Reel by Lindsey M De Caro
Lindsey M De Caro@lin.health For endurance athletes, resting from training is not the same thing as resting from recovery. Your energy expenditure may be lower on a rest day, but your fueling needs don’t fall nearly as much as people often assume. The key issue is energy availability: after accounting for exercise, does your body have enough energy left to support recovery plus normal physiological functions? what’s still happening on rest days: * Muscle repair and adaptation: The training stimulus happened yesterday, but much of the rebuilding happens over the next 24–48+ hours. * Glycogen restoration: Especially after long or hard endurance sessions, muscle glycogen may not be fully restored by the end of the training day. Carbohydrate on the rest day continues that process. * Hormonal, immune, and bone processes: These require energy regardless of whether you train that day * Preparation for tomorrow: Your next workout begins with the glycogen and energy stores you built before it starts. Imagine you do a big Saturday workout and burn considerably more energy than usual. You eat well Saturday but don’t completely replace what you used—which is extremely common. Sunday is your rest day, so you intentionally cut carbohydrates, skip a snack, or make your meals smaller Now: you haven’t fully recovered from Saturday, and you’ve reduced the energy available to finish that recovery. Then Monday’s training creates another deficit. Repeat that pattern every week and you can develop chronic low energy availability even though you’re eating less only on your “easy” days. For endurance athletes, it makes more sense to periodize fueling rather than dramatically restrict food on rest days. You might naturally need somewhat less carbohydrate because you’re not fueling a workout and your total expenditure is lower, but you still want regular meals, adequate carbohydrate, sufficient protein distributed throughout the day, fats, and snacks according to hunger/recovery needs. A useful way to frame it is: training days fuel the work; rest days fuel the adaptation #endurancefuel #sportsnutrition #tritraining
Comments
A preview Instagram ships with the post — 12 of 20 public comments.
@trackclubbabe Tell em babe 👏
@elyse.g.r me, every Friday rest day!😋🐷💁🏽♀️
@lauralemuspalacios Yo como igual en rest day 😁
· 1 likes
@bethanyrunfit Yep! 👏👏
· 2 likes
@khrystyna.bndk Thank you for this post. You just stopped me from eating less on Sunday after running 16 miles on Saturday.
· 2 likes
@hannahlela.fitness will be eating 👏 the 👏 exact 👏 same 👏 thing 👏
· 1 likes
@ek42115 I usually eat more on rest days👍🏻
· 1 likes
@grace.michaud_ YES 🙌🙌
· 1 likes
@_gretarenee_ I love this framing!
· 1 likes
@lin.health I feel this is one of the most popular questions i get “what do you eat on rest days” with a lot of people fearing they’re going to eat “too much”
· 1 likes
@vegangirlontherun Say it louder…
· 1 likes
Topics in this caption
All popular topicsEach tag opens the popular posts Instagram returns for it.
@eryent Preach it! Jezus I hate seeing people do this