Tip of the week by Gloria Averbuch – on the lookout for Eating Disorders

In only its second season, Women's Professional Soccer is heading for the final push toward teams vying for the precious four playoff spots for the 2010 Championship. FC Gold Pride and the Philadelphia Independence have been the solid top two, but making an impressive late run is the fast-improving Boston Breakers.

Those who play the game or who are fans, friends or family, are familiar with the troublesome topic of eating disorders. Below is important information on this subject from Food Guide for Soccer.

It's simply an unfortunate fact that eating disorders are a part of women's soccer, like many women's sports and women's lives. If you suspect your teammate(s) or friend is struggling with food issues, speak up! Anorexia and bulimia are self-destructive eating behaviors that may signal underlying depression and can be life-threatening. Below are some helpful tips. For a list of organizations dealing with food issues, check out the Internet, or Food Guide for Soccer.

• Approach the person gently but be persistent. Say that you are worried about her health. She, too, may be concerned about her loss of concentration, light-headedness, or chronic fatigue. These health changes are more likely to be a stepping-stone to accepting help, since the person clings to food and exercise for feelings of control and stability. If you are a parent, pay attention to your own player's eating habits, and those of her teammates. Consult with other parents or the coach if necessary.

• Don't discuss weight or eating habits. Address the fundamental problems of life. Focus on unhappiness as the reason for seeking help. Point out how anxious, tired, and/or irritable the person has been lately or, how unhappy she is with her performance on the field. Emphasize that she doesn't have to be that way.

• Suggest the coach or team manager distribute or post a list of resources (with tear-off websites at the bottom) where the person will see it.

Be proactive. Invite a sports nutritionist or other eating disorders expert to give a talk to the team.

Remember that you are not responsible and can only try to help. Your power comes from connecting with community resources and health professionals, such as a counselor, nutritionist, or eating disorders clinic.

Excerpted from Food Guide for Soccer-Tips & Recipes From the Pros, with Women's Professional Soccer, by Gloria Averbuch and Nancy Clark, RD. Available on www.amazon.com or www.nancyclarkrd.com

Gloria Averbuch/Sky Blue FC

Director, Marketing & Public Relations

Phone: 732-271-7700 x307 | Cell: 973-449-8880 Fax: 732-271-7735

80 Cottontail Lane | Suite 400 | Somerset, NJ 08873

www.SkyBlueFC.com

www.Facebook.com/SkyBlueFC

www.Twitter.com/SkyBlueFC

Tip of the week by Gloria Averbuch – Soccer Nutrition on the road

Summer often means soccer "on the road," with significant travel for tournaments and camps. That, in turn, entails eating out, or eating on the go. Ironically, however, it is during this season of intense soccer when diets can go awry by making poor choices (or not planning ahead) when away from home. Below are some suggestions for healthful food choices from common "on the road" food stops, featured in Food Guide for Soccer: Tips and Recipes from the Pros.

In the meantime, Women's Professional Soccer heats up with a final push toward making it to the playoff run. Stay tuned to see which four teams qualify for a run to capture the 2010 WPS Championship presented by Citi.

MAKE THE BETTER FOOD CHOICES ON THE ROAD

Dunkin' Donuts: Low-fat muffin, bagel, juice, bean or broth-based soups, hot cocoa, bagel and egg-white sandwich

Deli: Bagel with bean- or broth-based soups; sandwiches or subs with lots of bread and half the roast beef, turkey, ham or cheese. (Or, ask for two extra slices of bread or a second roll to make a sandwich for your second lunch with the excessive meat.) Go light on the mayonnaise, and instead, add moistness with sliced tomatoes, lettuce, mustard or ketchup. Add more carbohydrates with juice, fruit, fig bars, or yogurt for dessert.

McDonald's: Sandwich with grilled chicken, yogurt parfait, salad with dressing on the side

Wendy's: Bowl of chili with a plain baked potato

Taco Bell: Bean burrito

Pizza: Thick-crust with extra veggies or a side salad rather than extra cheese or pepperoni or other fatty meat

Pasta: Spaghetti or ziti with tomato sauce and a glass of lowfat milk for protein. Be cautious of lasagna, tortellini, or manicotti that are filled with cheese (i.e., high in saturated fat).

Chinese: Hot and sour or wonton soup; plain rice with stir-fried entrées such as beef and broccoli or chicken with pea pods. Request the food be cooked with minimal oil. You can also ask for it steamed, which is without any oil. Limit fried appetizers and fried entrées; fill up on steamed rice, instead.

Soups: Hearty soups (such as split pea, minestrone, lentil, vegetable, or noodle) accompanied by crackers, bread, a plain bagel, or an English muffin provide a satisfying, carbohydrate-rich, low-fat meal.

