I know, there are millions of sites online that give nutrition guidance. And I haven't begun searching very hard, but here's what I'm looking for.
1. Mostly, for a 17-year old athlete who eats relatively poorly.
2. Part of what i'm looking for are choices. What kind of meats you should be eating. What kind of restaurant choices should you make out of a group of choices.
3. What types of fruits you should be eating.
4. What types of vegetables you should be eating. And the more choices, the better.
5. What types of snacks you should be eating. As a quick example, I ran across this with Fitbit:
1 crave junk food.jpg
Again, the more the better. The idea here is to have a constant sort of multitude of choices. He/we know he's going to eat poorly--Big Mac, fries, McFlurriers--on occasion. The idea is to try to "fix" eating as an "F" all the time, to a "B," with it being as painless as possible. Still tasty foods. Still "snacks." But better snacks.
6. Really like the "this rather than that" type approach. Rather than eat "Big Mac," eat "Fish Filet without mayonnaise" or "Grilled Chicken Snack Wrap," or "Fried Chicken Snack Wrap as a last resort." And that applies not only to restaurants and fast food establishments, but at home, too.
7. What weekly recipes should be considered for breakfast, lunch, dinner? Again, more choices, the better.
8. What at home "convenience" foods? If he's not going to make steel cut oatmeal with chia seeds, is it better to microwave waffles with syrup or french toast sticks? And hopefully better choices than that, but realizing he's a teenager and some "bad" food is going to be consumed. Just the way it is. Rather than microwave pizzas or bagel bites, what else might fit the mold, but be better for you and fewer calories? (Now, he needs a ton of calories--growing boy, practices soccer every day for 2+ hours, etc.--but they need to be the right type of calories, too.)
IF you have used something, let me know. I'm not asking anybody to dig through the gazillions of internet pages and find this for me. I can do that over time myself. The biggest issue to me is educating my lovely spouse on what to purchase from the grocery store and bring home. If I showed you what was in our pantry (cookies, etc.), on top of the fridge in the "snack basket" (chips, nutter butter stuff, chocolate crunch things), and freezer (see above for microwave breakfast and lunch foods) you'd understand. It's a family thing.
If you've been through this before, let me know.
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