Meal Planning Tips for Athletes

If you want to perform like a professional athlete, it’s not all about the training. More importantly, you are what you eat. Here are my top tips to help athletes get stronger, faster and healthier through meals and proper meal planning.

Don’t skip breakfast
One of the biggest mistakes athletes make is exercising without eating anything first—especially in the morning. When you wake up, your blood sugar is already low, so you should eat as soon as you get out of bed. That way, 30 to 45 minutes will have passed before you actually head out the door to work out. You should also immediately start hydrating for the day’s workout or match. Drinking water while you work out is great, but if you start your run on empty, you’re never going to finish as strong as you want.

If you don’t typically eat breakfast, start small. Try drinking orange juice (with no sugar added), then move to a glass of OJ plus an organic, hard-boiled egg. By incorporating foods with substance to the start of your day, you stabilize your blood sugar and prepare your body for a workout later.

Eat the right foods for healthy body composition
When you are planning your meals for the week, it’s important to choose foods that will not only sustain your active lifestyle and athletic performance, but also ones that aid you in maintaining a healthy body composition. Start with grass-fed, pasture-raised and organic proteins, such as lamb, pork, bison, elk, chicken, turkey or duck. If you prefer to eat fish or seafood, choose wild salmon, mackerel, anchovies, sardines or haddock, as well as wild clams, scallops, mussels, oysters or shrimp. For sides, choose ancient grains, such as quinoa, amaranth or sorghum, and any organic green vegetable. Choose oils from avocados, walnuts, almonds, macadamia, flax seed or hemp to both consume and cook with. You should also include fatty fruits in your diet—like avocados, coconuts, and olives—as well as wild organic berries, cherries and the occasional apple. When it comes to milk, skip the dairy and choose an alternative like almond, coconut, hemp, or cashew—but make sure you choose one without large amounts of added sugar. Speaking of sugar, your best alternative for sweetener is monk fruit extract or coconut sugar. Finally, include raw nuts and seeds to complement your healthy fats.

If you’re having difficulty remembering what to avoid as you meal prep, I use two acronyms as my guide—no GPS: Gluten, Processed Foods or Sugar; as well as no DNA: Dairy, Nicotine or Artificial Sweeteners. Stop eating any foods you suspect you’re allergic to or cannot tolerate. And finally, stop drinking soda, even the sugar-free kind.

Stay hydrated
Athletes should drink up to one ounce of water per pound of body weight every day. And while it’s important to stay hydrated during the duration of your workout, athletes should plan to drink water throughout the day to make rehydrating easier post-workout. You also shouldn’t wait until a match to see how your body responds to other liquids like sports drinks. Make sure to sip on the same beverage during competition as you do during your training to save yourself from any potential stomach troubles.

Properly refuel post-workout
While the nutrients serve different purposes, what you put into your body post-workout is just as important as your pre-workout meal. Post-workout meals should focus on replenishing what you’ve expended while exercising. To start, replenish your lost electrolytes as soon as possible. Many sports drinks are high in sugar, but water mixed with electrolyte-replenishing tablets is an excellent source for rehydrating. While there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to replacing electrolytes—as individual sweat rates and lengths of exercise differ—the need to replace the sodium and water lost through sweat applies to all athletes.

In addition to rehydrating, athletes should also consume a mix of protein and carbs, like a whey protein shake, within the first 30 minutes after finishing a high-intensity or endurance workout. Doing so will help reduce muscle soreness and aid in muscle recovery. As for a healthy post-workout snack, make sure to avoid processed carbs, which increase inflammation, and opt for anti-inflammatory foods, like cherries, walnuts, or kale. Athletes should also include MCT oil in their post-workout regime, as it’s one of the fastest sources of clean fuel to replenish the body and brain.

As an athlete, choosing the right foods and liquids to fuel, refuel, and hydrate your body can not only make the difference between winning and losing, but also impact the longevity of your game. Like training, proper meal planning can help give you the edge you need to rise above the competition.