When Your Athlete Is Always Hungry

Hi there! Welcome to the blog where I do my very best to support young athletes and help them fuel when fueling feels hard.

Recently I had someone tell me that their athlete is struggling with always feeling hungry. I heard that and thought, “How have I not done a blog on this yet?!” If your athlete complains of always feeling hungry and you feel like you just can’t keep enough food in the house, you are absolutely not alone! I hear this often from the teen athletes that I work with. It is an uncomfortable feeling to never feel full or to feel satisfied from a meal for only about 1 hour and then feel ravenous again. I see this happen so frequently in growing high performing athletes with their multiple practices a day and long school schedules.  If this is something your athlete struggles with, then today’s post is for you. I want to give you a few nutrition takeaways that your hungry athlete can start implementing this week to help them feel more satisfied.

3 Initial Nutrition Strategies to Help Your Hungry Athlete Feel Full:

1. No skipping meals

   I would think this is a given, but you never know. And I know from years of experience that adolescent athletes can be regular meal skippers. Your athlete needs at least 3 meals a day, minimum, and if he/she is super hungry all the time, I would throw in a 4th meal, especially if it’s a season of higher training volume or intensity.

2. Consistent snacks

   Is your athlete including at least 3 snacks? Most of my athletes struggling with persistent hunger get more than 3 snacks a day. If your athlete gets 3 meals a day already, how could they start getting in 4 or 5 snacks / day?

3. Create variety on the plate

   What are the athlete’s meals and snacks made of? I think we often immediately think “protein, protein, protein” in the sports world. BUT we cannot forget those other macros. Carbs and fat are really big energy sources for the athlete’s brain and muscles. They also slow digestion.  

• Have your athlete take a look at their plate.  What is the plate made of?

• It needs to have a balance of foods that provide protein, carbs and fat. 

• Example: if your athlete’s go-to snack is a bagel, great! That is a great source of carbohydrates but, while carbs are fantastic energy sources, they get utilized by the body pretty quickly. So, let’s add some fat and protein by topping that bagel with a couple of tablespoons of peanut butter and maybe they need a glass of milk or a yogurt to go with it for a protein and carbohydrate boost (not to mention calcium for the growing bones)!

• Example: Or, maybe your athlete is drinking a protein shake for a snack.  While these do contain a lot of protein, they are typically very low in carbohydrates, calories and fat. What if you blended that protein drink into your own shake with banana and peanut butter for added carbs and fat?

Now, of course you have to take into account the athlete’s school and training schedule. If they can’t eat that many snacks, then we adjust accordingly. And if it’s a snack right before practice, we may need to leave that snack alone and really focus on ramping up the others.

But, these are a few “getting started” techniques to help your athlete feel more satisfied with meals and snacks and less hungry so he / she can focus on the other aspects of the day.

If your athlete needs more help implementing a nutrition strategy that fills them up and fuels the sport I have a few resource that might interest you!

• You can download my FREE Getting Started Guide to a Well Fueled Young Athlete

• OR, I’m running a VIRTUAL LIVE SPORTS NUTRITION PROGRAM FOR THE YOUNG ATHLETE this summer! It’s perfect for the young athlete wanting to learn the sports nutrition fundamentals so they can feel confident building meals and snacks and a fueling plan to meet their goals on their own. If you’re interested in learning more about this program opportunity, I encourage you to sign up for the WAITLIST! You’ll get a few more emails directly from me with more program details and some special bonus offers should you decide to enroll. You can sign up HERE!

Much love and a well-fueled young athlete,

Taylor

Ps. You can also book a call to chat with me about working together any time. I would LOVE to speak with you!

Overnight oats are an excellent quick & easy way to pack in multiple food groups, extra energy and nutrition & lots of flavor! Can enjoy as a meal or a snack. This recipe is a favorite.

NEW! A Group Sports Nutrition Program Specifically for the Young Athlete!

Hello everyone!

