Vegan Diet for Road Cyclists and Runners
- With proper nutritional planning, vegetarian diet for athletes is not all that different from normal healthy diet, of course with an exception of meat and other non vegetarian food items.
- If you comply with the principle of eating the entire nutritious whole food prepared from various vegetarian sources, which consists of proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals, the road to reach the goal will not be difficult even for a vegan athlete or a runner.
- Let us start with protein, it is the most essential nutrition required for maintaining and sustaining physical activity for an athlete.Protein helps in repairing the damaged tissues and muscles, it synthesizes hormones and enzymes. Protein in vegan diet for cyclists may be inadequate with all the nine essential amino acids compared to animal proteins. So what you can do is consume variety of plant proteins in every meal, this will ensure that all the nine amino acids are ingested.
- Sources of protein in vegetarian diet for athletes include beans, legumes, nut and seeds, soy protein are filled with all the nine essential amino acid.
Vegetarian Diet for Athletes
- Iron and calcium are the most essential minerals for runner.An alternative for red meat will be green leafy vegetable, beans and tofu and fortified cereals. Vitamin C in orange juice will help to absorb iron from the gut.
- Milk, and dairy products, calcium fortified juices, soy beans, contain enough calcium in a vegetarian diet for runners to decrease the risk of fractures and stress.
- Vitamin B12 is deficient in vegetarian diet, vegan runners and cyclists can eat foods fortified with vitamin B12.
- In this way vegetarian diet for runners and cyclists can help to maintain a peak performance and fitness even without eating meat.