Enhance Your Performance by Eating Right
By ANN Correspondent Rose Dorcey
Pancakes swimming in syrup, toast with margarine, and two cups
of coffee with sugar or your favorite artificial sweetener. A
breakfast of champion pilots? Or a menu destined to lower your
performance levels, both in and out of the cockpit?
Holly Carling, O.M.D., L.Ac, Ph.D. (those letters mean highly
educated doctor of oriental medicine, and licensed acupuncturist)
says that what you consume makes a difference in your performance -
it will either enhance it or hinder it. In an AOPA Expo seminar,
Dr. Carling led a group of over 50 aviation enthusiasts in
analyzing their eating habits and finding out what they are doing
(or not doing) that can make the difference between life and death
flying.
In Pilot Nutrition, Optimizing Performance in the Cockpit, a
popular, one-hour seminar, Carling covered the foods we eat and the
effects they have, such as hypoglycemia, dehydration, alcohol,
caffeine, soda, cigarettes, and essential fatty acids.
Hypoglycemia occurs when blood sugar levels drop. Causes include
missed or inconsistent meals, or diets high in carbohydrates,
without protein to stabilize it, like the breakfast mentioned
above. The effects of hypoglycemia are serious: fatigue, foggy
thinking, shakiness, forgetfulness, drowsiness and sometimes
dizziness and blurred vision. All of these are factors that can
lead to - and in some cases have led to - decreased performance and
airplane mishaps.
There's an easy solution to the problem of hypoglycemia - proper
meal planning. The timing of and type of foods you eat can enhance
performance. Carling recommends that pilots carry protein bars,
trail mix, cut-up fruit or a box of juice in your flight bag. An
instrument rated pilot, Carling said, "I recommend adding the
letter "R" - for refreshment, to the GUMPS memory aid, making it
GRUMPS."
Carling also recommends drinking plenty of water. Typically,
pilots tend to not drink enough water, for obvious reasons. But
it's an important issue. Performance levels of military pilots were
tested in areas that related to short and long-term memory, basic
math skills, and focusing on small objects. With just minor
dehydration levels, as low as 2%; performance was reduced by as
much as 50%. Minor dehydration can lead to dizziness, fatigue and
headaches. Carling says that here again, timing is important. Plan
to drink plenty of water, coffee and tea does not count, about two
hours before departure time. Two hours gives plenty of time for
your body to process the fluid.
To eat successfully, Carling recommends this hint: cup your
hands together in front of you, and divide it into quarters. Fill
one-quarter with cooked vegetables, one-quarter with raw veggies,
one-quarter with carbohydrates and a quarter with protein. Eat a
small portion of fruit 20 minutes before or 2 hours after your
meals. Don't pile your "hands" high, as one enthusiastic attendee
asked. Eat sensibly; don't overeat. Avoid fads, don't skip meals,
eat slowly and chew well. Avoid sugar and artificial sweeteners,
caffeine, coffee, alcohol and soda. Drink plenty of water, eat
plenty of protein, and choose good fats, such as raw (not roasted)
nuts.
"When flying," Carling concluded, "keep your diet
simple."