You now know your body composition, which includes your body fat and lean muscle/bone content, or if you don’t, we can determine it real easy. You also know the range a healthy, young female athlete should strive for in regards to body fat percentage. This range is between 13 and 17 percent body fat. Now what should you do?

Your first goal is to determine your estimated ideal body weight. This may be done by using the following formula:

100

EXAMPLE: A runner weighs 130 lbs. Her body fat is estimated from skin fold calipers to be 25%. Her ideal body fat % is 16%. Her estimated ideal weight is calculated:

100

REMEMBER: THIS IS ONLY AN ESTIMATED GOAL FOR IDEAL HEALTH. EACH PERSON’S GOAL WILL VARY.

So, I know my goal weight. How do I reach it?

It's really quite simple. Exercise and good nutrition will help anyone reach their goal body weights and insure your best health and performance on and off the playing field. You are getting plenty of exercise in your training so lets look at good nutrition.

Good nutrition means eating a healthy balanced diet of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. It also mean eating portions no larger than 500 calories a meal and eating or snacking every 5 hours. It is recommended by many of the latest studies on athletes that a balance of 40% carbohydrates, 30% protein, and 30% fat be eaten. How do you do that?

First, avoid the fat. It is almost certain that if you eat a carb/protein balanced diet, that you will get the needed fat intake. Second, try hard to eat a balanced carb/protein diet. It's as simple as looking at the portion sizes and making sure that each portion will fit in the palm of your hand and they are each the same size. Read labels! Remember no more than 500 total calories for each meal.

The average female athlete needs between 1500 and 2000 calories a day. Any more than that and you will gain weight, less and you will lose weight. Of those calorie needs, the female athlete needs approximately 85 to 100 grams of protein or 500 to 700 calories from protein sources.

It is the recommended by many of the nutritional experts today, that female athletes focus on avoiding high fat foods, make sure they get the ideal protein need, and make sure that they have plenty of calcium and iron in their diet. That means eating the right foods.

BEST PROTEIN SOURCES: chicken and turkey breast

fish (tuna)

egg whites, egg substitutes

canadian bacon

lean beef

low fat cheese

low fat cottage cheese

firm tofu

soy burgers, sausage

BEST 1:1 Carb/Protein COMBOS nonfat and 1% milk (calcium also)

(good snacks) yogurt (not the sugary, fruit kind)

balance bars

PR Ironman bars

BEST CARBOHYDRATES fruits and vegetables (nothing new)

WORST CARBOHYDRATES fruit juices (high in calories)

breakfast cereals

(any high glycemic/sugar carbs)

Ever get that sleepy feeling after eating a big pasta dinner or a couple bowls of your favorite breakfast cereal. That feeling is technically called being HYPOGLYCEMIC, which simply means you have low blood sugar. Ideally, we want to avoid those feelings of highs and lows. We do that by not eating high carbohydrate (remember carbohydrates are sugars) snacks and meals without balancing them with a protein source to counteract the hypoglycemia. That’s why, yogurt, a glass of milk, a balance bar, some cottage cheese and fruit, or a turkey sandwich are better snacks than a candy bar or handful of cookies.