Dietician
+ Keri Strachan: Registered Dietician, graduated in 1997 with a 4 year degree + postgraduate diploma and spent 7 years in the UK. She opened her own practice in Hillcrest when she returned to South Africa.
Keri Strachan is offering a 20% discount to all Tennis+ members.
Tel: 031 - 765 8763
July 2009
Nutrition Tips
Your Training Diet
Training sessions can be more intensive and physically demanding than the actual tennis game itself, so it is vital that you have enough energy in your diet to support these demands as well as to support the recovery process. The main source of energy in our diets is carbohydrate-rich foods. All tennis players need to focus on eating nutrient-dense carbohydrate meals and snacks such as pasta, rice, wholegrain breads, potatoes, whole grain cereals, vegetables, fruit and low fat dairy products.
In order to maintain good health balanced nutrition is required. A good balanced diet will contain the correct proportion of all five food groups as shown in the diagram below:
Practically this means you should:
- eat carbohydrate-rich foods at every meal or snack
- include lots of colourful fruit and vegetables throughout the day (3 fruit and a little salad on your sandwich at lunch and a large portion of cooked vegetables at dinner)
- protein should be included at 1-2 a day, in small fat-trimmed amounts e.g. skinless chicken, baked / grilled fish, fat-trimmed steak, lean mince, boiled egg
- beans and legumes should be used regularly as low GI carbohydrate options or protein alternatives
- 3-4 servings of low fat dairy products should be taken daily e.g. 250ml low fat milk, 175ml low fat yoghurt, 1 matchbox of reduced fat cheese, 3-4 sp of low fat cottage cheese
- fats and sugars can contribute to total calorie intake, but where it is desirable to lose weight, these should be carefully controlled. Healthy fats should replace animal fats e.g. olive oil, avocado, nuts and seeds.
- fluids should be taken regularly through the day and especially around training sessions, drinking more on hotter days, or during more intensive training sessions or matches
Watch this space for your next "Monthly Nutrition Tip"
Future topics:
- Pre-game nutrition
- Correct recovery strategy
- Carbo-loading for tournaments
- Fluid requirements
- Travel nutrition
- Achieving optimal weight
Please feel free to contact me directly with questions on keristrachan-kpmed@saol.com
Or 082 448 6696.