MAG Health. What to eat? Proper eating habits.

[Sgavallas]

Hello everyone. I'm turning 15 next month and I am 125 lbs. 5.5. I am level 10 gymnast. Train 6 days a week and 4 hours a week. My muscle:weight ratio is not quite equal. Besides conditioning I want to eat LESS but healthier. And for a month, due to injuries I will not be training at all and I want to be nice and light when I go back in a month. What do I eat when I am in training mode and what do I eat when I am resting. (Not training) please use specific examples for breakfast, lunch, dinner, after practice at night. Also, drink and snacks. Thank you!

 

[Luvs2coach]

I suggest you take a look at this website. For a small fee you can get healthy meal plans- including grocery lists and recipes!
A few of my girls have used it and love it.

Be sure to stay healthy & get enough to eat!

http://stayfueled.com/

 

[BlairBob]

Highly debateable. Most of us would say ample protein, fruits, lots of veggies, some nuts. Starches are fine if you are tolerant of them but if you're not training that much, you won't need them in aplenty. Rice, beans, potatoes, some bread.

Bare in mind that eating as a competitive athlete working out 24hours a week is much different than your average teen who is doing a few hours of PE a week.

You will still need carbohydates to train.

Look at eliminating most (not all, enjoy your life a little) of the sweets and junk. Chips, cookies, cake, candy, soda. Follow that and see if there any results. Many adult athletes allow one cheat meal/day a week.

If you believe you eat A LOT OF carbs, especially if you are in a household that eats rice or starches every meal in plenty, then perhaps with cutting portion of said starches.

If you do cut down on carbs, you'll end losing some weight due to fluid retention, which feels pretty nice.

Since you won't be in training mode, you won't need nearly as many calories.

On non these non training days, 1500-2000 calories might be sufficient. On training days, I wouldn't be surprised if something between 2500-3500 is necessary.

And bare in mind, that malnutrition at your age, eating far too few calories and protein/minerals to support your growing body, much less training will end up having effects that may mess your adult life.

 

[Sgavallas]

Thanks! Anyone else got advice please?

 

[iwannacoach]

Thanks! Anyone else got advice please?......Sgvallas

I really blew it this time, and wrote up one of my all time longerest posts, but hey, it's a pretty complicated topic.

Sure thing. You should cut back when you're not training, but not by much because you'll mess with your endocrine system (metabolism and such), which has a base point established by your exercise and diet habits.

So let's say your big boy training caloric requirements amounts to 1500cal for basic life support like maintaining body heat, involuntary muscular work for breathing, digestion, and heart beat, and thought processes/nervous system. Add to that another 400 to 500cal for every day activities like walking, yard work, cleaning your room (ya think), and anything else that isn't vigorous, sustained exercise.

That gets you to a minimum, pretty much, of 1900 to 2000 calories. Add another minimum of 150 calories per hour of training, and you come up with a minimum caloric requirement in the range of 2500 to 2600cal. You'd need more if you're really going at it pretty hard, so if that's the case you'd be in the range of 2900 to 3000 calories. It would seem that an athlete has got to burn a bunch more calories during a workout, but while an athlete is going about their training they are also using the calories set aside for those everyday activities that normally take place during the hours spent in the gym, therefore the total isn't as high as you may think.

A lot of this depends on the individual, the particular sport, and the environment in which it takes place. A swimmer will burn calories like crazy because they're constantly losing body heat to the water they swim through, and the same can be said for any outdoor sport taking place in cold weather. But hey, you're in a nice, warm (well sorta) gym, so no big deal on keeping warm by burning calories.

So if your basic needs are set at 2500 calories, of which 600 are for training, you don't have to cut that much out of your diet. You could cut just 300 calories per day while trying to be a little more active than the normal person..... and probably maintain your weight as it is right now. Gaining weight isn't as sudden a process as you may believe. As I understand it, there are about 3000 calories of energy stored in a pound of body fat, so you'd have to gobble down an extra 350-400 calories per day to gain 1 pound every ten days..... yeah, I know the math doesn't add up, but that's because you don't usually digest and absorb every calorie you consume.

So, you ask, what if I want to lose a few pounds to be as light as possible when I get back to training? The first thing I'll say is you'd better make darn sure you have some excess weight to lose, because trimming past a certain point is going to do you a heck of a lot of harm. Here's how........

Your body needs fat. It has been refined over, geez, like the past 500,000 years..... no, not you personally, but the human race has, to survive and succeed as a species by storing fat to help us get by during times of famine.

