Effective Sports Nutrition Program
The goal of an effective sports nutrition program is to enable the athlete to achieve his or her performance potential while ensuring rapid recovery and preventing the overtraining syndrome or the adverse health consequences of severe physical exertion.
To this end, Dr. Kaye uses a variety of dietary programs, training recommendations, and nutritional support products. Dr. Kaye is a cross-fit athlete and knows from personal experience how nutrition, supplementation, and hormonal balance can improve athletic performance and reduce and heal injuries.
Paleo/Mediterranean Diet
Studies of paleolithic humans and present aboriginal peoples indicate that humans are well suited to sprint short distances when necessary, carry or drag moderately heavy weight, to swim, to throw, and to walk long distances. Unfortunately, we are really not well designed to be distance runners, power lifters, boxers or martial artists, or to engage in repetitive limited movements. These activities can result in injuries and excessive free radical cellular damage. Bearing in mind that we still love these activities, our goal is to enable you to perform these sports without excess damage and to speed up your recovery.
Just as in the non-athlete, diet is the foundation for health and performance.
Dr Kaye advocates a Paleo/Mediterranean type diet for all his patients, but there are important modifications to this plan for athletes, chiefly involving the types of and timing of consumption of carbohydrate, fat and protein with respect to training and competition. In the past, athletes used to eat massive quantities of carbohydrate in the form of starches, sugars, or processed foods. Relatively little vegetable matter was consumed, and little thought was given to the quality of fats or proteins consumed. Sports drinks loaded with sugar were encouraged. This is an outdated philosophy.
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are needed, but we emphasize a Paleolithic diet program which allows for carbohydrates from more natural sources such as fruits or root vegetables, legumes, nuts and seeds, and some gluten-free whole grains using sports drinks or gels only in special circumstances.
Protein
Protein sources are equally important, ranging from organic grass fed bison or beef, wild fish, poultry, game meats to whey, soy or hemp powder smoothies. We accurately determine your individual protein requirements using advanced body composition testing. Generally 1-2 grams protein per pound of lean body mass per day is needed for an elite athlete.
Fats
Fats are critical to health, but consuming the wrong types can lead to excess inflammation, arthritis, and accelerated vascular disease. The correct fats are an excellent energy source and anti-inflammatory. We are able to test your cellular fat profiles and optimize them. We discourage artificial fats such as margarines, trans fats, or highly refined vegetable/canola oils in favor of fats from lean grass-fed meat, fish, olive oil, grass-fed butter, coconut oil, nuts and seeds.
Nutraceuticals
Nutraceuticals can greatly improve athletic performance and recovery and prevent overtraining syndrome. We use products such as carnitine, vitamin c, vitamin D3, curcuminoids, antioxidants, multivitamins, greens drinks, COQ10, arginine, creatine, HMB, and many others to dramatically improve performance, reduce free radical damage, and prevent overtraining syndrome. We can measure free radical damage in your body and take steps to reduce and prevent it. We are excited to recommend several new products that can actually increase the formation of mitochondria, the energy source for the cell, reduce oxidative stress, and can improve the body's ability to handle stress. We are recommending these products to our patients as part of a sports nutrition program.
Our Patients
We have many amateur and semi-professional athletes as patients. Many are triathletes or marathoners or compete in such events as Tough Mudder and are winning in their age categories. Many of our patients are active in the crossfit programs and see marked improvement in their health and performance. Our patients range in age from high school athletes to those in their 50s or even older. They are actively competing without injury and maintaining the performance of their younger years. Dr Kaye uses all these techniques himself and is in better athletic condition at the age of 54 than he was in his early 30s.
Request Your Consultation Today!
To schedule your consultation, call 781-933-4200 or contact us online today!
