Performance Nutrition for Winter Book

Many winter athletes are interested in increasing lean body mass and developing power and endurance to improve performance. This book provides both recreational and competitive winter athletes with the cutting edge sports nutrition advice needed to achieve their goals. Section one provides an overview of nutritional guidelines for good health and optimal exercise, training, and competition, including guidelines for choosing proper foods. Section two focuses on the daily training diet and helps athletes create meal plans for their own particular needs. A final section addresses detailed nutrition guidelines specific to each sport. Did you know all that warmth-trapping ski gear you?re sporting could increase your sweat rate and put you at risk for dehydration? Or as a female cross-country skier you may need to replenish energy at the rate of 3,000 calories a day to stay at peak level? Ryan tackles these and other winter-sport-specific nutrition topics in her new book, full of practical strategies for staying fueled up and maximizing recover?including day-by-day meal plans, a guide to the best performance-boosting in-season fruits and veggies, and tips for taking in fluids in below-freezing temps. If you have kids or play team sports yourself, check out Ryan?s other new release, Performance Nutrition for Team Sports. ?HerSports magazine, Jan/Feb 2006 issue Performance Nutrition For Winter Sports by Monique Ryan is a wonderful reference and guideline for applying sound nutritional principles that will enhance our skiing performance, both cross country and downhill. Whether you?re a racer or a recreational skier, there is plenty of advice on how to get the most out of your trips to the slopes. Useful meal plans and recipes, too. ?MichiganSkier.com If you're a cold-weather athlete, Ryan has suggestions on what to eat and when to eat it, with tips geared for cross country skiers, snowshoers, downhill skiers, snowboarders and hockey players. There's information on what kind of nutrition you need when you're training, recovering or in the middle of competition. The impacts of caffeine, sports drinks and carbo-loading are addressed, along with the different nutritional needs of women, youth and masters athletes. There are sample menus, data on sports bars, explanations on the benefits of fish oil and suggestions for the best winter fruit and vegetable choices. ?St. Paul Pioneer Press Ingredients for Success: Ryan?s New Book Offers Know-How for Athletes Long Left Out in the Cold By Sarah Tuff for Ski Racing magazine, 12/27/05 Marathoners learn how to carbo-load about the same time they first lace up their shoes; cyclists have their gel and sports-drink intake down to a science. But until now, about the only "winter" you?d find in performance-diet books was winter squash, touted by dieticians as a top pick for beta-carotene. While the U.S. Ski Team already has Susie Parker-Simmons, a sport dietitian and physiologist, on staff, the rest of the competitive winter-weather sports world now has its own food guide: Monique Ryan?s Performance Nutrition for Winter Sports, released this fall by Peak Sports Press (an imprint of VeloPress, owned by Ski Racing?s parent company, Inside Communications). The 266-page volume fills a long-empty space on bookstores? shelves left by a lack of sound nutritional advice for alpine skiers, cross-country skiers, snowshoers and hockey players. Ryan, a former competitive athlete who runs a Chicago-based nutrition-consulting company, digs deep into the science of nutrients that should fuel winter sports, thoroughly examining such debates as the amount and type of sugar in an athlete?s diet, the benefits of fatty acids and practical uses of sports nutrition products such as gels, shakes and bars. Ryan begins with the basics of hydration, reminding racers that whether you are trainnig and competing in hot weather or cold, "your body loses about 64 to 80 ounces (2 to 2.4 liters) of fluid daily through the urine, feces, skin and lungs." Later, Ryan also reveals: "Water loss in the cold also occurs when you inhale cold air. Your lung passages warm the air and saturate it when water. When you exhale this air saturated with water, there is fluid loss. Fluid losses from your lungs can add up to more than 1 quart (about 1 liter) daily when you are outdoors for a day of training in the cold." Similar surprising facts fill each chapter; later, when presenting the protein content of plant foods, she points to a cup of tempeh as having an astonishing 39 grams, the same amount as a sirloin steak. Ryan also includes healthy body-fat levels: For male alpine skiers, it?s 7 to 14 percent; female alpine skiers should have about 21 percent body fat. Another subject Ryan explores at length is the quest for just the right cocktail combination of vitamins and minerals. "Keep in mind that the hazards of vitamin and mineral overdosing are real and can be subtle," Ryan writes. Less subtle are the dangers of certain ergogenic aids, and Ryan is skeptical of some supplements that may be legal but not proven safe or even successful, while pointing to the beneficial effects of others. "Creatine loading appears to benefit resistance training," she writes. Instead of simply recommending what racers select for their diets, Ryan presents the chemistry behind racecourse success, explaining the three energy systems from which we obtain fuel ? phosphagen, anaerobic glycolysis and aerobic ? and how they affect winter athletes. Even if you scored a C in chemistry, you?ll close the book with a clear idea of how to eat better this season. Most useful are the sport-specific parts, in which Ryan considers the needs of each type of athlete. In one chapter, she delineates how the diet of a 16-year-old male cross-country skier should differ from a female masters alpine racer. Later, she offers a blow-by-blow meal plan for an alpine skier, varied by competition and training days. Just as there?s no "one-size-fits-all" approach to winter sports, there?s no single diet that will work for every day of the year; Ryan presents straightforward information on periodization, even providing suggestions for periodizing your recovery nutrition plan. Daily nutritional recovery is also examined carefully, with a table outlining what sort of refueling should follow each type of training session: aerobic, interval, endurance, resistance and running gates. Pregnant athletes, vegetarians and vegans are also given innovative, thoughtful tips. The only element missing in the comprehensive Performance Nutrition for Winter Sports is a section of recipes ? Ryan?s a nutritional consultant, not a chef. But Ski Racing persuaded her to relinquish a couple of her favorite creations for the cold months.Read More