Making sure that you are meeting your energy needs ALL DAY LONG!
There are many components to being great at your sport, and there is more to it than just the physical ability to actually do your sport. Taking care of your body, eating, sleeping, mental health, and then actually working on improving your skills are all vital. So here at Nutrition at Play we want to help you understand how to create a fueling plan that will help you with one piece of your game.
When we are looking at fueling, we want to make sure that we are consistent. That is what is going to help you be the most successful. Eating something is always going to be a better option than eating nothing. But what is the best option is to have a structure to know how to build the food and when to eat it to optimize the energy you are taking in to improve your sport.
So what does that even look like?
- Eating every 3-4 hours a day, it may be more frequently than that if you are in a heavier period of training
- Building meals that have macronutrients from each food group and adding in produce
- Prioritizing snacks to help top off our energy storages (glycogen)
- Planning around barriers like school, travel, and away games
Eating more frequently & being consistent
Let’s break each of these down.
We are aiming to be having 3 meals and 2-3 snacks a day. So for an athlete this means eating about every 3-4 hours. This is going to keep your cells full of energy, and allow you to top them off before you go to your event. Weekends, snow days, and breaks can be hard days to fuel, as our scheduled typically look different. Your meals and snacks don’t have to always be Breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack. You may have days that you have 2 snacks in a row and a meal later in the evening because of the time of your training. That is okay! The goal is to be consistent with putting the fuel in your body all throughout the day.
Making sure we are getting all the macronutrients + fruits and veggies an athlete needs:
I still stand by what I said before, something is better than nothing. But if we are really aiming to perform our best we need to aim to give ourselves actual meals and meals that meet our needs. Depending on how much movement and the intensity of your workouts you may need to adjust your plate. But each one of these groups play’s a role in helping your body run, so skipping out on them makes your body work harder to just run!
- Carbohydrates: provide the body the energy it needs to work, its the body’s favorite source of energy
- Protein: helps to build and repair new cells, but if we aren’t taking in enough carbohydrates or calories, protein can’t do its job.
- Fat: helps us feel full and satisfied, helps the brain function, and helps absorb nutrients
- Produce: provides immune boosting effects, helps with GI function and decreases inflammation
Prioritizing snacks for your athlete:
Being consistent means having snacks multiple times a day, and depending on what time of day it is and how close it is to practice it will look different. We have 3 main types of snacks: Pre/During, Post/Night time, and Anytime
When we are thinking of pre-workout snack or during workout snack we are looking at foods that are easy to digest, like pretzels, goldfish, fruit. Foods that in less than 30 minutes will be broken down and not cause a stomach ache but will provide easy fast sugar to use!
Post-workout snacks & Night time snacks are similar in what you will eat- you will want to combine carbs + protein. This will allow the cells to refill the energy and repair the muscles.
And then we still will have random anytime snack because we are just hungry! Those times I recommend choosing items from 2 categories. Like a carb and protein, or a produce and protein (peanut butter and crackers, or cheese stick and banana)
Planning around barriers of being an athlete:
Barriers are going to come from every direction because you are moving in a million directions. So how do we plan ahead? Keep non-perishable snacks in a few different locations. Such as in the car, the sports bag, and in their backpack for school. Having the back ups allows you to forget sometimes and not be left under fueled. There are other times where more planning will need to take place, like if you are going to a tournament for the weekend, taking a plane or long car ride. But fueling up is vital to success and taking those steps will help keep you fueled.
Making this a reality:
Typically when I work with individuals we work to accomplish this over 3-4 months. So realizing that creating this structure doesn’t need to happen overnight! Chip away at it. One of my favorite expressions right now is how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. (Don’t worry, no one over here is actually eating an elephant!) Taking this same approach and slowly tackling these will help those energy levels improve.
Looking for more? I would love to work with you or your athlete to accomplish these goals, this is a lot and to be honest, it’s a lot of problem solving with a lot of change happening day to day. If you’re looking for more I would love to set up a time to chat CLICK HERE! or join my Email Squad to grab your FREE digital download of pre-workout snacking and receive monthly email tidbits on fueling Join the Squad
Fuel UP
Katie!
