Distilled Nutrition Advice for Athletes

Here are some basic rules I've come to believe in and try to practice with regard to healthy eating (with a few specific to fat-loss). It's a simple set of habits that make up for a good and sustainable eating program.

• Eat complete, lean protein (meat or eggs) with each meal. Servings should be about the size of your fist. Your overall protein intake should make up at least 30% of your total calories. Or, to think of it another way, try to eat 1g of protein per pound of lean body mass. I generally try to get something like 100-120g of protein each day.
• Eat vegetables (or fruit, but in lower quantities) with each meal. A serving of fruit is about 5 ounces, which is about half of one of those huge apples you can buy from the commissary fruit guy! On the other hand, I can eat 2 cups of cabbage for the same number of calories.
• Ensure that your carbohydrate intake comes from fruits and vegetables, rather than starches and grains. No bread, crackers, rice, etc.
• Avoid sugar like the plague! It ages you, spikes your insulin levels, messes with your metabolism, and is generally evil.
• Drink only non-calorie containing beverages, the best choices being water and green tea.
• Eat mostly whole foods; avoid things that come in packages or boxes.
• Overall, aim for a rough calorie ratio of 30-40% carbohydrates, 30-35% protein, and 25-35% fats. (Your fat intake should split equally between saturates/animal fat, monounsaturates/olive oil, and polyunsaturates/fish oil).
• Prepare your food in advance to avoid having to make choices when you're hungry. One day each week spent doing this makes a huge difference!
• Eating out is hard, but there are tricks. Plus, once you learn more about what to eat, you'll be able to make good choices.
• When you're trying to lose fat and the scales aren't moving, re-evaluate. That will probably involve weighing and measuring to re-calibrate portion sizes. I use an online diet journal at fitday.com. You can make a free online account. It’s interesting to log your diet for a week or so (honestly!) and then analyze the data to adjust from there.
• You WILL break these rules from time to time, and that's normal! You can't beat yourself up about it. Try for 80/20 (80% compliance, 20% cheats). Then, eventually, you'll find that breaking the rules makes you feel crappy, so you will want to break them less and less.
• Remember, you cannot outwork a bad diet. No matter how hard I train, if I don't watch my diet, I get fat. (It's easy to consume 500 calories, but it takes a long time to burn it off!) Instead of thinking, "I work out, so I deserve this treat," you have to think: "I work out too hard to sabotage it by eating that stuff, which will inhibit my recovery and delay my athletic progress."

Even simpler:  Crossfit’s nutritional mantra -- “Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, and no sugar."

Further reading:  If you really wanna geek out on this stuff, these are some things I've read that have been pivotal for me . . .

• "What If It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?" by Gary Taubes in the New York Times. Taubes is actually a science journalist (who also wrote the anti-sugar article I referenced in a very heated thread at AES about whether or not we should sell coke on campus.) He throws down a totally fascinating challenge to conventional wisdom about diet and nutrition. Inspired by the article, I read his later book called Good Calories, Bad Calories, which is big but an awesome read.
• Anything by Robb Wolf, the original Crossfit/Paleo guru.  His book, The Paleo Solution, is a good place to start if you're interested in finding out what all the Paleo talk is about.
• Mark Sisson's The Primal Blueprint. He also has a blog that I followed regularly for a couple years, and  here's the place to go for an intro.
• I also think Jon Berardi-- a coach who has advanced degrees in exercise biology and nutrition -- gives good nutritional advice for athletes, and I really like his 7 rules.