“Nutrition”, Not Just For Deer

When it comes to hunting season, the topic of Nutrition comes up often. This shouldn’t just be about Whitetail Nutrition, it should also be about how “you” as the hunter prepares and takes care of him or herself to get ready for the upcoming season.

A little bit about me when it comes to this topic, is I’ve always kept my routine for staying in shape a yearlong program. The reason for this is, probably like most of you, when you change the routine and do something less; it’s always harder to get back into it. I’ve done programs like P90X, which has a lot of old school exercises that I grew up with. This program produced great results for me, but it’s not for everyone. Most people can’t commit to 90 minute workouts 5 days a week, but again, this should not be an excuse to do nothing. Let me try and tie this to a hunting activity, so that you can better relate. I will correlate the activity with Exercise, Nutrition, and Recovery.

Exercise
If all goes well for you this year, you will need to track a wounded deer or better yet drag one out of the field. How about climbing up and down the ladder stand or simply pulling the bow back. If you wait until these items happen to do them for the first time, you’re apt to put your body in shock and to be honest diminishing the excitement of the hunt if you’re hunched over trying to catch your breath all the time. So what can you do to prepare for this? Here are a couple options that should take a few minutes out of your day and could make a big difference:
Walk – Even if it’s around the office, this will make a difference. Keep the joints active especially if you sit in a chair all day. Take the stairs instead of the elevator, every little bit helps. Anytime you find yourself out of breath from an activity, push it a little bit more to get your body accustom to it. Big Picture – it’s good for your heart anyway.
Bands – You can get an inexpensive band (Rubber) at any sporting goods store. Wrap it around something sturdy, while sitting down, do arm pulls (wide arm, curls, one at a time). Even if you can work in a quick 20 a day and build up from there. This will make you stronger in pulling the bow back as well as pulling that monster buck out of the Tecomate Food Plot you planted. You need to work your back now, so you don’t stress it later.
Push Ups – Remember these? They are old school and still work better than anything out there. This works your chest and core like no other exercise at the same time. How hard is it to drop down and do 20 pushups every other day?
- Squats – That’s right Squats!, No weight required. The days you don’t do push-ups do about 20 squats a day.

That’s it, keep it simply, like most things if the recommended quantities aren’t enough, do more!

Nutrition
This is always a tough one because it’s harder to tell people what to stop eating than it is to get them to eat something healthy. So here are a few examples of what you should or should not do when it comes to Nutrition.

Breakfast – Make an effort to eat breakfast, your body has just recovered from 8 hours of sleep and is now nutritionally deficient. Don’t deprive it of nutrition because your body needs it to recover, which I’ll discuss later.
Carbs – You hear about Carbs a lot and so I’ll try to keep this simple. This is one of those examples where I’ll tell you what not to eat and it will make a huge difference in your life. Try and avoid the donuts in the morning, toast or anything with eggs will be much better for you. Also when you order that fast food lunch or dinner, skip the French fries. I’m not asking you to cut out everything that taste good, but if these two items are staples in your current diet and you cut them out, you will see a huge difference in how you feel in a very short amount of time. I get it, they taste good, but they are dragging down your energy, so cut them out.
Protein – Once you start the exercises, you need to get the most out of your workouts. Protein helps you recover and allows your muscle to rebuild bigger and better than ever. This can be lean meats like Chicken (not fried), beef, fish, or venison. These all carry good amounts of protein to help you rebuild.

Recovery
This is the simplest of all of them.
Sleep – Your body recovers and re-energizes when you sleep so try and get 8 hours every night.
Chocolate Milk – I usually finish a workout with a Gatorade G3, these are tasty and are packed with nutrition to recover, but when in a pinch a tall glass of Chocolate milk can offer the same impact. If you drink a glass after every workout, your body will thank you!

There’s no reason we can’t put the remote down for 20-30 minutes a day and get active. It will make you stronger come hunting season and stronger in life over all. Happy Hunting and Happy Health! Good Luck this Year!

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Posted by Terry Sedivec


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