COACH NICHOLE'S NUTRITION CORNER
Hey Team & welcome to the Nutrition Corner! Some of you have met me during past nutrition focused meetings, but I'm back as the official Nutrition Coach for Nu Wave. I will be hosting monthly nutrition meetings to help you learn how to better fuel your body, navigate meal portions, identify healthy foods, and learn the importance of your total wellness! I will also be providing weekly tips on social media, along with offering personalized nutrition coaching through my Total Wellness Coaching company. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or if you would like to learn more about my nutrition program.
*For A Personalized Nutrition Plan Contact Coach Nichole At Total Wellness*
HIGH PERFORMANCE GROUP NUTRITION MEETING SCHEDULE
JUNE 2021 MTG: Sunday, June 13 (6:30 PM) "Nutrition Needs Through Increased Training" RECORDING
JULY 2021 MTG: Sunday, June 27 (6:30 PM) "Summer Tips 101: Snacking, Hydration, Sleep, & more!" RECORDING-PT1 RECORDING-PT2
AUGUST 2021 MTG: Sunday, August 22 (6:30 PM) "School Year Strategies: How to Plan & Prep" RECORDING
SEPTEMBER 2021 MTG: Sunday, September 26 (6:30 PM) "High Performance Q&A" RECORDING
OCTOBER 2021 MTG: Sunday, October 17 (6:30 PM) "Label Comparisons and Hidden Sugar" RECORDING
NOVEMBER 2021 MTG: Sunday, November 7 (6:30 PM) "Championship Week Prep and Good vs Bad Fats" RECORDING
DECEMBER 2021 MTG: Sunday, December 19 (5:30 PM) "Navigating Holiday Eating & Championship Event Feeback" RECORDING
JANUARY 2022 MTG: Sunday, January 9 (6:30 PM) "Travel Meet Shopping" RECORDING
FEBRUARY 2022 MTG: Sunday, February 6 (6:30 PM) "Championships Meet Prep" RECORDING
MARCH 2022 MTG: Sunday, March 27 (6:30 PM) "Protein Options and Survey Responses" RECORDING
APRIL 2022 MTG: Sunday, April 10 (6:30 PM) "Q&A" RECORDING
MAY 2022 MTG: Sunday, May 1 (6:30 PM) "Survey Resposes Pt.2" RECORDING
JUNE 2022 MTG: Saturday, June 11 (8:00 AM- In Person)
JULY 2022 MTG: Wednesday, July 13 (6:00 PM) RECORDING
SEPTEMBER 2022 MTG: Sunday, September 18 (Senior HP Groups: Girls 5:30 PM/Boys 6:30 PM) RECORDING-SR GIRLS RECORDING- SR BOYS
OCTOBER 2022 MTG: Sunday, October 23 (6:30 PM) Intro To Nutrition: Tidal Wave and Cyclone Groups RECORDING
NOVEMBER 2022 MTG: Sunday, November 13 (5:00 PM) Hydration Log & HS Championship Prep RECORDING
JANUARY 2023 MTG: Sunday, January 8 (5:00 PM) Intro to Macros: Tidal Wave and Cyclone Groups RECORDING
FEBRUARY 2023 MTG: Wednesday, February 8 (8:00 PM) Championship Check-in: Senior High Performance Groups RECORDING
APRIL 2023 MTG: Sunday, April 30 (5:00 PM) Nutrition Back To Basics: Senior High Performance Groups RECORDING
JUNE 2023 MTG: Thursday, June 22 (7:00 PM) Pre-practice Snacks, Daytime Hydration, and Swim Meet Session Needs: Tidal Wave and Cyclone Groups RECORDING
JULY 2023 MTG: Sunday, July 9 (7:00 PM) How Does Your Nutrition and Hydration Help or Hurt Your Day-to-day Recovery? Senior High Performance Groups RECORDING
AUGUST 2023 MTG: Sunday, August 20 (7:00 PM) Back to School Nutrition Plan. Senior High Performance Groups RECORDING
SEPTEMBER 2023 MTG: Sunday, September 24 (7:00 PM) Back to School Nutrition and Hydration Plan. Age Group High Performance Groups RECORDING
OCTOBER 2023 MTG: Monday, October 9 (7:00 PM) Reading and analyzing nutrition labels to make healthier choices. Senior High Performance Groups RECORDING
DECEMBER 2023 MTG: Monday, December 11 (7:00 PM) Navigating holiday eating, Hydration, and Understanding micro nutrients. Age Group High Performance Groups RECORDING
JANUARY 2024 MTG: Monday, January 8 (7:00 PM) Travel meal prep, Championship nutrition, and shared recipes. Senior High Performance Groups RECORDING
FEBRUARY 2024 MTG: Monday, February 19 (7:00 PM) Championship Meet Meal Prep, Hydration, and Nutrition Goals during Competition. Age Group High Performance Groups RECORDING
Coach Nichole Approved Recipes:
Peanut Butter Energy Balls (Makes ~ 15)
**These make a perfect PRE-workout/practice snack. These will also be a great snack to have on hand during meets to have in between swims.**
- 1.75 Cups Rolled Oats
- 1/3 Cup Natural Honey
- 3/4 Cup Natural Peanut Butter (or any nut butter of your choice)
- Extras: dark chocolate chips, chia seeds, unsweetened coconut flakes
- Combine all ingredients and roll into golf ball sized balls. Keep refrigerated.
