In this solo coaching video, the speaker outlines the eight most common nutrition errors observed in athletes he trains and provides practical guidance to correct each. The mistakes include: (1) prioritizing “clean” eating over performance needs, leading athletes to skip available fuel; (2) under‑eating relative to the high caloric demands of intense training; (3) skipping breakfast, which compounds low energy intake; (4) neglecting pre‑game fueling, likened to showing up to a race with an empty tank; (5) fearing carbohydrates despite their essential role as muscle fuel; (6) waiting until thirst to hydrate, with a simple body‑weight‑based water‑intake rule; (7) inconsistent protein consumption, with a weight‑based protein target (0.8 g per lb); and (8) over‑reliance on supplements when foundational nutrition, hydration, and sleep are not in place. For each error the coach offers a concise corrective action (e.g., eat any available food, aim for 3,000 kcal for a high‑training female athlete, eat a quick breakfast, consume a high‑carb snack 1–2 h before competition, choose quality carbs, drink at least half body‑weight in ounces of water, meet protein goals, and treat supplements as a minor add‑on). The video ends with a call‑to‑action inviting viewers to join his personalized nutrition program for tailored meal, hydration, and game‑day plans.
Chapters
These are the top 8 nutrition mistakes that 90% of the athletes in my coaching programs made before we fixed them. Number 1, eating healthy but not eating for performance. There's a lot of polarizing nutrition advice out there in social media and in the world today. There's a lot of people saying, "Don't eat vegetables, only eat meat," or, "Don't eat meat, only vegetables." And it can be very confusing for athletes. Some athletes that I've worked with have felt like they have to be perfect, eating organic food, only eating whole foods, never eating anything out of a package. And you might be thinking to yourself, "Isn't that the goal? Isn't that the thing? Isn't that the best thing they could be doing?" Yes. And it can hold them back in their performance if they don't plan around it. For instance, had an athlete and she went to a tournament. She forgot to pack her own food. At that tournament, she had multiple games. She only had the food that was available to her. It was packaged. It was a little processed. There were only granola bars and some other fruit leather and stuff like that. She refused to eat that stuff because it wasn't organic or whole foods. Her energy crashed and her performance suffered. In that moment, I would have coached her that something is better than nothing. Eat the dang granola bar so that you can have energy. Now don't use this to say that Coach Kelsey said to never eat fruits and vegetables. You need fruits and veggies. And let's be honest, sometimes the only thing that's gonna be available is Chick-fil-A. And if you're totally against Chick-fil-A, don't think that I'm only endorsing Chick-fil-A. I'm just saying, do the best with what you got. If you wanna pack an amazing, organic, awesome sandwich and meal every single time, do that. That's amazing. If you don't have time to do that, do the next best thing and go hit up Subway. Pfft. Mistake number 2 is not eating enough. Most elite high school athletes do not understand how much their body is actually burning. So let's say, that you guys are working out 2 to 3 hours a day, and those 2 to 3 hours are pretty intense. Let's say that you're burning 600 calories per hour. If you're training for 3 hours, that means that you burned 1,800 calories with the activity. But if you did nothing throughout the day and you were just sitting in a chair all day watching TV, your body would still burn between 1,200 to 2,200 calories depending on the size of your body. If you're a female athlete and you sitting in a chair all day long burn 1,200 calories, but then you're working out 3 hours a day and you're burning an extra 1,800 calories, guess what? That means you need 3 3,000 calories, which I guarantee a lot of you female athletes are not getting 3,000 calories in a day. Obviously it's going to depend on your size and your body and your training and everything, so don't just say, oh yeah, I need 3,000 calories. Like, it's going to be different for everyone, but I'm trying to make the point here is most of you are undereating and you don't know it, and your energy and your performance is suffering because of that. Mistake number 3 is skipping breakfast. And mistake number 2, we talked about that you guys are not eating enough. If you skip breakfast and you're already not eating enough, that means you're doubly not gonna be eating enough. You're gonna feel crappy throughout the day. You're gonna have brain fog. You're not gonna be able to sit through class. And then guess what? Practice is gonna come and you're gonna have absolutely no energy, so you're gonna try to slam down an energy drink, which then affects your sleep later on in the day. It's a chain effect. By skipping breakfast, it makes everything else go sucky throughout the day. The number one thing I would say is just eat a dang breakfast. Even if it's just a breakfast burrito running out the door, or heck, a bagel with a protein shake, like, do something. It doesn't have to be perfect. Mistake number 4 is no pregame fueling. A race car would never ever show up to a race with its gas tank on empty. You should never show up to your event or game or race with your gas tank on empty. You guys are pouring your time, your effort, your blood, your sweat, your tears into this game, into this sport that you love so much. It's like working a 40-hour work week, working overtime, working your butt off, trying to do everything that you can to do exceptional at your job, and then Your payday comes and you just don't go cash your check. You gotta cash your