Beverages: Both juices and sugar-filled soft drinks are rich in carbohydrates that fuel muscles. Juices, however, are better for your health, providing vitamin C, potassium, and overall nutritional quality.

Excerpted from Food Guide for Soccer-Tips & Recipes From the Pros, with Women's Professional Soccer, by Gloria Averbuch and Nancy Clark, RD. Available on www.amazon.com or www.nancyclarkrd.com

Gloria Averbuch/Sky Blue FC

Director, Marketing & Public Relations

Phone: 732-271-7700 x307 | Cell: 973-449-8880 Fax: 732-271-7735

80 Cottontail Lane | Suite 400 | Somerset, NJ 08873

www.SkyBlueFC.com

www.Facebook.com/SkyBlueFC

www.Twitter.com/SkyBlueFC

Tip of the week by Gloria Averbuch - Eat your Veggies!

The 2010 Women's Professional Soccer season is entering the crucial portion of the season, with two teams pulling away from the competition: FC Gold Pride and Philadelphia Independence.

Both these teams, and players from throughout the league, are health conscious. Part of being a professional athlete, and making it through the long season healthfully and successfully is good nutrition. This is equally true for serious youth players, and particularly important for developing positive, lifelong habits.

Below are some tips on consuming vegetables, a vital part of a healthy sports diet, from Food Guide for Soccer: Tips and Recipes from the Pros.

Eat More Veggies!

If you struggle to consume the recommended two to three servings of vegetables per day, the following tips may help you to enhance your vegetable intake - and your health.

• Eat more of the best vegetables, less of the rest. In general, colorful dark green, deep yellow, orange, and red vegetables have far more nutrients than pale ones. Hence, if you dislike pale zucchini, summer squash, and cucumbers, don't work hard to acquire a taste for them. Instead, put your efforts into having more broccoli, spinach, and winter squash - the richly colored, more nutrient-dense choices.

• Include lettuce, tomato and green or red peppers on your sandwiches and wraps.

• Keep baby carrots and cherry tomatoes handy in the front of the refrigerator for easy snacking.

• Bring a baggie of cut up veggies to practices, games, and tournaments. In an environment with hungry, thirsty young players, you'll be surprised how popular veggies are, and how quickly they get eaten - particularly if you include a low-fat ranch dressing for a dip!

• Eat colorful salads filled with tomatoes, green peppers, carrots, spinach, and dark lettuces. Pale salads with white lettuce, cucumbers, onions, celery, and other pale veggies offer little more than crunch. When smothered with dressing, this crunch becomes highly caloric. Alternatives to a pale restaurant salad include tomato juice, vegetable soup, a steamed veggie or, when you get home, a handful of raw baby carrots for a bedtime snack.

• Fortify spaghetti sauce with a box of frozen chopped broccoli or green peppers. Cook the veggies alongside the spaghetti (in a steamer over the pasta water) before you add them to the tomato sauce.

• Use a blender to finely chop veggies to include in meatloaf, soup, and stews.

• When all else fails, eat fruit to help compensate for lack of vegetables. The best alternatives include bananas, oranges, grapefruit, melon, strawberries, blueberries and kiwi. These choices are rich in many of the same nutrients found in vegetables.

Excerpted from Food Guide for Soccer-Tips & Recipes From the Pros, with Women's Professional Soccer, by Gloria Averbuch and Nancy Clark, RD. Available on www.nancyclarkrd.com or www.amazon.com.

Gloria Averbuch/Sky Blue FC

Director, Marketing & Public Relations

Phone: 732-271-7700 x307 | Cell: 973-449-8880

Fax: 732-271-7735

80 Cottontail Lane | Suite 400 | Somerset, NJ 08873

www.SkyBlueFC.com

www.Facebook.com/SkyBlueFC

www.Twitter.com/SkyBlueFC

Tip of the week by Gloria Averbuch - Soccer & Hydration

Summer soccer—or any activity in the heat—means a constant and essential focus on hydration. Particularly among youth players, there are often questions not only on how much to drink (probably more than you are currently taking in), but what to drink. Below is elaboration on the subject from Food Guide for Soccer.

In the meantime, take note that players in Women’s Professional Soccer are provided with both water and sports drinks (including concentrated versions of those drinks for those who sweat heavily). Over the years, professionals learn by trial and error their own hydration routine. With encouragement and guidance from coaches and parents, youth players should do the same.

Water or Sports Drinks?

Water is an adequate fluid replacer during soccer sessions that last less than 60 minutes, particularly if you have fueled-up with a pre-exercise snack. Sports drinks are helpful during training sessions and games that last longer than 60 to 90 minutes or on multiple game days; they replace both water and some carbohydrates. Because carbs help maintain a normal blood sugar level needed to feed your brain, you'll discover you’ll perform better, think clearer, make better decisions, and feel better after playing.

