Some Foods Can Make Your Athletes Cooler In The Summertime? This can make their performance better in their chosen sport.
Foods can make young athletes cooler in the summertime can make the exercise outdoors tougher than it has to be.
When you get to the time of the year when there are 2-a-day practices and long days filled with sports from almost daylight to dark. During the warmer times of the year, a cooler diet can make this time easier.
Those tough conditioning camps can be brutal for kids. Helping with what food they have to eat before the exercise and at break time can make a difference. If adjusting the diet a little can help, why not adjust?
There are some foods that make you warmer when you digest them than others do. Most foods make your body heat a little internally when digesting food that you have eaten. Some make you heat more.
Why not put together a diet of lower-heat digestion foods for your younger athletes?
Heat Creates Different Needs
These long summer days make your young athlete’s food and fluid demands much different from what they are during colder, less active months.
Is your young athlete is dealing with insufficient nutrition while he/she is practicing in a hot and demanding environment? Practicing in heat and high humidity can easily lead to poor performance and the ability to recover quickly and easily.
Then there are the heat cramps, nausea, or even heat illness.
Exercising in hot and humid weather is tough on all athletes and everyone should proceed with caution.
The fact is that younger athletes can face an elevated risk of heat illness just due to inexperience.
Younger Athletes Are At Higher Risk For Heat-Related Issues
Your young athletes are more likely to continue exercising further, and exceeding their limits. Even if they are beginning to feel the onset of mild heat illness.
This happens because they don’t recognize the warning symptoms that they may be in danger because of the heat. They feel the pressure to continue practicing or playing.
Because of this, it is crucial for parents as well as the coaches to learn the signs and symptoms of heat illness. Parents need to be proactive in preventing heat-related conditions from even developing.
Coaches have more than just your child to watch for. Stay for practice if possible and help watch your young athlete as well as one whose parent can’t be there.
This also makes it important for kids to have some words to communicate their physical feelings before a more dangerous condition can develop. You as a parent can help your young athlete express himself in a way that allows the coach to help him or her.
Talking to your younger athletes about the symptoms of heat-related disorders can help them to better protect themselves during strenuous activity in the heat. Check the references below for talking to your kids about helping themselves. We all need help with the proper words sometimes.
What Is A Cooler Diet
With the use of technology, many Universities are sharing their guides for the younger athlete to be able to stay safer during athletic conditioning and performances. If you are going to haul your young athlete to and from all the practices, you can go a step farther and help them eat cooler.
Thankfully, preventing these heat-related ailments and keeping an athlete properly fueled isn’t rocket science. With a combination of a bit of adjusting to their diets, you can help your athletes avoid an end-of-the-day crash.
Fruit and veggies are cooler digesting foods and good to have for snacks.
Preparing ahead with zip lock bags or plastic containers, these fruits and veggies can sit on the ice with the water and drinks. This will keep them cool and be refreshing for snacking. This will keep your child cooler because less heat is required to digest them.
Talking To Your Young Athlete About Staying Safe In The Summertime
We are talking about going farther in safety and staying hydrated that just carrying around a bottle of water all the time.
Maybe a nutrition bar and fruit or veggies will work. A plastic container of salad with lettuce chopped and any combination that your child might like.
Boiled eggs or crumbled bacon. A pack of tuna. Your young athlete will have favorites that can serve him well. Even a few crackers can help restore some salt that may have been sweated away.
There may be some trial and error to find what works for your child. but this can be worked through by talking with him/her. Ask about how they felt, did they run out of energy? Did they have a queasy stomach? Did they actually get sick and vomit?
You can figure out what works and use the cooler digesting foods to help him stay cooler.
Fruits And Veggie Can Help Keep Your Young Athlete Hydrated Through The Day
Parents can understand the importance of staying hydrated while playing sports is important, regardless of the season. However, it becomes doubly important during the summer months. A heat stroke can be serious and have lifelong effects.
Your young athlete can have his/her ability to enjoy sports destroyed by leftover symptoms of heat stroke. They are serious.
Carrying a bottle of water is certainly not a bad habit for younger athletes. Eating the right foods at the proper time allows their bodies to be rehydrated before, during, and after playing their sports.
Not surprisingly, watermelon is perhaps the most obvious food choice that both nourishes and hydrates. Watermelon is considered a fruit, and is over 90% water, with low sugar content.
Grapefruit, strawberries, cantaloupe, grapes, honeydew, oranges, peaches, pears, and pineapple all also contain similar amounts of water and are fruits most kids will eat. Fruits are important as they can be digested easily and with lower body heat created.
