Conclusion

In this free course, Eating to win: activity, diet and weight control, you focused on why it is particularly important to use physical activity in combination with dieting as a means of achieving and maintaining a healthy weight. You also explored how physical activity can impact on our appetite and how diet and exercise can influence fat metabolism. Finally, you looked at effective eating and drinking strategies to optimise sport and exercise performance. You should have achieved the learning outcomes listed below. If there are any you feel you have not achieved, you should read back over the relevant sections of this course.

On completion of this course you should be able to:

• recognise the importance of physical activity in weight management
• compare physical activity and dieting as weight control methods
• understand the importance of pre, during and post-exercise nutrition and hydration.

The main learning points for this course are:

• Physical activity should be included in weight loss programmes as it minimises losses of lean body mass.
• Physical activity may help to inhibit appetite.
• An increased fitness level enables the utilisation of fat as an energy source and greater caloric expenditure.
• Exercise leads to a decrease in blood levels of triglycerides and LDL and an increase in HDL.
• The GI of food has an important role in maintaining energy levels for physical activity and sports performance.
• Low to moderate GI carbohydrate should be consumed before exercise to promote sustained energy release.
• High GI carbohydrate should be consumed during exercise to minimise glycogen depletion.
• High GI carbohydrate should be consumed post-exercise to rapidly replenish glycogen stores.
• It is important to maintain hydration levels before, during and after exercise to optimise performance and recovery.
• There are three types of sports drinks which can be used to provide hydration and energy replacement: hypotonic, hypertonic and isotonic.

This OpenLearn course provides a sample of level 1 study in Sport [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] . You might be particularly interested in the Open University course E117 Introduction to sport and fitness.