Diets very low in calories (800 calories per day or fewer), including those that have been promoted as having a “protein-sparing effect” (conserving lean tissue), have often been associated with serious medical complications, including cardiac dysrhythmias (irregular heart rate that is sometimes intractable) and sudden death. Diets very low in calories Produce distinctive and [...]

To maintain weight, caloric intake must be balanced by caloric expenditure. To lose weight an individual has to achieve a caloric deficit in which the number of calories burned exceeds the number of calories consumed. This is the basic principle of weight management. As such, it is simple, straight forward, and includes three obvious [...]

A number of the physiological and psychological symptoms and signs of overreaching/overstraining have been suggested to be partly due to a chronic energy deficit, an inadequate availability of specific nutrients, or both. This may affect the body’s response to intensified training. The following describes some of the general dietary strategies that athletes can use [...]

During prolonged exercise, athletes become fatigued. For many years, exercise scientists believed that fatigue was simply related to peripheral muscle glycogen depletion and perhaps the hypoglycemia which may occur during prolonged exercise. However, more recent studies indicated that athletes fatigue even though blood glucose levels were maintained during exercise and a sufficient amount of [...]