Pre-Event Meals Affecting An Athlete's Performance

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Title According to Michelle Obama, “Being healthy isn’t about inches, pounds, or how kids looks. It’s about how they feel and making sure they feel good about themselves. So rather than focusing on appearance, it’s important to emphasize to kids that when we eat healthy food and stay active, we feel better, and we can perform better in everything we do, from athletics to academics” (“AZ Quotes”). This quote reveals that some athletes do not know that what they eat can affect what their performance in academics and athletics. In order to get the most out of the body, an individual must know which foods to choose, how food can help reach top performance, and which pre-event meals to choose for success, so they can become a top performing athlete. …show more content…
According to Danelle Swearingen, a great way to know what pre-event meals to choose is to have a schedule. For example, “8am event: Eat a high carbohydrate dinner and drink extra water the night before, at 6-6:30am eat a 200-400 calorie meal (yogurt, banana) and have more water. 10am event: Eat a high carbohydrate dinner, extra water, have a familiar breakfast by 7am to prevent fatigue. 2pm event: Eat a high carbohydrate breakfast and a light lunch or combine them into a big brunch eaten by 10am. Be sure to have a high carbohydrate dinner the night before, drink extra water day before and up to noon on the event day. 8pm event: Eat a big high carbohydrate breakfast and lunch, have dinner by 5pm or a lighter meal by 6-7pm, drink extra fluids all day. All day event: Two days before the event, cut back exercise to rest the body, rest completely the day before, eat a high carbohydrate breakfast, lunch, and dinner the day before and drink extra fluids, eat a breakfast you can tolerate on the day of the event, snack every 1 ½ to 2 hours on carbohydrates during the day if possible, eat lunch if you can, drink fluids before you feel thirsty” (“Danelle Swearingen”). This is a great idea to have a schedule for what to eat at what time because most people, including myself, eat at different times during the day for different reasons. Peter Jaret says that these five guidelines will help:, “ Load Up on Carbohydrates, get Enough Protein, but not too much, go easy on fat, drink fluids early and often, and replace lost electrolytes” (“Peter Jaret”). I think these guidelines will help because some athletes go without these guidelines and won’t reach their full performance. According to the book on Danelles article, “Some of the most important reasons for eating well before an event are to prevent hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) and it's symptoms

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