A Climber’s Diet

  • SumoMe

Hello everyone!  Today’s the first Friday Facts!  On this day, I will post climbing lingo and health tips.  This Friday, the climbing word of today is a frog step, found on abc-of-rockclimbing.com:

Frog Step
A frontal body position in which both legs are extended simultaneously to reach higher handholds.

Now, onto the main post, which is about a climber’s diet.  Before I begin, I know that many of you may already be dreading this post, because we all know that diets are usually quite obnoxious commitments.  But actually a climber’s diet is not that bad.  In October, while I was preparing for my first bouldering competition, I began to attempt to eat healthier.  Now, my Mom had to explain to me that eating smart does not necessarily mean eating less.  Yes, I was eating smarter, but I was also finding that I was hungry all the time.  Eating less than what your body needs is the wrong way to go about it, and I soon learned that you can eat the same amount while eating healthier.  In Horst’s book, Training for Climbing, he presents this table, which I will try to paraphrase here:

Male climber (160 lb) on an active day- Carbohydrate: 520g/2,080 Calories  Protein: 115g/460 Calories  Fat: 70g/630 Calories  Total: 3,170 Calories

Male climber (160 lb) on a rest day- Carbohydrate: 360g/1,140 Calories  Protein: 85g/340 Calories  Fat: 50g/450 Calories  Total: 2,230 Calories

Female climber (110 lb) on an active day- Carbohydrate: 350g/1,400 Calories  Protein: 80g/320 Calories  Fat: 50g/450 Calories  Total: 2,170 Calories

Female climber (110 lb) on a rest day- Carbohydrate: 250g/1,000 Calories  Protein: 60g/240 Calories  Fat: 38g/342 Calories  Total: 1,582

Just use this table as a guide, and soon you will get a feel for what healthy eating means for a climber.  It’s not really a specialized diet, but just a healthy way of living.  Here’s the challenge for today: (1) try using this table for a day and post in the comments to tell me how it went, or (2) don’t eat dessert for a week.  I’m counting up who does the most challenges; so don’t forget to post in the comments if you did either of them.  Have a happy, healthy climbing weekend!

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