Any parent or carer know what it’s like to walk into the kitchen in the morning only to be welcomed by at least three cupboard doors open, plus used plates, glasses and utensils that have forgotten to make it to the dishwasher or sink. You just know you didn’t leave the kitchen looking like that when you went to bed the night before!!!
Not so long ago I woke to find the butter, cottage cheese, and Promite all with their lids off on the kitchen bench. Knife and plate were still in pause mode and the chopping board was covered in crumbs and other unidentifiable food remnants! I didn’t wait around to find out what. I loved him for his snack choice but REALLY?
Young athletes in the house can create chaos, especially at night time. But do they really need to be eating before bed? For most growing athletes snacking before bed is common and on most occasions it is a necessary part of a sound nutrition plan.
Kids grow when sleeping. Night time is when growth hormones are released (usually about 2 hours after falling asleep). These circulating hormones are responsible not only for the growth of healthy cells, but also the repair and recovery of damaged cells. It makes sense for young athletes with high training loads to be eating again before they go to bed to ensure they have good levels of circulating amino acids (protein), glucose (carbs), and fatty acids (fats) to support these essential growth and repair functions when they are asleep.
A nutritionally balanced evening meal will take care of many nutrients essential for growth and development, however research tells us that a top-up snack before bed, that includes protein, can give young athletes an added advantage/boost because they become stronger and develop greater lean muscle mass than their peers who don’t “indulge” in a performance snack before bed!. If training and competition demands are high, or your teenager is going through a particularly active growth spurt then a before-bed snack is key!!!
Another bonus of eating before bed is the opportunity to get ahead after a day of less than ideal eating. Let’s be realistic, while we often try our best, from a nutrition perspective, not every day works out 100% how we’d like it to be! Lunch boxes left on the kitchen bench, in the school bag, in the training bag, or on the bus…then there is the old “staple”, ‘the dog ate my lunch’, but we’ll leave that for another blog?
Some days we simply don’t tick all the nutrition boxes and that’s OK. At the end of the day, we can assess how we have done and if adding in food before bed makes up for some lost energy and essential nutrients from a hectic day, then snacking on some quality foods before bed should be encouraged. Try not to go to bed worrying that nutrition wasn’t what it should have been for the day. Instead, go to bed with a delicious and nutritious snack in the belly, and savour that the body WILL do some growing and recovering overnight due to that very snack! And, your nutrition WILL be better the next day by planning ahead, being prepared, and making better choices.
