Welcome to beyond the diamond, the podcast that goes far beyond the game. I'm your host, Danielle de Ruben, and I'm here to empower young women, parents and coaches in the world of fast pitch softball. As the owner and founder of Dear 3, fast pitch and passionate about bringing you inspiring stories, valuable insights and expert advice to help you excel both on and off the field. So whether you're a player. Looking to take your skills to the next level, a parent supporting your young athlete or a coach seeking to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in and go beyond the diamond together. Hey, guys, coach Dee. Here, with beyond the diamond. Thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode. Now this week I have a special guest speaker, Austin Gear. He is the founder of College bound Nutrition and he played track and field at Fairleigh Dickinson University and New Jersey from 2017 to 2021. His ideas for this company started when he was in college. College athlete in the beginning of 2022 is. When he brought his ideas. To life and his sharing his wisdom and knowledge. With softball players around up north and baseball players really getting involved with the athletic community, so US and I want to take, I want you to take over, share a little bit more about yourself and we can dive deep into the new nutritional aspects for softball players and how to really help parents and. Athletes understand how to fuel their bodies better.
Sure. Well, thank you, Coach Dee for the introduction. Like you said, I was a track and field athlete at Fairleigh Dickinson University from 2017 to 2021. I did shock put and hammer throwing, but I've pretty much been doing sports my whole life, ever since I was. Very little doing T-ball. Actually, I played baseball. Until high school. And then once I got to high school, I kind of switched over to track and field just because I thought it was more of a better suited sport for myself. And I kind of stuck with track and field doing shop put throughout high school all the way through college and then. Pretty much entire finished college, but unfortunately COVID not happened and my seasons kind of got cut short. So which is when the ideas for college when attrition started to really come into fruition because I wanted to stay within the athletic field. But I wanted to try and help out athletes. From not just here in New Jersey, but across the whole country, gone to a much better path in your athletic career earlier on than when I figured out everything myself as an athlete, as far as nutrition goes, training goes everything else that's included in it. So that's just a little bit about myself.
And then before we even dive deep into nutrition for softball, because that's like the big topic today, I'm super excited for you to share wisdom with all my listeners. But you made the comment and your introduction as far as you had to kind of learn this. All on yourself. Talk about and I can even share my experience. At the college. Level being a college athlete, did you have any resources about nutrition? I mean, did you have a nutritionist come talk to y'all? Did your coaches share wisdom with y'all? I mean what? Made you feel like this is a. A need for athletes cause I know it's a need for sure, like I don't know nearly as much as I wanted to know when I played. Like, why did you really want to? Dive deep into this world.
Sure. So I we could start by going back into high school before we get into college, going through high school. I didn't have any nutritionist. There was no one to really guide, not just myself, but athletes all around me in the right direction as far as, hey, you should be eating this or you should be trying to do this. Implement this into what you're eating. Here are the benefits for it. Here's how it's gonna help you as an athlete. We didn't have any of that. And so that pattern. Continued up into college, whereas the resources in college were more readily available, however not to the degree that you would think, meaning there were some some form of nutritionists that were there at the college level. But they were mainly focused on just general nutrition as far as athletics and athletes on the whole, not anything specific for the certain sports, whereas like how we're going to be getting into softball nutrition in this podcast.
OK. So yeah, that was one of the biggest things. I mean, when I was at Kennesaw State University, which is a D1 here in Georgia, we had there was nutritionist for all the athletes. We saw her maybe once every three months like she would just kind of pop in, check out, talk to us about her diet. But to be honest, we weren't. Taking that seriously because we weren't getting that regular like check-ins, and, I mean, we were at the dining hall, we were allowed to eat what we wanted to eat, and we would be told by our coaches like you gotta put on more weight like you have to put on some more muscles. So, like in the offseason, like, we're working out, we're trying to bulk up, but we're not. Enough protein or enough. Whatever we needed to eat to allow that. And so that's kind of where I wanted to dive deep a little bit more for these girls of if we want to get stronger, what do we need to be eating, if we want to be able to maintain energy throughout long tournaments, what do we need to? Be eating and I just kind of want to get into like the general nutrition. For softball players, if there is anything like, what would you say that the average? Youth athlete. Not even softball player, but like the average youth athlete, like what are they lacking in their nutrition to last a long weekend or multiple games?
