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Nutrition Plan for a Football Player

Sep 5, 2011 | By Rogue Parrish
Nutrition Plan for a Football Player
Photo Credit Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images Sport/Getty Images

College football and NFL players may love fried food and candy as kids -- wide receiver Antwaan Randle El, for example, told KidHealth.org about his boyhood love of Skittles. But by the time they hit the elite level, football players eat a more balanced diet at a training table set by team nutritionists. Players must sign in to demonstrate that they are not skipping breakfast and other meals as part of a nutrition plan that provides steady fuel all day. You can emulate these players, who find ways to eat well and maximize their performance on the field.

Meals

If you play at the high school level, you train in the afternoon after classes. So what you eat at breakfast and lunch become really important, sports dietitian Nancy Clark says. The heavy padding you wear at preseason practices also can make dehydration an issue. Plan your week so that you account for 21 meals -- breakfast, lunch and dinner -- and an additional 10 snacks for before and after games and practices so your body recovers from its exertion. Drink water or sports drinks every 15 minutes as you sweat at practice.

Proteins

Different positions have differeing nutritional demands, Clark observes. If you are a lineman, you want to bulk up without creeping into obesity, and if you run in the backfield or secondary, you need to be big but leaner. Your protein needs depend on your body weight. “The bigger you are, the more protein you need," Clark notes. "If you are a kicker on the small side, you won’t need as much protein as the linebackers.” Grilled lean meats, peanut butter, yogurt and eggs can provide heart-healthy protein.

Carbohydrates

Protein builds muscles, and carbohydrates fuel muscles. “Football training involves a lot of endurance work, so carbs are important,” Clark notes. Instead of chowing on french fries, buffalo wings and fried egg rolls, which fill the stomach but don’t fuel muscles, go for simple, unprocessed alternatives, such as baked potatoes. Find healthy carbohydrates across the board as part of your nutrition plan: brown rice not fried rice, spaghetti rather than a double-cheese pizza with pepperoni. Avoid the “see-food diet” -- eating everything in sight -- in favor of a diet of complex carbs to ensure higher performance, Clark advises.

Quality Calories

The name of the game in nutrition planning for football is how to consume quality calories that enhance your health and don’t just fatten you up, Clark says. You need a lot of food during preseason and competition -- sometimes in the range of 4,000 to 6,000 calories a day. What you want to avoid is a pattern of staying up late, skipping breakfast and coming home starved after practice to have fatty foods, such as spare ribs, chicken wings, potato chips and ice cream -- a heart-unhealthy diet. Heart disease is a significant problem among retired football players, as are indicators of prediabetes and high blood pressure among Division I college linemen. Even if you don’t have a training table to sit at, you can go for grilled meats, ground turkey and complex carbohydrates for your fuel for football and lifelong healthy eating.

References

Article reviewed by Connie Bye Last updated on: Sep 5, 2011

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