The Important Aspects of Nutrition for Golf
Many people don’t consider golf to be a sport where you need to follow a specific nutrition plan. However, in this sport, the correct diet is an essential component of maintaining an excellent training routine.
Next, we’ll give you some tips to enjoy the best nutrition to complement golf.
The key to good nutrition for golf
Maintain energy demands
Just the same as many other sports, golfers must consume energy in the form of complex carbohydrates before working out. Through that, you’ll have better endurance during the game. According to the WHO, the following amounts of macronutrients are recommended:
- Proteins must be at least 15 percent of your total caloric intake. Besides, experts recommend that you eat white meat, white fish, nuts and legumes.
- When it comes to carbohydrates, they must make up around 55 to 60 percent of your total caloric intake. To achieve this, you must eat bread, pasta, rice, fruits, cereals, and tubers.
- And finally, lipids and fats must not make up over 25 percent of your total caloric intake. To avoid exceeding these levels, you should avoid eating bakery products or fast food (saturated fats) and butter or mayonnaise (visible fats).
Hydration in golf
This is another important factor in this sport because endurance is one of the basic pillars. A tournament can last for more than six hours, so you must stay hydrated.
Moreover, a common mistake is waiting until you’re thirsty to drink water. You have to drink water frequently to replace the electrolytes you lose through sweat.
One of the advantages of golf compared to the majority of other sports is that you have plenty of breaks. So, you can easily remain hydrated and eat if you need to.
Each hole lasts about 20 minutes, so you can use the end of this to drink something. It’s best to drink water, isotonic drinks or natural juices because they’ll give you vitamins and sugar. This will help you to maintain the levels of energy and glucose in your blood.
Keep stable levels of glucose
For this sport, you also need mental concentration. So, you must consume foods that give you sugars that your can body can quickly absorb. Therefore, you’ll stay focused during the tournament.
Nutritional experts usually recommend that golfers consume fruits, nuts, cereals, chocolate, or even energetic gels, besides the sugar contained in isotonic drinks. Bananas are a good fruit for this sport too because they help you with muscle contraction and contain high levels of potassium.
Avoid heavy digestion
You should avoid eating too much before you play golf because heavy digestion will affect your physical reactions to movement. Besides, it’ll also encourage sweating and raise body temperature.
That’s why before a golf tournament you should have a light meal such as rice or pasta salad and pair it with a piece of fruit such as the ones we already mentioned.
Avoid alcohol
Alcohol has diuretic properties and can make you suffer from dehydration during physical activities. Besides the loss of liquids, it also causes golfers to lose essential vitamins and minerals, such as potassium, phosphorous, calcium and magnesium.
Another negative effect that alcohol can have, is protein degradation, which damages your muscles. For all of these reasons, alcohol lowers your sporting performance, strength, and power.
Furthermore, once the tournament is over you shouldn’t drink alcohol either. This is because it won’t give you adequate re-hydration, which is necessary after practicing any type of sport.
In conclusion, you must maintain adequate nutrition to practice golf. Besides, you shouldn’t just follow this diet before a tournament, but constantly, in order to improve your performance on the green.
