Nutrition
Along with our effective training and recovery programmes (of course), nutrition will be a major factor in the team’s performance. It's not just about food being fuel, every molecule will perform a vital role in preparing our bodies, sustaining performance and promoting our recovery. Throughout this year and in the lead up to TWAC 21, our aim is to live a “healthier” lifestyle that supports top performance, recovery, and sustainable activity. We’ll do this by consistently eating or doing what we need to effectively support our performance, training and recovery goals.
Due to the nature of TWAC, our nutrition planning has to go beyond what is nominally known as “sports nutrition” or “performance nutrition” and switch focus to “movement nutrition”. This covers all types of sustained and regular movements, incorporating recovery, sustainability, and longevity and addressing the complex web of everyday biopsychosocial (Biological, Physiological & Social) and deep health factors that can affect our performance and/or nutritional intake during the challenge and our time on the boat.
‘Our nutritional plan needs to fuel and enhance our performance. It will promote recovery from the wide range of activities, movements and physical & mental fatigue that we will face on a daily basis’
Our movement nutrition plan will have a few components, let’s take a closer look;
Movement nutrition: fuels our movement, improves our physical and mental performance, promotes recovery, repairs, and rebuilding of tissues.
Good movement nutrition: gives us the right amount of energy (i.e., calories in) for our needs whilst giving us enough nutrients in the form of macronutrients and micronutrients.
The movement nutrition plan: is tailored to our activities; priorities, values, needs, preferences, and goals. It is guided by both short and long-term objectives, whilst addressing other biopsychosocial and deep health factors as they relate to our movement and our activity (more on these in a moment).
When considering a movement nutrition plan for such an event like the TWAC, you also need look at:
A Biopsychosocial approach:
Biological features: What are the physiological demands of our movement (rowing across the Atlantic), sport, exercise, and athletic performance? Are we trying to improve a particular aspect of physical capacity? Do any of the team have any physical limitations, such as a food intolerance?
Psychological features: What’s each team members given mind-set? Do they have the mental skills to make significant dietary changes or to adapt to the challenge? Are they emotionally or religiously attached to any food choices?
Social features: How do the team members live or work? Who and what are around them in their everyday life, such as support networks like coaches, partners, team members, etc?
Deep health factors:
Movement nutrition also considers what is called “deep health” when building the nutritional plan. Deep health is about thriving in all domains of human experience. Deep health is a “whole-person, whole-life” model that incorporatess.
Physical health: How our body feels, functions, and performs before, during and after the challenge.
Mental and cognitive health: Our perspective and outlook on the world; our capacity for insight and conscious awareness; our creativity and flexible problem-solving.
Emotional health: Our moods or feelings (this is a big one due to the physical and mental demand of the challenge).
Relational and social health: Close social support as well as broader cultural support and “belonging”.
Existential health: Having a sense of meaning and purpose; feeling part of something greater.
Environmental health: Having safe and secure surroundings (this is also a big one due to the nature of our challenge and being on an 8m boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean).
‘Good movement nutrition planning will help us perform, stay sharp, energetic and recover. It will also allow us to have a healthy, successfully campaign’
Atlantic Campaigns Nutritional Recommendations:
Atlantic Campaigns set nutritional recommendations for the TWAC and it’s a mandatory requirement to start the challenge with a sufficient amount of food. The minimum recommendations for a team of four are: 60 kcals per kg of bodyweight per person, per day and 55 days’ worth of food per team member. During the mandatory checks throughout the year, the race organisers will ask questions and scrutinise our dietary planning as part of their compliance inspections to ensure our plan is robust enough to take part in such challenge.
Based on these recommendations, our team requires an astonishing amount and total calorie balance of 1,100,000 kcals for 55 days. This is broken down between: 660,000 kcals worth of main meals (880 main meals, 704 dry meals & 176 wet meals (20% for emergencies), 220 main meals per team member (based on 4 main meals per day) and 440,000 kcals worth of snacks (this is where the morale and highlights for the days will come from).
Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE)
There are four main ways our bodies burn calories to use as energy: Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR), Physical Activity (PA), Thermic Effect of Food (TEF) and Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT). All four methods can change daily and can also be improved, increased or decreased. Firstly, RMR which contributes the highest amount and approx. 70% of TDEE. Secondly, (and the one most people know) PA which usually contributes to approx. 10% of TDEE, but due to the nature of our challenge, rowing across the Atlantic Ocean, coupled with the gruelling shift pattern of 2 hours on, 2 hours off, for anywhere between 35 to 50 plus days, this will significantly increase. Third, you have TEF which contributes to approx. 10% of TDEE. Finally, there is NEAT, which usually contributes to approx. 10% of TDEE in any normal day to day environment, but on-board our boat, the team’s NEAT will significantly decrease.
