Basic Principles

As dancers we need foods that are nutrient rich to feed our brains and bodies so they can be optimize and get through long hours with high demands and be left strong, energized, and most importantly injury free. To do so takes a bit of strategy. Here is the basic principle: Eat strategically timed fruits and vegetables, high quality protein and good fats to fuel your body so you can dance your best!

Let’s dive in~

Principles

• Eat 3 meals a day within 12 hours to leave your body for recovery. Ex: 8am and 8pm

• Eat fresh real foods that are grown and raised without pesticides or antibiotics. This means organic, grass fed meat, pasture raised poultry and eggs, and wild fish so that your body does not take on the burden of getting rid of toxins you did not ask for! Think no more pain in the joints (toxins love to store themselves in bones and connective tissue).

• Avoid processed foods (if you must buy processed, read the ingredients! If you can’t pronounce it or know something is a preservative, junk food, etc, put it down and look for another delicious nutritious choice)

• Eat till you are 80% full, leaving room for digestion

• Listen to your body. If you eat something that makes you feel energized take note. The same is true if you eat something that makes you feel sluggish, upsets your stomach, or makes you feel uneasy. Write down any signals your body gives you so you can better understand it. ​

• Most importantly, eat what you enjoy! 

Build Your Plate

• 80/20. Build your plate so visually you see 80% Vegetables and 20% protein or grains. Cook with or add a drizzle of high quality oil.

  • Ex: Quinoa, Wild Salmon, or Grass-Fed Beef and Vegetables topped with Extra-Virgin Olive Oil, Chives, and Sea Salt.

  • Proper food combining habits aid with getting the most nutrition out of your food.

Healthy Choices

• Vegetables & Fruit: All. These are what we consider Water-Rich Hydrating foods. You literally can’t go wrong with eating veggies. Eat as many as you like and as often as you like. As for fruit, enjoy a variety of fruit with breakfast, as snacks or additions to salads and cooked dishes. Stick to 1 piece at a time for full size standards like apples, bananas, grapefruits, etc and about 1 cup at a sitting for everything else (ie strawberries, blueberries, cuties, etc)

  • Tip for dried fruit. These little candies provided by nature are jam packed with nutrients that nourish us but because the water is taken out they are much smaller than regular fresh fruit but still have the natural sugars so smaller portions of these will assure you get the benefits without a sugar crash.

• Grains: brown rice, quinoa (bonus: has a good amount of protein), millet. Rice or quinoa products over wheat Products. Ex: Rice pasta over regular pasta. There are also so many options for pasta’s now a days. There’s chickpea, hearts of palm, lentil, you name it, it is available, Go for organic and have fun trying the many available varieties.

• Protein: wild caught fish (salmon and cod are great options as they are packed with omega 3 fatty acids), grass fed organic beef, free range organic eggs, organic lamb, beans

• Snacks: bananas, nuts, wild blueberries, a smoothie, fresh veggie juice, coconut milk ice cream, dark chocolate (make sure it is made without dairy), avocado, hummus, carrots, cucumbers, string beans, celery, nut butters, coconut chips, flax chips… the list goes on.

• Green Tea or Matcha over Coffee

• Unsweetened Nut Milk, Oat Milk, Coconut Milk, or Hemp Milk over dairy or Soy Milk. Read ingredients. The fewer the ingredients the better. Ex: Almonds, Water, Sea Salt

Sea Salt, Pink Himalayan Salt over Iodized or Table Salt

Things to Avoid

• Dairy. This includes whey protein. Aged cheeses are o.k. once in a while for some people.

• Gluten. This is anything with wheat in it.

• Sugar. Period end of story. Honey, Maple Syrup or Coconut Sugar over white sugar, fructose, high fructose corn syrup, Stevia etc are fine in mall amounts once in a while.
  

If you want to dive in a bit deeper, we can work together help you through busy rehearsal times, audition season or performance season, and of course injury prevention or recovery.