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PART I

MAKING FOOD PART OF YOUR ATHLETIC PLAN

For you to succeed in your mountain sport, and to live longer and enjoy life, it’s important to know that the mind and body are deeply connected. The decisions you make each day—your training and recovery as well as what you put in your mouth and the relationship you have with food—significantly affect your cognition and peak athletic performance. How do you prioritize and make good decisions? Become more aware of what you are doing right now. Start a food journal. Ask yourself questions, such as: When do you have your cravings? When do you overeat? Why do you have a hard time preparing foods or eating well? Once you have identified some critical situations that hold you back from eating well, you can begin to optimize your nutrition and experiment with different ways of eating. Decrease the foods that cause inflammation by experimenting with elimination diets, play with strategies to hit your individualized macronutrient percentages, or try out other special diets, and figure out which one works best for you.

The first part of the book covers the importance of athletic nutrition, building food habits, and motivation, as well as longevity and the aging athlete. Dive deep into habit building and find out how to change your behaviors around food. For you to stay on task, train hard, and identify the foods you need, first define and set your goals. Then figure out how you are going to achieve these goals. This book will help with that, guiding you through a series of questions: What is your identity? What is your environment like? Is your kitchen full of calorie-dense foods? Do you have the right cooking tools? Have you researched all the best ways to optimize your sport performance? Then you can experiment on your own. It takes time and commitment to figure out what works best for you. But if you make the effort, you can get the mind and body you want to achieve optimal athletic performance in the mountain sport of your choice.

Building supportive food habits is a crucial component in reaching your athletic and nutritional goals. This work includes adjusting your environment so that you can succeed in the practices you’re trying to put into place. For example, if you don’t want to eat sugar for one month but your pantry is filled with Nutella, Swedish Fish, and granola, it’s very likely that you will fail to meet that goal. This book will show you how to implement no-fail strategies. One way to reach the no-sugar goal, for example, is simply to get rid of all the processed sugar in your house. Get friends on board so that you can share your struggles. Avoid places where you overeat, and have a backup plan if you are faced with sugar.