The most common and simple diet restriction for athletes is dairy. Athletes all over the world are opting out of dairy products, including milk, cheese, and ice cream, finding that they are able to maintain a more lean build, while feeling less bloated and being less flatulent. Fair enough, since wikipedia states that roughly 75% of the world's adult population suffers from various degrees of lactose intolerance. There may even be scientific evidence to support the idea that athletes should be dairy-free. Researchers at the University of Stanford conducted a well-known study back in 1986, that has been credited by many as the spark that started the dairy-free movement with athletes (1). The study used four non-runners in a randomized double-blind two day test. On day one subjects A and B ate dairy products while subjects C and D did not. On day two the entire study group of four subjects were subjected to a one kilometre running time trial on the road. It was observed that 50% of the non-dairy subjects completed the trial significantly faster than 50% of the dairy subjects; hence there is a significant possibility that a dairy-free diet potentially may have beneficial effects for the elite athlete.
In past years there has been a major boom in the number of athletes following a gluten-free diet. The gluten-free diet, obligatory to those with Celiac disease, requires one to forego all food products containing the protein, gluten; this includes common bread, pastries, cookies, pie, pizza, beer, and generally all things that taste good. To find some answers to this seemingly inexplicable trend, an independent survey was done with a group of varsity track & field athletes in Victoria, B.C.(2). When asked why they took up the gluten-free diet, the most prevalent response was, "I don't know, my coach told me to." When the coach was asked why he prescribes the gluten-free diet to his athletes, he shrugged his shoulders, stating, "I don't know, a friend told me it was a good idea and I believed him." Though it has since been confirmed that there are no existing studies anywhere in the world to suggest a gluten-free diet is beneficial to the elite athlete, numbers continue to grow.
More recently there has been a push for the Paleolithic diet. The diet focuses on the foods that our early hominid ancestors ate, while excluding harmful foods like rice, beans, salt, refined sugar, processed oils, and of course dairy and gluten. The Paleo diet reasons that modern humans have not evolved genetically to be able to eat harsh modern day foods, like rice and beans; thus getting back to our roots is the healthiest option. Although there has been no supporting documentation that rice and beans are bad, most proponents of the Paleo diet insist that it's best to play it safe and stick to meat, potatoes, and a shitload of vegetables in order to mitigate the risk of currently unknown food allergies. One athlete, taking time away from running due to chronic stress-fractures, shared her enthusiasm about the Paleo diet: "I've been on the Caveman (Paleolithic) diet for two years now and my body really feels great; my digestion has improved a lot. I can't wait to get back to training hard and really see the benefits of my diet. I've just had super bad luck with five back-to-back stress-fractures over the past two years." Although the average lifespan of early hominids was only thirty years, athletes following the diet maintain that their future success will directly correlate to the mind-numbingly narrow spectrum of allowable foods in the Paleolithic diet.
A new study released earlier this week by researchers at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta, may once again shake up the athlete diet. Head researcher, Dr. Grant, said Monday in a statement on the Royal Tyrrell Museum's internet homepage (3): "We looked at the Paleolithic diet and the ambiguous success that athletes were having with it, and said, 'You know what, f*** it, let's take it one step further'. We scraped the internet for months and what we found was truly astonishing: there are eras even older than the Paleolithic era; and dinosaurs are faster than cavemen!" Putting two and two together, the team of researchers at the RTM have formulated the Cretaceous diet: a diet that restricts one to only large fronds from the Cretaceous era and claims to be "the most natural, and food allergen-free diet yet." When asked about supporting evidence for the Cretaceous diet, Dr. Grant posed the question, "Have you ever heard of a dinosaur with a food allergy? cancer? diabetes? neither have we." Dr. Grant went on to say that he "believe[s] a strict diet of large fronds and nothing else will allow the elite athlete to avoid all known food allergens, and see immediate improvement in performance." Though less than a week has elapsed since the study was released to the public, many triathletes have already adopted the Cretaceous diet.
Opposition to the Cretaceous diet argue that dinosaurs ate fronds and are now extinct (likely due to the eating of fronds); others speculate that the elite athlete minimalist diet may still be evolving. One naturopathic doctor has proposed that if we follow the age-old, literal saying, "You are what you eat", it only makes sense that a fasting athlete will become fast.
To summarize the athlete diet throughout recent history: first athletes removed dairy; next was bread; following by rice, beans, salt and sugar; and finally everything except for large fronds. It seems that if the price of success is to subsist on a bleak, bland, and joyless diet, today's modern athlete will proudly tell you: it's worth it!
