You want to play better golf, so I bet you’re dying to read an article about dieting, right? Don’t worry, this isn’t an article about dieting. If you didn’t know that eating healthy is important to long-term health and athletic performance, including on the golf course, then it may be time to pull your head out of the sand. Eating right joins exercise as the primary tool to prevent chronic illness, and it’s no secret that good nutrition is essential to play better golf.
The problem is, it’s suddenly hard to know what healthy eating is. If you haven’t heard, the federal government just took the food pyramid you and I learned about in elementary school and completely flipped it! They’re really sorry about the decades of misinformation, which is great. But that doesn’t help assuage the doubts and concerns of many who aren’t sure what’s healthy anymore. Fortunately, there are some simple and enduring fundamentals to basic nutrition that you can rely on. Follow these simple rules and you will enjoy positive overall health and performance on the golf course.
Eat Real Food to Play Better Golf
You’ve no doubt heard the term “ultra-processed foods” tossed around of late. If you’re unsure exactly what the term means, pick up a boxed or packaged food and take a gander at the nutrition label. See how there are about thirty ingredients, and the bulk of them are barely pronounceable chemicals? You’re holding an ultra-processed food.
Without going too far down the conspiracy-theory rabbit hole (and that’s a deep hole), understand that in the 1980’s cigarette companies like Philip Morris bought up companies in the food industry. (Go ahead, Google it.) In other words, companies with an expertise in creating and selling a highly addictive product started making food. That’s the problem with ultra-processed foods: they aren’t made to nourish you or satisfy you; they’re made to get you to eat as much as possible and come back for more.
Eat real food. Fuel yourself with foods that don’t come in a box or a package. If it must come from a package, make sure the list of ingredients is only 5-7 long, not 57. You’ll find you eat less but feel full sooner, and that’s because you’re actually getting the nutrients you need to perform in life and on the golf course.
Dieting Isn’t Necessary
Keto. Carnivore. Mediterranean. Paleo. Enough buzzword diets are floating around to make your head spin. Each claim to have it all figured out and be the single best solution for us homo sapiens, making it hard for you to know what’s best for you. Each of these diets has some merits, and in some cases some very eyebrow-raising demands and sacrifices. You don’t necessarily need to go to these kinds of extremes, however. There are some very easy rules you can live by that will have you optimizing your health, and playing better golf as a result.
If you pay attention to the aforementioned advice to stick with whole foods, you’re well on your way. Add to that edict a decision to avoid added sugars, and you’ll be feeling superhuman on the golf course in no time. Your body doesn’t need all the sugar you’ve been feeding it, knowingly or not. What the new “inverted” food pyramid reflects is a recognition that we generally don’t need nearly as many carbohydrates as we’ve been told. At the top of the new pyramid is a focus on essential amino acids and essential fats.
What about essential carbohydrates? There’s no such thing. Focus on protein, vegetables, and then some grains (in that order), and you’ll be on a diet that fuels you properly. What’s more, you’ll avoid the overeating associated with foods full of added sugar.
Don’t Overcomplicate It
Eat real food, avoid added sugar, and fill up on proteins and fats before carbs. That’s it. You feel better overall, and it will translate to better golf on the course. Sounds too good to be true, right? You’ve been led to believe that dieting requires complex algorithms, a food scale, and the perfect ratios of foods to yield results. None of that is true. Follow those simple rules and you’ll find yourself energized, having less brain fog and overall fatigue, and eating less because you’re fuller sooner. You don’t need to break out the calculator or weigh your food at all.
That said, it’s going to be harder than you think. It’s not complicated to eat right, but it’s not easy either. If you’ve been eating junk, you’ll be surprised at how hard it is to stay clear of that stuff. It’s addictive, and let’s face it: you may be addicted. But buck up and know that a healthier you is on the horizon, with better golf scores waiting for you as well.