2. 2
Table of contents
Information about Nutrition………………………………………………………3
Hydration…………………………………………………………………………………..5
How to find own Nutritional needs…………………………………………….6
Weekly Planning………………………………………………………………………..7
Supplements………………………………………………………………………………9
Sample Menu……………………………………………………………………………10
References……………………………………………………………………………….11
3. 3
Nutritional Information
Nutritional needs will be broken down into Macronutrients and Micronutrients, which are
equally as important to your nutritional needs. In this section they both will be defined and
given specific requirements for a collegiate softball player.
Macronutrients
Macronutrients are significantly important to one’s diet, and there are three kinds:
carbohydrates, protein and fats.
Protein
Protein is the primary structure for every cell in the human body, they are essential for growth
and development. Protein is composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. They are
made up of Amino Acids, which means nitrogen containing. There are twenty different kinds
that are broken down into essential, non-essential and conditionally essential. The higher
quality proteins are easier to digest such as animal products of eggs, dairy, meats, fish and
proteins. Soy and other plant based proteins contain the correct essential amino acids but are
less digestible. While the average protein intake for adults is .80 grams (per kg of bodyweight)
of good-high quality proteins, being an athlete you should get between 1.2-1.7 grams per
kilogram of bodyweight. Another way of measure how much protein should be eaten in a diet is
between 10-35%, being an athlete it should be on the higher side of that.
4. 4
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are the PRIMARY source of energy, it is not however an essential nutrient
because it can be broken down and made from amino acids. This should be a large energy
source for you being an athlete. They are composed of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.
Carbohydrates are broken down into sugar molecules, in which there are three.
Monosaccharides are the simplest form of sugar, examples is glucose, fructose, and galactose.
Disaccharides are made of two sugar molecules such as sucrose, lactose and maltose.
Polysaccharides are made up of three or more sugar molecules like starch, fiber and glycogen.
Glycogen is the stored form of sugar, and is commonly found in the liver and muscles. This
means you will always have stored energy.
Fats
Fat or lipids is the other form of energy. It is also made from carbon, oxygen and hydrogen, but
because of the fatty acid chains it has more carbon and hydrogen compared to the oxygen
which is where the energy comes from. There are multiple forms of fats. Saturated fat is one of
the worst kinds, with no double bonds and is solid at room temperature. they are used for
structural functions and physiological functions. There is no daily requirement for saturated
fats. There are a few unsaturated fats, they have some carbon and are joined by double bonds.
When they only have one double bond it is called monounsaturated fat, and with two or more
is called polyunsaturated fat. Examples of essential fats that are polyunsaturated is omega-6
and omega-3 fatty acids. Omega six is found in soy, corn, safflower oil. Omega-3 is found in
fatty fish like salmon, herring, halibut, trout and mackerel. Stored energy from fat is found in
adipose tissue. Fat is also associated with cholesterol. There is two kinds of cholesterol, low
density lipoproteins or LDLs and high density lipoproteins or HDLs. LDLs are associated with
heart disease and HDLs are protective against heart disease.
Micronutrients
Micronutrients are required in the diet in small doses in order for survival. I will talk about
vitamin and minerals.
Vitamins
Vitamins are organic substances needed in small doses to perform metabolic activities. There
are water soluble such as vitamins B and C. This means they dissolve in water and are
transported in the blood. What is not needed of vitamins is excreted in the urine. There are also
fat soluble vitamins which are carried in fat in the blood and stored in fat tissues, such as
vitamins A, D, E and K.
5. 5
Minerals
Minerals are also small and contribute to metabolic functions but contribute to bone, teeth and
nails more often. This also includes electrolytes of sodium, potassium and chloride. However
there are two very important minerals for athletes, Iron and Calcium. Iron is essential for
hemoglobin (protein in the blood), iron is important for growth, development, cell functioning
and syntheses or functioning of hormones. When low in Iron, an athlete could become anemic
causing some complications such as fatigue, irritability, poor concentration, headache, hair loss
and more. Women are more susceptible to this. Another important mineral is Calcium. Calcium
is important to bone growth and important for proper muscle function.
Hydration
Hydration is something an athlete should worry about at all times, including while at practice. A
loss of even 2% of bodyweight can have affect athletic performance. Intake of water should be
between 3.7-2.7 Liters of fluids per day for both men and women. In addition to fluids athletes
should also be concerned about their electrolyte intake which includes magnesium, sodium,
potassium, chloride and calcium. This is because a lot of sodium is lost in sweat loss. This can be
found in sports drinks. During exercise of over sixty minutes a person should intake nine ounces
of cold water or salted beverage, every twenty minutes. After an athlete should have had 1.5
liters over twelve hours after their workout.
6. 6
How to Find My Own Needs
Each person can find out how many of each macronutrient they need base off of their height,
weight and activity level, here’s how.
First find Ideal bodyweight. For females start at 5 foot, is around 106 pounds, and for every inch
you are add 6 more pounds to that. For example, if you are 5’6” your ideal weight is 142 lbs.
Now subtract your actual weight from your ideal weight. If I am 155 lbs, my ideal weight is 142
lbs, the total is 13. Multiply that number (13) by 25%. That is how much muscle in your body.
Add that number to your ideal weight that equals the weight you should use. For example
142+3.25=145.25lbs. To see if you need to adjust your weight divided that number by ideal, and
if it is over 130% then you need to use your ideal body weight and not your adjusted body
weight. For example 145.25/142=102%, so I will use my adjusted body weight.
Next we will find total energy needs using mets. Play softball for one hour is roughly a 5.9,
multiply that by how long you play and by weight in kilograms. (Weight from pounds to
kilograms, is to take weight in pounds and divide by 2.2) For example: 5.9 x 2 hrs x 66kg=779
calories burned. Now roughly do a rest of the day activity, an example 1 MET x 22 hrs x
66kg=1452 calories burned the rest of the day. Add those together for total energy needs,
779+1452=2301.
