prioritizing nutrition as an athlete

We know nutrition is an important part of performance, fitness and life, but what exactly defines solid nutrition and how does it adapt to support you as an athlete?

Nutrition doesn’t mean perfection; we define it as obtaining food necessary for adequate health and growth. In performance, we take that one step further to select foods to fuel, fill, and maintain balance in our bodies while enjoying a balanced lifestyle.

The 80/20 rule is a nutritional tactic to maintain balance in nutrition and fun. This suggests selecting 80% whole, nutrient-dense foods* and 20% fun/family/lower nutrient/soul foods. This allows the body to meet its nutritional needs without consuming all part of the athlete through restriction.

*whole, nutrient-dense foods: These foods include your solid protein sources (meats/eggs/fish), your whole grains and complex carbohydrates (potatoes/bread/rice), your fat sources (avocado/nuts/oils) and our micro nutrients (fruits/vegetables).

These foods make up the bulk of the diet and are the ‘performance-enhancing foods’ in terms of muscle growth and retention, energy (via glucose stores) and recovery.

Adopting this practice allows us to fuel adequately and encourage improvement while maintaining a restriction-free life where we can go for ice creams with friends, coffees with family and have fried chicken!! All of which are also important to your overall health, including mental health and happiness, all key features to a successful athlete.

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