Athletic Weight Loss

The National Athletic Trainers' Association (NATA) has issued a set of guideline warnings for both professional and amateur athletes who may be trying to lose weight in order to boost their sporting performance. The NATA guide says that some of the drastic methods of losing weight including severely limiting caloric intake and causing intentional dehydration are not only unhealthy, they can be potentially dangerous to any athlete’s health.

In order to help athletes lose weight more safely, the NATA guidelines include body composition assessments to measure an athlete’s lean body mass versus the amount of they carry, and recommends that athletes should never lose more than 1.5% of their body weight in any single week, and that they must also eat a diet that includes a good balance of all food groups. These new guidelines were created to help athletes understand the importance of losing weight while under the supervision of nutrition, health and weight management experts in order to prevent undesirable side effects and health problems.

The NATA guide recognizes that the pressure to lose weight quickly is a factor in many different sports and many athletes mistakenly believe that quick weight loss will translate to an instant boost in performance. The problem is compounded by the fact that many traditional sports have mandatory weight requirements and when athletes do not meet specific target weight limits, they may not be able to compete. This creates a situation where athletes like wrestlers, jockeys and boxers to intentionally dehydrate themselves prior to sporting events by exercising in heavy clothing or restricting their diet and fluid intake to lose as much weight as quickly as possible.

With or without the NATA guidelines, it is a fact that when athletes resort to extreme measures is when things often backfire, and a forced rapid weight loss program can degrade an athlete’s performance when the body does not have the energy needed for peak performance. At the same time, limiting caloric intake
can also impact an athlete’s entire endocrine system and retard the overall growth and functioning of their muscles and bones. Unbalanced diets can also impair proper thyroid function, which can have the result of slowing down the metabolism, reducing hormone production and eventually suppressing the entire immune system. The guidelines from the NATA recommend that every athlete should try to maintain a balanced diet at all times, even when they are attempting to lose weight. Much research has shown that it is possible for athletes to lose weight safely and effectively and still give their bodies the nutrients it needs to maintain a properly balanced diet. Most physicians also agree with the NATA in that extreme weight loss methods of any type are more likely to impair an athlete’s stamina and performance instead of giving them any type of performance advantage.