A day on a plate of a Hockey player!
By Sabbie Heesh
In light of the totally awesome new Ritual drink bottle, it seems like the perfect opportunity to share with you my day on a plate. A hockey players diet is lucky not to be as strict as some sports, however it does require planning and education around healthy choices to enhance your performance. Because being an athlete we must view food as the fuel for our competition.
One way we measure if we are on track with our nutrition is though skinfold testing. This measures body fat percentage. So you can imagine it is not a hugely popular test! However, this is a good guide to show if your nutrition is working to make sure you are in the best shape possible. We get measured on average every 6 weeks.
Although eating healthy always sounds easier than it really is, there are a number of challenges we face. These include but are not limited to body image issues, being on tour with different foods, having buffet every meal, having more down time than regular jobs (boredom eating) and exercising so much that you want to eat the whole house down. Of course not getting enough fuel in is also detrimental to performance, and is probably more common in the female game. But with all these challenges in mind we have the education to know what will give us the best chance to perform, and in recent years there has been a huge emphasis on protein! Protein shakes, paleo diet, raw snacks...
So here is an example of what I would eat in a day, and before and after exercise:
Breakfast: 3 scrambled eggs, with mushrooms on a piece of wholemeal toast
Snack: Carrot sticks with hummus
Before training: Half a can of Redbull
Lunch: a Chicken Salad or wrap (baby spinach, tomato, feta, roast pumpkin, beetroot)
Post training: Protein shake
Dinner: Salmon or steak with steamed or sautéed vegetable (sweet potato, broccoli, asparagus, beans)
Dessert: Handful of nuts
In saying this every now and then I will treat myself, but a key is just to have everything in moderation!
By Anna Flanagan
