Source: Irish Examiner

Aoife Hearne is well-known to TV viewers as a dietitian on RTÉ’s popular Operation Transformation series. The Waterford native has also worked with the Tipperary senior hurlers since 2009, providing nutritional advice to Premier County players.

A national 100m champion in 1997, Hearne runs nutrition solutions clinics in Waterford and Clonmel as part of her work with sports teams and individual athletes. Jackie Cahill asked her how GAA players should be preparing for the new season...

Q: What is the first piece of advice you would give to players when they’re planning for a long season?

A: The early part of the season is a time to get good habits in place, and any tailored, individual programme depends on whether a player is trying to gain, lose or maintain weight.

Q: How often should players eat?

A: The key is for players to eat every three hours or so, and when they eat, that the meal contains carbohydrate and protein. At breakfast time, often people have a bowl of cereal, if anything, but some kind of protein source is important; nuts, eggs, or peanut butter on toast rather than jam.

Q: Your ideal plan would be to eat breakfast, a mid-morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack and then dinner?

A: With the snacks, rather than having a piece of fruit, have a couple, and a good handful of nuts. Smaller portions of protein throughout the day – rather than two big portions at lunch and dinner.

Q: Dinner is obviously an important meal in the day. What do you recommend?

A: What you really want at dinner time is half the plate full of carbs – high fibre brown pasta, potatoes, rice, noodles, a quarter of protein, i.e. a chicken fillet or 4oz of steak/beef, or fish, and then a quarter of the plate with veg. At the start of the season, we also want to make sure that players are moving away from creamy sauces and fried food, to more tomato-based sauces.

Q: Are you an advocate of supplements?

A: A lot of players want to use them, but it’s really important that they focus more on eating habits, and use supplements as add-ons under the advice of a qualified professional rather than lumping into supplements at the start of the year. If they want to use supplements, get the advice of a sports dietitian. There are supplements that can be of benefit but athletes really need to make sure they’re using evidence-based supplements.

Q: You also believe that as well as strength and conditioning and pitch sessions, players should make nutrition part of their overall training?

A: Sometimes they want to make it very complicated. My advice is, keep it simple. Do the simple things right. Just like training helps you perform on matchday – you have to practice nutrition as well. Find out what’s right for you. On a panel of 30 or so, people will have different needs. Get qualified advice and then you can tweak it. Players will need one-on-one advice with a nutritionist but you can never start too young either. These practices should start at juvenile level.

Q: Eating every three hours seems like a lot of food. What’s the reasoning behind that?

A: It’s the rule of thumb and when players are trying to perform at their best, it’s really important that they’re fuelling their bodies correctly.

A lot of stuff you’ll see is anti-carbs but carbs are the most important fuel source.

You can tweak carb intakes but when looking at performance, if you haven’t got carbs, you haven’t got anything.

Q: Players should ideally get something into their bodies within 30 minutes of a heavy training session?

A: On training night, a recovery snack is crucial.

Go for high-protein milk and nesquik powder, flavoured milk or a commercially made recovery drink.

Q: Hydration is obviously a hugely important element, too?

A: I encourage 2 litres of water per day, plus anywhere between 400ml and 800ml per hour of exercise. When I work with teams, we weigh them before and after training, to measure sweat loss. It’s a personalised, individual approach.

Q: We’ve been asked by referees what should they eat before a game and when?

A: As with athletes, the main meal should be three-four hours before a training session or match.

Q: What are the worst of the worst foods, the truly forbidden foods that reverse the training more than any other?

A: No foods are off-limits, really, but it is important to have a well-planned diet. Obviously, you want the majority of a sports nutrition plan to be full of high-fibre, carbohydrates, lean protein, fruit and vegetables, but it’s ok that treats are a small part of it. However, it is important to recognise that alcohol does not add any value to a sports nutrition programme. Alcohol dehydrates the body and also increases healing time from injuries. Fizzy drinks should be avoided and foods such as cakes, biscuits and sweets should be kept for special occasions only.

These foods are not only high in sugar, but often have a lot of calories with no nutritional value. Foods high in sugar do not provide long-lasting energy.