Sporty DS constantly starving

[scouseontheinside]

DS1 (16) does a lot of sport throughout the year. He has morning and/or afternoon training most days. He cam home from school this afternoon and ate:

• 3 honey sandwiches
• Pint of milo
• Plate of crackers and cheese
• 4 kiwi fruit

I've also just witnessed him destroy 2 serves of pasta for dinner. He was like a hoover! He's now looting the fridge for a top up. Where the hell does he put it all??

He often complains of being starving in the mornings after training - says he can't concentrate in class as he is "wasting away" all 6'1" of him. Anyone else have sporty DS who can advise? I'm going to stock on some protein heavy breakfast items to keep him going in the morning. But what about snacks?

I swear to god he is literally eating me out of house and home. weeps at 3 other DSs to follow

I don't think it's just the sporty ones!

We're only in the foothills of this so will be learning from others rather than being helpful, but a friend of mine told me recently that her teenage footballing son came back from training and ate an entire raw cauliflower.

It's normal! And, yes, it's VERY expensive!

Yes normal, my DS is tall, thin eats everything & costs me a fortune ( he's not even that sporty)

I know!! The bills are incredible. Dh thought there had been a mistake in our last food shop! Thank goodness our lovely neighbours have chickens so we can get eggs off them any times. We are pretty much single handedly earning the agriculture industry a profit.

Also TooSpotty DS once bought a roast chook on the way home from school. I found his sitting at the counter carving the meat straight off the bone and into his mouth.

3 honey sandwiches will not fill him up. The carbs and sugar will raise his blood sugar really quickly but it will then crash leaving hm starving. He needs more protein. Not just for breakfast. Every meal and snack should have protein.

Protein snacks - hard boiled eggs, cheese, slices of ham spread with Philadelphia and rolled up.

Protein before bed which will keep his blood sugars stable during the night. And yes to protein for breakfast.

Agree with Cider
Protein to fill up, eggs, tuna , nuts, yoghurt, cold meats, milk.

Thanks guys, good suggestions there.

Are those store bought snack bars any good? Or are they more sugar than anything else?

Also, is rye bread filling? We use wholemeal and rye instead of white, as I heard it keeps you going for longer.

DS is "only" 13, but is taller and broader than DH. He needs lots of protein as Buda says, but also eats lots of carbs. He particularly enjoys peanut butter on wholemeal toast with a glass of milk after school, but is much less starving on the days when he has had a proper cooked lunch than when he just grabs a patty. Does your DS have school dinners?

I had to start buying in cheap protein that mine would eat. so I buy a pack of eight sausages a eek for him to have as snacks. There is always a bowl of hard-boiled eggs, a pack of fish sticks, a round of camembert, a pack of sliced chorizo, just for him, on top of bread, jam, milk, juice, always a home-made soup in the fridge, and home-made flapjacks. I also make fruit loaf sometimes. Grapes, kiwis, always a bowl of salad available. Pre-made up so that he doesn't steal all the best bits. Lots of roasted veg couscous salad but the grain changes most weeks. I have found that by making the time to prepare all this stuff it saves me a fortune. I have a breadmaker which has saved me a fortune over the years, as when I first bought it bread flour worked out at 20p per large loaf, or 12 rolls. I think it's about 30p now. But I sneak bran and oats and stuff into it. He's at uni now, he came home for three days last weekend and I had to do a whole week's extra shop, that would have done for both of us, just for him. Just checked my bank balance and wondered how I managed before. DD was never as hungry. I made spag bol for Friday night and also made meatballs to go with it. I made loads extra, looked at it in the fridge the next day and thought, four portions to freeze. He ate the lot for lunch. I found he was eating breakfast, two snacks, lunch, two snacks, evening meal, two snacks. Skinny as a rake.

Here he is, caught in the act of purloining two slices of pizza destined to be lunch, at 11am. Cross at being caught in the act!

You can laugh - yours is only 13, he hasn't even started yet!

I also have pictures of him caught from behind with his head in the fridge after I have told him that dinner is in ten minutes. Then when he is pointing a fork at me daring me to take the food away - and another when he is smiling shamefacedly whilst trying to hide food behind his back! He's away training with the Officers Training Corps for two weeks next week, heaven only knows how they manage to feed several hundred 6' teenage locusts.

I know what you're going through! I find that a plate of hummus and wholemeal pitta bread keep ds happy for a while.

madeofkent Don't tell my DS, he'll be moving into your fridge!

Grains are a good idea, I'll see if I can whip up a few batches of seedy/grainy muesli. Sausages and eggs in the morning are probably good as well!

