Eat all the time

Eating little and often is much better than 2 or 3 large meals a day. In this way you can keep your energy stores topped up and maintain a more constant blood sugar level. Plan to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner and a mid-morning and a mid-afternoon snack. This will ensure that you never go hungry.

Missing meals, particularly breakfast is a big mistake as this means that you have had nothing to eat since the previous evening, your blood sugar levels will plummet, and you will inevitably be drawn into eating something that you shouldn’t because you will be so hungry.

Get the basics right

If you only run intermittently or have only just started training, you do not need to make radical changes to your diet, just focus on the broad principles for a healthy diet as described above. However, if you increase your training, it will place additional nutritional demands on your body. You need to fuel your body with the right, nutritious and balanced diet to provide it with all the essential nutrients it requires to enable you to perform at your best.

If you exercise regularly, you will need to eat and drink more in order to maintain your weight. If you start exercising but go on eating the same amount, you will lose weight. Running, jogging or walking a mile burns about 100 calories; and if you run regularly, your resting metabolism will increase. If you run 40 miles a week, you’ll need to eat about 600-700 calories a day extra.