A former Division II basketball player ate only 450 calories before three-hour practices as a freshman, thinking restriction would help her perform. She stalled instead of improving, and later realized she needed at least 1,200 calories and 100+ grams of carbs before training to actually build muscle and energy.
I played college basketball, and now as a nutrition coach for athletes who are trying to make it to the next level, I realized that I made a huge mistake while I was playing that ultimately held me back from reaching my full potential as a college athlete. I'm from a very small town in Idaho. There's not very many people in that small town that go on to play in the next level, and I'm not trying to like toot my own horn or something. I'm just trying to paint the picture of it was a really hard, big goal to get to that next level of college basketball. I would I would drive 3.5 hours to get to my AAU team practices on the weekends because there's no other good AAU team around. Like, every single morning I was uplifting in the gym or putting my shots up. I was doing everything and anything I possibly could to make it to that next level. So it was a dream come true when I signed my letter of intent and when I finally achieved that dream. So I committed to go play at a Division II school in Colorado. So once I got there, I was this young, wide-eyed freshman, little bit of deer in the headlights, excited for this college basketball experience, and I quickly realized that this was not small town Idaho, and this was not small town Idaho basketball. This was a completely different level of play. I was training more than I ever had. I was pushing my body to its limits more than I've ever been pushed. And this is where my biggest mistake came in. So here was my schedule: I would wake up in the morning, I'd grab this little protein shake out of my mini fridge, and with a granola bar, and I'd run to class. I'd have class all morning, and then around noon I'd have to run over to the cafeteria. Every single day I would go in, I'd grab a green salad, I'd put some chicken breast on it, and I'd take that with me and eat it while I was getting my ankles taped for conditioning or practice or training. And then we'd start conditioning, and I would completely die. Like, my body felt like it wasn't working. I was pretty fast. I was getting beat by all of the posts on my team. It was as if my conditioning sucked. I was working my butt off in the weight room. I never took a rep off. I made sure I was crossing my T's and dotting my I's and doing everything and anything I possibly could. I wasn't gaining muscle. I wasn't seeing my conditioning improve. I wasn't seeing my body rise up to the level that these other girls were at. It was as if I hit my limit or my ceiling, and I just couldn't punch past this freshman plateau that I was facing. And to be honest, I wish that there was this turn in the story and that I figured it out and that I started getting all the playing time in the world and that, like, my freshman year was the best year ever. But honestly, I kind of just stayed at that plateau, which sucked, which wasn't fun. And obviously any freshman year isn't very fun for a lot of athletes. But it was really frustrating for me because I felt like the level of work that I was putting in wasn't matching the results I was getting out. The results were far below the work I was putting in. So ultimately I thought like, I was— I must just not be working hard. I must need to work harder and put more reps in and do, do more workouts than my teammates and do extra conditioning, run my body into the ground. When many years later, looking back, I wasn't needing more workouts or more conditioning. Obviously you have to have those things dialed in. I was freaking underfueled. I was— I had no gas in the tank to fuel my workouts. For this reason, I said, I need to dial in, I need to be healthy, I need to check off this nutrition box, I need to make sure that this is something I'm focused on. So what did I do? I followed what the classic fitness industry was teaching at the time of drink the protein shake, like cut carbs, make sure that you're eating salads and chicken every day. So my mornings would go: drink my protein shake, have maybe a small granola bar, go to class. Maybe 250 calories in my body. After class, I'd go get some chicken breast and a salad. No carbs, no gas in the tank. That was probably around 200 calories as well. So going into a 3.5-hour practice and training session, I would maybe have 400 calories in me and less than 25 grams of carbs. That means that my body literally could not run because there was no gas in the tank. You could have the best car in the entire world, but if there is no gas in the tank, It's not going to go anywhere. It's not going to be able to drive. You need to make sure that it's fueled up in order for it to perform the way you want it to perform. And looking back, I was completely missing the mark on what dialing in my nutrition actually meant. I thought it meant no carbs, no bread, have salads all the time, drink protein shakes, stay away from calories, when in reality it was the complete opposite. I needed carbs, I needed calories, I needed fuel. I needed to make sure I was fueling at practice to give more energy to my muscle energy tanks. I was missing all of those things. So it is no wonder that I wasn't getting muscle. There was nothing for my body to use to gain that muscle, no matter how many hours I spent in the weight room. It's no wonder that I felt like I was dying during conditioning because I literally did not have gas in the tank to push my body to go. For context, if I were coaching myself in college right now, I would have myself eat at least 1,200 calories from 8 AM to 12 PM before that practice would start, when I was doing about 400 calories. I would be coaching myself to eat 3 times the calories and 100+ more carbs in the morning before those practices. So if you feel like in this video you're looking in the mirror a little bit and they feel like it's you, or if you feel like you can relate at all, you might not have a discipline problem, you might not have a 'I just need to work harder' problem. I mean, if you need to work harder, make sure you're working harder and that you're disciplined. But if you are already doing those things and you're just like beside yourself saying, 'What else can I do?' Learn the lesson that I wish I would have learned before I ever stepped foot onto a college campus, and that is dial in your nutrition for your body, for your sport. Don't just follow what the fitness fads say. You need to make sure it's the right nutrition in order to see the results you actually want. Good training plus the right nutrition equals results. So if you're an athlete and that's you and you're looking for the right nutrition, come join my program. My goal is to be the person that I wish I would've had.
