A
lot of peple have a little vision within which to accomplish
something great. This is a gift because the majority of people were
not born with the natural skills or talents to even get a chance.
If
you're one of the lucky few, you need to take advantage of that
privilege. For once its gone, it's gone forever. Don't spend your
time, you have the rest of your life to kick back, follow the crowd
and be mediocre.
Right
now in this moment, while your opportunity is here, why not do
everything possible to give yourself the best chance of succeeding ?
Why not use every weapon at your disposal to maximize your true
athletic potential ?
Expend Your Potential and Diet ary Control
The
best weapon is your diet. Sadly, it is the highest unoticed by
performance athletes, because the truth is you can perform decently
on a suboptimal diet. Look, there is no arguing that given some
bullsh*t lists I've seen with a lot of my friends. Do you know what a
candy dumping is ?
But
you certainly are not maximizing your true potential and performing
at your genetic peak with this approach.
Our
generation has lost something. We've become a bunch of wimp expecting
something for nothing, always looking for that quick fix.
We've
lost that ability to strive, to sacrifice, to set goals, to do
everything possible to achive them and to never waver in their
pursuit.
We
will cheat the system and take short cuts any chance we can get; yet
we shy away from the day-to-day grind is really necessary to climb to
the top. We will take a pill, but won't change our daily habits..
Well
before we talk about dietary details, we need to take our time to
look at the bigger picture. If we don't solve this dilemma, all
subsequent nutrition articles will be insignificant.
Athlete or Average?
Now
you consider yourself an ahtlete or an average guy/girl ? You need to
decide right now, seriously. The first gets more leeway, sympathy and
handholding. The second is a (or femal equivalent) when they show up
to a training session with a bagel in hand, sipping on a latte.
Do
you have the good fuel to prepare your body to war or do you eat like
a child ? Eating a snickers bar while you chat on Facebook ?
A
few workout in a week for the average dude then goes and hands out at
McDonald's. The athletes lives like on 24/7, wheter their coach is
watching over them or not, whether its "tough" and
"difficult" or not.
Are
you an average dude or an athlete ? There's not a good or bad
response. But as a personal trainer, I need to know. Because you talk
to guys on the field a lot different than the ones sitting in the
stands.
I
am very surprised to see guys and girls train like madmen, then go
out to eat pizza and ice cream. They have the discipline of a warrior
but a crap excuse-maker outside of it.
You're
saying you have dreams and want to be the greatest, but your actions
says the opposite.
It's How You Live NOT How You Lift
Why
eat junk food to increase calories and support your training ? Do you
want to follow plans based on marketing material or plans based on
science, or common sense ?
What
do you think a dietary induced, chronically inflamed body is doing to
your ability to recover from your training sessions, or for your
nagging knee and shoulder pain?
That
pastry sounds like sh*ts and giggles to the average, but its not if
you have elite goals.
Insulin
sensitivity, cellular integrity and optimal nutrient partitioning can
all degenerate over time with a poor diet. What do you think that
does to your capacity to put on functional muscle that make you
faster and more powerful versus non-functional fat that makes you
slower and less explosive ?
Well,
you may be able get away with whatever you want nutritionally, but
the small percentage who extend their careers into their latter years
are the ones who took care of their bodies and followed an informed
path right from the beginning.
Live
like an athlete if you call yourself an athlete – on the field, in
the gyme and in the kitchen.
Easy Start – Better Food Choices
I
don't wish this article is just a philosophy or psychology thing. You
need to use it.as well.
So
how should an athlete nutritionally support their competition and
training demands? Do it through quality, nutrient dense
foods that serve a physiological and metabolic purpose.
So
hit those high quality animal proteins for the essential amino acids
necessary to build lean muscle mass, and for the essential fatty
acids and good fats necessary to support optimum hormone production.
We’re
talking grass-fed beef, wild fish, free-range poultry, and eggs —
all hormone and anti-biotic free, of course.
Don’t
eat fast food, salami slices, or candy bars with protein added to it
to justify “getting your protein in”. The #5 combo will be
waiting for you when you’re trying to grow some chins, not be fast
and powerful enough to land that knockout punch on your opponent’s
chin.
Include
some plant foods like vegetables and whole fruits for a variety of
micronutrients and phytonutrients, not a bunch of empty calories
combined with randomly shot-gunning a bunch of pills to try and make
up for the nutrient deficiencies.
Maybe
your mother thinks eating a bowl of cornflakes and chewing on a
multivitamin pill is the Athlete’s Way. I don’t.
And
carbs? I love Paleo nutrition as a baseline template. It
automatically gets rid of many of the problematic compounds in the
modern Y2K diet. That’s why 80% of my dietary recommendations are
based off of it.
But
as a high performance athlete, you can’t follow it all the way down
the rabbit hole and end up in some dietary cult. You’re not a
sedentary, pre-diabetic, insulin resistant office worker. And you are
certainly not a caveman. You’re a modern athlete with modern
performance goals.
The
game is different. You need to understand a thing or two about
exercise physiology, and integrate some modern, researched, Sports
Nutrition principles to properly fuel and recover from your training
sessions.
Many
athletes get caught up in following the universal, dogmatic
proclamations of carbophobic academics whose only sport has ever been
jogging. But high intensity strength and intermittent sprint sports
are fueled by metabolism, which can only run on glucose/glycogen.
That
doesn’t mean loading up on bologne sandwiches and fruit roll ups.
You want starches without the toxic compounds, potential food
allergens, or “anti-nutrients” that can wreck the digestive
system, impair nutrient absorption, and leave you tired and
lethargic.
So
cut the sugar, refined flour, and gluten-based starches. Stick with
starchy tubers (yams, sweet potatoes, white potatoes) and white rice
to support your training.
Drink
some high quality water, not Diet Coke.
Conclusion
I
get it. It’s easy to watch highlights of your favorite athlete, or
film on your next opponent, or just flip through the pages of
Playboy, crank up some AC/DC, and get amped up like a madman to
train.
When
the adrenaline subsides, and some semblance of a normal human being
returns, however, it is a lot harder to get fired up to eat a
grass-fed steak and potato instead of pizza and fries. But I believe
it’s equally important to your long-term athletic success.
For
every one genetically gifted or drug enhanced athlete that can get
away with a crappy diet, there are ten that can’t. Everything you
put into your body makes a difference. It’s up to you whether that
difference is positive or negative.
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