The Athlete’s Eating Manifesto
My pre-race butterflies begin to
consume my stomach. I take deep breaths,
as I keep warm, jumping up and down and shaking out my legs to stay loose. The sun beats down on me, but I stay covered
up, with my hood up and warm-up pants on.
I watch as the heats in front of me slowly start to take their
turn. My sprint cleats grasp the track
as I continue to do my exercises, running quick, 10-second sprints up and back,
waiting for my turn. Finally, the heat
before me takes off as the starter’s gun cracks into the air. I take my mark on the track, setting my
blocks, and slipping off my warm up gear.
I bounce around some more, focusing on the race ahead of me. Finally, I hear, “Runners! To your
mark!” I take a deep breath, jump a few
more times, and slowly back into my blocks. “Set…” My heart beats frantically
as I mentally prepare myself to explode out of my blocks. “BANG!” The gun fires
and I burst forward with immense power.
My legs stride out, each powerful step bringing me closer and closer to
the finish line. My body is a machine,
pushing forward with all of its might. One
hundred meters pass, and with one hundred more to go, I begin to hold my
stride, pushing on and on. I surge past
my competitors, looking straight ahead, as the finish line gets closer and
closer. I’m sprinting, harder, faster,
and holding on as much as I can until finally I step across the finish line and
my body fueled for performance begins to relax as I tiredly smile at my
victory.
Ever since I was a little girl, I
have been a sprinter. Each year, I
became more and more competitive, and my routine became considerably more
serious and regimented. I have competed
in over 60 track meets throughout my life, including high school and club from
the time I was 9 until my senior year.
During my four years of high school, I won 4 state championships in the
100-meter dash, 200-meter dash, and the long jump. Athletics have been a significant part of my
life, and my family and I have always taken them seriously including routines
of both the mind and body. Thus, the meals
that I ate during my numerous track seasons were an integral part of all my
successes and overall athletic health.
Thus my eater’s manifesto is that of food as fuel for athletic
performance.
Before every track meet I would eat
a breakfast consisting of some form of meat (sausage or bacon usually), along
with eggs, and a carbohydrate, such as a piece of toast or a bagel. My father has always been a competitive
person, and strove to keep me as in-shape and prepared for my races as he
possibly could. On the morning of every
single track meet of my life, my father would say the exact same words to me:
“Make sure you get plenty of protein.”
Protein is essential to an overall healthy diet, and has been argued to
be even more important for athletes.
That is certainly what my father always preached to me, explaining that,
“my body needs proteins”, for top performance especially on days of a track
meet. Even now that I am in college, I
make sure to eat protein every day, and on days that I am planning on doing
something active, I am sure to eat a little more than usual. So what is it about protein that makes it so
important for athletes? Or, is there
actually no benefit from consuming extra protein before athletic performances?
According to the majority of scientific studies, protein may not be as much of
an enhancer as many people may have thought (Case, 2013).
Proteins and amino acids are crucial to maintaining a
healthy lifestyle, whether you are an athlete or not. They are vital for critical functions of the
body, including maintaining hormones, fighting against illness, and most
importantly, repairing cells in our muscles (Eitel, 2013). Athletes constantly use their muscles to the
extreme, whether they are jumping, running, dribbling, swimming, or any other
physically taxing endeavor. With all of this
intense stress placed on their muscles, protein is a critical part of their
diet in order to maintain muscle strength.
That is not to say that non-athletes are immune from needing
protein. In general, by ingesting solid
amounts of protein, our body is able to create new cells to keep our muscles
strong.
Additionally, proteins help with hormone stability and
create a defense against bacteria and viruses.
Our bodies are made up of white and red blood cells. The main responsibility of our white blood
cells is to destroy harmful bacteria in our blood stream in order to avoid
illness. Researchers at the University
of California Los Angeles stated, “People who consume too little
protein have low immunity and are at risk of getting sick more frequently.”
Thus, more protein in the body is able to create more healthy white cells that
fight off more bacteria. Again, proteins
help with muscle growth, including HGH (human growth hormone) and testosterone,
which are “two of the most important hormones for muscle development” (UCLA,
2013). Therefore, not only are proteins
vital for athletes who constantly strain their muscles, but they are also
important for young, growing children, in which strong levels of HGH are
imperative for their muscle growth.
Now,
it is clear evident that proteins are vital for our bodies in general. However, the question still remains: Do
athletes need larger amounts of protein in order to demonstrate key performance
and to maintain strong, healthy muscles?
This question is not something that has a definitely answer,
unfortunately. The amount of necessary protein intake is a
subject that has been debated by several scientists throughout the years. Some have the same perspective as my father,
stating that athletes generally need more protein in order to be successful in
competitive activities, and to maintain strong muscle structure. On the contrary, others say that athletes
need just as much protein as everybody else, but no more. For athletes, being in top physical condition
is key. When I was in track season, I
had two to three hour long workouts almost every day, consisting of extensive
amounts of running, along with heavy, strenuous lifting. As one could imagine, my muscles constantly
ached from the stress I was putting on them.
However, because I was so active, I also increased my protein
intake. I completely avoided sugars and
greasy fats, and mainly ate vegetables, meats, cheeses, and other foods with
high protein contents.
Professional athletes do this as well, to an even higher
extent that I did. For instance take
Olympic sprinter Allyson Felix for example.
At one point considered the fastest woman in the world, Felix’s diet
obviously is an imperative part of her life and running career. “Like all sprinters Allyson
concentrates on intense workouts on the track and in the weight training room,
with a focus on explosive power using plyometric training. Therefore
her diet needs to be high-calorie and high-protein to ensure that she
maintains muscle weight and also has enough energy for intense training
workouts. She consumes around 3000 Calories a day and has said that she
loves to eat chicken, fish and lots of fruits”, (Wade, 2013). “Chicken, fish, and fruits” are all high in
good proteins that help to mend the body, and because athletes are so active,
mending proteins is what keeps them strong and healthy.
