How Xmas may have (temporarily) saved you from underfuelling

ISABELLA ALFONSO 

Sport and Performance Dietitian 

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Overeating or overindulging at Christmas may have some benefits to your training if you’re underfuelling, without even realising it, the rest of the year. Stereotypically Christmas time in western cultures involves overindulgence of food, decorations or presents, and whether this is kept just to the 25th or the whole month of December can depend on the person. This change in routine and possibly overconsumption of chocolate and roast potatoes at Christmas dinner may actually help us uncover traits of underfuelling. If when returning back to training after the Christmas period you feel as though you’re performing better, feeling more energised and finally starting to see progress in your exercise goals, this may apply to you.

If when returning back to training after the Christmas period you feel as though you’re performing better, feeling more energised and finally starting to see progress in your exercise goals, this may apply to you.

Calories are energy, energy for you to walk, run and lift weights but also for you to breath, think and do daily activities. Low energy availability (LEA) is the mismatch between energy intake (calories from food) and energy expended (energy used through exercise, walking etc.) which leaves the body’s total energy needs unmet; there isn’t enough energy to maintain optimal health and performance. ¹ LEA can occur in scenarios where effects are benign or less noticeable (known as adaptable LEA) and others where there are potentially long-term impairments of health and performance (known as problematic LEA). ¹ Problematic LEA can lead to negative health and performance implications known as ‘Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport’ (RED-S). RED-S is a syndrome of impaired physiological and/or psychological functioning in athletes that is caused by exposure of prolonged or severe LEA. Bodily functions that can be impacted could be, but are not limited to, sleep disturbance, mood disturbances, impaired bone health, muscle health, reproductive function, immunity and cardiovascular health, which can all lead to impaired well-being, increased injury risk and decreased sports performance. ¹

How common place behaviour that can lead to LEA may look in your day to day:

-       Not eating anything before going to the gym in the morning to ‘’burn more fat’’

-       Going to the gym at work over your lunch and then not having a meal after because you’re too busy when you get back into the office

-       Replacing multiple meals or snacks with coffees to keep energy up

-       Continuously skipping breakfast to try ‘intermittent fasting’ and hearing your stomach start to growl (maybe a bit too loudly for the office) by 11:30

-       Doing a long run (anything over an hour) but not having any fuel or anything to eat during

-       Cutting a whole food group completely out of your diet to lose weight quickly

Feeling better in training after Christmas isn’t magic; it can be a sign you’ve been underfueling the rest of the year.

Diet culture is well and truly alive and is something we’re exposed to on a regular basis. Whether that’s through your favourite celebrity now suddenly being 10 stone lighter after only ‘’walking more and eating balanced meals’’, your, what you may call, average-sized colleague getting a weight loss jab through some back-alley website after being told ‘’no’’ by their doctor, or your friend making a negative (and probably unnecessary) comment about the calories on the menu at your regular brunch spot. Conversations around calories, the ‘’dangers of ultra-processed foods’’ and ‘’being good’’ for not having a biscuit with your tea tends to die down around December with the golden phrase of ‘’who cares, it’s Christmas’’! This mentality may actually work in your favour when you have performance goals in mind and have been chronically underfuelling (and likely underperforming) for the rest of the year.

The average active person needs a minimum of 3g/kg/day of carbohydrates, so for an example of a 60kg person, 180g/day. Often carbs are thought of as the enemy when trying to ‘lose weight and get fit’ but if you’re active and want to see changes in your performance, this needs to be changed. Healthy fats should be regularly in your diet for hormone, brain and bone health. The general recommendations are to aim for 20-35% of your total daily calories to come from fats. Protein requirements for the average active person this range can depend. 1.2-1.7g/kg is the average recommendation for active people or 1.6-2.2g/kg for strength/power sports. Protein is, thanks to brands and lots of marketing, often what active people are most aware of and eating enough of.

Low energy availability (LEA) is the mismatch between energy intake (calories from food) and energy expended (energy used through exercise, walking etc.) which leaves the body’s total energy needs unmet.

Outside of nutrition, taking a planned rest week over Christmas and New Years can allow your muscles and joints to recover from potentially prolonged stress, which in turn reduces risk of injuries. Having de-load weeks should be implemented in part of your workout regime regardless and Christmas can be a convenient way to fit in a break to allow for rest and recovery.

This all being said, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to eat everything in sight over Christmas. Over restriction, rigid diet behaviours and an obsession with body weight can often cause binging and an unhealthy relationship with food.² Prolonged caloric restriction can disrupt hunger and fullness signalling in the body, driving urges to binge eat.² Catching behaviours of underfuelling early can help us to understand how to think about fueling and nutrition behaviours throughout the rest of the year so that you don’t need to be saved by a few extra pigs in blankets over Christmas.

References

1.)  Mountjoy, M., Ackerman, K.E., Bailey, D.M., Burke, L.M., Constantini, N., Hackney, A.C., Heikura, I.A., Melin, A., Pensgaard, A.M., Stellingwerff, T., Sundgot-Borgen, J.K., Torstveit, M.K., Jacobsen, A.U., Verhagen, E., Budgett, R., Engebretsen, L. and Erdener, U. (2023). 2023 International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) consensus statement on Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (REDs). British Journal of Sports Medicine, [online] 57(17), pp.1073–1097. doi:https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2023-106994.

2.)  Williams, G. (2016). Binge Eating and Binge Eating Disorder in Athletes: A Review of Theory and Evidence. The Sport Journal, [online] 24(1543-9518). Available at: https://thesportjournal.org/article/binge-eating-and-binge-eating-disorder-in-athletes-a-review-of-theory-and-evidence/.