So many teens wonder what is holding them back from making the gains needed to look and perform at higher levels. Is it lack of supplements? Deficiency in protein, carbs, fats? Or the ever so popular, poor genetics excuse!! Thanks to technology (using your trusty iphone or droid) you can actually document and screen your diets for deficiencies in both macro and micro nutrients.
The five most popular nutrition Iphone apps currently on the market are:
- Livestrong calorie tracker- The calorie tracker does more than just track calories. This nutrition App also provides weight monitoring, nutritional information, and exercise calorie burning information.
- Daily Burn- Allows you to scan the UPC of a food product using your iPhone’s camera and get nutritional information. The premise of this app is to keep track of what you eat every day.
- Mint Nutrition- This application allows you to keep track of what you eat by creating “plates” of food. In addition you can program the app to keep track of the nutritional information in your own recipes.
- The Carrot- allows you to create journals, take photos and look up health information about a variety of health issues such as diabetes and asthma.
All of the above apps offer something different and should help you make the right health decisions. By being able to track what you are eating on daily basis, you are given the ability to make the needed changes in your diet. A lot of times you overlook some of the things you are eating because it may only be a handful or a few bites. When you think you are eating fine but in actuality you may be lacking some major components to staying healthy…is when the results can be most devastating to your performance as an athlete. Many teens feel their teammates are bigger, stronger, and faster because they have better genes. This may be true to some extent, but what a lot of athletes lack is knowledge related to the fueling and recovery process for making larger gains.
So what if you don’t have the ability to get the needed apps to track your diet? Is there another way? Absolutely!! It’s called a pen and paper. I know it sounds too simple and maybe even a little tedious but once you start writing down what you’re eating you will see where all your calories are coming from and what needs to be changed.
Iphone apps are growing daily, and so should your muscles. If you put forth the effort needed to track and maintain healthy and efficient diets you will soon reap the benefits. For those of you who lack Iphones or Itouches you will not be disappointed with the results you get from a simple pen and paper approach. By making this a habit at such a young age, you will be able to gain a better understanding of what it takes to get your body feeling great (while doing it in an oh so cool kind of way!)
Stay Strong,
Jeff
Filed under Sports Nutrition by on Jun 23rd, 2010. 3 Comments. 
Low carb, no carb, low fat, no fat, grapefruit only, anything but grapefruit….who can keep track?!? There are so many diet fads out there and the list grows by a few hundred every day. It seems not a minute goes by without someone coming up with yet another way to lose weight…albeit temporary…by recommending you either restrict certain parts of your diet or eat particular thing in excess.
What ever happened to “everything in moderation?”
Well, if the fact that tens of millions of Americans are unsuccessfully riding this wave of diet misinformation isn’t bad enough, the recently disturbing rise in teens following in their parents footsteps is even worse. Now, not to dismiss my parents and coaches out there reading this but I’m sure you can understand that my heightened concern for this in the kids is justified.
You guys will be alright. With the exception of that “one guy” that we all know that still thinks it’s cool to party with their teens friends as if it were his first visit to a frat house…most of us are already fully developed biologically and capable of making decisions that we are responsible for. If you want to follow the Atkins diet (even though you’re destined to fail since you’re depriving your brain of the number one source of fuel it needs in it’s natural form!) then go right ahead. You’re big boys and girls.
Just remember…when you can’t take another day of eating bacon and eggs and hamburgers without the buns…and you start to have visions of white bread dancing in your head at night, you will have heard it from me first!
But that’s not the point. What is is the fact that teens following this same bad advice is incredibly disturbing…for many reasons. The worst is the fact that during the teenage years, the body is undergoing it’s most significant developmental and hormonal changes, and at the quickest rate (including infancy!). Screwing with this delicate internal lab experiment in ANY way is probably going to result in the same kind of chaos as when you and your buddy thought it was a good idea to see who could get the bigger flame on their Bunsen Burner (or was that just me?!?).
Anway, back to the matter at hand. If there was ever a time to GET IT RIGHT with your nutrition it’s NOW…in your teenage years!
The stage for many of your body’s long term developments are set during these crucial 6-7 years. Making continued mistakes as a teenager can doom you to a life of repercussions that can make adulthood much different than it was intended to be. For instance, there’s no more crucial time to build bone density than during your teens with adequate nutritional supplies of calcium and Vitamin D.
Even though you may not ever experience one hint of backlash for falling short in getting these nutrients as say a fifteen year old, your 45 year old version of yourself is going to be cursing you out as being “young and stupid” every day they get out of bed and their knees, ankles and back resemble the joints of a person twice their age.
Same with iron. Ignoring the right foods to get your minimal supply of daily iron can lead to anemia, lack of energy, decreased strength, and about a million other things that would top the “What NOT to do if you’re an Athlete” list.
