Whatever your sport, if you are an athlete, it is essential to have your body working at peak efficiency. You want your training to provide maximum benefit and you want to achieve peak performance when you compete. In order to achieve these goals you need to understand how food and fluid intakes can be used by your body. In the search for the winning edge, the benefits of good nutrition have largely been overlooked until recently. But in contemporary sport, nutrition holds the greatest potential benefit for competitors - for the least effort. Louise Bourke initially trained as a triathlete and competed in seven international Ironman events. She then completed a PhD in Sports Nutrition before taking up her present position as dietitian at the Australian Institute of Sport. Her book presents nutrition as an integrated part of an athlete's total performance-enhancing package. She converts general nutrition and exercise physiology information into a plan for day-to-day practice for training and competition. She outlines important differences in nutritional needs for different sports, including the timing of food and liquid intake, and the best foods to achieve maximum ene