What is a recommended diet to prepare for football season?

Hi Iain,

To improve your football performance, you can do several things:

1. I think you said that you do extra training on an exercise bike. For football (and probably somewhat for fat loss), you're better off doing sprinting drills (HIIT style). HIIT not only burns much more fat but it also results in better aerobic and especially anaerobic performance. Put simply, "sport specific training" dictates that if your sport requires several bouts of sprints, interspersed with slower running, then that's the best way to train.

2. Don't adopt a bodybuilding-type, very low carb diet (as you'll run out of energy during games) but protein will help with recovery from training and games.

3. Take creatine - it has been proven over and over again to improve repeated sprint performance (and don't listen to any misinformed rubbish about cramps, bloating, etc). It also probably improves recovery.

4. Another 'no brainer' is caffeine. Take about 200mg before games and practice and you'll improve your performance, endurance and fat burning during activity.

5. Get a whey protein product to take 1-2 hours before games and right after games. It can also be very useful to take 30 minutes before meals to decrease intake of 'bad' calories, decrease appetite and increase metabolic rate.