Sports Nutrition: Player’s accountability is key for its success

2024-02-26 08:24:34

Sports Nutrition: Player’s accountability is key for its success

Are they actually following the plan? Is often the question I get embroiled with. You could write for your athletes the finest nutrition strategy in the globe: break it down by macros, timing, and even particular dishes that they should consume every day. But even the finest of strategy will not work if they do not follow it. I’ve questioned my athletes many times about their nutrition, and the answer I get back is as ambiguous as, “Yeah Ryan, I ate whatever healthy stuff I got here” When you are trying to achieve sporting excellence, hard training alone isn’t enough; you need to be accountable for what you are putting into your body.

We are making our clients accountable

Education

Since most of the athletes travel for their competitions, they need to make nutrition decisions on their own and it is extremely important to educate them. They must be aware of foods that they are putting into their body and impact that it makes on their performance. We educate our athletes through one on one counseling with their nutritionists. The necessity & impact of each food item in the chart is clearly explained. In addition to their regular diet chart, competition guidelines are also provided to the traveling athletes, which includes foods that they will find in the local area & foods that they need to carry with them for competitions. When you plan in detail and involve the athlete in the process, you make them accountable for taking care of their nutrition needs and then “Yeah Ryan, I ate whatever healthy stuff I got here” is not an excuse anymore.

Food Diary

If athletes say they are eating healthy, we say – show us! If they say they are following the plan – show us! We have created a system at QUA Nutrition known as ‘Food Diary’ where we form a group among athlete, parents & nutritionist. Athletes/Parents are required to maintain their food logs throughout the day. They click the pictures of the food and share on the common platform for us to see what they are eating. This is an amazing space where we get a chance to share some additional inputs, to check if they are following their plan, involve in some hilarious conversations, witness shocking actions like self prescribing supplements (which you should not do. It is a killer) & some inspiring responses from young athletes.