Why You Should Add Omega 3s to Your Running Diet

untitledRunners burn through calories and often, for endurance athletes, they dip into their fat storage for long runs. To execute workouts at optimal performance, runners need to gauge their nutrition just as much as they track their Garmin numbers.

We all know how hard it is to follow a proper diet. We are all busy and taking the time to make nutritious meals takes effort–but so does following your running schedule. It’s almost best to cut back on workouts to take the time to fuel your body with the right nutrients.

One vital nutrient runners need is Omega 3 fatty acids. Omega 3s do help with larger lifestyles issues such as controlling blood clotting, heart disease, and potentially cancer, stroke and inflammatory bowel diseases.

However, on a smaller scale, they are helpful to runners in that they can limit inflammation. Even with stretching, icing and taking Aspirin, another way to change how your body reacts to inflammation from a long run is by adding Omega 3s into you diet.

Omega 3s also help in weight management. The leaner you are, the less exertion you need to make as you run.

According to a study published in “Advanced Nutrition” in 2012, Omega 3s do keep you healthy and aging properly–allowing you to keep running for a long time.  But because our bodies don’t naturally produce some omega-3 fatty acids , it is necessary to obtain proper amounts through fish and fish-oil products.

You can either add Omega 3 supplements to your diet or start eating foods such as soybean, canola, flaxseed, vegetable oils or fatty fish like salmon. If you don’t like to eat fish, it’s best to add in an Omega 3 capsule of 500 mg per day to receive the maximum benefits.

Source:

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/omega-3/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22332096