Kelsey Poulter - Sports Nutrition 101

Guys, welcome to the Next Level Athletes Podcast. I am your host, Kelsey. Um, I'm super excited today. We're gonna be going over the fueling for next level performance nutrition 101. I am the founder and co-owner of Next Level Athletes. It's a nutrition coaching business. My co-owner is also my sister, Lindsey Stroud. You're gonna be hearing a lot from her on this podcast as well. This specific episode, no, but we're super excited to be rolling out with more content, helping you guys along your nutrition journey. Um, because this is what is missing for a lot of athletic performance. Um, so we're really excited to get into this. So, Um, Fueling for Next Level Performance, Nutrition 101. We're going to go over all the basics today of like where you should start with nutrition. Okay. It is not that hard. The key to this is like just eating. Um, and we're going to tell you how much to eat, what to eat, when to eat it, and kind of get even more specific. But if you're feeling overwhelmed with this, the rule number one is just stop skipping breakfast. Okay. We're going to get into the kind of the nitty gritty here, but if you don't even feel like you can eat breakfast yet. Start with eating breakfast and then come revisit this podcast. Um, because we are getting a little bit more deep into this and this is kind of maybe for an athlete who is in high school, committed, ready to go to the Division I level, who is trying to increase their game, um, at a faster rate and increase their results and their muscle mass and everything like that. So that is what this is for. One of my favorite athletes that I've worked with, his name is Martin Serrano. He is playing for Oregon State baseball right now. He's a freshman there. But when we met, when I met him, He was working out at an athletic performance center there in, in Pocatello, Idaho is where he was from. And he was really struggling with having hit a plateau in strength and speed. He, he was working out about 4 hours a day. He was told by his college coaches, hey, we want you putting on about 20 pounds before you get to us. At the time he was about 200 pounds. They wanted him being around 225 by the time he was going in the summer. So he had about 6 months to get there. And we, and he reached out, him and his parents reached out and we were able to work together. And within 3 months, it was less than 3 months actually, I think it was 8 weeks, he had put on 15 pounds of muscle. His speed increased, his strength increased. He was hitting PRs on every lift in the gym. His reaction time increased, his performance increased, like everything just lifted. With the simple changes of him eating enough food. We got him on a plan. We found that he was undereating by 1,000 calories before he came to me. We got him on a simple plan, eating the right amount of food at the right times, and he saw results skyrocket. And it was really fun to see. And now he's at Oregon State and he's killing it, which is really fun to see for me and for the coaches that have worked with him. Nutrition is the tide that raises all boats. If you think about high tide and low tide in the ocean, uh, this last summer actually we were in— it's called Seaside in the Oregon coast— and we had this beach house. And in the morning we would walk down to the beach and there would be hundreds and hundreds of yards of sand before you hit the ocean. So we were able to run for a long distance, we were able to walk and find seashells. And this was low tide, there was a lot of beach before you hit the ocean. But then when we came back about 8 2 hours later, there was only about 30 yards before you hit the ocean. And this was during high tide. The water had come up onto the shore. I'm not sure the science behind this part. It's something to do with the moon and stuff like that. That's not what this podcast is for. So I'm going to skip over that part. But if you think about it, in a harbor, there's a lot of boats. When high tide comes in, it's not that one boat raises and one boat sinks or stays the same level. When high tide comes in, it raises all of the boats' levels with it. So think about that being nutrition with all of your performance aspects, with your skills training, with your resistance training, with your plyometrics and your speed and your practicing with your performance in the game. Nutrition comes in and raises everything. It enhances everything. It's kind of like the pixie dust that just helps everything be enhanced. And that's what Martin saw, and that's what you guys are going to see when you start implementing this stuff. So the overview of today's podcast is we're going to go over the nutrition basics. Basics. We're going to talk about macronutrients and micronutrients. The second thing we're going to do is talk about what to eat. The third thing is how much to eat, and the fourth thing is when you should be eating it. Let's get into it. So if you think of your body like a high-performance car, a Ferrari for instance, a Ferrari— when you, when you see a Ferrari, if you ever have seen one before, it's going to pull up to a gas station. It's not going to get the crappiest, most cheapest fuel, right? You're never going to see it getting that like, what is it, 85/15 unleaded fuel and putting it in that car. No, you're going to see them getting the premium gas. When they're at the service station, they're going to go to the best service station possible, and they're going to probably get the best oil possible to be put in that car as well. They're not going to skimp out on what they're fueling the car with. You need to treat your body like a Ferrari. You need to treat your body with the best possible fuel because you demand the best possible performance from your body. So if you think about it, if someone wants their Ferrari or a sports car, a NASCAR, to perform at its top level, they're not going to feed it crap. They're not going to fuel it with crap. They're not going to maintain it