Healthy Eating

HEALTHY EATING
AS THE FOUNDATION OF
SPORTS PERFORMANCE
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INTRODUCTION
Sports nutrition is a broad area of study
containing significant amounts of nuance,
caveats, and exceptions.
This is to be expected when you’re looking to

provide the perfect fuel for individuals ranging
from pro golfers to hurdlers, or from gymnasts
to wrestlers.
Nonetheless there are some broad principles

that apply across the board regardless of your
training modality or level, all of which stem from
a single core principle: Sports Nutrition is the
icing on top of the Healthy Eating cake.
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WHAT DO WE MEAN BY HEALTHY EATING?

Health screening is obviously important, so gather
as much history as possible about the client’s
overall wellbeing.
Sleep, stress and time management are three

areas that most modern people struggle with, and
it’s no secret that we are typically ‘on the go’ 24/7,
leaving very little time for important relaxation.
It’s also critical to find out if there are any

constraints to your practice, so that you can refer
on to someone better equipped to help. Once you
have done the usual groundwork the next priority
for all your clients is to consume a diet of mostly
single ingredient whole foods.
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WHAT IS HEALTHY EATING FOR AN ATHLETE?
Health has been defined in a number of

different ways, including the famous WHO
quote “A complete state of physical, social, and
mental wellbeing, not simply the absence of
illness or infirmity”.
Healthy Eating, therefore, is an approach to

nutrition which provides an adequate amount of
all key nutrients necessary for physical
wellbeing, while also supporting good mental
health and social engagement.
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WHAT IS HEALTHY EATING FOR AN ATHLETE?
In the context of athletic performance, physical

wellbeing is supported by making sure you
consume a sufficient number of calories to support
daily function as well as your training demands,
consuming an abundance of micronutrients to avoid
sickness that can be exacerbated by a physically
demanding lifestyle, and of course by choosing
foods rich in the phytonutrients that can help
combat longer term sickness.
After all, you can’t perform well if you’re sick, and

you can’t be a lifelong athlete if you start to develop
chronic disease. For today we’ll focus on the
nutrient needs.
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WHY FOCUS ON THIS?

Athletes need to perform. That’s what they do. While it’s
often tempting to talk about nutrition exclusively in the short-
term context of fueling and then recovering from exercise or
competition with calories and macronutrients, it’s important
to remember that people don’t eat these numerical values,
they eat foods, and so while the amount you eat is
extremely important to keep an eye on, so are the things
you eat in order to hit the desired figures.
The foods you eat can help maintain physical wellbeing or

they cannot, and while a single food won’t make or break
you, the cumulative effect of all of your dietary choices can
matter greatly. There is no worse-performing athlete than a
sick athlete, and so if you want to be able to really put your
body through the ringer and come out the other side without
picking something up that will put you on the side lines for
days or even weeks, your health needs to be of paramount
interest to you.
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NUTRIENTS – THE FORESTS AND THE TREES

It’s always possible to get far into the weeds when
planning your nutritional approach, but there’s no area
where this is truer than it is with micronutrients.
Planning a diet meticulously to ensure you get adequate

amounts of Vitamin B12, important for metabolizing the
homocysteine produced during exercise.
Vitamin D for bone mineralization, magnesium for

healthy cell function, and so on, would be extremely
stressful, and that’s before we talk about polyphenols
and flavonoids.
Rather than looking to each nutrient and the source food,

therefore, it’s beneficial to look to broader dietary
patterns and the benefits they can convey.
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STRUCTURING A BROADLY HEALTHY DIET FOR THE ATHLETE

When looking to broader dietary patterns for
improvements in physical health, the Mediterranean
style diet is by far the most well supported strategy
in the scientific literature.
This diet, characterized by a large number of fruits

and vegetables, whole grains, fish and other
monounsaturated fatty acid sources, moderate
consumption of unprocessed dairy and minimal
consumption of other processed foods, is
repeatedly found to reduce risk of cardiovascular
events, diabetes, and other chronic conditions. A
review of the literature published in 2021 (1) points
to the way that this can convey benefits to athletes,
too.
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HOW TO WORK TOWARDS A MEDITERRANEAN DIET

There are almost innumerable iterations of an MD, though the
general idea would be to structure your meals around a rich
variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, all of which will provide
micro- and phytonutrients necessary for maintaining good
health, along with dietary fibre to support a healthy digestive
system and microbiome.
From there, focus your choices around whole grains, lean

meats, fish (ideally oily), monounsaturated fat sources like
avocado and olive oil, moderate amounts of dairy and a
minimal number of ultra-processed foods.
This way of looking at sports nutrition may not be the most

exciting thing in the world, but if you can achieve this, you’ll be
in a better position than most others in your field when bugs
start to go around, or as you age. It’s from this baseline that
we’ll look to refine your dietary approach over the coming few
months.
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REFERENCES
Griffiths, A., Matu, J., Whyte, E., Akin-Nibosun, P., Clifford, T., Stevenson,
E., & Shannon, O. (2022). The Mediterranean dietary pattern for
optimising health and performance in competitive athletes: A narrative
review. British Journal of Nutrition, 128(7), 1285-1298.
doi:10.1017/S0007114521003202
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THE AUTHOR
Tom Bainbridge (CISSN) is the Head Tutor and
course writer with The BTN Academy as well as a
public speaker, co-host of Ben Coomber Radio, and
Online Fitness Coach. A lifelong learner, Tom prides
himself on being able to communicate complex
ideas in a way that is simultaneously engaging and
accessible.
Tom is an absolute guru when it comes to nutrition,

and he has created a series of awesome eBooks
for SCC!
Check out the BTN website:

https://btn.academy
HOPE YOU ENJOYED
OUR CONTENT
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This is to be expected when you’re looking to

Nonetheless there are some broad principles

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY HEALTHY EATING?

Sleep, stress and time management are three

It’s also critical to find out if there are any

WHAT IS HEALTHY EATING FOR AN ATHLETE?

Health has been defined in a number of

Healthy Eating, therefore, is an approach to

WHAT IS HEALTHY EATING FOR AN ATHLETE?

In the context of athletic performance, physical

After all, you can’t perform well if you’re sick, and

WHY FOCUS ON THIS?

The foods you eat can help maintain physical wellbeing or

NUTRIENTS – THE FORESTS AND THE TREES

Planning a diet meticulously to ensure you get adequate

Vitamin D for bone mineralization, magnesium for

Rather than looking to each nutrient and the source food,

STRUCTURING A BROADLY HEALTHY DIET FOR THE ATHLETE

This diet, characterized by a large number of fruits

HOW TO WORK TOWARDS A MEDITERRANEAN DIET

From there, focus your choices around whole grains, lean

This way of looking at sports nutrition may not be the most

Tom is an absolute guru when it comes to nutrition,

Check out the BTN website:

BECOME THE EXPERT

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