For
Allyson Felix, maintaining strong arm and leg muscles are what bring her
success on the track. However, all
sports require sufficient amounts of protein for different reasons. Along with being a muscle mender and disease
fighter, proteins also help with weight balance. Unlike carbohydrates and fats that increase
body weight, protein works to sustain a healthy weight, and even aids in weight
loss. One sport in which weight loss is
a key component is wrestling. Growing
up, my younger twin brothers were wrestlers.
During wrestling season, they would cut weight at extreme measures,
sometimes not eating for days. However,
when they did eat, they would only eat foods high in protein, such as rolled up
slices of turkey and ham, or small slices of cheese. Jennifer A. Case, a doctoral student at
Kansas State University, highly researched this phenomenon for her
dissertation. The studies she found “examined endurance performance, not
anaerobic or strength performance, which is the prevalent type of activity
performed in weight restricted sports.” Dipla as cited in Case (2013), “reported
that isoenergetic diets composed of higher protein did not impact
resistance-performance parameters, indicating that anaerobic performance may
not be inhibited when on a hypocaloric, higher- protein diet”. Earlier in her dissertation, she explained
that other diets with less protein intake and high levels of carbohydrates and
fats actually hurt performance. Thus, by
consuming more protein-based meals, Case (2013) found that athletes were more
likely to perform better, without any detriments caused by their diets.
While the above argument makes sense,
stating that high-protein diets help athletes to enhance their performance,
there is still the opposing argument to examine. While one side places proteins on a pedestal
for “increasing” athletic performance, and declaring that athletes need more
protein than their less-active counterparts, the other argument is that
athletes need no more protein than any other person, and that increased protein
intake does not help or hurt their athletic performances. This brings up another question: What is the
appropriate amount of protein a person needs?
The Journal of Sports Sciences took an in-depth look into this question
in the article “Proteins and Amino Acids for Athletes” by Kevin D. Tipton and
Robert R. Wolfe (2013). “The most commonly used definition for the
nutritional requirement for protein is the minimum amount ingested that will
balance all nitrogen losses and thus maintain nitrogen equilibrium (Millward as
cited in Tipton & Wolfe, 2013). This
being said, it can be concluded that not all athletes are the same, and their
required protein intakes are different. “[Coaches
and athletes] simply wish to know whether a particular athlete’s performance
will be enhanced by consuming more, or less, protein”, (Tipton & Wolfe,
2013). In fact, the appropriate
definition of protein requirement – that is, the optimal protein intake – will
vary depending on the training and competition goals of the athlete.” (Tipton & Wolfe, 2013). From their research they concluded that it
cannot really be accurately determined whether more actually “enhances”
athletic performance because protein intake varies depending on the athlete. While a sprinter like Allyson Felix may need
a certain protein intake to repair her muscles after intense sprint training, a
professional football player like Payton Manning may need a differing protein
intake to repair his muscles from intense weight lifting. Their sport, training, meals, and goals may
be different, but for both athletes, protein is central to their overall
athletic lifestyles. With that argument
in mind, my personal food choices are reflective of their model. If it works for the professionals, it should
work for the amateur athlete as well.
Speaking from this athlete perspective, I
am completely pro- protein. While it has
been a much-argued topic by many sports medicine scientists, both sides agree
that protein is monumentally important to us all, whether you are an athlete or
not. Although research shows that larger
amounts of protein do not actually boost athletic performance, without it,
athletic performance could be lessened and muscles hampered. As I stated previously, I make sure to eat
plenty of protein in my daily life, and especially on days where I have an
athletic related event. I will continue
to eat good, protein-loaded breakfasts, such as steak and eggs, or sausage,
along with incorporating protein into my other meals, from a snack of rolled
turkey slices to a chicken and vegetable dinner. Living a pro-protein lifestyle is engrained
in my food values. An athlete’s goal is
to be the best that they can possibly be during their performance. As I grow older and branch out my interests, I
see that this tenet crosses over into all aspects of life including, not only athletics,
but all physical and mental activities. Feeding
the mind and body is essential to overall health and wellness. My food values are foundationally set in the
assurance that I put good, quality foods into my body. Just about everybody has heard the saying
“You are what you eat.” This can apply
to anyone. If people choose to eat
healthy, muscle-mending, protein-packed foods, then their bodies are likely to be
in tip-top shape. Essentially, the main
message to take away is this: while protein meals may not physically “enhance”
an athlete’s performance, they aid in repairing muscles, and cannot hurt an
athlete’s goal. I am an athlete, and I
am pro-protein. What about you?
References
Case,
Jennifer A. "Protein Intake, Body Composition, and Athletic
Performance." Diss. Kansas State University, 2010. 2010. 21 May 2013. http://0-search.proquest.com.bianca.penlib.du.edu/docview/603189971
Eitel,
Joseph. "What Does Protein Help in Your Body?" LIVESTRONG.COM.
Live Strong, 11 Oct. 2011. 21 May 2013. http://www.livestrong.com/article/546662-what-does-protein-help-in-your-body/
Tipton,
Kevin D., and Robert R. Wolfe. "Protein and Amino Acids for
Athletes." Journal of Sports Sciences 22 (2004): 65-79. 21 May
2013. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/0264041031000140554
UCLA
Wade,
Jon. "Allyson Felix Training and Diet Regime." MotleyHealth. Motley
Health, 21 Aug. 2009. 21 May 2013. http://www.motleyhealth.com/athletes/allyson-felix-wins-womens-200m-final-in-berlin-2009
No comments:
Post a Comment