Kevin Elder, MD discusses nutrition for athletes.
Learn more about BayCare's sports medicine services
You Are What You Eat: Nutrition for Athletes
Featured Speaker:
Dr. Elder is an affiliate associate professor at the University of South Florida and an affiliate assistant professor at Florida State University. He also serves as a volunteer faculty preceptor for Bayfront Medical Center and Morton Plant Mease family practice residencies primary care sports medicine fellowship programs.
Learn more about Kevin Elder, MD
Kevin Elder, MD
Dr. Kevin Elder is board certified in family practice with a Certificate of Added Qualifications in sports medicine. He completed his family practice residency and sports medicine fellowship at Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg, Florida. Dr. Elder is currently the team physician for U.S. Soccer and the U.S. Ski Team. He served as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers team physician for five years and is still involved in a variety of professional, collegiate and high school programs.Dr. Elder is an affiliate associate professor at the University of South Florida and an affiliate assistant professor at Florida State University. He also serves as a volunteer faculty preceptor for Bayfront Medical Center and Morton Plant Mease family practice residencies primary care sports medicine fellowship programs.
Learn more about Kevin Elder, MD
Transcription:
You Are What You Eat: Nutrition for Athletes
Introduction: This is BayCare HealthChat, another podcast from BayCare Health System. Here's Melanie Cole.
Melanie Cole: Welcome to BayCare HealthChat. I'm Melanie Cole. Today we're discussing nutrition for athletes. Joining me is Dr. Kevin Elder. He's Board Certified in Sports Medicine and Family Medicine at BayCare. Dr. Elder, it's a pleasure to have you back with us again as nutritional needs for an athlete are one thing but versus everyday eating. Tell us a little bit about the biggest difference as far as caloric intake, when we're talking about athletes versus our regular everyday people?
Dr. Elder: Athletes are going to have particular demands of their sport which might not only include what sport they're playing and the relative demand to that sport, but also potentially environmental demands of the sport. For example, if they're an Alpine skier and they're in an Alpine environment, they might have certain increased calorie expenditure just dealing with that altitude for example, and have to account for those with extra calories. Also if they're exercising in a very hot environment or whatever that particular demands of their sport is, and depending on the sport, if it's more of an endurance sport, it might require a certain set of caloric needs versus a sport that's more sprinting or quick based type activities. So very particular diets can exist. In general, I would say that there are increased caloric needs when you're expending a lot of calories. You know, athletes need to maintain their strength, they need to maintain their fuel, and certainly it's going to be a different caloric need than somebody who's not doing those kind of elite type performance. Or even at a non-elite level, let's say high school or even collegiate level athletes are going to certainly have increased caloric needs versus someone who's not doing those activities.
Host: So I'm glad you brought up high school and collegiate because with elite athletes, obviously they work with nutritionists and dietitians and they set their caloric intake and they know what they have to do to get to where they are. But for athletes at the high school and collegiate levels or even our little guys, how can proper nutrition, if it can, help these athletes and possibly even increase their performance. Tell us about some of the key nutrients that they need to know about that maybe they don't?
Dr. Elder: Sure. Well the basically the key nutrients are going to be broken down into a few basic categories. We hear about carbohydrates, proteins, fats being some of these predominant categories, also vitamins and minerals. And then probably not exactly in that category, but also very important is water in and of itself. So just to break it down, you know, carbohydrate, you have simple and complex carbohydrates, protein of course there's various sources of protein, be it meat-based or plant-based proteins. And then fats, there's unsaturated or saturated fats. And then vitamins, we have a variety of and minerals the same. And so looking at these particular needs for the particular athlete, and you mentioned the little guys or even high school athlete, they still may be growing. So they're going to have to account for that as well with their caloric intake and also looking at their nutrients.
Host: So let's talk about eating on a day to day basis before workouts, after workouts. I know it depends, as you said on environmental factors. Heat if it's hot outside or if it's cold outside, if they're a long distance runner. I know this is very sports specific, but if you were to give general advice about eating for athletes and you were to say, you know, a good breakfast includes this, a good lunch and a good after workout snack or beverage, these are what we will want you to eat. Can you give that a little bit of a day to day for us, Dr. Elder?
