Change of Diet. Change of Lifestyle?

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Being a high performance athlete means that your body is your job. Just as people rely on their computers, their education and their special skills for their work, we rely on our bodies. Sometimes we, as athletes, forget that sport science (nutrition, physiology, psychology) is a huge part in our success on the field. Recently, the Women's field hockey team has been making great strides in a long-term plan that includes enhancing all these aspects of sports science for the athletes. Unfortunately, though the implementation can be immediate, often effects can take 2-3 years.

Today I had my first meeting with our team nutritionist. I gave her a sample of two "regular days" of diet intake and she went through it with me. Because I wasn't able to go on tour to San Diego, I missed out on a lot of valuable learning from her while she was there with the team during competition. It's important to know about nutrition but also about when it changes based on what are you doing and when you are doing it.

Lately, I thought I had been making some great strides in my diet change since I switched to some vegan options. I learned a lot about meat alternatives and eating more fruits and vegetables. I learned a lot more today in a 30 minute debrief with our team nutritionist. Here are some tips that she gave me. Keep in mind that this is for me and may not apply for average day-to-day diets...

Protein

I need to take in about 85-95g of protein per day and that means throughout the day. A little bit of protein with every meal/snack is the goal and to give you an idea of those amounts you can look at 1 cup of skim milk (8g protein), 3oz (size of a deck of cards) of chicken/salmon/beef (24g protein), 1/2 cup greek yogurt (12g protein). The goal is about 20-25g protein in a meal and about 10-15g protein in a snack. I learned that Greek yogurt is very high in protein and you can mix it with a flavoured low-fat yogurt if that helps the taste. Also, think about cutting your steak in half when you order at a restaurant and only eating a deck of cards sized portion. Save the rest for tomorrow's lunch!

IBS Symptoms

If any of you have experienced IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) and know how painful and uncomfortable it is then here's the solution: Bio-K. It is rather expensive but you can take it every day for 3 weeks and then start to lower the amounts just to maintain the bacteria levels. It sounds gross, but it really helps fight all those nasty symptoms you get from IBS. Another alternative is a over the counter probiotic capsule, whatever is cheapest. I'm going to look into it and I'll let you know how it goes.

Breakfast

You have to stay away from the sugar cereals, which is basically everything that we love. I thought I had already switched to a great cereal by ditching the crappy stuff and going to Oatmeal Crisp. Those come in a variety of flavours (which are all high in sugar) but I thought I was winning on the Fiber factor. It turns out, I'm not. Our nutritionist suggested Fiber One with a cup of Bran Flakes. BOO! That sounds boring and gross, but yes, nutritional value? Low in sugar, high in fiber.. full of good stuff for ya! Pair that with 1 cup of skim milk (no less) and you are getting your protein in take too!

Tea/Caffeine

I'm a huge tea addict, not for the caffeine but I just love tea. I was trying to swap around between sugar, honey and agave syrup but it turns out that my best bet is just 1tsp of sugar (down from the usual 2). Honey and agave are very high in sugar and the sugar is dissolved in it so you probably are ingesting more per tsp than an actual tsp of table sugar. As well, apparently she is all-for caffeine pills (when needed). I haven't gotten more info on that but I'll be sure to ask her about it.

Improving your meals

So, I put down Kraft Dinner as something that I ate and she said it is okay but use it as an opportunity to add vegetables. She said to add peas, broccoli, grated carrots too! Not only do veggies bulk it up so that you eat less (by eating more veggies), but you are getting the health benefits from them too. Duh. I also said that I had yam tempura once and she said thumbs down to that because it is so high in fat. Try a salmon or tuna roll instead.

Diluting the Calories

So, I learned a lot about how to cut small amounts of calories here and there. If you take off 1tsp of sugar per cup of tea, add that up over a week and you've saved a tonne of calories. Just keep doing the math. It's sad, but when you are well-educated about it all you can make it second nature and just eat healthy by habit not as a conscious effort. You can also change the ratios of foods for example:

1/3 cup of pasta + 2/3 cup of vegetables = 200 kcal

2/3 cup of pasta + 1/3 cup of vegetables = 300 kcal

So if you choose the first one, you save 100 calories, and for 7 meals, you would save 700 calories!!! THAT kind of stuff hits home hard. So, think about your calories when you're eating that starchy stuff (pasta, bread, chips, high sugar products).

Milk and Dairy

I'm not a huge fan of dairy products but I did learn that it is important to drink milk and studies show that skim milk is the best. Yes, it's very low in fat but it's also very high in necessary proteins! I'm talking proteins you can't get from supplementary milks like almond milk. So, I'm going to be drinking more skim milk as part of my snacks and also mixing it with a low-fat So Good Soya milk!

That's some of the key stuff that I learned today. Maybe it will be helpful for you! More to come as I embark on this huge quest that is....eating right!

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• Health & Fitness, Nutrition