Rest days provide your body with the time needed to recover; this means your muscles heal from intense training, your energy replenishes to prevent chronic fatigue, your mindset resets to prevent the onset of burnout, and ultimately, you reduce your risk for injuries (especially chronic overuse injuries). Here are key strategies to effortlessly navigate time away from the studio.
Read More...Understanding RED-S in Dancers
With at least 10-12 percent of dancers weighing below ideal body weight for health, it’s critical to take steps to reduce your risk of RED-S and thus, your risk of injury. Here are 3 effortless strategies to ensure your meal plan supports energy balance.
Read More...Dancers need to stop weighing themselves
The dos and don’ts of how can dancers track their progress without relying on the scale or other body-checking behaviors. As intuitive eating continues to reign in popularity, we see wellness culture attempt to twist tracking behaviors (particularly body weighing and food journaling) and reframe these actions as tools to help consumers regain trust in their bodies.
Read More...A Dancer’s Guide to Eating Healthy on Thanksgiving
Holidays are stressful. And with Thanksgiving looking VERY different during this pandemic year, the stress around food is likely to lurk beyond the kitchen. Consider these four tips to get you through Turkey Day free from stress, anxiety, and food guilt.
Read More...5 Tips to Enjoy The Holidays (Without Guilt!)
Healthy holiday eating tips for dancers. Consider these 5 tips to not only build confidence around your dinner table but to also find more freedom and enjoyment throughout the season.
Read More...A Dancer’s Diet: Nutrition Supplements
Should dancers use protein powders? How about multivitamins? If not consuming a well-rounded diet that is sufficient in both calories and nutrients, dancers are at risk for developing key micronutrient and macronutrient deficiencies. Before deciding whether or not you can benefit from a nutrition supplement, consider the following 5 tips.
Read More...A Functional Approach to Food- Is it better?
Much of functional medicine is centered around an approach that supposedly challenges the roots of conventional medicine—instead of treating bodily systems independently from one another, functional medicine “seeks to identify and address the root causes of disease and views the body as one integrated system.” Dancers who look for integrative, holistic, alternative, and functional approaches should never feel shameful or invalidated by their experiences. But it is important to understand the risks involved.
Read More...A Dietitian’s Opinion on Halloween Candy
Do you feel like you cannot trust yourself with Halloween candy? Perhaps you feel out of control this time of year. Halloween can be an opportunity to try intuitive eating and build a supportive relationship with candy (yep… that’s a thing!)
Read More...Get More Energy- Tips for Dancers
Energizing and balanced dancer meals are essential to a strong performance. Dancers can utilize these 5 strategies to honor the functional components of food in a way that is flexible and sustainable. We assess the intent behind our food choices, honoring cravings, and being mindful of what is accessible at any given moment. Functional fuel, meal timing, hydration, caffeine, and food flexibility are key.
Read More...Dealing With Diet Talk- Your Ultimate Guide
Since we cannot control or prevent all instances of criticism, it helps to equip yourself with the tools to educate and set boundaries as needed. But how? The first step is to decide if it’s worth the energy to educate others about your lifestyle decisions.
Read More...Raise A Healthy Dancer
As a dance parent, your role in fundamental to the success of your dancer’s career. This article provides first-hand experience and 5 key strategies to consider to support your dancer’s passion.
Read More...The Most Common Nutrition Concerns Amongst Dancers
Dancers face unique nutritional challenges because of rigorous training schedules; combined with undeniable body ideals that unfortunately saturate the industry. The need to consume adequate amounts of food to support strength and endurance is not only challenged by busy schedules, but also, by misinformation from diet culture. This article will discuss the most common nutritional concerns dancers face, and how both individuals and their clinicians can help to navigate them.
Read More...Nutrition for Dancers
A dancer’s diet should consist of at least 55–60% carbohydrate, 12–15% protein and 30% fat. Carbohydrate is the major energy source for an active dancer. Honoring cravings and prioritizing a dancer’s relationship with food is essential.
Read More...What Is Nutrient Density?
Nutrient density can be a helpful concept for dancers looking to build a meal plan that supports their elevated needs as athletes. But too often, nutrient density is used to categorize foods with labels like “good” and “bad”- In the process, many foods are vilified and eating those deemed “bad” and “unhealthy” becomes an experience flooded with stress and food guilt.
Read More...The Healthy Dancer® Diet Detox
January means two things: audition season is right around the corner AND it’s prime time for diet poachers to hunt! For dancers, this often looks like a set of meal plans and food rules that aim to reduce caloric intake for the sake of meeting a weight requirement. But here’s the thing… restrictive dieting does […]
Read More...Is Organic Food Healthier?
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) releases an annual list of the ‘“Dirty Dozen,” which includes a list of 12 types of produce known to be most contaminated with pesticides. But some feel the EWG largely fabricates their findings to fear-monger consumers with phrases like “toxic” and “cancer-causing” chemicals.
Read More...5 Signs Your Meal Plan Isn’t Working- And how to fix it!
Is your current eating plan supporting your dancing? There are specific signs to look out for. Once identified, you’ll be better equipped to build an eating plan that supports your dance goals. This article will uncover the five most common eating pitfalls among dancers and how to prevent and resolve them.
Read More...Healthy Diet For Ballet Dancers
A ballerina diet focuses consistency and balance. Ballet dancers need to optimize their food choices to support their energy to dance. As a result, a varied and non-restrictive diet is key. Add foods like colorful fruits and veggies, whole grains, eggs, potatoes, blueberries, to name a few.
Read More...Rehydration for dancers: what’s best?
If you’re dancing for 90 minutes or longer, then you’ll want to consider additional rehydration therapies. This is especially important for dancers during the hot and humid summer months when sweat rates are higher. In this article, we will discuss the most popular types of rehydration therapies available to dancers and what to consider for each.
Read More...5 Signs The Dieting Mentality Is Holding You Back
Wellness culture is sneaky and oftentimes seemingly harmless habits can be a guise for very disordered eating behaviors. I’ve previously discussed how “clean” eating and diets like Noom can make it difficult to spot diet culture. But there are even subtler ways in which the dieting mentality shows up for dancers and this article will discuss them.
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