We compete in a sport where carrying as few pounds as possible, while still remaining healthy, is tremendously important. If you don't believe that losing an extra couple of pounds can help your racing performance, put on a backback with 5 pounds worth of books in it and see how much slower you run with the extra weight! This relationship between body weight and performance has led many an athlete down the road toward disordered eating. If you take the time to do a little internet searching, you will find plenty of information out there about runners who have suffered from disorders such as bulimia and anorexia.
So, the question is how do we maintain optimal racing weight while keeping our bodies healthy and strong? The answer is surprisingly simple for most American athletes, make a few dietary modifications and you are golden.
First let me tell you what not to do.
DO NOT deny yourself any of the major nutrient groups. There is always some kind of diet fad: low carb, no fat, paleo, and many others have recently been popular. While these restrictive diets may lead to short term weight loss, they are difficult to stick to and do not promote the type of life long healthy eating habits that we need to develop. Your diets should have plenty of protein, carbohydrates, and fats. Do not try to eliminate any of these groups.
If you are looking for an easy place to start with healthy eating for athletic performance, look in the garbage can. In the U.S., most of us have plenty of wrappers from garbage food in our garbage cans. Soda, candy, chips, and other fatty snack foods are a huge part of most our diets. If you are looking for an easy place to start eating healthier, eliminate (or at least greatly reduce) the junk food you eat and replace it with healthier choices. Instead of grabbing a soda (or Sunny D, or sugary iced tea)when you are thirsty, have a glass of water, or a small glass of milk or fruit juice. If you want a salty snack, chose a handfull of nuts. If you are in the mood for something sweet, grab some of the central valley's bounty of fruit. Many of you can cut out 500 calories a day with those simple steps. An added bonus of replacing junk food with healthy snacks is that you will be getting valuable nutrients such as vitamins and minerals if you make the switch. While snack foods are almost empty of nutrients, fruits, nuts, and vegetables, and milk are full of them. So, in your garbage at home, you should be seeing less soda cans, chip bags, and candy wrappers and more apple cores and carrot tops.
The next place where you can easily drop a large number of calories from your diet is in chosing lower fat options at meal time. Avoid breaded, fried foods at meal time. The breading on these foods, although deliscious, acts like a sponge for the grease in which the food is cooked. I will admit that the orange chicken and sweet and sour pork at Panda Express is very tasty. However, the broccoli beef and green bean chicken is equally tasty with less than 1/3 of the calories per serving. If you replace fatty fried foods with grilled meats and vegetables, you will not only chop out a huge amount of calories, but you will once again replace them with something that your body needs, fiber. Dietary fiber is crucial for digestive health, yet most of our processed foods lack it. Orange chicken and sweet and sour pork have zero fiber, but the vegetable dish options are packed with it.
Countless books have been written on optimal nutrition for athletics. My purpose here is not to write another, rather to provide my team with a few easy steps to take toward better health and performance.
If you are interested in learning more about nutrition for performance, follow some of these links below
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/foodnut/09362.html
http://www.iaaf.org/mm/document/imported/42817.pdf
