You Are What You Eat, Plays Big in the World of Sports and Nutrition
by Heather LaRoi

When it comes to nutrition and athletic performance, Sue McIlraith doesn't mince words.

"If you're eating crap, you can't expect great performance," said McIlraith, a registered dietitian with Affinity Health System. "If you want to have this body of yours perform as a high-performance engine, then you've got to treat it that way. That means the food coming in as well as how you're treating it. If you're pouring drugs into your body, alcohol, junk food, it's not going to perform for you the way you want it to."

Proper nutrition and hydration should be an integral part of a training regimen just like the miles logged or reps performed.

"It's the total package," said Dr. Richard Canlas, sports medicine doctor with ThedaCare Orthopedics Plus. "If you go into a gym and you're pumping iron but you're eating fast food, you're missing the boat. You can look real good. You can be the Mercedes Benz or an Alfa Romero ... but if you pop the hood and the engine isn't working, it doesn't matter how good the car looks. You need all the pieces in place."

The body, after all, needs fuel -- both food and fluids. The right combination can make everything run better.

For many people, finding that right combination can be the tricky part, in part because we are flooded with so much changing information and advertising hype.

"A lot of it has to do with what are your goals," McIlraith said. "If you simply want to lose weight fast, you can pull any diet off the top-seller list and you're going to lose weight. Long-term, now that's a whole different story.

"But if we're talking about lifestyles and quality of life, then you're looking at balance, pure and simple. Some of the diets where you're eliminating whole food groups and expecting a vitamin to replace them, well, that's just as silly as it sounds. You're never going to get out of a vitamin supplement what you get out of food. Never. You have to stop and think for a moment: What am I asking my body to work on here?"

The best approach is really quite simple, Canlas said.

"If you look at the food pyramid, all the food groups have a place. It's not that one is more important than the other. They're all required in a different quantity. It's the balance," he said.

"What's interesting about this is it's not something new."

Where many people still might need educating, Canlas said, is with the fine points, such as discriminating between carbohydrates with a high glycemic index versus low, or good fats and bad fats. They also must learn to identify their own needs.

Then, faced with so many temptations wooing them off track, they also need the discipline to stick with the healthier alternatives.

Type of activity also factors into what nutritional needs an athlete has.

Put in simple terms, an endurance athlete -- a marathoner or triathlete, for example -- generally will require more carbohydrates than a nonendurance athlete. On the other hand, a strength athlete such as a bodybuilder or wrestler probably will need more protein.

To put the differences in perspective, Canlas suggests that a nonendurance athlete might need 5 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of bodyweight per day, versus 8-10 grams for an endurance athlete. As for protein, a sedentary person needs 0.8 grams per kilogram of bodyweight per day versus 1.2-1.4 grams for a strength athlete.

McIlraith pointed out that timing is important when it comes to refueling, and the best time to do so is within 30 minutes to an hour immediately following a workout.

"Right after your practice is the time to have something in your hand to eat, carbohydrate, that piece of fruit, that glass of juice, that bag of popcorn, crackers," she said. "You're looking at a window of opportunity there right after you expend that energy in training because you've burned off your glycogen stores and your body says give 'em back.

"There's a small window when you can maximize that return. That doesn't mean you're not going to get any benefit from the carbohydrate supper, but if you're looking to maximize it..."

A look at supplements

Using supplements -- or ergogenic aids -- to meet the increased needs of athletes has become popular, but Canlas, for one, suggested using caution and restraint. Athletes ever looking for the competitive edge might sometimes overlook that.

"If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is," Canlas said. "This is a multi-billion dollar industry and the biggest thing to remember is these ergogenic aids are not FDA approved.

"I always tell athletes that you can get this same type of stuff through a good, balanced diet. (The supplements) are not a magic bullet."

McIlraith agreed.

"A body-builder may need an increased protein intake, but you're not talking gobs of protein," she said. "It's a small intake, an extra glass of milk, an extra ounce or two of meat, that's going to meet their needs. You don't have to be pouring in 100 grams of some powdered shake to get the protein needs where they have to be."

Stay hydrated

Keeping properly hydrated is another big part of the performance equation.

While there are many formulas to determine how much fluid should be consumed, the accepted low-tech method to determine if you are properly hydrated is to check urine color: It should be pale yellow.

As for what to consume, Canlas suggested the following: "If you're doing an exercise less than an hour, good old-fashioned water is basically all you need. If you go above an hour, that's when you need to start supplementing with the carbohydrate drinks. These should be between 6 and 8 percent carbohydrate."

To emphasize why this is important, Canlas brought out a chart illustrating the adverse effects of dehydration.

"Even at 1 percent loss of bodyweight (due to dehydration), you start to get problems with regards to exercise and thermal regulation," he said. "At 4 percent, there's a 20 to 30 percent decrease in work capacity. ... As I tell coaches, that can be the difference between a W and an L."

It's important to remember that better nutrition and hydration have to be applied over the long-term for the most benefits; it's not a matter of three weeks before a big race suddenly deciding to eat well.

"It's just like you didn't start training three weeks before, either," Canlas said. "Basically the food and fluid are your gasoline ... you might get to your destination, otherwise, but you might also be running on fumes, so to speak."

In the end, it's pretty simple.

"In order to perform to our body's optimum, we have to feed it, we have to fine-tune what's going in," McIlraith said.

"Once you do it," Canlas said, "I think amazing things can happen."

Heather LaRoi writes about outdoor recreation on Tuesdays. She can be reached at 920-993-1000, ext. 238 or by e-mail at hlaroi@postcrescent.com.

Copyright 2006 The Post-Crescent (Appelton, WI) All Rights Reserved The Post-Crescent (Appleton, Wisconsin) March 14, 2006