Sports Nutrition Explained: How a Performance Nutritionist Can Help You Succeed
- Rebecca
- Oct 20, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Jan 1
What does a sports nutritionist do to boost your performance?
This is a question I get asked a lot!
Sports nutrition plays a crucial role in performance, recovery, and long-term health. A sports nutritionist (sometimes called sports nutrition coaches or performance nutritionists) will help you make changes to your diet to help you achieve your athletic goals. This can involve designing performance nutrition plans and providing expert advice to help athletes optimise their nutrition for peak performance. Whether you're a triathlete, marathon runner, or fitness enthusiast, working with a qualified sports nutritionist can significantly boost your performance, aid recovery, and ensure long-term health.
Why is nutrition crucial for athletic success?
You can only benefit from your training if your body is healthy and properly nourished. Making sure you are eating enough food to give it the energy it needs for your training, and all the nutrients it needs for you to recover, means you’ll stay fit and healthy. You’ll be more likely to avoid getting sick and injured. And that gives you the best chance to get all your training done and PB on race day. For example:
A triathlete who is training twice a day may need advice about when and what to eat to recover quickly so that they get the most out of their sessions
An ultrarunner might want a nutrition plan for their race so they know what they need to eat and drink to make it to the finish
A marathon runner might have had health issues such as stress fractures or anaemia because they were not eating well and want to change their diet.
How to find a qualified sports nutritionist in the UK
There are lots of courses that offer qualifications in sports nutrition. But The Sport and Exercise Nutrition Register (SENR) which is administered by the Association of UK Dieticians, is the only official register in the UK. Nutritionists registered with SENR have a degree in sports nutrition, have to comply with professional standards and have to keep their knowledge up-to-date. Choosing a SENR-registered nutritionist ensures you're working with someone who adheres to the highest professional standards, reducing the risk of following unscientific or harmful dietary advice.
What can I expect when working with a sports nutritionist?
At Eat Well Perform Better, we always start working with you by asking you to fill in a short questionnaire to understand what your goals are and what aspect of your nutrition you want to work on. We provide online nutrition coaching in the UK or in-person consultations as a sports nutritionist in London. So we set up time to talk to you to get more detail, answer your questions and discuss a plan.
After the consultation, we’ll follow up in writing with materials to make sure you remember what we discussed and to help you put our advice into action.
How often should I see a nutritionist?
That depends on your individual goal and budget. We offer flexible packages to suit your needs. These range from one-off consultations to performance packages designed to work alongside your training programme so we can target different aspects of your nutrition programme.
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