Surat: It’s not all about training. You are what you eat too. Poor eating habits and nutritional deficiencies can impair performance. For most tribal athletes , like Sarita Gaekwad — who won a gold in the 4X400 metre relay at the recently concluded Asian Games — to replenish their energy, they depend on nagli chapatti and pulses for their daily dose of protein.However, for some tribal athletes from Navsari and Valsad, rice, chapatti and vegetable is their staple diet. Food supplement is cost prohibitive, but without it too they are doing well in sports.By default for many of these athletes from Dang, sport supplements are out of reach due to their economic conditions.Sarita, the golden girl of Dang, till she started going to Sports Academy in Patiala a few years ago, her staple food was nagli chapatti and pulses. She said, “Even now when I come home, I enjoy my own food. I get enough strength from that.”Even for Jankhana Chaudhary (19), who is a state Kho-Kho team member, second year BA student in Chikhli Arts College and a resident of Kadhvi village in Ahwa, Dang, diet is nagli chapatti and split black gram.Talking to TOI she said, “I don’t think I need anything extra because I feel fully nourished by this diet.”Even for Priyanka Patel, Sarita’s mate in Kho-Kho in her initial year and now 100, 200 metres, long and triple jumper, her local diet is enough for her. She doesn’t feel any less by consuming this. Priyanka from Kaprada in Valsad is doing her MCom said, “We need balanced diet and I feel by having sorghum (jowar) chapatti and pulses, it suffices.”Talking to TOI, a nutritionist Pooja Makhija from Mumbai said, “For anyone it is important to have a balanced diet. By having good amount of carbohydrate in the form of ragi, nagli and proteins in the form of pulses, these tribal athletes get energy and stamina to take care of wear and tear of the body.”She added, “Nagli also gives iron and calcium. Iron is useful for haemoglobin content and calcium to make bones strong. The third advantage of nagli is it has cooling effect on the body in hot weather.”Makhija said these tribal athletes may not know of the advantages, but have this diet by default due to their economic condition and it helps them enhance their performance..

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