When Your Athlete Has a Super Packed Schedule

Do you feel like you hardly see your athlete?  Like, you get in a quick groggy hello before they are out the door for early morning practice and then you get an exhausted “hi again” or “what’s for dinner?” after school? Maybe you don’t see your athlete until even later - like 8 or 9:30 pm because they have evening practices or had an evening game. Or maybe your athlete is in a sport like gymnastics, dance or figure skating where they could be at the gym/studio/rink for hours at a time with small school breaks in-between and in the evening.

Regardless which sort of schedule your athlete follows, with this time-consuming commitment to sport it can be really really difficult to get a good fueling strategy in place and meet the high nutrition demands of sport. I see this as a roadblock with so many of the athletes that I work with and so today I wanted to take a little time and give you 5 nutrition principles along with actionable strategies that your athletes can start putting into practice now to help them optimize their intake when they have a super packed schedule that makes it hard to fuel well….

5 Nutrition Principles for the Young Athlete

with a Packed Schedule

1. Snacks are their best friend.

• Have your athlete go with you to the store to pick out different snack-type items that he or she can have on-hand in a lunch bag throughout the day for easy fueling. These should be from a variety of food groups so that the athlete is getting a variety of nutrients and energy sources throughout the day.

• Some examples include: granola bars, whole grain crackers, string cheese, chocolate milks, yogurt, goldfish, nuts/seeds, deli turkey, carrot sticks, hummus, cottage cheese cups, dried fruit, fresh fruit.

• Need help strategizing how to mix and match? Grab a copy of my Sports Snack Survival Guide! DM me on Instagram or email me at taylor@taylored-nutrition.com to grab a copy!

2. Because they are snacking, they need to eat more often (than if they sat down for a larger more balanced meal)

• A young athlete should not go 4 + hours between snacks.  

• If the athlete is mostly getting fuel from snacks, he/she likely should be getting a snack about every 2 to 3 hours, depending on the content of the snack and the specifics (age, height, weight, sport played, etc.) of the athlete.

3. Fueling meals and snacks don’t have to be beautiful or look Instagram perfect to fuel the body well. - put away those perfectionistic ideals!

• I help my athletes put together a lot of fueling meals and snacks that they end up doing really well with and feeling really good about.  Many of them are surprised at how simple and basic the meals and snacks are! 

4. Meals & snacks need carbs + a variety of these other foods.

• When it comes down to it, your athlete needs carbs from a variety of food groups to keep those energy stores up. These should be in each snack and meal.  Alongside it, depending on when the snack falls in relation to a practice or training session, there should also be some protein, some fiber and some fat. 

• Have your athlete pick different food sources of carbs, protein, fiber, and fat that they enjoy so that they get a variety of micronutrients (vitamins & minerals) throughout the day as well.

• And while the athlete may have to rely on lots of snacks some days, they should make sure one or two meals is still a part of their day. That could be a great breakfast to start the day or a great dinner with family or friends to end the day.

• Smoothies can be a great way to pack in food group variety and energy that is easy and quick.  I, personally, feel the same way about oatmeal & overnight oats!

5. Don’t forget the water bottle.

• Water is still super important to keep those energy levels up and optimize performance. We want the athlete to be drinking throughout the day.

• Remember, items like milk, sports drink, flavored water, teas, smoothies, fruits, veggies, and applesauce all contribute to an athlete’s hydration goal!
  

I hope today’s post has given you 5 strategies that your athletes can start working on today and take with them into the school year. As always, reach out to me if you have any questions or concerns regarding fueling your young athlete. I would love to chat!

Happy Fueling!

Taylor

Image credit - https://historyofsoccer.info/

Young Athletes: Not Just Little Adults

In today’s post I want to point out some of the differences between adult and child athletes. I’m pretty excited to write about this today because, if you know me or have worked with me, you know that I am super passionate about pediatric nutrition (nutrition for kids and teens) and love to educate on all things pediatric nutrition. I have loved it since the day I started my dietetic internship in Memphis to my first job at a children’s hospital to volunteering to write a kids’ nutrition and fitness curriculum for the Junior League to working with athletes today. I love navigating the extra level of complication that surrounds children and adolescents when it comes to nutrition. I love that you have to take more into consideration when treating and making recommendations for children and teens because the body and brain are still in such rapid phases of growth and development. I love understanding how the bodies of child and teen athletes are different from those of adults and, therefore, cannot be treated and guided as such.

Today I’m going to share with you four factors that I think are important to know that make the needs and recommendations of child and adolescent athletes different than those of adults. I hope you find this helpful as you continue to fuel your young athletes.

