These are the three foods that Rafa Nadal never includes in his diet: confirmed by his nutritionist

If this is important for the average person, it is even more so. for an elite athlete. Depending on the discipline you develop, what you eat is determined so that your body and mind can develop in order to achieve the best results in your professional career.

In the case of Rafa Nadal, 22 Grand Slam champion and one of the most admired athletes in our country, the diet to follow changed a little over a year ago. Although when he started his career he ate meals like Nutella toast or liters of Coca-Colain 2013 she became aware of the importance of nutrition in her career and contacted a professional nutritionist.

However, a little over a year ago, Nadal changed nutritionist to further improve the way you eat, adapting it not only to his performance as an elite athlete in this last stage, but also to take care of his health for the future. Rafa’s current nutritionist is Nuria Granados and, from ‘Relay’ They have interviewed her to find out what is eaten at meals, breakfasts or dinners in Manacor.

Although Nadal has already announced his retirement, his last match will be played on November 19, the last tournament being the Davis Cup Finals in Malaga. Thus, the tennis player continues to take care of himself and the role of his nutritionist is more than vital. Nuria Granados has been responsible for the nutrition area of ​​RCD Mallorca for almost five years and in recent months she has been the person in charge of changing the tennis player’s eating habits.

A more nutritious diet

«Knowing the difficulty of making changes to anyone’s diet, the fact that Rafa continues to be willing to accept changes when he has gained everything he has gained by eating a certain way, is another example of his humility and greatness» , Granados told ‘Relevo’. Thus, the professional admits that she has not made drastic changes, but rather has been introducing “readjustments, replacing some foods with others that she also likes but that are much more nutritious, increasing or reducing quantities, adjusting intake on the track. ..».

In this way, Nadal has been following an anti-inflammatory diet, which inincludes a large amount of green leafy vegetables, healthy fats and red fruits. As Granados details to the aforementioned media: “Currently the basis of Rafa’s diet consists of fish, vegetables, salads, rice, potatoes and nuts.” The nutritionist indicates that during the preseason, protein consumption is usually increased, distributing it throughout the day and, when it is competition time, the ideal is to increase carbohydrate consumption.

The three foods that do not enter Nadal’s diet

Many years ago Nadal ate fried foods, junk food and drinks full of sugar, but now this is far away and his nutritionist indicates that there are non-recommended foods for the athlete, but they are not very different from those that the rest of the population would also have to restrict. As he explains to ‘Relevo’, among them are “all these ultra-processed products with very low quality ingredients, with unhealthy fats such as trans fats or with an excess of added sugars.”

In addition, it does detail three foods that Nadal does not eat or that are very restricted in his diet: “He doesn’t eat meat, sausages or cheese”. According to Granados, the objective is to try to “meet the high nutritional requirements of the elite athlete and this can be done by choosing according to personal preferences”, in addition to analyzing how each food suits them.

Among other secrets hidden in the diet of a champion like Nadal, he himself confessed that chocolate was your ‘weak point’: «At night before it was a show with chocolate. I would eat dinner, brush my teeth, and then relapse again. Now I drink less at night. “It tastes better with milk, but it’s less healthy…” he said in 2020 during an interview in ‘El Hormiguero’, although at that time Granados was not yet his nutritionist.