pre fight nutrition

[eatit]

This march i'm entering an amerature kick boxing tournament and currently i'm on what ammounts to more or less a TKD with the only carbs i eat during the day going an hour before and right after exercise. Friday i have a free day and saturday and sunday i usually do a PSMF type of thing. So, with this type of dieting i know my body is not going to perform up to any decent standard come fight time. So the questions are:

1) How close the fight should i drop this diet to allow my body time to stop eating itself and get ready?

2) What should i eat the night/day(s?) before the fight to give me the most energy?

3) due to the structure of the tournament i need to arrive at nine thirty and could be fighting anywhere from 11:00 in the morning to 4:00 in the afternoon. What should i eat/drink throughout the day to keep me ready to go?

oh, and weight isn't too much of an issue. the weight class goes 175-200. Before i left on a break in which i dropped the diet i was 186, and after dieting two days coming back i was already at 191 (water weight fluctuations of course)

it's march 19th, which i know is a long way off but i was planning on testing out different strategies to see which leaves me the most energized the next the day so any advice would be appreciated!

thanks.

[eatit]

Also does anyone have a good forum for this type of thing? i've googled and googled and had a hard time finding a decent forum that centered around martial arts training and nutrition.

[threatmix]

Sorry, I can't answer your question, but have you tried this forum:

http://www.fightingarts.com/ ?

I don't know a whole lot about it, but I know they have various forums with a decent amount of activity, including a "Health and Nutrition" forum.

[tigo]

i don't know the nutrition or biology behind if but eating a few french fries before a match has always given me an extra boost... dont know if it works for anyone but it does for me :)

[eatit]

haha, that sounds interesting. Carbs + fats in good ammounts.

threatmix: thanks for the site, but it turned out to be pretty bad. Most of the threads were along the lines of OMG fast food is teh eViL!!!!!111

[MJS]

Before your fight, like early in the morning, I would eat lots of oats. They provide long lasting energy. If you don't already eat oats, I would add them to the diet.

[ddegroff]

night before make sure you get enough CHO's. Then I would do 4hrs before your fight consume more CHO. You could also take in more 1hr before your fight, but i would test this out before the acutal fight to make sure it doenst upset your stomach. Lastly since you might not know when your fighting you could eat 20g of CHO 20mins before your fight. You will also have to be careful about this because you can induce hypoglocemia right before your fight which is a bad thing also. With that said its good your looking at this now so you can test out what works for you.

[eatit]

:confused: uhh.... [super newb question] what's a CHO? :confused:

[threatmix]

threatmix: thanks for the site, but it turned out to be pretty bad. Most of the threads were along the lines of OMG fast food is teh eViL!!!!!111

Haha, okay. That figures, actually.


uhh.... [super newb question] what's a CHO?

CHO = Carbohydrate (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen).

On a personal note, I used to eat a big bowl of oatmeal (with protein powder and natty pb usually and maybe some milk and a piece of fruit) every morning before my morning judo practice. It seemed to work pretty well. But within the last several weeks, I switched from that to just eating an egg, some walnuts, a couple fish oil caplets, and maybe a protein shake, and I can say that I have enjoyed a noticeable increase in my energy levels during practice. I'm attributing that to a combination of all that food making me feel full and carbohydrates' effect of releasing serotonin in the brain.

[eatit]

CHO... makes sense.

Interesting that you found an increase in energy when switching from carbs to fats.... I'll give both a try.