Eat yourself fitter

Athletes of the new millennium have access to a far greater range of foods than those who competed in the early Olympic Games and yet they share many of the same misunderstandings about the influence of food on performance. One of the shared myths is that there are “ergogenic supplements” that, when found, will allow athletes to train hard, recover quickly, and compete more successfully than their rivals. The reality is that if they exist, then they are probably pharmacological rather than nutritional supplements. Furthermore, in searching for such “quick fix foods” the contributions of commonly available foods to health and exercise performance are easily overlooked. The first and foremost nutritional need of athletes is for a well balanced diet, made up of a wide range of foods in sufficient quantity to cover their energy expenditure. Thereafter, they can adopt nutritional strategies to ensure that they can train, compete, and recover more successfully than they would if left to follow their own appetites and perceptions about what and when to eat.