Training itself is a controlled inflammatory stressor — a distinct version of the inflammation question.
Athletes face a distinct version of the inflammation question: training itself is a controlled inflammatory stressor that drives adaptation, which makes "more inflammation is always bad" too simple a framing for this audience specifically.
Our overtraining deep dive covers this in more depth — the short version is that inflammation from a single hard session is expected and useful; inflammation from stacked hard sessions without adequate recovery is where the pattern flips from productive to counterproductive.
Athletes generally need more total protein and often more total calories than sedentary adults — some general population "eat less processed food" advice still applies, but blanket restriction isn't appropriate when training volume is high.
HRV and resting heart rate trends (see our HRV deep dive) are particularly useful for athletes specifically, since training load is a major daily variable that general population wellness content doesn't usually account for.
If you're a competitive athlete, THE FAD's general model is a reasonable starting lens — but a sports dietitian or your coaching staff should guide anything specific to your training and competition needs.