Kelsey HigginsonSports Nutrition Coach and Founder at Clutch Day Coaching

Elite athlete fueling looks like this

18 Apr 2025 · 1 min

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The speaker outlines a complete daily eating plan for elite athletes, emphasizing that every high‑level competitor should consume breakfast, lunch, dinner, at least two snacks, and optionally a pre‑bed "muscle meal." Each eating occasion must contain high‑complex carbohydrates, a quality protein source, a healthy fat, and at least two colors—specifically one vegetable and one fruit. An example dinner of chicken, brown rice, avocado, greens, and an apple illustrates the guideline. Because protein is supplied in the main meals, snacks should be carbohydrate‑rich and timed around training sessions—either right before or between workouts—to fuel performance and recovery.

Chapters

This is what a full day of eating needs to look like for an elite athlete. Number 1, breakfast. If you're skipping breakfast, stop skipping it. Every high-level athlete needs to be eating breakfast. You gotta eat breakfast, you gotta eat lunch, you gotta eat dinner, you gotta at least have 2 snacks, and then sometimes I even say a 4th meal, I like to call it a muscle meal, right before bed. Each of those meals needs to have high complex carbohydrates, a good source of protein, and a good source of healthy fat, plus at least 2 colors, specifically 1 vegetable and 1 fruit. For an example, For dinner, you could do chicken, brown rice, avocado for your healthy fat, some greens for your veggies, and an apple on the side. That would be an amazing meal. If you were getting a good amount of protein in each meal, you probably don't need to get it from your snacks very often. So I would keep your snacks higher carbs and then space them around your workouts so that you're eating them either right before or in between workouts.