
There are three fundamental fitness principles you need to stress, encourage, and manage to maximize the growth and performance of your players: [proper sleep hygiene](/article/sleep-hygiene-for-performance), sound nutritional habits, and [physical fitness](/article/physical-fitness-for-performance). This article will describe the sound nutritional habits to better enable the extreme focus needed to perform and improve at the highest level.

## Primary Concepts

- Proper eating habits improve your ability to focus.
- Your focus is improved through having consistent energy levels.
- Your energy levels depend on a steady delivery of the correct amounts of resources (e.g. sugar and other nutrients) to your brain and muscles delivered by your blood.

## Proper Eating Habits

1. Eat for your next activity
2. Minimize eating within 2 hours of practice/competition
3. Snack for nutritional/energy/focus benefits (Avoid sugar spikes)
4. Drink ½ body weight in ounces water per day (200lbs body weight should drink 100oz water)
5. SUPPLEMENT WITH DISCRETION

## Why

1. **Eat for you next activity** - Your energy needs are different for a long tournament versus singular match or game. Eating less for a shorter bout makes sense because you can quickly eat afterwards, but when playing for 6 or more hours with limited opportunities to eat something, you should avoid sugar-filled snacks that will mess with your blood sugar.
2. **Minimize eating within 2 hours of practice/competition** - You want to be at a consistent state when you begin and finish your bout. Consuming a large meals or sugary snacks releases large amounts of insulin to address the sugar in the blood. Excessive insulin produces a sluggish feeling known as “insulin fog”. Ensure you avoid “insulin fog” by having plenty of time before you need your best thinking abilities. In situations that prevent this possibility, make sure to eat smaller meals/snacks and those that have a low glycemic index (low sugar) .
3. **Snack for nutritional/energy/focus benefits** - Avoid eating just to eat. Consider the foods and (especially!) beverages that you consume as fuel for a machine. If it is not going to improve productivity, you should avoid altogether.
4. **Drink ½ your body weight in ounces of water each day** - Dehydrated brain and muscle cells operate with poor efficiency. Ever experienced your thinking as “sticky”? You were probably significantly dehydrated. The benefits of proper water consumption go beyond just performance too, so make sure you drink that water!  Further reading here: [https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/7-health-benefits-of-water]
5. **SUPPLEMENT WITH DISCRETION** - There are supplements that can improve performance when used properly. These should be vetted by a professional and evaluated with the individual competitor in mind. What works for one does not work the same for another. The supplement, the dosage, the frequency, and duration should all be considered. If you get it right supplementation can elevate your game significantly. If you get it wrong, you might receive short term gains but with long term complications.

Nutrition should not be a restrictive process. We do not need complicated, restrictive, or boring diets. What we do need is dedication to improving ourselves one day at a time. If you can get your players on board with following the 5 simple habits listed above, you will see better consistency in their performance and mentality.

### Bonus Tips

- Eat all colors of vegetables
- Whole foods are better than processed foods (processing can decrease nutrients)
- Eat your calories, don’t drink them

If you have any questions, thoughts, or concerns do not hesitate to reach out to me, Nathan Berggrun at productivegaming@agamersadvantage.com


Sound Nutritional Habits for Performance

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