Losing weight for any purpose can be a daunting task. You must alter your diet, you need to create an exercise schedule and your amount of free time shrinks considerably. Losing weight to play a sport is even more daunting, as it requires you to train your body even harder for the specific rigors of playing that sport in combination with altering your diet and shrinking your free time.
Significance
Sports can be extremely physically demanding, regardless of whether you're a couch potato or a professional athlete. Training your body in the gym and on the field to play your sport is important not only for your cardiovascular health, but also for your sport specific coordination. This training will not however result in you losing weight unless your meals are carefully planned out. You have to eat the right kind of foods, at the right time and in proportionate amounts. According to the latest United States Department of Agriculture, or USDA, dietary guidelines, active adults need to eat between 2,400 and 3,200 calories per day just to maintain a normal energy level.
Considerations
Every sport requires its athletes to be in different forms of "in shape." Basketball players need to be muscularly trim but not too bulky to limit range of motion, while also being able to endure several hours of sprinting short distances. Baseball players on the other hand can have significantly more fat on their bodies, however their lower body and core need to be very strong to generate torque for swinging a bat. Look at the requirements for your specific sport and plan your meals accordingly. If your sport requires you to be trim but muscular, remove the fat from your meals and replace it with protein.
Metabolism
The old idea of eating three square meals per day has long since gone out the window. The lull time between meals can drag your metabolism down, which in turn will not only bring your energy level to a halt, but also limit the number of calories you burn on a daily basis. A single pound of fat is equal to 3,500 calories, according to the Mayo Clinic, which means you need to burn 3,500 more calories than you eat to drop that pound. Eating five medium sized meals per day while snacking regularly on healthy foods keeps your energy level up and boosts your metabolic rate.
Time Frame
If you are trying to lose weight for sports, not only do you need to know what to eat, you also need to know when to eat it. Large meals can take three to four hours to leave the gut entirely, while smaller meals may take between two to three hours. If you are eating before a training or exercise session, plan your meals around this time frame. When your body needs energy during intense workouts, it burns calories at a very high rate. The meals before and after exercising need to be carbohydrate heavy, as the majority of these burned calories, up to 85 percent of them in fact, come from carbs.
Misconceptions
In sports like basketball or soccer, you see many players with trim physiques that sport little to no flab. You may think that these players eat very little food to keep in such trim shape, whereas the truth is quite the opposite. When you eat less food, your body has less calories to burn and therefore less energy. When your body has less energy, it slows down considerably in all areas, including the rate in which it burns calories. The reason these players have such trim bodies is a combination of eating several small, healthy meals throughout the day, and exercising vigorously on a regular basis.
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