How to eat like a U.S. Olympian

Jamie Squire

(U.S. News) If you've ever wondered what Olympians eat to perform their best - and sport the most magnificent physiques in the world - we've got the kitchen confidential from sports nutritionists who work with them. Research shows that with the right diet and hydration, athletes can train harder and recover more quickly. Overachievers on the court, field, or track are no longer junk-food junkies. The attention to detail used to perfect their sport is now being applied to their performance diets, too.

Swimmers like Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte, who need an estimated 4,000 or more calories a day to support their training, have stopped pounding pizzas, burgers, and fries to meet their energy requirements. After the 2008 Games, a disappointed Lochte swore off junk food and turned to wholesome foods like chicken, fish, lean beef, eggs, lots of fruit, oatmeal, and other whole grains.

When the difference between winning gold and going home empty-handed comes down to hundredths of a second, it's not surprising that most Olympic athletes work with a sports nutritionist to fine-tune their diet. Sports nutritionists are now less focused on engineered foods like protein powders, sports bars, and sports drinks and are instead recommending diets that are 95 percent based on nutrient-rich, real foods like fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and dairy products.

What's in the Olympic Kitchen?

The Olympic Games are the largest catering operation in the world. By the time they end, athletes, coaches, and team staff will have eaten:

If the rest of us ate the same types of foods (minus the quantity), maybe we'd start to lose some of the body fat that keeps us from seeing our own fab abs. Let's take a closer look at several medal-worthy foods:

Oatmeal. Oatmeal is a popular breakfast choice among athletes because it's 100 percent whole grain and is considered a high-quality carbohydrate source. Ryan Lochte, hurdler Lolo Jones, and many others go for oats because a single bowl is filling, carbohydrate-rich, and provides a good source of fiber and protein. A cup of oatmeal supplies 150 calories, 27 grams of carbs, 4 grams of fiber, 6 grams of protein, and no added sugar. The glycemic index of oats is also moderate, which helps keep blood sugar and energy levels more consistent.

Eggs. Most Team USA athletes going for the gold go with the gold-standard for protein: eggs. Not only are eggs simple to prepare and inexpensive, a medium egg has just over 6 grams of highly-digestible protein along with more than 15 other vitamins and minerals, including vitamin D, B vitamins, iron, and zinc. It's hard to find an athlete who doesn't eat eggs - and a lot of 'em.

Bananas. Most Olympians reach for a banana as a quick and easy snack to help fuel them before exercise or to aid in recovery post-exercise. In fact, Jamaican sprinter Yohan Blake reportedly eats 16 bananas a day! Could that be his secret?

A medium banana has 100 calories, provides 25 grams of carbs, and supplies 10 percent of the potassium needed in a day. Recent studies show that carbs from bananas are as effective as the carbs in sports gels, but the antioxidants in bananas may provide the added benefit of enhancing recovery.

Chicken. Since Olympians typically need 1 gram of protein per pound of lean body mass, protein-rich foods are generally part of most meals and snacks. Chicken is arguably the most convenient lean protein choice, and also probably the most popular among Olympians. Triathlete Gwen Jorgensen eats a diet based on whole foods that includes plenty of chicken; gymnast Jonathan Horton enjoys grilled chicken sandwiches for lunch. Skinless breast meat is the leanest chicken cut. A 3?-ounce chicken breast provides 31 grams of protein for just 165 calories.

Greek Yogurt. Decathlete Ashton Eaton eats Greek yogurt with muesli as part of his breakfast, as does gymnast John Orozco and many other medal contenders. Greek yogurt is strained to make it thicker and more concentrated than regular yogurt. As a result, it's richer in protein. A serving (6 or 8 ounces) has about 25 grams of protein - equivalent to four eggs or 4 ounces of lean beef.

Pasta. Carb-dense foods like bread, pasta, and rice remain staples in most athletes' diets. Since athletes need anywhere from 8 to 11 grams of carbohydrate per pound of body weight daily, carbohydrate-containing foods comprise the majority of their overall diet. Soccer star Heather Mitts has pasta the night before big matches, as does triathlete Hunter Kemper. A cup of pasta has about 200 calories and 42 grams of carbs. Some 84 percent of its calories are from complex carbohydrates and 15 percent are from protein; it also contains B-vitamins and iron. Whole-wheat varieties provide additional fiber and antioxidants.

Almond/Peanut Butter. Beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh is nuts for almond butter and swimmer Eric Shanteau has said, "Peanut butter is the lifeblood of athletes." When traveling internationally, many top U.S. athletes don't leave home without it. Nutritionally, nuts and nut butters are a good source of protein, fiber, vitamin E, B-vitamins necessary for the conversion of food into energy, and some antioxidants. Two tablespoons pack about 200 calories, so for athletes in heavy training with high-energy needs, a small amount delivers a lot of power.

