Recommended Carbohydrates, Proteins, Fats

Carbohydrates, proteins and fats are all important for your body, especially when you’re athletic. Carbohydrates are the nutrients that fuel your muscles and give you quick out breaks of energy. Like in a soccer, basketball or softball game, you use a lot of the stored energy from the carbohydrates you eat during your intense short periods of exercise. For an athletic girl, you would need more carbohydrates than an average girl because of the amount of exercise you would be in. About 50%-60% of your caloric diet should be from Carbohydrates. That’s anywhere from 190-400 grams of carbohydrates a day.

     Proteins are a very important supplement to have in your body. They are the nutrient that repair your body. They help you get better when you, tear a ligament or tendon, break a bone, or hurt a muscle etc… The minimum grams of protein for your body would be your weight multiplied by .37. But because athletics tend to have a higher capacity and need more nutrients, you should aim for more grams than the minimum. This ends up to be about 10-15% of calories from protein.

     Lastly, every athletic person needs fat, including girls. We need more fat than we need protein. An athletic person should aim for about 20-25% of calories from fat. Fat helps the function of other nutrients in our body. It can help keep us warm and is an energy source for our body. There are different types of fats. The worst fats are saturated and trans fats. These are fats you don’t want any of, but they are unfortunately the most common. Other fats like monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats are the better fats that you should aim for.