Sports Nutrition Lecture

Last night I had the chance to go see a sports nutritionist talk at Sage College in Albany. Chris saw it advertised online and thought it would be right up my alley…he was right!

The lecture was called The Winning Plate: Eating to Optimize Performance for Athletes and Active People and Leslie Bonci was the speaker, a register sports dietitian specialist who is a nutrition consultant for the Pittsburgh Steelers, among other sports teams, and even Olympic athlete Usain Bolt! She even consults for the Pittsburgh Marathon and ran it 10 times herself…awesome!

She talked about common nutrition problems that athletes face, such as wanting to gain muscle, or lose weight, and get faster and stronger and how to eat to boost performance. I could totally relate! She had great tips on how to fuel for different types of exercise and how much protein and carbs athletes need before and after workouts.

For example, endurance athletes should be recovering with a ratio of 4:1 carbs to protein. So something that was 80% carbs and 20% protein, like chocolate milk. She also explained that as active people we need about .8 grams of carbs per pound of body weight. She also stressed how important proper hydration is, as well as SODIUM for people who sweat a lot when they work out. As someone who pays attention to eating for fitness, I already knew this, but she got a lot more in-depth and talked about what she tells her athletes when it comes to nutrition.

The lecture was great and I found it very helpful….and most of all it gets me really excited to start studying in the nutrition field very soon!