No More Heavy Curries: India’s Hockey Team Has a Colour-Coded Diet Plan for LA 2028

The curries are out. The salads are in. And India’s hockey team is counting carbs like never before.

As the build to the Los Angeles Olympics begins, the Indian men’s team has overhauled its nutrition at the SAI centre in Bengaluru. Heavy curries and excess rice are gone from the menu. In their place: salads, hummus, avocado, grilled meats, hung-curd desserts and protein milkshakes.

It’s not a fad diet. It’s a system, and it’s built around how hard the players are actually working.

Red, orange, green

Nutritionist Mihira Khopkar designed the plan. She’s been with the squad since May, and she was the Indian contingent’s nutritionist at the Paris Olympics, so she knows this group. The idea is simple: the food matches the training load, day by day.

Red days are the intense ones, match-like sessions. Lunch and dinner on a red day carry 100-150 grams of carbs and around 40 grams of protein. Orange days are moderate: 50-100 grams of carbs, 40 grams of protein. Green days are lighter, think penalty-corner practice and gym work: 50-60 grams of carbs, 40-50 grams of protein.

The plan runs on data, not guesswork. Catapult tracking measures how much energy each player actually burns in training, and the menus are built around that. Khopkar shares the weekly menu with the kitchen chef every Sunday, so the whole week is mapped out before it starts.

Hydration gets the same treatment. On demanding training days, the kitchen prepares around 50 litres of isotonic lime water for the squad.

Coach Craig Fulton has acknowledged that nutrition hadn’t received adequate attention in the past. That’s a frank admission from a coach who has just won a continental title, and it tells you where the margins are now. India are Asian Champions Trophy winners and Asian Games gold medallists, with LA 2028 qualification already secured. The next step isn’t finding better players. It’s squeezing more out of the ones they have.

For our money, this is exactly the kind of detail that separates good teams from great ones at the Olympics. A third straight Olympic medal won’t come from talent alone, and Fulton knows it. The camps continue in Bengaluru, and the next on-field assignment is the Pro League from February 2027. Between now and then, the work is in the gym, on the track, and, apparently, on the plate.