Sure. So before I go into that, I do want to piggyback off of what you said about how you had nutritionists going through college. We had something similar, but we didn't even get check-ins with the nutritionist. It was pretty much, hey, there's a nutritionist here for all the athletes. If you want to go see them, you. We can go see them, but there was no check-ins. There was no. So anything keeping track on a weekly schedule, a weekly basis of what you're eating, what you should be eating throughout the days, and whether it's before games, practices, tournaments, there was none of that. That was really regulated into our programs. It was all kind of you got to figure it out on your own. You can have the resources but. We're not gonna implement them into your programs and what you're doing. So it was kind of a similar experience for me as well too.
That's just tough, to be honest. I mean, it's tough because you're being told you need to either get stronger and you need to bulk up or you need to lose weight. If that's one of the things that we have to be doing, I mean, there's different. Every athlete is different, kind of like what their journey is with nutrition and strength training. So there's like that side. You're being told what you have to do, but you're. Not being told how to do it, and that's where I. Struggled with a lot of. We have the resources. You're not forced to go to them or it's not like required to go. To them, you. And then 18 to 21 years old, 22 years old. I mean we. Well, I mean, we have that young body still like we wanna eat what we wanna eat, we wanna have fun. We. Wanna we're in college. It's just kind of tough dealing with. All of that so. And they, even in high school like I get girls all the time. Like, you know, you shouldn't be eating that. Like when I have girls show up to lessons with a. Even I mean a candy bar like that makes my hair turn Gray or they show up with an energy drink. A monster. I'm like, are you really drinking a monster at 7:00 at night right before you're pitching lesson. Like, what time do you plan to go to bed? Right. So like I just know at a young age, we don't think that way as much, but then they have those crashes and that's what I want to kind of dive deep into is like what's lacking for most of these girls, like what's what do you see that's lacking in general or what they're consuming too much of? That's not helping their athletic performance.
Store. So for what they could potentially be consuming too much of and kind of going up what you said, what they're having the chocolate bars or they're having the monster energies or the Red Bulls C fours. They're having all these different products before their games, their tournaments, their practices, whatever they're doing, they're gonna have a very high. I have scene and sugar intake in such a short amount of time that when that caffeine or that sugar eventually wears off in about an hour, let's say you have that crash where your body isn't used to how it's feeling and it's used the kind of elevated state. And you have that elevated state because you have things like dopamine and serotonin. That get released in mass amounts from these ingredients, and when your body starts to go back. Down isn't necessarily that your body is running out of energy, but it's you have that. Homeostasis between your body and what it's in it, and it's making it so you're going back to normal levels and not used. To how you're supposed to be feeling really normally, so it's a little bit of a different feel. For that, for taking in the caffeine and the sugars, and you see it with athletes everywhere. I mean, Even so for college nutrition, we travel to a lot of different sporting events, whether they're baseball tournaments, softball tournaments, and you'll see kids even as young as 910 years old walking around with. Dunkin' Donuts Coffee Cups Starbucks cappuccino drinks that are fully caffeinated and full of sugar, but it's not going to be doing anything for the athletes cause they're drinking this in between games, and by the time they're not even halfway through the game, you can see them out in the field. They're really starting to crash and lose their energy levels and kind of slow down. Dramatically, as opposed to getting more of a balanced balanced diet and balanced meal into their system in between games or before they even get to the tournaments, that kind of fuel them throughout the duration of the event that they're going to.
