Building a meal plan for yourself can help you improve energy, maximize performance, and decrease injury risk. Below are the criteria that you should focus on including at each meal time. Let’s first start by breaking down each component of building a successful meal plan.
Meal Timing
Aim to eat breakfast within 1-2 hours of rising and your remaining meals every 4-6 hours after that. For example, if you eat breakfast at 7 am, lunch might be at 12 noon, and dinner at 6 pm. Your pre-practice snack will digest best if eaten 30-90 minutes before practice or a workout. You can consume your post-practice snack within the first hour after finishing your practice or workout.
Food Sources
The food sources for each meal category are included in the chart below. As you can see, it’s important that the snacks around workouts and practice are lighter in fiber and fat to support your body’s energy demands and digestion during activity.
Next Steps
I recommend printing out a copy of your school and practice schedules so that you can determine what times you can eat. From there, determine which meals you will need to prepare in advance to ensure success with your plan. Then, select your foods for each meal category by using the Food List Chart. Finally, create a list of what you will need to purchase at the grocery store to create these delicious and healthy meals! Share with us what your personal meal plan by tagging us and using the hashtag #CheerDistrictFueled
1. Breakfast
Protein
Fruit or Vegetables
Starch
Healthy Fat
2. Lunch
Protein
Vegetables
Starch
Healthy Fat
3. Pre-Practice
Protein
Fruit
Starch
4. Post-Practice
Protein
Fruit
Starch
5. Dinner
Protein
Vegetables
Starch
Healthy Fat
FOOD SOURCES CHART
xo, Lauren
Want to hear more from Lauren? Let us know what nutrition questions you have, so we can get the answered! Here's to FUELING your body!!