with crap. They are going to give it the highest level possible of maintenance, of fuel, of oil, etc. You need to be doing that with your body. Your body can't run on crap, and your body can't run on a quarter tank. No one would show up to a NASCAR race on a quarter tank. They're going to have that thing full the whole freaking time. Okay, so I want to get into what you need to be fueling your body with. You've probably heard the term if you've heard nutrition at all or taken any health class. There are macronutrients and then there are micronutrients. Macro means big, micro means small. So the first thing I'm going to talk to you guys about is macronutrients. This is what makes up all of your calories. A lot of people think that tracking calories and tracking macros are two separate things. It's one and the same. Macros just make up your calories. So the three macronutrients that, that give all of your calories are fats, carbs, and protein. Fats have 9 calories per gram. Carbs have 4 calories per gram. Protein has 4 calories per gram. So if you were to eat something with 10 grams of fat in it, 20 grams of protein, and 20 grams of carbs, you could calculate all of that out and it would give you the total calories that you were eating for the day. So those things are not separate. It's one and the same. All right. So we're not going to really be talking about the calories part, but I just need you guys to know that you don't have to worry about your calories if you're getting your macros in, because the macros are what make up your calories. The first thing we want to talk about when it comes to macronutrients is protein. The main thing that you guys need to know, there's not going to be a test after this either. I just need you guys to know what protein is going to do for you performance-wise at this moment. The main thing that protein is, is it's your builder. It's your maintenance. It helps you maintain your car, right? It helps you build, build muscle, build cells, recover. It helps you do all of these amazing things. So the way that muscle grows is you go into the gym and you give it stimulus. Any stimulus could be you sprint, you jump, you lift, um, you strength train, you do any of that stuff. It is creating stimulus on that muscle, okay? It's stretching that muscle and it's almost tearing it apart. And this has to happen in order for it to adapt and to grow and to become stronger. But if you think about it, it's as if when you're lifting, it's as if you're, if you think of your muscles like a brick wall, okay? It's as if you took a sledgehammer to that brick wall and put a bunch of holes in it during that workout. All right? But that's really necessary in order for it to grow bigger and stronger. However, if you don't build it back and you show up training session after training session after training session, not having, not given it the fuel that it needed. Having not built the wall back, what's gonna happen? The wall is going to get weaker and weaker and weaker, and it's never going to recover. It's never going to be built back stronger. So if you, you're going to be wasting your time in the weight room if you're not fueling your body. It could actually be a detriment to yourself and put you more at risk for injury if you're not fueling your body with the proper nutrients. So protein comes in. Is after you've taken a sledgehammer to that wall, protein is the bricks that you're going to use to build that wall back bigger and to build it back stronger. It's going to repair the wall and it's going to strengthen it even more. That is protein. Protein is built of what's called a bunch of amino acids. It's building blocks, literally building blocks that are going to go in and repair all of the little holes and little tears that you, that you did when you were lifting or running or jumping. So that's really important for you guys to know. Protein is key, okay? And we'll talk about the types of protein, we'll talk about the amount of protein later, but without that material, the wall will crumble. You need the material, therefore you need a specific amount of protein, and every athlete's different with that, all right? The second one is carbs. I had an athlete come to me, um, he, he's a really talented football player. His mom actually reached out to me and said, my son plays both ways. He's at a smaller school in Wisconsin. He plays both ways, and in the fourth quarter you see him absolutely hit a wall. He, his performance just drops off, and it's so frustrating for him because he's playing his butt off quarter 1, 2, 3. He's working so hard in the weight room, on the field, he's doing all these things. And then in the quarter where it matters most, he is tanking, he is toast, and he's very frustrated about it. And then it turns mental, right? It, it gets in your head and like, why can't I do this? My conditioning isn't paying off, I'm not working hard enough. And it just gets mental to where his performance decreases even more. So this athlete came in and he was missing fuel. He was running on empty by the fourth quarter. And we're going to talk about the actual protocol that we put him on on game day later, but the main thing that he was missing is carbs. So if you think of going back to the sports car analogy, the sports car has a gas tank, and in order for this car to run, it has to have gas in the tank. Our muscles are the same way. Our muscles have energy tanks, is what I like to call them, gas tanks. The gas that you put into the tank is carbs. Carbs are what fill your muscle energy tanks. If you've ever heard the word glycogen, carbs come in and turn into glycogen, and that is what's stored in the tank. Your body is really good at storing energy if you feed it enough gas, if you put it away, um, and store it ahead of time. But without carbs, you're toast. This athlete was not fueling enough with enough carbs leading up to the game and during the actual game. So he was tanking in the fourth quarter, and that is why. So