Fuel for an Active Lifestyle

Fuel for an Active Lifestyle

Everyone should eat a balanced diet, but exercisers in particular should pay attention to the following advice, says nutritional biochemist Jennifer Sacheck.

* Drink plenty of water before, during, and after exercise. Your heart and body work much harder when you become dehydrated.

* Within 30 minutes after exercise, consume a carbohydrate-rich food along with a little bit of protein: a multigrain sandwich with lettuce, tomato, and a slice of lean turkey, for example. That is the best way to replenish intramuscular energy stores. It will also keep you from getting so hungry that you reach for the potato chips when you get home.

* Include nonfat dairy, whole grains, and lots of different-colored fruits and vegetables in your diet. Lean meat, fish, nuts, tofu, and the combination of beans and rice, bread and lentils, peas and corn, and cereal and milk are good protein sources. Many nuts, such as pistachios, almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, macadamias, pecans, peanuts, and natural peanut butter, are also a source of healthy fats.

     

Click here for the March-April 2004 issue table of contents

Most popular

Harvard Medical School Renames Diversity Office, Revamps Recruitment Program

The latest in a broader rollback of DEI at the University

12,000 Harvard Alumni File Amicus Brief in Funding Freeze Lawsuit

Alumni from every Harvard school and class since 1950 rally behind the University 

From the Archives: The Secrets of Haiti’s Living Dead

 A Harvard botanist investigates mystic potions, voodoo rites, and the making of zombies.

Explore More From Current Issue

The Trump Administration's Impact on Higher Education

Unprecedented federal actions against research funding, diversity, speech, and more

The Franklin Stove—A Historical Climate Change Adaptation

Historian Joyce E. Chaplin reinterprets an early era of invention, industrialization, and climate challenge

Brief Harvard News Spring 2025

Physician-authors address Commencement and Alumni Day, new School of Education Dean, and more