Dr. Elder: In general, when we talk about the categories around 55 to 60% carbohydrates, 30% fats, and 10 to 15% protein. The proteins can be based on, as far as finding the amount, one to two grams per kilogram per day and somebody could do that calculation for example. That might again differ depending on their particular activity. Water, the kind of eight, I guess the rule of eights, eight glasses of eight ounces per day for sport participation and of course supplementing more if need be. You know some specifics as far as what particular things would vary based on the training program, but in general before exercise you want to focus on something that is not going to cause any kind of stomach or GI upset. So sometimes that might involve a little bit more of a simple type carbohydrate, nothing really complex that has a lot of fiber and the gut has a hard time to break it down. For some people this means a sports type drink or something along that lines just because it's easier to take in, but it doesn't have to be that.
It could be a simpler snack, maybe some bananas and peanut butter or something like that. As far as after competition, we want to focus on not only replenishing those carbohydrates but also getting some protein in and after exercise we have sometimes referred to as the golden hour where we're trying to replenish our glycogen stores and we're trying to replace our carbohydrate stores. So a mixture of the carbohydrates along with some protein and of course fluids and trying to get those back in. And you'd have a variety of options there. You know, maybe some again you know, some type of sports drink with protein we could have some chocolate milk is actually a really great option and simple. I'm always kind of a little bit amused when you see you know, especially high school people, you know athletes and they're drinking these really expensive sports drinks. Like they're going to blow up into a Hulk the next day or something. And I think we can do it much more simply and much more cheaply, frankly, by just using what we have available.
Host: Well, I completely agree and that's great advice. And, and I know the American College of Sports Medicine has even been recommending chocolate milk for quite a while. And you know what? It's great. It's got protein and antioxidants. It's great for the kids. So now as we talk about all of that stuff during their workouts before or after, if high school, especially in college, they're looking, as you said, to bulk up to the Hulk the next day. And they're looking at protein powders. They're looking at supplementation, protein shakes, protein bars. My gosh, there's so many of them. Vitamins. What do you say to athletes that come to you and say, should I be drinking this whey powder every day before my workouts? Should I be, you know, using these supplementation products to help me get bigger, faster, stronger?
Dr. Elder: I think it just depends on the particular needs of athlete. If they are trying to bulk up there may be some benefit in them taking or supplementing some additional protein. I think the key is how much, the tendency is to overshoot the mark and you can find plenty of kind of farcical videos about, you know, people taking crazy amounts of protein powder. And really you take too much protein and the body's just going to have to get rid of it. Which can be unpleasant. And also, you know, might make the athlete feel worse and then you're kind of a detriment to their performance, but certainly supplementing some protein to help with muscle growth is good. You know, common supplements that are often with these powders. Sometimes you hear about creatine and this can have some benefit as far as muscle recovery.
In general speaking generally, you know, if you're accounting for proper hydration and not taking you know, ridiculous amounts, creatine may have some benefit as far as recovery. And so thus if we're trying to recover and get back to a workout sooner, this might indirectly help with muscle building. So there are options. I think that the key is to, as you mentioned, the American College of Sports Medicine, probably having the athletes speak with their sports medicine specialists or their pediatrician or a trusted source, maybe looking at some of these online sources, maybe not necessarily asking the guy in the vitamin store what they should be doing.
Host: That's really great advice. It's a very good point that you just made. So now let's talk about first of all, traveling on the road. A lot of travel sports are going on, snacks on the road. And then if you would briefly talk about carbo-loading. I as an exercise physiologist, Dr. Elder, I've been asked about this for 30 years, should I be doing this before my event? Does it depend on the event? Tell the listeners what you want them to know about eating for the event itself, about pre eating and getting themselves ready for whatever event it is.
Dr. Elder: Right. So I think carbo-loading and eating for the event is very important and the key is it starts not just an hour or two hours, but really probably even the day before. You know, the morning before, the day before the event. And what you're doing is you're trying to get a good cupboard full of supplies for the body to draw from, for the activity, is the way I would look at this. When I've worked with various sports teams and my experience with working with the NFL and then also National teams, US soccer, US ski team, you know, this is what you see with all of these type of teams. You know, that have, as you mentioned, these full-time nutritionists, they know the value of these things. And their sports physiology staff knows the value of these things. To get in all these levels of, you know, your proteins, carbohydrates, fats.
