Sports nutritionists look at food as an energy source. They conduct detailed analyses of the activities athletes engage in throughout their day in order to help them meet the energy requirements of training and performance. Whatever an athlete’s short- and long-term goals—increased muscle mass, a leaner profile, improved endurance, or greater explosive power—the nutritionists who serve them create dietary protocols fine-tuned to support their achievement.
These protocols prescribe the nutritional composition, caloric content, and timing of meals and snacks. They are designed to promote not only effective performance but also recovery following a training session or event. In addition to providing student athletes robust support from staff nutritionists, an increasing number of schools with NCAA athletics programs now offer access to “fueling stations” stocked with energy-rich foods throughout the morning and afternoon to make it easier for students to comply with nutrition protocols.
Such resources would also hold tremendous benefit for the health and success of voice performance majors. Like other athletes, singers must simultaneously cultivate bodies capable of specialized energy expenditure while continually fueling their bodies for training and performance. But even if we do not have a team of nutritionists to help us meet our metabolic requirements, we can study the protocols developed on behalf of student athletes and adapt them to meet our needs.
Most of the guidelines that registered dieticians and sports nutritionists draw on are available to fitness trainers as well as all other laymen. For example, the nutrition guidelines that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) publishes are an outstanding publicly available resource. They serve as my primary reference for much of what follows.
Nutrients vary in their efficiency for fueling different categories of activities, so we must familiarize ourselves with the types of nutrients we consume and the roles they play in our biochemistry; it is also important to consider how each nutrient can best be sourced.
Most foods that humans consume break down into three categories of macronutrients: carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids. I will discuss the fuel efficiency of each macronutrient and criteria for evaluating their qualities.
Carbohydrates
Most carbohydrates come from plant sources, with the exception of the lactose found in dairy products. Carbohydrates include sugars, starches, and dietary fiber. During digestion sugars and starches are broken down into glucose, our primary fuel source. Dietary fiber promotes satiety and regulates digestion. Carbohydrates contain four calories per gram. The FDA recommends that carbohydrates make up 45 percent to 65 percent of your daily caloric intake.
Whole grains, fresh fruits, and vegetables are excellent sources of carbohydrates. They contain healthy quantities of dietary fiber and naturally occurring vitamins and minerals. Processed foods containing added sugars and refined grains are considered less nutritious and less fuel-efficient due to a lack of dietary fiber, vitamins, and minerals, as well as a higher relative caloric content.
Proteins
Proteins are found in a wide variety of plant and animal sources, including legumes, dairy products, meat, poultry, fish, and shellfish, as well as some grains and vegetables. Like carbohydrates, proteins are a source of fuel, vitamins, and minerals. In addition, protein provides us with the nine essential amino acids required for building and repairing cells, immune response, hormone production, and many other bodily functions. Proteins contain four calories per gram. The FDA recommends that proteins make up 10 percent to 35 percent of your daily caloric intake.
Animal and soy proteins are called “complete proteins,” because they provide all nine essential amino acids our bodies require in balanced amounts. Most plant protein sources are considered “incomplete proteins,” because they are either missing certain essential amino acids or do not contain them in adequate quantity. However, two or more plant proteins can complement each other and serve as a complete protein—for example, legumes and grains consumed together can provide all the essential amino acids. Vegetarians must take care to ensure their diets provide adequate protein.
Both animal and plant protein sources can contain a significant quantity of fat, the third macronutrient. Seek protein sources that are rich in nutrients and low in fat, such as legumes, soy products, poultry, fish, and lean meats. Like carbohydrates, fresh protein sources are likely to be higher in nutrients than processed foods.
Lipids (Fats)
Like proteins, fats are found in a wide variety of plant and animal sources. In addition to providing the body with fuel, fat serves as a component of cell membranes, protects internal organs, assists in the absorption of vitamins, and supports many other bodily functions. Fats contribute to a sense of satiety and contain nine calories per gram. The FDA recommends that fats make up 20 percent to 35 percent of your daily caloric intake.
There are two types of fat. Saturated fat is usually solid at room temperature and comes primarily from animal sources. Unsaturated fat is usually liquid at room temperature and comes primarily from plant sources. Trans fat is a type of unsaturated fat that has been partially hydrogenated and should be avoided due to its harmful impact on cholesterol levels.
