Nutritional recommendations for athletes
by Ola Bykowska
No matter at what level the athlete performs or what discipline he or she practices, with their busy schedule it is very hard to keep the right diet. Even a little tweak in nutrition, hydration, training, or amount of sleep may influence the performance. While being an athlete, just by eating healthier foods, my recovery time and performance greatly improved. This is how I have got interested in nutrition and dietetics. It was always very difficult to maintain healthy nutrition between all the workouts, time for rest, travelling, lectures, and studying. Additionally, there are different myths about appropriate sport nutrition, and many of them, especially some supplements, may be harmful to health or illegal in sport. In this section, I would like to provide with best resources and facts on sports nutrition topics and questions concerning an athlete’s diet.
First, let’s look at nutritional recommendations from American Academy of Sports Medicine(ACSM) (www.acsm.org), an organization which, as they states in their mission it is: “dedicated to advancing and integrating scientific research to provide educational and practical applications of exercise science and sports medicine”;
Protein – 15-20%
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1.2 – 1.4 g/kg/body weight/day for endurance athletes
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1.6 –1.7 g/kg/body weight/day for strength athletes
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RDA 0.8 - 1.0 g/kg/body weight/day
Carbohydrate 50-60%
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6-10 g/kg/body weight/day
Fat <30% total kcal/day
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Less than 10% from saturated FAT
Don’t forget about the fluids! They maintain your body temperature, blood pressure, and circulation of oxygen as well as glucose. According to ACSM, you should consume 16-24 fl oz of fluids for each pound of body weight lost during exercise. For endurance events, another very important aspect is use of electrolytes, however it is not needed to drink a glucose drink unless physical activity lasts over one hour.
To assess your own daily intake and compare it with the “gold standard” given above, you can go on http://www.choosemyplate.gov/supertracker-tools/supertracker.html website, where you can type in all the food intake and see it’s calories and grams of different nutrients.
How does your diet look like? Do you have any nutrient missing or in excess? Can you find any ways to improve it?