Athletes dish: four Olympic competitors give us the scoop on their training diets

Muscle & Fitness/Hers, August, 2004

WHILE MOST PEOPLE WANT to know the 411 on movie stars' diets, we're more interested in what our stars--Olympic-caliber athletes--eat. To get the nitty-gritty details, HERS contributor Martica Heaner spoke with four of the country's top competitors, each of whom has adopted the new sports-nutrition approach of timing their meals to their workout schedule (see "Timing Is Everything," page 46). Here's what the athletes have to say about how they stay energized.

1 Barbara Lindquist, 35

No. 1-ranked triathlete in the world; took first place at the 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials.

What's your sports nutrition philosophy?

Even though I train about 30 hours a week, I still have to watch what I eat in order to stay a lean, mean, fighting machine. And a lot of people probably think I can eat whatever I want, but I was a competitive swimmer, and when I retired I actually put on about 25 pounds in three years. When I started racing. I was, you know, a little chunky! I've had to lean down. A lot of that has happened just because of training, but a lot of it has happened because of my diet change, too. As an athlete, you have to eat in order to have energy to go out and train, and then you have to time your eating right--that's really important. But then you also have to make sure that you're not eating too much and gaining weight. Really, it's a hard balance.

What's your morning routine like?

I never go into a workout, even if it's the first one of the day, even if it's at 5 a.m., without eating anything. I eat a couple of pieces of toast. A few times I've had to do blood tests before a swim, so I had to fast and then do a two-hour workout. I was just so shaky at the end. I get up an hour and a half before working out to eat if I'm running because it's so jarring. I feel like I can eat closer and eat more before a swim than before a run.

What about the rest of the day?

If I have three workouts a day, for example, I try to have carbs before a workout, and then--it's very important--I try to get some carbs with a little bit of protein the first 30 minutes after a workout. I call it the energy window, and as soon as your workout is done, that window starts closing. At the end of 45 minutes it's almost all the way closed. If you get the carbs and a little bit of protein into your body within those first minutes, your muscles act like a sponge, and they recover so much better for the next day's workout.

But I also need to make sure, if I'm doing three workouts in a day, that what I eat right after the first workout doesn't adversely affect my next workout, two hours later. If I were to eat a big old steak or something like that ... well, protein takes longer to digest than carbs, so that would not be good.

Do you carry food with you?

I definitely bring something to my workout. I make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and have a recovery drink mix in a bottle.

What are typical things that you eat during the day?

I snack all day long. I don't have a major meal, really, because if you get stuffed in the middle of the day, Then it's hard to train. But I love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on multigrain bread. I love making burritos with whatever's left over in the fridge, like leftover burger, or some mushrooms and shredded vegetables and cheese. I eat tuna sandwiches; turkey and cranberry sauce sandwiches; Baker's Breakfast Cookies, which are these low-fat, all-natural awesome cookies from Bellingham, WA. I always try to have some sort of pasta in the fridge. I'll make a huge bag of pasta so I can just zap it in the microwave for three minutes after a workout and have instant pasta. And that can have meat in it or veggies. I eat eggs, too; scrambled eggs with potatoes, mushrooms, onions, a little salsa and cheese. I eat salsa on crackers. Fruit. Oatmeal. I love oatmeal.

Any tricks of the trade you care to share?

Somebody told me that 90 percent of your pleasure from eating a sweet comes from the first 10 percent of the dessert. So what I've been doing when I crave a sweet is to cut up pieces of the Baker's Breakfast Cookies or cut up something like chocolate, enclose them in a baggie, then put them in the freezer. When, I want a sweet, I have just a little piece, versus searching through the cupboards and eating the entire thing.

2 Donna Garcia, 36

2000 Olympic Trials qualifier in the 5k and 10k; member of the national U.S. Track and Field team.

What were your eating habits like before you really started paying attention to how food affects your performance?

I really wasn't big on having something first thing in the morning. I might just have coffee, then go for a run without eating breakfast. I would say the shortest run I'm going to do is approximately five miles, and a long one would be 15. I would just start feeling kind of hungry around lunchtime and have a sandwich with accompaniments. Also, I would say, "OK, well, I'm probably going to run this afternoon at 4 or 5 o'clock, so I better stop eating at 1 o'clock and not eat anything until after I've run, then come back and have a big dinner."