if that is you, you are missing carbohydrates. You are not getting enough of that in your diet. So the main thing I need you to know is that carbs are fuel. Carbs are energy. Okay? Again, our bodies are really good at storing energy. If we give them enough carbs, right? So once those are loaded up, you're gonna play really well, and it's really important to replenish those and to refuel and to take pit stops. And we're going to talk about that later. Not all carbs are created equal either. Um, yes, there's pastas, there's whole grains, there's rice, there's all these amazing types of carbs, but there's also some carbs that aren't going to serve your body as well. Or there's certain carbs that might be good at certain times of the day, like pre-training, and then other carbs that are better at mealtime. We'll get into that later to. So I know you guys have a lot of questions, we're going to get to it all. And then there's fat. So we've gone over protein— protein is a builder. We've gone over carbs— carbs are energy. And then we're going to go over fats, okay? The main thing I need you to know is they give you long-lasting energy and they help balance your hormones. If you've never heard the word hormones before, there's different hormones in the body. Females have estrogen, progesterone, testosterone. Males have primarily testosterone with a little bit of estrogen. You guys need these to build muscle. You need these to stay healthy. Girls need them to have a menstrual cycle and to one day be able to have babies. Like, it's really important to not mess your hormones up. And so food helps you maintain good hormone balance. Okay. Especially fats. Fats are the backbone to where hormones are built. So if you don't have enough fats, healthy fats in your body, you won't be able to build those hormones. And then those hormones like testosterone really help put on muscle, really help with recovery, really help. Not have as much injury. And if you don't have those, can you, can you see kind of the domino effect that it can play? And the thing I need you guys to remember is that fats don't equal fat in your body. Like, fats don't make you fat. Too much food and too crappy of food can make you fat. Fats don't make you fat. Fats are essential, and they also give long-lasting energy, like I said. So carbs are quick energy for quick high-intensity movements. Fats are longer energy for slower, more endurance type of stuff. Okay, so I'll get to this analogy later, but we, we talk about as when you're building a fire, you need kindling, you need fire starter, you need logs, and then eventually those logs burn down to the coals, and the coals are what last a really long time. Just think of that like the fats. Fats are the ones that kind of take a long time to kick in, but they're going to give you really sustained energy for quite a long time. Right? So we need a balance of all of these, especially as athletes. You need carbs, you need protein, and you need fats, and you need a big balance of them all. So we went over the macronutrients, and I'll tell you how much of each you need in a minute. But now we're going to get down to the micronutrients. Micro again means small. You need these in small amounts, but they make a big mighty difference. Okay. That's vitamins and minerals. That's your vitamin C, your vitamin D, your vitamin K, your vitamin E, your vitamin A, like all of those different things. Your minerals, your electrolytes, sodium, potassium, calcium, all of those super important things. You need all of these things in your body. The main thing that I need you to know is that these keep your body functioning and it keeps your body healthy. And I know it's gonna be something that you guys overlook a whole lot, but you cannot function without these things. You cannot function and you cannot be an elite athlete without vitamins and minerals in your system. I'm not going to get into the, the nitty-gritty of, for vitamin K you need to be doing this, and for vitamin C you need to be doing this. The main thing I'm going to say is eat the rainbow. You need to eat a large variety of fruits and vegetables. And you might be saying, but Kelsey, like, I hate vegetables, they suck, like, they don't taste good. Well, like, you sometimes you got to do what you don't want to do to be able to get the success that you actually want. So if you don't like them, then figure out a way how to like put them into your system. Figure out how to make smoothies. Figure out how to throw spinach into those smoothies. Figure out how maybe you like to eat vegetables, because you gotta do it in order to get the results that you want. Without those vitamins and minerals, you will not stay healthy. You will not have a very good immune system. You're going to potentially get hurt more than others. Like, you, you need all of these things, okay? This is why every nutrient matters. The main thing, um, behind that— it keeps it healthy. Your— it helps your body function. It gives you bone strength. It gives you muscle recovery. It helps you keep from getting sick. It helps you have energy production. It reduces your inflammation in the body and all of these sciency things that you guys probably don't care about hearing right now. But all I'm saying is this matters. So eat, eat the rainbow, guys. Fruits, vegetables, they matter. All right, so we've covered macronutrients and micronutrients so far. They're all very important. Macros, you need them in large amounts. You need a lot of protein, a lot, a lot of carbs because it's energy, especially the energy that you need when you're working out and lifting weights and running down, up and down the field or court. And then there's fats. Okay. And then the micronutrients are your vitamins and minerals. We're not going to dive deep into those right now, but eat the rainbow, eat different colors, eat different types. So we covered the nutrient basics. You guys should know what a macronutrient is. You should know what a micronutrient