Chocolate Milk. We've seen Team USA swimmers drinking chocolate milk to accelerate their recovery between swims. Gold medalist Missy Franklin has said she drinks chocolate milk after every swimming and dryland workout.

What makes chocolate milk so recovery-friendly? First, it's a liquid, and anything that helps re-hydrate you after exercise will aid recovery. The sports nutrition guidelines recommend 24 ounces of fluid for every pound lost with sweat. Second, an 8-ounce serving of 1 percent chocolate milk has about 200 calories, 11 grams of protein, 30 grams of carbohydrates, and about 5 more grams of potassium than a sports drink. Sports nutritionists recommend a combination of carbs and protein post-exercise to replenish carb stores in the muscles and liver and to help build and repair muscle tissue.

More from U.S. News: Best Diets

[Henri_Rochard]

I like to put a few apple slices on my peanut butter sandwiches.
Yumm-O !!

[foo8259]

"After the 2008 Games, a disappointed Lochte swore off junk food and turned to wholesome foods like chicken, fish, lean beef, eggs, lots of fruit, oatmeal, and other whole grains." Oh, boy grains and even oatmeal are just NOT healthy for a human, neither is "lean" meat or the Tropical fruits, like pineapple or bananas as they contain too much fructose (sugar). They get away with this diet just because they are still young, but they are shortening their peak performance years by more than a mile. It's a proven fact now: the brain, heart and muscles perform better on a ketogenic diet ie. 80% of calories from saturated fats 20% from protein -- not the fat from those horrid for your health polyunsaturated vegetable oils. Just look it up -- or read and educate yourself. The books "Wheat Belly" or "Trick and Treat" by Groves are more entry level than "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes. Also check out "Fat Head" the movie/DVD if you're an RD or an newbie to human nutrition.

[hypnotoad72]

And I'm sure a diet of chocolate milk and carbs will prove that same statement right...

"If the rest of us ate the same types of foods (minus the quantity), maybe we'd start to lose some of the body fat that keeps us from seeing our own fab abs"



Actually, it won't...

[foo8259]

Well, like I said earlier -- if young and active you can get away with it until age and your pancreas catches up to you. Then you may be looking at premature aging, type II sugar diabetes and heart disease. A Search suggestion: "The Real Diet of Man"

[hypnotoad72]

Maybe if people exercised more, had the time to do so, etc...

Some of us already eat healthily, so the haughty editorializing of "If the rest of us ate the same types of foods (minus the quantity), maybe we'd start to lose some of the body fat that keeps us from seeing our own fab abs" is a misnomer.

[Jaylah54200]

The interesting thing here is not that athletes eat veggies or lean proteins, but...take a look at that list again.

You don't see much, if any, PROCESSED foods. Eat foods the way nature grows them. Note that Jonathan Horton eats grilled chicken, not "all white meat chicken nuggets."

I know the typical response is that we're all so busy that we don't have time to "cook from scratch." But that's actually hogwash. I pick through a one-pound bag of beans and then put them in a pan of water to soak just before I go to work. Total time maybe 1 minute at most. In the evening, I drain off the soaking water, put fresh water in the pan with the beans, and put them on to simmer while I make and eat dinner. Again, total time involved: one minute. After about an hour (usually the time it takes me to prepare and eat dinner, and wash dinner dishes) the beans are cooked. Drain them again, and set the pan back aside for the beans to cool. Time involved: one minute. When the beans have cooled, I spoon them into meal-sized individual zip-lock freezer bags (which I wash and re-use to cut down on the plastic I'm adding to the waste stream), then toss them into the freezer. Wash out the pan I cooked the beans in. Total time involved: three minutes.

I do this with all kinds of beans (black, navy, kidney, garbanzos) whenever I've used up what's in the freezer.

Whenever I need beans for something I'm cooking, I grab a bag from the freezer and a few seconds in the microwave and I've got "freshly cooked" dried beans. With a total time investment of six minutes.

Cooking dried beans does NOT require a huge time investment. It just requires a bit of planning ahead. Which is why I don't wait until I need beans for something. I always have them, cooked, in my freezer.

If I'm making a big pot of chili, then I use a couple of bags of kidney beans. Or, if I'm just making a big salad for myself for dinner, I can have garbanzo beans in my salad. And beans are a great source of fiber, as well as being a complete protein if you combine them with rice.

