Nutrition for the Athlete

As a child, you basically eat whatever is put on your plate, but as an athlete, you realize at some point you need to take control of your own nutrition to achieve optimal performance. We were lucky enough at Black Diamond to have Shannon Doleac come to our gym. She was a University of Utah gymnast in college, but is now a nutritionist. As children, most of us learn to eat lots of fruits and veggies, but there is way more to eating healthy.

Eating healthy can improve performance, energy level, recovery from injuries and health. Shannon’s rules to building a healthy plate are:

1. Protein- serving of protein one to two times the size of your palm in thickness and circumference
2. Fill half of your plate with vegetables
3. Add about 1/2 a cup of starchier or mild vegetables (sweet potato, yams, potato, white rice, etc) and/or fruit
4. Add natural fat- for oils and butters, a thumb size or two and for avocado, nuts, olives cheese, etc, a small handful

Image courtesy of Fit Day

Now here comes the geeky, science-y part of food. In building your plate, you must have protein, carbohydrates, and fat. Proteins are important for building, maintaing and repairing tissues and immune health. Carbohydrates are important for fueling muscles for energy. Fat is important as a slow-burning energy source, cell structure and absorption of some vitamins and minerals. We also have to make sure the food has MACROnutrients (vitamins and minerals).

During Shannon’s visit, the first activity we did was differentiate the real, whole foods from the processed foods using pictures. Then we compared the two. What seemed to occur during every comparison was the color of the food. The real foods were much more colorful than the processed foods. THEY LOOKED DELICIOUS, and you know what they say, “eat the rainbow!”

Image courtesy of Life Tastes Good

The four main points Shannon made during her visit were:

• choose a variety of real, whole foods
• choose the naturally colorful foods (eat the rainbow)
• focus on the creating a healthy plate with the right amount of protein, carbohydrates and fat
• hydrate

So if you are an athlete, nutrition is crucial in attaining optimal performance. For good ideas, Shannon has tips and recipes on her website.

It's a Gymnast Thing #2

Handstands. Handstands at the beach, handstands on a hike, and even handstands at a gas station. The signature mark of a gymnast. If you are a gymnast, you can’t help yourself. Everywhere you go have the urge to do a handstand, a flip, or something gymnastics related. And, of course, you must take a picture. If you were to look through my phone, about three-fourths of my pictures are handstands or flips. Which means you will now get to enjoy the journeys of my handstands.

This picture is the most recent and one of my favorite handstand pictures. It was in Hawaii during Thanksgiving break, and my mom and I went to a beach near our hotel to watch my uncle surf. In between waves, we spelled out the words ‘believe’ with pieces of lava rock we found on the beach.

These pictures were from this summer in Lake Erie. On this vacation, I did a lot of gymnastics on the beach, and of course took many pictures. I could not choose between these three pictures, so I decided to use them all. So, I have my backflip, side-ariel, and bridge on a paddle board.

This picture is from Running With Ed in the Spring. A few girls from my team formed ‘Flipping For Ed’. In between each leg of the race, there are rest stops, and at each one we took a handstand picture. This one is my favorite and is at the Utah Olympic Park.

In the winter, we went to California for a competition, and after the first night of seeing a gorgeous sunset over the ocean, I was dying to get a silhouette handstand picture in front of the sunset. So, the next night, two of my teammates and I took a bunch handstands and leap pictures. Jamie is on the left, I am in the middle, and Gen is on the right.

Also this winter, we went to Arizona for a competition. At our hotel, there was a huge fountain. My mom knows how much I love my handstand pictures, so she suggested to take some in front of the fountain. One night, we went after dinner and took some good pictures (the splits on the edge of the fountain), and the next day after my competition, we went and took some more in my competition leo (the bridge). 

This picture is from three years ago when my team went to Idaho for a competition. This is still a favorite picture of mine. These two teammates and I love photography, and during this trip we took many creative handstand pictures. We had just finished competing and were on our way to dinner, but took about an hour getting back to the car in what should have taken about ten minutes. We took some detours because we kept thinking of more pictures to take, and when our parents finally thought we were out of ideas and were about one minute away from the car, I came up with a great one. So I gave my mom the instructions on exactly how to take the picture, and we three girls ran into the parking garage. I took the first level, Sam R. the next, and Sam B. the third. We each made sure we were in front of the window, but next to the stairs so they were not in our way. We counted to three and did a handstand, hoping our parents got the picture from outside the parking garage. 

All of these pictures are just a few from my many handstands, and there is no doubt I will have many more handstand pictures in the future.