The nutritionists recommendations are sound, but no where near practical for most athletes.
“Athlete Calorie Hack:
Pack 3 PB’Js each day.
Eat 1/2 of each sandwich (1-2 bites, taking less than 10 seconds to consume) in the hallways between 6 classes, in conjunction with your lunch.
There’s an extra 1200cals per day without even trying.”
-Ray Zingler on Twitter
I used to do this all the time and to one up it, I would head to moms’ classroom after each class (I was fortunate enough to have her teach at my HS for a variety of reasons) because she had a fridge and guzzle a monumental amount of milk with my ½ sandwich before heading off to my next class, ensuring my sandwiches and gallon were gone by the end of the day.
A gallon of 2% milk comes in at right under 2,000 calories and the best part? You don’t even have to chew.
Another trick to increase protein intake without getting “too full” (what the heck does that mean as a kid, anyway?) was isolate protein powders.
I’d pack 6 baggies of Whey isolate and have a 25-50g shake, with my ½ sandwich in between each class.
This, very easily, brought my protein intake up to damn near 1g/per pound of bodyweight I “wanted to weigh” (a rule of thumb I recommend for all athletes) on shakes and pb&j’s alone.
Factor in my breakfast, lunches, dinners, and snacks, and yeah, I wasn’t a “hard gainer” anymore. Imagine that.
I’m not going to lie. It was a TON of work. And I am very thankful for my parents who not only funded the majority of these calories to help me achieve my goals as an adolescent, but also the backend expenses.
The plastic baggies, the toilet paper, the food prep, it’s a lot. A LOT.
Oh yeah, and then it comes to the real work of actually consuming the calories.
This is where most kids miss the boat.
Many kids have the support from their families to reach their goals (after all, eating like this, isn’t too terribly expensive, when you consider many pay $100/hour for their 7 year old to hit off a tee.)
But it’s up to the athlete to do the work. To eat. To overcome the “I don’t feel like it” bulls*it.
I’ll be honest, most of the time I HATED eating. Hated it. But I didn’t care how much I hated it because I knew it’s what it took to achieve my goals.
Find easy calories. Consume them. Train hard. Play hard.
It’s the way. It will always be the way.
