Is Gluten-free Better?

Gluten-free, it's like the new fad in the diet world. For those of you that don't know what gluten is, it's a protein found in wheat, rye, and barley, and it's dangerous for people with celiac disease. There is also a huge part of our population (around 35%) that does not have celiacs, but does have a gluten intolerance. Those people should avoid gluten, but what if you don't have celiacs and are not intolerant, is it better to avoid it too?

The answer is NO! If you are apart of the majority of the population who has no problems with gluten, there is no reason to avoid it. I've read research articles that have found no benefits that gluten-free diets are healthier for the majority population.

A couple years ago I was living with a good friend of mine who was gluten intolerant, and as my own experiment, decided to eat like she did for a week. I only lasted three days. I felt awful, like someone sucked all the energy from me and all I wanted to do was sleep. It's funny though, because when my roommate was eating gluten (before she knew she was intolerant) she felt the same way. The girl would sleep for 14 hours and still be tired!

So if you're wondering why people are going on gluten-free diets- I have a hypothesis. Gluten is most common in things like muffins, pancakes, pizza, bread, ect. So I believe people are confusing gluten with carbs, and like we all know low-carb diets are very popular. But if you do go on a gluten-free diet, know that you are more likely to eat things like chocolate or ice cream, or gluten-free baked products, which are sometimes packed with sugar.

The Micronutrients Need Some Credit Too

I've talked a little about each of the Macronutrients- carbohydrates, protein, and fat. But for this blog post I want to talk about some Micronutrients, which is something that most people don't think to much about, but having a deficiency or an over abundance of one can lead to serious problems.

Vitamin B12- it does great things from helping build genetic material to assisting the nervous system. However, a deficiency in B12 can lead to nerve degeneration. Even worse, there is no way vegans can get B12 through their diet, so supplementation is a must! B12 exist in things like eggs, fish, chicken, beef liver and more, but this "and more" only includes animal products. Since dancers are known to consume lots different vitamins and supplements, I'm not too worried. Just make sure to check your vitamin bottles to make sure B12 is included.


Vitamin C- not worried about a deficiency here! If anything, dancers are consuming too much Vit. C. If you are consuming more than 1,000 to 2,000 mg (1-2 grams) there's some things to be aware of. First, Vit. C helps with the absorption of iron, too much Vit. C = too much iron absorbed. Too much iron absorbed= liver problems. Second, if the body gets too accustomed to high doses of Vit. C it doesn't store it very well and if there is any point where you start consuming less Vit. C it can lead to withdrawal scurvy. So if you are on a high Vit. C diet, slowly cut back on the doses.


Folic Acid- this micronutrient has become extremely important if you are pregnant or plan to be pregnant in the near future. An inadequate amount can cause malformations in the child. But since most dancers are not pregnant, it's not something of too much concern. This is one of the biggest micronutrient deficiencies in the U.S., partly because it's hard for your body to absorb it. Now, they are fortifying our cereals with it to help with this problem. So as long as you're consuming food (usually cereal) fortified with folic acid and not pregnant, there's no need to worry about this one too much.

And remember: If you eat a good variety of foods, micronutrient deficiencies will not be a problem!

Some sneaky High-Fat foods

The high-protein, low-carbohydrate diets have been popular for a long time. I remember as a kid my dad took my brother and I to Buster's Bareque and they were adverticing themselves as a great place to eat if you're on the Atkin's diet. That was the first time I ever heard about the low-carb, high-protein diet. But there are problems with this diet, including the fact that some high protien foods are loaded with fat.


Dancers love the high-protein, low-carb diets. You get the engery without the fat, right? Wrong. In a study of adult and adolecent dancers, 40-55% of the dancers diet was made up of fat, this is nearly twice the recommended amount. This could be because they are pouring butter over everything they eat, or mistaking high-fat foods for high-protein foods. In cheese, peanut butter, red meat, nuts, and eggs the main macronutrient is fat.

For me, protein has always been the hardeset macronutrient to get enought of because I tend to avoid meat as much as possible. So I've found that drinking (nonfat) milk and eating yogurt are two great ways to get protein, along with beans, fish, and lean meats such as chicken or turkey.

So remember to keep a good body fat percentage while getting enough protein.

The Right Amount of Fat

It's the Goldilocks theory when it comes to fat- can't have too much or too little. According to LiveStrong an average women in the US has a body composition between 22-25% and an average man in the US is between 17-19%. However, these numbers dramatically change if you are a dancer.

An average female ballet dancer has between 11-17% body fat and a professional modern dancer has between 10-16% body fat.

For men, a professional male ballet dancer is between 7.8-11% body fat, and a professional male modern dancer has an average of 7.9% body fat.

You may be asking yourself why is it important to know your percent body fat, well, it's to help you design to perfect weight control approach for your body. You may realize loosing fat could be beneficial, or you could realize gaining fat would be the best idea, or that everything is just right. There are three main methods to determining body fat; hydrostatic, skinfold, and bioelectrical impedance.

Hydrostatic weighing involves weighing the person underwater to determine their body density, this technique requires special equipment and a trained person to conduct it. It's the most impractical, but also the most accurate. The skinfold-girth method is most commonly used, it involved obtaining the circumference of the neck, a skinfold (pinch) reading on the side of the tummy regain, and a skinfold reading on the abdominal. Using these three numbers a professional finds the persons density, and using another equation finds the percent body fat. The last method, bioelectrical impedance, is based on the fact that electricity is conducted better through water, and since muscles are made mainly of water, they are able to find the person's body density this way. Bioelectrical impedance is very expensive and there are variables that can throw the number off (like how much water the person drank that day).

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Your brain wants carbs too

As dancers we strive for perfection. Perfectly straight legs in a grand jeté, pointed toes anytime they leave the ground, and perfect bodies. In the dance world it's common to want to be thinner and thinner and thinner, but how far is too far? When do you start losing strength and thus losing technique.







Let's face it- dancers talk to each other about different things they have tried to get to their 'goal weight.' However, a lot of these 'amazing diet secrets' are not always the most correct information, including a very low-carbohydrate diet, which we will consider to be 60 grams of carbohydrates or less.
Here are the facts; for your brain and body to work properly you need 160 grams of glucose a day, 120 of those grams go to your brain. When you do not get the needed glucose your body goes into something that we nutrition people like to call gluconeogenesis. All that big word means is that your body starts making glucose from protein reserves in your body. This affects fat breakdown, only partially breaking them down and making ketones as a byproduct, and after 3 days of starvation these ketones then become the brain's new fuel source.

The bottom line is this; eating a very low carb diet not only affects your body, but your brain too! And after you start eating normally again your body wants to restore its fat deposits, so you end up gaining more fat back.

Welcome!

Welcome to The Dancer's Diet! I'm a Dietetic student at Oregon State University and also a dancer myself. My professional goal includes working for the Oregon Ballet Theater or another ballet company and work with the dancers themselves. I find this issue to be important because dancers, especially ballet dancers, are one of the biggest risk groups for eating disorders, but we are athletes so it's necessary to have a healthy diet. This blog is going to be a great resource for not only dancers but for all athletes. I'll discuss what to eat and when, meal planning, and much more.