4 Ways Child & Adolescent athlete nutrition needs

Differ From Adult athlete needs:

1. Children are more efficient at using fat for energy. It is not until going through puberty that they become more efficient at using carbs like adults. 

• Putting into practice … Young athletes don’t need to do all of that carb-loading before big cross country meets or tournament days. Those pre-race carb-loading dinners are more for camaraderie than actual help with fueling. Keep enjoying the dinners if you love them (I loved these as a cross country runner in middle school & high school) but just know it’s more for fun than for optimizing fueling or giving a performance advantage. Of course, carbs are still a young athlete’s best friend, but the need for “loading” has not been proven to benefit this population of athletes. It does not mean you have to load up on fats either, but it does mean that foods with fat should certainly be present in their meals or snacks.

2. Children / teens do not cool their bodies like adults do. Children/teens predominantly cool their bodies via radiative and conductive cooling (dry heat dissipation) while adults rely on evaporative cooling (sweating). During training, young athletes’ bodies get more efficient at peripheral vasodilation while adults’ bodies alter their sweat rates. All of this means that kids and adolescents do not sweat as much as adults to cool themselves and, therefore, do not lose as many electrolytes as adults do with exercise.

   • Putting into practice … Keep this in mind before buying expensive electrolyte supplements or sports drinks for your athlete.

3. Children & adolescent athletes are going through growth spurts at different times and different seasons. It’s important not to alter food choices or restrict intake too much at the risk of stunting growth, delaying puberty or decreasing performance. What could seem like a harmless small reduction in calories or a shift in food choices to a young athlete could mean a period of unintentional underfueling that decreases performance, puts the athlete at risk of injury, or, if long-term, delays growth and development.

   • Putting into practice … It’s important to encourage all meals and snacks and all forms of carbs, proteins and fats with our young athletes. I like to encourage athletes to listen to their body (unless they are already chronically underfueled but that is a separate post for another day). They may be extremely hungry one week or one month and need a little or a lot more food. Then the following week or month their appetite is lower. That’s ok! They’ve got to allow themselves to fuel through those growth spurts, giving the body what it needs, not only for the growth & development, but also for their sport and class load.

4. Supplement benefits may not apply.  What I mean here is that most supplements related to performance (not talking about vitamins & minerals here) that have been found to be effective are tested on adults, not children and teens. Even if the supplement is third party tested, that does not mean it is proven to be effective or recommended for use in kids and teens.

   • Putting into practice … Always keep this in mind when thinking about protein or other supplements for the young athlete.

Working as a pediatric sports dietitian merges the specialty of pediatrics and the specialty of sports. I know it can be confusing to sort through all of the nutrition information and product recommendations out there, which are mostly geared towards adult athletes. If your athlete needs help with their fueling strategy and you’re not sure where to start or where to go next, reach out to me! I would love to schedule a call and chat to see if working together would be a good next step.  

That’s all for today. Happy Fueling!

Taylor

Ten Important Nutrients For Injury Recovery

I work with a lot of injured athletes. I see athletes with torn ACL’s, history of concussion and a handful of other issues, but I most often see athletes with some type of fracture, typically one or more stress fractures. While rest and physical therapy are essential to optimal recovery, so is the athlete’s nutrition. Unfortunately, nutrition can sometimes get forgotten during the recovery stage but but I’m here to say, “Don’t let it!” What you eat during this period can really speed up your recovery or it can hold you back. If used with purpose, what you eat can decrease inflammation, help rebuild the tissue you have injured, prevent loss of lean muscle and help maintain your strength. These all seem like good reasons to focus on nutrition to me! And, like I say with most of my other tips and ideas, you don’t have to make your nutrition recovery complicated! I’m here to give you the facts and then help you most easily incorporate those facts into something doable each day.

If you are an injured athlete or the parent, coach or caregiver of an injured athlete, I hope you can take some of these ideas below and put them to use for the best recovery possible.

Happy Fueling!

Taylor

Why Should Nutrition Be Part of Your Recovery Plan?

1. Support the continued creation of muscle proteins.

   • Muscle protein synthesis (creation of muscle protein in the body) decreases after injury when activity declines and especially when a limb has to be immobilized (like getting a cast on a leg, arm, etc.)

2. Preserve the lean muscle mass you already have.

   • Nutrition becomes even more important to maintain your muscle mass since you cannot use exercise & your typical workouts to help.

