March Madness is around the corner, and even though I couldn’t care less about following basketball, I wanted to participate somehow. I decided to use a guide made by Livestrong as my basis for attempting to eat like basketball player for a day.
Keep in mind, I live in a sorority house where our three meals are already set. There are not a lot of choices, but I worked with what I had. Another unfortunate aspect of living in the sorority house is that the only appliance we are allowed to use is a microwave. So even if I wanted to buy my own groceries and cook for myself, I wouldn’t have been able to.
Breakfast
I started off by sticking pretty close to the guide, which recommends a whole wheat bagel, scrambled eggs, one banana, and a cup of low-fat milk. Since I was just home in New York, I (thankfully) had a stash of fresh bagels in the freezer. The sorority always has bananas available for some reason, so I was able to snag one, and I drank a cup of low-fat milk. The only thing I couldn’t get my hands on were the scrambled eggs.
I finished breakfast feeling extremely full. This is way more than I usually eat in the morning. On the rare occasion that I actually wake up with time for breakfast, I usually just have a small bowl of cereal with milk.
Lunch
After an hour and a half class, I had a half hour break before my next hour of class, but I really wasn’t hungry for a snack. I waited it out until after my next class for lunch, and by then, I was tired and ready to eat. Since I never have time to go back to the house to eat, I brought it with me. I packed leftovers from dinner the night before, which was bang-bang shrimp with roasted Brussels sprouts (pretty similar to the guide minus the whole wheat pasta, so it wasn’t as high in carbs). I finished lunch feeling energized and ready for an hour of French class.
Snack
After class, I decided to have a light snack (even though I wasn’t dying for one) because I still had to get through another hour and a half lecture. The guide suggests a piece of whole wheat bread with jam, so that’s what I ate. It wasn’t super filling, but it was enough to hold me over.
Dinner
When I was finally finished with class, I went to an intense 45 minute spin class. As usual, I walked out as red as a tomato and feeling completely drained. I needed dinner now. The food gods must have been looking down on me because somehow it magically worked out that dinner at the house almost perfectly matched that of the guide’s. Sweet.
Chicken, veggies, and a glass of milk. Pretty simple, but after what felt like an entire day of eating, it was more than sufficient. According to the guide, a dinner like this is meant to “replenish energy stores and build and repair muscle.”
So, in the end, how did I feel?
Full. I found myself feeling very full throughout the entire day, which could feel uncomfortable, but at the same time I felt energized. Maybe it was because the diet is so different from how I normally eat. Or maybe it’s because, even though I did physical activity, spinning doesn’t compare to playing a full game of basketball.
For obvious reasons, this diet did not have the same effect on me as an actual college basketball player. First of all, I’m 5’1″, and that’s pretty much 10 feet shorter than those insanely tall athletes.
More importantly, though, I wasn’t on the court playing my heart out for hours, burning tons of calories. What I ate is definitely not proportionate for the amount of exercise I did, compared to a professional athlete. Even though I won’t be continuing this diet, maybe I’ll keep drinking a lot of milk, so I can have strong muscles like all of those basketball players.