Austrian ultrarunner Christian Schiester, 51, has competed in the most extreme environments, including the Sahara Desert, Antarctica, and the Brazilian jungle.

His go-to fuel? A bottle of olive oil laced with nuts, corn, and dates. It's a trick he picked up in Egypt.

We say that Schiester is smart about the nutritional choices he makes to bolster his endurance, even though we're not in favor of extreme athletic endeavors.

A new, small study published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition reaffirms the benefits of Schister’s Mediterranean diet-style concoction — a blend of complex carbs and healthy fats, including monounsaturated fats that are associated with improved blood vessel function and better insulin levels.

In the study, 11 recreationally active men and women were able to run five kilometers 6 percent faster four days after they switched from a Western diet (red meat, saturated fats, added sugars) to a Mediterranean diet (fruits and veggies, fish, whole grains, some dairy and poultry, and little-to-no refined sugars and red meat).

Four days!

The researchers suggest that anti-inflammatory phytonutrients in the Mediterranean diet make the body work more efficiently, which boosts athletic performance.

So if you're trying to up your game from couch potato to 10,000 steps a day, or from a quarter mile jog to a mile, your first step should be toward the Mediterranean diet plan.