Nutrition
“We are what we eat” was never more relevant.
There are two main strands to the burgeoning ‘nutrition’ industry. The first is the die-hard camp of “as long as you have a wholesome diet, eating plenty of fruit and veg., you don’t need anything else”.
Then there’s the supplement business - a whole industry devoted to getting us ingesting all kinds of additional tablets, powders, pills, gels and mixes. Put on muscle mass, lose weight, have a better, healthier bowel, better memory, more active sex life, sleep better, think better, be better - it goes on and on.
As with many things in life the truth is an amalgam of those positions.
It’s true that we start with the appropriate diet. And let’s be clear - as we say elsewhere - when we talk about ‘diet’ at Team Fitness we are talking about your permanent eating style. We are not food fascists and indeed believe that eating should be one of the great pleasures in life. But it is all about balance.
However, there are two modifying conditions. First: For elite athletes training at high intensity it is often difficult to take on board the required carbs, protein, fats, vitamins and minerals in the right proportions, and there is a good case to be made for some supplementation. But it is on a case by case basis, not simply “Athlete A takes creatine and he/she has improved, therefore I want some.”
There is a need for the individual approach, based on training timetables and intensity, competition schedules and demands, recovery ability and timing, lifestyle, body composition, goals and needs.
Also, in today’s conditions of mass-produced food, there is some evidence that the vitamin and mineral contents are not necessarily at the required level. And again there may be a case for selective supplementation.
When we are talking about the athletic diet for elite sportspeople there is the same scientific approach. First: We want our clients to understand what they eat and why they eat it. This inexorably means looking at a person’s relationship to food. For athletes this means a necessary mind-shift that accepts that the demands of training and competition require a different ‘re-fuelling’ strategy to the sedentary lifestyle. You don’t’ put the same fuel in a Ferrari Formula 1 car as the family Ford.
So we start with a dietary diary – what do you eat? What do you really eat, not what you kid yourself you eat! How much? And when?
Don't forget!
Hydration is the most important and most overlooked element in optimising nutrition.
So we determine what you drink. How much? And when? This is not a blitz on fizzy drinks or alcohol, but trying to establish hydration levels.
When one of the national teams first employed a nutritionist they found that 32% of the players were de-hydrated and 28% were seriously de-hydrated. That is over half the team in trouble before they started training! A squad of 22 fit young men mostly performing below their inherent capacity for the want of H2O.
Nutrition is the foundation of all training, competition and recovery! So for our elite athletes we determine the optimum strategy for all aspects.