is and why you need those. So there is the why for you guys. Now we're going to go to the what. What do you need to be eating of these things? How do you do it? So a couple, I think it was about a month ago. Go, a month or two ago. Some of you guys might remember this, but I posted a video. It went pretty viral. It was about what to eat on game day. And I gave some examples about, you know, pregame, you could be 2 hours out, you could have a Clif Bar. And then 1 hour out or during the game, you could be having a Gatorade. I wasn't necessarily promoting those things. I was just giving like an off of the top of my head scenario. And I got absolutely roasted. For it. Like, people were like, who is this girl? She doesn't know what she's talking about. I can't believe that she would be like, be telling them to drink things with artificial food dyes and processed sugars. Like, this is absolute crap. And it was actually kind of funny to see. And so I kind of wanted to address that with you guys. There are times and places where processed sugars are fine and processed foods are fine, but they will never replace, or should never replace, the whole foods that God has given us in this great earth. So I'm going to dive into that. Let's talk about this. So the purpose of this section is to provide guidance on like your food choices and when you should be what and when processed sugars are okay and what to be eating before games, etc. So let's talk about whole foods versus processed foods. And to break it down easily for you guys, a whole food is something that hasn't been tampered with. It is something that came from the tree, came from the cow, came from the animal. Like, it's just the slab of meat, it's the fruit, it's the vegetable. It's something that hasn't been tampered with. And like, minimally processed foods might be yogurt and cheese and stuff. And so I kind of would just almost pair those into the whole food side of things. Processed foods that I'm referring to right now could also be known as like ultra-processed foods, and that's what's been made in a factory. It's your— I mean, technically, your granola bars, your crackers, your chips. Like, and there's different degrees and levels to these things because some processed foods can be pretty, pretty good for you, and other processed foods like chips, candy, any kind of sugar processed donut, Hostess, anything like that is just junk. Like, it's not good for you. So The purpose of whole foods is similar to what we were talking about in the vitamins and minerals section. It gives you so many vitamins and minerals. It's so nutrient rich. It's going to provide your body with the premium fuel that we were talking about, right? It's really important to think of it that way. Processed foods can be necessary at times when you're on the road, when you're traveling, when you have an away game and you can't necessarily bring— I mean, Maybe you can't necessarily bring a steak to lunch or something like that. You know, it's okay to have processed foods at times. So I mean, the Clif Bar, the Gatorade, there could be a time and place where it's okay to have those pregame. It gives you quick carbs, it gives you quick energy. It's really convenient to have, but there could be better options as well if you're willing to kind of put in the preparation and time to do that. So I'll just kind of discuss that with you guys right now. As we discuss that food is energy, we have We have carbs and we have protein. Carbs are the main source of fuel and energy that you need before a high, high performance intensity type of sport. So if we're talking football, basketball, volleyball, even wrestling, like any really high intensity sport is going to need a lot of carbohydrates. It's sometimes difficult to get enough carbs, especially when you're on the road or at the, at the gym or in an away game or something. It, it's, you can bring fruit and that's amazing. Um, but it's sometimes hard to get enough carbs in the meal without having some of it be processed from breads or from crackers or from different stuff like that. And so those moments is when I think it's okay to have the processed stuff, to have the, the bars, to have like the fruit leather and different stuff like that because it's minimally processed and it might have a little bit of added sugar to it, but it's still going to help. With your energy. It's going to help you have sustained energy and not hit a wall in the game. The hostesses, the candy, um, the donuts, all of those stuff, like, that's just not going to serve you. Is it okay to have occasionally, maybe after a game? Sure. Like, I'm not going to tell you to cut anything out of your diet, but just know good, better, best scenarios. But if you're home, if you have access to Whole Foods, if you have access to a, a chicken like chicken breast with rice, with veggies, like, and sweet potatoes, that's going to be the best premium fuel that you can give yourself. But it, there's going to be certain situations where you only have access to a Clif Bar and maybe a Gatorade or something like that. And, and that can still do the job and get the job done. Um, it might just not do it as well as the whole food, if that makes sense. So 80% of the time when you're eating your meals, when you're at home or when you're able to prepare things, be eating whole foods. Be eating the foods that God has provided us on this great earth. 