Are You Sure You’re Getting Enough Micronutrients as an Over-50 Athlete?

Written by Dan Taylor, MS, CSCS, 50+ Fitness and Nutrition Expert

Dan's exercise physiology/sports nutrition education, NSCA strength and conditioning background, and work with a wide variety of active older adults since 1998 make him the ideal guide to help navigate the muddy waters of optimal eating and training strategies for the over-50 athlete and fitness seeker.

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Over the years (since 1998) that I’ve worked with athletic people over 50, the most underrated area of attention for healthful eating and sports performance-focused nutrition I’ve seen has been the topic of micronutrients. That’s a big mistake that’s easy to fix, if you make it a priority.

What are micronutrients?

They are the non-caloric vitamins and minerals in your food and supplements. Vitamins and minerals combine to support and sustain countless physiological and biochemical functions, including fat metabolism, bone density preservation, and muscle growth.  Want to know more about each? Here are more detailed descriptions of vitamins and minerals and their respective functions from a reliable source.

Great. Now let’s move on to the fun stuff, why they’re so important to both athletic performance and to achieving and maintaining an ideal (whatever that means to you) body composition.

Why are they keys to body composition and sports performance?

Besides their essential roles in maintaining the machine and its movement, force production, and repair/recovery capacities, they contain exactly zero calories. So, their ingestion adds nothing to your energy inventory (a nice way of referring to your fat stores). Better still, their richest sources (vegetables, fruit, meat, dairy, legumes, soy, and whole grains), especially vegetables, tend to be more filling when compared to other foods (due to water and fiber content) for a given calorie count.

Here are some specific ways that increasing your micronutrient source foods as a percentage of your overall diet helps you improve your body composition:

• Fruits and vegetables consist mostly of water and fiber, satisfying you (especially when paired with lean protein sources) for longer than high-calorie sugary snacks, and they are less likely to lead to overeating.

• Developing a preference for vegetables and fruit over high-calorie, less nourishing food is self-reinforcing because you get used to more stabilized blood sugar and better digestion. These two features are significant factors in sustaining the habit long-term.

• Adopting a vegetable + protein first hierarchy with your consumption leads to a slower, more manageable, and flexible eating style that helps you avoid rigidity and yo-yo dieting impulses.

Here are some specific ways that increasing your micronutrient source foods as a percentage of your overall diet helps you improve your sports performance:

• Fiber slows carbohydrate absorption, limiting blood sugar peaks and valleys, balancing energy availability throughout the workout, and in shorter (less than two hours) athletic events.

• Replacing higher-calorie food with produce (again, especially vegetables) helps reduce body fat, improving the speed and agility required for many sports.

• Higher nutrient-density (macro- and micro-nutrients per calorie) improves recovery productivity.

Simple tactics to increase your micronutrient intake

Most people have difficulty getting enough vegetables earlier in the day, although eating salads for lunch and having a vegetable side dish with dinner are common practices. I encourage my clients and students to start with a vegetable first thing in the morning and ensure that veggies account for at least half of their dinner volume. A great morning front-loading option is to mix them into scrambled eggs, make a big batch and freeze it, or you might start your day with a leafy-greens + frozen berries + Greek yogurt-based smoothie. You can easily backload veggies by munching on raw veggies while preparing dinner or waiting for the pm meal to be served.

A typical “healthy eating” day

• 6am: Vanilla yogurt with granola and fresh blueberries

• 9am: Coffee, banana

• Noon: Cobb Salad

• 3pm: Bagel + cream cheese, apple

• 7pm: Roasted chicken with green beans and sweet potato

  
  

This is a fairly nourishing day of eating, and it might be adequate for protein (the subject of next month’s article), depending on your frame size, muscularity, and training goals. But here’s a better one, specifically for accumulating an optimal range and variety of micronutrients:

• 6am: Low-sugar greens juice and V8, 50+ formula multi-vitamin and 3g creatine

• 7am: Low-fat latte and a small portion of oatmeal with raisins

• 10am: Celery sticks and salt-free almond butter

• 1pm: Tofu (or beef) veggie stir-fry and a tangerine

• 4pm: Smoothie with kale, low-fat Greek yogurt, blackberries, and mango chunks

• 7pm: A hard-boiled egg and cherry tomatoes if hungry

Here’s another:

• 6am: Reheated minestrone (or beef stew) from the previous night’s dinner

• 9am: Apple and a Cheddar cheese stick, 50+ formula multi-vitamin, creatine

• Noon Shrimp Ceviche, chips, salsa, and a small side salad

• 4pm: Broccoli, cauliflower, and baby carrots dipped in hummus

• 7pm: Baked salmon filet and asparagus with jasmine rice

The second day is a bit more radical than the first, but you get the idea: More veggies tend to push out excessive grains, possibly the biggest obstacle to well-intended, mature athletes’ quest for an optimal diet.

The downsides of going too extreme with fruit and veggies as a representative percentage of your diet include being noticeably hungrier throughout the day (due to veggies accounting for far fewer calories than similar volumes of other food groups) and modest to moderate gastrointestinal discomfort. Both are simple to adjust by easing into the mix shift from your current dietary composition, making changes gradually, and settling in on your individual “sweet” spot.

Need expert guidance to help you get there smoothly?

In future articles, we will explore in detail each of the remaining five fixes I wrote about in this article. You can learn the crucial features of the ideal older adult training and eating practices that optimize your performance and light the path to ideal body composition while retaining strength and muscle volume in my comprehensive subscription program for mature athletes.

Follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info!

Read more from Dan Taylor, MS, CSCS

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Dan Taylor, MS, CSCS, 50+ Fitness and Nutrition Expert

Dan left a career in high-tech corporate finance in 1998 to pursue his mission - to lead others in elevating and simplifying the art of physical aging with the best fitness and eating practices for the mature athlete (and aspiring athlete). His online subscription program provides a clear and simple pathway to:

1. Achieve peak performance while lowering disease and injury risk,

2. Adopt powerful and principled eating practices that effectively support the training framework and,

3. Develop an individualized, manageable and adaptable template for both.