Safe Weight Loss and Maintenance: Position Statement
After reading the NATA position statement regarding safe weight loss and maintenance in sports, I learned there are a lot more factors involved than I thought. When I had originally thought of safe weight loss in sports, I thought the athlete could just eat less fats and exercise. But there are many more factors involved especially when it comes to what sport the athlete plays. Some endurance athletes need to have fat in their diet in order to provide them with energy in an aerobic capacity. So how would these athletes lose or maintain weight when they can't cut fats from their diet. What they can do is look to eat fats that are unsaturated and avoid trans fats. They can also look to cut as many carbs as they can from their diet, while still maintaining a certain amount according to their body weight.
Another important part of safe weight loss or weight management is setting personal goals. An athlete has to set realistic and reachable goals with their coach and athletic trainer. This works best if the athlete can determine their % of body fat vs. their % of lean body mass. Then the athlete can decide how much lean body mass they are looking to gain. With their goal in mind they have to consider their daily caloric intake and what food they will eat to obtain those calories. Now the athlete has to keep in mind what type of macronutrient they need most. Depending on their sport the athlete might need more carbs than fats and vice versa. Also having protein in their diet is essential to their recovery process. So now the athlete has a lot of things to keep in mind regarding their goal weight. Realizing all of these factors now makes me think that for an athlete to lose some or maintain weight, it is not just as simple as cutting some fatty foods from their diet.
I liked this article because I had not read it yet, but when I showed up for preseason I had the lucky duty of having to weigh in over 100 football players pre and post-practice every day of camp. I thought it was very tedious until my ACI had me read this article and it made more sense. I know it is important to monitor weight but I did not realize that even as little as 5% body weight loss was as dangerous as it was, especially since there are some big guys on the team and they were doing two-a-days in the heat. Luckily noone hit 5% but we had a few athletes come close and we would have had to hold them out.
ReplyDeleteYou also mention goal weight for the athlete which is very important too. Since all of our rotations are at colleges right now, diet is something that almost all of the athletes are not familiar with. They are familiar with the dining halls and are very rarely getting apples or salads, but indulging in the pizza's, burgers and fries multiple times a day.
Matt -
ReplyDeleteYou are right - there is so much that we need to be aware of as ATs that it can become a daunting task and overwhelming at times. I think that this is an important area for ATs in all settings - HS, College and Pro - as there is much misinformation out there and very readily available by simply going on the computer to 'google' weight loss. Helping athletes to be able to decipher through the useless - and potentially harmful information will be something that, I believe, will be of assistance to our patients.