Last week I talked about post workout nutrition and how to optimize recovery. What I left out was what to do during the winter to stay healthy and stay in the gym all offseason! Even though this winter hasn’t been terribly cold, the flus and colds have been intense!
Facts about winter and what it does to the body:
- Immune system weakens: especially after the holidays due to eating more refined sugars and spending less time outdoors. This leads to higher risk of getting a cold or a flu.
- Serotonin levels drop: this is due to lack of sunlight and less sun absorption. This leads to possible seasonal depression, food cravings, and potential sleep problems.
Impacts on our Training and Golf Practice:
This can affect your training and golf practice by losing motivation due to that seasonal depression. A cold or flu could keep you out of practice or miss a workout. Energy levels could drop which will affect your workout intensity.
Plan to combat this: Nutrition is your best way to keep your immune system high functioning
- Eat lots and lots of fruits and vegetables
- Fight the urge to eat fast digesting carbohydrates filled with sugar and eat slow digesting carbs, especially whole grains, sweet potatoes, yams and squash which help to raise serotonin levels.
- Eating foods high in Vitamin C (citrus fruits, broccoli, spinach) and Zinc (Eggs, milk, poultry, fish) to boost immune system. Supplementing with these may help as well.
- Eating Steak from good sources: Steak has almost everything you need to recovery properly.
- Healthier fats (Mono unsaturated and Saturated) such as steak, avocados, olive oil, almonds will aid in boosting the immune system.
- Vitamin D- get sunshine whenever you can, and supplement if sunshine is not an option
- Tryptophan (an amino acid found in chicken and turkey) paired with carbohydrate is known to help raise serotonin levels.
Again the goal of the offseason is to actually make strength gains and movement changes. Neglecting your nutrition and running the risk of getting sick could leave you out of practice and out of the gym for many weeks which won’t be good for your spring golf season! Try adding these simple things to your diet to help fight off any sickness so you can stay healthy and crushing your goals all winter long!!
