Contents
In this article you will learn, among others:
- What do footballers eat?
- What does Robert Lewandowski’s diet look like?
- What does the athlete’s diet look like?
- What is Cristiano Ronaldo’s diet like?
- What is Leo Messi’s diet like?
- How to eat while being an athlete?
What does Robert Lewandowski eat?
Robert Lewandowski is by far the biggest star of our national team and one of the best footballers in the world. His phenomenon is, among other things, that the striker, despite the passage of years (in August he will turn 33, which in the case of footballers usually means pre-retirement age! 😅), progresses from season to season, both physically and in football. Of course, behind the successes of the captain of the Polish national team, there is a supportive spouse and liters of sweat poured out during training sessions, but it will not be an abuse if we say that its results would not be so spectacular without proper diet and healthy habits.
Robert is one of the first representatives of the new sports school in our country. Athletes who receive and interpret the signals sent by their own bodies, make informed food choices, and constantly work on themselves, develop and gain knowledge. What does Robert Lewandowski’s diet look like then?
According to the portal female.pl, in the menu of Robert, which is supervised by his wife, Anna Lewandowska, we will not find gluten, dairy products, corn, soybeans, sweets from the store, fast food and sweetened drinks. There are a lot of gluten-free carbohydrates and meat (although according to some sources, Robert was also supposed to exclude red meat and poultry some time ago). You can read the detailed menu and guidelines here: https://www.female.pl/artykul/17466-dieta-roberta-lewandowskiego.
In addition, in an interview with the German Bilda, Anna Lewandowska mentioned that the Lewandowski family also attach great importance to regeneration, so we will not find a TV in their bedroom, and the air temperature does not exceed 21 degrees. Colleagues from the pitch on many occasions mention that the star of our team leads a very hygienic lifestyle, in which, apart from training and diet, there is always a place for rest, good sleep and regular examinations.
Most importantly, the successes of Robert Lewandowski undoubtedly have an impact on the next generations of young football adepts in Poland. After all, if you want to be like your idol, you must not only focus on training, but also lead a proper lifestyle and eat well.
What does the athlete’s diet look like?
While in “home” conditions it is much easier for footballers to take care of a proper diet, the task seems much more difficult during the matches of the national team. During this year’s training camp in Opalenica, a whole team of specialists watched over the Poles’ diet, but this was not always the case. The Polish representation of its own chef only in the 90s, but due to the lower awareness of the players and much less availability of products, it was more difficult to find varied, sometimes even sophisticated menus.
Currently, our staff members use individual menus, but their diet is also supervised by the selector, Paulo Sousa. It was his recommendation that the diet of each footballer was to include additional portions of vegetables and fruit, and desserts replaced freshly pressed juices. It cannot be denied that today the task of nutritionists and chefs is so much easier that active footballers, even if they are not entirely interested in nutrition (which certainly takes place much less often than a few years ago), They certainly receive comprehensive guidelines from their club specialists.
It is said that an increasing number of our representatives are also choosing plant-based diets and even vegan diets. This is possible thanks to the growing availability of fresh and wholesome products. Below you can see a more detailed statement by the chef of the Polish national team, Tomasz Leśniak, about the menu of our team members:
What is Cristiano Ronaldo’s diet like?
It is possible that just a few years older Portuguese was the model for our captain, Robert Lewandowski. Cristiano Ronaldo has been famous for many years for his perfectionism, muscular figure, almost devoid of “fat” and amazing endurance results. His dedication has allowed him to become one of the greatest footballers in the history of football and, particularly noteworthy, Ronaldo, despite his 36 years on the back of his neck, continues to work consistently and incessantly on his form.
If we were to characterize the Portuguese in one word, we would say “discipline”. The footballer himself has repeatedly said that he knows his body 100% and this is what distinguishes him from the rest of his competition. And he is certainly distinguished by the approach to regeneration, because with the help of a sleep coach, he had to give up 7-8 hours of sleep a few seasons ago in favor of five cycles of 90 minutes each.
What does the best footballer in the world eat? Here it starts to get interesting – Cristiano does not pay much attention to the caloric content and weight of the food, putting much more emphasis on its quality. He avoids processed foods, alcohol and simple sugars. In addition, he eats a very rich breakfast, 6 meals a day every 3-4 hours, and his diet can be characterized as protein-carbohydrate, which in turn is a contradiction to the tendency to exclude the latter macronutrients from the menu. He eats a lot of fish, which is very typical of the Portuguese, but does not use either oil or salt to prepare them. He does not avoid coffee, but consumes only water in addition to a portion of fruit juice for breakfast during the day.
What is Leo Messi’s diet like?
Well, we started about the European Championship, we looked at the plates of Robert Lewandowski, the Polish national team and the Portuguese star, then where did the Argentine suddenly come from? It was no coincidence that we decided to juxtapose the legend of FC Barcelona with the perfectionists mentioned above. Although Messi is a person who respects his privacy and rarely appears in the media, his character arouses a lot of controversy in the football world. For many years, he has appeared in advertisements for Lay’s and Pepsi, more than once it was loud about the allegedly not entirely healthy lifestyle and the approach of the Argentine star to the diet itself. How much truth is there in that?
Let’s be honest, if Leo would actually eat chips every day, he would not be in a place where he has been invariably for many years, i.e. at the very top of the football world. Stereotypical thinking about the Argentinean lifestyle that is not very sporty is due, among other things, to the fact that over the years he was juxtaposed with Cristiano Ronaldo himself on many levels. In the context of physique, figure and muscles, he was always doomed to failure, but who would not really be? 😉
Of course, even a decade ago you could find tabloid covers where Messi enjoyed fast food, especially his beloved pizza. It can be assumed that those years, that is the end of the first decade of the XNUMXst century, were just the beginning of the dietary revolution, so you could actually meet footballers with a common “belly” or “fat” on the football fields. However, from the very beginning, Messi’s career was supervised by a group of people, so at the right moment he was convinced to change his eating habits.
Today, his diet is dominated by salads, fresh fruit, whole grains and nuts. He strictly avoids sweetened drinks and dishes that contain simple sugars, and he also limited the consumption of meat. It is no coincidence that he is another footballer, next to the aforementioned Lewandowski and Ronaldo, who despite over 30 years on the back of his neck still maintains his form and place in the pantheon of the greatest stars of world football. At this point, it is worth mentioning one more important role that diet plays in the lives of professional athletes, it is quite possible that it helped Messi make the decision to change his habits.
As in every sport, footballers also suffer from injuries and injuries. In addition, football is an extremely contact sport, and virtuosi such as Messi are exposed to numerous, sometimes brutal clashes with rivals. A properly balanced diet not only strengthens their bodies, muscles and joints, but also allows them to recover faster after injuries. Appropriate supplementation has an impact on the repair of many minor damage, it is also an integral part of proper rehabilitation after more serious injuries.
How to eat while being an athlete?
It is certainly a very encouraging phenomenon that younger and younger boys, already at the academy stage, are made aware of the importance of a healthy lifestyle and a proper diet in the life of a professional athlete. They do not need to be specially forced to more discipline, they often observe their idols on social media, thus adapting good habits and patterns.
Of course, let’s not go to extremes and let’s not go crazy, everyone deserves a bit of pleasure, especially the youngest. If we are parents of promising athletes, remember that their potential career will certainly not collapse from a bar of chocolate or a can of cola.
At the very end, we wanted to encourage you to keep your fingers crossed for our representation, the beginning of the Poland-Slovakia match is today, at 18:00. Poland to fight!