How many of you eat the right foods for sustaining energy whilst playing.

1. Do you know what foods you should eat and when?

2. Are you aware of Simple and Complex Cabohydratyes (CHO)?

Eating after exercise - training or tournament play.

Do you know it takes approx 20 hours to recover the Muscle Glycogen (stored carbohydrates)  and the time it takes depends on the amount of carbohydrate you consume, the type of carbohydrate eaten and when you consume the carbohydrate. The first 2 hours following an exercise session or days play is the time when the rate of glycogen re-synthesis is at it's quickest. So it's useful for you to take onboard sufficient carbohydrate as soon after the execise session or round as is practical.

You may not feel hungry immediately following your session and drinking fluids rather than solids may be preferred. As soon as you have done your warm down routine you should try and take onboard at least a litre of fluid (not alcohol - unless you've won the game) and approx 1 gram of CHO per kg body weight.

Bananas Wayne !!

Would protein/energy shakes help? I have always wondered what the pros eat when playing in a 4 days tournament. The amount of walking and swings they do must be so exhausting and doing it for 4 days in a row... jeez.

bananas Jamie !

Pasta and chicken 4-8 hours before the game, bananas during the game, chocolate if you are starting to feel it.  Best drinks are the isotonic type like Lucozade Sport and Gatorade (other brands are available!) as these are asorbed by your body quicker

Haha, bananas for breakfast, lunch and dinner!

  Nicotine &  Lucozade  but mostly Nicotine
  

Guinness , and the beauty of it is theres no limit on the amount you can have. Or loads of Red Bull and a Snickers.

Whenever possible, a big full english breakfast before playing, then loads of water and lucozade orange while playing, with the odd chocolate bar.

After playing, either steak and chips or a carvery type meal is the way to go.

My usual set up for golf is,

Breakfast - Wheatbix, toasts with marmite (You either love it or hate it!)  

A lucozade energy shake (Bit like protein shake) prior to playing, go to the toilet, have a fruit. Play - Lucozade raspberry flavour (Oh yes!) a bar of boost - Bottle of water/lucozade - another bar of boost - Play ended - Lucozade recovery shake.

 That's pretty much what i do on a competitive day of golf. Towards to the end, i don't really get tired which gives me the edge over my opponents in the last few holes.

Your day to day nutrition during an event should follow appropriate strategies that you will have already adopted during your training and build up to the event . You should take some nutrious snacks with you from home to top up your food intake, especially if these foods are likely to be unavailable or expensive.

Foods that are portable and unlikely to perish may include, breakfast cereals, dried fruit, some fresh fruits, cereal or museli bars and sports drink mixtures.

In the 3 to 4 days prior to a event you should consume a carbohydrate-rich diet, this should ensure that muscle and liver glycogen stores are at optimum levels for when the event begins.

Simple - include sugar, jam, boiled sweets, biscuits and chocolate.

Complex - include wholemeal bread, potatoes, peas, beans, cereals, rice, pasta and fresh fruit.

Wayne,

On my USA trips, on the way out approximately half of my luggage allowance comprises food as vegan food is close to impossible to find over there. Milk is added to so many things to unnecessarily bulk them up including bread and baked beans.

Trips lasting more than 3 days are a real pain and it invariably becomes a strategic nightmare attempting to keep nourished to an acceptable level.

So I 'look forward' to this year's World Longdrive Championships with considerable trepidation as I'll be there for twelve days! 

Your post is professional and excellent, but sadly few take their sport (whatever sport it is) seriously to the point of some of the issues we raise from time to time. Such is by no means a critisizm of other players as everyone has different priorities. My sport just happens to come only marginally below 'life and death!'  

Please keep posting this type of thread as I certainly welcome such, and I certainly won't be the only one. 

P.S. You are a person I really look forward to meeting. Hopefully soon. 

Well having read all this nonsense I wonder how I ever managed to achieve anything.

John,

It is not nonsense, and stop being abrasive.  

Good nutrition stands one in good stead for life, and it may not be the only pancea for good health in old age but it certainly helps. 

Yes I know that slim marathon runners on controlled diets can die young, but the balance of evidence is that people who look after themselves generally (but not always) fair better long term.

Am I inferring that you should have run marathons and lived on lettuce? Yes, of course I am. Possibly even studied Eastern religions too.     

Well, Ivan, we both have different opinions on this subject but please explain to me how in my days as a child and youth one never saw anyone who could even be called fat, let alone obese.

Being around during the war meant that our diet was basically what one could lay their hands on, so not much in the way of variety and certainly nowhere near the amount of calories and salt as todays foods contain.

I do not eat processed food at all, we buy everything fresh.

I never expected John's reply to be any different than he put, but it made me laugh although I'm making a serious comment.

John even fresh food will have CHO.

Yes, Wayne I a quite sure that there is something horrible in everything we eat, but it really is a waste of time attempting to educate the masses as to the benefits or pitfalls of aligning oneself with the vagueries of what is, or is not, good for you.

Our wartime diet  did not seem to do me any harm and neither did the 24 hour ration packs when serving in the Army.

I used to play 36 holes on a Saturday and Sunday in top level amateur competition almost every week-end during the season with very little food intake and I don't suppose that stuffing myself with any special vitamins or diet fad would have made he slightest difference.

Truckers only eat once a day and that is also at the wrong time, in the evening, so they tell me, yet I have still managed to stay alive.

John,

We have an insolveable difference of opinion which does not concern me as we are friends and hopefully will always remain so.

I will let the matter drop as, just like you, I have no interest in 'scoring points' in debates. 

We can share a lard sandwich when next meet and crack open a bottle of Dandelion & Burdock and remember the 'good old days.' I don't go back as far as you, but far enough to agree with much of what you say.