Surf Nutrition from a Tea Boy

I started reading up on nutrition about 2 years ago, I’ve never been one to have a particularly bad diet, and I’ve always eaten healthily to a certain extent. I’m not sure what exactly sparked my interest in nutrition but none the less I started to learn.

Nutritional advice seems to be constantly changing, or has at least over the 20 years that I’ve had an interest in sports and fitness.

Not that I want to cover weight loss but when most people think about diet, I’m sure that’s what they think. Weight loss is simply a case of eating less and moving more, though everybody’s physiology is different and there is no fit for all model/diet. Move more and eat less doesn’t work for everybody but it’s a good place to start if weight loss is something you want to achieve. Here I’m talking about fuelling your body for surfing and being kind to yourself.

After gathering a little knowledge on nutrition, I realised the benefits this could have on my surfing. With a little of the right nutrition and a little physical training I could delay the onset of noodle arms. I think all surfers have experienced this. Noodle arms is muscle fatigue. Your mind often wants to carry on surfing and you push on for just a few more waves but it is too late, you are done. The two things that can happen is injuries and leaving the water with a low stoke value.

Your body is a pretty robust but complex machine and as such fuel it with rubbish and it won’t perform well. If there is anything you want to take away from this, then I would suggest the most important thing is eating real single ingredient foods. You can probably get away with the odd bit of processed food; most processed foods are convenience foods. I’d try to aim for 80-90% of your diet to come from real food.

It often feels like we live in a world when we have to do so much and don’t take the time to do the important things in life, like preparing a proper meal for instance. If you think about it though, there are many things we do that just aren’t important. I read a quote on Instagram the other day, which resonated with me; “Remember you are a human being, not a human doing”, take the time to do the important things in life, rushing your meals to watch something on TV probably isn’t the best thing to do for your body.

Surfing is quite a physical challenge, your body adapts and finds efficiencies, for some people this comes more natural than others.

What helps your body adapt after a surf session is the right food before and after, combined with the right hydration. Do these things correctly and your body adapts quicker. I know a few surfers, and not many give thought to their nutrition. Lessons can be learnt from athletes, they get to the top of their game by hard work, training and learning how nutrition affects their performance. Arnold Schwarzenegger once said, "great Abs are built in the kitchen.".

If you can get the right nutrition for you, then recovery for that 2nd or 3rd surf of the day will be more achievable and more enjoyable. You may improve your surfing, technique or endurance at a faster rate, getting more waves and doubling the stoke!

How many calories to consume and in what quantities of macros do you need?

(Macros are your Macronutrients manly Proteins, carbohydrates and fats)

There are ways and means of working this out; many online resources are available and these calculate your required calorie intake based on sex, height, weight, age and activity. These resources give you a good starting point but as I mentioned before not everybody fits the sterotypes and you may need to adjust your calorie intake or your macro percentages if it’s not working for you a little education can go a long way.

An average male/female doing no exercise requires around 2500/2000 calories a day to maintain the same weight, what does that amount of calories look like? I implore you to weigh your food and track your calories for one day. To do this, it might be helpful to use a calorie counting app or website; there are plenty of them, just see how much food this is. You’ll be surprised how much good natural food this is and how quickly the portions reduce if you use processed foods. Fats are more calorie dense than carbs or proteins so should be used sparingly but not avoided. Sugars are not great for you but can help with providing energy post workout, so yes to after surf cake. If you need some inspiration for what to eat that’s healthy try 'The Body Coach', he’s made a stack of cash coming up with simple, tasty recipes and motivating people to get active.

It’s not my place to tell you what you should and shouldn’t eat though a friend of mine pointed me in the direction of Ben Comber a British nutritional expert who has some great online resources if you want to find out more about nutrition. http://bodytypenutrition.com/ or http://bencoomber.com/

If you plan to have a 2nd or 3rd surf of the day then having a meal with a higher proportion of carbs and some protein will help fuel you for that 2nd and maybe 3rd surf.

Some studies have shown individuals in endurance events perform better on higher fat diets, again this is down to your physiology. Hydration is often overlooked, water and plenty of it is essential, I can’t stress this enough, take on plenty of water post surf, dehydration will sap your strength quicker than not having enough energy from food.

So how many calories do you burn in a surf?

Surfing is probably one of the most difficult sports to assess calorie burn, there are so many variables: how long did you surf for, what were the conditions like? Big, small, strong currents, how cold/warm it was, and how many waves did you catch? It’s hard to calculate; I know every surf is different for me. A recent review of online sources (by myself) says that at least 125 calories an hour are burnt while surfing, however, some say you can burn up to 250 calories an hour if you’re working hard.

For reference constant swimming for 30 minutes at a hard effort burns up to 450 calories based on an 80kg man so your guess is good as mine. I would say if you’ve had a reasonably easy 2-hour surf then probably around 250 calories have been burnt. If you’ve had a longer or harder surf and have noodle arms then probably around 500 calories burnt.

So to conclude, consider what you put in your body if you want to get the most out of your surfing. Maybe a little preparation is required, take plenty of water with you so you can hydrate after, and have some good quality food with you to refuel. Maybe have something prepared when you get back, so you don’t reach straight for an easy snack.

I hope this has given you some food for thought.

Just a little note for those that might be interested, I’m sorry to say as much as I’d like to think it does, alcohol doesn’t improve performance and no matter how refreshing getting in the water after a late night in the pub your surfing will suffer, mostly due to dehydration and lack of quality food to use as fuel.

Notes

• You may have to weigh all of your food to keep track of this but it doesn't mean you have to eat boring meals as there are tons of recipe books and online resources for healthy interesting meals, recipes that may even resemble meals you're used to.

• Surfing although fun can be an incredibly challenging workout. Not many people consider their leisure activity of surfing to be a sport.

• Nutrition has moved on in the last few years, as has professional surfing and its approach to nutrition.

• Live in a world where convenience is king.