Maybe less appealing to a youth athlete’s palette but no less rehydrating are many vegetables such as cucumber, zucchini, and carrots.
You can throw some combination of these vegetables, the fruits, ice, and coconut water, or even just plain water into a blender and you have one super-hydrating hopefully good-tasting summer beverage for young athletes.
Creating A Healthy Diet For Your Young Athlete
For the all-day sessions when your athlete won’t be home for a snack, or to rest, he/she will need some actual nutrition, beyond fruit or their rehydrating drink from the thermos brought from home.
A bowl of salad with lean protein sprinkled on top can be a good meal, and not make them nauseous, or sick to their stomach.
Whole-grain cereals, bread, along with different kinds of pasta can also serve your young athlete well. By staying cool for digestion and adding the carbs that keep energy levels up.
Finding what works for each athlete’s digestive system and taste preferences can be a bit trying at first. These kids are learning about nutrition just as they are learning the rules of the game they are playing.
Helping Young Athletes Stay Healthy In The Summertime.
Carbohydrates should be the primary source of energy for your young athletes. This will supply the energy needed while they are participating in activities that call for higher intensity energy.
For healthy carbohydrate food sources, you should include fruits, vegetables, whole-grain cereals, pasta, and bread. These are the foods that will keep your child supplied with energy.
Don’t forget that protein plays a key role in young athletes’ muscle repair and growth.
The preferred sources of protein include lean meats, eggs, and dairy products including yogurt, milk, as well as cottage cheese. An important protein is found in legumes.
Fat also plays a key role in helping young athletes meet their energy needs. Due to the age these kids are, they will need to support healthy hormone levels.
Healthy sources of fat include nuts, nut butter, avocados, and both olive and coconut oils.
It is recommended that the use of vegetable oils such as corn, cottonseed, or soybean oil be limited. The healthier choices will serve them well as they are building healthy bodies.
Sun Blocking Clothing And Sun Safe Habits Keep Young Athletes Safe From Sunburn.
If your young athlete has a choice in what he/she wears to practice in, help them make choices that will keep them sun safe. A sun blocking hat is the start of any sun blocking wardrobe. However, he probably won’t get to wear his sun-safe hat during practice.
Having it in his sports bag can help keep him from sunburn during times they are waiting. His sunglasses are also important for sun protection.
Practice times usually allow little downtime, but talking about looking for shade may make your youngster realize there are trees that make shade where he can get out of the direct sun. Often is it too hot to sit in the shade of the building, or fence.
Do they need a pop-up tent? Could he/she use the one that is there?
Make him/her aware of what he/she can do about protecting his/her skin. He/she is just beginning their sports journey. Participating in outdoor sports can expose your skin year after year. Being able to realize that they can protect their skin is important.
Protecting their skin is the “pound of prevention’ that is so important to become a habit. Being the parent of a younger athlete is a journey. Learning your sport is where you start. Keeping your body healthy will allow you to enjoy what you are playing.
Eating cooler digesting foods and protecting your skin is a start to a healthy life for your athlete.
Sami’s Take On Foods Can Make Young Athletes Cooler In The Summertime
Knowing how you can help your young athlete grow in his/her skill level, as well as keeping a healthy body is important for them to excel in their sports.
Can they do this without a proper diet? Maybe. But why make it harder than it has to be. Help your child feel well during practice and game times.
Ask him/her questions about how the practice sessions went. Was there a loss of energy? What about a time of an upset stomach because the food for snacking or even a packed lunch was hard to digest?
Did your child felt faint or weak? This kind of healthy eating will be new. You will need to work together on what is working for him/her and what isn’t.
This is different from little league and there are more opportunities for your child to gain self-confidence by being as good as he/she can be in their sport.
Having a healthy body keeps your young athlete able to stay safe from getting too hot. Heat-related issues can get your youngster off to a slow start and allow the advancement that could be made without the setback.
A sunburn can cause your young athlete to be at higher risk for heat-induced conditions. Keep everyone safe from the sun to reduce heat-related issues. Talke to your young athlete about looking for shade during downtimes.
Your kids are getting old enough to want to take better care of themselves. They know that a healthy body is important for their sports career. From start to finish.
Talking To Your Young Athlete
Talking your child through all the changes that being a young athlete will bring, starts with helping him/her express themselves.
Help them have the words to describe any heat discomfort they may be having. The same for sun danger to their skin. Give the words to describe what is happening so they can be protected and stay healthier.
This will not be a one-time conversation, but it is a start to helping your young athletes stay healthy and safe.
Good luck as you are all trying to learn new safer habits.