February 2021
Hey everyone and welcome back to our blog page! We hope that you and your loved ones are all well.
First off, we would love to welcome all our new comers whom have just recently joined our team! We welcome you into our very special family! We are so pleased that you have chosen to be part of our community.
Having previously discussed off ice training, we thought that this time we should speak about its complementing topic: healthy food and healthy lifestyle.
Of course as athletes it is very important to look after our bodies in terms of what we put into them. You can agree with us in that loading our bodies with the right food in the right amounts would lead to having a healthy body and conversely, constantly eating high fat, sugar and salt food would have detrimental long term effects on our physical well-being.
The first focus of this blog is all about fuelling your body for the best peak performance, which starts with the right nutrition. Both on-ice and off-ice training requires high energy, meaning that the combination of good quality food intake in good quantities, helps to maintain the stamina required for those sessions. However equally the timing of when meals are eaten is also important. High performance athletes have pre, during and post workout meals, whereby the content of the meal and amount varies. For example, an hour before a workout it is ideal to have a high carbohydrate meal to give you the energy needed for that workout session. Many athletes including those on our team also choose to have post training protein shakes. Of course it goes without mention that our coach captain Ahmed Saad, has put in place a recommended weekly meal plan which really does help to improve performance over the long run.
It is always beneficial to remind ourselves of what makes up a good healthy diet- this composes of carbs, protein, high amounts of vegetables and fruits, diary and small amounts of fat. To begin and trying to implement some changes to your diet can be difficult however, it gets much easier when you start to substitute some your most unhealthy options to much healthier ones. Below are just some healthy substitutions we recommend:
Fried chicken -> grilled chicken
Fried crisps -> baked crisps
White bread -> whole meal bread
White chocolate -> dark chocolate
High sugar snacks -> nuts and or dried fruits (figs, bananas, mangoes, peaches etc)
Considering our busy lifestyles we often opt for processed food, ready meals and take always, which are extremely unhealthy due to their high content of saturated fats and salt which is why it is important to prepare quick healthy food at home instead. Yet, we often find ourselves craving such food, so we always say that from time to time, in some spontaneous occasions, we too find ourselves eating such food but we always try to limit the amount of unhealthy food and try working out soon after to burn calories by the end of the day.
Furthermore, healthy eating is just a component of a healthy lifestyle. In the unprecedented times of the pandemic, it has become increasingly challenging to sustain a healthy lifestyle, which is why it is important to converse in such a topic that often brings people worry and stress.
Many of us try to have a so-called perfect and productive day where we do an hour off-ice, many hours of studying and/ or work, as well having to take care of our own families. It means that we can only go on for so long in this way. This is why we have to strike a work-life balance. This is different for everyone however, the idea revolves around trying to put yourself first by having enough time in the day to completely switch off from the stresses of everyday life.
Finally, maintaining a healthy diet and thus lifestyle isn’t always an easy as it sounds however, remember it is about the changes in life which have long term impacts.
From all of us at Figure Skating Egypt, we thank you for your continued support and as always, you can find out more about joining our team via our FAQs page on our website or by directly contacting our coach Captain Ahmad Saad.
Quote of the month
‘Food is essential to life, therefore make it good’