I hope you enjoyed weeks 1 and 2 of the meal plan! These posts will hopefully help inspire you, your gymnast, and your family. We took a break after weeks 1 and 2 with The Balanced Gymnast Course Launch (where we welcomed 20 high level gymnasts and parents to the live 6-week course! Yay!). In ...
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When Fear and Culture Get in the Way of Fueling the Gymnast [Guest Blog]
Hey friends! I want to share with you a guest blog I did for Dave Tilley, DPT over at Shift Movement Science. If you know Dave, you know that he's an incredible clinician, mentor, speaker, and advocate for culture change in our sport. Nutrition plays a huge role in the success of a gymnast, and ...
Parenting the Gymnast Body: Navigating Weight and Body Shape Concerns
Gymnastics is an aesthetic sport, defined as “concerned with beauty or the appreciation of beauty”. This can be problematic as our appreciation for body diversity within the sport of gymnastics is still not where it should be, with false assumptions that “lighter girls fly higher” still held fast in ...
Fueling Gymnasts for Two-a-Day Workouts
Tis the season! Many gyms are back to fall practice schedules which include two a day workouts for the high level gymnast. Some schedules I’ve worked with are 9-1PM and then 4-7PM or 9-2 PM and then 3:30-6PM which makes fueling the gymnast quite tricky. It’s undeniable that gymnasts need at least ...
Weekly Gymnast Meal Plan- Week 2
I hope you enjoyed week 1 of the meal plan! These posts will hopefully help inspire you, your gymnast, and your family. Part of learning to eat healthfully is making things taste good. A little flavor goes a long way in helping things like vegetables, lean protein, and whole grains turn into ...
Nutrition for Gymnasts: Normal Eating vs Clean Eating
If you “google” gymnast diet or “what should a gymnast eat” you’ll find a variety of resources and news articles from various media outlets that detail what past high level gymnasts (elite) consume in a day. How a high level gymnast should eat is dependent on their goals, preferences, schedule, etc. ...
Weekly Gymnast Meal Plan- Week 1
NEW Weekly meal “plan” You'll have to let me know (reply below) if you enjoy getting a few recipes each week, but I know that I enjoy finding new inspiration for dinners, etc given "what's for dinner" is one of the most common household questions. I have to confess...I'm not a "meal prepper". I ...
How many calories does a gymnast need (and does it matter?)
There are two groups of people. Those who think “calories don’t count” and those who think they do countI’m here to tell you that calories DO count from a physiological perspective, but the “calories in, calories out” equation is more complicated than a simple balance sheet. Parents of gymnasts ...
4 Ways to Help Your Gymnast Be Confident in Her Body
As a gymnastics parent (or any parent for that matter) you have a very important role in “feeding”. I know that term sounds funny, but that’s literally what you do. You feed, bathe, care for, look out for, etc your gymnast.Part of helping your gymnast feel confident in her body is helping her to ...
What does food freedom look like for the high level gymnast?
What does food freedom look like?Food freedom is the ability to eat whatever, whenever, wherever.Food freedom is NOT the absence of eating for health.A lot of gymnasts are afraid that if they allow themselves to have “sugar” or “carbs” or something “fried” that they’ll get “all the inflammation”, ...