check. And the way that you do that is by eating before the game. In my program, we call these clutch days. Clutch days are any days where you have to shine. You gotta show up, you gotta perform under pressure. It's the days where the spotlight's on and it should be your paydays. It should be exciting days. Camps, tournaments, races, games, like anything like that where you're like, heck yeah, today is the day. Pressure's on, coaches are watching, scouts are coming, let's go. Gotta be clutch. You guys gotta fuel yourself for that. If you show up with an empty tank, you are not going to play up to your potential, and you want to be playing up to your potential on those days. You've worked too hard to not do that. We've got other videos talking about clutch day protocol and what to be eating, but first things first is you could start by eating a high-carb snack 1 to 2 hours before your game. Mistake number 5 is being scared of carbs. Carbs are your best friend. A lot of people demonize carbs. A lot of people fear carbs. Now Not all carbs are created equal. If I was comparing an apple that is full of carbs and natural sugars to a handful of Skittles, which is full of also carbs and artificial sugar, which one is going to be better? Probably the apple. Carbs are not to be feared, but not all carbs are created equal. Carbs is the gas to your fuel tank. Your muscles have energy tanks. You need to make sure that you fill those energy tanks up before your trainings and before your games, before your clutch days. If you fill up on an empty tank, that's when you're hitting the wall. That's where you're feeling fatigued. That's where you feel like, like, I thought my conditioning was better than this, but what the freak is happening. I feel like I'm dragging right now. Makes it so you can't show up in clutch moments. You've got to have carbs. I think that this whole like carb fear bad rap kind of comes from maybe our parents or their parents' generation of, oh, I gotta lose weight, cut carbs, go low carb with it, everything low carbs, no carbs, don't eat bread, bread makes you fat. Bread doesn't make you fat. Eating too much bread makes you fat. It's not the carbs that are the issue, it's the overeating that is the issue when it comes to people like gaining unwanted weight. So please don't fear carbs. Carbs are athletes' best friends. Number 6 is waiting to drink until you're thirsty. You guys have super, super busy days. You got school, you got practices, you got, you got trainings, you got a lot of things going on. And I get it, it's hard to remember to drink water, but I'm sorry, it's not a good excuse. If you have gotten to the point where you are feeling thirsty, you're already dehydrated. You need to make sure that you're drinking even when you don't feel like drinking. A good place to start here is taking your body weight in pounds, chopping it in half, and that is the minimum amount that your body needs to be drinking. You probably need more than that for practices and for other things. But if you weigh 150 pounds, you chop that in half, that is 75 ounces minimum. And I guarantee a lot of athletes are not doing that. And I'm not saying that waiting until you're thirsty means you're clinically dehydrated and you're going to faint or have heat exhaustion or anything like that, but this is just a rule that I give to my athletes. We need to make sure we're being proactive with our hydration. That way we never even touch the dehydration phase. Number 7 is inconsistent protein. I've either got my gym bros who are like Trent Twin followers, you're trying to get big, you're trying to get muscly, trying to be a bodybuilder. Nothing wrong with being a bodybuilder, but are you trying to be a, an explosive football player, baseball player, basketball player, or you trying to be a bodybuilder? Because I'm sorry, it's going to be hard to do both. And then on the other side, I have my athletes who might eat a few eggs in the morning and then never touch another gram of protein the rest of the day. Protein is one of those Goldilocks principles for me. I don't want too much for you guys, I don't want too little for you guys, I want just the right amount. So an easy way to figure out how much protein your body needs is take your body weight in pounds and multiply it by 0.8 grams. That's going to give you a really good ballpark to start for your daily protein goals. And finally, number 8 is relying too heavily on supplements. Supplements are the last 5% of the equation, my friends. In my DMs, I have messages from 12-year-olds asking if they should take creatine, or if they should take beta alanine, or if they should be taking pre-workout. The last 5%, my friends. If you are not fueling your body, eating 3 balanced meals a day with protein, fats, carbs, fruits, and vegetables, if you are not eating multiple snacks a day, carbohydrate snacks before your practices, if you are not hydrating well If you are not sleeping 8 hours a night, you have no business trying out supplements. Too many athletes use supplements as a Band-Aid instead of an aid. There's certain supplements that are amazing when you have those things dialed in, but it's not going to get you very far if you don't have those core things dialed in beforehand. Those are the top 8 mistakes that athletes make before joining my program. If you resonate with any of those 8 problems and you're feeling a little overwhelmed and you don't really know what to do, you don't want to guess, you want to have a plan to follow, come join my program. We're going to give you a personalized meal plan. You're going to learn your own hydration plan. You're going to learn your own game day meal plan. You're going to learn how to help your body recover well. You're going to learn how to use my nutrition systems to take your game to the next level. Click the link in the description to sign up.
