Let's discuss clean eating for athletic performance today

I am going to put forward my observations as a clean eating practitioner, coach, and an athlete :-)

Why are the top-most athletes going plant-based today?

- For improved performance
- Recovery time is the minimum
- Risk of injuries is less
- No energy is lost/wasted in difficult to digest food, so you are left with a lot of energy.

If as a part of your training, you are burning lots of calories, then you need to eat more. How much more should always be driven by your own hunger. If you get hungry, you need to eat the power plate ( that we have discussed before) maintaining the same proportions until you are full. You may end up eating the power plate two times in one go! or you may end up eating double the number of fruits!

Now if one sticks to natural laws of clean eating, generally don't bulk up the muscles. One remains on the leaner side even though they don't lack the strength, stamina, endurance, and flexibility.

We see so many marathoners, ultra-runners, some of them consume only raw foods or fruits! ( I won't be able to comment on this further as these approaches are little extreme and may add mental burden)

Bodybuilding on clean eating, is a different game altogether. Where you are expected to grow muscle, more than what you get by eating naturally. Muscle building needs extra protein. By consuming more plant-based proteins like legumes, beans, nuts, and seeds the increased protein requirement can be easily met. There are many plant-based protein powders available too, but I always choose not to prescribe or recommend it to people as, first of all, we are focussing on one nutrient and secondly, all these are processed and packaged. But if someone has the goal of bodybuilding, to do that, I can connect you with the experts.

As I write this, I am in Lucknow, participating in the master's nationals swimming tournaments, 6th year in the row, after I started my clean eating journey.