Nutrition FAQ | My weight/skinfolds doesn’t reflect how much I train?

NSWIS athletes get a wide range of assistance and support about diet and nutrition to use food as their performance advantage and reach their goals.

Over time there has been some trends in questions which are common from athletes about their diet and what can help support training.

The specific needs of each individual athlete are always different depending on their goal and training loads but below are some explanations for some of the more common questions and scenarios athletes talk to the NSWIS Dietitian about.

I’m training heaps and eating healthily but my skinfolds or weight does not change to reflect that, what am I doing wrong?

When you are maintaining a high level of training, it’s not a matter of eating anything just to keep up with the load.

It’s important to consider WHAT and WHEN you are eating as this will have an impact on how your body is using the fuel you are eating, and if it’s using fuel effectively to suit training demands.

Skinfolds are done along with weight to understand how your body is adapting to training and whether you have the right balance of energy to match your training demands – they aren’t done to judge you they are done to help you understand your body better to make tailored adjustments to your training or meal plan.

Most commonly I find it’s because food is limited around high activity, and then once the athlete is resting they get tired and hungry and are likely to over eat larger portions or the wrong thing when the body isn’t active to maintain a steady weight..

Aim to fuel the activity you are doing, before and after, and eating more during the day so there isn’t as much of a need for large portions at night because you are starving.

Its not always the answer to just eat less if trying to reduce weight, when you get to this point it may be one or two small changes to meal timing and portion sizes that has the biggest impact on making things fall into place with your body composition goals.