Because fats contain more than twice the caloric content of carbohydrates and proteins, it can be challenging to limit your fat intake to 20 percent to 35 percent of your daily caloric intake. Seek lean protein sources and fresh produce, and read the labels on processed foods carefully. Prioritize unsaturated fats when possible, as excessive consumption of saturated fats can raise your LDL cholesterol level and increase your risk of cardiovascular disease.
Everything our bodies do requires continuous, reliable sources of energy. Not only our biomechanics but also cognition, blood circulation, and even the digestive process itself depend on the ability to access quality fuel in order to function properly.
How many calories an individual needs on a daily basis depends on a number of variables, including age, weight, gender, body composition, activity level, and genetics. While a thorough medical evaluation is necessary to determine your daily caloric expenditure with any precision, the Harris-Benedict equation to determine basal metabolic rate (BMR) can provide an excellent estimate:
• For men, BMR = 66 + (6.2 × weight in pounds) + (12.7 × height in inches) – (6.76 × age in years)
• For women, BMR = 655.1 + (4.35 × weight in pounds) + (4.7 × height in inches) – (4.7 × age in years)
Your BMR reflects the number of calories your body needs to continue functioning while completely at rest. At the time of this writing I am 53 years old, 63 inches tall and weigh 150 pounds. If I plug these numbers into the Harris-Benedict equation, I find that I need a minimum of 1,350 calories each day in order to just do things like breathe, circulate my blood, think, and maintain a healthy body temperature. In order to calculate the total daily calories I am likely to expend, I will have to factor in my body composition and activity level. To estimate your daily caloric needs, multiply your BMR by the number corresponding to your usual activity level:
• Little to no exercise: BMR × 1.2
• Light exercise (1–3 days per week): BMR × 1.375
• Moderate exercise (3–5 days per week): BMR × 1.55
• Heavy exercise (6–7 days per week): BMR × 1.725
• Very heavy exercise (twice per day, extra-heavy workouts): BMR × 1.9
I engage in heavy exercise, so I will multiply my BMR by 1.725 for a result of 2,330; I can confirm that on a typically active day that is about the number of calories I must consume in order to feel physically competent and energetic.
An estimation of your daily caloric needs is helpful for creating dietary strategies to effectively fuel your workouts and performances. Once you have this estimate, you’ll need to distribute it among the meals and snacks you consume throughout the day and decide how many calories from carbohydrates, proteins, and fats should compose each. With the right tools and some practice, you will find that this is less complicated than it sounds. Online resources abound to help you determine the caloric and nutritional content of most foods, and smartphone apps like LoseIt! incorporate bar code scanners that display nutritional information for commercially packaged items. Invest in a kitchen scale to measure portions of fresh produce.
Glucose is the body’s primary energy source, so your preworkout snack or meal should provide you with adequate carbohydrates to fuel your exercise and maintain blood sugar levels. Choose carbohydrates with a middle to low glycemic index, such as whole grains, fresh fruits, and vegetables. The glycemic index ranks carbohydrates in terms of how quickly they break down and enter the bloodstream as glucose. Carbohydrates with a lower glycemic index, such as whole grains, are processed more slowly by our bodies and therefore provide a steadier, more sustainable source of fuel; those with a high glycemic index, such as the high-fructose corn syrup often found in soft drinks, provide an energy spike that swiftly fizzles.
Proteins are effective for aiding postworkout muscle recovery and growth. Proteins are best processed and absorbed by your body when your protein intake is distributed fairly evenly between meals rather than taken in a single large infusion either right after a workout (a popular myth with athletes) or at dinnertime (characteristic of the typical American diet).
Fats have not been shown to have a significant impact on either performance or recovery and therefore can be consumed in proportion to other nutrients throughout the day.
It’s important to stay adequately hydrated for both workouts and performances. This means maintaining a fluid balance in the body that is sufficient for regulating body temperature. Physical exertion generates heat (literally the result of burning calories), and sweat production cools the body down. Drink water or a sports performance beverage continuously throughout your workout to replenish your body’s fluid balance, ensure efficient heat distribution, and avoid overheating. How much fluid is necessary to maintain balance depends on exercise intensity and differs from person to person. Do not wait until you feel thirsty to take a drink, as a sensation of thirst indicates a degree of fluid loss that is already having a negative impact on your performance.
