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| Fruit stall in Phnom Penh, Cambodia - it just looks so good for you! |
Nutrition and diet are tricky topics for women interested in sport. What should we eat? How much of it should we eat? If my friend is eating that, should I be doing the same? On and on and on, it’s a total minefield.
But without the right fuel training can be a disaster. There are so many long-term effects too, strange things happening inside us we don’t even spot at the moment we do the damage.
I stopped eating meat when I was 17, a typical teenage rebellion really along with a whole list of other “—-isms”. This became a problem when I got into professional-level MuayThai and realised I just wasn’t eating right. My trainers’ advice was to eat meat and stop being an idiot - thanks for that guys.
Instead I became a research queen and figured out how to keep kicking and hold onto most of my ethics. I eat fish, a lot of fish actually but still no meat. And no judgements for women who choose other paths - just stay healthy! Meat didn’t work for me but it does for millions of people.
I’ve launched a new page for this site - eating for sport. You can find the link at the top of your screen. Instead of my advice which is really only relevant to myself, I’ve posted links to fact-sheets from two of my go-to websites.
One is the Australian Institute of Sport. Australia is simply the most sports-mad country I can think of and there is a lot of competition for that title. Their national teams are so well-looked after, it would make you green. That advice is worth gold, really.
The other is the Irish Nutrition and Dietetics Institute. Dietitians are the people trained to look at diets in a real micro-fashion and will help you find the best balance for you. In Ireland they’re the only ones recognised by the State health system so I’ll take that.
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