Diet and Fitness Tips for Players to Keep Fit Throughout the Year

You are what you eat, is our motto and if you want to be fit as a player you need to follow certain dietary tips daily. The problem is that in sport there are times when you are off competitive tours or training for some weeks or months. We have seen that, you need to follow the dietary principles even during those days, if you want to keep your performance high all year round.

1. Never skip a meal. Whether you are playing a match or not your body requires certain basic nutrients every single day, 365 days of the year. This can never be given in one or 2 big meals. You simply have to eat 3 properly balanced meals daily. Even if you have a rest day and you wake up late you need to eat breakfast at 11 am or 12, delay the lunch a little, 2.30 or 3.00 p.m and then eat dinner by 8.30 or 9 pm, but you must eat all 3 meals. If you skip breakfast and eat a heavy brunch and then after a long gap eat another heavy meal in the evening you will put on weight.

2. The second rule is to see that all meals are carbohydrate, protein balanced. Only fruits for breakfast or only a big salad and soup or big bowl of boiled veggies for dinner or lunch is completely wrong. All players, even those who have to lose weight require a basic amount of complex carbohydrate like whole wheat bread, cereals like cornflakes or oats, whole wheat (atta) rotis or rice, etc. in every meal to meet the basic energy requirements and keep your basal metabolic rate (BMR) high. Whenever you skip a meal or eat a meal without roti’s /bread/rice, etc. (i.e. skip carbs) then your BMR goes down and your tendency to put on weight goes up. Also players require more protein than normal, so every meal must contain protein foods along with the carbs. Every meal must contain some form of protein got from skimmed milk or yoghurt, egg white, dhal or channa, rajma, moong, etc., chicken or fish.

3. Reduce fatty food intake to a minimum or avoid completely.

• All deep fried foods and snacks.
• Butter, cream, ghee, etc.
• Chocolates, ice creams, cookies, cakes, desserts and all sweets.

Most players are trying to lose weight or reduce fat percent in their bodies. Please be very sure that this is not achieved by skipping meals or substituting meals with only soup, salad or fruits. If you want to remove excess fat from your body, then you simply have to completely stop putting the above mentioned fatty foods into your mouth. If you eat balanced meals, and cut out these fatty foods completely for 1 month, you can lose 3 kgs in a month and even bring your fat percentage down by 3% in one month.

Regular cardiovascular exercise like a 25- 30 minutes’ jog or treadmill walk/cross trainer, 6-7 days a week does wonders for reducing fat in the body. So even when you are not doing your routine training or gym workout you need to make sure that a 25-30 minutes cardio session happens at least 6-7 days a week. Weight training helps to build muscles but you need cardio exercises to burn fat.