So, who am I to tell you what you should be eating and how nutrition can play a role in improving sport performance? Here is a bit of background:

My name is Kristi Spence, and my initial interest in the relationship between nutrition and sport performance stems back to when I was in college. I ran on the cross country and track teams for Princeton University in New Jersey, and it was there that I first realized how little, if anything, I knew about how my food choices (quality, quantity, and timing) influenced my performance. It wasn’t until several years later, after I had finished competing in college and started running marathons competitively that I decided to make this field a career path. But I couldn’t give up running. My husband and I moved to Utah in 2004 because of the distance running coaching available here and the great training environment. I received my masters degree in nutrition from the University of Utah in 2007, and will be competing at the Olympic Trials in the marathon this coming April.

Nutrition scientists and exercise physiologists are constantly tweaking sport nutrition recommendations as our understanding of the field broadens, technology develops, and new study results become available. We do, however, have a good idea of what types of foods, the amounts of those types of foods, and how timing our intake of certain foods can help limit muscle damage, lessen recovery time, and improve performance. Nutrition messages in the media can be confusing and we often read articles that present contradictory points of view about certain foods or supplements. The goal of Athletic Republic’s nutrition blog is to clear up some of that confusion, to answer your specific questions, and provide a consistent nutrition message aimed at helping you reach your full athletic potential.

To get started I would like to address some common nutrition questions that tend to crop up among athletes. Please feel free to post responses, share information from personal experiences, or ask follow-up questions. We will update the topic weekly. If you have a question that you would like to be addressed in detail, email me, and we will work it into the blog.

Our first topic will address the issue of fat… Does eating fat make you fat? What can fat in the diet do for athletes?

Stay tuned.