ElizabethI know you have seen the ads and headlines trying to grab your attention online and in newspapers – “Pasta Will Make You Fat.” This same mantra is also quite common in top-selling books, such as the Paleo Diet, The Zone, and the Atkins Diet.
Well, today, I’d like to take the opportunity and point out that these topics are not only misleading for general populations around the world, they are downright questionable for a tennis athlete. In reality, a tennis player needs to have a muscle energy level that is sufficiently high to permit them to last 2.5 to 3 hours on a court.
If a player adopts these latest low carbs fad diet topics, they can quickly amplify their chances of dehydration and fatigue, which can, in turn, end up negatively affecting their performance.
If you’re a tennis player, note that just like searches for magical solutions that can improve athletic performance, most of these diets fail to deliver as promised, and a whole lot of them even create a potential danger that can reduce your on-court performance and energy.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at several reasons why you shouldn’t follow these low-carbohydrate, high-protein diets.
1. Calcium Loss
Most high protein diet plans increase the risk of osteoporosis and accelerate the rate of calcium loss from the bone. If you’re a female tennis player, this can, in turn, increase the risk of injuries related to the bone, such as vertebral fractures, ankle fractures, and stress fractures.
2. Cholesterol Level
If you’ve ever reviewed some of these high protein, low carbohydrate diets, then you know that a huge portion of them recommend so much animal proteins that could end up raising saturated fat and cholesterol inside your body above the recommended levels.
Needless to say, this puts you, the athlete, at an increased heart disease risk as well as slow weight gain that could result in obesity over time.
3. Can End Up Harming Your Digestive Function
Most low carbohydrate, high protein diets are extremely low in fibre, something that could easily end up compromising your digestive function. Even worse, if an athlete stays on such a kind of diet for a long period of time, they can not only experience increased constipation, but the move can also increase their risk of getting colon cancer.
Add to that the fact that not getting sufficient high fibre complex carbs will result in low muscle energy stores, and you’ll see why you’re recommended to stay away from these diets if you’re an active tennis player. All of these coupled together will make you tire quicker and take long periods of time to recover from long matches.
4. They Can Easily Affect Your Metabolism
Most of these diet plans are so low in carb intake that you may not have adequate energy to keep up your metabolism. Over time, players on high protein, low-calorie diets have been shown to slow down their metabolism so much so that eating normally made them gain extreme weight.
Before your body manages to establish the normal balance again, you might find yourself feeling sluggish on a court during important matches.
5. The Facts are Skewed
You must have come across the claim that high carb intakes are to mainly blame for any western world’s obesity problem. To this day, scientific evidence doesn’t support this narrative. In fact, most scientific evidence has proven the opposite, that carbohydrates are the body’s preferred source of fuel for brain and organ function.
The body will store excess carbohydrates as fat only if the excess surpasses the daily caloric expenditure needs for the active athlete.
6. They Actually Increase Your Risk of Overeating
Most high protein diet plans have been shown to increase cravings for sweets and sugar, which potentially increases a person’s risk of overeating later in the day. What’s even worse is the fact that eating lots of simple carbohydrates (like sweets or sugar) doesn’t improve a tennis player’s long term energy stores.
Add to that the fact that a pattern of restricting carbohydrates, followed by overeating, can easily compound disordered eating patterns in some of the most vulnerable athletes.