Today I ate Topper's Pizza, a delicious pizza near my parents' home in Camarillo. Excellent for the taste buds, not so good for my athletic performance. I played tennis with my dad after that meal and was really sluggish, not having much energy to go through rallies and feeling tired before I should have. Topper's pizza, not a great choice for a balanced diet.
Until about a few years ago, I ate anything I felt like without worrying too much about how it'd affect my athletic performance or even my day-to-day-life. I wasn't fat or anything because I would still run a lot to burn it off, but microwave pizzas, muffins, bananas, and Chinese grocery store dumplings (my favorite!) were all part of the daily menu. I loved it; I had a specific routine to make these things, they were fast and easy, and they were tasty! What could go wrong?
Well, a lot can go wrong, especially with athletic performance. I often wondered why I would struggle sometimes playing dodgeball or get tired faster while running a marathon....it's the food that you put in your stomach, dummy! That and getting enough sleep are the 2 things I learned from watching athletes train. Football players sleep 10 hours a day during the season to achieve maximum performance from their bodies (they also kill themselves every day training and use their body to put food on the table, so it's understandable), and MMA fighters start eating the right foods (partly to be able to make weight on weigh-in day) but also to get exactly the right mix of foods for maximum energy. Last year, at the biggest event of the year for me, the Ultimate Dodgeball Championship, the thing I train for and can win money at, our team ate pizza way too much for athletic competition. Eating pizza is nice for 6 or 7 dudes on their own, but guess what? It stays in your body when facing other teams and can make the difference on that one crucial play where my body is a little late or sluggish compared to the other guy who is lean and fit and ate the right foods. Gotta make sure to eat the right things before and during game day.
I've found that for athletic competitions, eating consistently the same thing every day helps, just to have the body in approximately the same state every day for whatever you're doing, running, jumping, catching, so you don't feel extra "heavy" or have some weird days where nothing's working right. It's why pitchers can throw a no-hitter one day but look totally lost another start.....something's different about the body, just a minute, undetectable tweak somewhere in the composition of the body can alter one's aim, whether it's a pitcher or dodgeball player who throws balls. That's all food-related! I feel like we all wake up every morning slightly different in the way our bodies are composed based on the foods we ate, so we need to try to be as much of the same as possible!
Also, it's not just doing well athletically.....your body doesn't respond well to pizza, I've noticed of my soon-to-be-31-year-old body. Getting gassy, farting abundantly, are all indicators of the body rejecting certain foods. I've had some bad experiences with having ramen noodles: a sudden burst of carbs from the noodles, sure, but then a crash after that, almost like sugar. Great experience from salad and rice and eggs/ unfried chicken. Ever get a queasy feeling in your stomach after a big meal? That's also a pretty good sign there was too much of something, like cheese.
Oh and to avoid afternoon naps at the office, a big problem for me (I tend to nod off sometimes uncontrollably), heavy meals do not help. Anything with a lot of salt, grease, oil, etc., puts me to sleep a lot easier. I don't think I've ever felt sleepy after a salad/ non-meat meal, partially because I'm not full enough to feel sleepy.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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