20% of the time, keep the processed foods, keep some bars, keep some granola, keep some fruit leather in your backpack so that you can have easy access carbs. And it's easy. I mean, you can't really throw a thing of bananas in your bag and hope that they stay good for 2 weeks, right? So it's important to be able to have enough options already in your backpack, already in your locker, ready to go so that when you forget get your fruit that day for your snack, that you're able to reach for something else. It's important. Something is better than nothing. I've beat the horse here. Hopefully you guys understand that. Let's move on. So the best form of whole food protein, carbs, and fats that you can get— so let's start with protein first. The best form is going to be the meat itself, um, chicken, turkey, beef, fish, any of those things. The next best thing is going to be what comes from the animal, so it's going to be any of the dairy, you know, the yogurt, cheese, milk, anything like that, and eggs. Eggs are a wonderful source of protein and fats, actually. It's— plant-based is okay. It's less what we like to call bioavailable. So say that you, you eat protein, like 20 grams of protein, and of animal meat, your body can use about the whole 20 grams. If you eat 20 grams of plant-based meat, or maybe like plant-based protein powder, your body will really only be able to use about 10 of the 20 grams. It's just something that are the bioavailable. It's just able to suck all the protein from that, that animal. But from the— it's just harder to digest and harder to absorb for the plant-based. So if you're vegan or vegetarian, that's going to be another podcast for you one day. But I'm really just talking to my, my main athletes of like, if you can get it from an animal, that's the best source possible. And then you can get to the supplements. I'm okay if you are eating 80% of your protein from animal sources, it's okay to supplement with, with protein for the rest of it. Like whey protein is great, um, whey with casein is great, um, just to kind of get that extra amount of protein so that you can make sure you're getting enough throughout the day. So carbohydrates, referring back to that football player story that I had told a little earlier, it's fuel, right? It's really important. And there's different types of carbs that will help with different types of things, um, at different times. So there was the, the fire analogy that I gave. To start a fire, if none of you have done it before, you need fire starter, kindling, And then you need logs to kind of sustain the fire. And, and then after you kind of stop fueling the fire with logs, you let it burn down and then it burns down to the coals. And that's what, like, you can roast the best s'more over. That's the coals. And you're going to be able to have those for a long time and they're going to burn for a long, long time. So we're going to talk about carbs here. There's two different types of carbs. Not all carbs are created equal. The simple type— there's simple and complex. The simple carbs is the kindling. Is the kind of small twigs, dry grass, fire starter type stuff. It gives you quick energy, but it also burns out fairly quick. All right. So in the middle of the game or pre-training is a good time to— pre-training, pregame, in the middle of the game is a good time to have these simple carbs because it gives you energy quick and you're able to use it. But you also, with kindling, say that you're trying to keep a fire going with kindling, you'd have to be throwing a lot of kindling in the fire for that fire to even keep going. So the, the way to keep the fire going is to be adding complex carbohydrates in it, or to have fueled your body ahead of time with complex carbohydrates so that you have those glycogen stores and your muscle energy tanks. Do you see all this coming together so that you can have sustained energy throughout the game? There's two different types of simple carbs too. Not all simple carbs are created equal, and we've talked about this already. There's the processed types and there's the whole food types. I'm always going to say eat the whole foods over the processed foods, but if you have to eat the processed foods, then get like the the best form possible. Okay, the whole foods, the really good types of carbs that I would suggest are applesauce, fruit leather, dried fruit, regular fruit. Any type of fruit is going to be an amazing simple carb. And then if we got over to the processed side, some, some acceptable ones would be like a granola bar. It could be maybe some crackers, something simple but not like super bad. I would never tell you to eat candy, like straight candy, or watermelon, like Sour Patch watermelon before a game. If you want to have that after the game at the movies, like, that's fine, but Um, some other really good simple carbs would be like real maple syrup, fruit, honey, some applesauce, stuff like that. Low quality is going to be chips, cookies, candy, etc. Okay, but even the high carb— the, the high quality simple carbs can burn out quickly. Like, you know, the fire starter burns out quickly. So that's when we need those complex carbs stored into our system, stored in our muscle energy tanks like we've been talking about. This is going to be the logs. Your complex carbs are the logs that you can put in the fire and it will keep the fire going for a long time. The majority of carbs in your meals should come from complex carbohydrates. It's really important to do that. Some really good options of complex carbohydrates are sweet potatoes, quinoa, rice, beans, potatoes, whole grains. Like, anything like that is going to give you that wood log sustainable energy. Okay, we need that. And that's— that if you're fueling the week before the game, if you're fueling all your meals with a great, like, 60 to 100 grams every meal of complex carbohydrates, those muscle energy tanks, those glycogen storages that we've been talking about are going to be full and ready to go. So all you have to do is maintain with some simple carbohydrates during the game to, to not hit that wall. Okay, so hopefully you guys are catching on to this. And then we're going to move to fats. So fats are like, like we've already discussed, this is what— after the coal, the logs burn down, they're the coals at the bottom, and they're the ones that last a long time and give sustained heat and sustained energy. They're long-lasting and then they're low burning and it takes a long time to kind of be able to access that. And not all fats are created equal