I hope your Spring is going well. It’s my, hands down, favorite time of year :)

If you’ve been following along with me this year, whether via this blog or Instagram, you know I have been focused a LOT on this topic of underfueling. It is probably the #1 conversation topic I have with 95% of the athletes that come to see me because of an injury. Yes, it can be intentional but it is also often completely unintentional. Little changes in an athlete’s training schedule or school schedule or a sudden growth spurt with no change in intake can suddenly shift them into this state of underfueling. Underfueling can increase risk of injury, it can lead to poorer performance and it can be the underlying reason an athlete can’t build the muscle they need for a certain sport or position on the team. When I say underfueling, I can be referring to calories or specific nutrients or both. If an athlete is underfueling in energy (calorie intake) they are much more likely to be under consuming specific nutrients needed for growth, development, performance and injury prevention.

Last year I realized how, despite this underfueling being such a big deal, athletes and families are often uninformed about its severity and the risks associated with it. I know I was completely in the dark about this condition when I was a teen athlete. So, I decided at the start of this new year to do a deep dive into all different topics centered around underfueling, to at least help educate my followers and readers. And that’s what you will find if you look back through the blog topics from this year.

In the last couple of years I’ve talked a lot with athletes about how to eat enough for their training level, what nutrients to include to ensure best performance and help prevent injuries like stress fractures. I’ve also done a LOT of education on how to use nutrition to optimize recovery from injuries like a stress fractures but also other big injuries like ACL tears. I’ve worked hard to help coach and guide athletes through these long recovery periods to feel confident in how they are eating during this restricted period of exercise and help them understand how to create meals and snacks that will serve their recovery, helping them maintain muscle, build back muscle while healing from a surgery, and maximize bone health.

I’ve chatted with hundreds of athletes over the last couple of years and I’ve discovered a few things:

• So many young athletes don’t learn anything about nutrition in school (they might get a week of education from their health class)

• So many young athletes WANT to learn about nutrition and understand how they can use it to fuel their body, recover from injury, etc (many many athletes have visited with me simply to learn)

• While, of course, nutrition on its own is not the answer to preventing all injuries it is the driving factor in certain injuries, like stress fractures.

• And, while many factors contribute to an injured athlete’s recovery plan, nutrition can keep the athlete on track or it can slow their recovery down or make it a bigger hill to climb once they are cleared to return to sport

With all this to say, I’ve had this thought nagging at me for over a year of, “these athletes could really use a place to go to learn (1) nutrition fundamentals (2) key sports nutrition principles and (3) how to use this info for their own performance and injury prevention.”

With that thought, I’ve seen how my process of working with young athletes over the years has improved their sports nutrition knowledge, enabled them to implement this information into their own routine AND allowed them to see and feel a difference in their performance / health / recovery / etc.

That’s why today I’m EXTREMELY EXCITED to tell you that I have finally done something about it!!

I’ve created an EXCELLENT resource for young athletes (and their caregivers) who are ready to learn and ready to implement the nutritions strategies they need to perform well, prevent injury and more during these critical years of growth and development.

It’s an online group sports nutrition program geared specifically for the young athlete! If this interests you at all and you want to learn more I encourage you to sign up for the WAITLIST!

By signing up for the program Waitlist you will:

• Receive more details about the program

• Receive bonus offers when doors open to register 

• Be one of the first offered a spot (there will be limited spots in this first group) before sign-up is offered to the public.

I’m really so so excited to finally get to offer this resource to young athletes (and their families). Make sure to sign up for the Waitlist if you want to get more details and, as always, you can reach out to me any time if you have questions!

Much love and a well-fueled athlete,

Taylor

A Key to Fueling Well in 2024

Happy New Year, Everyone!

How is your year starting off? For me, in my current season of life, it’s a time to take a breath after a very fun but very hectic December.

I sent out my first newsletter of the year last week (you can sign up here if interested) and thought I would pull my intro message from my newsletter for this first post of the year because it’s a message that I really want people to hear and I know that not everyone who follows or lands on the blog is a newsletter subscriber. So, as we kick off this new year, I share with you what I hope will be one key practice you and especially your athlete keep in mind going into and throughout this next year…..

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An excerpt from my Winter 2024 Newsletter…

… I see young athletes in my practice for a variety of reasons. Some have sustained an injury, some have recurring injuries, some are struggling with body image related to their sport and some simply want to learn about sports nutrition so they can make food and fueling decisions on their own to improve their training and performance.