Fuelling Performance: Calories in/Calories out (CiCo)
Using the Atlantic Campaign’s nutritional recommendations of 60 kcals per kg of bodyweight per person, per day, the teams estimated calorie intake is approx. 3720 for Vicky and Laura and approx. 5280 for Scott and myself. Using this as our estimate for calories in, we then had to work out what our average calories out estimate would be to see if there would be a calorie deficit or calorie surplus. Calorie maths (CiCo) is the most important part and it’s vital to track, not just for performance, but for our health and wellbeing too. Each team member needs to stay as close to a maintenance calorie balance as possible to reduce any dramatic weight loss. For example, if we experience a calorie deficit of approx. 500 kcals per day, whether it’s through physical activity or diet and not eating enough food, we can potentially lose approx. 1lb/0.5kg of weight per week and upwards of 7-10lb/3-5kg of weight over 5-7 weeks during the challenge.
To estimate our approx. calories out for rowing across the Atlantic Ocean, we used a method called the Henry’s equation. Henry’s equation uses your calculated Basel Metabolic Rate (BMR) and Physical Activity Level (PAL) to estimate the total daily calorie intake (TDCI). The teams estimated approx. TDCI per day was 4000 kcals for Vicky and Laura, and 6000 for Scott and me. As you can see from the calorie balances for above, the Atlantic Campaign’s recommendations were 280 – 720 kcals below the estimated TDCI from the Henry’s equation. Although all calorie equations are just estimates, and not one 2-hour rowing shift or day of rowing on the Atlantic Ocean will be the same, the Henry’s equation has given us a stepping stone and start point for an adequate energy balance.
Our next steps and challenge will be to try and implement the calorie maths theory and put it in to practice. The teams current TDCI is approx. 2000 – 3000 kcals per day, which will see a calorie increase of 100% and double to approx. 4000 – 6000 kcals per day. The aim is to test the theory and estimates whilst on our UK based, on the water rowing serials. During the tests, we will be looking for a few markers; can our bodies actually consume the high amounts of calories? Is there any food intolerances or did anyone suffer from any gastrointestinal or digestive problems?
Supplements
The only reason you should need to use a supplement is to provide something that a clean, natural, nutritious meal or diet does not supply. If you do use a supplement, it should be for a specific function and you should feel its effect on your performance, health and/or wellbeing. The TWAC is an excellent example of this and where our team members will benefit from the use of supplements to support our diet whilst on-board the boat. Due to the nature of the challenge, it’s not just physically but mentally demanding, the supplementation of certain supplements like Multivitamins & Minerals, Omega-3, Electrolytes, Creatine and Whey Protein can help support and deficiencies and insufficiencies of macronutrients and micronutrients from our diets, whilst optimising physical and mental performance and promoting efficient recovery.
Dehydrated Vs Freeze Dried Meals
Dehydrating and freeze-drying are two common practices used for preserving foods, the moisture contained within the food is removed through a process called lyophilisation. If it isn't, micro-organisms (like bacteria) will thrive and feed, leading to food decomposition, mould growth and inedibility.
'Dehydrating' has been used for centuries and dries out the food by circulating hot and dry air across it. The moist air is then dried to continue removing any remaining water in the foods. The drying temperatures are set high enough to remove water but not to cook the food.
'Freeze-drying' is a more modern process. Food is placed inside a large vacuum chamber where the temperature is lowered to below freezing, and then slowly raised (the reverse process to dehydrating). The water in the food transforms from a solid state to a gas, thereby maintaining the food's structure and preserving its all-important nutrients.
Out of the two processes, Freeze-drying is the most successful method of food preservation… dehydrating removes about 90-95% of the moisture content whilst freeze-drying removes about 98-99%. The lower the moisture content, the longer the shelf life and a lighter load to carry on-board the boat. Expedition Foods
Moving forward
By taking our proposed TWAC 21 movement nutrition plan forward and adding the team’s real-life knowledge and experience we will hopefully gain from our practical on the water training sessions, coupled with our food tasting and testing trials to establish one of the most important factors, the TASTE! Team Force Atlantic will be on the start line in La Glomera with the added confidence that we have a robust, tried and tested nutrition plan to optimise our performance to achieve our goals.