Most athletes have a general understanding of how many grams of carbohydrate, protein, and fat they eat per day. However, few athletes are concerned with the amount of vitamin D they consume and synthesize in their bodies each day. In the past, the importance of this nutrient has often been overlooked.

In sports nutrition we have always heard carbs carbs carbs: the importance of refueling the muscles after exercise to allow optimal recovery and maximize the performance in the next training session.   Is muscle refueling the path to optimal recovery?

Well I have to admit I have a sweet tooth, and a pretty strong one at that. Since eating a bunch of sweets isn’t a good way to fuel your body for health, nor for optimum training and recovery, I have a few alternatives to indulge any sugar cravings. Here are four quick, easy and nutritious - and sweet - dessert ideas: 1. Pineapple Raspberry Parfait

I'm often asked how a triathlete could really fuel their body with thousands of daily calories, and still avoid common inflammatory foods and diet "allergy" triggers like soy, gluten/wheat, dairy and eggs.

This season, I saw way too many athletes using G2 as their sports drink while training for a half-ironman or Ironman race. Let me be as clear as I can upfront- G2 is NOT a sports drink and will NOT provide you with enough calories to sustain any workload much longer than 1 hour.

It may not be the ideal situation, but it's happened to just about every triathlete, typically about 3-5 weeks before your big race. You step on the scale and...you're heavy. Really heavy.

I'm not a big fan of energy drinks. Heck, even just running under the Red Bull arch as I come out of the water at a triathlon annoys me just a bit. As a nutrition consultant, for the sake of my clients I have sometimes wished in the past that energy drinks did not exist. And here are the reasons why:

Alicia Kendig, Carmichael Training Systems Sports Dietitian, writes The athletic supplement business is a multi-million dollar industry with products promising big boosts in performance from pills, powders, or liquids. As a sports dietitian, I’m bombarded by questions nearly every day regarding the benefits of these manufactured nutrients.

You know the feeling. In the process of tapering for races, trying to check off your swimming, cycling and running workouts, and traveling to triathlons, you suddenly realize that you haven't been to the gym for a long time...a very long time.

By Neal Henderson MS CSCS, Boulder Center for Sports Medicine, Sport Science Director For years, well intentioned coaches and exercise physiologists have given endurance athletes very strong recommendations to ensure high carbohydrate intake during training and racing to optimize performance.