“Special diet? Eat less.” How did the nutrition of the figure skater Evgenia Medvedeva change?
Translation of an article from Championat about Evgenia Medvedeva nutrition and how it changed during her career.
source: championat.com dd. 2d August, 2022 by Daria Kirukhina
From chocolates and veganism to harmony with yourself and a menu for 15 thousand rubles (250 USD).
Evgenia Medvedeva has gone through a thorny path not only in her sports career, but also in nutrition. She often claimed that she did not diet, but she had enough experiments with food. Ate chocolate, wanted to become a vegan.
But all this helped her find harmony and understand that the main thing is healthy, high-quality food. Zhenya spends a decent amount of money on food and does not hide it. It is very important for her that the right food gets into the body.
How did she come to this?
Candies at the press conference and love for rice
Evgenia Medvedeva has always been distinguished by miniature forms. As a figure skater, she was very lucky with her body constitution: a thin bone and a disinclination to be overweight allowed her to float at competitions like a butterfly. However, she still had to watch her diet. Fortunately, from childhood she did not like pastry and cakes, but she could not live without sweets at all. Especially strong was the craving for chocolate and sweets. In the junior years, Zhenya allowed herself to eat them even at competitions. At least after.
So, having won the World Junior Championship in 2015, 15-year-old Zhenya couldn’t resist the temptation at a press conference. On the table to her left, someone carefully placed a plate of sweets in shiny wrappers. At first she was embarrassed to take them, but then she took one thing. And then another one. One of the employees noticed her interest in sweets and pushed the plate of sweets closer to the skater.
Already riding in seniors, Zhenya claimed that she didn’t go on strict diets and it was normal for her to eat a little milk chocolate before training.
“I’m not drawn to cakes and pastries. Fatty cupcakes with cream are not my thing, I love milk chocolate. I can not say that I really limited myself. Before training, it happens that I eat a couple of cubes. Sweet is present in my life, the main thing is not to overdo it,” Medvedeva told Match TV.
Zhenya’s favorite dish in those years was ordinary white rice. The figure skater just adored him!
“Rice. Plain white rice. Crumbly, non-crumbly, sticky, sweet, salty. Any! I can eat it without anything, or with soy sauce,” Medvedeva answered the question about her favorite food to Soviet Sport.
Olympic restrictions and passion for chocolate
In the 2017/2018 Olympic season, Zhenya carefully monitored her diet and tried not to eat after six in the evening. But the restrictions have not only affected food. Like Alina Zagitova, Medvedeva, instead of drinking water, only rinsed her mouth. In such a terrible way, the athletes of Tutberidze achieved ideal performances at the Olympics.
Not surprisingly, after the Games, Zhenya answered a question about her diet in the spirit of the great ballerina Maia Plisetskaya. True, the athlete also admitted that she can sometimes eat some french fries, and chocolates are her salvation when she urgently needs to replenish energy reserves.
“Do I have a special diet? Eat less. At the same time, I cannot live without glucose and carbohydrates. We have recently shooted “Ice Age” and I had quite a long text. I understood that I was just standing with a microphone and my brain absolutely “does not work”. That day I didn’t have breakfast or lunch, I just drank coffee. The next day there was also shooting, and I no longer made such a mistake, I worked in maximum thanks to chocolates,” Medvedeva shared in an interview with Metro.
Veganism in Canada
Leaving Tutberidze and training in Canada with Brian Orser dramatically changed Medvedeva’s life on all fronts. Including nutrition. The girl, who in the first month overseas was glad that she found cheese and sprats in a Russian store, decided to become a vegan. This meant a complete rejection of animal products: no meat, eggs, dairy products, and even honey. Zhenya changed her eating habits consciously and gradually. She stopped eating meat and milk a couple of months before the 2019 World Championships in Saitama, where she won bronze.
“I switched to a plant-based diet and foods that have it all. I feel it helps my body. I have mentally prepared for this for quite a long time and now I understand that I don’t have any problems with food, they are gone, and I just have a desire to do something good for my body, as well as for the environment. If there is no inner desire for it, it will not work. This is not a diet, this is a different way of life,” Medvedeva was quoted on the ISU website.
