In my last blog post, I talked about how wrestlers have to have a safe diet or know more about their nutrition than other sports do. I think that it’s important though for all of the sports to know what a healthy diet is for them. In this blog post I’m going to talk about an athlete’s diet and what is considered healthy for them.
Now I do understand that losing some weight isn’t unhealthy. I found this article and on page 58 is talks about how athletes could sometimes use the weight loss to get ahead in their sports. It also says that losing weight requires athletes to look at their diet and how much water they are consuming.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.172.8950&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Like I said above, losing weight for an athlete isn’t unhealthy as long as it’s not an excessive amount of weight loss in a short amount of time. In another article that I found, they said that people who don’t exercise the same amount of athletes usually need about 1,500 to 2,000 calories a day. However, athletes could increase that number by either 500 to 1,000 more calories. This is due to the fact that athletes need to consume the same number of calories that they burn off.
In this same article, it says that calories of course come in different types which can be carbohydrates, fat, and protein. Carbohydrates is a big part of a person’s diet and usually consists of the most calories. Doctors say that 55% to 60% of a diet should be carbohydrates.
Fat is good for skin and hair care but should not be an athlete’s main food source for calories because it makes your body work harder. Doctors say that 30% of a person’s diet should be fats. Last is protein and for the last 10% to 15% protein should be used according to doctors.
The last thing this article talks about is staying hydrated and when to do it. The article says that a person should do it every 15 to 20 minutes but not to drink too much.
https://familydoctor.org/nutrition-for-athletes/
The reason I chose to bring this up is because knowing what an athlete’s diet looks like is just as important as knowing that they have eating disorders. If people start to see what they should be consuming, then maybe it could prevent an eating disorder. Or if coaches and athletes were a little bit more knowledgeable about a diet for someone who works out so often, then maybe that could help prevent eating disorders also. I think that it’s important to know more then to know less especially in this situation.
Eating Disorders within our Sports 