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Nick Lemke, RD | Sports Nutrition for Student Athletes(@nicklemkerd)'s profile avatar HD Profile

Nick Lemke, RD | Sports Nutrition for Student Athletes

@nicklemkerd

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💪Helping high school athletes build the body college coaches recruit
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Jeremiyah Love added 20 lbs before his sophomore season. Then another 10+ lbs before his junior season. Then ran a 4.36 forty at the NFL Combine. The Cardinals just took him 3rd overall. Most athletes are terrified to gain weight because they think it will slow them down. It does not slow you down. Undereating slows you down. When you gain the right kind of weight, you get faster, stronger, and harder to stop. That is what fueling for performance actually looks like. Comment GAINZ and I will send you the exact framework I use with my athletes to add muscle without losing speed. by @nicklemkerd
Want to stay average? Keep cutting corners like this. But if you’re ready to fuel like an elite athlete, it’s time to do what the average aren’t willing to. Comment ‘ELITE’ below, and I’ll send you the first 3 steps to eating like the top 1%. by @nicklemkerd
Consistency Breeds Results. It is also the hardest part about nutrition and the one word I would describe Drew. We've worked together for 6 months and he has consistently shown up, consistently put in the work, and consistently gotten RESULTS for his hard work. He hasn't just gained 25 lbs during that time, but also: ✅ Maintained through travel season ✅ Increased (often doubling) his lifts in the weight room ✅ Increased Exit Velocity & Max Hitting Distance by 5-10+ % (we'll see by March just how much he has gained) ✅ Lowered his 60 yd dash time ✅ Getting noticed more by college coaches for the hard work he's putting in (And he's not even done...) Consistency. Quantity of Food. Quality of Food... All Required to separate yourself from the rest. Thank you to: @cara_wicklander & Dirk for giving him what he needs to succeed @callowayathletics_ for getting him right in the weight room and in the cages @shotinthedarkpictures for the incredible video #studentathlete #d1athlete #baseballstrength #baseballmom #baseballrecruiting by @nicklemkerd
Tournament weekend coming up? Here's your Costco list. Screenshot the graphic and get it all in one trip. Quick carbs to fuel them during games: Oranges Pure Organic Fruit Leather bars GoGo squeeZ or Kirkland applesauce Slower carbs: Wheat Thins Pretzels Protein + carbs for 30 to 60 minutes before games or right after: Protein balls RXBar Chocolate milk (Darigold high-protein or Kirkland) Plain protein milk for kids who skip chocolate Bringing a cooler? Add yogurt. Long gap between games? Pack nuts. Send this to the parent on snack duty this weekend. Follow for more nutrition content for athletes. by @nicklemkerd
He was 6'1" and 140 pounds when we started. Nobody was calling. He was eating 2 real meals a day. 3 if his mom made breakfast. If she didn't, he'd grab some cereal. But hey, he was drinking 2-3 protein shakes a day, so you'd think he was gaining weight, right? WRONG. Protein shakes don't add many calories and they don't make up for a breakfast that isn't happening. We fixed it by: → Making sure he ate every 3 hours. → A real breakfast that he made himself. Not one he waited on. → Lunch, plus actual food to get him through the school day. Trail mix, bars, stuff that fit in his backpack and could be eaten between classes. → PB&J and applesauce before he trained. → Dinner. Then a second dinner. That's it. No tracking, no stuffing himself, no 5,000 calorie challenge. Just food at times he wasn't eating before. And he did it on the days nobody was checking. Weekends, off days, the days he wasn't hungry. That's where most athletes lose it. After his D1 commitment, he added another 20 pounds over the next two years before he ever set foot on campus. That's the part I'm proudest of. The habits held long after our calls ended. If you or your athlete is undersized and stuck, this is fixable. It just takes a plan you can actually run every day, not a month of trying harder. That's what I built the Athlete's Muscle Building Roadmap for. 8 weeks of meal plans built around training days, a grocery list, and a progress tracker. Same structure Drew ran. It's $29. Comment ROADMAP and I'll send you the link. by @nicklemkerd