As you're getting closer to the event, you certainly don't want to have as much complex carbs that the body's having to try to process. Because then you're getting into kind of performance. You've got the cupboard full and you're kind of ready to go, but you maybe need some final topping off of the glycogen stores and you want to make sure you're ready to just kind of go and not have anything get in your way. And of course hydration, you know, hydration's kind of, pre-hydration is the way I look at it. You don't want to show up to their event and they're dehydrated because the day before they spent too much time outside and they got a little bit dehydrated. So I think it's really, you bring up a good point. It's about planning and thinking about how do we get ready to go for this?
Host: Well, it's certainly so important. And thank you for explaining that because I know it can be quite confusing. As we wrap up, give us your best advice for nutrition for our athletes including caloric needs and why it's so important that depending on their sport and the environment that they increase those caloric needs with good healthy choices that will really work for them and make them better at their sport?
Dr. Elder: The saying that gets used is garbage in, garbage out, right? So if we want to make sure that we have good intake and good fuel and then we're going to have better performance, you're not going to take your high performance sports car as an athlete might think of themselves, and put in some kerosene for fuel or some low grade fuel. You want to think about appropriate fuel. Certain athletes might have particular desires or needs. They might have certain dietary restrictions for some reason that they personally have or through their own self. But there's ways to work with that and that's where thinking about it, it takes some effort, especially it takes more effort if they have those restrictions. But having appropriate caloric intake and thinking about the activity, pre-hydrating, you know, if they're eating healthy, they might not need to supplement any additional vitamins. But if they're missing something in their diet for some reason, that might be a reason to supplement additionally. And then looking out for things like Vitamin D can be a common deficient vitamin and this can have a lot of effects for athletes. So again, I think this gets back to thinking about it sometimes worth having a conversation when a young athlete especially might be in for a checkup. Sometimes there's some reasons to check levels, Vitamin D deficiency for example, is very common. But otherwise having an open mind to trying some things, trying a variety of different things to keep it fun, you know, so you're not feeling like you've been assigned some vitamin tablet gruel to eat every time. And you know, there's plenty of variety available in foods to get all our nutrients.
Host: Thank you so much. You're certainly right. And thank you for joining us today. And that concludes this episode of BayCare HealthChat. To learn more about BayCare Sports Medicine services, please visit our website at BayCare.org for more information and to get connected with one of our providers. Please remember to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast and all the other BayCare podcasts for more health tips such as this. Follow us on your social channels. I'm Melanie Cole.
You Are What You Eat: Nutrition for Athletes
Introduction: This is BayCare HealthChat, another podcast from BayCare Health System. Here's Melanie Cole.
Melanie Cole: Welcome to BayCare HealthChat. I'm Melanie Cole. Today we're discussing nutrition for athletes. Joining me is Dr. Kevin Elder. He's Board Certified in Sports Medicine and Family Medicine at BayCare. Dr. Elder, it's a pleasure to have you back with us again as nutritional needs for an athlete are one thing but versus everyday eating. Tell us a little bit about the biggest difference as far as caloric intake, when we're talking about athletes versus our regular everyday people?
Dr. Elder: Athletes are going to have particular demands of their sport which might not only include what sport they're playing and the relative demand to that sport, but also potentially environmental demands of the sport. For example, if they're an Alpine skier and they're in an Alpine environment, they might have certain increased calorie expenditure just dealing with that altitude for example, and have to account for those with extra calories. Also if they're exercising in a very hot environment or whatever that particular demands of their sport is, and depending on the sport, if it's more of an endurance sport, it might require a certain set of caloric needs versus a sport that's more sprinting or quick based type activities. So very particular diets can exist. In general, I would say that there are increased caloric needs when you're expending a lot of calories. You know, athletes need to maintain their strength, they need to maintain their fuel, and certainly it's going to be a different caloric need than somebody who's not doing those kind of elite type performance. Or even at a non-elite level, let's say high school or even collegiate level athletes are going to certainly have increased caloric needs versus someone who's not doing those activities.
