Dine like a champion to achieve top performance.  Positive choices, such as healthy-eating, spill over.  Yes, they spill-over into your spunk, your joy, your dignity, your grooming, your self-esteem, and your get-up-and-go.  Positive choices also tame temptations to try toxins.

So, chow down like champions by gleaning the following hints.  I bold my tips and bullet those from expert Marni Sumbal:

Sprinkle zero sugar into your diet.  Sugar crashes you—and strikes many with diabetes.  And the more sugar you eat, the more you crave.  I once ate oodles of brownies.  Plus, I sweetened my teas with half-a-cup of sugar a day.  But I’ve since got healthy.  Now, I add no sugar.  I do wolf down 90% dark chocolate.  And I eat fruit.  Just today, I couldn’t stomach a teaspoon of sugar mistakenly mixed into my herbal tea.

Don’t salt your meals—unless you use sea salt sparingly.  Instead, swallow salts from fermented foods.  Salt-fermented foods brim with healthy probiotics.  For salt, I munch unpasteurized sauerkraut and sip organic miso soup.  Kimchi works wonders, too, but stay clear of the kind with MSG.

To quit alcohol, drink organic kombucha.  Kombucha tastes like beer but bears only a slight alcohol content.  But kombucha teems with probiotics.  You can also drink probiotic-rich miso soup, which has 0.3% alcohol content.  The Japanese love miso and boast the longest life-spans.

Don’t guzzle alcohol.  Alcohol fattens abs and impairs brains.  And never take marijuana for performance.  Weed wastes the will to win—and sculpts the face ugly.

Do gorge water.  One gung-ho bank-teller chugged two-liter Pepsi bottles filled with tap water.  But too much water can be toxic, says author Marni Sumbal.  Instead, gulp water with one-liter bottles, giant cups, or tall thermoses.  Plenty of them.

So, what should you swallow for peak performance, according to an expert?  Marni Sumbal shows you the true breakfast of champions in the book Essential Sports Nutrition: A Guide to Optimal Performance For Every Active Person:

• Always carry a cup of water: “Plain water is still the ideal fluid to consume daily” (location 897, 21%).
• While you train, gulp water: “You may not feel thirsty during a workout, but it’s absolutely necessary to hydrate while you exercise” (location 890, 20%).
• Pay attention to your urine. Pale yellow to clear means you are hydrated.  Dark or orange tint means you are severely dehydrated.
• Cut back on sugar: “Women should limit added sugar to 6 teaspoons a day, and men should limit it to 9 teaspoons …. Consuming naturally sweet foods like fruit or plain yogurt when you crave a treat can help lower your added-sugar consumption” (location 453, 10%).
• Eat carbs, but the healthy kinds: “Many athletes now believe that carbs are fattening—they think you can’t burn fat if you eat carbs … Some of the healthiest and fittest people in the world consume a high-carbohydrate diet, with the majority of calories coming from potatoes, rice, legumes, and vegetables” (location 420).
• Fill up on your RDA of healthy fats: “The notion that ‘fat makes you fat’ has contributed to the popular mindset for decades …. Dietary fat … is important for a healthy, functioning body ….  Fat promotes satiety, delays the onset of hunger pangs, and can reduce cravings and overeating” (location 652, 15%).
• Don’t guzzle alcohol: “There are no health benefits to heavy drinking. From an athletic standpoint, the use of alcohol, even in small amounts, can negatively affect hydration status, recovery, sleep, motor skills, motivation, judgment, and overall performance.  It can also cause weight gain, nutritional deficiencies, depressed immunity, and elevated cortisol …” (location 1015, 23%).
• Be careful with coffee—as caffeine can kill. “Caffeine is a drug.  Its side effects include insomnia, restlessness, stomach upset, nausea, increased heart and breathing rates, and anxiety …  There’s always a risk of death when caffeine is improperly used or overconsumed” (location 956, 22%).

Most of all, never swig energy drinks.  One lean, muscular youth got diabetes.  So, my boyfriend asked him what caused it.  He said Red Bull!  Perhaps a Red Bull a day gives doctors their pay?

Yes, poor diet causes diabetes.  And diabetes steps-up challenges to winning any prize.  So, dine like a champion to shine like a champion.