As I thought about this newsletter, I wondered, “if there was one thing I wanted athlete families and athletes to remember throughout this entire year, what would it be?” I reflected on most of the clients I worked with last year and, for our winter newsletter, I quickly landed on this…

If your athlete’s training increases, whether it’s the duration of practices, intensity of practices, or number of practices a week, then his/her intake should increase as well. Let me share a little more…

So many athletes have walked into my office over the last year due to injuries like stress fractures. Many are runners. Some play soccer. Some run and play soccer. Some are dancers. Some are gymnasts.Some play lacrosse. These injuries are not exclusive. Some are new to the sport and quickly take to it and some have been playing since they were six years old. Either scenario, they have recently been ramping up their mileage or hours in the studio or the gym or decided to play for school and club. During our conversation in my initial session I ask my usual questions about training schedule and level, food allergies, recent labs and appetite, specifically if there has been a change in appetite or intake over the last year or so. It’s often a casual conversation revealing no big allergies, altered labs or changes in intake or appetite and we continue on with our discussion.

Now PAUSE for a moment, as the sports dietitian I have already seen a big red flag. Did you see it?

It was the fact that there was no change in appetite or intake over the last year or so. What I would have wanted to hear, was “yes, we’ve seen an increase in his appetite” or “yes, she’s been packing bigger snacks or been snacking more since his training has picked up”. The fact that this adolescent athlete, who already has high energy and nutrient needs for growth and development, is intensely training daily, logging lots of miles or hours in the gym or on the field but without an increase in intake tells me he/she is very likely underfueling and likely has been underfueling for quite some time. And, if you have been following my blogs and social media, you know that underfueling puts an athlete at a high risk of stress fractures (and I’ll be talking more about this on the blog this year).

I share this with you today because I think we can (1) forget to think about our fuel when life gets busier and practices and school pick up and (2) get caught up in macros and micros and “healthy” and “unhealthy”. I know I did as a young adolescent athlete. However, it doesn’t matter what ratio of macros our athlete is getting or how much magnesium, potassium, calcium, etc. our athlete consumes if at the end of each day, day after day, they are at an energy deficit. If they are chronically in an energy deficit at the end of each day then they are still at risk of injuries like stress fractures, among other health concerns or it’s going to be super hard to reach goals for those trying to build muscle / gain weight.

So, this year, let’s help our athletes first and foremost fuel enough to help prevent injury and perform their best! Only when they are fueling enough will specific fueling strategies put in place be most effective.

This is what I intend to help you with this year. Over the next few months I plan to shed some light on underfueling. I saw this a lot in 2023. I saw injuries that could have been prevented if the athlete was optimally fueling. And the thing is, so much of it was unintentional. A lack of awareness of how food needed to change along with the athletes training and involvement in sport. I saw girls get their periods back, I saw runners reach new PR’s, I saw football and soccer players reach weight goals and I saw anxiety and moods improved as athletes learned nutrition fundamentals and built off of this foundational knowledge to improve their fueling. I’m even more passionate about this topic going into 2024 than going into 2023 (and I thought I was pretty passionate about it then). So, I share this with you today and shed a little light on what to expect in the months to come.

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Follow along my newsletter (sign up HERE), on my blog, on Instagram (@taylormorrisonRD) or on Facebook (Taylored Nutrition, LLC) where I will continue to share content with you and hopefully create more ease and understanding when it comes to fueling the young athlete. I know fueling can be really hard in different seasons for a variety of different reasons. My goal here at Taylored Nutrition is to guide you and your athlete through some of those difficult scenarios and give you both facts and resources so that your athlete can feel more confident in fueling enough and fueling well through those tough situations and perform his/her best.

There are other big topics I want Taylored Nutrition to cover this year such as: factors around recovery after injury, supplement use in YAs, energy drinks and more. But as we get started, this topic of underfueling (unintentional and intentional) is where I want to start.

Stick with me and I’ll talk to you again soon!

Much love and a well fueled athlete,

Taylor

P.s. -

If you’re looking for direction on where to start when it comes to helping make sure your athlete is fueling well, you can download my FREE Getting Started Guide HERE!

If you’re looking for a little more help and okay spending a bit of money ($30) to start off the new year, I’m excited to announce that I’m hosting our first parent chat of 2024! Our Winter Parent Group Chat will be held virtually on Thursday January 25th at 7:15pm CST! This is a great chance to discuss some basic nutrition info to know for fueling the young athlete with a registered sports dietitian (me) and other parents of young athletes. You can learn more about these by reading this blog here or reading more here. It’s only $30 per person and space is limited to allow for good discussion. If you would like to join us this month to kick of the year, you can REGISTER HERE!

