Question: “You have been seeing clients for many years. Y you are an accomplished elite mountain athlete. What are three issues that you see people getting wrong in their approach to endurance nutrition?
As a sports nutritionist who works with athletes on a daily basis, I can tell you that I have seen it all. And that shouldn’t surprise us: our world is awash with (mis)information every day. Eat this! Do not eat that! This food is healthy! This food group is not healthy! This diet is the key to performance! Take this supplement, it promises to make you run as fast as Killian!
Human beings face transformation 200 food decisions every dayand yet most of us can’t even decide what to make for dinner tonight. Analyzing the vast amount of food information thrown at us every day through social media, the news, the athletes we admire, and our peers can be overwhelming and stressful, even for a trained nutritionist.
As a general media consumer and athlete, I fully understand. Because of this, I have great empathy for my athletes who come to me feeling totally at a loss about what they should and shouldn’t eat, and what they can do to improve their performance through nutrition.
That’s why I started taking detailed notes on some of the most common questions from my endurance athlete clients. Here are three of the most common nutrition problems I see:
Problem #1: Not eating enough
The biggest problem I see is that athletes don’t eat enough. Training and life are big stressors, and while most of my athletes mean very well to eat enough, they often don’t know how much they really need to eat to account for these stressors.
There are so many things that can complicate this, such as a change in appetite after the race, lack of energy during the race, or simply the large number of hours spent on your feet, which can take away from the time you spend eating. It can be really hard to eat enough, which is why athletes need to spend as much time, effort and attention eating as they do training, or comparing the specifics of how the Hoka Speedgoat 5 is different from the Speedgoat 4.
Chronic undereating, whether intentional or accidental, can lead to a variety of hormonal changes that can negatively affect your immune system, put you at higher risk for injury, and negatively affect your performance.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it until the day I die: a real food diet packed with nutrients and moderation, and one that gives us both physical and emotional satisfaction, is the secret to performance.
I always tell my athletes, when in doubt, eat more! It’s rare for an athlete to eat too much, even if he really tries. Double your portions, add extra snacks, eat more food before, during, and after races, always have dessert, and keep fun meals in the house—these things can help an athlete meet their daily calorie intake.
Personally, I’m a big fan of adding avocado to anything you can: tacos, tostadas, crackers, rice bowls, and even smoothies. There is no easier or more delicious way to increase calories, micronutrients and healthy fats. Or my personal favorite: the “pint of ice cream a night” tradition, which is by far the most fun and tasty way to get an extra 1,000 calories.
Number 2: Believe in a silver bullet.
Just like you can’t escape a bad diet, you can’t take a bunch of supplements to override poor food choices. I have seen athletes with a supplement list longer than my weekly shopping list.
While it may seem like the easy route, it won’t always replace the benefits that come from eating real, nutrient-dense foods. While there are some exceptions for athletes on restrictive diets and those with health problems, it is possible for a person to get all the nutrients he needs from a balanced, nutrient-rich diet. For example, vegans can boost their dietary iron intake by making chili, which combines iron-rich beans with tomatoes. The vitamin C found in tomatoes can increase the absorption of iron in these non-heme iron-rich food sources.
Supplements like fancy green powders, multivitamin megadoses, and meal replacement powders are alluring because of their ease, but they’re often just a short-term fix with short-term benefits. Nutrient-rich real foods will be much better absorbed and tolerated, as real foods contain a variety of things like vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants. These work synergistically to provide your body with what it needs to function well and efficiently.
More isn’t always better, either. When we take certain types of supplements, we run the risk of toxicity, especially when it comes to fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K) and iron. This can damage internal organs and lead to serious long-term damage.
If we take high levels of water-soluble vitamins (B vitamins and vitamin C), we are really just producing very expensive urine, since we urinate everything that our body does not need. Either way, we’re probably just flushing money down the toilet (literally) or setting ourselves up for potential health issues down the road. We are much less likely to reach these toxic levels when we can consume these nutrients through food, and your body will use them much better.
Problem #3: Following a specific diet in hopes of achieving better performance.
Whatever, I’ve seen it. I’ve seen athletes go on restrictive diets like keto, paleo, and gluten-free, even diets as outrageous as the grapefruit and bacon diet, hoping this “magic” diet will easily help them reach their 50K PR with the supplement. of your fingers.
More often than not, an athlete has been influenced by a professional athlete following that same type of diet, or perhaps someone in their career group has had success following one of them. And while I’m sure there are some people who have found success following a specific restrictive diet, it is by no means the secret to unlocking your potential or improving your performance.
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Food plays many roles for us (physical, emotional, social) and its role in our physical and mental health is multifaceted. If we restrict food (and therefore happiness!) in the hope of increasing our performance, our performance will undoubtedly suffer in the long run. If mental stress affects our body in the same way as physical stress at a cellular level, then stress related to restriction and diet will negatively contribute to our overall health, affecting our performance and longevity in sport.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it until the day I die: a real food diet packed with nutrients and moderation, and one that gives us both physical and emotional satisfaction, is the secret to performance.
Alex Borsuk Hasenohr, MS, is a Dynafit professional trail runner and sports nutritionist. He is passionate about helping athletes reach their full potential through the use of practical nutrition, and she can be contacted through their website.
