As we wrap up our series on intuitive eating for runners, we land on a crucial principle: honoring your health with gentle nutrition. This principle is especially important for runners because, while it’s essential to listen to your body and hunger cues, fueling for performance requires intentional nutrition choices. The key here is finding a balance—ensuring you’re properly fueled for your training while not getting caught up in the idea of perfection.
Gentle nutrition is all about consistency over time. It’s not about eating perfectly at every meal, but making choices that support your long-term health and performance. For runners, this means following a fueling plan that ensures you’re getting enough to fuel your workouts and recover properly.
Gentle Nutrition and Performance: Finding the Balance
For runners, gentle nutrition is about respecting your body’s signals while also making sure you’re fueling properly for performance. It’s important to honor your physical hunger, but there’s also a need to be strategic about your food choices, especially around training and race day.
For example, knowing when and how to increase your carbohydrate intake before a long run or race is crucial. Protein is essential for recovery, helping to repair muscle tissue and reduce soreness. And let’s not forget healthy fats, which are important for healthy hormones and other functions in the body. While intuitive eating encourages flexibility and listening to your body, fueling for running requires being proactive and intentional with these choices.
What Does this Intuitive Eating Principle Look Like for Runners?
Gentle nutrition for runners is about making food choices that consistently support your health, energy, and performance without strict rules or perfectionism. It’s about fueling in a way that makes you feel strong, energized, and satisfied, while also allowing for flexibility and enjoyment.
This could mean following a structured fueling plan that ensures you’re eating enough to support your training but doing so in a way that doesn’t feel restrictive or overly rigid.
Practical Tips for Gentle Nutrition
Focus on Consistency Over Time: One meal or one day of eating won’t define your performance or health. It’s the overall pattern of how you fuel that matters most.
Fuel for Performance (non-negotiable): When it comes to running, fueling your body properly is non-negotiable. While intuitive eating emphasizes flexibility and avoiding rigid rules, fueling for performance is essential to support your body’s needs. I like to say, "keep the non-negotiable non-negotiable," and be flexible with the rest.
Allow Flexibility: Gentle nutrition isn’t about restriction. If you crave something indulgent, enjoy it without guilt. If you're looking to include some flexibility with before/during run fueling, it can might help to have a few options that you know can work for you so you have a choice in the moment for how you feel like fueling up your run.
Conclusion: Balance and Consistency, Not Perfection
The key takeaway with gentle nutrition is that while we want to listen to our bodies and eat intuitively, we still need to honor our bodies by practicing proper nutrition and fueling in order to support the work we're doing.
If you’re unsure how to structure a fueling plan that works for your body and your training, I’d love to help! Let’s work together to create a personalized nutrition plan that supports your health and running goals. Reach out to me here [insert contact link] for more details.
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