Don't make a 6am workout harder than it has to be. Two mistakes athletes make here: 1️⃣ Eating nothing before, so you've got no energy for the workout you just woke up for. 2️⃣ Eating nothing real after, so you feel that workout way longer than you should. Dragging by third period, sore the next day. And a protein shake or a bar doesn't count as the meal after. That's 150-200 calories with almost no carbs, and carbs are what your body is actually asking for right after you train. BEFORE (5:30-ish, keep it small) You're not eating a meal at 5:30. Just something quick that won't sit in your stomach. - Banana - Cereal - Toast or rice cakes with honey - Pretzels - Oranges - A few sips of a sports drink if nothing else goes down AFTER (this is the one that matters) Protein and carbs, and it has to travel because you're getting straight in the car or into the classroom after the workout. - Breakfast burrito made ahead on Sunday - Greek yogurt parfait with granola and fruit - Bagel with peanut butter and a chocolate milk - Overnight oats or a protein oatmeal cup - Protein smoothie made the night before - Kodiak pancakes from a batch you made earlier in the week If the next real food after a 6am workout is lunch at 11, you're getting a fraction of what that workout could give you. Something small before. Something real after. Want to know exactly what to eat and when around training? Comment SIZEUP and I'll send you my free Muscle Building Starter Pack for athletes. by @nicklemkerd
You've probably gotten three different answers on this from three different people. Here's mine. The International Society of Sports Nutrition, the group that reviews all of this research, says creatine is safe for teen athletes as long as a few things are in place. Their words, not mine. The adult research is huge. Hundreds of studies, some running five years, and the only side effect that consistently shows up is weight gain. The kidney and liver stuff you've heard came from a handful of old case reports that better studies haven't backed up. In teens there's less research, and I'll be straight about that. The studies done on teen athletes were looking at performance, not safety. The studies that tracked blood work closely were mostly in kids with medical conditions, taking way more than a teen athlete would, for years at a time. Nothing showed up in either group. So nobody has run the study that would settle it. But nothing has turned up anywhere anyone has looked. I'm on board with athletes taking it IF: 1️⃣ They're past puberty and training seriously 2️⃣ The food is already handled. Eating every 3-4 hours, protein at every meal and snack, carbs around training, sleeping enough. 3️⃣ They'll actually stick to 3-5 grams a day instead of thinking more is better 4️⃣ It's a brand that's third party tested. Look for NSF Certified for Sport or Informed Sport on the label. Remember, you can't out-supplement a diet. Creatine adds to a foundation. It doesn't build one. Food first. Always. Comment RESEARCH and I'll send you the studies I'm pulling from. by @nicklemkerd
Gaining weight isn't about eating more at dinner. It's about not going 6 hours without eating. Most athletes trying to gain are eating 3 times a day and wondering why the scale won't move. The meals aren't too small. There just aren't enough of them. Start here: 1️⃣ EAT 5-6 TIMES A DAY Three meals, two or three snacks. Nothing more than 4 hours apart. This one change does more than anything else on this list. 2️⃣ PROTEIN EVERY TIME YOU EAT Not just dinner. Eggs at breakfast, meat or yogurt at lunch, jerky or a protein bar with your snack. 3️⃣ CARBS AT EVERY MEAL Rice, pasta, potatoes, bread, fruit. Carbs are what you train on and they're the cheapest calories you can buy. 4️⃣ MAKE WHAT YOU ALREADY EAT COUNT FOR MORE - Whole milk instead of water in the smoothie - Olive oil in the rice and pasta - Peanut butter on the toast and in the oatmeal - Cheese on the eggs, wraps, and sandwiches - Avocado on anything Each one of those is 100-200 calories. Three of them a day is 500 more without eating another meal. 5️⃣ DRINK SOME OF IT A smoothie takes up way less room in your stomach than a plate. If you're full all the time, this is the fix. You should finish a meal satisfied. Not stuffed. If every meal feels like a chore, you're doing it in too few sittings. Comment SIZEUP and I'll send you my free Muscle Building Starter Pack for athletes. by @nicklemkerd
