If Elite Athletes Aren’t Eating Enough, What Does That Tell Us About Being an Athlete?

You don't have to be elite to deserve to fuel your body. In fact, even elite athletes can underestimate how much they need.

When we talk about sports nutrition, there's often an assumption that the people who need to think about fuelling are the people at the very top.

Olympians.

Professionals.

People training twice a day.

People with coaches, nutritionists and performance teams.

But one story from elite rowing completely changed how I think about this.

I recently listened to a podcast featuring Caroline MacManus, Head of Athletic Performance at Rowing New Zealand, and Christel Dunshea-Mooij, Head of Performance Nutrition at High Performance Sport NZ, discussing low energy availability and RED-S in their female rowing programme.

And one detail really stopped me:

Three years before the Olympics, only one female rower was eating enough to fuel her training.

Not one recreational athlete.

Not someone who had just started exercising.

One elite female rower.

The podcast describes many of the athletes as under-fuelling and showing symptoms associated with RED-S.

Think about that for a second.

These were athletes training at the highest level.

They had coaches.

They had performance staff.

They had access to nutrition expertise.

They were training to compete on the biggest stages in sport.

And still, almost the entire group wasn't consistently meeting the energy demands of their training.

That tells us something really important.

Under-fuelling isn't a problem that only happens because someone doesn't care about nutrition

You can be incredibly dedicated.

You can be disciplined.

You can train harder than almost anyone around you.

You can want to be the best.

And still not eat enough.

Sometimes the opposite of what we assume is true.

The person under-fuelling might be the person who is putting everything into their sport.

The person who never misses training.

The person who has the training plan, the coach, the watch, the recovery routine and the motivation.

And still, their food intake isn't keeping up with what they're asking their body to do.

The work that followed in the Rowing New Zealand programme involved changing how the athletes approached fuelling and increasing their intake to better match what their bodies needed.

And that's the bit I find so interesting.

The answer wasn't simply to train harder.

It was to better support the training they were already doing.

And then they went to the Olympics

New Zealand's rowing team went on to compete at the Tokyo Olympics, winning five medals across 14 events, including four in women's events: silver in the women's double sculls, silver in the women's eight, gold in the women's pair and gold in the women's single sculls.

I'm not saying:

“They ate more, therefore they won.”

That would oversimplify an incredibly complex performance environment.

Olympic results depend on thousands of things: talent, coaching, training, health, preparation, equipment, tactics, competition and countless other factors.

But the story does demonstrate something important:

Adequate fuelling was treated as part of high performance.

Not as an optional extra.

Not as something athletes should be able to “tough out”.

Not as something they had to earn.

As part of the preparation.

So why do we make everyone else feel like they have to be “athlete enough”?

This is the bit I keep coming back to.

If elite athletes can struggle to meet their energy needs, why do we make recreational athletes feel like they have to reach some imaginary level before they can think seriously about fuelling?

The person running their first 5K might need to learn about fuelling.

So might the person training for an ultra.

The cyclist doing their Sunday ride.

The dancer rehearsing all day.

The person doing HYROX.

The shift worker fitting training around night shifts.

The parent training around childcare.

The person going to the gym after a full day at work.

The person who simply loves moving their body.

The amount and timing of fuel will obviously differ.

But the principle is the same:

Your body needs energy to do work.

And training is work.

You don't have to earn the word “athlete”

We have somehow made “athlete” sound like a qualification.

As though you become an athlete when you're fast enough.

When you race.

When you win.

When you get sponsored.

When you've trained for long enough.

But your body doesn't know any of that.

It doesn't know your race time.

It doesn't know your Strava.

It doesn't know whether you're trying to win or simply trying to finish.

It doesn't know whether anyone is watching.

It knows what you're asking it to do.

Different demands. Different needs. Same human body.

So maybe the better question isn't:

“Am I an athlete?”

Maybe it's:

“What am I asking my body to do?”

And then:

“Am I giving it enough to do that?”

But what if you genuinely don't know how much you need?

This is the part of the RED-S conversation that I think gets missed.

Low energy availability can be completely unintentional.

You don't necessarily wake up and decide:

“I'm going to under-fuel today.”

You might genuinely believe you're eating enough.

You might be eating three meals a day.

You might be choosing nutritious foods.

You might be eating more than your friends.

You might not think you're restricting at all.

But your circumstances may have changed.

Your training load increases.

Your daily movement increases.

You're working longer hours.

You're doing night shifts.

You're travelling.

You're sleeping badly.

You're recovering from an injury.

Your appetite is low.

Your training sessions get longer.