So what would you say would? Be a balanced and everyone. Let me backpedal. It's going to be hard to convince these girls not to drink their Starbucks drinks. That's just. And I know it's hard, like, and I just and I'm not a coffee drinker. I've never been a coffee drinker. I'm never. I'm always the one who's like. No, I'm good at Starbucks and I've I've loved that about me. I like my sweet tea. Not coffees, but what is something that you would suggest, even if they're drinking the coffee, let's say that they're drinking the coffee drink even though we want them not to. If they're going to have that, what's something else that they could add to that meal that could maybe help with that crash?
So I'm definitely the same way as well too. I'm not one for really, you know, going to Starbucks or going to Dunkin' Donuts and having the coffees. I'm more of a tea person myself too. Never been a coffee person, but if you are going to be having the coffee and the caffeine kind of in between games, a good idea, and again, this might not work for everybody. But if you're able to try and do some type of. I'm going to call it a meal prep, essentially. Maybe the day before or or before going to tournaments and games where you know you'll have some downtime in between, where you can have kind of a little meal made for yourself. Whether it's a combination of proteins, your carbs, your fats, whether it's like I'm just gonna use as a staple with your proteins and your carbs. A. A container of chicken and rice is very good for you to have them between games, even before your games. That kind of give yourself not just the proteins that your body needs to breakdown in order to give you. Energy. But your body needs the carbs and not simple carbs. More complex carbs, like rices. Which is just one example. To breakdown these proteins into energy, so even if you're just having just the proteins, if you don't have the carbs that go along with it, your body isn't going to be able to break it down and utilize what you're really putting into your body and order to energize it.
OK, so one of the things that I know we've discussed before is athletes. They don't eat enough macro and micronutrients to fuel what they're doing, growing as an adolescent and young body is like, can you just describe to my listeners what you would mean by macro and micro nutrition nutrition?
Yeah, I've I've got a problem with that. So your macro nutrition and your macro are your macro nutrients are gonna be your combination of your fats, your proteins and your carbohydrates. Those are gonna be the bulk of what you're going to be eating throughout the day or what you should be eating if you're able to your micronutrients. Are gonna be more of your vitamins and your minerals that you get from other types of food sources where they're your your fruits or your vegetables are very high in these types of things, along with salts for your electrolytes which are micro minerals as well too. So having a good balance and combination between these.
OK.
Is going to. Be essential for you to not just keep yourself energized, but to keep yourself growing as a younger athlete, especially with baseball on softball players. You're training all the time you're practicing all the time on all your skills. You're still growing as younger teenagers. You know, you have to. You have. To you have to take in a lot of nutrition and a lot of food in order to really. Keep yourself not just energized and afloat, but in order to grow your bodies. And the reason why I'm saying this is if we take a look at. No, an average adult would just say you and I. The average adult burns about 70 to 75% of all the calories that the intake into keeping your body functioning. As a growing teenage athlete who's constantly active and on the move, whether you're in school, you're in practices during games. You're gonna be burning through a lot more calories. Because don't forget, too, you're still growing, so your body needs the extra nutrients to feed the growth that your body has to go through, whether it's through your fibers, your tendons, your ligaments. You're gonna need a lot more fuel, so really, that's 75% of what you burn through as a younger athlete is really more like 8590% of the calories that you intake just to keep yourself functioning and keeping yourself going on a daily basis. That kind of makes sense.
No, 100%. And I remember back I want to say it was my freshman year of college. We were talking us. Girls were just getting in our heads about like calorie intakes. And I remember, like Googling, like, how much should an 18? I don't even think I put college athlete. I just think how much should an 18 year old woman like, how many calories should she be eating a day. And I think it said like 2000, but then for athletes it was around like 3000. Like can you kind of touch on that a little bit more? Like when girls if they're wanting to really meal prep appropriately like how many calories they need to be taking in to help break down everything.
