#3. Eat Like a Champion
You are what you eat—literally. Your body literally makes new cells out of the food you eat. Many athletes think that since they workout so much, they can basically eat and drink anything and "get away with it". And if the goal is simply maintaining a pretty good looking body, they're generally right. But if the goal is really elevating your game this summer, you've got to do better than that.
Champion eaters:
- Drink water all day long, a minimum of 64 ounces.
- Eat whole, unprocessed, real foods. There are foods and there are "food products." Foods are naturally occurring. They are whole, unprocessed, and by their nature, they are real foods. "Food products" are man made by taking foods and processing them in some way. Processing decreases the nutritional value of foods. Foods trump food products every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Foods have the highest nutrient value because they have maintained their natural integrity. Eat meat, eggs, vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds—this is the high-octane, kick-butt stuff! Other than spices and mildly refined oils, eat everything else sparingly, if at all.
- Front load your intake. Eat a large breakfast or at least a solid breakfast and a mid-morning snack. You should have about two-thirds of your food intake by 1 o'clock in the afternoon. Many athletes skimp on breakfast, if they eat breakfast at all, and gorge themselves at dinner and after dinner. To best fuel your workouts and to best provide nutrients for recovery, you are better off eating evenly throughout the day, such as having about one-third of your intake at breakfast, one-third at lunch, and one-third at dinner. Did you know that as a means of packing more fat on their bodies, some sumo wrestlers employ a strategy of skipping breakfast and feasting in the evenings? Don't be a sumo triathlete—eat breakfast!