For youth soccer (or any age soccer, for that matter), orange sections + water, watermelon, pretzels + water are all options that will refresh players between halves and offer more nutritional value than a sports drink. Sports drinks are essentially sugar water with a dash of salt. A sports drink provides:

• small amounts of carbohydrates to fuel your mind and muscles.

• sodium to enhance water absorption and retention.

• water to replace sweat losses.

Sports drinks are designed to be consumed during exercise that lasts longer than an hour. However, soccer sells a lot of sports drinks. They seem to be a staple at every game and practice, yet there is no need to drink them throughout the day. A constant intake can damage your teeth, so limit them to playing. With the multitude of sports drinks on the market, you may feel confused about what’s best to drink, and wonder if some are better than the others. The bottom line is that you should choose the drink that tastes best to you; there are no significant advantages to one over the other. The most important point is to drink enough.

Excerpted from Food Guide for Soccer—Tips & Recipes From the Pros, with Women’s Professional Soccer, by Gloria Averbuch and Nancy Clark, RD. Available on www.amazon.com or www.nancyclarkrd.com

Tip of the week by Gloria Averbuch – Fatigue and Food in the World Cup

As time moves on in the World Cup, games have accumulated, and in this stage, some have gone into overtime (30 minutes of additional playing). Even during the regulation, the possibility of the effects of fatigue is apparent. Earlier in the tournament, Diogo  Ferreira , a Portuguese friend and Sports Nutritionist (http://thesoccerdiet.blogspot.com) commented, “ I was astonished watching Slovakia's third goal against Italy in the 88th minute. It revealed a great lack of attention from the Italian defenders! And that brings to mind the importance of fueling adequately before and during soccer games, to reduce the likelihood of losing focus before the game is over.”

Here is a tip from Food Guide for Soccer, which gives detailed information for “staying in the game,” with good nutrition.

STAY IN THE GAME

Some statistics reveal that the majority of goals are scored in the last five minutes of the first and second half of the game. And according to an analysis of goals scored at the 2002 men’s World Cup, the peak of scoring was between the 76th and 90th minutes of the matches. That means that most likely, fatigue and/or lack of focus has a major impact on allowing opponents to score. This is most apparent on the youth soccer level. Smart nutrition can keep you in the game, and competitive until the final whistle. (You can check my blog post on “Match day Nutrition for Soccer” - http://tiny.cc/6wiy5 - for helpful info)

Analysis by W.W.S. Njororai, African Journal for Physical, Health Education, Recreation and Dance.

Excerpted from Food Guide for Soccer—Tips & Recipes From the Pros, with Women’s Professional Soccer, by Gloria Averbuch and Nancy Clark, RD. Available on www.amazon.com or www.nancyclarkrd.com

Tip of the week by Gloria Averbuch - Protein for Your Sports Diet

The Women’s Professional Soccer season is in the thick of the battle for statistical standings, with an eye toward the WPS All-Star Game presented by the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve, on June 30^th in Atlanta and on Fox Soccer Channel.

In the meantime, soccer fans are glued to the substantial action (both on and off the pitch!) of the World Cup.

Here is this week’s Nutrition Tip, an enlightening look at the topic of protein, which often seems to be surrounded by as much controversy as the World Cup!

Protein for Your Sports Diet

Like carbohydrates, protein-rich foods are also an important part of your sports diet. You should eat a protein-rich food at each meal. Some soccer players tend to either over- or under- consume protein, depending on their ideas about healthy eating and lifestyle. While it is true that young athletes have an increased need for protein due to the demands of their sports and the fact they are growing, most tend to consume more than they require.

Whereas high-protein eaters may frequently choose cheese omelets, fast food burgers and other meals filled with saturated fats, others bypass these foods in their efforts to eat a low-fat or vegetarian diet—but they neglect to replace beef with beans, or other appropriate substitutes. Or they equate healthy eating with low-cal protein like skinless chicken breast and avoid important carbs and good fats.

To meet your protein requirement, you should consume one or two protein rich foods per day.

 Recommended daily protein intake:

5 to 7 ounces (or ounce-equivalents; 140 to 200 g)

Here are some examples of protein-rich foods:

Tuna 6 oz (170 g) can, drained

Chicken   6-ounce breast

Peanut Butter    2-4 tablespoons

Kidney Beans   1 cup  

 Excerpted from Food Guide for Soccer—Tips & Recipes From the Pros, with Women’s Professional Soccer, by Gloria Averbuch and Nancy Clark, RD. Available on www.amazon.com or www.nancyclarkrd.com