PROPER NUTRITION A MUST FOR ALL ATHLETES
	All athletes need to base their diets on a variety of nutritious foods. The Food Guide Pyramid is an excellent guide for all athletes to use because it helps you to select a variety of nutritious foods, emphasizes the starchy foods like breads, cereals, pastas, and vegetables you need to build glycogen stores, guides your selection of a lower fat diet, and offers you a variety of foods within each food group so that meals can be built around the foods you like. Because of their training / energy demands athletes should eat the higher levels of servings recommended from each food group--especially from the bread, cereal, rice, and pasta group and the vegetable group. A 180-pound tight end could easily eat eleven servings of breads/cereals and five servings of vegetables daily. This athlete may even need more than the maximum servings recommended. Eating the maximum number of servings recommended from all five food groups provides about 3,000 calories. That's why athletes involved in endurance sports will have to eat more than the upper end of the recommended serving levels. In no instance should you eat less than the minimum servings for any food group. You need the minimum servings to supply a base level of essential nutrients and calories required for good health. Consuming the minimum servings listed in the Food Guide Pyramid will supply about 1,600 calories, which is the minimum for a non athletic woman with a desk job. For a male adult that would be around 2000 to 2200 calories a day. Next: Emphasize Starchy Foods Food Energy Needs Increase Your Food Strategy Emphasize Starchy Foods Energy-Packed Main Meals Success Strategies Before the Game Eating Strategies After the Game What About Quick-Energy Foods?
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