either. There's some healthy fats that can be, and I don't wanna get super into this, but, um, that can be your monounsaturated fats. So that's found in like olive oil, avocados, and nuts. Then there's your polyunsaturated fats, which is like if you've ever heard of omega-3s or flaxseeds, omega-3s are found in fish. Those are incredible for you. Um, and those are very essential for performance too. So eat your fish and if you don't like fish, then at least take a fish oil supplement. And then there, there's the in-between guys, which is saturated fats. And these are okay to have in moderation, but that can be, that's like your butters, your cheeses, your dairy products, um, maybe some red meat. So moderation is great for saturated fats too. The issue is like if you're an older guy and you already have like heart problems and stuff, that's when you wanna stay away from saturated fats cuz it can play into heart issues even more. But you guys don't need to be worrying about that. You're working out way too much and your heart and your body is very healthy. Um, and your cardiovascular system is healthy. So saturated fats are great for you, okay? And then the not-so-good guys, the guys that we want you staying away from, especially on game day and the days after game day, are kind of your trans fats. Um, trans fats are what you're going to find in the donuts, in the french fries, in like the store-bought baked goods. Why are they bad for you? They're bad for your heart, they slow down your recovery, they kind of go opposite to what healthy fats should do with your hormones and with your sustained energy. They just kind of make you feel like crap. So my biggest piece of advice is I'm never going to tell you to cut anything out, but minimize the amount of like trans fats and the amount of bad fats. That it's actually pretty illegal, um, for a lot of companies to create things with trans fats in them, but they can like have small traces of them. So just be careful with that. Stay away from the Hostesses and stuff like that. Okay, so putting it all together, we want about a fourth of your plate to be from a protein source. We want about half of your plate to be from a complex carbohydrate source. And then we want third of your plate to be like tasting the rainbow. So you want at least 2 colors there. So you can have maybe like a spinach salad, um, with a, a big cup of strawberries on the side, something like that. And then you can cook those foods in fat, okay? You can cook them in your olive oil, you can cook them in avocado oil, or you could just add some fats on the side like avocado or nuts or anything like that. Okay, so we've covered the nutrient basics, we've covered what to eat, now we're going to cover how much of it to eat. And I'm going to kind of go a little faster through this one, but basically for you you guys. You need to understand that what your friend Johnny eats when he's 150 pounds is going to be a whole lot different if you are a 180-pound linebacker, right? Like, that's going to be two completely different things. Every body is different, and every body needs a different amount of energy, and energy is food. So every body needs a different amount of food. Referring back to the first story, Martin Serrano— he's given me permission to say his name, so that's why I'm saying it— he was under-eating by at least 1,000 calories. I would probably even say maybe 1,500 calories, and he just wasn't recognizing how much food he actually needed for his body to perform the way he wanted it to be performing. So the magic happened when he got the right kinds of food in his body and when he got the right amounts. Because I have a lot of athletes coming to me saying, but I'm eating my fruits, I'm eating my vegetables, I'm eating my protein, I mean, I'm eating clean. It's like, amazing, like, you're doing so good. Now you just gotta eat the right amount of it. You're probably just not eating it— eating enough of it, right? So that's what's important, is to kind of get the, the two combos together. That's where the real magic happens. And And that's where you really start seeing results in your performance. It's kind of like if you have the best gas in the world in your Ferrari, but you only fill up the, the tank a quarter of the way, you're not gonna have sustained energy. You're not going to have the best results possible. We want to fill your tanks up, right? Okay. So let's dive into this. When you are thinking about your calorie intake, how many calories you need in the day, everyone has a baseline need. It's called your BMR, your basal metabolic rate. This is like if you were laying in bed all day long, what your body would need to do to, to eat to maintain the weight that you are at right now. Um, for me, for instance, I'm like 145-pound, 5'8". My basal metabolic rate, I believe, is around 1,200 or 1,300 calories. That means if I were to like be bedridden for the rest of my life to maintain 145 pounds, to help my heart function, help my brain function, because those all need energy too, and energy comes from food, um, I would need at least 1,200 calories a day just to be maintaining that. But you guys, when you're throwing skill work on top of it, training on top of You're training probably 10, 15 hours a week, practices, everything in between. You, you like, you gotta add that to it. You're burning so much fuel, so many calories, so much energy in those times, and most of you are probably not fueling for what you're burning. All right. To make this easy for you guys, the best thing you could do is go find like a BMR calculator online. If you wanna just try to kind of do this right now with me, so you could find a BMR calculator online. and you put your info in, you put your height, weight, age, and then it usually, these BMR calculators will be able to give you the ballpark of, okay, here's your BMR, and then here's the, the little table, um, of if you are training this much a week, this is what your calories should be. If you're