5 Tips for Optimal Nutrition

Everyone needs fuel and everyone needs nutrients. Yet everyone eats for completely different reasons. Sports Nutrition can provide you that extra edge over your competitor and is an essential component to being a high performance athlete. There are so many different opinions, ways of doing things, answers to weight loss, answers to weight gain everywhere you turn that it can become confusing to a point where acting on good intentions seems to halt.

Here are 5 Tips that athletes should keep in mind when dealing with their nutrition.

1. Stay hydrated – Because our bodies are made up of 55-65% fluid, it is essential that athletes stay adequately hydrated in order to avoid heat illness and cramping. When practicing in hot, humid weather, some of the larger athletes can lose as much as 10-12 cups of fluid (he/she would need to drink double this amount to re-hydrate). Even being slightly dehydrated can impair performance, so athletes should drink liberal amounts of water and sports drinks throughout the day, during and after practice. Usually it is too late when you actually start to feel dehydrated so don't use that as your indicator to start drinking water.

2. Consume adequate calories and carbohydrates – Because food is our fuel, athletes need to ensure adequate calorie and carbohydrate consumption every day. Complex carbohydrates including whole grain breads, cereals, pastas, fruits and vegetables should make up at least 50% of our diets. Carbohydrates, our body’s chief form of energy is stored as glycogen in our muscles (and liver). A diet deficient in carbohydrates and calories, can increase the risk of fatigue, injuries and a drastic decrease in performance.

3. Eat Adequate amounts of protein - Adequate protein, in addition to serving many metabolic functions in the body, is also essential for rebuilding and repair of our body's tissue. Because athletes are continuously tearing down muscle tissue through regular workouts, they should consume adequate amounts of meat, beans, fish, poultry, nuts, peanut butter, eggs and dairy products.

4. Regular meals and snacks - For most athletes, it is almost impossible to meet the nutrition requirements with less than 3 meals and 2-3 snacks each day. Eating regularly (every 2-4 hours) helps to maintain blood glucose and energy throughout the day and through practice. A mistake athletes often make is thinking that they don’t have to eat adequately on "non-workout days." These "off" days should instead be treated as "re-fueling days" and athletes can take advantage of having more time to prepare well-balanced meals.

5. Avoid fad diets and supplements – Frequently looking for that extra edge, athletes are often targeted by the market industry with products promising special "energy boosting," "performance enhancing" or "muscle gaining" results. Frequently these products or diets have little (if any) scientific data backing them and can actually be damaging to an athletes performance. A high performance diet is often the key that athletes need to help them get that extra edge over their competition.

Charlotte Speed and Strength Coach