Sports nutrition is one of the most heavily marketed areas in health, and the marketing focuses almost entirely on the small stuff — the powders, the timing windows, the products.
The things that decide your results are much less profitable to sell.
Three things account for nearly all of it: eating enough total food, enough protein (around 1.6 g per kg of body weight for people training regularly), and drinking to thirst. Supplement timing, "anabolic windows" and most products are the last two percent — and several of the rules people follow were written for elite athletes training twice a day.
1. Total food comes first
The most common mistake in amateur sport is not eating enough, not eating the wrong things.
Under-eating while training hard produces exactly what people then blame on their programme: poor recovery, stalled progress, persistent fatigue, frequent minor illness.
If you have added training and kept your food the same, you have created a deficit you did not plan. That is fine if losing weight is the goal and it is deliberate. It is a problem if you cannot work out why you keep feeling flat.
2. Protein
The one nutrient worth being deliberate about.
Around 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight per day is the range the evidence supports for people doing regular resistance or endurance training. For a 70 kg person that is roughly 112 g.
Two practical points:
Spread it across the day rather than eating almost all of it at dinner. Three or four servings works better than one large one.
Food first. Chicken, fish, eggs, dairy, legumes, tofu. Powder is convenient, not superior — it is food in a tub, priced accordingly.
Going substantially above that range has not been shown to add benefit for ordinary training. It is not harmful for healthy people; it is just money spent for nothing.
3. Hydration, without the complexity
Drink to thirst covers most training. For sessions under about an hour at moderate intensity, water is sufficient.
Where it changes: long sessions, heat, and heavy sweating. Then you are losing salts as well as fluid, and plain water alone is not ideal — this is the situation sports drinks were actually designed for.
A practical check: weigh yourself before and after a long session. A large drop is fluid, not fat, and tells you how much you need to replace.
More detail in how much water do you actually need.
The idea that protein must be consumed within half an hour of training drove an entire product category. The effect is far smaller than was claimed, and total daily protein matters much more than the timing of any single serving. It becomes relevant if you train twice in one day — which almost nobody reading this does.
Carbohydrate, briefly
Carbohydrate is the fuel for hard efforts. Cutting it drastically while training hard usually degrades performance, which is why very low-carbohydrate approaches suit some sports and not others.
For most people: eat carbohydrate around training, and stop treating it as something to be minimised. The intensity you can sustain depends on it.
Supplements, honestly
The evidence is much thinner than the shelf space suggests.
Reasonable evidence:
- Creatine — among the most studied supplements, with consistent effects on strength and power output. Inexpensive.
- Caffeine — a genuine performance aid for endurance and perceived effort.
Situational:
- Protein powder — convenience, not magic. Useful if you struggle to hit your intake from food.
- Vitamin D — if you are deficient, which depends on where you live and how much sun you get. Worth testing rather than guessing.
Weak evidence, heavily marketed: most pre-workout blends, BCAAs for anyone eating enough protein, fat burners, testosterone boosters, and the large majority of what fills the category.
A separate warning: supplements are loosely regulated in most countries. Contamination with undeclared substances is a documented problem, which matters if you compete under anti-doping rules.
What actually limits progress
Ranked by how often it is the real cause:
- Not enough total food
- Not enough sleep — recovery happens there, not in the gym. See how much sleep do you actually need.
- Not enough protein
- Inconsistent training
- Doing too much, too soon
Notice that supplements do not appear. That is not an oversight — for anyone who has not fixed the five items above, they are the last thing to think about, and for most people they never become the limiting factor at all.
This is general information, not medical or dietary advice. If you have a medical condition or compete under anti-doping rules, take advice specific to your situation — see our disclaimer.
Frequently asked questions
How much protein do I actually need?
For most people training regularly, somewhere around 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight per day is the range the evidence supports. Going far above that does not appear to add benefit for ordinary training.
Do I need protein within 30 minutes of training?
Almost certainly not. The "anabolic window" was overstated. Total daily protein matters far more than the timing of any single serving, unless you train twice a day.
Are sports drinks necessary?
For most sessions, no. Water is sufficient below roughly an hour of moderate exercise. Sports drinks become genuinely useful for longer or very hot sessions, where you are losing both fluid and salts.
Which supplements are actually supported?
Very few. Creatine and caffeine have the strongest evidence for performance. Most other products in the category have weak evidence and are priced far above their value.
Should I train fasted?
It suits some people and not others, and the evidence for fat-loss benefit is weak. What matters more is total daily food. If training fasted makes you perform worse, it is costing you more than it gains.
Sources
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