Planning to Eat to Win!

PLANNING to EAT TO WIN
When preparing for your off-season conditioning, planning your meals and eating them at the correct times is just as important as signing up for the training sessions. You will not gain weight, lose weight or gain muscle mass JUST by going to the gym and working out. Unless you are planning to use supplements or put substances in your body recommended by certain body builders, eating nutritiously is the fastest and best way to achieve the goal you want.
Although eating to WIN is a really simple concept, the time constraints on families of elite athletes mean that we will try to clarify HOW to eat, WHAT to eat and WHEN. These important questions however must include both the person in the family buying the groceries and athlete so, if you are the athlete, please take a few moments and list all the foods you like and dislike. Please be honest with yourself and with us and don‟t just include foods you THINK you should like but food you like and eat often. Include Fast Foods, and the junk food you love-none of us are perfect…
Use this table (overleaf) as a conversation starter between the athlete and the grocery shopper. Begin to create a standard „Shopping List‟ that appears from the conversation and of course plan to buy the food you agree upon as well as the foods that may not be „normal‟ for your family. Successful athletes understand they need a constant stream of energy to perform at their peak. This is, ideally, 5-7 small meals or snacks per day. In some cases, where weight GAIN is a goal especially, some players must eat upwards of 5000 performance calories per day; that is A LOT of food. This amount of food can only be eaten intermittently through the day or the results can be counterproductive. I call them „performance calories‟ because it is easy to eat 3 Big Macs and get the 5000 on board…the consequences of that choice however will mean that the wrong weight is gained.

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