EASY Turkey Meatballs (Makes ~ 10)
**Perfect lean meat to have with a whole wheat pasta or chickpea based pasta**
- 1lbs Extra Lean Ground Turkey (or chicken)
- 1/4 Cup Italian Bread Crumbs (or panko)
- 1/4 Onion, chopped
- 1/2 Bell Pepper, chopped
- 1 Egg
- Preheat oven to 350. Combine all ingredients in large bowl. Roll out 10 meatballs. In a non-stick skillet, add 1 TBSP olive or avocado oil. Brown meatballs on all sides. Place meatballs on a baking sheet and bake for 12-15 mins, until cooked through.
Protein Muffins or Pancakes (Makes ~ 6 muffins; Pancakes: depends on how big you make them)
- 1 Cup Kodiak Power Cakes Flapjack & Waffle Mix
- 1 Cup (8oz) Protein Shake
- Examples: Fairlife Core Power / Iconic / Premier Protein / Quest (any LOW SUGAR pre-made protein shake)
- Preheat oven to 350. Spray a muffin tray, muffin cups or skillet (for pancakes). Combine ingredients & pour into muffin tray or into pan for pancakes. For muffins, bake for 15 mins. (Store in refrigerator)
Crustless Egg White Quiche (Makes ~ 6 slices)
- 1 bell pepper
- 1/4 red onion
- 4 Cups fresh spinach, chopped
- 3 Cups liquid egg whites
- 1 container ground turkey breakfast sausage (or turkey bacon)
- Preheat oven to 350. Spray a 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray. Brown the sausage in a pan and pour into the baking dish to let it cool. Chop all veggies, add to baking dish. Pour egg whites into baking dish. Bake for about 20 mins until eggs set and no longer wiggle in the center. Let cool and cut into 6 squares. Keep covered & in refrigerator.
LSU's Operations & Performance Nutrition Center:
LSU opens up new $28 million football operations building; How did the sleeping pods get made? | LSU | theadvocate.com
Nichole has stressed how important proper nutrition & sleep is for athletic performance. Check out the link above that shows just how important college's like LSU take the nutrition & sleep for their athletes.
USA SWIMMING PAGE: NUTRITION AND RECOVERY
FUELING YOUR STROKE
Six 200’s descending on five minutes. Twenty-five 50’s on :58. Whatever your “favorite,”
every set during every workout and dry land session requires energy.
Nutrients are the “chemicals” that supply the body with energy. Carbohydrate, protein and
fat supply energy in the form of calories. These are your “Energy-Yielding Nutrients.”
Vitamins, Minerals and Water don’t supply energy in the form of calories, but their presence
is required in order for the body to access the energy provided by carbohydrate, protein and
fat.
During exercise, the body gets its energy primarily from carbohydrate and fat. It likes to save
protein for other things (building and repairing muscle tissue, hormones and red blood cells, and
supporting the immune system). The only time the body uses protein as an energy
source during exercise is when carbohydrate and fat are not present in sufficient quantities.
This happens when the total caloric intake is too low over a period of months, and or the
bout of exercise is so long that the body’s accessible sources of carbohydrate and protein
become exhausted. Neither of these scenarios is desirable for swimmers.
Think about money. When you have lots of it, you don’t mind paying full price for things. But
when money is scarce, or there is just too much you have to buy, you look for bargains.
You’re not being cheap, just thrifty. Simplified to some extent, your body knows how to shop.
Now instead of dollars, think of your currency as oxygen. When swimming is “easy,” say
during warm-up or your easiest sets, there is plenty of oxygen available to support the
exercise. The body perceives itself as “rich” and doesn’t mind splurging on fat (1 gram of fat
costs 9 units of oxygen). In fact, it automatically does so because it knows it might need
carbohydrate at a later time.
When exercise is hard (we’re talking tough sets, definitely your hardest sets), oxygen is not
plentiful. In fact, the body needs every bit it can get to support the exercise, but even that is
often not enough, and the body is forced to derive energy in ways that do not require oxygen
(i.e. anaerobic metabolism). In this situation, the body perceives itself as very “poor” and
becomes very thrifty with its “purchase” if fuel. Since carbohydrate costs less than fat (1
gram of carbohydrate costs 4 units of oxygen), the body chooses to rely primarily on carbohydrate
for its energy.
Keep in mind that this entire fuel burning process is never a case of “all or none.” In other
words, the body is always using some combination of carbohydrate and fat, but the
intensity of the exercise dictates which fuel source will be the dominant one. When
swimming is easiest, fat is the primary fuel source. When swimming is toughest,
carbohydrate is the primary fuel source. When swimming is about 50% of maximum effort,
carbohydrate and fat contribute about equally. Let’s face it – the majority of workouts are hard.
The typical swim workout, it’s pretty safe to say that the primary fuel source is carbohydrates.
