Every athlete has different nutritional needs, but there are three common mistakes that no athlete should fall victim to, all having to do with simultaneous excess and infrequency: Protein, carbohydrate, and salt. Studies with muscle fibers, mice, and New York City Police Officers, show that muscles grow twice as fast when protein is available in small amounts all the time, as opposed to large amounts all at once. This is why a little protein in every meal and even in snacks goes a long way towards recovery and training adaptation. Muscle can build at rate of 20-30 Calories per hour, so protein coming into your bloodstream faster than that just creates expensive urine. Then a few hours later the body is low in protein and starts breaking down. Avoiding too much all at once and too little through your day will pay dividends. The second big mistake is trying to fuel up your body with carbohydrate in too short a time. Active tissues (everything other than body fat) can absorb 10 Calories per minute (half of this going to muscle), so having more than 600 Calories in a meal 40-60% carbohydrate will just over-flow your blood sugar, driving up insulin, which drives up your body fat as your blood sugar clears out. The result is low energy in your muscles and your mind. Whenever you get tired after eating, you just robbed yourself of thought, muscle, life span, and gained body fat, all at the same time, by trying to fuel too quickly. On the other hand, after a few hours, an athlete’s blood sugar starts to run low so they should eat a meal or snack that contains some carbohydrate. As with protein, avoid too much all at once and too little through your day. The third big mistake I commonly see has to do with salt. Many athletes have no idea how much they are perspiring during training because they have never weighed themselves before and after a hard workout. Every 2 lb loss during exercise corresponds to a liter or quart of perspiration, which contains 800 mg of sodium. But since there is only one-fourth the amount of salt in sweat as the body fluid that sweat comes from, sweating results in salt concentration going UP in the body. This is why athletes should not consume salt during exercise unless they are replacing at least half of their fluid losses during that exercise. And no one should ever consume more fluid than they are losing. Avoid both salt and fluid excesses by pacing yourself instead of consuming a lot all at once. We will be going through each aspect of nutrition in more detail in future months, but if you avoid the three top sports-nutrition mistakes, you are well on your way to nutritional success. See my sports nutrition videos on protein building, carbohydrate fueling, and hydration on at www.youtube.com/DrClydeWilson, which you can link to through my web site www.DrClydeWilson.com