training this much a week, this is what your calories should be. So if you're like an elite athlete, you're probably going to be like the highest activity level possible, plus some probably. So then you have kind of the ballpark, and again, this is ballpark. Everybody is different. If you're not gaining weight at the, at the calories— if say that it tells you to be eating 3,500 calories and you're like, well, I'm not gaining weight, or I, I'm eating that much already, then you need to be eating more. Like, if you're not getting weight, you're just not eating enough. So, um, if you're trying to gain weight, I would take that ballpark number that it gives you and add 250 to about 500 calories on top of that. So if you got 3,500 calories as your maintenance ballpark calories that you need, then I would add probably 250 to 500 on top of that. So you'd be eating around 4,000 calories. But again, after a month of eating 4,000, if you hadn't gained any weight, then you're not eating, eating enough. So you got to keep adding until you gain weight. All right, then the second thing, if you're trying to lose weight, you're going to do the opposite. You're going to take about 250 to 500 calories away from it. Um, and if you're not losing weight, like after a month, then you're probably eating too much. And so take another 250 away. Don't, don't drastically cut anything. Don't do anything like that because You guys shouldn't for your performance anyway. Most athletes, most of you shouldn't need to lose weight. And if you do, then you can reach out to me and I can kind of help you kind of get an idea for what you need. Don't try to lose weight in the season though. I know wrestlers is a different story. That's a whole nother podcast, but don't try to lose weight in the season unless you need to. Okay. It's just, it's going to mess up those glycogen storages. It's going to mess up a whole lot of things in your performance. So that's not what we want. So breaking it down. Down with the nutrient side of things, the amount of carbs, protein, and fats you need every day. Carbs, you need 5 to 12 grams per kilogram per day. The more endurance training that you're doing, kind of, um, the marathon runners, the cyclists and stuff, you're going to want to go closer to that, maybe 10 to 12 grams per kilogram per day. Um, if you are maybe off-season, you're not training as much, and maybe you're a baseball player and a little bit more sedentary— not saying you guys are dietary, but, um, I would probably stick within that 5 to 7 grams per kilogram per day range. So you'd have to find your weight in kilograms and then you can convert that over. Um, so my weight in kilograms is about 66 kilograms, and then I'd multiply that by about 5 if I was an athlete at the time, and then that would give me the amount of carbohydrates I would need every day for my body and for my performance. Then when you get to protein, you need about 1 gram per pound of body weight per day. Okay, so usually it's about 0.8 to 1. So for me, a 145-pound female, I need about 135 to 145 grams of protein per day. And then we— when we get to fats, you need— it shows you the calories you have, then you fill it in with the amount of protein you need, you fill it in with the amount of carbs you need, and then you get to the fats and you kind of just let those fall where they may and make up the rest of your calories. Again, with micros, I'm not going to give micronutrient recommendations right now. Just taste the rainbow, make sure that you're fueling your body with at least 2 colors every single meal. And the— it's important to listen to hunger cues, I should say, with this. But when you are underfueling, most athletes don't feel hungry. So just remember that if you have not gained weight within the last 6 months, or if your performance has not increased, then you're underfueling and you probably don't even feel hungry because your, your body's smart and your appetite has adapted. Adapted. Therefore, it will feel uncomfortable to eat the amount that you probably need to be eating for a week or two, and then your body will adapt. I had this athlete come in, she's a volleyball player. She was probably eating one real meal a day and skipping kind of all other meals because she was just run and gun and forgot to eat, and she wasn't hungry during those meals, so she just kind of skipped them and they were easy to skip. We put her on a simple program and now she starves. Like, I think it was a month later and she's like, Coach, I am starving if I skip one meal. Your appetite will adjust to what you're feeding it, okay? So that's what's really important. If, if your excuse is I just don't feel hungry, eat anyway, and your body will thank you for it, and your appetite and metabolism will catch up to that, okay? And that's what's really important. Your body will adjust. So this girl came and she's like, I'm starving, um, if I skip a meal now. I have better performance, I'm able to go harder in workouts, I sleep better, my anxiety is less. Like, she didn't even realize what she was missing until she implemented it and now she realizes like, holy crap, there was so much more to gain and that like so many results that I was leaving on the table from just not making these adjustments. So it's really important to be able to do that, guys. The amount of food that you eat matters, period. It can be really difficult to learn how to do this or that. Like the whole process I just took you through is a little lengthy and a little bit hard to figure out every day. So that's kind of why our Next Level Athletes membership was born. That's why our coaching services were born is because we are able to provide really simple and easy to follow programs for athletes just like you. So shameless plug here, if you guys are like, what am I supposed to do? If you're a parent listening saying like, oh my gosh, like I don't even know where to start, start with us. Like that's what we're here for, and we're really excited to