Hey, no famine here, so what's up with that? Well, your body works as a result of those 500,000 years of human experience by slowly adapting to change, and I doubt quite strongly that our ancestors from just 800 years (the blink of an eye) ago ever contemplated McD's or B-K, so accept it as it is because the only way to change it is to stick around for something like 5000+ years.

What I'm trying to say is that you can't just cut down a whole bunch, and you can't do it too fast or all at once. Cutting down too far will send your highly evolved body back to the stone ages, as it will recognize your ambitious diet as a famine because it never got the memo about how walking around half starved was a good thing. Once your body recognizes this famine, it will take advantage of every possible morsel of food to replace, restore, and even add on to the fat you wish to lose.

Gimmie a break you say? How do people lose weight if you can't get rid of the fat? Really you can get rid of some of it if there's any excess worth worrying about, but it has to be done slowly over a longer period of time than you may wish. Figure a healthy weight loss rate would be 1/2 pound per week, and stick with that. If you wanted to lose 4 pounds by the 16 of June.... well, you shoulda started 4 weeks ago. So since you can't go back in time, you'll just have to be optimistic about the future and work a little farther into the future.

So hey, if you want to keep as lean as safely reasonable, do it the right way, go gradually and figure for the long term rewards because the last thing you want to mess with is.... (Cue the reverberating echo) Mother Nature!!!!

 

[Sgavallas]

Thanks! Question... If someone asked me how to eat properly and not to overeat junk or overeat even healthy foods. I would say force yourself and don't eat it. When I wake up I say " don't eat to much" and by the end of the day I end up eating lots of junk even lots of health stuff that's unneeded. Like there's a difference between hungry and tempting foods. I can't help but to eat unneeded food. Like that's my main problem ya know. What would you say about that?

 

[stargazer]

I personally find the less I eat junk food, the less I crave it, so that helps a lot! I try to eat healthily during the day and for example will let myself have a scoop (think heavily loaded soup spoon size haha) of ice cream when I get home, but otherwise I try to stick to healthy foods. I've been slowly cutting back on eating junk food and trying to eat more fruit and veggies, but have been doing this somewhat incrementally since January so that it didn't feel like I was depriving myself. That said, if I'm out with a friend I won't hesitate to get gelato (there's just something about yummy frozen foods ) because I know i've been eating well otherwise. So basically, slowly cut back on foods that are bad for you, or decrease portion size, and you'll find that you don't want them so much.

 

[Sgavallas]

Yea I feel the same way thanks!

 

[iwannacoach]

Never fight the urge for something sweet, or starchy. It's the body's way of telling us somethings in short supply in the bloodstream at that particular metabolic moment. Have a teensy treat, like just one or two bites, and then adress the issue with some healthy food or light activity to encourage your metabolism into the fat burning mode. Just don't fight it, because when you give in, eventually, that forbidden cheat food is going to taste better than it ever has.... and you'll slam down a ton of sugary junk before you get yourself to stop.

 

[fuzi]

You might look in to making an appointment with a nutritionist. I know my health insurance covers one or two free appointments, and my brother took advantage of them when he was an athlete about your age. It really helped him get solid, personalized information to figure out how much he needed to be eating and develop a healthy diet.

 

[Sgavallas]

Yea I want to, ill ask my parents if the insurance covers it. Thanks everyone!

 

[emorymom]

You might get some good amateur suggestions from the Crossfit fanatics in your area -- you may hit on some paleo meals you like that you can incorporate. There will be some converts there willing to preach the gospel for free.

 

[BlairBob]

Just bare in mind, paleo is rough to get enough kcals in. I know a bunch of friends who have reported their CF performance going lower when they went strict paleo. It can also be annoying for parents to deal with their kids changing diet plans. I remember when I tried going off red meat in HS, man did it irk my dad.

Add in training 15-25 hours a week, you're gonna run out of energy stores fast. Especially being a growing young man.

 

[emorymom]

I wasn't actually thinking he go solid paleo but rather incorporating some paleo-approved meals into his routines (like what he packs for lunch, not what his mom makes for dinner). Though, if his concern is that he is over consuming kcals, perhaps being restricted to those foods would be helpful. Switching chips to unsalted raw nuts could bring the snacking down to energy appropriate levels. Skipping the toast with eggs-and-bacon never hurt anyone.

 

[BlairBob]

Thing is, the kid is back in training so this thread is basically moot now.

 

[Sgavallas]

Yea Im back to training so I'm eating a lot but you all defiantly answered my question so thanks! I appreciate it!