in Dietary basics
Female athletes are sometimes told to eat red meat to lower their risk of iron problems, but is that really necessary? Can’t they obtain enough iron from other foods, including poultry, fish, deep-green leafy vegetables, enriched breads and cereals, and legumes? The urge to get female athletes to eat red meat is based on the... MORE
in Dietary basics
Here’s the full lowdown on eating beans, including how to get rid of the lowdown Although beans are the perfect food for endurance athletes, British and American athletes don’t eat a lot of them – for a couple of reasons. Beans take a long time to cook, for one thing, and require some preparation skill... MORE
in Dietary basics
What you eat can play a significant part in preventing or healing a sports injury When athletes are injured, they usually turn to the traditional injury therapies – rest, icing, compression, elevation, as well as anti-inflammatory medications. Few athletes realize that in some cases unique nutritional strategies may also help them get well. The fact... MORE
in Dietary basics
What’s the best nutrition strategy for professional cyclists? Professional cycling is one of the world’s most arduous sports. The nature of the sport, the duration and intensity of races, mean that specific nutrition strategies must be tailored. The length of professional cycling races can vary between one and 21 days and the duration of a... MORE
in Dietary basics
Things mother forgot to tell you about the glycaemic index of your food – and how it influences your training It gets confusing sometimes. You know you need carbohydrate to perform at your best (nutritionists tell us that if you’re an endurance athlete you require about three to four grams of carbo per pound of... MORE
in Dietary basics
How what you eat can stop you getting hurt. Diet affects performance: this is such a well-researched and documented fact that nothing more need be said on it here. In contrast, there has been relatively little research on whether diet can be a factor in the prevention of sports injuries. Nevertheless, in recent years there... MORE
in Dietary basics
Boosting Omega-3: Should you consider stepping up your omega-3 intake to improve your mental state? One way to boost omega-3 in your diet would be to eat more fish, and it’s interesting to note that fish-eating people have considerably lower rates of depression, compared to beef- and pork-eating ones. For example, the incidence of depression... MORE
in Dietary basics
Carbohydrate Snacks: Can you save money, and achieve the same benefits, by making your own? That was precisely the question asked recently by two researchers, Douglas Padden-Jones of the Human Performance Laboratory, Bull State University, Indiana, and David Pearson of the University of Queensland, Australia. They devised an experiment to determine the cost-effectiveness of pre-exercise... MORE
in Dietary basics
Thiamin: If you rely too much on snacks and convenience foods, you may be short of B1. Vitamin B1, or thiamin, is a crucial vitamin for athletes, as it is necessary for the process of converting carbohydrates into energy. Because of this, the requirement increases the more exercise you take, and the more food you... MORE
in Dietary basics
The transtheoretical model of behaviour change for improving eating behaviour. Nutritionists, coaches and athletic trainers need to do so much more than just create plans and track progress. As Amanda Carlson explains, they also need to help athletes change their mindset about why and how they do things and then create better behaviours that become... MORE