Nutrition

The best advice I can give any athlete, or anyone who is trying to live healthy, is: Learn to cook.

The reason is in most sports it is important to eat enough so the body has maximum energy, but to remain as light as possible so the athlete does not have too much extra weight to carry which only slows the athlete down. That means it is vital eat the correct foods which deliver the energy to the body without exceeding the calorie limit. The best way to accomplish that is, like I said, learn to cook.

If an athlete knows how to cook, it improves the chances that the athlete will be healthy in two ways. First, the athlete will understand more about nutrition and be able to incorporate it into the meals. For example, if an athlete is training at altitude it is especially important to eat protein (especially women) to avoid becoming anorexic. Therefore, the athlete who knows how to cook would know to cook more red meat, liver, and/or green vegetables. Second, if an athlete knows how to cook, the food tastes better, which makes it easy to eat. If the food does not taste good, there is little chance the athlete will continue eating it, or even worse, the athlete will start to sneak in candy and unhealthy foods which will not deliver much energy, increase weight, but taste good.

As a note, I have noticed that the best way to structure an athlete’s diet is to eat like a vegetarian, except including meat in the diet as well. It may sound strange, but if you look at vegetarian diets, it includes lots of fruits, vegetables, lentils, things like that which are ideal low calorie foods but very healthy. If you make a vegetarian meal and eat a steak along with it you will be have the ideal weight and strength you need as an athlete.