Will These 6 Foods Make or Break Your Performance?

It’s extremely common to see recommendations for specific foods that will improve energy, endurance, strength, recovery, or some other physical aspect, but is such advice worth paying attention to?

I recently read an article in Tennis Magazine with the subtitle “Six foods that could make or break your workout.” Although I think that some of the recommendations in the article are good, they’re also an excellent example of why so many people are confused about healthy eating.

In general, I typically don’t like advice that recommends a certain food for a specific benefit because I think it neglects the most fundamental reason why it’s important to follow a healthy diet. Whether the benefit of such a recommendation is improved energy, increased capacity for physical activity, or faster recovery, these are nothing more than characteristics of optimal health that are achieved from a well rounded healthy lifestyle. Unfortunately, many people are experiencing these types of issues because their health isn’t what it could be, and the idea of a single food resolving the problem is a compensation that rarely works and fails to address the true problem. Although certain food choices can provide benefits beyond the basics of optimal health, trying to obtain these benefits without actually having optimal health is like buying high performance tires for a car with a malfunctioning engine. Basic health should come first!

With this in mind, here are the six foods that can supposedly make or break your workout.

1. Cherry Juice

According to the article, cherry juice can protect you from pain and injury. This is based on research showing that runners who drank 10.5 ounces of 100% cherry juice twice daily for a week leading up to a race reported less muscle pain afterward. This is said to be the result of antioxidants that reduce inflammation and is suggested to reduce dependence on drugs like ibuprofen and aspirin.

While I’m certainly a fan of using natural food to reduce inflammation, I think any type of commercial fruit juice is a questionable recommendation. Most fruit juices are highly processed to extract the juice from the fruit, and then pasteurized to destroy pathogens. Even if you choose juice that has no sugar added, which the article recommends doing, these processes eliminate or damage many of the fruit’s beneficial nutrients. Furthermore, fruit juice is high in sugar, even if none is added. Without the fiber from the original fruit, the sugar may very well cause blood sugar fluctuation which certainly isn’t good for performance and can also compromise your health if it happens frequently enough.

A much better approach to reduce inflammation would be to adjust your overall diet to exclude the foods that promote it and include more of the foods that prevent it. Any food that’s processed or high in sugar is likely to promote inflammation, as will dairy and grain based foods for the many people who have trouble digesting them. In contrast, following a diet based mostly on natural whole foods will be much less likely to promote inflammation, and including more high quality seafood will provide a balanced intake of essential fatty acids which will help to reduce inflammation even further.

Finally, the research presented makes the antioxidant effects of cherries sound very promising, but to take advantage of this, it would make more sense, be more nutritious, and likely be more effective to eat fresh cherries instead of drinking highly processed cherry juice.

2. Fiber

According to a spokesperson from the American Council on Exercise, fiber is an essential part of a healthy diet but should be avoided for several hours prior to exercise because it can distend the intestines and cause abdominal pain.

I think this is a reasonable suggestion and would add that you don’t really want to eat much food at all prior to exercise because your workout is likely to stimulate your sympathetic nervous system and slow down digestion. If you eat a meal too close to a workout, its digestion will likely be delayed, and your body will be torn between trying to meet the demands of your workout while trying to digest the food you ate. I think this especially applies to athletic performance. From my personal experience, I never seem to perform as well when I play tennis with a full stomach. Based on this, I try to avoid eating within an hour and a half of exercising or playing a sport and prefer for it to be two hours or more. The only exception I’ll make is a small but nutritious snack like fruit or nuts.

Another issue to consider regarding fiber is that most people are fixated on eating grain based foods to obtain enough of it. This can easily result in an excessive consumption of carbohydrates and is also a problem for the many people who are sensitive to gluten without knowing it. In my opinion, it’s much better to make a point of eating more vegetables and whole fruit which provide a more than adequate amount of fiber.

3. Fatty Fish

The article recommends consuming at least two weekly servings of fatty fish such as salmon, trout, and albacore tuna for omega 3 fatty acids which reduce inflammation and improve recovery.

Because a proper balance of the omega 3 and omega 6 essential fatty acids is essential to good health, I think this is a great recommendation. I also think seafood is a better source of omega 3 fatty acids than flax seeds and is more natural than fish oil supplements. It can even be a good source of vitamin D which also has a significant influence on health and probably performance as well. However, it’s important to choose seafood that’s minimally contaminated, and there are many other types of seafood besides salmon, trout, and tuna that are excellent sources of omega 3.

