WAG Protein for picky eaters

[Gymnasticsismylife]

I am train Xcel Gold this summer. I’m used to doing 9 hours a week and I will go to 16 hours. This is clearly a pretty big increase in not only time but how hard I will be working. It’s also summer which means I have time to make food. (I’m 13 btw so I can make stuff on my own). I really want to make some protein packed and healthy meals because I know how much a good diet can impact your gymnastics. I’m a picky eater so I eat a lot of carbs, but now that it’s summer I want to do better so I can be a better gymnast. Even though I am usually not willing to try new stuff, I’m going to slowly branch out the summer. Anyone have good ideas for some good food with protein, nutrients, and anything else that will help my gymnastics?

 

[HopefulGymnast]

Can you share some food that you like? It may give us ideas for similar things. There's also some threads here that you can look at that already have a lot of food suggestions.
Remember that if you train more hours, you're also going to need more carbs and fats in your food, not just extra proteins.
Do you sometimes make your own meals yourself, or is this more for snacks / extra food for performance fuelling?

 

[Coach Kate]

Smoothies are the best! Greek yogurt, hemp hearts, fruit, and even a protein powder if the adults in your life feel that's appropriate.

 

[observantmom]

• Greek Yogurt - lots of flavors and some have up to 22 g. protein per serving
• Fair Life Milk - swapping this brand out for regular milk is a great way to increase protein
• Edamame
• Protein Bars - specifically Gatorade, Perfect Bars or Power Crunch Kids Bar
• Cheese Sticks and/or cheese snacks
• Kodiak (that's the brand) protein oatmeal and muffin cups - great for breakfast
• Scrambled Egg Cups/Kits - in refrigerated section of grocery store - great for breakfast
• Turkey meat sticks
• Smoothies that have greek yogurt in them
• Look up protein ball recipes - they are oatmeal based protein balls with peanut butter and chocolate chips.
• Obviously if you like meats, then adding that into your meals is great - salmon, tuna, chicken, etc.
• For vegetarians, beans is a big source of protein and some even blend them into soup bases to make them creamier.

I hope this helps - you'll have to play around and see what you like! Just keep in mind that intra-workout snacks should be primarily carbs with a few proteins to offset the sugar spike. Most of your protein will probably come from meals and snacks outside of practice. Hope this helps!

 

[observantmom]

And I agree with what other's have said which is that you will have to increase your overall consumption to keep up with the increased practices so generally speaking it means your meals should be 50% carbs, 25% protein and 25% fruits/vegetables. Snacks during practice should be more like a 75% carb/25% protein mix or maybe even more on carbs and that can include liquid carbs like Gatorade. No carbs means no energy for practice so you don't want to be cutting caloric intake and carbs!

 

[HopefulGymnast]

Also, fun thing to know for years to come:
- Main carb: tacos, pasta, couscous, rice, potatoes, bread base, pita, (puff) pastry, etc.
- Main proteine: Fish, chicken, beef, etc, salmon (very healthy but very expensive where I live), tofu, cheese and nuts, egg and bacon. (For vegetarion options it can be a bit low on proteine so you'd want to add a side of yoghurt or something else)
- Any vegetables that go well with your chosen combo. Be careful that you don't get things too wet if you use a vegetable that has a lot of liquid in it.
- taste makers: if you want to add a sauce, spices, extra cheese, etc.


There are millions of foods out there, I think it's great that you're willing to experiment a bit. I'm sure there'll be lots of things you like. Keep an open mind, but if you don't like anything don't force it, there's plenty of other options after all.

I've listed some other ideas here already recently. https://chalkbucket.com/threads/will-gaining-weight-help.70695/#post-639493

As for proteine specifically: meat, dairy, peanut butter, or nuts in general are great sources of proteine. You can do lots with them like
- oat meal peanut butter snack
- smoothie with fruit and yoghurt and maybe proteine powder or peanut butter
- trail mix
- proteine waffles or pankakes (made with dairy products like cottage cheese, or dairy products)
- chocolate milk
- milkshake (just ice cream, milk and a blender. add proteine powder or peanut butter or fruit if you want)
- proteine bars

I can keep listing ideas, but it really depends how much work you want to put in and what kind of foods you like.

The least effort is probably fruit-nuts-dairy combos, bananas, cheese, or bread with peanut butter (normal in my country but I dont expect it's a normal thing where you're at).