I have always had a lot of issues with nutrition, particularly getting enough calores in and that’s why I want to talk about nutrition. At a younger age I never thought about the importance of nutrition and ate whatever there was to eat, whether it was hot dogs or rice and chicken. At the time I didn’t care too much about my size or strength. The only thing I cared about was being fast on ice and handling a puck when it comes to keeping myself in shape. Many times I would go to training feeling exhausted, lacking energy and I never thought that nutrition would be the reason, but looking back at it now, it all makes sense. Lack of carbohydrates. I wasted so many years of hard work on ice and off ice, because of my nutrition. I tried to avoid eating too much rice or pasta and focused only on the meat products.

Bear this in mind, NUTRITION IS 80% of the process regardless of your sport. Majority of people don’t understand this and that’s why they don’t progress. Everyday, they go to the ice arena, football field or gym; wherever the training takes place and they train 110%, but they don’t eat enough and the training is mostly a waste. Normally an average metabolism rate is 2000kcal for a young athlete that trains atleast 4 times a week. That means that your body is burning 2000kcal everyday do nothing and if you add your training on top of that it’s +400kcal-1000kcal. Let’s say your about 5ft 9’/175cm and weigh 80kg, if you want to maintain and keep your muscles in same the shape your protein intake should be around 160g-200g. Now that’s about 600g of chicken and under a 1000kcal. That leaves you with 1400kcal-2000kcal that should come from rice,pasta,vegetables,drinks etc.

For a long time I thought that I ate enough, but when I did my research and noticed that I was still eating way too little, the struggle started to be real. In the beginning of the whole process, working out at the gym, I ate about 2500kcal-2700kcal and even with that amount I had difficulties. Now I’m getting about 3500kcal-4000kcal depending on workouts and if I’m having a tough day or not, but I’m definitely not lacking energy, my workouts are great and my body recovers way better than when I had a low calorie intake.