In many ways, the nutritional needs of athletes do not differ significantly from those of non-athletes. We each have a specific daily caloric requirement that will keep us healthy and high-functioning, to be met with a balance of carbohydrates (45%–65%), proteins (10%–35%), and fats (20%–35%). The most significant difference between the way athletes and nonathletes eat has to do with timing and distribution of macronutrients throughout the day:
• Consume carbohydrates prior to exercise in sufficient quantity to sustain adequate glycogen levels to fuel the workout.
• Consume a balance of carbohydrates and protein postexercise to restore blood sugar levels and facilitate recovery.
• Divide total protein consumption over several meals rather than consuming it in a single infusion.
• Plan the timing and content of meals and snacks to meet the energy demands of specific physical activities. At times this will mean distributing daily caloric content over five or more meals, some of which may not fall at socially conventional times.
Here is how my 2,340-calorie meal plan might look on an active day that begins with a workout and ends with a performance.
7:30 A.M.: PREWORKOUT MEAL, 275 CALORIES
Oatmeal with sliced banana. The calories from carbohydrates roughly equal what I will burn in a typical strength-training workout.
9:30 A.M.: WORKOUT RECOVERY/BREAKFAST, 400 CALORIES
Egg white scramble with fresh vegetables and feta cheese and a slice of whole-grain toast. Carbs to restore blood sugar and protein to help with muscle recovery.
1:00 P.M.: LUNCH, 630 CALORIES
Brown rice bowl with stir-fried chicken and root vegetables. A balance of complex carbohydrates and lean protein.
4:30 P.M.: SNACK, 175 CALORIES
Apple slices and toasted almonds. I’ll need a snack to keep me from feeling so famished that I wolf down my preperformance meal and end up with digestive discomfort.
6:30 P.M.: PREPERFORMANCE MEAL, 450 CALORIES
Linguini tossed with olive oil, pine nuts, and parmesan. I personally prefer normal pasta made with refined flour to whole-grain varieties. Whole-grain pasta has a higher glycemic index and would provide me with a slower, more sustainable energy source, but the fiber is more challenging to digest. The fat and protein from the oil, nuts, and cheese will help with satiety and provide nutrients that will take a bit longer to enter my bloodstream. This meal might not work as well for someone else, but it leaves me feeling full and comfortable enough to get through a recital.
10:00 P.M.: PERFORMANCE RECOVERY, 400 CALORIES
Whatever is on hand at the reception that looks the most like lean protein, consumed in moderation. A couple of chicken skewers or smoked salmon canapés will do the trick.
Postperformance Perils
As important as it is to fuel a performance well, it is perhaps even more vital that you plan for your recovery. The best preperformance meal may still leave you starving by the time the show wraps up. It’s late at night, and you’ll likely find yourself either at a reception where you’ll be tempted by delicacies or at whatever comfort food restaurant is still open at that hour. What you need is a moderate serving of complex carbs and lean protein; what you’re more likely to be offered is a luscious helping of saturated fat in the form of a wedge of Brie or a cheeseburger. Know yourself. If your judgment is likely to be clouded when you’re hungry and faced with temptation, bring a healthy postperformance snack to be consumed prior to leaving the theater so that a feeling of satiety can buffer your resolve.
If you look at food as an energy source, it is relatively easy to map out a regimen that provides adequate fuel and nutrition to support your overall health, as well as effective performances. All you need to do is calculate your basal metabolic rate, assess your daily caloric needs, and fulfill them with a balance of macronutrients appropriately distributed to fuel the various types of exertion in which you engage throughout the day.
However, our culture tends to view food as either a source of hedonistic gratification or a dangerous substance that continually threatens to make us obese. If eating well has become a challenge, it is not due to any mysteries surrounding nutrition but rather the ubiquitous media messages constantly exhorting us to consume things that exceed and subvert our dietary needs and the proliferation of other misleading messages telling us how to achieve an unrealistic body image. The obstacles to healthy eating include the following:
Marketing. Restaurant chains and other large food corporations profit by selling as much of their product as they can, often in the form of single meals containing more calories than you’d need over the course of an entire day.
