The Traveling Athletes Nutrition Guide

Welcome to my blog! I am glad you found us. SO do you have a child, teenager, or maybe even yourself is a traveling athlete trying to eat right and get your nutrients in any way you can while on the road. Well I have an eight year old daughter who travels a little bit for dance competitions and will be traveling more as she gets older. I always try to get her to eat a good healthy snack or meal and take healthy snacks with her to her competitions and I was wondering if there were people out there who were going through the same thing. So here are some helpful tips and ideas to help you if you are struggling with the same thing I am.

 Traveling is a big part of life for young and adult athletes, however all this traveling does pose some struggling challenges. One challenge in particular is meeting your nutritional goals. Travelling for competition can often take on a “holiday” atmosphere by pushing good nutrition aside however, it’s very important to meet your nutritional needs and goals for training and competing.

Whether you’re travelling overseas, or just spending a couple of hours in a car, your aim is to arrive ready to perform at your best. But how do you accomplish this? Are you the athlete or are your kids? There are different tips for traveling overseas but first we will talk about just traveling local, maybe a plane, train, or automobile.  

The first tip I try to remember is to pack your own food. You can eat cheaper, healthier, and a lot more if you pack your own food, snacks, and drinks. Plan your meal/meals around your competition schedule. For example, if you arrive at your destination just a little before the competition, then have your meal on the trip, not when you arrive. This will be too late and you don’t want a full stomach doing any type of sport. Be mindful of traveling times. If you travel at night try to get some sleep and maybe have something lite due to not training and being active. Always be mindful of how much you’re eating and how much food you brought. The one thing you don’t want to do is run out of food. Use apps on your phone to figure out the best restaurants and places to stop along the way. Also, in addition to traveling, know some of the restaurants and places in the area of your destination. You might be able to stop before or after your competition and grab something. The best thing to remember is to plan ahead!

One way to stay on track for your nutritional needs is to bring a book or movie so you don’t get the “boredom” snack thing going and ruin all your hard work.  Some healthy snack ideas might be (depending on nutritional needs and diet restrictions) yogurt, peanut butter, fruit, trail mix, granola, crackers with hummus, vegetables with hummus, and beef jerky. Just to name a few. Here is a good recipe that I have found works in a pinch;

Chocolate Granola Mix

2 Cups of nuts (walnuts, almonds, and/or peanuts)

½ C of Craisins (No sugar added or Low sugar)

½ C of sunflower seeds

2 Cups of Choc. Granola

Mix all ingredients together in a small bag and store in an airtight container.

Try this cinnamon Apple Trail Mix

2 Cups of nuts

1 Cup of dried apples

½ Cup of pumpkin seeds

½ cup of semisweet choc. Chips

Little dash of cinnamon

Mix all together in a bag and store in an air tight container.       

Click to access NutritionTravellingAthlete.pdf

This is a good article (fact sheet) from the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team on nutrition and traveling. It has a lot of good information and follows what I have been saying. These are good tips also if you are traveling overseas. I personally haven’t traveled overseas for a competition, so I cannot honestly give any good advice in here but if you have please share your experience and tips, we would love to hear about it and get the scoop.  If I would have to guess the tips would be generally the same. Such as planning ahead, packing your own food, snacks, etc. checking your destination and what is around there. The main take away from this is to plan ahead and do your research as to where you are going and how long you will be gone. Oh and don’t forget about your pets either and make sure they are taken care of while you’re gone.

I hope this helps and I have given you some good, helpful tips while traveling for a competition. I made the mistake when I did a physique and beach body competition of not packing ANY food, snacks, or drinks! What was I thinking? I didn’t know and it was my first ever competition and I didn’t know what to expect, if we were allowed any food or drink inside the auditorium, and what to pack anyway. So I learned my lesson and from now on I pack more than I need. (Wife says I pack waaaaaayyy too much). But I learned and hopefully you will not make the same mistake I did.  As always, I wish you the best on your fitness journey and I hope you live the happiest, healthiest version of you, you can be!

Let me know if I can help in anyway, I am always looking for a new challenge and I always look forward to helping as many people as I can reach their goals.

Take Care,            Remember…..You Only Get One Body!…………Make The Change!

Darren