Nutrition, along with training and rest, is one of the fundamental pillars of sports performance. The way we eat can help us prevent pain, recover before and better after a workout or promote recovery from injury.
Despite the fact that all athletes are aware of the important role it plays in our daily lives, for many it is still an ongoing task.
Lack of time or lack of knowledge among those who cannot place themselves in the hands of a professional in the field due to other circumstances make nutrition the Achilles heel of some athletes.
If this is your case and you are here looking for help, let me tell you that you are in luck. A few days ago, Saul Sanchez, a sports nutritionist, shared on his Twitter account a list of free online resources that can help with nutrition. These are the 7 tools with which you can get started with your nutrition.
Harris Benedict calculator
The Harris-Benedict method allows us to make a pretty accurate estimate (there’s always some margin of error) of the number of calories you should be consuming each day. Simply enter your gender, weight, height, age and activity level to see data such as your basal metabolic rate (the energy a person needs at rest) or the calories needed to lose weight with one click.
It is a very useful tool to know approximately how many calories we should eat per day based on our goals (maintain weight, lose weight, gain weight…)
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Nutritional Composition Tables of Foods
Every food provides our body with a certain amount of nutrients (macro and micro). Knowing the nutritional composition of foods can help us improve our eating habits, including those that are most beneficial to our goals and eliminating those that are harmful.
In these food composition tables, we can search by food categories (oils and fats, fruits, meat and by-products, legumes, grains, etc.) or search manually. In each of the foods, you can control the nutrient contribution based on different servings.
The list of data that we can check is huge: from the most basic such as calories, proteins, carbohydrates or fats, through a wide variety of vitamins and minerals to fatty acids or amino acids.
metabolic calculator
This metabolic calculator allows us to know a wide range of parameters related to metabolism or body composition by simply entering some data: ideal body weight, body mass index, % body fat, basal metabolic rate, energy expenditure, calories, etc. .
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diet calibrator
Through a food search engine, this diet calibrator helps us design our daily menus (we can design up to six menus: breakfast, mid-morning, lunch, snack, dinner, and snack) and then assess their overall composition (calories, protein, fat, carbohydrates, fibres, sugars, etc.) and composition of minerals, vitamins and fatty acids.
It is a simple and free tool that allows us to calibrate a menu in a very short time. In this way, we can know the exact amount of nutrients and calories that our diet provides us, allowing us to regulate it according to our goals.
Supplement guide
Have you heard about a supplement that you didn’t know about until now and want to learn more about it? In this supplement guide, we find updated information and evidence about ergogenic substances.
Just enter the name (in English) of the supplement in question and with one click we have the effects, recommendations on intake, a table with the level of evidence of the different benefits and the consistency of scientific research in these between many more interesting information.
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keto calculator
If you have decided to try a ketogenic diet, you should know that it is recommended to do it gradually so that the body adjusts and under expert supervision.
Unlike other diets or eating styles, the ketogenic diet is characterized by high fat intake. With this keto calculator, we can know exactly how many calories to eat and what macronutrients they should come from.
We only need to enter the information requested by the calculator (gender, age, weight, height, activity level, etc.) to receive a keto nutrient profile adapted to our characteristics and goals.
carbohydrate calculator
This carbohydrate calculator gives us answers to several questions about carbohydrates:
As Saúl Sánchez points out, this tool is “interesting for people with diabetes who need to strictly control the sugars in the diet.”
