Looking for a simple dietary change that can improve your stamina and help you run faster in as fast as four days? If so, then the Mediterranean diet might be what you need.
Mediterranean Diet: Run Faster In Four Days
Thanks to numerous researchers, studies and people who actually experienced the results, we’ve all been praising the Mediterranean diet for quite a while now. More of a lifestyle than a diet, this strategy has been known to help with inflammation, promote heart health, improve organ function and even reduce the risk of your developing depression.
But did you know that for athletes who want to improve their performance and endurance, the diet can come in very handy too?
That’s right, because a study made by a team of researchers from Saint Louis University (SLU) in Missouri revealed that people who follow the diet are known to improve their running and endurance by six percent in a mere four days. The team reportedly recruited a group of men and women and required them to run on a treadmill after four days of eating the diet strictly. As for what they ate, it involved at least three servings of nuts and fruits, four tablespoons of olive oil and at least two servings of vegetables. Additionally, they also limited their consumption of meat, sodas and sweets.
From this, the team was able to conclude that following the diet helped them move six percent faster than when they were on a diet high in refined sugars, fat and salt.
“Many individual nutrients in the Mediterranean diet improve exercise performance immediately or within a few days. Therefore, it makes sense that a whole dietary pattern that includes these nutrients is also quick to improve performance. However, these benefits were also quickly lost when switching to the Western diet, highlighting the importance of long-term adherence to the Mediterranean diet,” Edward Weiss, study’s senior researcher and a professor of nutrition and dietetics, said.
“Like the general population, athletes and other exercise enthusiasts commonly eat unhealthy diets. Now they have an additional incentive to eat healthy,” he added.
