PARAS'10 Diet and Nutrition, Performance, Health and Vitality
- Alastair Hunt
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 9 hours ago
You've signed up for the PARAS'10. Ten miles, in kit, against the clock, built on the standard the Parachute Regiment has used to test itself for decades. Most people training for it focus entirely on miles walked, pace and load carried. Fair enough. But the research on how military personnel and their civilian counterparts prepare nutritionally for events like this tells a wider story, and it's one that might matter even more for you than it does for a 19 year old recruit.
Perhaps you didn't sign up just to train for finish the PARAS'10 only for a trophy. You signed up, at least in part, because you want to be healthier, fitter and further from the chronic conditions that quietly creep up on most adults in midlife. The good news is that the nutrition choices that get you across the finish line successfully are largely the same ones that lower your risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and the slow weight gain so many of us experience without really noticing it happening.
As ever, please talk to your doctor or medical practitioner most familiar with your medical history before implementing any changes in diet, exercise or lifestyle, especially if you are under treatment. Links to studies / resources at bottom of page.
The uncomfortable baseline
Studies of active soldiers preparing for demanding selection and endurance events keep turning up the same problem: most people, military or civilian, eat a diet that's "just okay".
One large study of over 500 US Army soldiers scored their diets at 59 out of 100 on a standard healthy eating index, only marginally better than the average American civilian at 55. That's a telling comparison. Soldiers train hard and eat in a structured environment, and their diets were still barely distinguishable from the general population's. It's a useful reminder that fitness and good nutrition don't automatically travel together. You can be putting in real training hours for the PARAS'10 and still be eating in a way that leaves you overweight, low in key nutrients and at higher long-term risk of the conditions that shorten healthy years of life.
Blood tests in the same soldiers told a starker story. The vast majority were low in vitamin D, important for muscle strength, bone health, immune function and, increasingly, implicated in metabolic and cardiovascular disease risk across the general population. Their omega-3 levels averaged less than half the level associated with good cardiovascular and cognitive health, a marker strongly linked in civilian research to lower risk of heart disease and inflammatory conditions.
These aren't exotic deficiencies limited to soldiers. They're what happens whenever refined carbs, processed food and convenience eating quietly crowd out the fish, greens, nuts and whole grains that would otherwise be there, and they show up just as often in a busy professional's diet as they do in a barracks mess hall.
Diet quality predicts performance, not just health
Here's the part that should motivate you. In a study of nearly 800 soldiers attempting Special Forces selection, the ones with better overall diet quality were significantly more likely to succeed. They walked faster, endured longer and scored better on fitness tests. The soldiers who ate more vegetables, legumes and seafood or plant-based protein consistently outperformed those who didn't. You don't need to eat like an elite operator to notice the same effect on your own PARAS'10 training.
A diet built around whole foods gives your body better raw material to adapt to load, recover between sessions and turn up on race day without a nagging injury or a cold, and it's doing double duty by chipping away at the same risk factors, excess visceral fat, high blood pressure, poor blood sugar control, that drive most chronic disease in adults.
Carbs, fat, and the mistakes that catch people out
A Belgian study of soldiers in short, intense selection courses found something worth flagging for anyone loading up their rucksack most weekends: carbohydrate intake was consistently too low and fat intake, especially saturated fat, was too high, in some cases well over recommended limits. That pattern will be familiar to a lot of civilians too. It leaves you under-fuelled for the sessions that actually build fitness while quietly working against the cardiovascular health you're presumably training to protect. Protein, by contrast, was rarely the problem in these studies.
Most people preparing for an event like this get enough protein without trying particularly hard. Where people consistently fall short is whole grains, vegetables and the marine or plant-based fats (omega-3s) that support recovery, reduce inflammation and are strongly associated with lower rates of heart disease in long-term population studies.
If you're carrying extra weight...
A meaningful number of people who take on events like the PARAS'10 are overweight, and that's precisely the population this kind of structured training and eating benefits most. Weight carried on the body works the same way as weight carried in a rucksack: it adds load to every step, and losing even a modest amount, in the region of five to ten percent of body weight, has been shown in general population research to meaningfully improve blood pressure, blood sugar control and cardiovascular risk markers, often before any dramatic change in appearance.
