Sports Nutrition Essay, Research Paper

Andy Aikins

Food and Identity

Sports Nutrition Outline and Thesis

Thesis:

1. An athletes diet has a large effect on his/her athletic performance

2. What an athlete eats is an integral part of his/her training, and will effect every aspect of their athletic performance

Outline:

I: Intro

A. Introduce topic

B. State why Sports nutrition is different from general nutrition.

C. Thesis (see above)

II: Dietary Guidelines

A. How many servings of each food group should an athlete eat? (food pyramid)

B. RDA’s What they are, What they mean, How to use them

C. The Goal is to gain weight by increasing muscle mass and losing fat.

1. Eat foods high in protein, complex carbohydrates, and nutrients

2. Avoid junk foods; foods low in anything good and high in fat and sugar.

D. Don’t eat too much or too little food.

1. Eating too much food will increase your body fat percentage

2. If you don’t eat enough food, you will not have enough energy to work out, and you will not have the nutrients and protein available to build muscle.

III: Why eat well?

A. For Sports

1. Increased benefit from training, for both aerobic (endurance) and anaerobic (power).

2.Increase muscle mass, and Reduced fat.

3. Bigger, Faster, Stronger. This is good for any competitive sport

B. In General: Eating well will help everything in your life, from your mood to your appearance. Also eating well reduces the risk of every disease under the sun.

IV: Effects of a poor diet for athletes:

A. Chronic exhaustion

B. Irritability

C. Restlessness

D. Increase in body fat percentage

E. Decrease in muscle mass

F. Decreased fuel in muscle for intense (anaerobic) activity

V: Diet Planning:

A. General Principals:

1.Eat a variety of good foods, Try to stick to the groups in the food pyramid, and eat a variety of foods within each group.

2.Balance the amount of food you eat with your amount of activity.

a.While you are in season or while you are working out intensely, you will need more food than when you are laying on the beach on your vacation.

b. Eat accordingly

4. Lots of Grain products, Vegetables, Fruit, Complex Carbohydrates, Fiber, and Protein.

5. Cut back on Fat (especially saturated fat), and sodium (salt)

6. Don’t Drink, or at least don’t drink too much too often.

B. Substitutions

1.Instead of this try this

2. This section will be a bunch of substitute foods that will help improve an athletes diet.

VI: Conclusion: What you eat effects your performance on the field. When you are eating keep this in mind. For a general rule don’t worry too much about how much you eat worry about what you eat. Try to eat foods that have high nutrition density, that is foods that have a lot of nutrients for the amount of calories that they have.

Note: All of the research that I have done so far comes from my fitness and wellness textbook and my football summer conditioning manual. I cannot turn either of these things in.