Football is finally over, my boys have done we, and we are back to the same questions, "how do I gain weight for next season?"
To anyone over the age of 35, this question seems silly, as weight gain seems to be what you are fighting, but to a teenage boy, who has a metabolism in over drive, it is a serious problem.
First of all junk food will do the job, but not in a positive way. You will gain weight but not a the right kind. Anytime you eat more, the weight you gain will be both muscle and fat, what is important is what percentage of fat and muscle you gain.
In order to keep the amount of muscle gained as the higher percentage of total weight gained, I suggest to my athletes that they stick to as much natural food as possible, and avoid processed foods the majority of the time.
The benefits of natural foods is they have natural controls built in, to control absorption of calories at a steady rate, high amounts of fiber help significantly. Fiber is most prevalently found in natural foods, and not very often in processed foods.
I suggest a diet high in protein and good sources of fat, combined with high fiber carbohydrate sources, such as brown rice, whole wheat pasta, and of course all the fruit and vegetables you can eat.
Good sources of fats would be from nuts, as in natural peanut butter, or cooking oils such as olive oil.
High protein is from any meat source, or eggs or milk (preferably whole, vitamin D milk)
A sample day would look like this:
- whole grain cereal with whole milk
- scrabbled eggs (whole eggs not egg whites)
- fruit (apple, orange, banana, etc)
- apple or banana with ample peanut butter
- whole wheat bread lunch meat sandwiches with cheese
- whole milk
- fruit and ample peanut butter
- mixed nut and dried fruit
- meat large portion
- whole wheat pasta or brown rice
- ample vegetables
- ice cream and fruit smoothie
