While eliminating \u201cbad\u201d and \u201cdirty\u201d foods is a noble attempt to put premium nutrition into your body’s engine, the questions arise:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Do you really need to eat a \u201cperfect diet\u201d to have an \u201cexcellent diet\u201d? No<\/li>\n
- Does enjoying a hot dog or a candy bar once in a blue moon negate all of the \u201cgood stuff\u201d you generally eat? No<\/li>\n
- Do have to \u201ccheat\u201d on your birthday so you can partake in cake with your family and friends? Heavens no!!!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
In my opinion, there is no such thing as a \u201cbad food.\u201d There is a bad diet, yes, as judged by looking at the whole day\u2019s intake. That is, 50 calories from refined sugar in 8-ounces of sports drink will not ruin your health. But consuming 400 calories from a half-gallon of sports drink displaces a significant number of nutrient-dense foods\u2014as well as can ruin your teeth. (Sipping all day on sugary, acidic fluids damages tooth enamel.)<\/p>\n
While foods with little nutritional value fail to invest in an athlete\u2019s well-being and ability to withstand the demands of rigorous training, occasional \u201cjunk food\u201d does not ruin health when eaten in moderation. You can indeed have an excellent diet without having a perfect diet.<\/p>\n
How much \u201cjunk food\u201d is OK to eat?
\n<\/strong>![\"donuts-and-milk\"](\"https:\/\/medfitnetwork.org\/public\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/donuts-and-milk-300x200.jpg\")
A healthful sports diet can target 85 to 90-percent of calories from quality foods and 10 to 15-percent from \u201cwhatever.\u201d Some days \u201cwhatever\u201d might be blueberries and other days it might be (guilt-free) blueberry pie with ice cream. Given that you can ingest the recommended intake of all the vitamins, minerals, and protein you need within 1,500 calories from a variety of wholesome foods, a hungry athlete who consumes 2,000 to 4,000 calories a day has the opportunity to consume LOTS of nutrients. For example, 8 ounces of orange juice offers 100% of the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for Vitamin C. A thirsty runner who chugs the whole quart can consume 4 times the RDA in that one snack. OJ is better than an all-natural vitamin pill!<\/p>\nBut isn\u2019t fruit juice filled with sugar?
\n<\/strong>Yes, all the calories in juice come from natural sugar. This sugar fuels muscles. Vitamin C, potassium, folate, and a multitude of health-protective, anti-inflammatory bio-active compounds also come in the juice. For athletes who want to eat \u201chealthy\u201d but have trouble getting in enough calories to maintain weight, I often recommend grape, pomegranate, tart cherry, orange, and blueberry juices. (In contrast, overfat people who reduce their juice intake can easily delete some calories. For them, eating the whole fruit would be more satiating.)<\/p>\nShould athletes try to avoid refined sugar?
\n<\/strong>Refined white sugar is a nutritional zero, void of any vitamins, minerals or protein. Yet, the calories in sugar come from carbohydrates. Muscles welcome these carbs to fuel depleted glycogen stores. Muscles don\u2019t know the difference between carbs from juice, candy, and sports drinks vs. apple, sweet potato, and banana. The difference shows up in health, immune response, and ability to fight off colds and flu.<\/p>\nA rule of thumb is to limit refined sugar to 10% of total calories. For most active women, that equates to 200 to 250+ calories from sugar a day. And for active men, 250 to 300+ calories. That means, an athlete could enjoy either 16-ounces of a sports drink and a gel or a few cookies\u2014and stay within the recommended sugar-budget for the day.<\/p>\n
Note: The sugar is evil message is targeted to the 66% of Americans who are overfat and underfit, not to athletes. The muscles of athletes easily take up sugar from the bloodstream with far less insulin than needed by unfit people. Hence, unfit people who sip on Big Slurpees all day easily consume excessive, health-erosive sugar-calories. They need to seriously think about their future and if they want to be vibrant and healthy enough to enjoy fun times.<\/p>\n
![\"farmersmarket\"](\"https:\/\/medfitnetwork.org\/public\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/farmersmarket-300x224.jpg\")
Can you eat too healthfully?
\n<\/strong>Yes. Eating too many healthy foods can actually be bad for you. For example, fruits & veggies are healthy foods, but eating only fruits & veggies creates a bad diet. Eliminating all unhealthy foods is also needless. Enjoying birthday cake can be good for the soul!<\/p>\nRather than categorize a food as being \u201cbad,\u201d please look at your whole diet to see if it is balanced. I differentiate between a diet filled with PopTarts for breakfast, Fluffer-nutters for lunch, candy bars for snacks, and sweet & sour chicken for dinner vs. the occasional PopTart tossed into a gym bag for a pre-exercise energy booster when traveling to an event. While not trendy, choosing a balanced sports diet based on moderate portions offers a sustainable, effective path that can help you eat well, perform well, and feel great.<\/p>\n
\nFrom Clark’s column, The Athlete\u2019s Kitchen<\/em>
\nCopyright: Nancy Clark MS RD CSSD March 2015<\/em><\/p>\nNancy Clark, MS, RD counsels active people at her private practice in Newton, MA (617-795-1875). Her Sports Nutrition Guidebook and food guides for marathoners, soccer players, and cyclists offer abundant tips to help you balance your sports diet. The books are available at www.nancyclarkrd.com<\/a>. For online education, visit www.NutritionSportsExerciseCEUs.com.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Many athletes go to great extremes to eat healthfully. Needless to say, the definition of \u201ceating healthfully\u201d varies from person to person\u2014and often takes on a religious zeal. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":11279,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[139],"class_list":["post-11276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-mfn","tag-nutrition"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medfitnetwork.org\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medfitnetwork.org\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medfitnetwork.org\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medfitnetwork.org\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medfitnetwork.org\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11276"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/medfitnetwork.org\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30223,"href":"https:\/\/medfitnetwork.org\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11276\/revisions\/30223"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medfitnetwork.org\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medfitnetwork.org\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medfitnetwork.org\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medfitnetwork.org\/public\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}