Sure. So like you said, the average daily amount that is recommended is about 2000 calories for the average person. Because you're growing because you're constantly on the. Move whether it's like I said, you're in school, you're at practice. You're at trainings, workouts, games, tournaments. Your body gets used to a much more elevated state of activeness where your metabolism and your metabolic rate. Increases naturally just to keep up with what you're doing. So like you said, that 2000 calories were just the average person. Now has to bump up to. 25 to 30% more. So that could be again if you're doing on a daily not daily on the average numbers that's gonna take you up to about between 2500 to 2800 ish calories. 2800 calories, give or take, and now how you should really split that up is this is something that I see too with a lot of athletes. Athletes when they're going through school and growing. I don't know about what you see, but I see athletes that skip meals that don't eat constantly throughout the day. And the biggest thing that I see is breakfast. Athletes don't eat breakfast in the morning, not just athletes, but. Kids in general, and I see it all the time. So you're not eating breakfast most of the time. You're not eating breakfast. You don't have enough time to really make yourself lunch to really take to school. So you're not having the most nutritious lunch during the middle of the day, and you have to rely on that to fuel yourself throughout the rest of school. And then if you have time, maybe some snacks in between. But use that for your main source of fuel for your games and tournaments. Everything you have going on after school. And what I see is a lot of athletes try to. Get all these calories in at the very end of the day. And try and just squeeze it all in. But the reality is. Your body is in such a. Calorie deficit throughout the day. Because even when you're sleeping, your body still burns calories for energy to keep yourself going. So if you have, let's say you don't eat breakfast, you have a mediocre ish lunch for school lunch. If you don't bring your own lunch and you have dinner at the end of the day. You have dinner, let's say. Six 7:00 at night maybe?
Most kids are now eating around 9:00 or 10:00 because of practices.
Right. Yeah. So even later. So what's to say you're eating at 9:00 or 10:00? You might not be. I don't. You might not be staying up late, or you might be staying up late, depending on if you still have to get through all your school work and your homework and everything that you have to do. So let's say you eat. What's it say? 9:00, right? You eat 9:00. You finish all your school work and homework by 11:00. You're in bed by 11:30. School starts, at least up here, 7:30 in the morning, so. You eat at 9:00. Most kids are too exhausted at the end of the day where they are, they aren't giving themselves enough sleep and enough time to rest and recover, and so they don't really have. They don't eat breakfast and they don't eat lunch until eleven 12:00. So that's a whole.
OK.
15 hours, let's say. That your body is relying on the last thing that you ate. To get you through the rest of the day in the morning and that puts you so far behind not just for your calories and keeping yourself going, but even for your mental state and keeping yourself active mentally. If you're not fueling your body, your brain and how you function is going to start lagging behind with everything else. So it becomes kind. Of a whole. Downward slope. And what you see is a lot of athletes get into his repetitive slope day in and day out and they're doing really more harm than good. Not purposely, but just accidentally because there's no one there to really bring to light. Hey, you should be trying to eat this throughout the day to give yourself more energy this way, not relying on. One meal a day or. One meal on the somewhat OK lunch to keep you fueled and active throughout the whole day and to give you energy for everything that you have to do.
And that was something I struggled with personally. Is the breakfast. I'll be the first to admit I was not a breakfast eater. I'm still not a. Breakfast eater, but. I had to learn when I got to college that I had to eat something because we had the 5:00 AM workouts and I couldn't get through an hour of an intense workout at 5:00 in the morning. Without at least a piece of toast or a piece of bread, and then I would be hungry after. So it was like I got in this habit in college to. Where I was eating breakfast, it just wasn't right. When I woke up and if I could go back in high school and tell high school Danielle. I would have. I would have rather prepared like a breakfast the night before and like had something to bring to school so I could eat it within like that. Two hours of being awake because I knew I wasn't good at eating right when I woke up, but if I had some.
Yeah, I said. That's what I was just gonna say. You know, if you're someone who struggles with eating, breakfast is a lot of a lot of time. Times either kids don't want to eat breakfast or they're waking up right before school starts. Don't have time for breakfast? You could. You could make yourself something the night before and just either warm it up in the morning if you have time, or bring it to school with you and eat it throughout the morning hours as you get yourself more awake to. So this way, at least you're getting something. Nutritious and something on the right path that gets you ready for your day.
