Basketball Nutrition – The Pre-game Meal

I frequently get the question, “What should I eat before my game”. Hopefully you know enough that McDonald’s and other fast food items are a no go. If you want to perform optimally, you need to eat optimally.  Here is our basketball nutrition advise on what to eat for your pre-game meal

Those of you serious about being a great basketball player have their nutrition consistently in check; so game day doesn’t need a lot of “special” treatment.

Basketball Nutrition

This first important thing is WHEN you should eat before the game. You do not want to have too much food in your stomach before the game, but you do want to have energy for the game so you need some food to fuel you. Most experts recommend making sure your last meal before the game is somewhere around 3 hours before tip-off.

Next is what to eat…

If your game is at 8PM, you can go with dinner food. The meal should be average size and consist of a small piece of lean meat or fish (steak, burger, chicken, salmon, pork), vegetables (preferably something green), and a starch (sweet potatoes make great fuel for basketball players but also some rice or a regular potato would be good. Skip any type of dessert expect maybe a piece of fruit. A great meal would be a 4-8 ounce piece of steak or chicken with a baked (or microwaved) sweet potato (with a little butter and salt) . If I still felt a little hungry, I would follow that up with a banana with a little peanut butter for dessert and a glass of water. This is a great pre-game meal that will give you the fuel you need to play with energy!

If you are playing in a weekend tournament you might have a game at noon, based on what you read above you should get up by 8AM.  I always start the day with a glass of greens first, but after that, in this situation, breakfast is perfect. Go with a normal size breakfast of eggs and some sort of meat/protein (bacon, sausage, etc) with some vegetables and a serving of fruit and 1-2 pieces of toast from high quality bread.

What not to eat

Perhaps more important than what you do eat, here is the list of stuff you want to make sure you DO NOT EAT/DRINK:

• Soft drinks (pop/soda)
• Milk or dairy products (things like yogurt)
• All fried foods
• No high sugar snacks (cookies, ice cream, etc.) before the game as these will almost certainly negatively effect performance the sugar gives you energy, but then you crash
• Stay away from all the energy drinks, energy gels, energy bars, and all that stuff

photo credit: Marco Verch
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