If included in your daily balanced diet, pasta can be an excellent food for athletes. Carbohydrates found on this meal can combat muscle strain and fatigue by providing vital energy. Eating a plate of spaghetti or penne as your pre-training meal effectively increases your body’s available sugar—providing the needed ‘fuel’ for your workout routine. As a result, eating pasta can ward off tiredness by preventing energy loss.
Pasta can be a good workout meal for athletes that require muscle growth. Runners, swimmers, and cyclists need carbohydrates and sugars to prevent them from crashing down. Pasta mixed with proteins and vegetables has tremendous effects. It contains vitamins and proteins that help repair your worn-out muscles and gain lean mass.
Is Pasta Good for Fitness?
Athletes endure significant levels of stress on their bodies, which can be fixed by selecting proper nutrition. According to Lancaster General Health, a balanced diet can be a flexible plate arranged for your taste preferences. This could be done efficiently by combining several dominant food groups for the athletes: fruits, vegetables, proteins, dairy, and grains.
Eating pasta can provide flexibility for your diet. It can be mixed with other food groups, making it a better alternative than other food products. Some nutritionists explain that pasta is a good source of complex carbohydrates for the body. Scientifically, these meals are made with sugar molecules that are strung into complex chains. Unlike simple sugars, complex carbohydrates produce a better amount of glucose (blood sugar) used for your body.
Here are some other reasons why pasta should be considered on your workout diet:
Pasta fights against workout fatigue.
Consuming pasta after your workout can improve your performance. The energizing effect found on this meal can also increase your stamina, preventing you from extreme fatigue. It can also provide B vitamins, an essential mineral responsible for the metabolism of sugars, proteins, and fats. Combined with other minerals found on other pasta ingredients, it can combat your body against extreme tiredness during your workout training.
Athletes eating pasta can also receive magnesium, a mineral that promotes the functioning of their muscles by improving their overall blood circulation. This can also enhance the transmission of nerve impulses to your muscles, which is essential when lifting heavy items. Finally, pasta contains an amino acid called tryptophan, which facilitates the release of serotonin from your brain—reducing the feeling of fatigue.
Eating pasta staves off hunger after exercise.
Another benefit of eating pasta for athletes is that it prevents you from overeating after you exercise. This is because pasta has tremendous satiating power. As abovementioned, pasta has complex carbohydrates that can sustain your body for longer hours.
Complex carbohydrates provide energy to your body in a deliberate manner—reducing the absorption of sugars and fats. Combined with fiber found on pasta flour, it can delay the emptying of your gastric tract. This provides a prolonged feeling of “fullness,” or not being hungry.
To improve the satiating effect of pasta, it should be cooked al dente. Drizzling the pasta with extra-virgin olive oil can also coat the pasta while providing good cholesterol to your body. Mixing tomato sauce or seasonal vegetables will also complete the much-needed diet for your workout.
Why Do Runners Eat Pasta?
It’s an open secret: runners and other athletes consume many plates of pasta the day before their race. This is not because they want to have a cheat day of their own, but this is essential to create their complex performance-boosting strategy. Pasta has a high content of carbohydrates and is loved by athletes for its carb-loading technique.
Carb-loading is a nutritional workout strategy used during the tapering period (1-2 weeks before the race). Runners are expected to eat a heavy load of pasta and other carbohydrates to boost their energy during the event. The muscle’s glycogen storage levels are also expected, which will reduce the runner’s muscle strain and fatigue during the race.
This method works by eating foods high in carbohydrates (thus, the term carb-loading was produced). Glycogen tanks can be expanded further by increasing your carbohydrate intake. The glycogen serves as your body’s “car burning fuel” to make you run.
Carbohydrates can be broken down to produce glucose, the body’s primary source of energy. Suppose you don’t have enough source of carbohydrates to burn. Your body will resort to burning fat—the least efficient way of producing energy. Too much fat loss can stagger and collapse the runner since the body tried to burn fat for fuel.
For carb-loading to work for runners, it should be done in a smooth process. Consuming large amounts of pasta in a sudden breath can produce fat instead of carbohydrates. Body fat is harder to utilize and could strain your overall performance.
The carb-loading strategy should be done one to two weeks before the race day. Decreasing your training intensity while increasing the intake of carbohydrates will stimulate your body to use the carbohydrates in the form of glucose, not fat.
Is Pasta Good for Muscle Growth?
The most fantastic assumption of several builders is this: protein is the only macronutrient needed to build muscle mass. That is the reason why heavy-protein diets are introduced to several athletes. In reality, carbohydrates are also responsible for your muscle growth.
Introducing pasta to your daily diet is a healthy way to build up your muscle mass. A carbohydrate-protein diet is possible by consuming pasta. As the primary source of carbohydrates, pasta can be mixed with several proteins like chicken, meat, and fish.
While the protein is utilized to produce muscle mass, carbohydrates will provide the stamina from a strenuous workout—for the protein to penetrate quickly and thoroughly to your body’s muscle. Another reason why carbohydrates found in pasta is essential are listed below:
- It generates energy, as every gram of carbohydrates can produce four kcals.
- It regulates the digestive cycle that improves your body’s absorption, digestion, and extraction.
- It helps absorbs calcium faster, thus preventing osteoporosis.
- It boosts your body’s immune system against illness.
