Positive Affirmations for Athletes [Nutrition Focused]

Setting nutrition affirmations for athletes helps athletes build a positive mindset around health eating. You probably know someone who uses affirmations to set goals for fitness and exercise, daily life and work.

Athletes use daily affirmations to foster positive thinking in fitness and performance with great success.

However, most people don’t think of focusing on performance nutrition when suggesting affirmations for athletes. 

So, in this post you’ll learn about affirmations and how to implement them for yourself or another athlete.

With practical steps and a starter pack of affirmations, you’ll be on your way to positivity and achieving your goals.  

Positive nutrition affirmations for athletes 

• I fuel my body to be strong.
• My body is unique to me.
• My focus and concentration are high when I eat well before a game.
• Proper fueling helps me to have the endurance to compete.
• My fueling is for a purpose.
• I reach my goals for performance nutrition by making small changes every day.
• I listen to my hunger cues and fuel my body.
• When I eat well, I feel amazing.
• Carbohydrates give me energy to be active and support recovery.
• My body is strong and bold on the field.
• I choose to eat the foods that fuel my performance.
• I rely on food to fuel my performance.

What are affirmations?

Affirmations are positive statements repeated by an individual or to an individual. Mostly, they challenge negative thoughts and instill positivity. These positive statements help you stay motivated towards achieving a goal. 

Positive statements can help you stay motivated towards achieving your goals.

Generally, being self-critical and using negative statements makes it harder to stay focused on goals, especially if you don’t achieve the outcome you expect.

Therefore, practicing daily affirmations fosters the expectation of success especially in the face of any set backs.

Why use nutrition affirmations for athletes?

You can use nutrition affirmations to promote positive body appreciation and motivation and help your athlete towards achieving their goals. 

Improve body appreciation and body image

Athletes who focus on performance nutrition, may experience negative feelings about increasing food intake or their body image as they get stronger.

Therefore, athletes are known to be at risk for negative body image (1) and disordered eating.  

Body appreciation is a key factor in positive body image. Research has shown a positive association between body appreciation, self esteem, body functionality and sports performance. (2)

Furthermore, positive body appreciation is associated with less disordered eating in adolescent boys and girls.(3)

Positive body appreciation is associated with less disordered eating in adolescent boys and girls.

Improve positive thinking and self-awareness

Practicing daily affirmations builds positive thinking and helps to crowd out negative thoughts. Affirmations have been shown to positively affect negative thinking and reduce depressive feelings. (4) 

How to implement nutrition affirmations for athletes

1. Make a list of the goals you have for nutrition and sports performance. Start small and select a couple goals that you can start working on. Check out our post on performance nutrition for some ideas of where you might want to start.
2. Assess your negative thoughts around these goals. What are the thoughts that get in the way of you meeting your goals.
3. For each of these negative thoughts, write one short and clear positive statement that flips your thinking. Or as an alternative, you can start with some of the suggested affirmations for athletes in this post. These should be written as if they have happened, looking to the future.
4. Read the statement out loud and/or have someone read it to you. Does it resonate with you? Think about whether you can envision that future state.
5. Each day take at least 5 minutes, one to two times per day, to read and repeat the affirmations. Try to find a quiet place where you can focus on your breathing and hear your voice. Hang your affirmations in a place you’ll see them so that you can be reminded to make the time to practice. Also, consider placing them in your gear bag.
6. Be consistent, the more you repeat, the more your mind accepts it and the more positive change you’ll see. Just like any habit, the more you practice, the more routing it becomes. And the more you hear positive statements, the more likely you believe it.

Final thoughts

Practicing nutrition affirmations for athletic performance and body image can help athletes as they set goals. This practice doesn’t have to be daunting. This post has several ideas to get you started. So take a first step and try to practice.