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973741 tn?1342342773

competative sports eating and nutrition guidance

I've got two kids in sports.  They are very active in general but have daily practices that are pretty intense.  They have competitions/games/events that they try to prepare for as best they can.  In middle school, competitions for their school team sports are during the week and after school.  Which is rough for proper nutrition and hydration.  They get out of school at 2:20 and often are boarding a bus to the competition soon after.  They eat lunch around 10:30 am (because they are at school so dang early, this is 4 hours into their school day)---  They get to the competition and have a brief time and then must perform athletically.  We really struggle with this.  I've packed a peanut butter sandwich, a turkey sandwich, found out beef jerky wasn't a good idea, nuts, etc.  But I'm not sure what is best to give them energy and make them not feel super hungry but not result in their puking.  Yes, puking.  One son is a runner who gives it his all and he throws up.  

So, looking for ideas for what to do the night before and then day of for good sports performance.  I've looked around for good advice and find a lot of different ideas.  But usually they talk about a good breakfast before.  Wonder if I should just do that same type of meal after school even though they are really hungry.  They waffle between being hungry and feeling nauseated at their soccer game from eating.  Ideas?
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973741 tn?1342342773
This is getting a little deeper than this simpleton mom can understand. LOL  No, my kids aren't going to be professional athletes.  They just want to do well in the activities they have now (and they are at a slightly higher level than average at this point with some expectations placed on them from coaches and teams) and nutrition can impact that. We have obstacles such as an ultra picky, sensitive to texture in foods kid, school hours that make after school competitions harder to hydrate for and eat properly for (you have to have a note to have a water bottle at school from a doctor. My kids have the note but they go from class to class carrying their chrome book, school books and materials and aren't allowed to use any type of bag for this per school rules, major pain---  one son will still drag his water bottle with him and the other won't often).  I'll take this all into consideration.  Still like a good old fashioned banana before working out myself.  :>)  
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Me like bananas too -- and they're loaded with electrolytes.  Don't know why, but they just never leave me feeling bloated like, say, apples do.  For me, I'm so injured and old I'm ready to stop exercising altogether, it's just not worth it anymore. Hurts too much to sleep.  I just know that well into my fifties I just was able to do anything I wanted and never needed additional nutrition.  But Mom, are you serious about your kids needing a note to have water around?  Are they in prison or school?
Yes, isn't that crazy about the note for a water bottle?  I think it is two fold because we needed one in elementary school too.  Kids use a lot of electronics in school these days and water and computers don't mix. And secondly, the principle said that they've caught kids putting alcohol in the water bottles . . .  awesome.  They have a million rules for everything.  Like I said, you can't carry a backpack or bag between classes with your things.  You can only carry it into the building and put it in a locker.  You should see all the stuff my kids have to carry!  I am smart though.  I got a bumper bag for their chrome books that has a strap so at least that can go over their shoulder and it has pockets for pencils/pens, the 100 dollar calculator they are required to have, etc.  Sounds militant, doesn't it?  Good old public school.  
And I'm sorry that working out is now a pain literally.  It's good to clear my mind and I would hate to never be able to do it.  What about swimming?  That is a no impact exercise option.
Swimming reinjured my neck when I had to stop the elliptical machine when I got plantar fasciitis on it.  I'm the only person alive probably who got hurt on both an elliptical machine and swimming!  As for the backpacks, seems I now remember hearing that this has become a problem in schools because many schools are trying desperately to keep the kids off the cell phones (which are in their backpacks) during class and because of the school shootings that have taken place.  A long time from when the biggest problem was me getting trouble for sleeping in class and cracking jokes (I seldom found class as valuable as the assigned reading).
Some med made you prone to injuries, Paxiled?
1081992 tn?1389903637
Hi, is there a reason they can't sip some fast carbs in small amounts throughout? Nausea would most likely be caused by large amounts of food and by fats.

Sucrose might be best for energy replenishment between high intensity events with rest periods (like CrossFit), because it's more insulinogenic than glucose/starch. If sucrose is a problem, or if there are no rest periods, there's maltodextrin or dextrose. If taking in too much water is a problem (bathroom breaks) then there are glucose tablets like diabetics use.

