One of my client's daughter plays soccer and has asked her mom that for her bday, she wants to hire a nutritionist. So this is what I wrote her.
This post mainly focus on mixed sport athletes like basketall, soccer, hockey, etc, where there is a large component of conditioning and intermittent explosiveness (sprints/jumps/swings).
For a basic understanding of Carbs, Fat, Protein, and Calories, read this
http://www.emma-leigh.com/basics.html
Carbs
For athletes that trains 6x a week, sometimes 2x a day, optimizing recovery with nutrition is definitely an important issue. The muscle enages the aerobic and aneroabic system almost 50/50 and can deplete quite a bit of muscle glycogen (body's immediate fuel for energy, or stored glucose/sugar). The role of carbohydrates matter the most here in terms of nutrient timing.
Protein
For kids that are not only wanting to fuel their body optimally for games and practices but for those wanting to put on more lean mass while performing some type of resistance training or explosive movements, dietary protein may varies due to muscle tearing and needing the rebuild and recover.
FatAs far as for dietary fat, as long athletes don't go under 40g/day, it should be plenty. If athletes are gaining weight consistenly, fat is the first place to cut uncessary calories. If you try to cut carbs, it may interfere with performance, unless they are big soda and juice drinkers, even on rest days.
If You're Counting
Now let's say a 12 years old female athletes weighs around 90lb and carry about 65lb of lean muscle mass and trains 5x/week and is wanting to make sure she's at a surplus energy balance for recovery, natural body development, and possibly muscle/strength gain.
she would want to get
1. BWx18 = 1620kcal for total calories consume each day.
2. 1g of protein/lb lean mass = 90grams of protein
3. 30% of total kcal for fat = 489kcal (around 55g of fat)
4 Carbs = total calories - protein - minus fat, which is 811kcal (or around 200g of carbs)
Intuitively Eating: Non-Calorie Counting
Since I don't want to get too technical on the calorie counting part, let's simplfy this to major do's and don'ts so the little ones reading this can understand.
1. For optimal health reasons, athletes should get at least half of their daily calorie intake from whole food just to ensure there are plenty essential vitamins and minerals being met. Essential means nutrients are body cannot produce or produce enough of that we must get from our diet to sustain life.
A diet full of twinkies and cupcakes may not be ideal. This means meat products such as ribs, eggs, tuna, steaks, chicken, cheese and a wide variety of fruits and vegetables (go for color) should be the foundation of their diet.
2. On the opposite of that spectrum, eating tons of whole food (containing lots of fiber and water) may fill up a person's stomach too quickly without getting enough calories in. For athletes having a hard time recover or wanting to put on mass, it's a good idea to eat more frequently. This may be counter-intuitive for those struggling with weight loss and have some experience in intermittent fasting which can aid fat loss.
For an athlete who sometimes trains 2x a day, dealing with school, homeworks, and traveling for games, it's easy to undereat due to lack of time. Esp. for female athletes and their dietary protein intake. This is when protein supplements/bars can be convenient to add more calories/protein to their intake on the go.
3. Since most athletes expend so much calories, it is sometimes hard for them to chew everything down. This is when milk, shakes, and gel capsules can be consumed pre/during/post workout and between or with meals to add more calories without getting too full too quickly from eating solely whole foods.
4. For those running and conditioning more (soccer, cross country, basketball) as oppose to strength and power athletes (track and field, tennis, golf, wrestling), adding extra carbs in the diet from starchy sources such as corn, soy, rice, pasta is a good way to add more calories for energy and recovery. If athlete can't chew down enough carbs, drinking gatorade and other sugary drinks like orange juice, soda, low fat ice cream, and chocaolate milk can be helpful too.
5. On rest days, it doesn't matter when they consume their meals, just go with hunger and eat more if they can. As long as they're not getting chubbier every week, you're on the right track. But if they are, start cuttting about 100kcal a day for a week and see if the body maintain it's weight or lose weight while performance stays the same. If performance doesn' suffer, it means what's being lost is mostly body fat, which is a good thing unless they need it for the sport (football and other high impact sports).
6. on training days, it's always a good idea to sandwich training with meals. there are 4 windows of opportunity to take calories in:
A) 2-3hrs before training with a proper meal
B) a small and fast digesting pre-workout snack like an apple or banana or a shake 15-20min beforehand
C) during workout with performance drinks such as gatorade
D) post workout with a big meal with tons of carbs and proteinm, preferrably at a 3 to 1 ratio.
7. For supplement, other than whey and gatarade around training and for those naturally having a hard time taking in enough calories from whole foods, here are a few you should consider.
A. Fish oil - if your kid doesn't like to eat any type of marine life such as salmon, tuna, clam, shrimp, mussell, tilapia, supplementing 2-3g of fish oil daily is a good way to meet essential fatty acid needs for optimal hormonal production and cell repair. If your kid does enjoy sea food, try to have them at least 3x/week. A good way to avoid inflammatory fat is avoid seed oil such as corn, soy, seed, and vegetable oil.
B. Multi-vitamin - in case of deficiency, multi-vitamin may be a good insurance to correct that. They're cheap so swallow 1-2 per meal and you're set.
C. Calcium - if your kids aren't big on dairy products, it's a good idea to supplement at least 1,000mg or 1g of calcium/day.
D. Vitamin D - if it's an indoor sport (dance, gymastic, swimming) and you rarely take or let your kids outside often, try going outdoors and get at least 20mins of direct sun exposure a day, it's a good idea to supplement Vitamin D, too if you don't. Talk to your doctor on how much he/she should have. Sometimes a Vitamin D deficiency can be a genetic disorder.
E. Creatine - 5g/day for the first 5 days of using creatine, then 5g per workout thereafter. Creatine delay onset of fatigueness, prevent dehydration, and improves intermittent explosiveness. This is the ideal supplement for basketball and soccer players that are constantly cutting, short sprinting, and needs to perform those movements repeatily throughout a long game.
Summary
To keep things simple. If your kid isn't overweight and is not making gains on the field or in the weight room, maybe it's time to think about eating more foods, esp. carbs and protein.
As long as they're not gaining strictly body fat (this means their performance goes up while physique stays the same or getting better), the diet is working.
If they are losing strength and performance while losing weight at the same time being on a diet, perhap they are cutting too much protein and too many calories too fast.
For most athletes, they will generally benefit from having higher carbs intake on training days and higher fat intakes on rest days, while keeping protein consistently high, all the time.
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I met with Jem around the beginning of June 2012 and within one month I have lost over 10 pounds. Jem gave me a very easy, likeable diet to follow (even while I was on vacation). I play volleyball. Other coaches and I have noticed a huge improvement in my performance. The great thing about a meal plan is Jem works to your needs and wants allowing a little wiggle room when needed.
-Mollie Bailey, Volleyball
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