Combining tabbing with the food-first approach outlined above, prioritising whole foods and easing off refined carbohydrate and saturated fat, tends to produce steady, sustainable fat loss without the need for extreme calorie restriction, which is also the approach best supported by evidence for keeping weight off long term rather than losing and regaining it.
Final Thoughts
None of this requires supplements or extreme restriction. Vegetables, legumes, whole grains, oily fish and good fats aren't just performance tools that get you round the PARAS'10 course a little faster. They're the same foods that lower your long-term risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, excess weight and the kind of low-grade inflammation that ages you faster than any ruck march will.
If the event gives you the reason to finally sort out your plate, it will have done its job long after race day is over, and the habits you build in training are exactly the ones worth keeping for the decades of healthy life you're actually working towards.
Stay healthy,
Alastair
Related Resources
Studies
Oliver TE, Kusumpa S, Lutz LJ, McClung JP, McClung HL. Improved Diet Quality in Elite and Entry-Level Military Women Compared With Civilian-Matched Counterparts. Curr Dev Nutr. 2024 Nov 29;9(1):104517. doi: 10.1016/j.cdnut.2024.104517. PMID: 39810901; PMCID: PMC11732437.
Harlow J, Blodgett K, Stedman J, Pojednic R. Dietary Supplementation on Physical Performance and Recovery in Active-Duty Military Personnel: A Systematic Review of Randomized and Quasi-Experimental Controlled Trials. Nutrients. 2024 Aug 17;16(16):2746. doi: 10.3390/nu16162746. PMID: 39203882; PMCID: PMC11357047.
Chapman S, Roberts J, Roberts AJ, Ogden H, Izard R, Smith L, Chichger H, Struszczak L, Rawcliffe AJ. Pre-sleep protein supplementation does not improve performance, body composition, and recovery in British Army recruits (part 1). Front Nutr. 2023 Nov 30;10:1262044. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2023.1262044. PMID: 38144428; PMCID: PMC10748761.
Karmon D Dyches, Karl E Friedl, Julie P Greeves, Margaux F Keller, Holly L McClung, Michael S McGurk, Kristin L Popp, Deydre S Teyhen, Physiology of Health and Performance: Enabling Success of Women in Combat Arms Roles, Military Medicine, Volume 188, Issue Supplement_4, September/October 2023, Pages 19–31, https://doi.org/10.1093/milmed/usac256
Poon BH, Prakaash S, Teo YS, Fan PW, Wei Lee JK. Thermal strain and fluid balance during a 72-km military route march in a field setting. Singapore Med J. 2022 Sep;63(9):497-502. doi: 10.11622/smedj.2021053. Epub 2021 Apr 19. PMID: 34005849; PMCID: PMC9678143.
MacKenzie-Shalders KL, Tsoi AV, Lee KW, Wright C, Cox GR, Orr RM. Free-Living Dietary Intake in Tactical Personnel and Implications for Nutrition Practice: A Systematic Review. Nutrients. 2021 Oct 3;13(10):3502. doi: 10.3390/nu13103502. PMID: 34684503; PMCID: PMC8537156.
Chapman S, Chung HC, Rawcliffe AJ, Izard R, Smith L, Roberts JD. Does Protein Supplementation Support Adaptations to Arduous Concurrent Exercise Training? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis with Military Based Applications. Nutrients. 2021 Apr 23;13(5):1416. doi: 10.3390/nu13051416. PMID: 33922458; PMCID: PMC8145048.
Farina EK, Thompson LA, Knapik JJ, Pasiakos SM, Lieberman HR, McClung JP. Diet Quality Is Associated with Physical Performance and Special Forces Selection. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2020 Jan;52(1):178-186. doi: 10.1249/MSS.0000000000002111. PMID: 31436735; PMCID: PMC7028476.
De Bry W, Mullie P, D'Hondt E, Clarys P. Dietary Intake, Hydration Status, and Body Composition of Three Belgian Military Groups. Mil Med. 2020 Aug 14;185(7-8):e1175-e1182. doi: 10.1093/milmed/usaa061. PMID: 32328651.
Rittenhouse M, Scott J, Deuster P. Healthy Eating Index and Nutrition Biomarkers among Army Soldiers and Civilian Control Group Indicate an Intervention Is Necessary to Raise Omega-3 Index and Vitamin D and Improve Diet Quality. Nutrients. 2020 Dec 31;13(1):122. doi: 10.3390/nu13010122. PMID: 33396252; PMCID: PMC7823425.