What’s the Best Diet for Endurance Athletes?

Nutrition for anyone is challenging, and for endurance athletes there’s so much to consider it can feel overwhelming. You’re competitive in nature, which is why you may find yourself Googling and asking what the best diet for endurance athletes is?

Your everyday eating and how your fuel around workouts can make a huge difference in your athletic performance and offer endless benefits to other areas of your life. When it comes to improving nutrition, my dietitian team and I see athletes reporting a number of perks:

• improved sleep,
• better overall mood,
• more productive at work,
• regulated hormones,
• increased energy levels
• and just simply feeling better.

Want all these things? Keep reading!

You don’t need a diet. You need a new style of eating.

It’s so common for me to hear from athletes sharing a list of all the popular diets they’ve tried, and none of the them stuck. Want to know why? Diets are restrictive and challenging to maintain with a busy schedule. You’re an endurance athlete, which usually means many hours a week of training, on top of having a job, family time, social life and all the other things happening in our life. Following a strict diet on top of all that is a recipe for disaster.

Stop looking for a new diet. You simply need a new style of eating. A style of eating that you can stick to long term. There’s no instant gratification with nutrition, the best success and results comes from playing the long game with your nutrition. You need clarity and understanding in how to fuel your body best in a way that aligns with your life. The best diet for endurance athletes is a flexible style of eating.

What is a flexible eating style?

What is a flexible eating style? It’s an unrestricted way of eating. Think of it as more of a lifestyle or eating pattern than a diet.

It’s adaptable to your specific needs as an athlete and as a human being. No foods are off the table (no pun intended).

This approach is about creating a lifestyle that allows you to feel like YOU.

With a flexible eating style, you can still honor foods that are important to you, like cultural foods and family traditions. It allows for flexibility when you are on vacation or want to eat cake on your birthday.

Forget your goals, and focus on a system

We often hear, “set specific, actionable goals.”

– My goal is to qualify for Boston this year.
– I want to podium in that A-race in the fall.
– I’m aiming for a sub-4 marathon by 2023.

But, the results have little to do with your goals and everything to do with the systems that you set in place.

Goals are all about what you want to achieve. Such as a basketball team wanting to win a championship game.

But, the system is the processes and tools that lead to those results. That basketball team establishing good plays on the court, well-fueled and rested players, a good sports medicine team, scheduling weight lifting and training in the off-season, recruiting the best coaches and players. All this supports the team’s chances of getting to that championship game.

This is why I’ve honed in on creating an effective system for our athletes. Setting them up with their athlete flexible eating style that fits into their life, their personality, and needs.

Your next steps

If after reading this post you are saying, “Yes! Yes! This is for me!” Then I have just the resource for you!

I’ve put my athlete nutrition system, that I teach in my 1-on-1 nutrition coaching program, and have placed it into my online course, Fueling That Fits.

This course is for you if you know you want to make changes in your nutrition, but you’re not ready to commit to working 1:1 with a sports dietitian. You’re really good at keeping yourself accountable, but need that personalized plan to getting started.

It’s also for you if you’ve tried some of the trendy diets out there, but none of them have made you feel great as an athlete.

Through this course you’ll learn the tangible systems that you need to feel capable and confident in making sustainable changes to your eating habits. You’ll be creating an actual blueprint on how to build a flexible eating style that best fits you and your athletic goals.

There is no better time to invest in your health.

Want a sneak peek into the course? Watch here!

So the next time you hear the questions, “What’s the best diet for endurance athletes?”, you’ve got an answer. There’s no perfect diet, it’s all about personalizing nutrition to you and your busy lifestyle.

I can’t wait for you to work through this course, it’s a huge labor of love for me. My heart and soul are in it, and I’m excited to share it with you.