Please don’t hesitate to reach out via email (taylor@taylored-nutrition.com) or send me a DM on Instagram (@taylormorrisonRD). I would love to hear from you!

The Building Blocks of "Optimal Nutrition"?

I recently got to speak with a high school cross country team to help prepare them for fueling well during their season this fall. I loved talking with this group. I was a runner myself growing up who struggled to fuel well. In fact running cross country is, partially, what lead me to study nutrition and become a sports dietitian. Nutrition plays such a big role in the performance and health of an adolescent runner. It also, I have realized as I see lots of injured runners in the sports medicine nutrition clinic that I’m a part of, plays a big role in injury prevention in this group of athletes.

In putting my talking points together for this group, I knew I wanted two main outcomes: (1) understand the VALUE of optimal nutrition for performance and injury prevention and (2) Understand basic nutrition fundamentals so that they can put together great meals and snacks throughout the day each day that support not only performance and injury prevention but also growth and development.

As I started putting my thoughts together I realized that what I really needed to define before I dove into any other sport nutrition principles was this term “Optimal Fueling” or '“Optimal Nutrition”. I mean, to me, it sounds pretty “buzz wordy”, right? Sounds kind of fancy, but what the heck does it mean? So, I decided to spend a chunk of my talk defining these terms and then decided that I really think this deserves a post of its own here on the blog.

So many athletes are starting school this week or next week or they started last week. And don’t we all want to make sure our athletes are optimally fueling? We tell our athletes we want to see them incorporate good fueling strategies, but what does this mean? What is the priority? Where should our athletes start? So, sit tight as I try my best to briefly and succinctly explain and put context to this term, “Optimal Nutrition” or “Optimal Fueling” from my clinical experience.

The 4 Building Blocks of “Optimal Nutrition”

1. ENOUGH food/calories/energy in at the end of each day

   This is the foundation of a good fueling plan for young athletes. If young athletes are not getting enough total food at the end of each day every day, they are (1) definitely not going to perform at their best and (2) putting themselves at big risk of injury.

   An athlete can be intentional about getting carbs and protein and fat at each meal but, at the end of each day, if enough food/calories are not consumed to support activity + growth & development, the athlete is setting himself up for injury.

   Injuries, like stress fractures, are serious and can take an athlete out of sport for months. These are typically caused by a number of factors, with one of the big factors being not consuming enough calories at the end of each day to support the basic needs of growth, development and daily life + the needs for sport and training. Getting enough calories at the end of each day is a big first step in the prevention of this particular injury.

2. Adequate macronutrients

   After focusing on getting ENOUGH total food each day, young athletes can think about the form in which they are consuming and meeting those energy needs. Are they including carbs, protein and fat? An athlete deficient in carbs is likely going to be a super lethargic athlete. The athlete could also experience moodiness, muscle cramps or hitting a wall during practices and meets. An athlete needs protein spaced throughout the day to aid in things like muscle recovery, building and repair of any little tissue wear and tear that naturally occurs after workouts, or preventing illness. Remember to space the protein in moderate amounts vs trying to get a ton at one meal.

3. Adequate micronutrients

   Next athletes can focus on those smaller but still very important nutrients. I typically focus on calcium, vitamin D and iron in the beginning because research and clinical practice has shown that these aid in performance and bone health in young athletes.

   One reason I tell my athletes to focus on whole foods vs supplements is because if we focus on the protein powders, the shakes, the bars, etc. we could be falling short on these super important micronutrients found in whole foods that keep our bones strong and energy levels up!

4. Timing of meals & snacks

   This top part of the pyramid, in my opinion, is like the icing on the cake. It’s really performance-focused. Once young athletes shows me they understand and can implement the first three tiers, then we get to focus on timing.

   This is where real strategy comes into play and we talk about how to build the meals and snacks and where to put them based on timing of practices, warm-ups, games, meets and performances.

   It’s difficult to talk about timing, though, when you don’t have a strong foundation and understanding of the first three tiers. And, when looking at overall big-picture performance and injury prevention for the child or teen athlete, timing is irrelevant if the athlete is not eating enough each day and therefore deficient in macro or micronutrients.

