I Followed a Female Athlete Meal Plan for a Week

I found a meal plan for female athletes that promotes all the proper nutrients while working hard during season. I decided to follow it for a week, and here's how I felt about it.

*Scroll down for full table of my meal plan*

As important as it is to be working hard and putting in physical work, an athlete should equally value the importance of fueling the body with good food. I have never been great at being disciplined with the foods I choose to eat, but I decided that I needed to work on this to improve my game. I recently came across a great meal plan that I used as inspiration for what I will be eating this week (you can check out the website here). I do not follow the whole meal plan exactly, and I made some tweaks here and there. My ultimate goal for this week is to try to eat the right amount of healthy food and tell you guys about my experience. So, let's just jump right into it!

Sunday

Today was the day I decided to get groceries, so I did not have a lot of options to eat in the morning. I decided to go with some quick protein pancakes that are healthy and easy to make. I paired it with some all natural maple syrup. I had not gotten a picture of my lunch, but I decided to eat a veggie burger with a side of frozen veggies. It was pretty simple.

For dinner, I made a super yummy turkey panini and paired it with snap peas and watermelon. The turkey panini consisted of classic hummus, Irish white cheddar, turkey, spinach, and tomatoes. I had an early dinner, so at the end of the night I decided to have a snack of two rice cakes with peanut butter and honey.

Monday

This morning, I woke up with food on my mind. One interesting thing about focusing more on what you eat for every meal is that your life literally revolves around food!!

For breakfast, I made two scrambled eggs and ate them with a slice of toast and watermelon. I also had 1 cup of almond milk with breakfast to give me some extra protein for the day!

For lunch, I was supposed to eat a veggie sandwich, apple, yogurt, and snap peas. I decided to add turkey to my sandwich which contained: hummus, spinach, tomato, and onion. On the side, I ate 1 cup of plain greek yogurt and an apple. I got full from all of that so I ate the snap peas about an hour later as a snack.

Around 5:30, I started to get really hungry so I ate some hummus with rosemary parmesan crackers and a box of raisins to hold me over before dinner.

For dinner, I had a delicious salad with bread on the side. The salad consisted of spinach, cucumbers, shredded carrots, orange bell pepper, and salmon topped with Irish white cheddar. I put some balsamic vinegar on this salad (because that's the only thing I have), and was able to use the leftover to dip my bread in!

I felt a little bit hungry still, so I decided to include some watermelon in this meal. If I am being completely honest... I snuck in a late night snack of chocolate ice cream as well (oops).

Tuesday

I started Tuesday with a filling breakfast of toast with peanut butter and banana, and paired it with an apple and almond milk. This breakfast was cheap, simple, and really filled me up. I had practice this day, and felt like this was a good meal to fuel me for what was to come.

I went on a walk around a local lake to get my legs warm, and then I came home to make lunch. I put one chicken breast in the oven so that I could put it in my strawberry salad. This salad had spinach, cucumber, shredded carrot, strawberries, chicken, and Irish white cheddar. I ate this with some whole strawberries and leftover bread from the roll I bought the previous day.

I had finished a very physically challenging practice at 5:30, and was super tired. By this time, I was already craving something greasy... Like a burger! So I cooked a veggie burger, topped it with lettuce and tomatoes, and paired it with watermelon, carrots, and sweet potatoes. I also ate this with almond milk, and later had some more slices of watermelon.

Wednesday

For breakfast on Wednesday, I had a bowl of greek yogurt with granola and strawberries. Greek yogurt is so filling, and I was already energized for the day after this meal! I do have a sensitivity to dairy, so I was a little bit scared to have this breakfast. It ended up not effecting me in any way thankfully.

Lunch was super yummy and probably my favorite lunch of the week. I had a sandwich with hummus, turkey, lettuce, red onion, and tomato. It felt like a homemade sandwich that my mom would make me, and I was so happy! I also ate snap peas and strawberries on the side. It was great fuel before a good practice.

It seemed like every night during this meal plan, I would end up craving something super greasy and full of carbs. Although this wasn't greasy, this dinner helped some of my cravings. I had chicken breast with mixed veggies and jasmine rice with teriyaki sauce... It was so simple yet so satisfying. I loved the change of carbohydrate compared to the bread I had been having the previous nights.

Thursday

Thursday was the day before a game, so I was fueling my body with protein-packed meals. For breakfast, I made myself protein pancakes with bananas and maple syrup, and drank a cup of almond milk. I love pancakes, and this meal was so enjoyable to eat! I was honestly getting pretty tired of taking pictures of all of my meals at this point... So I did not document my lunch. However, I ate a yummy chicken taco salad with chips and salsa on the side! The salad consisted of lettuce, spinach, chicken, tomatoes, green peppers, red onion, pico de gallo, and Irish white cheese. This helped me in my greasy cravings as well due to the corn chips on the side.

For dinner, I loaded up on carbs and made a chicken penne pasta. I took some mixed veggies and threw them into the mixture and it made it taste pretty good with marinara sauce! I topped it with some cheese because that added dairy to the meal like the meal plan suggested. I really enjoyed this meal since I absolutely love pasta, and it was super filling.

Friday (Game Day)

For game day breakfast, I had a slice of toast with peanut butter and banana, a hard boiled egg, and a packaged applesauce. This was a simple breakfast so that I did not upset my stomach too much before the game. I enjoyed it, but I need to work on my hard boiled egg-making skills.

For lunch, I made a wrap! This was a fun twist on a sandwich where I threw in some of the leftover veggies that I had in the fridge. I put hummus on the wrap, turkey, spinach, bell pepper, cucumber, red onion, and cheese. I also ate watermelon on the side since I had some of that leftover as well. About an hour later, I made a good fruit smoothie to keep me full up until game time.

I am a firm believer in rewarding yourself after competing your hardest. I always make sure I get a nice fat meal after a game because it is the best time to put this kind of food in your body! It is always important to eat healthy, but it is also important to find a balance.

I will tell you that I followed my meal plan all week, but kept Saturday open to any options. I like to keep at least one day open to go out to eat what you want at a restaurant or switch it up somehow. It is good to have certain days where you treat yourself... Because if we don't treat ourselves after being so disciplined, it may all end up falling apart one day! I have a difficult time with self control in meal options, and the "day of food rest" that I give myself is very important to avoid folding over completely with healthy eating!

Final Verdict:

This meal plan made me feel healthy and energized all week as an athlete. I really enjoyed how different every single meal was, and it kept me excited for what was coming next! I will say that it was very expensive to get the groceries for one week, and if I were to keep up with this plan I would probably simplify some meals. I had a lot of fun planning out and making all of these meals, and I really do think it is something I could continue doing! A lot of meal plans end up being the same thing over and over, and this meal plan is definitely not that way. I've included a full chart of what I ate this week so if you'd like to try it out you can!

Thanks for following along on this super long journey this week. Please comment down below or contact me through the chat section if you have any questions or good meal plan ideas in the future!