And that's what. I challenge all of you listeners to really start doing because I know I mean personally with myself, not a breakfast eater and even lunch like it. Lunch was the time that I always fueled up because I knew that I had something after school and this is me talking like from the high school level was I either had a pitching. Lesson team practice. Whether travel Ball high school practice like I had something I was busy. Every single day with lessons and practices to where like lunch was my time to really fuel up. That was kind of like my big meal of the day and I would even sometimes pack my own lunch and get a lunch from school. Like if I needed to, like, I would eat quite often and then. I would always have snacks like I had to eat something at like 3:30 or 4:00 to fuel me for my 5:00 practice. 5:00 less than whatever it was. And then I'd eat dinner kind of later at night. And I got in the habit of I couldn't eat a big meal or I wouldn't go to sleep. So I hit that, like, path of the struggle and the pattern of not eating. Breakfast. Not eating enough lunch, dinner crashing, not feeling good. Couldn't even do my homework at 10:00 because I had no energy. And so I had to change that a little bit when I changed it to eating a little bit. Better at lunch, it kind of. Helped, but what would you suggest? Is a good snack. Like let's say you eat or you drink a protein shake for breakfast, and I'd love to pick your brain on what you would think are good breakfast drinks for athletes, but I just did protein shake sometimes, whether it was. Good or bad, I did. It so protein shake in the morning. Ate a salad lunch and say like salad and chicken and it was just I ate pretty healthy for lunch and then I need a snack right before my 5:00 team practice. But I can't eat a big meal cause I'll get sick. What would be a good ideal? Snack and how much carbs or calories, protein should I intake? To fuel me. Four or five more hours in the night, whether it's practices, homework, etcetera.
Sure. So we could start with the snack first. So we're kind of like snacks in between, whether it's school and and school and practice or practice and other practice. What I always found was very good are those nature Valley bars. Do you know which ones I'm talking about? There? We have the oats ones, which is I believe in like the green package. But they also have other ones where they're like peanut butter ones as well too. The peanut butter ones are very good. And the old ones are very good too. And the reason for that being. The oats 1. The oats are complex carbs. There is sugar in there. Obviously for some added taste, but the complex carbs in the oats are going to take longer to breakdown. So what that means is it's going to give you a more steady flow and release of energy throughout the next couple of hours, even if you're not able to. What's? Stop somewhere or eat something that you pre made and brought with you on the road and you don't have the time. Those are very good snacks to have in between. That's that was pretty much my go to even going through college sports. If I had some downtime like in between going to class and going to practice even like my. But I had the 5:00 AM practices as well too. I would have one of those before practice just because. For me it was a little too early to to eat in the morning, so I would have something that I knew that would give me that would energize me throughout the practice and get me at least through that. Now, if you're talking about. I'm sorry, what was the second thing that you asked me again?
If you are. I think you kind of answered it. I kind of combined the questions as far as like the snacks. But the snacks that you would eat or what kind of like protein or carbs that you would need to. Help you? Perform like just to keep your brain functioning. Cause what I see typically, I'll kind of veer this off because it kind of goes hand in hand. One of the struggles that I see with my athletes at pitching lessons. So they're at school for 8 hours a day. Sometimes they have practices right before they have their pitching lessons. So typically on a normal week I do in person lessons from like. 5:00 to like 9:00. So girls are out of school. They might have had an hour in between. Whatever. That they're exhausted and I'm like, did you eat yet? And they're like, no, I haven't ate dinner. Normally they all eat after. I'm like, well, did you have a snack? Yes. That like. 2:00 or at 3:00. And I'm like, OK, you haven't ate anything in, like, 5 hours. You have no energy. Mom and Dad are spending all this money for you to come. To lessons. Now all I'm asking is we give 100% effort and 100% positive attitude. We might have an off day, but if we're having multiple off days, week by week by week, Mom and Dad like. We have to change something and it I always bring up nutrition and sleep. Those are the first two things that I tell my girls. Are we getting enough sleep and are? You eating enough? Typically? No and no is my answer and that's what I want girls to understand. That those are big factors into their performance like that is why you're not able to wake up good in the morning. You didn't sleep well at night, but you also didn't eat enough or you ate like a horrible dinner right after you ate McDonald's at 10:00 after a team practice. And you have no fuel to do your homework, your brain foggy till midnight, and then you have to wake up at 5:00 AM. And then you show up to lessons at next night and you have no energy. It's like a that cycle that's going. On and I guess it's just like the advice that my girls are asking me is like what I need to be eating to kind of help with that or how can I balance. And the first thing I say is like time management like that's number one, before you even figure out what you're eating, like figure out what day of the week that you're gonna go grab all your snacks and kind of lay it out and. Plan a little bit better. So we don't get like stuck in that cycle again. But I guess what would your advice be for? Those snacks or the dinner like anywhere in that category, I mean, that's just the cycles that I'm seeing and I'm like, OK, mom and dad, why are we paying for these lessons if we're not going to do the little things to help us bring that energy? Because I can't get a. 100% out of. You right now and we're not. Making that growth, you think? It's physical and it is physical, but it starts with nutrition and sleeping. It's not just your physical perform. You're not practicing enough at home like yay and nay, but it starts with this.
