OLYMPIC DIET: GOLDEN FOOD

A healthy and balanced diet is the most common resource for women who aim to get a harmonious and healthy body. However, they also wish to accomplish this goal with the practice of sports activities that require physical exertion, such as swimming, running and cross fit. For this it is necessary to maintain a diet that complies with other nutritional requirements, one example is the Olympic diet.

The Olympic diet is known among high-performance athletes who seek the big variety of menus that this diet proposes to ingest and replenish the nutrients the body needs before and after physical training.

This diet originated in England by the hands of the nutritionist Samantha Stear, who spread the diet through her book “Fuelling Fitness for Sports Performance”. In the publication, Stear indicated the elements that should be part of this type of diet, consisting of a total of six daily meals, in which carbohydrates, fats and some proteins are plentiful.

The Olympic diet is for Stear and for the athletes who make use of it today, one of the determining factors in the conquest of gold in international competitions.

Although the diet was designed for men and women who wanted to improve their physical performance in sports, it was the North American swimmer Michael Phelps one of the first athletes to make known, let us say with sufficient evidence, the effects of incorporating these changes in his diet during the training period.

At the time, Phelps’ training team unveiled the athlete’s menu, which consisted in the intake of 4000 or 7000 calories per day, depending on the proximity of the sporting event for which he was preparing himself to.

Carbohydrates are the protagonists of the Olympic diet, since they are the ones that produce glucose that is transformed into energy, which muscles need to perform in physical activities and avoid sudden fatigue or tiredness. Carbohydrates like rice, potatoes, oatmeal and breads represent 60% of the composition of the diet. While proteins represent between 15% and 20% and the rest of the composition consists of fats. In the same way, jams, whole milk, energy drinks, honey and bananas are frequently consumed.

This type of diet, designed to optimize the performance of the muscles, which intervenes in the performance of the physical activity, can be applied by individuals or non-professional athletes during their preparation for athletic challenges such as marathons, swimming competitions or bike racing.

In the Olympic diet there is no room for mistakes, because the menus explicitly state the type of food and the portions to be included in the meals of everyone that “takes training seriously”, as explained the doctor of the British team Richard Budgett in his statements about diet designed by Stear .

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