How much does diet affect performance?

[dogzer]

Hello, i'm new and i'm not a trick performer. But for sure you all know a lot about exercixe and nutrition and health :smile:

So how much does diet affects performance? For a while i used to think nutrition wasnt important and that the important thing was to workout every day.
But now i have this odd feeling that actually eating healthy food might be influencing my running. I know running isn't as cool as tricking, but it's also a physical activity.

Do you guys experience performance droppage when you start eating sweets and junk food? Lately, with all the celebrations i've been eating a lot of junk food, and also my running stamina lowered a lot, so maybe there's a link :shocked: .

Are there certain bad foods that have proven to affect negatively your workouts, to the point you never ever eat that? I'd like to know, thanks.:good:

[NightHunter]

Diet is important to any kind of physical performance. People's views are generally pretty extreme on the subject. A nutritionist will overhype how important it is, saying that you'll die and finish last if you don't have perfect nutrition, whereas trainers will generally emphasize the importance of training with nutrition as a minor concern.

I know these don't represent everyone's viewpoints, but in most articles and publications this holds true to a certain degree.

The truth, as far as I can tell is that truly intense training is actually more important than diet, but this does not mean that you should disregard nutrition, as it is still an important aspect of performance, and has a quite noticeable impact. People can debate me on this, but from everything I've seen, including observing athletes on many levels, good training beats good nutrition. The ideal is to have perfect nutrition and training, but that'll never happen, however you can always strive to come closer to it.

You can debate me on this, as these are mostly opinions with very little objective data.

[J.B. II]

diet has nothing to do with performance, branleh.

[Zeff]

65.68204059593782650201321467834798%

[dogzer]

I'm not an athlete or anything. But my speed was improving over time, and sudenly it started decreasing.

[Kibs]

Alot.

[Vormav]

A know a mile runner who (this was a few years ago) was running around 5:00/mile and eating rather poorly. He started eating a nutritionally sound diet and over the course of a few months dropped to 4:30/mile. From what I recall, his training had stayed pretty consistant, and the only significant change had been the diet. In other words, the coach and the runner were under the impression that the improvements were primarily from better nutrition.

More to the point: I generally feel pretty good on runs except: immediately after eating large quantities of spicy food (duh), or if I have eaten any Taco Bell that day. For whatever reason, Taco Bell makes me feel absolutely horrible during a run. I stay away from Taco Bell (and fast food in general).

[OhDuKwon]

Good diet and nutrition will benefit anyone. It is more visible in athletes seeing as how perfomance is key. I don't have any of my info for hyperlink right now, but there is plenty of info on this site alone. read the stuff on the home page. Sleep is also important too...imo, sleep and nutrition are on the same level.

[pyrolee]

From my experience, starting out the day early with healthy nutrition and an adequate amount of sleep really shows in your workout...I've noticied my pump is always more intense.

[Steve]

Spicy foods destroy my training usually haha.