- Best sports nutrition hours before the event Eat a meal before you run. This is the best sports nutrition advice that you should keep in mind. You need glucose to keep your blood sugar in normal levels. Glucose fuels the brain and the muscles during an activity. If you lack glucose in your body, you cannot think properly because your brain does not have enough fuel that it needs. The relationship of carbohydrates and proteins were also discovered namely that carbohydrates promote protein-sparing in the body. It was also discovered recently that consuming carbohydrates before and during prolonged bouts of strenuous exercise can help protect the immune system. One of the most exciting recent developments in sports nutrition has been the rise of creatine supplementation. If you want to help your immune system, you can take megadoses of vitamin C. Vitamin C is water soluble and excess of which is easily discharged through sweat and urine. To avoid sports anemia, especially to females who lose blood every month due to menstruation, the mineral iron should be part of an athlete's list of sports nutrition supplements. For women who are having their menstrual periods, they should also take eight hundred milligrams of calcium a day. Post menopausal women should have at least one thousand milligrams per day of calcium, while women who are pregnant and who are also breastfeeding should have one thousand two hundred milligrams per day. Carbohydrates are the most important fuel source. It provides a minimum of sixty to a maximum of seventy percent of our calories. Carbohydrates are found on almost all of the food you consume. Food rich in carbohydrates are fruits, vegetables, pastas, breads, cereals, rice and many more that are too many to mention. But because of the harmful effects of ultraviolet rays found in sunlight, the only available time for athletes to sunbathe and get vitamin D is during the early mornings till 9 am only. After that, physicians don't advise athletes to expose themselves from the harmful rays of sunlight. So, to get the proper amount of vitamin D in their bodies, physicians prescribe cod liver oil as a supplement to athletes.