I’ll start this blog with a confession, I am not a nutritionist therefore I am not claiming to be an expert on the subject. That said, I have read enough science around this area to be able to come up with a balanced, well informed opinion. Thus, through a series of easy to read, simple blogs, I’m going to look into ways in which young athletes can make easy changes to their nutrition that take into account their busy schedules.
Most people when reading this will say “that’s just obvious” however, I continually see the same mistakes made by our athlete’s time and again. The sports drinks brought into the lab because they need it for ‘energy’ or the lunchbox full of overly processed foods with ingredient labels that I can’t pronounce, let alone spell…
Therefore, we have come up with this easy to follow guide split into 3 parts (as kids don’t like to read as much as they should). The first part in this series covers the following:
- Everybody is unique – while one plan may work for one, it may not work for the other – think high carb/low fat diets, although this doesn’t work for many, more on this over the coming weeks…
- When to eat – When you’re hungry is fairly obvious, but what should you do if you have training in 20 minutes? What about after a strength session? Before school when you’re in a rush?
- Food quality – the most important factor. Is your food nutrition dense? If a food does not provide you with nutrition, what good is it doing?
- Why food affects mood – always tired even though you eat lots of ‘high energy’ foods? That might be the problem….
There is a little more substance in the attached document however we will be going into more depth next week. Feel free to get in touch if you require additional information.