Proliferation of processed and hyperpalatable foods. It’s cheaper and more expedient to eat highly processed packaged foods full of sodium, preservatives, and artificial flavoring than it is to buy and prepare fresh, nutrient-rich produce. And while we now inhabit a highly functioning civilization that facilitates fairly sedentary lives, we have not yet evolved beyond craving the quantities of fat, carbs, and salt we once needed to be effective hunter-gatherers without heated homes.
The diet industry. The US Department of Health and Human Services currently estimates that two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese; meanwhile, our media concurrently promote ideals of thinness that are unachievable for most healthy people. Thus there are countless corporations offering supplements and diet plans that trade on the despair of a population seeking an unattainable physical aesthetic without being able to facilitate lasting results.
Short-term compensatory psychological gains of over- or undereating. Eating disorders are difficult to treat. Sixty percent of people with eating disorders who receive treatment are thought to make a full recovery; without treatment, up to 20 percent of people with serious eating disorders will die.
Arguably the biggest obstacle to developing healthy eating habits is our culture’s tendency to focus on physical appearance rather than on function, and a resulting obsession with weight management. This is an issue that athletes struggle with as well. Coaches will sometimes admonish athletes to lose weight in order to achieve a profile more advantageous for their area of specialization, failing to realize that such weight loss, if pursued incorrectly, may end up being quite detrimental to their performance. Sports nutritionists counsel athletes and their trainers to focus on improving their weight-to-strength ratio rather than on weight loss. Improving overall body composition yields a slimmer profile because it leads to an increase in lean muscle mass and a decrease in body fat, and muscle tissue occupies roughly one-third the volume of fat tissue by weight. Conversely, weight loss pursued as an end in itself can lead to a decrease in muscle mass as well as dehydration—and limiting caloric intake will lead to diminished energy and stamina. This is as much a problem for an opera singer as it is for a gymnast.
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In this chapter I have recommended that you calculate the daily number of calories to support your weight and exercise habits in order to design a nutrition plan that will effectively fuel your activities throughout the day. However, the discussions we tend to have about calorie consumption nearly always arise within the context of weight management, in spite of the fact that merely reducing caloric consumption rarely leads to sustainable weight loss.
The idea is that if you fail to consume adequate calories to maintain your weight, your body will be constrained to burn stored fat to make up for the food you didn’t eat. But this isn’t exactly how it works. It’s much easier for us to produce the fuel we need from the nutrients we consume than it is for us to convert stored fat into energy. When faced with a caloric deficit, our bodies may instead attempt to conserve the energy we have, resulting in both physical and mental fatigue and potentially slowing down our metabolism long-term so that we burn fewer calories by default. While weight loss can only be achieved by creating a caloric deficit, the best strategy for creating this deficit appears to be through strategies that boost your metabolism (so that you’re burning more calories daily by default) while moderately reducing caloric intake to a level where you can still fuel your activities appropriately and avoid sending your body into conservation mode.
My advice for singers is that you adopt a diet and exercise regimen designed to sustain your energy throughout the day while optimizing your body for peak performance. Unless your doctor has recommended that you lose weight for health reasons, I encourage you to view weight management as a secondary goal. Weight-loss diet plans often propose drastically unrealistic caloric deficits. According to the Harris-Benedict principle, I need about 1,350 calories daily simply to stay alive and functioning, so you can see that the 1,200-calorie limit frequently recommended for weight loss isn’t enough for me to just get through the day, let alone excel in the gym or concert hall!
Be extremely wary of anyone hawking supplements that promise swift metabolic boosts, muscle gain, or weight loss. Registered dieticians advocate reliance on whole foods for nutrition and exercise extreme rigor when recommending even the most basic vitamin and mineral supplements; sports nutritionists find themselves perpetually combatting myths propagated by for-profit supplement producers. Reputable fitness certification programs require trainers who complete these programs to provide only advice that falls within the scope of their practice rather than professing expertise in medicine, biochemistry, and so on. Certification as a fitness trainer does not represent any specialized qualifications in the area of nutrition, so a trainer peddling supplements is just a salesman in sweats, not a diet expert.
Food is far more than an energy source. It can also of course be a source of tremendous pleasure. Like most creative artists, I am a hedonist at heart, and I encourage you to indulge your appetite for sensual gratification alongside your need for effective fuel and balanced nutrition. All you really need to devise and comply with healthy dietary principles is a little knowledge and the willingness to set a high priority on the needs of your instrument and your craft.