Reminder -- It's the Calories!

After today's City Wrestling Meet, I gave a couple kids a ride home. As many people know, wrestlers are obsessed with weight. Though the coaches do not encourage the boys to lose weight, they don't discourage it either, and often the kids resort to unhealthy outdated methods, like avoiding eating for days on end.

One boy needs to lose a few pounds by Wednesday. Unfortunately, I found out after we had already decided to splurge on Chipotle for dinner. (The kids wrestled all day -- they could handle the extra calories.) This young man said not to worry about it, he would run the mile home and burn it all off!

I tried to explain to him that in order to lose weight, you have to burn more calories than you consume. He said that his mom said not to eat carbs.

ARGH!

I understand that high school kids are prone to following fads, but this is ridiculous. I'm continually amazed at the misinformation that continues to be spread.

Though I talked to him a little bit more about calories in and calories out, I could tell his eyes were glazing over, and he was not listening.

The wrestling season is almost over. There really isn't much I can do about it now. But if my son decides to wrestle again next year, I think I'll have a talk with the coaches about providing a nutrition program for the athletes