Host: So I'm glad you brought up high school and collegiate because with elite athletes, obviously they work with nutritionists and dietitians and they set their caloric intake and they know what they have to do to get to where they are. But for athletes at the high school and collegiate levels or even our little guys, how can proper nutrition, if it can, help these athletes and possibly even increase their performance. Tell us about some of the key nutrients that they need to know about that maybe they don't?
Dr. Elder: Sure. Well the basically the key nutrients are going to be broken down into a few basic categories. We hear about carbohydrates, proteins, fats being some of these predominant categories, also vitamins and minerals. And then probably not exactly in that category, but also very important is water in and of itself. So just to break it down, you know, carbohydrate, you have simple and complex carbohydrates, protein of course there's various sources of protein, be it meat-based or plant-based proteins. And then fats, there's unsaturated or saturated fats. And then vitamins, we have a variety of and minerals the same. And so looking at these particular needs for the particular athlete, and you mentioned the little guys or even high school athlete, they still may be growing. So they're going to have to account for that as well with their caloric intake and also looking at their nutrients.
Host: So let's talk about eating on a day to day basis before workouts, after workouts. I know it depends, as you said on environmental factors. Heat if it's hot outside or if it's cold outside, if they're a long distance runner. I know this is very sports specific, but if you were to give general advice about eating for athletes and you were to say, you know, a good breakfast includes this, a good lunch and a good after workout snack or beverage, these are what we will want you to eat. Can you give that a little bit of a day to day for us, Dr. Elder?
Dr. Elder: In general, when we talk about the categories around 55 to 60% carbohydrates, 30% fats, and 10 to 15% protein. The proteins can be based on, as far as finding the amount, one to two grams per kilogram per day and somebody could do that calculation for example. That might again differ depending on their particular activity. Water, the kind of eight, I guess the rule of eights, eight glasses of eight ounces per day for sport participation and of course supplementing more if need be. You know some specifics as far as what particular things would vary based on the training program, but in general before exercise you want to focus on something that is not going to cause any kind of stomach or GI upset. So sometimes that might involve a little bit more of a simple type carbohydrate, nothing really complex that has a lot of fiber and the gut has a hard time to break it down. For some people this means a sports type drink or something along that lines just because it's easier to take in, but it doesn't have to be that.
It could be a simpler snack, maybe some bananas and peanut butter or something like that. As far as after competition, we want to focus on not only replenishing those carbohydrates but also getting some protein in and after exercise we have sometimes referred to as the golden hour where we're trying to replenish our glycogen stores and we're trying to replace our carbohydrate stores. So a mixture of the carbohydrates along with some protein and of course fluids and trying to get those back in. And you'd have a variety of options there. You know, maybe some again you know, some type of sports drink with protein we could have some chocolate milk is actually a really great option and simple. I'm always kind of a little bit amused when you see you know, especially high school people, you know athletes and they're drinking these really expensive sports drinks. Like they're going to blow up into a Hulk the next day or something. And I think we can do it much more simply and much more cheaply, frankly, by just using what we have available.
Host: Well, I completely agree and that's great advice. And, and I know the American College of Sports Medicine has even been recommending chocolate milk for quite a while. And you know what? It's great. It's got protein and antioxidants. It's great for the kids. So now as we talk about all of that stuff during their workouts before or after, if high school, especially in college, they're looking, as you said, to bulk up to the Hulk the next day. And they're looking at protein powders. They're looking at supplementation, protein shakes, protein bars. My gosh, there's so many of them. Vitamins. What do you say to athletes that come to you and say, should I be drinking this whey powder every day before my workouts? Should I be, you know, using these supplementation products to help me get bigger, faster, stronger?
Dr. Elder: I think it just depends on the particular needs of athlete. If they are trying to bulk up there may be some benefit in them taking or supplementing some additional protein. I think the key is how much, the tendency is to overshoot the mark and you can find plenty of kind of farcical videos about, you know, people taking crazy amounts of protein powder. And really you take too much protein and the body's just going to have to get rid of it. Which can be unpleasant. And also, you know, might make the athlete feel worse and then you're kind of a detriment to their performance, but certainly supplementing some protein to help with muscle growth is good. You know, common supplements that are often with these powders. Sometimes you hear about creatine and this can have some benefit as far as muscle recovery.
