Liquid Meals for Athletic Performance

Between heavy training schedules, travel obligations for competition, and trying to create work-life balance, an athlete’s life is full of daily hurdles that can prevent them from consuming what’s needed to perform at the highest level. Often times, nutrition falls by the wayside and as a result we often see athletes experience high levels of lethargy, mood changes, and sleep disturbances. Consequentially, this spirals into under performance, poor training bouts, and a very high risk of injuries – sometimes career ending.

With this in mind, we want to point out that not all meals need to be sat down and eaten especially when time is of the essence. The same micro and macro nutrients essential to performance can be found in nutritionally sound shakes and smoothies made of quality ingredients from scratch.

 

Keep in mind, for a smoothie of optimal nutrition balance we want to ensure we have a few of the quality ingredients we would want to find in our meals:

Fats: avocados, hemp hearts, chia seeds, coconut oil, flax oil and nut butters.

Protein: cottage cheese, Greek Yogurt, milk, regular yogurt, Whey protein powders (we like Biosteel due to their Third-Party Testing for banned substances – crucial for our athletes).

Carbohydrates: cooked oatmeal, bananas, fruits of all variety (especially berries, bananas), vegetables such as spinach and kale are great low-carbohydrate, high fiber additions which will help keep you fuller longer.

Blend these shakes with water, milk, soy beverage, coconut water, or almond milk depending on preference.

Not sure where to start? Try this athlete approved smoothies and make substitutions as necessary!

Berry Delish:

1 cup milk
½ cup Greek yogurt
1 cup frozen berries
1 Tbsp psyllium husk
Ice

Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana:

1 cup milk
2 Tbsp peanut butter
1 banana (frozen)
1 Tbsp psyllium husk
1 Tbsp cocoa powder
Ice