How to Eat Well:
A Primer - Sport Nutrition
by Nancy Clark

Eat well. Believe it or not, that's what most athletes -- be they able-bodied or physically challenged, as well as fitness exercisers and most Americans, in general --need to learn to do. Eat for performance. Eat for health. I am surrounded by active people who exercise for health but do not know how to eat well. They know how to skip breakfast and lunch, how to stay away from carbohydrates, how to blow their diets. These folks would not only perform better but also be healthier down the road if they could eat better on a daily basis, eat at the right times to optimize energy, eat the best foods to promote future good health, and eat wisely to manage weight.

For some athletes, eating well seems a trivial concern. They joke about overdosing on Vitamin C-3 (Chocolate Chip Cookies). Others are influenced by these prevailing beliefs: Food is fattening; I don't have time to eat," or I don't have time to eat well. A survey of 50 collegiate football players reports they averaged 59% of their calories from sugars and fats. Yes, that is a lot of junk food!

The daily intake of those football players contrasts sharply with the daily diet of Diana Dyer, a three-time her eating and acquired remarkable benefits. After having been diagnosed with breast cancer for a second time (11 years after her first breast cancer diagnosis and several years after a childhood neuroblastoma), Diana decided she would put only protective foods in her body. This means a soy-shake with fruit, flax, and berries for breakfast, and lunches and dinners abundant with fresh fruit, colorful salads, beans, nuts, fish, soy and other wholesome foods. Being a dietitian, Diana also recognizes the need for soul foods (birthday cake, chocolate chip cookies). She eats them on occasions when she wishes to nourish her soul.

So, has all this healthy eating done any good? Diana believes her optimal diet is largely responsible for the increase in her white blood cell count. It rose from the too low 2,500 cells/cubic millimeter it had been for 11 years after her first breast cancer treatment to the more normal level of 4,700 alter her second breast cancer treatment. As I listened to Diana tell this story at Grand Medical Rounds at the Dana Farber Cancer Center in Boston, I internalized how powerful and strong food is as a health protector. Yes, food is fuel and one of life's pleasures, but the right foods can also be critical health protectors and healers. (Diana's book, A Dietitian is Cancer Story, and her website, www. cancerRD.com, offer more information about healing food plans.)

The purpose of this article is to invite you to think about how you eat and to offer a few tips on eating well as an athlete... eating healthfully, appropriately, and enjoyably. Eating to heal the tiny injuries occurring with each workout. Eating to refuel muscles and prepare them for the next session. Eating to optimize muscular growth, enhance the immune system, optimize healing, and protect your body from the diseases of aging. I hope the information will inspire you to choose a positive sports diet that repairs your muscles optimally, fuels them energetically, and protects your good health for the new year, as well as for the rest of your life.

Eating Tip #1

If You Have Weight to Lose, Eat; Do Not Diet

Diets are oppressive, unrealistic, and ineffective. They tend to leave you hungry all day long, and you will never win the war against hunger. As a client of mine decreed, "My mother put me on my first diet when I was nine years old, I have gotten fatter and fatter with every successive attempt to lose weight. Diets have made me fat, not thin!" So true. Do not diet!

The best way to control your weight is to eat-wholesome foods, quality calories, protective foods. Starting at breakfast, have a fruit smoothie, oatmeal topped with nuts and honey, multi-grain toast smothered with peanut butter, yogurt with berries, and granola. All of these choices are quick and easy, tasty, health protective, and energy enhancing. Fear not that you will get fat eating breakfast. Research indicates breakfast eaters are not only leaner than breakfast skippers, but also have better quality diets overall. Plus, you need a hearty breakfast to fuel your afternoon workout (or refuel your morning workout) and dampen the desire for evening junk food. The best way to lose weight is to eat satiating food; you can feel fed, but still lose body fat. See Tips #2 and #3.

Eating Tip #2

Include More Fiber-Rich Breads, Cereals, Fruits, and Vegetables on a Daily Basis

Fiber is satiating; it keeps you feeling fed. Think oatmeal, fruit smoothie, fruit on bran cereal, trail mix, fruit salad. Enjoy abundant colorful vegetables--red tomatoes, yellow squash, green beans, orange carrots. Visit the salad bar. Have a pile of stir-fried veggies with brown rice.

Take a break from Frosted Flakes, Pop Tarts, Oreos, soda pop, even non-essential sports drinks, and highly processed energy bars. By eating all colors of the rainbow, you will consume a variety of health protective fibers and phytochemicals that can never be found in ally vitamin pill, protein powder, or gel. Diana Dyer eats at least 9 to 14 servings of fruits and vegetables per day--that is two or three fruits with each meal, plus abundant vegetables.

Eating Tip #3

Eat More Nuts and Peanut Butter

Nuts add crunch to a meal and substance to a snack. Peanut butter adds oomph to a sports diet. Feared as being fattening, research indicates that people who eat nuts or peanut butter five or more times a week are not fatter than those who stay away from nuts. That is because nuts offer a satisfying combination of fiber + protein--two substances that abate hunger.

The fat in nuts is health protective. It boosts the immune system and reduces the risk of heart disease and adult-onset diabetes by more than 20%. Healthful fat is an important part of a runner's diet, particularly if endurance exercise is done. Research suggests that runners who boosted their fat intake from a very low fat diet to an average fat intake improved performance. Researchers believe the additional fat replenished intra-muscular fat stores and provided more fuel for sustaining long workouts.

Instead of snacking on Pringles and Ritz, reach for almonds or peanuts. No hardship there! Enjoy peanut butter & honey sandwiches or peanut butter on multigrain bagels. Even commercial peanut butters like Skippy and Jiff have negligible amounts of the bad (trans) fats contributing to heart disease. Enjoy this super sports food!

Eating Tip #4

Boost Your Calcium Intake -- Not Only for Your Bones, But Also for Improving Blood Pressure and Weight Management

Aim for a calcium-rich food at each meal, be it lowfat milk on cereal, yogurt with lunch, and/or a decaf latte for an afternoon boost. Eight ounces of yogurt offers 400 milligrams of calcium: 8 ounces of milk, 300. Your target is 1,000 to 1,500 mg/day. Lowfat dairy foods are also excellent sources of high quality, muscle building protein. Eating cereal with milk before a workout or enjoying chocolate milk afterwards for a recovery food is a perfect way to get a protein-carbohydrate combination enhancing muscle growth and repair, as well as optimizing refueling.

Inspired?

If so, here is a sample sports menu to fuel your good intentions (Adjust the eating times according to your workout schedule.). The simplest guideline is to have at least three different types of food at each meal.

7:00 am Oats (raw or cooked) + almonds + milk + banana

11:00 am Whole wheat wrap + hummus + baby carrots + yougurt

3:00 pm Peanut butter + graham crackers + hot cocoa

7:00 pm Salmon + brown rice + broccoli + salad/olive oil dressing

Sport Nutrition ix a regular department of PALAESTRA which addresses issues and answers questions sport active people of all ages and abilities ask about high energy, healthful eating,, and offers a scientific approach to eating for top performance. as well as the practical how-to approach which includes specific food suggestions. Nancy Clark. Director of Nutrition Services ,for SportsMedicine Brookline, Brookline, MA, and author of Nancy Clark's Sport Nutrition Guidebook and The NYC Marathon Cookbook, is the Department Editor Visit her web site at www.nancyclarkrd.com. Copyright 2005 Gale Group, Inc. ASAP Copyright 2005 Challenge Publications Limited Palaestra January 1, 2005