BY JOY OFASIA
A sports Nutritionist plays a major role to help athletes maximize their performance by addressing nutritional issues and coaching them to ensure top athletic performance.
Fiorenzo Toncan is the only nutritionist at the Solomon Islands National Institute of Sports (SINIS) and has played a very important role to help Solomon Islands athletes prepare themselves for the upcoming Pacific Games.
“My name is Fiorenzo Toncan and I am the Nutritionist at SINIS. My role as a Nutritionist is to provide nutrition care for athletes. This includes providing Nutrition assessment, advice, meal plans and education and dietary recommendations for athletes in order to maintain optimal health status and promote success in their sport,” Ms Toncan said.
The Nutritionist said that athletes face a lot of challenges with regards to eating patterns and also having the appropriate knowledge on proper nutrition.
“Many times they are misled by information that is not legitimate and aren’t evidence-based. Sometimes, with regards to eating, there are a lot of factors that may affect their intake, such as medical complications, financial factors, emotional and mental factors. This poses a great risk of having optimal nutrition for athletes.”
Ms Toncan said to overcome the challenges that the athletes face, with the right directions (which my interns and I will provide to them) their willingness to have a healthy eating habit and mindset they can overcome any challenges that they face.
“Teamwork and communication are also important. Some of our athletes are facing external problems that eventually are factors to them not being properly nourished. Thus athletes need to have willpower, a positive mindset towards their goal. I believe challenges are what will make each individual become stronger as we overcome them,” Ms Toncan said.
As a Nutritionist, she explained why it is very important for athletes to control their diet.
“When we were born, we eat and drink to survive since day 1 (and also need air and shelter of course). Food is the fuel for the body and when an athlete engages him/herself in sport, the functioning (metabolism) of their body changes. There is more demand for energy, nutrients and fluid and this needs to be met. Thus what may seem like a mere “cheat” in eating can have severe consequences. During training and exercise, the proper amount of nutrients and fluid requirements need to be met to meet their fuel needs and also to recover. If there is no nutrition goal and there is no control, this can lead to a decline in performance and this needs to be avoided. Thus, it is very important to have a proper diet,” she explained.
She shared one of her best pieces of advice to all athletes who are preparing for the upcoming games.
“Eating right shows how you treat yourself. If you eat right, you are respecting yourself and your body and it is an important action towards yourself for good health and performance”.
“Prioritize your mealtimes and make time to plan what you are going to eat. Remember that food plays an integral part also in maintaining a healthy immune system. Start with your health, a diet that is good for your health is sure going to be good for performance and a diet that is bad for health will definitely be also bad for your performance,” she advised.
Ms Toncan loves her job and says that she is more than thrilled to be part of the SINIS team.
“I am more than thrilled to be a part of the SINIS team. The environment here enables me to perform to the best of my abilities as a nutritionist and I enjoy working with my colleagues here!”
