TRIATHLON DIET....sports nutrition health, nutrion plan, dangers of diet pills, and more

Personally, I could never understand how people could train hard all year and stay with a proper training diet for months and then come to the race and stay in a hotel and eat restaurant food everyday.

Especially in the final 2 or 3 days leading up to the race. It's probably the number one triathlon diet mistake one can make during the week leading up to the Ironman.

RESTAURANT FOOD

I'm all for supporting the restaurant industry of the host city, but many years ago became accustomed to restricting visits to restaurants to the days following the race.

If you have no other choice besides restaurant food, try and stay as close as possible to the diet you followed the months leading up to the race.

If the mainstay of your training diet was pasta, then go to a restaurant that serves pasta instead of heading over to the seafood restaurant.

I made a major triathlon diet mistake early in my career and it never happened again. In one careless moment early in my Ironman career I came down with food poisoning and an entire year of training was lost as was my race and all the expense of getting there in the first place.

STAY IN A CONDO WITH A KITCHENETTE

Every race I've been entered in since that day I made sure I had a motel or condo with a kitchenette.

My first day at the race venue I would go shopping for the week and cook all my own meals without straying from the diet I'd been on for the past 6 months.

It only took that one triathlon diet mistake to have a huge impact on the type of food choices I made in the week preceding a race.

I just can't put into words how important this is. Its absolutely vital that when that gun goes off for the swim start that you do not have a queasy stomach from screwing up your diet in the last few days.

What might seem like a small triathlon diet mistake could have serious consequences out on the race course.

PLAN YOUR MEALS WELL IN ADVANCE

Know "exactly" what your menu plan is before you even leave home. Know "exactly" what you plan to eat the day before the race and the morning of.

Also know what "time" you plan to eat these meals. Personally, I always finished my last meal on race eve by 4 p.m. I always finished my race morning breakfast "3 hours" before the race start.

Sure it means being up at 3 a.m., but I found it well worth it. This worked perfectly for me over and over again and I never had any sort of digestive problems when I stuck with this program.

Also, be careful at the carbo pre-race dinner. Choose your food carefully. In the later years of my career, I just stuck with salads and rolls and bottled drinks or else I didn't go to the dinner at all.

That final week, be aware of what you're consuming at all times.

RACE DAY TRIATHLON DIET

Making careful food choices also applies to the race course itself. When you get to those aid stations(especially on the run.

You will find cookies, oranges, soda, sports drinks, power bars, power gels, grapes, chicken soup, cantaloupe and any number of things depending on the location of the race.

You might do great right up until race day and then end up making triathlon diet mistakes out on the course.

When you start running out of energy and feel you just can't go on, the natural instinct is to try everything at the aid stations in search of the right combination that will make you feel better and give you some much needed energy.

This is a recipe for disaster. usually the opposite happens and you just end up feeling ill, and in the worst possible scenario, can't keep going and drop out.

My suggestion is to stick as close as possible to what you trained with. To avoid any serious triathlon diet mistakes out on the course, go with what got you there.

If you took power bars and gels on your bike and run training days, then stick with them.

It's a misconception anyway that you have to keep eating all the way through the entire race. I believe the most important time to eat is in the early to middle stages of the bike leg.

The key is to take in "complex carbohydrates" at this time that will be assimilated by your body slowly and provide you with a constant source of fuel with the idea of keeping a steady balance of fuel for the entire 112 miles and into the marathon.

Eating too late in the bike can be detrimental to your marathon as your body does not have time to digest it properly to do you any good.

Often at this point, many people will have an energy crash due to a poor race nutrition plan. It's been proven many times that if you fuel yourself properly in the bike, you most likely require little food in the run.

In my best ever Ironman marathon, I kept a steady pace without walking for the entire 26 miles and "never ate a thing." All I took was 5-6 ounces of water at every aid station. That was it. My marathon time was 3:34 and I never remember feeling better out on the run course.

DANGERS OF DIET PILLS

I had someone ask me if diet pills were a good idea in order to lose that excess weight quickly in order to speed up the process and get fitter faster for triathlon.

From all reports I have been able to find, including studies reported in an issue of Mayo Clinic Health Source this is not a great strategy at the best of times. There are many dangers that come with diet pills that are often available over the counter.

For example, pills containing ephedra might claim to decrease appetite but can also have dangerous side effects, including heart attacks, seizures, strokes and sudden death.

When you come right down to it, there is just really no simple "quick fix" when it comes to losing weight.

As far as I'm concerned and from everything I have learned about diet and weight loss first-hand over my 35 year career, there is one method of losing weight that makes any sense to me.

This is an ideal method that is safe and makes the most sense for lasting, healthy, weight loss.

The simple equation is to get off the couch and get physically active three or four times a week and make smart food choices. For the most part you lose weight when you burn more calories than you consume. Using diet pills to speed up the process is a recipe for disaster.

Losing weight is not rocket science and does not require a dozen books on "no-fail" weight loss diets, or magic pills that will do all the work for you. It all comes down to how badly you want it and how hard you are willing to work for it.

As far as your triathlon journey is concerned, thinking through your diet in training, the week leading up to the race, and race day itself can prevent any last minute problems, and ensure you feel great when that gun goes off.

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