up of the things I've learned about nutrients and their role in fueling the body. And then I am left with a million questions: How much energy do I burn during a one hour exercise? (I rarely exercise longer than 1:15h/day.) Do I burn the same amount of calories during a swim and a run? How big is the difference in calories burnt? How long before an exercise should I be eating? What source of carbs is the best one? The list goes on and on and while I am wondering about all this, I still want to lose weight before I start in the triathlons next year. Because I am the type of person that likes to plan everything out (you should see my workout plans and journals...) this confusion regarding my diet gets a little frustrating. I feel that I could be doing better if I just knew exactly what to take in at which point. Based on the books, the right nutrition for a specific athlete is usually figured out by trying different things based on the scientific knowledge that's out. Not everybody reacts the same way after eating or drinking the same foods during training. For me that means that it's basically going to take some time to learn what works and what doesn't. My quest must be to pay close attention to the signs I receive from my body and somehow connect those to my specific nutritional needs at the time. This notion is new to me since I have usually only paid attention to whether I was hungry or not. And all this writing about nutrition and food has made me kind of hungry now- I guess it's dinner time!