And it goes the other way as well…with teens erring to the side of excess as well. I can’t tell you what a growing problem doing TOO MUCH rather than too little has become in the teens I am put in contact with for training. Workouts are being done sometimes 7 days a week, and if you’d believe….sometimes even twice a day during the Summer when they have the time?!?
Crazy and utterly nonproductive to getting results. But we live in the era of “more is better” and “faster is best”. Everything is instant. Instant oatmeal. Instant Messages. Instant pudding! I mean, would you be caught dead on a dial-up modem now?!?
Didn’t think so. But in some cases, the wait is worth it and when it comes to teen development (that’s responsible for setting up a lifetime of living healthy) it’s critical.
It’s funny….I even get asked now at least 10 times a day how to get 8 pack abs! Since when did a 6 pack become a bad thing? Since Taylor Lautner showed off his extra 2 on the freaking teen vampire movies and now all hell broke loose! The worst part is that some of the dietary restrictions that kids are now attempting to try and strip the fat fast enough to look good at their buddies pool party and show off his “8 pack in waiting” are leaving long term developmental scars that will be impossible to recover from.
I guess I’m just saying that as we move further and further into the era of instant gratification the need to slooooowww down the tendency of teens to follow this practice in their nutritional habits has never been greater. Stop looking for shortcuts in crazy diets and dangerous supplements, and instead learn what long term solutions you can start implementing NOW that will give you not only a boost in your performance in this weekend’s upcoming game, but more importantly….set the stage for you to enjoy the opportunity to try and relive those moments well into adulthood as you stay active, energetic and strong for years to come!
Stay Strong,
Jeff
Filed under Sports Nutrition by on Jun 17th, 2010. 1 Comment.
In just a matter of days, school will be out for summer!
I always remember as a kid, looking forward to those later days in June…from basically the first day of September! I just loved summer vacation. As an athlete though, it represented more than just the next couple of months off, it represented a tremendous opportunity.
The Summer Vacation is the best time of the year to work on improving your body in the weight room so you can come back bigger and stronger the following year. It’s the best time to work on your skills, at perhaps one of the various camps devoted to your specialty, so you can become the best technical athlete at your sport. And finally, it’s the best time of the year to develop proper eating habits that you can carry with you into the school year and beyond to support your growth (literally) into that athlete you dream about becoming.
The only problem is…most of the time this last one happens backward or even worse….doesn’t happen at all.
With the end of school also comes the end of an organized schedule for most teens. No longer is there a need for early morning wakeups, timed eating, pre practice fuel ups, etc. Instead, most teens revert to a much different summer lifestyle. Late starts to their day from sleeping in until 11am. Skipping breakfast. Eating erratically throughout the day, as meal timing is dictated more by when you and your friends actually remember to eat instead of planning to eat.
And all of this is normal….if you want to be the average teen.
If instead you want to be more, then you’re going to have to do just a bit of homework this Summer. But trust me, it won’t be that hard. As a matter of fact, it could be the easiest assignment you’ll ever have since this one is going to involve encouraging you the hungry teenager (or the one that you coach or raise) to eat!
Geez…sounds impossible huh? Kidding of course.
Well, think back to the typical school day. Again, by virtue of having to get up early to be on time for school, the issue of getting an early breakfast was not much of a challenge. You then packed a lunch for the day, hopefully a couple of snacks as well and off to school you went.
You knew when it was time for lunch because the clocks and the school bells said so. You knew when it was time for your after school snack because you only had so much time before coach blew the whistle to start practice. You knew when practice was over it was time to head home and you looked forward to a nice sit down dinner since you were starving from all the activity leading up to it. Basically, the whole day had structure.
Well, for many with the last day of school so too comes the last day of this organized schedule, and I’m saying that without it you are greatly compromising your ability to capitalize on this SUMMER OPPORTUNITY to become the best athlete you can be. If you want to take advantage of the window of opportunity then try to stick as closely as you can to the structure the school day had provided you.
Try not to sleep in. Just think, not only will this be healthier for you in the long run but you’ll actually have a longer summer vacation to enjoy! Instead of sleeping it all away you’ll have many more hours to enjoy the things that you’re not able to during the school year.
Try to pack smart snacks for your day trips. Don’t ‘wing it’ with your eating. You simply cannot rely on the fact that you’ll have access to good foods when you’re out and about with friends on camping trips, at the beach, or engaging in marathon XBOX sessions. You need to be prepared, and it can be as simple as having those ultra portable snacks handy like the trail mix, granola bars, peanut butter sandwiches, bananas, apples, etc that helped so much during the school year.
