Nutrition After Joining The Powerlifting Team - 989 Words

I first fell in love with nutrition after joining the powerlifting team in high school. Our team, including myself, would wait until the last minute to lose weight for competitions by running outside wearing garbage bags, starving ourselves the day of weigh-ins, and spitting in water bottles to lose water weight. These extreme dieting strategies took a toll on our overall success at competitions and my personal growth as an athlete. I knew I needed to make a change, starting with my diet. After researching online, I integrated tips for healthy, effective weight loss into my daily routine. I began seeing remarkable changes in my appetite, strength, and mental well-being. Once I realized how powerful of an impact nutrition had on my overall performance, I used my knowledge to integrate healthy changes into my teammate’s diets. As a result, my teammates began to improve as well. While talent was still an important factor, I know our dietary changes guided us to win the state championship. From that point, I knew serving people through nutrition would be my life’s focus. I pursued this newfound passion by majoring in Nutrition and Food Sciences at Louisiana State University (LSU). During freshman year, I began working with Dr. Catherine Champagne at one of the world’s leading nutritional research centers, Pennington Biomedical Research Center. Under Dr. Champagne’s direction, I gained experience in components of nutritional counseling, in-depth dietary research and interpreting