{"id":205170,"date":"2025-12-28T14:08:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T14:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/205170\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T14:08:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T14:08:13","slug":"balance-key-as-athletes-diets-serve-up-food-for-thought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/205170\/","title":{"rendered":"Balance key as athletes&#8217; diets serve up food for thought\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\">There\u2019s a story I heard recently about one of the female stars of athletics. She was with her husband at an event on the circuit, perusing the buffet at the athletes\u2019 hotel. Among the options were freshly-made cookies, which caught the athlete\u2019s eye. \u201cShould I have one?\u201d she asked her husband, who responded in a stern, parental tone that left little room for misinterpretation: \u201cWhat do you think?\u201d The cookies were left where they were.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Spend enough time around elite athletes and you realise there\u2019s a wide variety of behaviours when it comes to nutrition and weight management. Some Olympic champions eat fast food every day. Some also-rans won\u2019t touch a square of chocolate. Some elite sprinters and jumpers are regular smokers, which isn\u2019t because they love nicotine, but a way to suppress appetite.<\/p>\n<p>This is exclusive subscriber content. Already a subscriber? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/login\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign in<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"IE Logo\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/4633150_1_org_IE_logo_modals.png\" width=\"340\" height=\"41\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\tSubscribe to access all of the Irish Examiner.<\/p>\n<p>Annual \u20ac130\u20ac80<\/p>\n<p class=\"best-value\">Best value<\/p>\n<p>Monthly \u20ac12\u20ac6 \/ month<\/p>\n<p>                    <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Benefits image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/4874751_1_org_Funnel_image.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t&#13;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a story I heard recently about one of the female stars of athletics. She was with her&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[134,111,139,556,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-205170","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nutrition","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}