Cold Water Diving Diet

[Dont_Hold_Your_Breath]

I've read that it's important to keep your metabolism running strong for long duration cold water dives but never known how to approach it from a food perspective. Should I be cramming carbs the week before, making sure I have a big breakfast, etc?

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I've read that it's important to keep your metabolism running strong for long duration cold water dives but never known how to approach it from a food perspective. Should I be cramming carbs the week before, making sure I have a big breakfast, etc?

Low salt and low sugar, minimize caffein.
Avoid pastries and all the carby junk.
Try oatmeal with banana sliced up on it and soft boiled eggs. Handfulls of nuts.
Eat quality proteins, fats, and complex carbs.
Eat a full meal 1 and a half hours before diving.
Avoid greasy crap that you might burp up like sausages or bacon.
The pilots who flew the SR-71 would eat a calorie dense low volume meal so it would last them the 12 hour flight and not initiate a bowel response. Steak and eggs was the go to meal.
I’m interested to hear what commercial divers would eat to prepare for their dives.
Calories make a huge difference. Make sure they are quality calories.
Eat clean.

 

[boulderjohn]

As someone who has done fairly long decompression dives in cool water requiring a drysuit, I strongly advise against Mexican food with lots of beans.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

As someone who has done fairly long decompression dives in cool water requiring a drysuit, I strongly advise against Mexican food with lots of beans.

So methane isn’t a good drysuit gas?

 

[boulderjohn]

So methane isn’t a good drysuit gas?

Methane is not a problem.

 

[Nick_Radov]

Low salt

Why?

Eat clean.

What does that even mean?

 

[Lorenzoid]

I will venture that the best answer is "whatever works best for you." I think we can rule out some things, like the aforementioned Mexican food heavy on the beans. Consider looking to the pre-race diets of endurance athletes like distance runners. The impact of "cold" on what they would eat may be minimal. If you're seriously talking about 4+ hours in the water, consider taking along a packet of the kind of goo/gel endurance athletes eat.