   Adequate nutrition timing will make the biggest impact in a well fueled athlete!

I hope you find this helpful as your athlete heads into a new school year and another season of sports. As always, please reach out to me with any questions or if you would like to schedule a call to chat about working together.

Happy Fueling!

Taylor

Healthy Weight Gain for the Young Athlete: When It's Indicated and How to Take a Performance & Health-Enhancing Approach

The topic of weight gain has come up a lot in the last couple of months. I’m working with a handful of clients on this very goal and I have some friends who are parents of small children with food allergies who are trying to maintain weight with limited food options.

In a world where we hear so much about weight loss, I wanted to create a post geared towards those working towards the opposite. Just as frustrating as it is for those who are trying to lose weight, it is also frustrating for those trying to gain. For today’s post I’m talking about weight gain and optimizing nutrition for the child and teen athlete. You will hear me say “optimizing nutrition” a lot because, while a client may come to me with the goal of gaining weight, I see this as a chance to optimize his or her nutrition as well. Weight gain can be done in ways that help improve performance or ways that can hinder performance. I think that if we keep the phrase “optimizing nutrition” in mind, it makes sure that that the athlete and we, as the athlete’s support team, approach this goal in a way that doesn’t just lead to weight gain, but also enhances the athlete’s development, health and performance.

So, when might I work with an athlete on weight gain? When might weight gain be indicated?

4 Situations where weight gain is indicated:

1. The athlete needs to gain weight to make a certain position on his or her team.

2. The athlete has experienced sudden, unintentional and continuous weight loss with the start of a new sport, new season, or increased time and intensity of practices.

3. Along with weight loss the athlete has experienced stress fractures or, if a female, lost her period.

4. There is a potential eating disorder to consider (this topic is beyond the scope of this post)

If you fall into these categories, weight gain might be something you are working on. However, as I said initially, weight gain can be done in a way that promotes health and performance and a way that hinders it. Eating 20 chocolate chip cookies every night and a double cheese burger with an extra large french fry and large lemonade may promote weight gain, but it would not promote the building of lean muscle, brain health, speed and agility, and other benefits beneficial to the athlete (I’m not saying the athlete can’t ever have cookies, fries, etc., I’m saying, let’s diversify here). So, what are some key guidelines to follow when trying to achieve performance-enhancing and health-promoting weight gain? Here are 5 initial actions to start getting that weight trending upwards.

5 Tips for Healthy, Performance-Promoting Weight Gain in the Young Athlete:

1. Eat on a consistent meal and snack schedule every day. No skipping meals! Consistency is key. This means consistently eating 3 meals and, for many athletes, 3 snacks a day. It also means sticking to a schedule! An athlete may not feel hungry, but if the schedule says it’s time to eat, it’s important to do so.

2. Include 3 or more different food groups at each meal and at least 2 different food groups at each snack. This ensures the athlete is getting protein, carbohydrate and healthy fats from a variety of sources and a variety of needed micronutrients along with it.

3. Increase portion sizes at each meal and / or make some food swaps, trading out less energy-dense foods (ex: plain popcorn at a snack or regular bread for a sandwich) for more energy-dense foods (ex: a nut & seed granola bar at a snack or a bagel for a sandwich).*

4. Add spreads and sauces to your meals and snacks (ex: Add peanut butter to your granola bar, avocado spread to your sandwich, hummus with your carrots, and cheese with your crackers.*

5. Work with your sports dietitian to get your protein goal and space that protein out evenly throughout the day in your meals and snacks (this is especially important if looking to build lean muscle). Your dietitian will also make sure that you are increasing your energy intake enough and that this increase is coming from the amount of protein, carbs and fat needed to fuel performance and support good health!

   * Notice that most of these additions and swaps offer a degree of nutrition as well as calcium, protein, healthy fats, fiber, magnesium, potassium, and more, all contributing to the athlete’s overall health and performance.

These are some general guidelines. I will always recommend you meet with a sports RD to know that what you are choosing is right for you. Some athletes may need 2 snacks a day, some may need 3 and some may need more! It all depends on you, your sport, and your season of training.

I hope this gets you started in the right directions. Please comment with questions or reach out to me via my contact page with questions or if you would like to work together on weight gain for you or your own young athlete!

Happy Fueling!

Taylor