What should a Ballet Dancer eat? Talking with a Nutritionist and My July Measurements « Ballet

What should a Ballet Dancer eat? Talking with a Nutritionist and My July Measurements

Jul 18th, 2010 | Posted by Bonnie

How do you eat “right” for dancing? Turns out this is a difficult question to answer! Recently, I dropped about 6 lbs of weight or ~5.8% of my total weight to 78.5lbs to 79lbs. With some (coerced) encouragement from my friends, I went to see a nutritionist on July 7th.

Preparing to See a Nutritionist – Before seeing the nutritionist, I was asked to prepare 2 items: A Food Diary and Food Questionnaire. The diary kept track of 3 days of my food intake with calorie estimates and where I ate the food. The food questionnaire asked me about supplements, medicine, my general exercise regiment, etc.

Food Diary Example
Food Questionnaire

What is the diagnosis Nutritionist Ma’am?

I went in hoping the nutritionist could tell me how many calories I should eat and what I should eat to build a good body for dancing. Unfortunately it’s not that simple. Without knowing my exact lifestyle, she could not give me a diet plan.

The nutritionist’s general diagnosis and recommendation was:

Take only ½ of My Centrum Performance Pill – Some supplements have a lot of vitamins in it, and our bodies don’t necessarily need all of it. Your body will try to get rid of all the excess vitamins in your body, so if you take too much supplements you are overworking your liver. This can block the absorption of other vitamins and minerals and cause unwanted side effects. I bought the Centrum Performance pill because it was advertised for athletes. I was exercising a lot so I figure this is the right pill for me, but because I am a female and my stature is so petite this is actually too much for me.

Eat More Calories, Protein, Carbs, and FAT – Considering my continued weight loss, I do need to eat more calories. If I don’t, then I am actually destroying my muscles. The big surprise for me was I actually need fat. I had learned that protein was important to build lean muscles and carbs was necessary to keep your energy up through workouts etc, but fat? Apparently fat helps you absorb vitamins and fat is necessary to build cells for muscle too. Also, if you don’t eat enough carbs all the extra protein you eat just get excised by your body.

Take it Easy – I work and exercise a lot. Being a part time student, dancing, working a full time job, and running side projects like this website I slept anywhere from 4hrs to 7hrs a day. Mostly on the lower end of sleep. All the extra work and stress caused my continued weight decline. I was up an extra 2-3 hrs per day compared to the past and that lead to more energy consumption, but I wasn’t replenishing it.

My Thoughts on the Diagnosis

My nutritionist was very concerned for my well-being, but it’s tough to change your lifestyle. I am so used to eating this amount that it’s hard for me to immediately adjust up. Plus I’m scared that if I ever stop exercising I’ll end up fat! My decision was to eat about 100-200 extra calories per day and to pull back on one of my side projects.

The meeting helped me understand what to eat better, but I still have a lot of unanswered question like how do I distribute my calories across protein, carbs, and the dreaded fat so I can build lean muscle and feel energized throughout the day as a Ballet Dancer?

What have I done since my visit with the nutritionist?

Created my own detailed food diary to track calories, protein, carbs etc in Excel. Food Diary
Read Articles on Eating for Athletes. This is one http://health.usnews.com/health-news/diet-fitness/diet/articles/2010/01/29/the-winter-olympic-nutrition-plan-what-the-athletes-eat.html that I like. The key takeaway for me was: Different sports require different amounts of calories and distribution of protein, carbs, and fat. It’s amazing some athletes only need 2k calories per day while others may need 4k-5k. What a dramatic difference. Ballet counts as an anaerobic sport, so I need to find out how much protein, carbs, and fat is needed for that. Does anyone out there know the answer? Please let me know through the comments!!
Ate More I am eating about 1000-1100 calories per day and am trying to distribute more calories towards proteins. I am also trying to do the post/pre exercise snack regiment more often too.
Bought MyNetDiary An iPad App for Tracking. I saw recommendations for this app so I am going to try it and see if it helps
Continue to Ask My Nutritionist Questions via E-mail I don’t have the time to see the nutritionist on a regular basis so I have opted to e-mail her with questions etc. Hopefully I’ll be able to have a better food plan.