Did you  know that as soon as your body is slightly dehydrated overall pace and endurance are drastically diminished. As an athlete I'm sure you bring a water bottle to practice and to a game... but do you stay hydrated throughout the day? Do you think about your hydration? Do yo think of it everyday?  Even on non-training days?

Staying hydrated on a daily basis (not just during training sessions, workouts and competitions) is crucial to your success as an athlete. Doing so will ensure that you have a strong practice, have ample energy during competitions and will increase your energy throughout the day-no matter what you are doing. Hydration is also paramount to optimal recovery. Your body needs adequate fluid to perform AND recover! This will ensure that you can hit each session just as hard day after day after day. 

How do you monitor and measure hydration? There are a few ways to do this:

1- Ask yourself if you're thirsty. This is a method used by many, although...

Power Up With Protein

The research is strong. Athletes need protein. In fact we need more protein than non-athletes. The consistent impact and oxygen consumption that occurs because of daily training creates damage. Protein is responsible for much of the prevention of and recovery from that damage. It can be difficult to consume ample protein based on our busy schedules so below you will find some simple tips to help you figure out the best ways to increase your protein consumption.   

Aside from the obvious protein sources like meat, chicken, Turkey and fish...try these simple ways to increase your protein intake every day!

Start your day with protein. Getting it in early will give you a head start on meeting your protein requirement! Good examples of simple protein sources for breakfast are eggs, milk, chia seeds, flax milk, soy milk, greek yogurt and oatmeal.

Try snacking on jerky! Beef jerky, turkey jerky, and salmon jerky are convenient snacks to...

Tip#3

Nutrient-Rich Eating 

Eating a nutrient rich diet is all about optimizing the quality of the foods you eat. You can make a choice between eating a meal packed with vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, anti-inflammatory properties, fiber, water, protein, fats and carbohydrates....or a food with very little of any of those. Athletes who choose to eat a diet filled with powerful and health enhancing nutrients will have the energy available to them to perform at their best.  

Making  the most of the foods you choose to eat will ensure that you will perform at your best and recover the most efficiently!  Whenever possible, choose foods, combinations of foods and meals that contain nutrients that will help fuel your body and/or help you recover from the high level of training that you are doing on a day to day basis.

For example, instead of grabbing a rice cake in the morning for breakfast, choose whole grain toast with avocado, arugula and flax seeds....

Tip#2 (of 10...)

Boost your training with Antioxidants! Every time you head to practice, to the gym to lift or compete in a game or meet...you consume A LOT of oxygen! That oxygen that you consume during these activities destroys cells. Crazy right? This is called oxidative damage. Thankfully you can combat this damage by  consuming foods that are rich in antioxidants. This literally means that there are components in foods that will "undo" the damage thats done by oxygen.  These components protect your cells from further destruction and help to rebuild and strengthen them.

Foods that are high in antioxidants include strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, spinach, kale, collards, apples, oranges, broccoli, kale, beans, potatoes, pecans, artichokes and plums ...to name a few. To be honest, most of your fruits and vegetables will contain anti-inflammatory properties. There are many grains (oatmeal, brown rice, quinoa), nuts (almonds, cashews) and fish (salmon) that also...

TIP#1

Food is Energy! 

As an athlete, you are asking a lot of your body. You ask it to produce a lot of energy every single day!

Food is literally converted into energy when we eat it through digestion and absorption. In fact food is measured in calories....which is a measurement of energy.

Eating food provides your body with energy to use. Eating a varied and balanced diet of food at regular intervals throughout each day ensures you have ample energy for your sport!  If you limit or restrict food, you are limiting the amount of energy that is produced and you simply will not be able to perform to your full potential. You may not be able to perform well at all.

Thinking of food as fuel is a mindset shift that will amplify your sports performance goals. Choosing food wisely will ensure that your body gets what it needs and therefore can perform exactly how you want it to! Setting your mindset straight when it comes to the first sports nutrition tip will change...

I always like focusing on the positive. But its crucial for you to know about the negative side of supplements. As an athlete you need to be armed with this information so you know what to avoid putting in your body. Remember that your body is your engine! You wouldn't be able to play your sport without your body so you need to take care of it. Dangerous supplements can derail your goals as an athlete, negatively impact your health and put you at risk for testing positive for banned substances. One negative test can take you out of the sport that you love and have worked so hard on... completely...forever.

The supplement industry is very good at making promises that are difficult to turn down. They promise speed and power and strength and endurance and improved body composition. They know what we want. They know how desperate we are. The problem is that most of the promises we are told- are empty promises. The products don't deliver on their promises. They only deliver on...

 The Good Guys

This is part 2 of a 3 part series all about sports supplements. If you missed part one you can catch it Here. This, however is the one you want to read, save, read again and consider what works best for you and your goals.

Remember that sports supplements are not needed. They can help- under the right circumstances and as an addition to a healthy balanced diet! A supplement is exactly that-a supplement (and I'll say it again for the people in the back) to a healthy balanced diet. 

What Should YOU Take?

Now that you are aware of what the supplement industry is all about (& sorry if that scared you at all), I promised you the good news so here it is.

Supplements can help your performance when added to a healthy balanced diet. There are some supplements that are heavily researched and proven to actually help your performance, but there are some caveats. You may not need a certain supplement. You may not respond to one well. So, when choosing...

Part One...

In this three part blog series you will learn so much about sports supplements and walk away knowing if they are something you should consider, or not.

If your algorithms on social media are like most athletes, you’re probably getting ads left and right about different supplements and products people are selling promising anything from increased performance to weight loss to muscle gain to super immunity– we’ve seen it all.

It's human to  want that easy fix, or “the magic pill”. Trust me I often see an amazing performance promise and think wow I'm in...and then I stop myself with the knowledge I have. These companies are GREAT at marketing to us! They know how desperate we are to be the best!  But as athletes, we know that nothing comes without hard work. So immediately we need to question these claims and products. Do you take the time to question such promises?

Let’s take a step back. What is a supplement?...

I know everyone has heard the motto for Skittles to “Eat the Rainbow”, but as athletes, we want to apply this concept to our fruit and vegetable intake. IN the Nutrition 101 Blog Series, we covered all the macronutrients.  Fruits and vegetables are our main source of the micronutrients and SUPER important for athletic performance.

For a normal person, the USDA recommends 4-5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. Now remember, we are athletes and we learned in the first few posts of the Sports Nutrition 101 series that being an athlete means that we have different nutritional needs than normal people. That being said, our goal is to get 8-9 servings of fruits and vegetables a day to optimize our athletic performance. 

Now this many fruits and vegetables may seem like a lot in theory, but if you think about just trying to eat a rainbow, or many different colors, of F + V each day, you can easily meet the target range of intake. 

...

Is Meal Prepping something you are considering in the new year?

If so...I believe it can be something that really supports your training and hence can enhance your performance. Juts think about it. If there is food ready to grab and go in your fridge at all times, you will eat it. Meal Prepping takes away the question "what do I eat" and the statement "there's nothing to eat". It ensures that there is pre-cooked fuel available at all times, and guarantees that you have melas that are ready to create in a snap.

Below are some tips and tricks to make meal prepping simple and achievable this coming year!

Some things that you will need:

Time

Set aside some time one day per week specifically for food prep. This is typically done on Sunday but it can be done anyway that woks best with your practice/game schedule.  You will need to go grocery shopping or order groceries online to be delivered on your food prep day. Schedule this into your week as if it were a lifting session or...