A sports nutrition coach ate only protein shakes, salads, and chicken breast in college basketball, cutting out carbs and fats. He got headaches, fatigue, and zero strength gains. Without carbs, there's no glycogen for energy. Athletes need balanced nutrition, not just "healthy" low-calorie food.
My freshman year of college basketball, I knew that the best athletes in the world were the ones who were the healthiest. So I thought to myself, protein shakes are really healthy, salads are really healthy, chicken breast is really healthy. So in preparing for a 4-hour practice and training session, I would wake up, drink a 100-calorie protein shake, go to class, grab a greens-only salad with chicken breast on it, and then go to practice. And then at practice and during conditioning, I felt like I was the most unconditioned athlete there. I was having constant headaches and fatigue, and my strength wasn't increasing very well, and I did not know what was going on because I was just working so freaking hard and not seeing the results that I feel like I deserved. Now, as a sports nutrition coach, I look back on that experience and can fully connect the dots and say, well, duh, you had no carbs in your system, therefore you had no gas in your system. You weren't giving your body the fuel that it needed. So the biggest thing, athletes, that you need to recognize is that yes, you need to be healthy, but green salads and protein shakes and eating small amounts of food isn't what healthy means to you guys. You need to fuel your body with healthy carbs, healthy fats, healthy protein. You need to give your body the fuel that it needs to actually perform well and to keep up with your training demand.
