Most athletes simply don’t match the quality of their nutrition to the incredible physical demands they place on their bodies. Most bodybuilders do not eat well enough to properly support even general health during intense exercise.
According to many nutrition studies, most Americans eat less than 20 different foods in their lifetime. Athletes and bodybuilders restrict their choices even further, often only eating 5 or 6 foods in total; chicken, rice, oatmeal, egg whites, protein supplements and maybe some green beans! That’s the staple diet of most bodybuilders and athletes.
However, restricting food selection does handicap a person’s ability to achieve optimum health. The typical athlete’s approach to eating is a very narrow-minded, lazy approach to nutrition that not only does very little to support general health during intense training; it probably retards the physiological adaptations desired from training.
The most effective way to optimize health (and therefore ensure much better results from training), is to increase the variety of foods consumed each day.
There is an easy rule you can follow that will increase the variety of foods you consume each day. The rule is simple, add color into your diet!
When purchasing foods at the market go for bright colors (and I’m not talking about the design on the cereal box either!) For example, when choosing fruits and vegetables, (yes, fruit should be a staple of every athlete’s diet), instead of the usual bananas and box of raisins, chose blueberries, raspberries, kiwi fruit, cantaloupe and other melons.
Research shows that brightly colored fruits and vegetables contain more nutrients. Therefore, peppers, pumpkin, squash and greens such as broccoli, kale, and spinach should be an athlete’s first choices in the produce section.
If you follow this simple advice, I can virtually guarantee the improvements you’ll achieve from training in the next three months will be double what you’ve experienced in the previous three months.
