Golden Cake and Other Treats

Nastia Liukin going for the gold... cake...

Desserts. From the most delicious chocolaty cake to the most delectable banana split. Who can resist the calling of a home-made blond brownie? Not to mention the ice cream that has your name written all over it. Besides, you're a gymnast. Surely someone can eat a brownie, so long as they work out for like, 12 hours a week. 

A brownie here, an ice cream sandwich there. How much is too much? Sure, you don't struggle with weight gain now, but you're most likely not going to be a gymnast for the rest of your life. Surely your habits will catch up with you...

Gymnasts, along with most athletes, need mostly proteins, fats, and carbohydrates in their diet. When a gymnast is craving one of these things, they go and get it. In this instance, they are probably craving carbohydrates, or "carbs". Cake and Cookies are filled with tons of carbs, so they provide the necessary parts to fill the hole. Though these sweet treats are delicious and work for filling in for the carbs you need, they aren't really beneficial in any other way. Getting used to eating sweets all the time could lead do bad eating habits when you are older. besides, there are foods that are both delicious and nutritious as well as full of carbs to fill your needs. Also, you could think about eating more snacks in-between your meals in order to better space your intake. Dr. Josh at Gymnast Care reccomends you eat breakfast, a midmorning snack, lunch, a pre-workout snack, during workout snack, and dinner.

Some delicious and easy-to-make desserts for your lunch include:

Ants on a Log
Take a celery stick, fill the concaved part with peanut butter, and top with raisins or chocolate covered raisins.

Peanut Butter and Nutella Sandwich
Take two slices of sandwich bread (white or wheat), spread nutella over one slice, spread peanut butter over the other slice, put the two peices together with the spreads facing inwards.

Dark Chocolate
This one is pretty self explanitory, I enjoy eating it dipped in peanut butter, but just plain is fine too :).


Rock on my hungry internet gymnasts!

~Joanna






p.s. I got the information for this post from stayfueled.com by Gymnast Care. Check them out on facebook!