Right. So. I see a lot of the same things too, where it's especially in the afternoon and evening hours where athletes aren't a eating enough and B by the time they're finished up with everything for the day, they're not getting enough sound sleep throughout the night and sleep is the best form of recovery for anything. As far as physical and mental goes. On a hole just because your body is able to really shut down and recuperate after a long day and you're not getting enough of that sleep, or enough of what they call REM sleep cycles, which is like deep, deep sleep, where you're really kind of out of it and you're dreaming almost if you don't get enough of those cycles. In your sleep. It not only affects you physically in your physical recovery, but your brain doesn't have enough time to recharge its batteries. So to say, after long stressful days full of non-stop action, whether it's you're waking up, going to school, you have practices before school practices after school, training sessions after practice. You're not giving yourself enough time to recharge your batteries. So what I like to think and what I tell people is. It's hard to control, but it's a result of the daily habits that you have gotten yourself into and the. The easiest way, and I'm not saying easiest as it is easy, but the best way to break out of that is just to one day. Just change it up a little bit. So if you have athletes that don't eat. The last thing to eat is around 2:00 and then they have practices and then they come to you and then they're eating dinner finally. Well, if they're not eating enough throughout the day from that 2:00 PM to whenever they get to you, they're obviously gonna feel fatigued. They're gonna feel. Tired and worn. Out, especially if they already came from a practice. They're not replenishing what they need, So what I would say the best way. To kind of. Counter that is. One you definitely are gonna need some more electrolytes in whatever you're eating or whatever you're drinking. So this could be.
She's good.
Things like. Just throwing it out there, just things like gatorades powerades in between to kind of give you some of your some of your carbs. Your simple carbs with your sugars and your electrolytes back into your system to help you function better. And you want to try and have some of those. High carbohydrate kind of dietary fiber type snacks like I mentioned before, if you can in between these things. If you're not able to have obviously an actual meal. Which for the most part. Athletes aren't going to have the time to really triple this in advance, but if it's something that's on the go between having those carbs is so essential for your energy, because that's really what your energy is is your carbs. You know, when you consume carbs, your body breaks that down into glucose and sugar, which is then used for your energy. The Gatorades and something like powerades are kind of similar, but it's like a much more simpler form of it, so it's easier to breakdown and easier to get access to. So if you're having stuff in between. Games or practices and you just don't have time to really. Have something nutritious and something that's worth eating. These types of little things are kind of going to help give you an energy boost and help you get through whatever it is that you're doing.