The hardest part of packing lunch isn't the packing. It's deciding what to pack at 6:30am when you're already running late. So don't decide. Pick one of these and make it your week. 1️⃣ SANDWICH WEEK The easiest one. Make them the night before. - Whole grain bread - Deli turkey - Sliced cheese - Mayo or mustard - Sides: trail mix, Clif Bars, fruit, protein balls, veggies, etc. 2️⃣ CHICKEN PASTA SALAD One big batch Sunday, portion it out, done. - Banza pasta - Precooked grilled chicken - English cucumbers - Grape tomatoes - Bell peppers - Mozzarella cheese - Olive oil and balsamic 3️⃣ CHICKEN AND RICE BOWLS - Precooked grilled chicken (could even buy a rotisserie chicken) - Seeds of Change rice - BBQ sauce - Raw carrots, bell peppers, and/or cucumbers on the side Make it Sunday, portion it out, and grab it on your way out the door. No decision, no thinking, no standing in front of the fridge at 6:30 or running on empty. Comment MEALPLAN and I'll send you my free 5 day meal plan. by @nicklemkerd
Practice ends at 8. You're home by 8:30. You've got homework and you're up at 6. So most athletes do one of two things: 1. Skip it because they're too tired or too afraid it will mess with their sleep 2. Eat something huge and go to bed feeling like a brick Why is skipping it such a big problem? You just spent two hours breaking your body down. That's what training is. The hours after are when your body rebuilds, and it can only do that with what you give it. Give it nothing and you stay in breakdown mode overnight. You wake up sore, you're behind before the day starts, and it compounds each day. You don't need a full dinner at 8:30. You need protein and carbs, and you need to go easy on the fat so it's not sitting in your stomach when you lie down. - Leftovers from what everyone ate at 6 - Turkey sandwich and a glass of milk - Greek yogurt with granola and fruit - Eggs and toast - Rice bowl with chicken - Smoothie with milk, fruit, and yogurt Start with chocolate milk on the drive home. Zero effort, protein and carbs, and it holds you until you eat something real. And if you're genuinely not hungry, that's normal after a hard practice. Go liquid. A smoothie goes down when a plate won't. What's your go-to when you get home late? by @nicklemkerd
Game day fueling doesn't start on game day. It starts the night before. Here's the Costco run that covers all of it. NIGHT BEFORE DINNER This is the meal that actually loads the tank. - Banza chickpea pasta - Marinara - Ground beef or turkey - Bagged salad BREAKFAST - Kodiak protein pancake mix - Eggs - Peanut butter and berries on top LUNCH - Deli meat and whole grain bread - Chobani Greek yogurt - Fruit - Pretzels 3-4 HOURS BEFORE KICKOFF This is your last real meal before you play, so it matters more than anything else you eat today. - Seeds of Change rice - Precooked grilled chicken - Frozen veggies - Teriyaki or BBQ sauce 30-60 MINUTES BEFORE AND DURING Fast carbs only. Nothing that sits heavy. - Pure Organic fruit bars - Z Bars - Applesauce pouches - Bananas - Uncrustables - Sports drinks AFTER - Shelf stable chocolate milk to bridge you until dinner The closer you get to kickoff, the simpler and lighter it gets. Night before it's a full meal. An hour out it's carb focused to top off the gas tank. Comment GAMEPREP and I'll send you my free game day nutrition training. by @nicklemkerd
Skipping food after practice slows recovery, blocks muscle growth, and leaves your athlete drained for the next session. The fix: a carb focused snack with some protein within an hour after training. Do this consistently and recovery speeds up, energy holds steady, and injury risk goes down. Want the exact fueling plan for your athlete's schedule? Comment MEALPLAN for our free 5 day elite athlete meal plan. by @nicklemkerd

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