by Chris DeLeon
Dave Ellis, a registered dietitian and certified strength and conditioning specialist, addressed an audience of about 110 students and faculty on Thursday night about the connection between nutrition and sports performance. Ellis currently serves as the president of Sports Alliance Incorporated and the first president of the Collegiate and Professional Sports Dietitians Association.
The main focus of the lecture was high-performance diets for athletes. Ellis had a detailed slide presentation to go along with his speech. The slides opened with showing the key tenets of a high-performance diet: immune, energy availability and recovery.
A handout was provided with a list of foods that are necessary to fuel athletes. The handout split food into three categories that worked with each of the key tenets.
Throughout the lecture, Ellis emphasized the importance of fresh food rather than processed foods that can contain metabolism-disrupting additives, highlighting the damages these additives can have to health and performance.
“Fresh food is a big deal,” Ellis said when specifically discussing fruit and vegetables. “Fresh is better than frozen, frozen is better than canned, and canned is better than nothing.”
Ellis pointed out that even fresh fruits and vegetables can be harmful. Endocrine disrupting chemicals from pesticide residue can be found on nonorganic food and is very difficult to clean off before consumption.
The session also focused on dietary supplements that are often used by athletes. Ellis stated that many off-the-shelf supplements contain banned substances and that 70 percent of supplement companies had been found by the Food and Drug Administration to violate the agency’s rules. Some of the additives found in supplements are steroids, narcotics and diuretics. Ellis recommended using the NSF app available for smart phones to find clean supplements certified for sports use. The app is free to download and use.
Next, Ellis discussed the dangers of popular diets. He pointed out that severe calorie depletion can have negative effects within five days. One such effect is the rapid decline in bone mineralization. He also addressed paleo and ketogenic diets. Ellis explained that these diets restrict the ability to perform resistance training and that unnecessary elimination of nutrients can lead to an eating disorder called orthorexia.
“Bad goal setting leads to finding a bad solution,” Ellis said.
He explained this while discussing athletes using poor dietary practices or banned substances. He emphasized the importance of setting reasonable goals based on body type and level of conditioning.
Ellis stayed after the lecture to speak one-on-one with CMU athletes and answer questions audience members had regarding the connection between sports and nutrition. The lecture was brought to CMU by a collaborated effort between the Monfort Family Human Performance Lab and the Rocky Mountain chapter of the American College of Sports Medicine.
“There was a lot of thought as far as who to bring in,” Brent Alumbaugh, a member of Monfort Family Human Performance Lab, said. “This one was mainly done because of suggestions from students from the last lecture, which was last semester. […] Dave is highly regarded and the committee agreed on him, and I think it turned out pretty well.”
Alumbaugh said the Monfort Lecture series typically occur every one to two months. The lectures are open for students of all majors, faculty and the public to attend. There are no more lectures planned for the fall semester, but two are planned for the spring semester.