3. Maintain appropriate energy balance.

   • While, yes, your energy needs may decrease some during your recovery phase, it’s important to realize that they may not decrease THAT much. This is especially true if you are on crutches, which require 2 to 3 times more energy than walking! If you decrease calories too much, you can slow down recovery due to the decrease muscle protein synthesis, increased muscle loss and impaired wound healing that this will cause.

4. Decrease Inflammation (not necessarily right after injury and surgery but starting a few days after, as inflammation right after an injury is important to the healing process)

   • Just as anti-inflammatory foods and antioxidants were important for recovery after games and practices, they are also important now as the body is working even harder to heal. Continue to include those foods high in antioxidants and those anti-inflammatory foods.

Ten Nutrients to Include in Your Recovery Plan

1. PROTEIN

   • Focus on foods high in the amino acid leucine, which stimulates the creation of protein.

     • Sources: lean chicken, beef and pork, fish, nuts & seeds, cheese, tempeh, milk, yogurt

   • Include a quality source of protein (ideally with leucine) about every 3 hours, after therapy sessions and before bed.

   • Include a quality source of whey protein before bed. Whey protein is released and digested more slowly so your body can work on maintaining and rebuilding muscle during the fasting state of sleep.

     • Sources: yogurt, milk, and cottage cheese

2. CARBOHYDRATE

   • Your body still needs carbohydrates for energy so it can use the protein you give it for muscle repair and building. You may need less carbohydrate than when you were training and competing but don’t cut them way back or out completely!

   • Focus on complex carbohydrates that take longer to digest. This will keep you fuller longer and prevent spikes and dips in your blood sugar.

     • Sources: whole grain bread, pasta, cereal, & crackers, fruit, yogurt, starchy veggies

3. HEALTHY FAT

   • Make sure to include sources of omega-3’s and some monounsaturated fats to help fight the inflammation and support your immune system.

     • Sources: nuts, seeds, avocado, oily fish (salmon & tuna), flax oil, extra virgin olive oil, nut and seed butter.

4. VITAMIN C

   • An important antioxidant that aids in wound healing , tissue repair, and a healthy immune system.

     • Sources: citrus fruits, bell peppers, tomatoes, cantaloup, potatoes

5. VITAMIN A

   • An important antioxidant that aids in cell growth and development and immune function.

     • Sources: sweet potatoes, spinach, carrots, tomatoes, cantaloupe

6. VITAMIN D

   • Aids in calcium absorption and supports bone health.

   • Sources: sunlight, fatty fish, many dairy products (check the label), fortified foods, egg yolks

7. CALCIUM

   • Important for strong bones.

     • Sources: dairy products, broccoli, kale, chia seeds, almonds, fortified orange juice

8. MAGNESIUM

   • Important for making proteins in the body and aids in the absorption & metabolism of calcium and vitamin D.

     • Sources: almonds, sesame and sunflower seeds, cashews, peanuts, bananas, beans

9. ZINC

   • Aids in wound healing, creation of protein and immune function.

     • Sources: lean beef, crabmeat, chicken, cashews, fortified cereals, beans
       

10. COPPER

    • Helps form red blood cells, helps build a strong immune system and strong bones.

      • Sources: sesame, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, cashews and shiitake mushrooms

My Up & At ‘Em Egg Cups are packed with protein, vitamin D, as well as some vitamin C and calcium, all promoting recovery after injury!

PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE:

Sample Injury Recovery Meals

• Grilled salmon with seasoned brown rice, roasted broccoli, a baked potato and glass of milk

• Peanut butter & banana sandwich on wheat bread + 8 oz milk + 1 cup diced cantaloupe

• Homemade lean ground beef cheeseburger + whole wheat bun + lettuce, tomato, mustard + homemade oven baked potato fries + kale salad

• Baked chicken + baked sweet potato + oven roasted broccoli + glass of milk

Salmon is an excellent source of omega 3’s. Try my Miso Ginger Glazed Salmon for a tasty twist on your average salmon dinner!

PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE:

Sample Injury Recovery Snacks

• Greek yogurt + fresh or frozen mixed berries

• Quaker Oatmeal Squares cereal + dry roasted almonds

• Slice of whole grain toast spread with almond butter and sliced bananas

• Cottage cheese + diced cantaloupe

• Hardboiled egg + whole grain granola bar

• Protein bar (like 88 Acres protein, Larabar protein, etc.) + glass of milk

Basic rolled or steel cut oats from the bulk bin at your local grocery store provide great fiber, carbohydrates, some protein (because it’s a whole grain), magnesium, and more. Top with a healthy fat like SunButter or almond butter and some fruit for a balance recovery-enhancing breakfast or snack.