EAT COLORFUL FOODS
What are the first three foods that come to mind when we say “carbohydrate?”
1. Pasta
2. Rice
3. Bread
Each of these is excellent. One of the most overlooked sources of carbohydrate is fruit.
Fresh, canned, frozen, dried or juiced. No matter how you look at it, fruit is an excellent source of
carbohydrate. Not only does fruit provide carbohydrate in the form of natural sugars (versus
refined sugar), the bright colors of fruits indicate that they are also excellent sources of
vitamins and minerals, including a sub-group called anti-oxidants.
You might recall that exercise is the stimulus that leads to training adaptations. And that
adaptations to training occur ONLY is you give the body the right kinds of fuels during
periods of rest. Well, one of the side effects of exercise is the generation of “free radicals.”
Free radicals are molecules that can actually cause damage to muscle tissue above and beyond the
damage caused by exercise. The damage caused by exercise is normal. It serves as part of the
stimulus for training adaptation to take place. But damage caused by free radicals is NOT a
desired part of the training process. Damage caused by free radicals (aka “scavengers”)
circulating in the bloodstream after workout can continue well into the recovery period. This
is when the body is supposed to be adapting!
Anti-oxidants “absorb” free radicals, neutralizing their effect in the body before their damage
to muscle tissue can amount to much. A diet consistently rich in fruits (and other colorful
foods, such as VEGETABLES) is apt to keep the body consistently supplied with antioxidants,
which will assist the body in keeping free radical formation to a minimum. This a
good reason to eat lots of colorful foods during the recovery time between workouts.
Colorful foods include, but are not limited to: apples, strawberries, blueberries, bananas,
watermelon, raspberries, grapes, mango, papaya, apricots, red peppers, broccoli, corn, squash,
carrots, peas,green beans, oranges, kiwis and tomatoes.
Colorful foods DO NOT include: Skittles, Jelly Beans, M&Ms, Mike& Ikes, Fruit Loops,
COMMON NUTRITION ISSUES
Daily Recovery
Strenuous daily training requires a high-energy, high-carbohydrate diet. Swimmers who fail to meet their carbohydrate requirement will fail to recover adequately between training sessions resulting in fatigue, loss of body weight and poor performance. Additional energy requirements for growth may compound the problem, especially during the teenage years when training and school commitments can make it hard to access suitable volumes of food. Swimmers with high-energy requirements need to increase the number of snacks during the day and make use of energy-dense foods. It is good to have nutritious carbohydrate-rich snacks on hand to eat straight after training to start the refueling process. This is especially important for swimmers who travel long distances from their pool to work or home and have to wait until the next meal can be consumed.
Fluid Needs in Training
High-intensity exercise in the steamy environment of a heated indoor pool, or outdoors in the sun, can lead to moderate sweat losses, which are not obvious when the swimmer is already wet. Smart swimmers bring drink bottles to the pool deck and drink during rest periods or between sets. Sports drinks provide an additional fuel supply for long training sessions. In a fluid balance study undertaken on the Australian Swimming Team in Atlanta in 1995, we measured average sweat losses of ~125 ml per kilometer in training or about 600 ml per workout. These swimmers were provided with both water and sports drink at the session and managed an average intake that perfectly matched their losses (125 ml per km). Of course, some swimmers were better at matching losses than others. And during anaerobic threshold sets, sweat losses increased to 170 ml/km.
Iron Status
An iron imbalance may occur in swimmers undertaking heavy training who fail to consume sufficient iron. Female swimmers on weight loss diets are particularly at risk. Iron levels should be checked regularly when in heavy training. Iron-rich foods such as lean red meat and breakfast cereals fortified with iron should be included regularly in the diet. Iron-rich plant foods such as wholegrain cereals, spinach and legumes should be combined with animal iron sources (e.g. wholegrain pasta with bolognese sauce) and vitamin C sources (e.g. glass of orange juice consumed with breakfast cereal) to improve iron absorption. A sports dietitian will be able to provide specific dietary help.
Immune Status
Swimmers often worry about getting sick during periods of heavy training. Many nutritional supplements and strategies have been suggested to keep the swimmer from catching coughs and colds. To date, the most important strategy emerging from immune studies of athletes is to keep well fuelled during training sessions. Sports drink during the workout and a recovery snack afterwards help to reduce the stress on the immune system.
Competition Nutrition
Muscle glycogen stores can be filled by 24 hours of a high-carbohydrate diet and rest. Swimmers who are undertaking a long taper may need to reduce total energy intake to match their reduced workload; otherwise unwanted gains in body fat will occur. Fluid levels and carbohydrate stores need to be replenished between events and between heats and semi-finals/finals. Drink a carbohydrate-containing fluid such as sports drink, fruit juice or soft drink when there is only a short interval between races. Snacks such as yogurt, fruit, cereal bars or sandwiches are suitable for longer gaps between races, or for recovery at the end of a session. Between day heats and evening final sessions, most swimmers eat a high-carbohydrate lunch and have a nap. On waking, a carbohydrate-rich snack is eaten before returning to the pool.