Food Items That Will Keep You Hydrated and Clear Minded During a Poker Match
Aspiring poker players focus on getting their game together, concentrate on the hands they have played, direct their attention at their game decisions, and single-mindedly obsess about their results. While all of this is important, there are other factors to look at as well, which contribute hugely to your win-rate. Diet, exercise, general stress levels, and your sleep schedule can seriously affect how profitably you are upping the ante, and this article outlines some pointers on how to get your A-game on.
The Low-Down on What You are Loading Up On
Food groups should be understood in order for you to better understand where you’re going wrong and what you are doing right:
- Proteins
This is the primary macro-nutrient in meat, but it can also be found from other sources, like legumes. Protein builds and retains muscle mass. Healthy recipes that include foods high in protein are easy to find, and are very tasty too.
- Fats
Fats are nutrients which promote the healthy production of your hormones and optimise brain functions –both of which are critical factors in poker play, or even other games that require mental and physical stamina, like online black jack for example. Clean, healthy fats are critical, and you should be consuming olive oil, nuts, seeds, avos and nut butters as frequently as you can.
- Carbs
Carbohydrates are your basic source of fuel and energy physically speaking, and there are a range of types, some better than others. When you eat carbs, your blood sugar will spike, so your body releases insulin in order to remedy this. This process will see you enjoying a surge of energy followed by a crash, depending on what carbohydrates you are consuming. You definitely don’t want to be crashing in the middle of a Texas Hold ‘em round, and should try to consume things like whole grain breads, brown rice, and sweet potatoes in order to even out your blood sugar levels while you play.
What a Poker Player’s Diet Should Look Like
While there is loads of literature regarding what a balanced diet should look like, this article is just going to provide a list of the more commonly consumed food types that should be avoided if you want to play better poker all-round. These items are very commonly used as snacks for games, but replacing them is easy to do, and you will soon see the difference in the returns you are making when you next engage in a high-stakes game:
- Pizza
This typically is produced using refined flour, and the results are not good for poker players. Low-carb options like cauliflower bases are available if it’s something you simply must have.
- Soda
There are as many as 45 grams of sugar in each can, which is far too much for your body to handle and operate optimally. Replacing this drink with water will help your brain run its Krebs cycles more efficiently, and see you take home heaps of money as you stay hydrated! Beer is as bad as soda is, being high in carbohydrates and impacting your ability to make proper judgement calls thanks to the alcohol rushing through your bloodstream. Water is the way to go.
- French Fries
White potatoes are flush with toxins from the deep frying process, and you can make a healthy switch by replacing them with sweet potato fries instead.