Hi everybody this is Monica Reinagal and you're listening to the

nutrition divas quick and dirty tips for eating well and feeling fabulous and

this week we're going to be talking about sports nutrition.

So the Summer Olympics are underway and in honor of our global festival of fitness

I have a little quiz for you. If watching the

world's greatest athletes has triggered a little burst of athletic ambition in you,

then this is the perfect time to test your sports nutrition savvy.

Find out which food choices fuel optimal performance

and which nutrition mistakes can cost you the race.

Ready, here we go.

Number one, true or false. It's a good idea to eat pasta the night before a competition.

False. Most of us have this vague notion that carbloting before a race or event can help us perform better.

And actually it is true that carbohydrate loading can be an effective way to boost performance.

But eating a big plate of spaghetti the night before that 5K fun run is not really

carb loading. First of all, carb loading only makes sense if you're going to be

participating in an endurance event lasting 90 minutes or more. It doesn't offer any performance

advantage in shorter events. To do it correctly, you also need to stop training

for one to three days and start eating more carbohydrates. A lot more

carbohydrates two or three times as much as you usually would. And this encourages

your muscles to store the maximum amount of glycogen, which then allows you to exercise longer before getting fatigued.

You can also expect to gain some weight, by the way, up to 4 to 5 pounds, some of which is water if you're really doing it right.

That's not a problem for athletes who are burning up thousands of calories and high intensity endurance supports.

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