Diet change for acitve athletes

[hanns]

I have a friend, who is a cyclist. He trains a lot, nearly every day. Until now he did a mainstream athlet diet, which contains a lot of poultry, noodles and salads with PUFA rich oils. At the moment he trains for a cycle marathon, which is in 3 months.

I have told him about Ray Peat and his theories about PUFA etc. My friend is very interested in this whole topic. Yesterday he asked me, what I would recommend to him to improve his diet. I told him some guidelines, but now I am dubious about these recommendations. At the moment his goal for the next three months is this marathon. His current diet seems to serve the purpose for him. I am concerned that a aprupt change in his diet could affect his training in a negative way. Now I told him to go on with his usual diet and change it after the marathon.

What is your view on this? Would a change in his diet be beneficial or adverse at the moment? What could be safe changes, which don't turn his diet completely upside down?

 

[pboy]

A good transitional thing that could be beneficial off the top of my head would be loaded baked or mashed potatoes, and just some orange juice. I'm sure he probably already eats those so it wouldn't be any kind of shock, and could be beneficial if he leaned towards eating those

 

[j.]

Frying using refined coconut oil or ghee instead of vegetable oils is an easy change.

 

[cliff]

If he changes out most of his starch carbs for fruit/sugar he will most likely have performance gains imo

 

[hanns]

Thank you very much for your help!

He told me that he drinks 3.5-5 liters per day. 0.4 l coffee, 0.5 l milk and the rest is pure water. That means he is used to a high fluid intake und also used to milk.

Let me summarize some hints I could give him:

• Replace noodles with potatoes and/or rice.
• Replace oils for salads with good olive oil.
• Use coconut oil for cooking
• Replace parts of water intake with orange juice, milk and ...?

For the last point I would recommend him to introduce these slowly. Maybe do 1 l milk and 0.5 l orange juice first and see how it goes. If he is fine with that, he can raise the intake slowly.

What about salt, baking soda and gelatin?
Cliff, I read your blog post about strategies for athletes. You mentioned 1 tb of baking soda before and after training. Would this be something I could recommend to him, too?

And how about epsom salt/baking soda baths for magnesium?