4. Soda

According to a study referenced in the article, the caffeine, glucose, and fructose in soda can cause potassium deficiencies and promote muscle weakness, fatigue, dizziness, and inhibited muscle growth. Based on this, the recommendation is to reduce your consumption of soda, and although this is somewhat obvious, I think it’s excellent advice.

As crazy as it may sound, it’s not that uncommon for me to play tennis against people who drink soda throughout the match to quench their thirst. Even if soda didn’t negatively affect physical performance, and even if it provided some type of benefit, the health effects of drinking soda should be a much more important concern. Soda contains an unhealthy amount of sugar which can suppress immunity and cause many other health issues including diabetes and high blood pressure. Several of the ingredients in soda are also believed to increase the risk of osteoporosis. Although they don’t contain sugar, zero calorie sodas are also unhealthy because they typically contain potentially dangerous artificial sweeteners such as aspartame or Splenda.

I don’t see anything wrong with enjoying soda in moderation, but I think it’s best to keep it to a minimum and to completely avoid artificially sweetened beverages.

5. Chocolate Milk

The article cites a study showing that low fat chocolate milk is more effective in supporting muscle recovery than sports drinks that are high in carbohydrates. Based on this, it’s recommended to drink chocolate milk after a workout and to add some whey protein powder to improve the benefits. I think this is poor advice.

Muscles require protein to recover, and as such, it should be obvious that any type of food or beverage that contains it is going to be better than one that doesn’t. Furthermore, just because chocolate milk promotes recovery better than a sugary sports drink doesn’t make it a good choice.

Dairy is one of the most common causes of food sensitivities and many people have trouble digesting it properly. Furthermore, many of the beneficial nutrients in milk, including its protein, are damaged or destroyed during pasteurization. This applies to whey protein powder as well since the milk that it’s made from will most likely have been pasteurized. In addition, chocolate milk contains twice as much sugar as regular milk and is much more likely to contain unnatural additives. I think the recommendation to choose low fat is also questionable. Despite what we’ve all been told, saturated fat is necessary for good health as well as recovery, and it doesn’t cause high cholesterol and heart disease as we’ve been led to believe.

The best way to ensure good recovery is to eat an excellent and nutritious diet based on natural whole foods, get plenty of high quality sleep, and minimize stress. There’s no point in trying to enhance recovery without doing these things first, and for someone who’s already following healthy habits, I think chocolate milk is highly unlikely to provide any benefits over basic whole foods that contain protein. I also think that protein powder isn’t as necessary for good recovery as most people think.

6. Tea and Coffee

It is fairly well known that caffeine can improve performance, but as the article indicates, it can also impair performance because of its diuretic effect. Based on this, it’s recommended to limit consumption of coffee or tea to one or two cups per day. I agree and think it would be even better to limit consumption to just one cup.

The diuretic effect of caffeine increases the amount of water excreted from the body and can lead to any of the numerous problems associated with dehydration. This is especially a concern since working out will cause water loss as well, and as the article mentions, just a one percent loss of water is enough to have negative effects.

Another consideration is that many people are relying on caffeine to get through the day and are probably pushing themselves into a deeper stage of adrenal fatigue by doing so. With the excessive stress, inadequate sleep, poor nutrition, and busy schedules that characterize many peoples’ lifestyles, it’s only a matter of time before they run themselves into the ground. Relying on caffeine to compensate for this will only make the problem worse.

The Best Way to Improve Performance and Recovery

Being an athlete who’s dealt with chronic fatigue, I have a lot of experience with both the positive and negative effects that lifestyle habits and health can have on energy and performance. To perform well, your body must be able to produce the energy required by your muscles and nervous system to support your activity. This ability doesn’t result from the latest supplements or from specific attributes of certain foods. Instead, it results from the optimal health that’s promoted and maintained by living a healthy lifestyle.

While elite athletes may need more than just a healthy lifestyle to promote peak performance, optimal health is still the foundation, and without it, performance and recovery will be limited. For those of us who aren’t professional athletes, there’s likely to be much more potential for improvement from implementing healthier habits than from eating specific foods that are said to increase energy or improve recovery.

For more information on how to implement healthy lifestyle habits that will promote optimal health and support better performance and recovery, sign up for my free course, 7 Simple Steps to a Leaner, Happier, and Healthier You.

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