What should an athlete eat? part 1

Going into this season I wanted to do a minute or so speech at the beginning of each practice detailing ways for athletes to improve their workouts, recovery, nutrition, rest, and mindset (if you think about it, when all those things are good we tend to be happy people and successful athletes). I learned during the winter season that those minute speeches would not suffice, they would be too long because they leave a lot of open so questions get asked, and some (if not most) don't get answered satisfactorily. So, maybe taking the wrong approach, I have not addressed it a single time in a large group setting of all of our athletes. I have talked to individual athletes a little bit, but I would like to attempt it here for everyone to see:

What are the good things? I will focus primarily on the macronutrients which are protein, fat, and carbohydrates. And I will do that in posts to follow. Let me leave you with the following pieces of advice:

• You must eat within 30 minutes of finishing your workout!
• You should eat again 1.5 hours after that!
• I will go into greater detail what you should eat later, but for now focus on protein and carbohydrates

Thanks for reading.

Coach Nack

A disclaimer: I am not a registered dietician, I am a high school SPED teacher, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. Also, I am not a medical doctor, so never pretend that what I say will cure what ales ya'.

A point of potential bias: I have Celiac disease, which means I cannot, and do not, consume gluten which is in wheat, rye and barley. I must say that since I have adopted a gluten free diet, I feel much better, have lost weight, am much healthier, am now "missing" some strange health problems I once had, and, well again, I feel much much better. Honestly, if I could I would remove it from most everyones diet I would.However, I realize the impossibility of that. So I recommend we all try to eat just a little (or a lot) less of it, i.e. from the 6-11 (!!!) recommended daily servings of grains to perhaps 2-3 daily. For high school athletes, eat it, but make sure you eat plenty of fruits and vegetables also.