Now Zhenya focused her diet on cereals, nuts, and olive oil. Replaced coffee with matcha green tea. Take vitamins as needed. She really liked the results that such a diet led to: it turned out to be easier to maintain weight, she felt happier.
“It is certainly lightness from the point of view of the mind. Weight control has become pretty easy. Management of muscle mass and the percentage of fat in the body, but this is not just a diet during which something is not eaten, it also stabilizes mental work,” Medvedev told the Japanese portal Global.Canon
Despite the positive changes in her body and mind, Zhenya sometimes broke a plant-based diet and allowed herself dairy products. For example, to bake cookies. She understood that she was not yet a vegan, and treated this as an experiment: if something went wrong, she would return to her previous diet.
“Yes, dairy products are not completely eliminated yet, and there are times when I want something sweet. I don’t know if it’s appropriate to call yourself a vegan, but when you’re in Canada, you can find specialized vegan supermarkets and they sell products like vegetable oil mayonnaise, it makes life easier. I didn’t change everything suddenly and forcefully, I just changed my eating habits, and so far it suits me. If this diet starts to go in the wrong direction, it gets worse, then I will return to the previous diet, I will not be stubborn,” Medvedeva explained to Global.Canon.
Borodino bread instead of cake
In the 2019/2020 season, Zhenya really moved away from veganism, because intense workouts required enough protein. According to the skater, she did not like to eat a lot of legumes, and protein powders could not fully fill her need. So she included seafood and fish in her daily menu.
Breakfast has become the athlete’s favorite meal. Before going to the skating rink, she usually ate bread with hummus in the morning and cooked herself a simple lunch. She took care of her body and forgot about starving. The only days she didn’t eat anything were competition days. It did not stop her from skating programs. Zhenya always felt fine.
“I don’t know why this happens, but on the day of the competitions I practically don’t eat anything. Well, that’s it. Don’t know. I just don’t want to. These are the only days when I skate with an empty stomach and even feel fine. Amazing,” Medvedeva said at a fan meeting in a Moscow Nike store.
Fans have always supported Zhenya in a responsible approach to nutrition. Remembering that she does not eat and, in principle, does not like any creams and cakes, they presented her with a fruit cake. And at a party with friends, the skater blew out candles stuck in Borodino bread, which she often missed in Canada.
Return to dumplings and food orders for 15 thousand rubles (250USD)
Returning to Russia in the fall of 2020 and a pause in his sports career led Zhenya to completely forget about veganism. In social networks, she showed how she eats dumplings, and delicious desserts. From now on, she switched to a balanced diet of quality products, but no longer set any strict restrictions. She experimented in the kitchen with recipes for pancakes, bread and cookies, showing in her telegram channel what she cooked.
On New Year’s holidays, the girl even publicly opened the doors of her refrigerator by posting a short video on social networks. Fruits, tomatoes, cucumbers, jelly, borscht, cheeses, jamon, Japanese sesame sauce, red caviar, frozen vegetables, seafood, chicken, ice cream – these are just some of what was on the shelves of the figure skater’s refrigerator.
Such a varied diet, of course, costs Zhenya a considerable amount, and she does not hide it. Healthy eating is a priority for her, and she understands that you have to pay for quality.
“It is important for me to eat good food. Good products are now expensive. Basically I order. Even tomatoes and cucumbers are not easy to buy in some supermarket. It is important for me that they are with green bones, from Baku.
Now each delivery of two hefty packages of food that I consider necessary and have the opportunity to order costs from 10 to 15 thousand rubles. Depending on … If some seafood, then it will be more expensive.
I cook at home. Not often, but I do. I eat simple food,” Medvedeva shared in the release of the Investerika show.
It took Zhenya a long time to come to a harmonious diet. But the main thing is that she finally understood what kind of diet suits her best. She does not torment herself with diets, looks great and enjoys life.
Related topics: Evgenia Medvedeva
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