And suddenly the amount you're eating isn't enough for everything you're asking your body to do.

That's the bit that can go under the radar.

Imagine if we knew what our bodies actually needed

Imagine if, instead of constantly questioning whether we're eating too much, we were taught to understand what our bodies might actually need.

Imagine knowing:

“I'm training more this week, so I need more fuel.”

“I'm doing a long ride tomorrow, so I need to think about my carbohydrate intake.”

“I've started working night shifts, so my fuelling needs to change too.”

“I'm recovering from an injury, so my body still needs energy even though I'm training differently.”

Imagine if eating more wasn't automatically something to be afraid of.

Imagine if an athlete's first response to feeling exhausted wasn't:

“I need to train harder.”

But:

“I wonder if I'm eating enough?”

That question could change a lot.

Because what if the thing holding someone back isn't that they aren't working hard enough?

What if they're working incredibly hard...

and simply aren't giving their body enough to work with?

The frightening thing is that you can be doing everything “right”

You can have the training plan.

You can have the discipline.

You can have the motivation.

You can have the right shoes.

You can have the sports watch.

You can have the protein powder.

You can have the perfect recovery routine.

And still be under-fuelled.

That's why I don't think LEA and RED-S should be framed simply as a problem of athletes deliberately eating too little.

Sometimes it's a knowledge gap.

Sometimes it's an appetite issue.

Sometimes it's a practical problem.

Sometimes life gets in the way.

Sometimes training increases faster than food intake does.

Sometimes someone has spent years hearing that eating less is better and genuinely doesn't realise how much more they need when they're training hard.

And sometimes someone is doing everything they can to eat “well” without realising that their definition of “well” isn't giving them enough energy.

Knowing you need to eat enough and actually being able to consistently eat enough are two different things.

What if we caught it earlier?

This is the question I keep coming back to.

What if we could catch low energy availability before it became RED-S?

What if athletes understood their changing energy needs earlier?

What if eating more became normal when training increased?

What if carbohydrates weren't treated as something to minimise?

What if rest days weren't automatically treated as low-food days?

What if fuelling was considered part of the training plan from day one?

What if we stopped praising athletes for being able to tolerate hunger?

What if we celebrated being well-fuelled?

Because maybe the biggest untapped performance tool isn't another supplement, another session or another marginal gain.

Maybe it's simply giving the body enough energy to do the work we've asked it to do.

That doesn't mean everyone needs to eat a huge amount.

It means your intake needs to reflect your individual needs.

More training isn't always the answer

When performance isn't where we want it to be, our instinct is often to add.

Another session.

Another mile.

Another hour.

Another rule.

Another restriction.

But sometimes the answer isn't more output.

Sometimes it's better input.

More food.

More carbohydrate.

More recovery.

More sleep.

More time between hard sessions.

More support.

And sometimes less training.

Because the body can't adapt to training without the resources to recover from it.

So maybe we need to change the question

Instead of asking:

“Am I athlete enough to need sports nutrition?”

Maybe we should ask:

“What am I asking my body to do?”

How much training?

How long?

How intense?

What else is happening in your life?

Are you working long shifts?

Are you sleeping enough?

Are you eating regularly?

Are you recovering?

Are you giving your body enough energy to support everything you're asking it to do?

Those questions are much more useful than deciding whether you've earned the label athlete.

Because fuel isn't a reward

You don't earn food by training.

You don't lose your right to carbohydrates because you've taken a rest day.

And you don't need to be preparing for the Olympics before your body deserves enough energy.

Fuel is part of training.

Fuel is part of recovery.

Fuel is part of living.

And perhaps one of the biggest lessons from elite sport is that even the people who know the most, train the hardest and have the most support can still underestimate what their bodies need.

So if you're sitting there thinking:

“I'm not really an athlete.”

Maybe you don't need to be.

Maybe the better question is simply:

What is my body doing, and am I giving it enough to do it?

Because you don't have to be elite to fuel.

You don't have to win.

You don't have to race.

You don't have to prove anything.

You just have to be doing the work.

And your body deserves to be supported while you do it.

Imagine what we could do with enough

What if we stopped asking:

“How little can I get away with eating?”

And started asking:

“How well could I perform, recover and live if I gave my body what it actually needed?”

Imagine what athletes could discover when they stop fearing food and start fuelling their potential.

Imagine what could change if we stopped trying to do more with less.

Maybe we would train better.

Maybe we would recover better.

Maybe we'd have more energy for the rest of our lives, too.

And maybe we'd finally stop thinking of food as something we have to earn.

Fuel Without Fear.

Fuel the sport you love for life.