Let’s face it – if you eat like most Americans, your diet is terrible. Fried foods, empty carbs, useless sugar, and much more are costing you both your overall health and athletic potential. Whether you are constantly sick, injured, or lack motivation to train, your diet is likely the cause.
This is because the food you eat is what your body is composed of. If you constantly consume things that are hard for your body to break down and use, you’re wasting precious energy and increasing inflammation in the body, making it much harder to train well and recover from training. Listed below are the common dieting mistakes most aspiring athletes make.
Soda
Not only does the excess sugar in soda contribute to insulin resistance and weight gain, if you drink soda often, you may develop adrenal fatigue because of the caffeine.
Your body naturally releases adrenalin and other chemicals into your blood stream. Constantly adding caffeine and excess sugar into the mix leads can lead to burnout and low overall energy levels near the end of the season.
Alcohol
Consuming alcohol on occasion is fine. But drinking too much hinders training by reducing testosterone levels in men, adding excess calories, and dehydrating your body.
If you are prone to drinking enough to get drunk on occasions, this can mean the kiss of death to your health and performance in the long run.
Empty Carbohydrates
This means everything from baked goods, to certain types of pastas.
Grain-based foods, foods high in gluten, or food low in nutrient content add excess calories to your diet that your body can’t break down properly and use for energy.
Also, excess carbohydrates can lead to insulin resistance, which contributes to weight-gain and diabetes.
Milk If You’re Lactose Intolerant
The state of your gut is important in both training and everyday life.
Drinking milk with lactose intolerance, even if you have a mild form, is detrimental to your performance.
In lactose intolerant individuals, dairy can cause bloating, indigestion, and nausea during exercise. In everyday life, too much lactose is known to alter your mood and energy levels because of the brain-gut connection – a connection that means when your gut is upset, you typically feel upset too.
Too Many Spicy Foods
The best way to avoid heart burn, indigestion, or any form of discomfort during training is to not eat spicy foods before exercise.
Spicy foods are acidic. This means they are tough to digest properly and often disrupt fluids that break down food in your stomach.
In the long run, however, spicy foods are beneficial for a healthy heart, eliminating bad cholesterol, and for reducing inflammation. So we do not advice to eliminate them all-together.
Fried Foods
The best way to kill your performance in training and on race day is to eat fried foods. While the occasional French fry basket is okay, having fried foods too often can lead to unnecessary fat gain and indigestion. Also, to an overall feeling of sluggishness that overshadows your season.
Dieting is important in athletic performance and in everyday life. Incorporating slow carbohydrates, like fruits and vegetables, into your diet instead of empty carbohydrates is essential if you seek higher energy levels and weight loss.
To substitute your favorite fried foods, try baking sweet potato fries or French fries; you won’t have to give them up, and you’ll be much healthier for it.
Want to find out more about nutrition for swimmers and swimming athletes? check out Trifind’s recommended swimming books section.
