To eat or not to eat

In FLF we try to know the biological and chemical-physical phenomena through which we can understand the way in which physiology, metabolism and nutrition are linked in the high performance and endurance athlete. 

It is clear that the processes through which our body continuously tries to maintain balance are integrated. 

When we think about the consumption of nutrients, a question arises in our team of cooks: What system is imposed when a high-performance athlete feels the need to eat, the foods that are essential to access the energy demanded by his performance? The athlete, driven by his competitiveness, will generate an energy demand that must be satisfied.

We are not talking about the athlete's diet throughout the season. We are referring to that crucial moment of competition where he is using his potential and mechanical energy to the maximum. During this period, the athlete faces a vital task: he must balance the energy entering his body through what he consumes with what he transforms into power; no more, no less. 

Speaking exclusively of "eating", evolution has endowed the human species with involuntary mechanisms that make it feel the impulse to ingest nutrients. And those mechanisms are mainly two, speaking in colloquial language, hunger and appetite. 

In the restaurant we know that when a customer arrives, he will rarely avoid both.

Let's talk about the homeostatic system: This system controls the energy balance. It includes the digestive system, the endocrine system, the adipose tissue, the peripheral nervous system (responsible for signal transmission) and the central nervous system. They all act in the short and medium/long term. The short-term rule is responsible for determining when a meal begins and ends. However, this short-term regulation is not sufficient to regulate the energy balance and for this reason, there is a strong correlation with other signals released in proportion to fat reserves, such as leptin and insulin among others. These other "signals" are responsible for regulating the long-term energy balance. Both types of regulation are integrated at the central level, and the hypothalamus receives all the signals they send to regulate supply. In restaurant jargon, we simply call this “hunger".

On the other side, which as cooks we admire, is the reward system. This, probably inaccurately, we call "appetite". Conscious and unconscious reward processes drive hedonic regulation, the regulation of pleasure. Sight, smell, taste and texture perception provide the central nervous system (CNS) with powerful food-related feedback and influence brain areas related to food reward. On the other hand, macronutrient composition stimulates the release of appetite signals from the gut, which are translated in the CNS into unconscious reward processes (Campos, A.; Port, J.D.; Acosta, A. Brain Sci. 2022.).

In the old days, the homeostatic system was thought to be independent of the hedonic system, and it is true that although it functions under unconscious control driven purely by the metabolic state of the individual, it is easily overridden by strong reward and motivational processes of the hedonic system. Nevertheless, complex interactions and a strong bi-directional influence between systems is essential for survival. Unfortunately, the hedonic system has been especially vulnerable to the modern food environment. Today in our environment, we simply have access to an excess of food, and not exactly recommendable for health, tons of “orphan calories”. Thus, the self-regulatory (i.e., homeostatic) system can hardly compensate for these forces without a minimum of discipline. The hedonic properties of food can stimulate eating even when energy requirements are met, which, in a simplified reading, means that it can easily contribute to weight gain and obesity.

In the old days, the homeostatic system was thought to be independent of the hedonic system, and it is true that although it functions under unconscious control driven purely by the metabolic state of the individual, it is easily overridden by strong reward and motivational processes of the hedonic system. Nevertheless, complex interactions and a strong bi-directional influence between systems is essential for survival. Unfortunately, the hedonic system has been especially vulnerable to the modern food environment. Today in our environment, we simply have access to an excess of food, and not exactly recommendable for health, tons of “orphan calories”. Thus, the self-regulatory (i.e., homeostatic) system can hardly compensate for these forces without a minimum of discipline. The hedonic properties of food can stimulate eating even when energy requirements are met, which, in a simplified reading, means that it can easily contribute to weight gain and obesity.

But how does the high-performance endurance athlete stimulate the intake process during the moments of greatest display of power in competition? 

Should he wait for the homeostatic system to express itself, or should he go ahead through the reward system?

This is not the usual challenge for FLF formulators. We are not developing recipes for gourmets. We are talking about athletes at their peak of maximum metabolic stress. This requires a thorough understanding of the behaviour and digestion of the ingredients used. 

If the athlete were to act at that moment driven exclusively by the activation of the homeostatic system, that is, by hunger, it would probably be too late to avoid "the wall". But given the functioning and implications of the purely reward or hedonic system, and at the risk of oversimplifying, would it be appropriate to use its power of anticipation of hunger to provoke the intake of nutrients?

Let's confess. We don't know how the reward or hedonic system works in situations of metabolic stress. It is very likely that you are depressed due to obvious factors. From my own experience, in zone 4-5, one does not feel the desire to taste one's favourite snacks. Can one speak of a self-induced sensory anhedonia in stressful situation? This should not be so simple. To be honest, we have not found literature on the functioning of sensory perception linked to the reward system in competing stressful situations. 

We therefore recommend the athlete to remain disciplined with no other stimulus than rationality in order not to neglect his intake during competition and to save both hunger and appetite for the next visit to his favourite restaurant.