Cambridge students are notorious for their academic discipline.  From waking at 8.58am to dash to your lecture in spite of a heavy night in Cindies, to revising noon and night during exam term, Cambridge students show great commitment to doing work right.  For most students, what they do outside the library is less regimented.  If you want to enjoy your post-essay haze in watching Desperate Housewives and devouring Maryland cookies, you can go right ahead.  Sportsmen and women, however, are often not at liberty to treat their bodies in such a careless fashion.  Varsity Sport met some Cambridge Blues whose commitment to sport dictates what they eat.

Of all the sportsmen in Cambridge, boxers are perhaps the most diet conscious as they try and make their weight.  When training, Blues light-heavyweight Chris Kelly eats seven small meals a day, mostly high protein, low carb affairs, “trying to get your body to strip fat without compromising muscle.”  With lots of white meat and protein shakes it seems like a very lean diet for a sportsman.  Directly pre-training is when it’s time to load up on carbs in the form of toast or a banana but even so “it can leave you feeling very drained if training is intense”.  As to the long-term effects, Chris admits that it varies, but says he’s developed an addiction to Special K as a result of the diet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blues rower Caroline Reid is under similar strict instructions, but her main focus is less on losing weight and more on eating enough to support an intensive training regime.  The goal is to eat “in the region of 3000 calories a day”, with two breakfasts (pre- and post-training), a sizeable lunch (“baked sweet potato with beans and a poached egg, followed by fruit for pudding”), a snack before evening training then a larger carb based meal afterwards.  Caroline says that it’s less what she eats that has changed and more “the amount of food”, though her growing propensity for coffee will resonate with boaties Uni-wide.  She indicates that with “weekly weigh in sessions” you can’t go wild, but there’s still room for treats, recommending a “peanut butter and jam toastie after a long, cold training session”.

It’s not all diet charts and responsible eating, however.  Fresher hockey player Will Cairns has slotted comfortably into the Blues, and he is certain that his diet is a big part of his success.  “If chicken kievs are on in hall, I always have at least two”, he says, “and there’s nothing like cheesy chips from the vans after a night out”.  He is quick to salute the curative nature of the Tomahawk, the signature drink of the Hawks Club, and is rapturous on the subject of the enormous Hawks burger, complete with bacon, egg and cheese.

A pedantic nutritionist might take some issue with his stance, suggesting that he could be affecting his on field potential.  For the rest of us, however, it is a relief to learn that not all sportsmen are Spartan and, as we reach for just one more iced bun, we could still get a Blue after all.