Think Red Bull helps you focus during long sessions?
Join our established mindset coach Schnitzelfisch for his new series on nutrition in poker; banish your bad eating habits and reap the rewards at the tables.
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Basic+Do you find yourself gorging on takeaways for a quick buzz or chugging down energy drinks to stay 'focussed' during long sessions? Think your diet has no impact on your poker game? Think again.
In his new series on nutrition in poker, 
Schnitzelfisch discusses the importance of a healthy and balanced diet for a poker player.
Learn about what foods have a negative impact on your ability to maintain focus during sessions and what sort of diet you should implement to help you maxmise your productivity at the tables.
Hungry for more? Check out his interview about the series below, or his incredibly detailed thread on nutrition in our forum.
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| Wake up every day feeling refreshed and ready for the grind! |
Schnitzelfisch on his new series:
PokerStrategy.com: Can you tell us what inspired you to make this series?
Schnitzelfisch: 
In the beginning of my professional poker career, I didn't really care about nutrition. I ate whatever I felt like eating, including a lot of pizza, sandwiches, pre-made pasta, and of course my late night poker sessions were fueled by candy, chips and red bull. During those times, I could never really focus that much on the poker sessions, my mind would start wondering and I would start playing on autopilot.
As I started experimenting with different nutrition plans later on in my life, I was shocked by how big of a difference eating differently can make. It's like discovering hidden burst of energy that you never knew existed. I did share some insights about nutrition in my guide on nutrition and poker in the pokerstartegy forums, but I feel like that guide is missing a ton of very important concepts that I'll talk about in this video series (more info below).
PokerStrategy.com: Poker players are notorious for keeping strange schedules especially with regards to eating and can eat strange things at strange hours. How much of an effect on their productivity can this have?
Schnitzelfisch: Many poker players won't really have an idea about this because they never really ate in a way that would help them stay more focused and put in more hours. They don't care about nutrition, they think it doesn't matter, that you don't need good nutrition to succeed (besides, why would you even worry about this and DEPRIVE yourself of all the delicious food?).
To those that doubt that nutrition has an effect on productivity, I propose a very simple experiment.
DAY 1: Before your poker session in the evening, go to McDonald's and eat a few burgers, some french fries and drink a ton of coke. Throughout the session, keep eating chocolates, candy and chips.
DAY 2: Replace the McDonald's trip with a chicken salad and water. Replace the session snacks with fruits, nuts and more water.
Compare how you felt during both sessions. More specifically, how long could you stay focused?
Don't take my word for it, if you really want to improve, test things out on your own to see whether they work for you or not.
From my experience, the effect of nutrition on productivity is much bigger than expected. Think about it - if you're tired all day long (which you often are if you eat junk food, especially if you don't exercise either), how much can you really get done? On the other hand, how much more could you get done if you felt energized throughout the day?
Over the last few years, I've worked with a few supernova elites and just tweaking their nutrition plans a bit gave them huge improvements in freshness and allowed them to put in more quality volume and theory. At a very high level, you can gain a really nice edge over your opponents by eating right.
PokerStrategy.com: How do you intend to structure the series?
Schnitzelfisch: In the series, we'll talk about a few things:
- What are the foods that tend to kill your focus and productivity
- What to eat to wake up productive and start grinding or learning theory as soon as possible
- What to eat to maximize your sleep quality and wake up fresh the next morning
- What to eat before (and during) longer poker sessions to maintain focus for longer periods of time
- How to make sure that you actually stick to your nutrition plan and don't get bored of it
