What Your Dietitian Wants You to Know

 1.     Focus on more than just training

Training is important to be good at your sport, but it isn’t the only thing that is keeping you at the top of your game. Instead of training harder, logging more hours in the gym, and doing extra sweat sessions, consider how your nutrition is impacting your performance. This type of intense training often comes at the expense of other aspects of health. Improving performance means improving all aspects of health. Include sleep, recovery, hydration, nutrition and mental health as a part of your training routine. When so much energy is focused on training, often these other categories fall off and the expected improvements in performance don’t happen. If you find yourself failing to recover, feeling fatigued, or plateauing it might be time to focus more energy on factors outside of training.

2.     Master the basics

These days we are inundated with influencers and podcasts touting the latest and greatest in biohacking, eating clean, and detoxing. Usually these buzz words aren’t the answer to improving your performance, and can actually have the opposite effect. Instead of buying into the next craze, take a step back and assess if you are doing the basics of nutrition. Are you eating breakfast consistently and not skipping meals? Do you include protein in all meals and snacks? Are you fueling before, during, and after long training sessions? If the answer was no to any of these questions let’s turn them all to yes before jumping on the biohacking band wagon!

3.     Love your fruits and veggies

Leave it to the dietitian to bring up fruits and vegetables…. these foods have so many benefits for both your basic and performance needs, it is important to not forget about them. The recommendation is for approximately 5 servings per day, with 1 serving being about the size of your fist. Meeting these recommendations will help with blood sugar control, feeling full, muscle repair and recovery, fiber intake, and so much more! This time of year it is easy to find a variety of seasonal options. Run out to your local market and get some today, your body will thank you!