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Traveling For Youth Sports & Eating Right

Parents

Close up of hands packing a lunch.Whether it’s a weekend tournament or a family vacation, making sure your athlete gets the correct amount of carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fluids is especially important while on the road. But while it can feel challenging at times, eating right for youth sports while travelling doesn’t have to be difficult.

If you are going to eat out after the day’s games or if you’re packing a cooler the night before, below are some ideas to help make providing healthy  meals for your athlete easier.

Just like at home, their goal should be to consume the right balance of carbohydrates, fats, proteins, and fluids to fuel, optimize, and repair their bodies for peak performance while travelling.   

 

Fast Food Ideas

Familiarize yourself with different types of restaurants that offer high-performance food options and nutrient information.

  • Mexican: burrito or soft tacos with grilled veggies, chicken, fish, or steak
  • Fast food: grilled chicken sandwich, hamburger, veggie burger, or grilled chicken salad
  • Sandwich restaurant: chili and side salad or turkey sandwich
  • Bakery restaurant: veggie sandwich and low-fat garden vegetable soup or smoked turkey breast sandwich

Snacks To Pack In A Cooler

  • Trail mix with dried fruit, nuts, and seeds
  • Fresh fruit, sliced vegetables
  • Bagel with nut butter, dry ready-to-eat cereals, sports bars
  • Hydrating beverages such as water, sports water, sports drink, and 100% fruit juice
  • String cheese, yogurt

Tips To Take With You

  • Choose restaurants that allow substitutions (like vegetables and fruit) when menu items are not a good fit for  your athlete’s nutritional needs
  • Tailor your meals at restaurants: specify bake, broil, grill, roast, and “on the side.”
  • Plan ahead! Prepare a travel pack with snacks and beverages that support your performance eating plan.

Modified document written by SCAN registered dietitians (RDs). www.scandpg.org

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You have the ability to affect even deeper change, to take what’s in your hands and do something even more extraordinary. You can be both the coach who provides the skills needed to win the game and the coach who helps them learn and succeed beyond the sport, to become all stars wherever they land in the future, and to enjoy their lives more now, because the confidence and courage they find working with you will stay with them when they need it the most. There are games to be won, lives to change. Coaches have the power to do both.

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At first glance, dietary supplements look the same. They seem safe and healthy, but just because the label says a product is a dietary supplement, that doesn’t mean it’s safe. Unfortunately, you can’t tell whether a product is safe or not just by looking at the label. Most vitamins, minerals, fish oil, and other supplements containing nutrients are probably just fine, but supplements are not evaluated or approved by FDA before they are sold. Although it is rare for vitamins or minerals to be contaminated with drugs, there has been at least one case of a vitamin containing an anabolic steroid.

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