In general speaking generally, you know, if you're accounting for proper hydration and not taking you know, ridiculous amounts, creatine may have some benefit as far as recovery. And so thus if we're trying to recover and get back to a workout sooner, this might indirectly help with muscle building. So there are options. I think that the key is to, as you mentioned, the American College of Sports Medicine, probably having the athletes speak with their sports medicine specialists or their pediatrician or a trusted source, maybe looking at some of these online sources, maybe not necessarily asking the guy in the vitamin store what they should be doing.
Host: That's really great advice. It's a very good point that you just made. So now let's talk about first of all, traveling on the road. A lot of travel sports are going on, snacks on the road. And then if you would briefly talk about carbo-loading. I as an exercise physiologist, Dr. Elder, I've been asked about this for 30 years, should I be doing this before my event? Does it depend on the event? Tell the listeners what you want them to know about eating for the event itself, about pre eating and getting themselves ready for whatever event it is.
Dr. Elder: Right. So I think carbo-loading and eating for the event is very important and the key is it starts not just an hour or two hours, but really probably even the day before. You know, the morning before, the day before the event. And what you're doing is you're trying to get a good cupboard full of supplies for the body to draw from, for the activity, is the way I would look at this. When I've worked with various sports teams and my experience with working with the NFL and then also National teams, US soccer, US ski team, you know, this is what you see with all of these type of teams. You know, that have, as you mentioned, these full-time nutritionists, they know the value of these things. And their sports physiology staff knows the value of these things. To get in all these levels of, you know, your proteins, carbohydrates, fats.
As you're getting closer to the event, you certainly don't want to have as much complex carbs that the body's having to try to process. Because then you're getting into kind of performance. You've got the cupboard full and you're kind of ready to go, but you maybe need some final topping off of the glycogen stores and you want to make sure you're ready to just kind of go and not have anything get in your way. And of course hydration, you know, hydration's kind of, pre-hydration is the way I look at it. You don't want to show up to their event and they're dehydrated because the day before they spent too much time outside and they got a little bit dehydrated. So I think it's really, you bring up a good point. It's about planning and thinking about how do we get ready to go for this?
Host: Well, it's certainly so important. And thank you for explaining that because I know it can be quite confusing. As we wrap up, give us your best advice for nutrition for our athletes including caloric needs and why it's so important that depending on their sport and the environment that they increase those caloric needs with good healthy choices that will really work for them and make them better at their sport?
Dr. Elder: The saying that gets used is garbage in, garbage out, right? So if we want to make sure that we have good intake and good fuel and then we're going to have better performance, you're not going to take your high performance sports car as an athlete might think of themselves, and put in some kerosene for fuel or some low grade fuel. You want to think about appropriate fuel. Certain athletes might have particular desires or needs. They might have certain dietary restrictions for some reason that they personally have or through their own self. But there's ways to work with that and that's where thinking about it, it takes some effort, especially it takes more effort if they have those restrictions. But having appropriate caloric intake and thinking about the activity, pre-hydrating, you know, if they're eating healthy, they might not need to supplement any additional vitamins. But if they're missing something in their diet for some reason, that might be a reason to supplement additionally. And then looking out for things like Vitamin D can be a common deficient vitamin and this can have a lot of effects for athletes. So again, I think this gets back to thinking about it sometimes worth having a conversation when a young athlete especially might be in for a checkup. Sometimes there's some reasons to check levels, Vitamin D deficiency for example, is very common. But otherwise having an open mind to trying some things, trying a variety of different things to keep it fun, you know, so you're not feeling like you've been assigned some vitamin tablet gruel to eat every time. And you know, there's plenty of variety available in foods to get all our nutrients.
Host: Thank you so much. You're certainly right. And thank you for joining us today. And that concludes this episode of BayCare HealthChat. To learn more about BayCare Sports Medicine services, please visit our website at BayCare.org for more information and to get connected with one of our providers. Please remember to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast and all the other BayCare podcasts for more health tips such as this. Follow us on your social channels. I'm Melanie Cole.