Nutrition glow up (rest days & hydration)
august 10, 2021 | WORDS BY arielle bloom & Gabe yanez
01. Stop Eating Less on Rest Days!
Calorie in, calorie out. If you workout less on rest days, you should obviously eat less on those days to keep things balanced, right?
Eh—not really.
Rest days are important. You can’t beat your body into the ground day in and day out and expect meaningful or sustainable results. If you want to hear us talk specifically about rest days, you can catch myself, MDV, and Jason on this podcast episode, but for now, back to food.
Just because you are less active on rest days does mean you should eat less. Depending on the type of training you did the day prior, your body is either hard at work repairing damaged muscle tissue or replenishing glycogen stores. In either case, your body needs fuel to help you recover.
Even if weight loss is your ultimate goal, you are better off adhering to a consistent caloric deficit than having more food on training days and less food on rest days.
Your body is constantly hard at work. Whether you are in the middle of a benchmark workout or just going for a walk on your rest day, your body needs fuel. Regardless of your fitness goals, under-eating will only lead to burnout, injury, and frustration.
02. Drink UP!
When we think of hydration, most commonly we think of water, right? After all, water is predominantly two hydrogen molecules- hydro-gen, hydra-tion, same, same? Not quite. Water is a piece of the hydration puzzle, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. We actually need water and electrolytes in order to be adequately hydrated. What are electrolytes? The minerals, sodium, potassium, and magnesium, that actually produce an electric charge that creates a whirlwind of benefits throughout the body. Our bodies are made up of almost 60% water, and if that water content drops even 2%, we can experience early signs of dehydration.
Some early signs of dehydration include feeling tired, being thirsty, having cravings, and experiencing headaches. Put a finger down if you’ve experienced any of these things in your own life. These are all things we experience more often than not, myself included. The kicker? Usually when we’re feeling tired, we reach for more coffee, or a snack. This just dehydrates us more, as coffee is a diuretic and some of our snacks are loaded with sugars or processed ingredients that could cause other negative events in the body. When we’re feeling cravings, we try to suppress them, or when we’re getting a headache we take an OTC medication to make it go away. These also can cause negative cascading effects within the body.
What if the solution was as simple as drinking more water and adding some electrolytes? Seriously, it really is.
So how?
Aim for at least ½ your bodyweight in ounces of water daily, with at least 1 glass of water with electrolytes (sodium, potassium, magnesium)
Start your day with a big glass of water first thing in the morning- even before coffee
Add some sea salt and lemon to one glass of water daily (I like to start my day with this, but if you struggle with citrus, you can start with a glass of water and then do an electrolyte mix later in the day!
Put some fruit in your water- sometimes making it taste better makes it more enticing to drink!
Use a high quality electrolyte supplement like LMNT electrolytes, and make sure to always read the labels of any electrolyte supplements for added sugars
Salt your food! We’ve been fear mongered into staying away from salt, but a high quality sea salt actually will have some of the minerals our bodies need, and it makes food taste great!
If you’re active, spending a lot of time outside, or working a job where you are sweating often, hydration is even more important for you! Use any or all of these tricks to help stay hydrated, and hopefully even avoid some of the super common signs of dehydration.