help athletes with that. And they, they see, like all these kids I've been talking about, they see major gains, which is really fun to see. So we've covered the nutrient basics, we've covered what to eat, and we've covered how much of it to be eating. Now the last thing that we are going to be covering is the when to eat it, nutrient timing, especially around game days. Okay. So the purpose here is I want you guys to optimize performance and recovery. The key points here is we're going to go over our 4-2-1-0 approach. If you follow us on Instagram, you've probably seen us post about this before. But, um, going back to our football player story, this is the program, or this is the protocol that we implemented into his game day routine that helped him not have that fourth quarter wall, and he was able to push past that. Yes, he's— he also got on the program of eating enough calories. So that's really important too. But this is going to help him for the specific performance on game day. And the goal was to blow up the freaking wall. We didn't want the wall there anymore. Okay. And that's the goal for you guys too. So 4 hours out, we would be having him eat. So his game is at 7. So 4 hours out at 3 PM, he would be eating a full meal, carbs, fats, protein. We've already discussed all of that, what to eat, how much of it to eat. You can go back and review that if you need to. Full meal, 4 hours out, 2 hours out, he needs to be eating like a higher carb snack. So this is going to be fruit. This is going to be maybe some oatmeal. This is going to be some dried fruit. This is going to be a granola bar, something that's just super easy that's going to top off those, that those muscle energy tanks, those glycogen storages. And then 1 hour out, this is not a hydration podcast, so we are not going to be getting into that right now, but he would be sipping on electrolytes. Some electrolytes I like are Redmond Relight, element. Um, some like Gatorade can be an option. Um, Body Armor has an electrolyte drink as well, but regular Gatorade or regular Powerade actually sucks when it comes to electrolytes. So don't just use that. You need more sodium than that. We're going to get into that and do another podcast and dive deeper on that for you guys later. But you need about 500 milligrams sodium 1 hour out before the game. And then the zero is during the game. This is like when he is in during the game, on the sidelines, or even at halftime. So he would be needing more carbs, about 30 to 60 carbs per hour. So his game's about an hour and a half to 2 hours. That means during the game he needs a total of about 90 to 120 carbohydrates to be fueling with. And so during halftime he was pounding applesauces, a granola bar. This is where a sports drink, um, not zero sugar, you need the sugar, this is where the sports drinks could come in handy because it gives you that quick energy, that fire starter energy to keep you sustained throughout the game. And then post-game— post-game or workout— you need to be having another full meal full of carbs, full of protein, full of good fats, and then be hydrating yourself as well. And you want to get this in as fast as possible, especially after a lifting session, because it does matter. They're not able to figure out— they haven't been able to figure out the exact window of like, is it 30 minutes, is it 60 minutes post-workout when I should be getting my protein and food in. But as kind of the consensus is, as quick as possible. If you can do it less than 30 minutes after a workout, perfect. That's where a protein shake could come in. That's where a granola bar or an apple or, you know, like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a protein shake could come in. Like, that's, that's the important part. And so after, um, after we implemented this pro— like, this protocol in with this football player, his fourth quarter is so better. He was able to blow past that wall. He's able to be sustained and have that sustained energy through the fourth quarter and actually perform well when the moments count and win games. So that's what, that's what the goal is, right? We want to win games, we want to stand out, we want to have good performance. And so like, don't leave it to chance by not having nutrition dialed in. So guys, I've kind of taken you to school here. We've, we've gone over a lot of stuff today. Just wanted to recap things, and then I'm going to let you guys go and implement it. And this is going to be really fun to see how you guys you guys— how you guys perform and the differences you see. So we, we covered number 1, the nutrient basics. Proteins are builders, carbs give us quick energy, fats give us long-lasting energy. Number 2, whole foods versus processed foods. 80/20. Whole foods 80% of the time, 20% of the time processed foods are okay. Number 3, dial in the amount of food that you need to be eating. Figure out how much that is and your body will adjust to it, I promise. If your body is not gaining weight, you are not eating enough food. And number 4, nutrient timing will be game changer. Okay? If you are overwhelmed and don't know where to start, start here and then start like the pre-start is stop skipping breakfast. Okay? You need the carbs, the protein, and fats at breakfast time. And, and then the second thing I'd have you guys do is start with the 4-2-1-0 protocol on game day, or just using that on like your training days too. And you'll just see, you'll just feel better. You'll see a massive increase in, in energy levels and results and the amount of weight you're able to lift, et cetera. Like nutrition is the tide that raises all other boats, guys. Super excited for you guys to figure that out. Thank you for spending this time with me. Thanks for being here. Good luck. Let me know if you have any questions. Join us on at Next Level Athletes. Um, we're currently enrolling new members. Um, if that's interesting to you guys and we're super excited to, to keep going with you all. Thanks.