Is your Athlete Fueling for Performance?

Youth athletes work incredibly hard. They are growing every day, body and mind. Brains are processing. Learning. Navigating social circles and social-emotional rollercoasters of family, friends, teams, coaches, etc. Their schedules are often made for them with little flexibility which makes it a challenge to always fuel properly or even know what their caloric needs are for a given day. While the adult world is overwhelmed with weight loss information and struggling with calorie deficits, you athletes have the opposite problem. Many athletes are not eating enough to support their training demands and physical goals.

There is an overwhelming amount of information out there about nutrition recommendations for athletes, guidelines, timing of macronutrients, micronutrients, source or type of macronutrient, etc. It can make a lot of parents and athletes dizzy.

So, let's start with the big picture

For a heavy physical activity day, is your athlete getting enough calories? Check out the evidence-based recommended calories from Nutritional Considerations for Performance in Young Athletes below.

I don't know about you, but I was completely shocked by these numbers, especially for teens. For athletes who have goals of supporting their performance, gaining size or muscle to be more competitive on their court or field, etc, or making sure their body has enough good energy for recovery from lots of heavy training days or peaks of their season - these numbers are more important to hit. This table provides a good benchmark to work from, but a healthy training cycle/schedule has a mix of light and heavy days so make sure you consider this when planning or evaluating calorie targets each day. If your athlete is tired, feels like they run out of energy during games or practices, brain foggy, etc - they may need to eat MORE.

How to help your athlete get the energy they need

Athletes should know how they're doing now, or at baseline. They may be eating enough already and can move on to working on evaluating and adjusting their macronutrients. They may not realize how little they eat, why they're not meeting their goals, and their need to troubleshoot some solutions to get a bit more fuel in their body. How to do this?

• For at least 7-10 days make a log of everything an athlete consumes in a day - food, drink, shakes, etc. Do your best not to guess on portion size because estimates can swing calorie counts by hundreds. If you have the patience and time at home, a food scale to measure ingredients works well. At school or on the road? Don't stress too much. Take the information you have from packages, menus and portion sizes. You'll still get a ballpark range of how you're doing each day. A longer logging period gives you more information and allows you to evaluate trends, but we understand it can feel like a tedious process for the life of a sports family.

• Track Training Intensity Days (Light, Medium, Heavy) on the same log if you can.

• Write down any helpful information about the day - tournament, travel, weight training, skills day, traveled a lot, skipped lunch, etc. This can help down the road build some strategies around meeting caloric needs.

Contact us at www.flyttaperformance.com/contact to request a tracking log or to discuss booking a consultation appointment for your athlete.