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Freediving Diet & Nutrition

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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soren

New Member
Mar 20, 2006
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I am speaking about diet and nutrition soon as it relates to Freediving and would love to hear from the community.
Do you have any good online sources, research papers or book references on where to find information about freediving and diet?
I haven’t narrowed down the sub title of my talk yet, but know I can’t cover all areas of freediving diet and nutrition, so I will need to pick an area soon.
I would also like to ask a few questions to you as a freediver as well:
1) How do you eat in general and why do you eat this way?
2) Does freediving factor into your food choices?
3) How much of your diet and nutrition choices come from science and how much from friends and peers?
4) Do you take any supplements which you believe to improve your freediving?
5) Do you eat differently during training than you do before a competition?
6) Would you eat differently training for a competition than you would during recreational freediving in ocean or lake?
7) What do you eat/drink just before diving if any?
8) Are there any items of food you completely stay away from? Why?

These are just a few questions to get you mind going, but please feel free to write anything you want about freediving diet and nutrition.

I will try to collect all this material and will post a summary of my talk sometime in July.

Thanks in advance for helping
Soren Frederiksen
 
One of the best sources is probably the forum archive - you will find there plenty of threads to this topic, and also many external links.

I have some documents listed in the Freediving Media Base too:
diet @ APNEA.cz (there are some false hits)
nutrition @ APNEA.cz (no false hits, but not all links are listed)
 
Most of my diet choices come from self experimentation. Very little from science or peers. I firmly believe that diet is highly individual. Something that works for one person may be awful for another. Hence, any scientist who says 'this is what you should eat' has already missed the most important point -- that each person is different. Thus, experimenting on yourself with different foods becomes the only viable option.

One main factor in diet for performance is increasing the body water store (see CO2 body water hypothesis thread). This is accomplished by loading carbs, mostly starchy carbs, and superhydrating with the water that the carbs will store. This greatly improves CO2 buffering.

I eat differently for competition than for recreational diving, since most of my diving is in cold water, I need to eat more for fun diving and eat closer to the actual dive. For competitions I don't eat anything except a hydration drink.

Food items I stay away from; no caffeine or alcohol prior to performance. Garlic can be helpful if you know how to use it; otherwise it can creates problems from low blood pressure (=packing blackouts).
 
Mayol used to eat huge quantities of garlic. Obviously he didnt know how to pack hence there was no risk for him. Appreciate if u can give us a tip Eric.
Posted via Mobile Device
 
Anyone is into the diet and can give us some insight? sounds interesting... you can even eat chocolate!!!
 
I would assume that given a few basic facts you could tailor your diet. For example:

Your ability in apnea is dependant on a few basic factors such as:
-lung volume

You cant eat your way to a bigger lung volume, however, it would be possible to assume that you could eat your way to the next best thing: higher oxygen carrying ability for your bloodstream. I could be wrong, and im trying to put two-and-two together here, but i would assume that a diet taht increased your red-bloodcell count and hemoglobin levels would be beneficiary for apnea. (please some1 correct me if im wrong).

i do know that hydration is key. also, like eric said, avoid alcohol and caffeine.

if im not mistaken, dairy products can possibly increase mucus production, which would lead to problems in equalization.
brocolli, tomatoes, almonds, and walnuts are all highly beneficial (in my experiece).
 
Hi everibody!!

For me, diet is extremely important in freediving results, much more than in any other sport I practised in the past. In general I try to follow an alkaline diet similar to the one simos posted. In particular, I am very careful on what I eat in the 3-4 hrs before training or competition. I like to dive with my stomach completely empty but not feeling hungry, that's why I eat just boiled white rice or some well toasted bred with honey or jam 3-4 hrs before the dive. This is just a carbo. snack, because I use to eat very small qtitys of proteins in the morning or during lunch, and the remaining part in the evening, after training. I also find very important to be well hydrated and of course to avoid alcohol and caffeine.
 
During spearfishing, I use noncaffienated gu....I wonder about the b vitamins though.
 
Wow. I have been paleo for one month, and ketogenic for two weeks. In theory, ketosis might be real good for diving. For one, less CO2 is generated per unit of work done. Secondly, for moderate exertion, no glucose is used, and thus, no lactic acid is produced. However, bursts of effort, and apnea will probably burn glucose. Has anyone else tried keto here? One thing for sure, I'm %100 behind paleo. At the very least, vitamin and minerals go through the roof. There's plenty of carbs in fruit and starchy veg like pumpkin, and also natural sugars in fresh meat IMO.
 
i've switched to a organic pescatarian diet (organic is very important no matter what your eating) i don't know how it effects my freediving but my endurance has gone up no end in my cycling running and swimming.
i hear liquorish root is good before a dive (i forget why you should prob look this up)
 
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