Energy Foods Ammunition Active Lives
Which is the best achievement food: A PowerBar or a banana? A Snickers bar or a bagel?
Energy drinks and activity foods are everywhere. They're gobbled by elite athletes as able-bodied as weekend warriors. Are they absolutely necessary? No, according to an commodity in the January/February affair of the American Journal of Medicine & Sports.
Performance foods are accessibility foods. They are simple to backpack and quick to eat. There's absolutely a abode for them in our on-the-go society, says article co-author Lisa Bunce, RD, of Back to Basics Diet Consultants in Redding, Conn.
"If we could get a counterbalanced diet, we'd accept all we charge and be able to ward off diseases, accumulate our weight beneath control, and exercise every day with good energy," Bunce tells WebMD. "But because we are a adeptness that has a difficult time accepting abundant array and antithesis in our diets, these energy bars or sports drinks supplement our adeptness to eat well. So if we are not eating able-bodied but again blitz to the gym to hop on the treadmill or blitz out to bike-ride with the kids, these things can be helpful."
Carbohydrates ammunition muscles. For aristocratic athletes, the timing of aliment assimilation is critical. Different amounts and forms of carbohydrates are best before, during, and anon afterwards high-intensity play. Activity drinks and activity foods offer convenient means to accommodated these needs. But Bunce addendum that cipher has yet invented a supplement that provides bigger diet than accepted foods.
Beware Calorie Overload
For the blow of us, activity drinks and foods are just as convenient. The danger is accepting too abounding calories. That's the better affair for weekend warriors, says Leslie Bonci, MPH, administrator of sports diet at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
"If humans are application activity confined in accession to aggregate abroad they would eat -- and their activity amount is not that abundant -- again the benefit of the bar is traveling by the wayside," Bonci tells WebMD. "But if the energy bar is a aliment replacement, it can accept a value."
Bonci, who serves as comestible adviser to the Pittsburgh Steelers football aggregation as able-bodied as to the University of Pittsburgh Panthers basketball teams, says there's absolutely a use for activity bars.
"There is a abode for them in academy sports programs," Bonci says. "High-school and academy kids tend to accept lots on their plates at one time -- and it's not necessarily food. Sometimes it's abundant easier to grab a sports bar or sports alcohol than backpack your own lunch. Of course, some humans are using too abounding of them or even say, 'I don't accept to eat meals; I can just yield a sports bar.' That is absolutely not what we wish humans to be doing."
So does anyone absolutely charge activity confined or sports drinks?
"No. A PowerBar doesn't accord added activity than a banana," Bonci says. "Some of these articles are not giving the physique the activity it needs. And people could eat a yogurt and get just as abundant account as from some hotsy-totsy power drink."