An Cosantóir

An Cosantóir July/August 2018 www.dfmagazine.ie 40 | By CPL LEE CoyLE A s part of the Defence Forces continuous profes- sional development, the Defence Forces Physical Education School (DFPES) organised a lecture from renowned sports dietician Sharon Madigan RD PhD. this lecture was attended by Physical training Instructors (PtIs) from across the Defence Forces. Sharon's lecture entitled Unwrapping the Power of Food was an interesting look at the different strategies of diet- ing and debunking the myths and fads that plague the industry and those seeking a healthy diet. Her lecture began with a look at nutrition and hydra- tion and what she called the performance puzzle, this was working out the perfect fuel to training ratio, or how much food and what food is enough to sustain training. She took a small look at weight loss and the main point she wanted to get across to the PTIs was, to go for the easy wins first, to achieve this, PTIs need to get indi- viduals seeking weight loss to train for the simple goals first, these goals that can be stuck to permanently, this will be the building blocks towards a healthy diet. Next, she looked at sports nutrition and the maze of information out there from the sugar vs fat debate. This she says is a controversial strategy as there is information supporting both and it can simply come down to the individual for which is best. But she added that it is better to keep it simple and to stay clear of fads and buzz words. She talked about the king of buzzwords at the minute that is 'Protein'; this simple word has been added to almost everything imaginable, from milk to chocolate bars. Buzzwords like them can lead most people astray and should be avoided and to remember that marketing people are trying to sell you something. The key to a successful fit- ness standard she said should be ultimately "consistency in training and diet." To achieve this there must be some negotiation with individuals to what they can give up and realistically how much training they can do. She added that these individuals need to be reminded that restricting calories at the wrong times can have det- rimental effects on weight-loss and training, this is due to stress hormones that the body releases that can counter- act hard work, too much training too soon or overtraining without enough food to sustain can lead to this. So fuelling up at the correct time can be as important as the training being undertaken. Finally she looked at the problem areas that can have detrimental effects on training and weight management, these can range from person to person. For some people they can be classed as weekend eaters, they eat exces- sively over the weekend and with little to no training can undo a weeks worth of training and dieting. Then there are certain foods that some people consume that can affect a healthy lifestyle, like high salt foods and fizzy drinks; these don't tend to be taken into account in a diet. Alcohol intake is another factor that should be monitored, as we don't consider the calories contained with it, a single pint of beer can have around 200 kcal. Finally resting after training can be just as important as the training, use the four Rs of Recovery: Refuel, Repair, Rehydrate and Relax. Her closing statement was a little nugget of advice to all the PTIs present, "One size does not fit all, get to know the individual." NUTRITION

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