Common Sense Eating

If you've never had one of your athletes say "Coach, you'll be proud of me, I ate pizza last night!" then this post probably isn't for you.  Working with young kids you begin to realize that they have a totally skewed idea of what is healthy and what an athlete should be eating.  Most young athletes these days focus more on supplements than they do what they are taking in for their actual nutritional and caloric needs.  Furthermore, especially for girls, the crash diet has become a common and disastrous answer to their perceived "weight issues" (which usually is not even an issue).

Our job as coaches is to disseminate information to our kids that will help them in life, in addition to the present.  One reason the obesity epidemic is as bad as it is now is because we aren't teaching the youth that over consumption of food and eating processed goods is not a healthy path.  The worst offenders are the "high metabolism" group that can eat anything they want as a child, yet ultimately they will have major weight gain issues in their 20s when their metabolism begins to slow.  Arming these kids with knowledge is going to help them to not just be better athletes now, but healthier people in the future.

Not only is processed food less nutritious than fresher foods, even normal fresh food products are becoming less nutritious than they use to be due to various reasons such as genetically modifying the plants.  The more we allow our kids to go down the path of eating fast foods and microwaveable meals, we are setting them up for failure.  It has been noted by physiologists that processed foods affect performance in even elite athletes.  Imagine what it is doing to the young one.  If you want your body to perform to the highest level in a competition, or even just daily life, you have to consider how to make some common sense decisions on diet.

Some keys are not to substitute processed foods when you can eat the real thing, such as eating protein bars instead of just eating a healthy portion of meat, beans nuts, etc.  Don't eat Ramen or ice cream (believe it not many people do this) for carbs when you can have whole wheat breads and pastas.  Don't eat processed oils for fats when virgin olive oil is available.  Also, try to cook at home and eat foods that have been altered as little as possible since they were harvested.  

Yes, your body may crave fast food, which also has addictive properties, but you need to think about how your body 1) can only use for energy what you put into your body.  There is no magic pure energy system that comes from no where.  Everything is based on what you ate. And 2) your body is composed of what you ate.  If you've eaten nothing but fast foods, you will probably be more susceptible to getting sick, feeling weak, etc.  Eat healthy, don't over eat, and treat your body the way it needs and wants to be treated!