Set a time during the day for your workout. The more you randomly choose a time to workout the greater the likelihood that you’ll find reason to push it off during the summer. With no set plan in place the tendency for other more attractive options to come up and make the idea of working out sound as appealing as a sunburn, is high. During the school year your weight room time is dictated by your coaches and it’s almost easy to get your work in. Well, pretend your coach is assigning you a specific time for a specific number of days each week and just get it done. Schedule your days of play around your hour or so you will be working out. In the long run, you’ll find you miss a lot fewer workouts.
So you see, the school day (while usually not a teen’s favorite) provides much more structure than the free Summer day. While there are definitely some positives to be had from these June, July and August days (particularly when it comes to recharging the batteries after months of school), there are also negatives that can be disastrous when given a chance. Namely in its negative impact on your preparation for next season.
Remember, the greatest athletes are not made on the field. They are made off of it, behind the closed doors of the weight room, far away from the lights and the action and the brief moments that are the games. Instead, they thrive by doing the little day to day things right that together contribute to the success that others see in those shining moments of competition. If you wait until the moment of truth before you try and work on improvement, you’ll find yourself 5 steps behind already.
Don’t let that happen. Take advantage of these next few months, these moments of SUMMER OPPORTUNITY, to work on not only improving physically and technically but most importantly, on supporting this growth by maintaining that daily structure and schedule that makes it all possible in the first place.
And of course, if you need help with your athletes nutrition over the vacation months, check out the Teen Sports Nutrition Blueprint
To your health and success,
Jeff
Filed under Sports Nutrition by on Jun 10th, 2010. 2 Comments.
Why you should be getting “cold” feet in the hot lunch line
Looking back now…it’s clear that I was spoiled.
I grew up in a household with the good fortune of getting to live with my grandparents (as well as my dad of course).
My grandfather was the typical old-school Italian perfectionist who just couldn’t stomach the thought of me leaving for school every day without some homemade sandwich and brown-bagged healthy, fresh lunch.
Gramps…I know you’re looking down right now and to you I want to say a heartfelt “Thanks” and “Holy crap you saved my life!”
Because after glancing at some of the hot lunch menus just recently, that anyone can pull up on a quick search of google, unfortunately turned up just that…a lot of crappy food choices that frankly are worse than when I was in high school some 15 years ago!
With all we know now about the link between nutrition and mental and physical performance (both on the field and in the classroom) you’d think that this would have improved in recent years. Ummm….not the case.
Don’t believe me?
Take a look at these two actual menus that I pulled up. The names of the schools will be withheld for their protection. Though the food cops might want to add them to their “MOST WANTED” asap
Sadly, the best day in those entire three weeks was Friday April 2nd…when there was NO SCHOOL!
The first week alone offered up the following four entrees:
1. Popcorn Chicken on a Roll
2. Quesadillas
3. Corn Dogs
4. Pasta of the Day with a Breadstick (or the Bratwurst sandwich if you would rather have some “healthy” protein!)
Actually, of these…the pasta would seem like a non-offender. However, take a look at the sauces that are being offered on the pasta and you might be able to start holding swim team practices in the amount of grease that’s in them!
Popcorn chicken? They’d be better off serving just the popcorn (hold the fried chicken please).
Corn dogs? It might just be wishful thinking, but I could have sworn that these babies had gone the same route of SPAM (meaning…almost extinct!). Man was I wrong. Not only are they not gone, but they are being served on multiple menus and in major metropolitan areas like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.
But it doesn’t end there. Philly Cheesesteaks, Calzones, Macaroni and Cheese, and more variations of pizza than there are names that end in vowels in Italy. In fact, you’d have to wait for the 15th until you could get anything close to a top protein recommendation in the grilled chicken sandwich. While coaches and parents may be dreading tax day…at least their young athletes looking to fuel their bodies with “productive” calories had something to finally smile about!
Look, I’m not trying to bash any one school system….because again, there isn’t just one offender. With the internet these days and all the information that is accessible through it, we can literally see the menus of thousands of high school cafeterias across the country and they all look eerily the same.
My question for you is…is this the BEST we can do?
Do you feel like me that we’re doing a disservice to our young athletes by serving the types of menus that would be more likely found at an 8 year old’s birthday party than on the daily menus of a population in their most significant growth years? Remember the saying, you are what you eat. Can we possibly be creating the best athletes by providing them with the worst meal choices?
I think you know how I feel.
So parents, break out those brown bags. Pack them full of last night’s leftovers on a sandwich (trust me it’s good….think pork tenderloins, chicken breasts, baked chicken cutlets, etc) with a piece of fruit, a low sugar yogurt (throw a portable chillpak in to keep things cool) and you’re good to go. Again, it doesn’t take much time to prepare, but the extra 5 minutes can go a long way towards keeping your athlete feeling strong for much longer than that…day in and day out!
Stay Strong,
Jeff
Filed under Sports Nutrition by on Jun 3rd, 2010. 7 Comments.
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