YOUR BEST BONE BUILDING YEARS HAPPEN BEFORE AGE 25-30
This means, your body is building and creating bone tissue at its fastest until you hit age 25-30. After this, your body breaks down bone tissues quicker than it creates.
The teenage years are the most important years to ensure you eat enough calcium to build your strongest bones before your body slows down bone building.
But why is calcium important?
Calcium is a mineral that is involved in many aspects of healthy life and sport:
- Prevents fractures and broken bones
- Helps blood clot
- Improves nerve signaling for quick twitch
- Prevents cramping
- Regulates fat breakdown and storage
- Can provide increased fat breakdown
- Improves depression and agitation
Did you catch that one?! Calcium has also been shown to impact mood and depression!
In a study done by researchers in South Korea found that the group with the highest rates of depression had significantly less calcium in their diets than the other two groups with lower depression rates.
So how to do you get calcium in your body? FOOD!
Healthy Dairy Options: skim, 1% or 2% milk, Greek yogurt, string cheese, 1oz cheese cubes, cottage cheese
Healthy Non-Dairy Options: leafy greens, almonds, fruit, beans, peas, fish and fortified soy milk, almond milk or juice
Training Tips:
- Daily Calcium Recommendations: 3-4 servings a day, and/or 1000mg (1500mg for teenage years)
- Small, frequent doses: your body only absorbs ~500 mg of calcium at one time!
- Calcium taken with Vitamin D (milk, eggs!) and/or Vitamin C (citrus!) increases absorption