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." 

FMI: www.aopa.org/expo