How to Eat on Tournament Day

Depending on your tournament day schedule, eating a series of small meals or snacks will help to maintain your optimal energy level throughout the day. The big meal of the day may have to wait until the end of the day when the matches are completed.

Facts

An average person needs the following:

4 hours to digest 700-1000 calories
3 hours to digest 500-700 calories
1 hour or less to digest a 300 calorie small snack

This means, try to stay away from the pizza which is the food of choice at tournaments. Also, refrain from having a parent bring you back a greasy hamburger. The better you feel, the better you'll play. Your body should be using its energy to play volleyball instead of digesting your last slice of pizza.

Here are a few tips for packing the tournament cooler:

Fruits: any kind you like   bananas, oranges, grapes
Low fat or nonfat yogurt
Dried fruits
A sport drink
A good tasting sports bar
A sub sandwich cut into quarters; lean turkey, chicken, ham, or roast beef.
Dutch style pretzels
Miniature boxes of ready to eat cereal
Pint of skim or low fat milk
Fruit juice: lemonade, Kool-aid, caffeine-free soda
Water
Skim milk pudding pack
Poptarts/Nutri-Grain bars

Keeping the 300-calorie diet in mind, here are some samples of a breakfast: