A question that comes up often is what swimmers should do about their nutrition during the off-season. I have a lot of swim parents ask me about the downside of their athlete eating “like a swimmer” in the couple of weeks they’re out of the water, and even more often, I see parents trying to limit what their children are eating because they’re afraid of them putting on weight while not training. This is an important subject, not just from a swimming standpoint, but from a simple health aspect, as well, so I wanted to cover it this month.

Simply put: Within reason, don’t limit how much your kids are eating. Yes, a profound number of American children are overweight and it is on everyone’s mind to go above and beyond to keep their children happy and healthy, and keep them from being a statistic. But what needs to be remembered is that the vast majority of kids in America are sedentary and that the only contact with swimming most kids get is playing “Sonic at the Olympics” on the Nintendo. Your kids are active, they’re training hard (sometimes too hard), getting their heart-healthy exercise in, eating well and in general being very body conscious. A couple of weeks eating the same number of calories while not training as they would when still training, isn’t bad. Sure, they may put on a couple of pounds, but that could actually be a good thing. Here’s why:

Most swimmers don’t eat enough as it is. When I do dietary analysis on athletes, the biggest numbers of adjustments needed are from the diets of swimmers and water polo players; the amount of muscle-bearing work they do and the hours they put in is extraordinary. Very few eat enough to accommodate for this workload. As such, they already have issues recovering, hormones can develop an imbalance, sleep quality can be reduced and muscle and strength gains severely compromised. As I’ve mentioned before in this column, recovery and gains are made outside of the pool and the gym at rest, not while training. Therefore, having that slight downtime from the year can help turn the tables on being overtrained or undernourished and allow the body to come back stronger and more prepared for the next season, even if it is accompanied by another pound or two.

In healthy athletes, ignore the scale and focus on giving the body the proper nutrition that it needs. By worrying less about how much is being eaten and more focused on what, and when, you’ll find vast improvements come in a very short order.