Eating Right to Improve Performance?

All of our young athletes want to improve their performance. That's a given. They train hard, practice technique. Listen to their coaches (hopefully?) Yet, when it comes to filling the gas tank, they put the equivalent of sludge into their gas tank and expect to get great gas mileage and Indi car speed out of their bodies.

I want to spell out a simple way to begin the process of eating well, for athletic performance, and for life in general.

#1 You need to sign up for http://www.fitday.com/ This FREE website will help you accomplish the following:

A. You need to monitor what you put into your body. This will help you access how to make changes in your diet intake that will be beneficial. Keeping a daily log with fitday.com will allow you to do just that. It will measure the calories, proteins, carbohydrates, and fats as well your vitamin and mineral intakes.

B. Fitday will help you estimate your caloric intake and your daily caloric needs. This will help you neither over or under consume food. This will vary for individuals based on age, weight, gender, training regime, and base calorie needs (for your regular work/school activities)

C. Fitday will measure your balance of protein, carbohydrates, and fats, for the athlete these should be in the range of:

Proteins - 25-30%
Carbohydrates - 50-60%
Fats - 20-25%

D. Fitday will help you measure you need to supplement vitamins and minerals which are lacking in your daily diet. For most this will simple mean taking a multi-vitamin. More on supplements later.

E. Once you have recorded what you eat for at least a week, you will be able to see the patterns emerge and begin to make adjustments. One at a time is best. Some will be obvious, like to much saturated fat (solid at room temperature) vs. good unsaturated fats (like olive oil) and omega 3 oils (in many kinds of fish).

F. Fitday can also be used as a daily workout journal in which you can record your running, speed work, weight (resistance), isometric, and plyometric training regime, both in season and out. You should also record how you feel. Then you can correlate your performance in training/competition with dietary variations. Learning when to eat what is also import, especially prior to competitions

G. Lastly Fitday allow you to monitor your water (H2O) intake. This one of the least considered elements for young athletes, but it can have a devastating effect on your performance. Cramping, lack of endurance, and rapid fatigue, among other things, can often be linked back to poor hydration.

So that will give you a start down the road to better performance through good eating habits. I plan to write more about each of these aspects in the days to come.

Coach Smith