An athlete must stay on top of their nutrition to perform the best they can. Continue to read more below about how my nutrition ended up hurting my mental health more than it did to help...
(Photo Credit: News Medical Life Sciences)
When I look at my younger years, and through my senior year in high school playing soccer, I sometimes think about all the fun team dinners, eating out, and being able to eat whatever we wanted because we were athletes. To be honest, I think how did I even manage to eat pizza before a game or a blizzard from an ice cream shop after the game to cool down and treat myself all the time?
Now, don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed all those moments with food and being able to eat whatever I wanted. But, as I got older, I learned the importance of good nutrition and it became a non negotiable for me. The better I ate, the better I performed. Even though this became true in my collegiate and professional career, eating healthy, creating restrictions, and constantly striving to perform well took a massive toll on my mental health. I had turned my healthy eating habits into an obstacle that made my life worse and was at the point of developing an eating disorder.
Nearing the end of my college soccer season in 2019, I started to try different diets, foods, different times of day to eat, and so on. I gained a lot of insight from professional players, influencers on social media and found myself doing more and more research on the importance of healthy eating habits for high-level athletes. I slowly started to shape and form my eating habits and eventually began to create restrictions for myself. I knew if I wanted to play professionally, I had to do everything I could to help myself (maybe a little too much). With that in mind, I eliminated any junk food, processed foods, and began to only eat lean, whole foods that would provide me with the nutrients I needed to continually help me perform at my best.
Over time, I began to notice very positive results and was able to maintain a higher intensity while playing, recover faster, become stronger, and overall became more fit as a player. My nutrition had evolved and I’d finally found the foods and routine that suited me as a player and my lifestyle during that time. But, what I didn’t anticipate was my nutrition affecting me negatively…
Each day, I became so fixed on what and when I was eating. My mind and body became so used to what I was eating that I didn’t want to eat anything other than those foods. If somebody offered me a snack, candy or to even just try a piece of something, I would completely avoid it. If friends or family wanted to go out for dinner, I would begin to stress, worry and get very anxious about what the food would be like. Also, if it was healthy, or how it isn’t when or what I normally eat, and more unnecessary thoughts constantly circling my mind. Countless times I would also search on the internet ahead of time where we were eating if I did go out and how much fat, calories, carbs, protein, and even what ingredients were in the food. It’s as if anything other than what would normally be in my diet if eaten would feel toxic.
Soon, my eating habits began to cause me to be more anti-social and more independent causing more depression. I thought what I was doing was the right thing at the time, even if it affected my life outside of soccer with friends and family. Over time, any event that caused me to eat around others stressed me out and I became self-conscious of what I was eating because even though it was healthy, these habits weren’t ‘normal’ so to speak. What caused me to stay on this diet and my overall eating habits was the fact that it was working and helping me perform better. At that point, I thought if I went off track or messed up my nutrition, I would lose the fitness and performance level that I had worked so hard for.
After returning from Spain and playing my last competitive season, I finally realized I needed to do something about this. Through therapy, I learned over time, I had developed what was called Orthorexia Nervosa. Essentially, this is where I only wanted to eat healthy and was very restrictive with what I would eat. I didn’t know what to think, all I could think was how eating healthy was meant to help me and not affect me every day instead. This had a big impact on me, and knowing this helped me take action. Even though I was taking a break from playing, I still had these habits that weren’t always necessary.
Each day, week, and month for the past two years has been very difficult. So many days I continued to stay on schedule eating the same foods throughout the week at certain times and continued to restrict myself. But, I’ve slowly pushed the boundaries outside of my normal eating habits mixing up foods and trying new things. This doesn’t mean I don’t eat healthy though, no, not at all! I still do, but I’ve become a little better at balancing out restrictions here and there, what I eat, etc. Even though I have improved from where I once was in my relationship with food, I still struggle with these habits. Food is a part of every athlete’s life and plays a pivotal role in how people train, recover, act, perform, and improve. When an athlete finds their groove or something that helps them perform their best to achieve their goals such as what food they may eat, it can be hard not to maintain or move away from those habits and mindset. But, when these habits begin to affect who you are and what you do daily, this is when action needs to be taken. How food can affect an athlete, cause eating disorders, and cause negative effects on a person’s mental health is all very real. It’s not a joke, take me for example. I hope my experiences encourage other athletes and individuals, in general, to be mindful of their eating habits and not let the mental aspect of nutrition take over. Enjoy healthy food in moderation, don’t let it control you.