Original subtitles

What is on your plate?

What do you eat?

And do you have specific products that you eat to support training

and performance?

In this video, you will learn how an athlete should consider his or her diet,

and how the sport nutrition pyramid is used to build an athlete’s diet.

Sport dieticians and sport nutritionist love to look at an athlete’s diet

as being it a Pyramid.

With a solid base, a tailor made mid-section,

and as finishing touch the tip of the pyramid.

These three layers are:

a balanced diet - to support an healthy and active lifestyle.

Sport-specific nutrition –

to optimize performance and recovery for competition and training

and supplements – the icing on the cake to give the final winning edge.

But be sure that the icing is proven effective and legal.

A well balanced diet is and should always be the foundation of an athlete’s diet.

And energy intake is the cornerstone of such a diet.

Being active, doing exercise requires an optimal energy intake

to support all body functions.

Weight loss or changes in body composition can be a goal of an

athlete’s diet, but on the long run energy intake should balance energy needs.

If not so, the so-called Relative Energy Deficiency in Sports,

or Red-S syndrome can develop.

In this syndrome, body function and performance will be compromised

due to the metabolic, and physiological complications of low energy availability.

A balanced diet also contains adequate macronutrients,

like carbohydrates and proteins to allow daily exercise and sufficient fluid intake

to stay hydrated.

Finally, adequate intake of micronutrients and other bio-active nutrients –

like dietary fibres, are also an important component of this balanced diet.

Just like the recommendations for the general population,

an athlete should eat a varied diet with fruit and vegetables,

and limit the intake of added sugars, saturated fat and sodium.

For some of the micronutrients, like for example iron or calcium,

the need can be slightly higher for specific athletic populations.

However, as energy needs and intake are higher in athletes,

a well-balanced diet will automatically increase the intake of,

for example calcium.

Making the need for micronutrient supplementation little,

as you can see in this figure.

The second part of the pyramid is Sport specific nutrition to optimize performance

and recovery for competition and key training sessions.

Think of specific macronutrient and fluid strategies on top of your balanced diet

to meet training and competition goals.

Timing is an important aspect of sport-specific nutrition.

For example: the ingestion of high-quality protein is most effective

immediately after your work-out.

And ingesting carbohydrates during exercise will benefit

endurance exercise performance.

This sport-specific nutrition can just be normal products

with the right amount of macronutrients, like a bowl of quark.

But, for your convenience, sport nutrition products are developed

with the optimal composition, that meet specific demands.

Like rehydration drinks, energy bars and gels, or protein shakes.

When an athlete, together with a nutrition expert like a dietician,

have optimised the diet and incorporated sport-specific nutritional strategies,

the tip of the pyramid can be the addition of Supplements.

A supplement is something that should be used to "supplement" your diet,

not replace it, nor it should be the main focus.

The supplement market is huge, with the most outrageous claims.

You should be critical, and many claims are not backed-up by science.

A simple rule of thumb is that: ‘when it sounds too good to be true,

it generally isn’t true’.

Some supplements, however, can give a small – but meaningful -

performance benefit.

And in athlete’s sports, marginal gains can be the difference between winning

or losing a race.

Examples of supplements that are backed-up by science are caffeine,

creatine, B-alanine and also a supplement like beet-root juice.

Whether a supplement works for you could be best discussed with experts.

What is the scientific evidence?

How well was it investigated?

What was the study design, and the population under investigation?

And did it affect performance parameters that are relevant for my sport?

You have now learned what the sport nutrition pyramid is.

In practice, unfortunately, it is incredibly common that people pay more attention

and time to supplements than to a balanced diet due to beliefs

or as is advocated by self-claimed experts.

They turn the pyramid upside down!

Building a proper athlete’s diet follows a step-wise approach.

Start with a balanced diet, covering daily energy, macronutrients and fluid needs.

In the next step consider sport-specific nutritional strategies,

which include timing of nutrient intake to optimize performance and recovery.

And finally, carefully decide whether adding supplements could work for you.