The importance of dietary fat for older athletes
Age takes its toll- pretty much everybody will see their performance drop after forty. It's hard, at this point, to continue to shine in your chosen athletic discipline unless you take steps to mitigate your body's natural ageing process.
Luckily, some of these steps are super simple and easy. Alongside changes to your training plans, a few dietary hints will keep you going strong well into your golden years. One of these is taking in plenty of healthy dietary fat, especially omega-3 fatty acids.
Omega-3 will improve and help increase muscle formation above and beyond many other types of fat. For this reason, it's often used in the treatment of sarcopenia (age-related muscular atrophy).
Omega-3 will help keep your muscles flexible and strong and will keep your joints and soft tissue from becoming sore, and minimising the risk of incurring injuries. Good sources of Omega- 3 include fish such as salmon and mackerel, as well as nuts and seeds (flax and chia seeds, and walnuts, are particularly good) and any oils derived from them.
How to form good fitness habits #6- plan your meals
When you live a busy life- as so many of us do- you tend to rush about, manically completing chores and jobs, eating on the fly from the nearest source possible. This source is rarely the most nutritious. Even when it may be, it's not guaranteed.
Additionally, if you choose what to eat when you're already hungry, your body will crave fat and sugar- the simplest, largest energy injection it can find.
Because of the tendency to make poor food choices if we eat in response to hunger, meal planning and prepping are two of the best things you can do to reach your health and fitness goals.
To properly plan, sit down on a Sunday evening and plan your major meals for the week (alternatively, do it every evening for the following day). Make sure you buy in all the ingredients you need to make them. To prep, make everything in advance and freeze it, ready to be cooked or heated up at the appropriate time.
This way, you can ensure that you only ever eat what your body needs, not what it wants