In the small window, they can drink some slower-burning uncooked oatmeal with water in a shaker which would give more caloric density and be more filling. There was also a very trendy slow burning starch from corn (I forget the name) a few years ago, which led to VERY high priced drinks that are marketed to pro athletes and the like, and also for medical uses. But corn starch or even canned creamed corn would be similar.
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The timing of when someone vomits during running is indicative of what is causing.  Food in the stomach is a definite problem but exertion levels also play a role in my son.  He's having a metabolic reaction where the body goes into survival mode and flushes the digestive track with acid.  

Drinking carbs or really getting any in is always tricky. We've tried the runners wafer 20 minutes before running and the carb gel for runners.  Still had the nausea issue. We've tried raisons and dried cherries before running as well with better luck but still hard to get enough gas.  

Did I mention too that my son has sensory issues and texture of food is a big deal?  He's complicated.  LOL  I don't think I could get him to drink oatmeal diluted in water.  I could try.  He works to stay hydrated as he doesn't drink during the day except for his milk at lunch.  Sugary drinks like gator aid have come right up while running.  He does drink a hydration drink called hoist which has a different mechanism and it works a little better.  He drinks plenty of water after school but too much liquid before a fast race always is bad news so he cuts off liquid about 45 minutes before the race and then just sips.  

It's tricky to get the right balance.  He also will take an antacid prior to running in races/meets.  But that's not a long term fix.
The gastric problems in some marathoners get bad and that's what led e.g. Tim Olson to switch to low carb, the main idea being that when you use bodyfat for fuel you don't have to take in carb fuel right before or during running. Even lean people have many tens of thousands of spare calories stored as fat. Liver glycogen might be less than 5 thousand cal. But he also uses carbs during a race because of going faster than when training. Also it supposedly takes weeks to get 'fat adapted'. Just mentioning that whole thing offhand, as it probably isn't a good solution for your son. Or maybe it is.

How about drinking instant flake potatoes in water? No texture when it is very thin.

It might be good to be well hydrated during the whole day rather than playing catchup after school. Milk as you probably know has less water than an apple, unless it's skim.

If he has any immune system issues like allergies or flushing, maybe an antacid which is really an antihistamine (the Tagamet and descendants kind, H2 blockers) might possibly help. Just a thought.

If what he really needs is ATP regeneration for sprints maybe creatine would help. Should be harmless and is not a drug. Or ribose as a shot in the dark.

If a fructose component is the main problem, maybe maltodextrin (which is very high GI) would be tolerated. It's sold in wine and beer making shops, and if it works you can order giant bags online. Slow GI for long runs would be something like 'waxy maize' which has the the low GI starch amylose but not much of the high GI starch amylopectin. Maybe that difference would matter to him.

I can't much handle dense sugar myself e.g. first thing in the morning, makes for a queasy stomach, so I have some idea what you're talking about. Drinking potato never bothers me.
I would say, though, that sugar kills teeth and causes inflammation.  Is it really worth it if these kids are not going to become professional athletes?  What's the likelihood that will happen?  Infinitesimal, at best.  As for oatmeal, oatmeal is always partially cooked or else it's not oatmeal -- the uncooked version is the whole oat, or oat groat, which takes a long time to cook.  By the time you get to quick oats, they are cooked and pretty much ready to eat, so a thermos with hot water will just give you oatmeal.  The good thing about oatmeal is though it's not all that nutritious compared to whole oats, it does burn more slowly and therefore last longer than, say, fruit.  The Chinese traditionally would pack rice balls, basically cooked sticky rice, when they had to walk long distances or work long hours -- again, the long burning energy that carbs give.  When I worked with a food coop, we used to have a booth at marathon sign ups -- the biggie was the Marine Corp marathon -- and these runners would carb load for a few days before competition, but didn't eat during competition except for some drinks and small snacks handed out along the route.  We used to sell bananas and bagels at these sign up events, and sell tons of the stuff.  In this case, the kids aren't running marathons, they are stopping and starting, basically interval training, which is how most athletes train and play.  Off road bicyclists in the Rockies were the ones who started all those high sugar, high protein and high carb all in one energy bars like power bars and boulder bars and cliff bars.  When I walk for two hours, I eat an energy bar called a macro bar, which uses sweeteners that don't metabolize as quickly as sucrose and glucose and the like and therefore aren't as inflammatory and bad for teeth and don't lead to a diet prone to pre-diabetes that many athletes get into from consuming tons of sugar for energy.  Or you can do what professional athletes have done for over a century, which is they eat amphetamines.  There's a lot of ways to get energy, but few healthy ways to do it.  That's why grains are still a good way to do it -- they provide long lasting energy and you can eat a little here and a little there.  As for the nausea, some people get nausea from nerves -- I used to get a stomach ache when I was a kid every time we had to run the 600.  I just got too agitated about it.  When I grew up, I could run longer with no problem as that aspect went away.  Not to say that's the problem here, just to say a lot of kids got nauseous because it was made into such a big deal when it really wasn't.  At any rate, there are sports nutritionists out there -- every pro athlete has one -- so I'm sure there's a lot of more expert information out there, if you accept the notion that anyone is an expert in nutrition.
You'er right that sugar (sucrose) is not ideal as a food. It can also wreak havoc with gut bacteria. But I'd say it has its uses in *limited amounts*, such as Post WorkOut recovery. There's the current bad trend of branding sugar as if it is literally like an addictive narcotic. That comes after the low carb trendiness somewhat collapsed, so they switched to demonizing sugar.