Well, thank you so much. So for everyone listening, I'm going to have Austin back on here in the future. He's going to. Talk more specific. About college bound nutrition and his company diving deep into the products that he has and how we can really help elevate the softball world to help. These challenges that we are facing, so he has supplements and products that can help solve the issues that we are facing as far as not grabbing enough of these nutrients and keeping that energy going. But to sum up, today's episode, I want you all to really think about some of the tips and tricks that we shared and Reeva. Are you a? Your physical performance if you're struggling with your physical performance and you don't see the growth, look back on your nutrition and look back on your sleep patterns and like start from there before you start coach searching, you're searching for a new coach, you're searching for a new instructor or searching for a new way to. Change your current training because it starts with again, sleep and nutrition and how we fuel the body and how we feel. The brain and this game is 90% mental and 10% physical and if our brain is not fueled with the proper nutrition, our mental game is not going to be there. And then our physical game is not going to be there at 100. So really dive deep into thinking about this. If you all have any specific questions that you would like Austin to touch on nutrition wise, please go to the homepage of DDR3 fastpitch.com. There is a submission Button 4 be on the Diamond podcast. You can submit your questions and your topic ideas. Austin will be back on here in the future. I'm excited to dive even deeper into this subject with him, and if you want to find awesome, share it with the listeners where they can find college bound nutrition.
Sure. So. For our if you want to find us on social media, we are at college nutrition on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook and soon to be Twitter. Or you can find us at our website which is www.cognition.com where you can find like Coach Danielle just mentioned. Some of our products and really the explanations of the ingredients, what they are and how they're going to be beneficial for you as athletes and like we. Just talked about. Even if you're not able to get the most nutritious foods and diets into your day, your busy schedules in between. I mean, that's where we kind of formulated and made our products to kind of bridge those gaps that kind of give you the energy that you need. So one last thing that I do want to say like I want to reflect on are the daily habits that I mentioned, especially for mental nutrition. What I want everyone listening to do I want you to attempt. To make a journal, whether it's a written journal or it's in your notes section on your phone. Keep track of not just what foods you eat throughout the day, but what times you eat throughout the day. As you start to do this more and more and you. Start to recognize. These patterns and see these on a daily basis. You want to have a much better understanding of where you need to fill in those gaps yourself. As an athlete. Because if you're not not keeping track of really what you're eating, what times you're eating and how you're eating, you're gonna get stuck in that same loop that we talked about day in and day out. And it's very hard to break out of that. But this is just one simple step that you can do in order to slowly start to realize this and say, hey, maybe I'm not eating the best. Or maybe I'm not getting the most nutritious snacks or meals throughout the day. This is a good indicator to see. Hey, I need to change something. This is going to help my performance in the long run. So thank you, coach Danielle, for having me on today's podcast. I'm definitely looking forward to being featured on future podcasts as well, too.
Oh, awesome. And thank you so much. And you know what? I'm going to challenge. All of y'all. Make your nutrition journal. I'd rather y'all handwrite that instead of putting it in your notes page, and make a little journal title it your nutrition journal, Tag US on Instagram at College, Bound nutrition at deer through fastpitch. We would love to feature. Your journal on our pages, but I think it's just a really good to kind of have that with you and I'm. Someone who? Yes, I know phones are big now and everyone to do everything digitally, but it just. There's a power to the pen and the paper, so I want you to write it down. I want you to take this seriously and carry it with you. Have it in your bag. Bag have it. In your book bag, have it in your purse. But I think that's really important to start tracking the times what you are eating to really make sure that we are fueling properly to understand where our physical game is at and. Also, our mental game. So again Austin, thank you so much for tuning in everyone. Thank you for tuning into this week's episode. And I. Will see you all soon. Thank you for joining us on this episode of Beyond the Diamond Connect with us on all social media platforms, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube at do 3 fast pitch. But Instagram is my biggest platform where I post daily content for questions or topic ideas, visit our website dearthroughfastpitch.com and submit the form on our homepage. I would love to feature you on our next episode. Remember, you can find all of our episodes on Apple Podcast, Spotify and on our website dear3fastpitch.com. Stay tuned for more exciting discussions, stories, and insights in the world of fast pitch softball on the next episode of Beyond the demo. And until then, remember, the only thing that matters is the next pitch. Deep breath. Next pitch, I. Will see you soon.