Yes, muesli, or granola. Normal cereals just don't do it, and are too sugary anyway.

Snacks/staple foods to have handy...homemade flapjacks and granola, nut butter, avocados, bananas, raw nuts, dates, eggs, houmous, roast chicken, tinned fish. It may be worth getting some good quality protein powder and he could have a shake made with powder, milk (whatever kind he likes), tbsp of nut butter, a banana, tsp chia seeds, that should keep him going for quite a while

Oh, and full fat Greek yoghurt with raw nuts, honey, bananas/berries also much better than a honey sandwich

I have a 13yo, and I know what's coming, because I remember my brother's teenage eating habits.

For 13y ds lived on air, apparently. He ate a fraction of what his younger siblings ate. But it's starting to creep up...

He's a fussy eater, and wouldn't eat half of the things you list. I hope growth spurt hunger will change that!

You have to be sneaky, that's where making your own stuff is good, because if you make your own pizza you can add bran to the flour, which can be wholemeal, I also add herbs. You can sneak all sorts of veg in with the topping too, under the chorizo. I use hard-boiled egg slices and all sorts of teen nasties lurk under them, such as spinach. In fact he is fine with veg, but his friends, not so much. They eat it to be polite, but at least it gets it down them. Another cheap source of protein is chicken thighs. He is rationed, as I said before, but I'd rather he ate a chicken thigh with couscous or a sausage dipped in houmous than a pack of crisps or half a pack of biscuits. I grow fruit and veg and he loves strawberries, but would eat two punnets a day if I could afford it. He can't afford to eat that way at Uni, but he does pretty well, he eats a lot of rice and pasta and does stir-fries, buys various hams and sausages and cheeses from the polish shop across from his flat, a pack of mixed salad leaves, olives. I spent the whole of last summer when we weren't away teaching him to cook. His flatmates live on takeaways and ready meals, which is rather sad and very expensive.

He's away from today, and I have to admit I am relieved that I shall be able to open the fridge door without something falling out because there is so much in it.

Breakfast idea for your DS:

Two eggs scrambled + half tin baked beans on two slices of toast. My DS doesn't mind not having any spread on his toast so this can be made in 3 mins.

When I remember I cook enough rice to have leftovers then microwave it later and make egg-fried rice with chopped peppers and chopped up pak choi leaves. Also fast and fairly easy.

DS likes Tesco value nachos with tomato salsa - salty but no added flavourings/preservatives etc

He will eat plain natural yoghurt with one teaspoon of jam and chopped fruit and granola. Provided you keep it to one teaspoon of jam, or honey I suppose the yoghurt is sweet enough but has less sugar than the fruit ones.

Wafer thin chicken/turkey is good for providing protein in a salad sandwich but goes a long way - provided your DS can refrain from eating loads before it even gets to the sandwich. My DS discovered that leftover salad can be used for sandwiches and tastes fine. Very quick, especially if he spreads the bread with mayo or nothing.

Frozen yoghurt is surprisingly indistinguishable from ice-cream.

Falafel are equally nice hot or cold.

Also samosas and bhajis.

(Basically my DS can't be bothered to spend time preparing food for himself.) He can now do omelettes though.

I'm hoping I can persuade him to like potato salad.

Your DS needs far more protein than you can imagine, and less refined grains. When DD1 was swimming on a team they recommended lashings of protein plus whole grains, such as whole grain bagels with peanut butter -- example

Try not to let him eat carbs on their own.
Beans on toast, tuna on toast, cheese toasties, scrambled eggs on toast...
Frozen spag bol -- always have something frozen that he can microwave and tuck into easily without having to cook it first. Keep a ziploc bag of cooked pasta in the fridge, or bag of cooked brown rice.

My DBro went through this phase for about 10 years

My DMum used to hardboil a load of eggs and leave them shelled in the fridge for him to grab. Lots of Weetabix, oatcakes with peanut butter, cocktail sausages.

He's just moved back home after a year away and DMum cannot believe the amount of food he goes through!

Bananas are handy and portable - you are always seeing the tennis players at Wimbledon eating them - good for energy and they're full of potassium too.

Boys eat masses. There was a poster I saw recently who had boys and was asked at the checkout if she ran a café

I only have a DD but when she has groups of friends over, the boys are like hoovers, you can't fill them up.

This thread is a welcome contrast to the one a couple of days ago where the op's teenage DSS was labelled abnormal, greedy and selfish for eating 4 bags of crisps. Apparently he might even have an eating disorder . Drove me round the bend.