Train Her Like a Girl
Fuel Like a Girl: The Formula
Track your season, know your load, build your plate
The step-by-step fueling system for the female athlete.
There is no one meal plan for a female athlete, because you are not the same athlete every day. Your body moves through four seasons every month, and your training changes every day. So instead of a rigid plan, here is a formula you can run for the rest of your life. It has three steps: know your season, know your load, then build your plate.
This is fueling, never dieting. On your hardest days you eat the most, not the least. Food is fuel and information for your body, and under-eating is the single most common mistake female athletes make. When in doubt, the answer is always more.
The whole formula is this: your base plate, dialed to today's training load, with your season's priorities layered on top. Learn it once and you will never need an app to tell you what to eat again.
Try It Today
Build one plate with the base formula today: a palm of protein, your carbs scaled to how hard the day is, half a plate of color, and a thumb of fat. For the full system, dialing every meal to your training load and each cycle phase, plus a weekly menu and a printable food log, see the Fuel Like a Girl guide.
How to Use Them
- 1Know your season. Check in with your body and your symptoms to find your phase: winter (your period), spring (follicular), summer (ovulation), or autumn (luteal). Each one asks for slightly different fuel. (See Cycle Syncing.)
- 2Know your load. Is today a rest or easy day, a moderate day, or a hard training day or game? The harder the day, the more carbohydrate and fluid you need around it.
- 3Build your plate. Start from the base plate, dial the carbs up or down for your load, then add your season's priorities on top.
The base plate, every day
- A palm of protein (eggs, chicken, fish, beef, tofu, yogurt, beans), two palms on your hardest days.
- A cupped hand of whole-food carbs (rice, potato, oats, fruit, sourdough), two to three around hard training or games.
- Half the plate plants and color, for the vitamins, minerals, and fiber.
- A thumb of healthy fat (olive oil, avocado, nuts, seeds).
- Water with a pinch of quality salt or minerals, more on sweaty days.
Educational content for healthy athletes and active people, not medical advice. It does not diagnose, treat, or replace care from your own doctor. Check with a qualified provider before starting anything new, especially if you are pregnant, managing a condition, or taking medication.