Must-Eat Healthy Foods When Preparing for a Charity Marathon
When running for a marathon, your motivating factor is the life you touch. That alone makes you push your body to the maximum to ensure you achieve your goal.
Running a marathon for charity is fun and enjoyable; you only need to have the right gear and early preparation to do your best.
Some of the reasons why you run for charity include
- Promotes physical fitness
- Manages your stress levels
- Emotional fulfilment
- Widen your social circle of friends
- Manages your anxiety
What you eat is of importance for this exercise. The physical fitness manager attests to the fact that the preparation starts many months before the marathon.
Otherwise, you may end up having muscle pulls or not even finishing the race. Even if you are doing it for fun, your body needs to be psyched for the exercise.
How can you prepare for a marathon?
- Get a training plan
As a first time runner, you have no idea of what awaits you on D-Day. In your mind, it’s all about running until you start and notice that there are days you have no energy t train and all your muscles are in pain.
A training plan drafted by a professional is a must-have tool. Follow the training plan to the latter as you take care of the healthy breaks, rest and recovery time needed to heal the injured muscle.
The training plan should start small and build the mileage as the day goes by till you reach your goal based on what you need on the marathon day.
The training plan prepares you mentally and physically to the challenging task ahead.
- Eat the right foods
Your body is solely what you eat. There is the potential weight that makes you swift to try a marathon.
If you are overweight, you have no option but to cut down some fats to have desirable weight for the upcoming exercise.
You may want to have a crash program to shed some pounds, which is a sure way of getting quick results. A healthy diet, portion control and intermittent fasting are some of the common forms of losing weight.
However, a ketogenic diet helps you lose fat, thanks to its power and effectiveness in burning calories.
What are some of the must-eat meals when planning a marathon for charity?
- Whole grains
Contrary to people’s thought, whole grain has several nutrients which play specific roles in the body ideal for an athlete.
They include fibre, vitamin B, zinc, copper magnesium as minerals. Its advantage to an athlete is the healthy calories that supply the necessary energy you need for the day and your daily practices. The calories are burned in physically intensive exercise.
- Fruits and vegetables
The primary purpose of fruits is the ability to keep minor diseases at bay. The high fibre content promotes metabolism, which maintains good health.
You don’t want an athlete who will faint before the marathon. The low-calorie content in them is a sure way of maintaining a healthy weight. Besides, they are also low in cholesterol.
- Lean protein
If there is a part of the body that needs all the energy and flexibility, it’s the muscles. Lean proteins are responsible for developing strong and healthy muscles that you need to face a competitor who seems to be a threat.
It also supports you to maintain a high level of muscle endurance. Injured muscles need repair and build up during rest time, and the lean proteins hasten the process.
- Healthy fat
Healthy fat means it has low cholesterol levels. Your heart health is at stake here during the marathon; you need it to perform its function at maximum to maintain the high physical activity ahead of it and even during practices.
The best way to do this is to feed it with healthy fat that serves the purpose rather than unhealthy ones that promote lifestyle diseases, including obesity.
The food you consume should help you lose fat and have minimal calories, which are permanently stored as excess fat.
You have to consider the input vs output to get the best out of your meal plan.
- Engage in body workouts
As you focus on running, get to know that this is an exercise that involves the whole body; hence a full-body workout is essential.
As part of your plan, ensure your trainer include weight lifting among other muscle endurance exercises to enhance your endurance and agility levels. Weather is something to also consider during training.
Does the marathon venue have the same weather? If not, you need to push yourself further to take care of pressure systems that may affect your running and endurance levels.
- Practice conversational race
Practising alone may not give you the necessary competition. This is not your standard marathon but for charity; it means you will run with people who are out for fun and want to engage in a conversation that drains you in your running experience.
You can only do your best when you also practice it before the day. Why not get people within your hood interested in the marathon and run together as you catch up on life issues?
Preparation for a marathon is not all about food but a collective responsibility of your lifestyle to enhance your performance.
Get to understand what it takes to be an athlete in a marathon and do what is required for maximum health benefit.
