Thursday, April 5, 2012

Professionals Need Help Too!

I love finding articles that reinforce why sports nutritionists are needed. I was randomly perusing the Yahoo! homepage when I came across this beauty:


Justin Verlander's (pitcher for the Detroit Tigers) "secret to success" is apparently consuming three crunchy taco supremes, a cheesy gordita crunch, and a mexican pizza before game night. This crazy amount of fast food is not only highly caloric with 1,630 calories, but also contains 96 g of fat and 2,300 mg of salt. That is almost double the recommended dietary intake of sodium and about 3 times the RDA of fat per DAY (from the USDA website). And that is just for one of his meals. Even if he ate relatively healthy the rest of the time, a regular consumption of this type of meal is surely going to reduce any chance of healthy aging. There are plenty of studies, including the well known Framingham Study, that show direct links between coronary heart disease and dietary intake of fat. Regardless the appearance, and apparently the performance, of an athlete, nutritional intake still determines actual health. 

Yet again, I say thank you, for this is why my career exists. And good luck to you Mr. Verlander, you may need it. 

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