Carbohydrates

Football players need more than 2.7 grams of carbohydrates per pound of body weight per day. If you have/had an intense practice or training you will need more than 3.6-4.5 grams of carbohydrates per pound of body weight per day. Football players need between 5,000 and 10,000 calories per day. Carbohydrates in a football players diet should be more than 60%. Football players weigh over 200 and if they practice hard that’s more than 800 grams of carbohydrates. To meet these standards they could eat grain breads and cereal, and also fruits and vegetables.

Your body needs carbohydrates and prefers carbohydrates as the major body energy source. The thing with carbohydrates is that it stores a limited amount of food for a limited amount of time. Carbohydrates are pretty much sugar and starch. When you use carbohydrates as energy it fuels your brain and muscles. A regular body can store up to half a days’ worth of glycogen. If your body has no use for the glucose, it will be converted into glycogen and will be stored in the liver and muscles as a long term energy source. After the glucose is converted, the new glycogen will be harder to burn off. After a football player uses his/her energy/carbohydrates on the field, they need to replenish them within two hours after their activity for the most efficient storage.
Simple Carbohydrates are pretty much blood sugar or glucose. Foods that contain simple carbohydrates have more of a sweet taste, such as fruits, honey, cookies, candy, sugar, cake, etc. The things about simple carbohydrates are that they’re in a form that is close to the digested form, so they go through your bloodstream almost immediately.

Complex Carbohydrates are molecules that have more ingredients in them, to help feed your body nutrients. Both simple and complex carbohydrates provide the glucose needed by the body but the complex carbohydrates give multiple nutritional advantages. They also give additions minerals, vitamins, and fiber that are needed for a good performance and health. You can obtain these carbohydrates by eating grains and vegetables

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