There was the time when the Low Carb Paleos were set back  on their heels by the Kitavans, who were primitive and existed on a very high % of cals from fruit, which goes against the whole LC view. They were not fat, had no heart attacks. Oddly, though they "smoked like chimneys", they had no lung cancer. Maybe because of phytochemicals?

Sucrose, btw is not high Glycemic index. It's medium GI at around 60 when glucose is set to be 100
http://glycemicindex.com/foodSearch.php

Experts? Right, there aren't any really because it is so complex. Worse yet, so many are just advocates that push their 'side', which doesn't get at the truth. But that's what we have.
Yeah, it's very hard.  I managed health food stores for a long time, and I can't even count the fad diet theories.  Made a lot of people rich, though.  I think the whole Paleo thing is the funniest of them all, though, as people never in human history ate the way these folks are selling people on a theory that supposedly accords with how hunter-gatherers ate.  The only high protein eaters in history until very recent affluent history were those who lived where it was conditions prevented plant food from growing.  As long as there were abundant plant foods, that's what people ate, and most of those are carbs.  Modern technological civilization, for what it's worth, was built on bread.
Exactly right. Nobody can sell a diet book that says "eat less". But lots of money can be made on fads. The same goes for most supplements, though I have tried many over the years. I'd say that you have to try 10-20 in order to find one that gives some near term benefit.

For Paleo? You mean the cavemen didn't squat at the shoreline waiting for coconuts to wash up on the beach? :)
Avatar universal
Boy, what a pickle!  In my day lunch was at noon.  We ate as quickly as possible, then hit the school play area and played sports until class started again.  In those days, the organizes sports activities were after school and I can't remember being hungry or having a hard time of it -- the young can do anything!  I guess the question depends on how old your kids are and how intense their participation is -- whether they are serious athletes or just like to play.  I grew up in Southern California where the weather was good all year round, and we played all year round, and I can't ever remember anyone needing to eat in order to do it.  I also don't remember being hungry because I was too anxious to get to playing.  I do know we ate a big breakfast, there was a snack period, and lunch wasn't that much food.  But times have changed so much, there is so much more organized play now than an old guy like me had unless you were a really good athlete and made the school team, which wasn't until high school.  In junior high, again, we played after school but I still can't remember anyone caring about food at that age and we just waited until dinner.  But soccer and running are both aerobic sports, and if you eat too much right before you will risk a stomach ache.  With resistance training, heck, you can eat while you're doing it.  Also, both of those activities need carbs, not protein so much, as they require the expenditure of a lot of energy but don't require a lot of muscle building.  I guess I'm coming down on the side of hydration and electrolytes being more important in those activities than food provided they ate well at breakfast and lunch.  So how serious of athletes are they?  Do they have coaches who played seriously and therefore would have been coached up by nutritionists (all serious athletes have nutritionists nowadays)?  I know what older athletes would do -- take supplements and drugs that speed them up.  Not so good for kids.  
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They are both middle school age, out of elementary so no more recess.  :((  They are both in competitive sports at a higher level.  Our biggest dilemma is the after school meets.  Practices are tough as they are 1.5 to 2 hours long and they both run anywhere form 5 to 12 miles in those practices and also do other conditioning.  But meets or games (soccer) are where performance is absolutely expected.  We have a tough time getting enough energy so they have enough gas to finish/play strong without causing nausea/vomiting from exertion.  There is a small window to get some nutrition in them before they have their events after a long day at school.  

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