Another way for total energy needs is using the Harris-Benedict equation; this is the amount of
calories if you did nothing for a whole day. For females the equation is 655.09 + (9.53 X weight
in kg) + (1.84 X height in cm) – (4.67 X age). An example would be: 655.09 + (9.53 x66) + (1.84 X
167.64) – (4.67 X 22) = 1490 calories per day. From there take this number and multiply it by an
activity factor. This should be your best guess off the chart below; I will use 1.5 for this
example. It should look like this: 1490 x 1.5 = 2235. For a better estimate use the total energy
needs from mets and average it with this one, like so; (2235 + 2301)/2 = 2268.
7. 7
From there we will break this average calorie need into Macronutrients. For an athlete of your
type you should consume at minimum 50% of it carbohydrates, 25% protein and 25% fats. From
the example being used it should look like this, Carbs: 1134, Protein: 567 and Fats: 567. From
there we can break it down into grams per serving, there is four grams per serving in both
carbohydrates and proteins, and nine grams for fats, it should be something like this; Carbs: 284
grams, Protein: 142 grams and Fats: 63 grams. If you do not want to measure in grams you can
do servings, there is 15 grams of carbs in one serving, 7 grams of protein in one serving of
protein and 5 grams per serving of fats; it will look something like, 19 servings of carbs, 20
servings of protein and 12 servings of protein. Refer to chart below for suggestions of both.
Nutritional Week Plan
When planning your week, you need to look ahead to what activities are coming up. If you are
in post season, and are lifting and conditioning 4 days a week, you need to make sure
nutritional and hydration needs are met. Things to look at is should you carbohydrate load
before a hard workout or a game, or just get enough of your protein in after you workout. It is
also important that you eat your protein with a carbohydrate after working out; the
carbohydrate-protein ratio should be 3:1. Another way to look at this is that you should
consume 1.0-1.85g of carbohydrates per kilogram of bodyweight between 15-60minutes after
exercise and continue through five hours. Also 20-30grams of protein should be eaten every 3-4
hours.
As mentioned above an option is carbohydrate loading. Carbohydrate loading is when an
athlete will increase carbohydrates, in order to store them as glycogen to later use them as
energy in their competition. This could be done before game day, competition day of practice
or when exercise will last longer than 90 minutes. It can be done by starting two or three days
prior, exercising with little to no carbohydrates, followed by three days of rest while eating
carbohydrates. However participating in carbohydrate loading can increase injury, so be very
careful.
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Carbohydrates seem to dictate the diet for an athlete so there are more important things to
think about when taking carbohydrates. The best type of carbohydrate for an athlete is a
mixture between high and low glycemic indexes. High glycemic index is best for an athlete
immediately following a workout, this means it will digest quickly and typically is higher in
sugar. High glycemic index carbs should not be taken prior to 45 minutes of exercise. Low
glycemic index carbohydrates breakdown over time to digest slowly, and are perfect for the
rest of the diet. As briefly mentioned in the hydration section, you should also be ingesting high
glycemic carbohydrates during prolonged exercise.
9. 9
Supplements
There are thousands of supplements on the market; the best way to tell what is legal or not
legal is to check with the NCAA or your athletic trainer. However, many supplements are legal,
like protein bars, protein powders, beverage mixes for hydration, and creatine. This does also
include vitamins and minerals. At has been said that many females could benefit from an iron
supplement but is by no means required. It is always important to ask a doctor or athletic
trainer before taking any supplements. A common supplement is caffeine which can help with
muscle twitch fibers, and some athletes says it “hypes” them for the workout ahead, however
you only need 3-9mg/kg of body weight.
Sample Menu
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Breakfast (8am)
2 eggs cooked to liking
1 cup oatmeal with 2 tbsp. of peanut butter
4 oz of apple juice
3 servings of protein, 2 servings of carbohydrates, 3 servings of fat
AM Snack (10 am)
1 small apple
1 slice of cheese
1 carbohydrates, 1 protein, 1 fat
Lunch (noon)
Turkey sandwich: two slices of bread, 1 tsp of yellow mustard, ½ cup of spinach, 8 slices of
turkey lunchmeat
½ of a bell pepper with 2 tbsp. of hummus.
8 oz of orange jucie
2 carbohydrates, 2 protein, 2 fat
Postworkout (3 pm)
Peanut Butter Jelly Sandwich
8oz of 2% Chocolate milk
3 fat, 4 carbohydrates, 2 protein
Dinner (5pm)
6 oz of grilled, skinless and boneless chicken breast
1 cup of brown rice
1 cup steamed broccoli with 1tsp. of butter
5 servings of protein, 4 carbohydrates, 1 fat
Snack (8pm)
1 cup cottage cheese
1 banana
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Starting with numbers used above of 19 servings of carbohydrates, 20 servings of protein and
12 serving of fats, this menu hits 17 servings of carbohydrates, 20 servings of protein and 11
servings of fats. Remember to drink plenty of water in between and with meals.
References
Triplett, N. Travis. "Basic Nutrition Factors in Health." Essentials of Strength Training and
Conditioning. By G.Gregory Haff. 4th ed. Colorado Springs: Human Kinetics, 2015. 175-245.
Print.
Brown, Judy. (2011). Nutrition through the LifeCycle (4th edition). Wadsworth/Cenegage
Pbulishing.
"Nutrition and Performance Resources." NCAA. NCAA, May 2008. Web. 20 Apr. 2016.
<www.ncaa.org/health-and-saftey/nutrition-and-performance/nutrition-and-performance-
resources>.