And not "Minute Rice." Cooking regular rice only takes 20 minutes, and that's just time spent simmering on the stove. Since uncovering rice and/or stirring it is a stupid thing to do while cooking rice, that means that you don't have to just stand there for the whole 20 minutes. Rinse the rice (20 seconds) put the rice in the pan and add water (10 seconds) and then put it on the stove (5 seconds). Making rice is a whopping 35 second job.

[hypnotoad72]

How many children do you have? :)

And most parents would teach their children right, it's "vegetables". Where "veggies" came from, I have no idea, but the term sounds condescending or patronizing...

[Jaylah54200]

Now? None.

But I have done this for decades. Even when I had three children at home and worked a 60+ work week. One in college (we were helping with expenses as much as we could and I'm pleased to say that all of my children graduated from college without student loans), one in high school, and one in grade school.

As I said, it isn't really a matter of time, so much as it is lack of planning and organization. You have to learn to multi-task and -- perhaps more importantly -- think ahead.

I learned to do things like never cooking just one meal at a time. If I was roasting a chicken for Sunday dinner, I cooked two chickens. Besides the fact that one chicken wasn't quite enough to feed five people, it really didn't take any longer to prepare two for roasting. When we were done eating, I'd pick the chicken off the second carcass and put it in the fridge. The next day, I'd put together a quick white sauce, toss in the left-over chicken and some mixed vegetables, and then serve that "chicken ala king" over toast or mashed potatoes (which were made from the extra potatoes I'd baked to go with the roast chicken the night before).

Do all of your grocery shopping on your days off and then prep everything when you get home. Chunk up the fresh broccoli or cauliflower into florets and then put them into airtight containers in the fridge/freezer. If you bought fresh peas or beans, shuck them or snap them before you put them away. Buy meat in larger quantities if you get a better price for it that way, and then divide it up into smaller packages when you get home. But NEVER "one-meal sized" packages. If you cook meat on a week-night, it should be enough for two dinners.

Obviously, I didn't have any extra time to garden, but my husband was an avid gardener and, since we had plenty of room, he had a huge garden. He planted, he weeded, he harvested and he knew better than to bring in beets with soil still clinging to them. He washed and trimmed whatever he brought in from the garden. When sweet corn season hit, he'd go out and pick corn, and shuck it while he was still in the garden. Corn husks/silk left on the ground make great compost by next spring.

When the garden was producing like crazy, on one of my days off I'd blanch and freeze vegetables.

Learn to use a crock pot, and then buy at least one extra at a garage sale. You can cook two big batches of whatever while you're busy doing laundry, vacuuming the carpets, cleaning the bathtub..... Then have spaghetti with fresh sauce for dinner that day, freeze the rest of the sauce, and freeze the big pot of chili you also made. (Note, if you're crock-potting beef stew, leave the potatoes out. They get all horrid texture in the freezer. It only takes a few minutes to boil a couple of potatoes if you cut them up before cooking. By the time the beef stew is thawed in the microwave, your potatoes are done. Then just dump them into the hot stew.)

When cleaning up the kitchen after dinner one evening, toss a pot roast, some potatoes, some carrots (wash the latter, don't peel them...more vitamins and less time), a splash of water, salt, pepper and a bay leaf in one of your crock pots. Put the lid on and put it in the fridge. When you go to get your coffee the next morning (my family knew that Momma didn't cook breakfast on week days) haul out the crock pot and plug it in. Fall-apart roast beef for dinner that night. Put the left over roast in the fridge and tomorrow night you've got beef stir-fry over rice in 20 minutes and 35 seconds. (Since it only takes 10 minutes to put a stir-fry together, you can use the other 10 minutes to set the table while talking to your kids.)

I've gotten so used to doing this that even now, when it's just me, I do the same thing (although usually in smaller quantities). And that gives me extra time to volunteer in my community and spend time on those great hobbies I never had time for while I was raising a family and working more-than full time.

"Veggies" is neither condescending or patronizing. It's a well-known shorthand for "vegetables" in this country. I basically use the term vegetables, veggies or veg interchangeably. (I spent enough time in England in my younger days that some of their vernacular wore off on me, and just stuck.) When I'm making dinner, I may think to myself, "I need another veg." Or "I need more veggies in this salad" (to differentiate from more lettuce...which is a veg on its own).

People just try to justify eating processed crap by saying they don't have enough time to "cook from scratch." But, as I said, it's not a matter of time. It's lack of pre-planning and organization.

[lesserof2evil]

I swear I've been eating all of the food mentioned in the article, but I still look like a couch potato!

[Filmguy870]

OH...yeah...and you've got to work out like HELL! ....didn't mention that.