TOP TIP: Consider a multivitamin. Many
meat-free eaters don’t get enough vitamin
B12, responsible for red blood cell growth
and maintaining the nervous system.PALEO DIET
The paleo diet is based on the premise that
our hunter-gatherer ancestors enjoyed a
largely disease-free life and, by following
their diet, we could too. This means eating
lots of meat, seafood, eggs, vegetables,
nuts, seeds and fruit. Processed foods and
refined sugars are out, while starchy grains
are eaten sparingly. It’s essentially a
low-carb, high-protein and high-fat diet,
and it’s incredibly popular among the
exercising crowd, including the likes of
former cricketer Freddie Flintoff and
US basketball player Kobe Bryant.
PROS: The diet’s focus on whole foods is
healthy – you’ll eat fewer processed goods.
This is good news for cardiovascular
performance. A study in the journal
Nutrients showed that a high-fat meal
consisting of sausage and egg McMuffins
impaired arterial function for several hours!
CONS: ‘Paleo diets focus on restricting
carbohydrate intake, which is said to help
with overall weight and glucose tolerance,’
says Dr Cole. But endurance athletes
(those exercising for more than 90 minutes
at a time) may want to bend the rules to
include more carbohydrate-rich foods.
TOP TIP: Tweak the diet to suit your
sport. If you’re doing long workouts
or endurance training, you may need
to increase your carbohydrate intake,
particularly on training days, and eat
salty foods to replace electrolytes
lost through sweat.INTERMITTENT FASTING
Intermittent fasts – diets that gravitate
between cycles of eating and periods of
not eating, such as the 5:2 (consuming
500 calories two days a week) or 16:8
(fasting for 16 hours every 24) – have
come to the fore as a popular way to
improve health and control weight. The
theory is that your body is likely to
draw energy from fat stores when it’s
in the fasted state. There’s a decent
amount of lab evidence to suggest
these diets might work, and further
data reports periods with less/no
energy intake may help athletic
performance as it can teach
the body to burn fat for fuel.‘I’m in my healthiest
and strongest shape’
GB snowboarder Katie Ormerod
switched to a vegetarian diet
and has never felt better‘I really love my new diet and it is
helping me to experiment more
with new and healthy foods.
One of my favourite meals to
cook is vegetarian lasagne.
I try to add as much protein to
my meals as possible, such as
beans, lentils and chickpeas.
‘Right now,
I don’t feel the need to take
any supplements – my body is
feeling great! I always have
snacks in my back pack –
bananas are great. I feel really
good, both physically and
mentally. My performance on a
snowboard and in the gym have
progressed, so I feel like I’m in my
healthiest, happiest and
strongest shape.’*