SPAN Athletics

09/02/2026

The most common thing I see in young athletes isn't overtraining. It's under-fueling and almost none of it is on purpose.

It starts innocently. A growth spurt. A second sport. A schedule that quietly became three practices and a tournament weekend.

Demand goes up. Intake doesn't follow.

Leave that gap open long enough and the body starts making cuts: hormone production. Bone building. Immune function.

Sports medicine calls it RED-S or Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport. It shows up in boys just as much as girls.

What parents notice first:

→ Fading late in games
→ Getting sick constantly
→ Recurring injuries or stress fractures
→ Always cold, or hair shedding
→ Periods that got irregular or stopped

No single one looks like an emergency. The pattern is the signal.

When 30–40% of adult bone mass is built during adolescence. Growth is an invisible extra workout happening every day, whether your athlete trained or not.

Our job isn't to fuel the sport. It's to feed the growth that has to last a lifetime.

If a few of those signs sound familiar, don't wait it out: https://www.spanathletics.com/span-athletics


Stacy Bates

09/01/2026

Better fuel starts in the grocery aisle, not on the competition field.

Ever wish you had a Dietitian with you while grocery shopping? 🛒

If you're on a GLP-1 and also raising a competitive athlete, you know the cart problem: you need protein-forward, lower-added-sugar options that work for you, and your athlete needs enough carbs and calories to train, recover and grow. Same store, same budget, two very different plates.

I've been working with FoodHealth Co on an app built for exactly this. Scan the whole shelf, see how every product scores, and get the best pick for each person's goals. Set your profile for protein, fiber and fewer added sugars. Set your athlete's for fuel and recovery. The score adapts to whoever you're shopping for, so one trip covers the whole family.

Tried it earlier this year? Come check it out again:

✅ Now FREE
✅ Completely refreshed app experience
✅ New Coach feature: ask what to buy, what to cook, what to eat for you AND your athlete
🔜 COMING SOON: Score your whole pantry + fridge so the healthy choice is the easy one for everyone at home

Download link is below and in the comments. Tell me what you think, what's working, and what we need to add 👇

Download: https://shorturl.at/hfpID

Stacy Bates SPAN Athletics Lindsay Werkhoven Patrick

Built by dietitians and data scientists, the FoodHealth app turns your phone camera into a GLP-1 shopping coach. Snap a shelf, a product, or your fridge & get an instant answer on what to buy or swap.

08/28/2026

🎉 Y’all. This one feels big. 🙌

SPAN Athletics is teaming up with Texas Twelve to bring a FREE nutrition & mindset webinar to Twelve athletes and families across the entire state.

📅 Sunday, September 20 | 6:30–7:30 PM CT
Location: Virtual Zoom Webinar
👉 Register: https://bit.ly/3UhJ7pp

(Can’t make it live? Every Texas Twelve family gets access to the recording!)

Lindsay Patrick, M.Ed. and I will cover what actually fuels performance and how to tune out the noise your athlete is receiving every day. Plus a few special incentives for joining us live.

Here’s the part I keep getting emotional about: a few years ago this was me, a laptop, and a whole lot of “I think athletes deserve better information.” Now it’s four books published, a nonprofit foundation, coaches and organizations all over the country supporting our work through the podcast, and a partnership that puts this in front of an entire state’s worth of families! 👏

Stacy Bates Lindsay Werkhoven Patrick

08/02/2026

Great sports nutrition reminder from ’s Kitchen.

The nutrition advice parents hear most often isn’t the advice their athletes need.

It’s frequently the exact opposite.

General wellness messaging says cut carbs, limit snacks, eat less. A 15-year-old training 12+ hours a week needs the reverse: consistent carbohydrate, more frequent eating, and enough total energy to fuel growth and performance at the same time.

Underfueling rarely announces itself. It shows up as slower recovery, nagging injuries, mood swings, and stalled progress and it’s easy to misread as “not working hard enough.”

If you’re a parent, the better question isn’t whether your athlete is eating clean. It’s whether they’re eating enough.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/19EXzsKN1L/?mibextid=wwXIfr



SPAN Athletics

08/01/2026

Frank Sinatra: 1,200 songs, 209 hits. 17%.
Babe Ruth: 8,399 ABs, 714 home runs. 8.5%.
Picasso — thousands of works, a fraction remembered.

The math of success is brutal.

Here’s what we tell the athletes we work with: you don’t get to be great without being bad at something first, publicly, for longer than feels comfortable.

The gap between the people who make it and the people who don’t usually isn’t talent. It’s tolerance for missing, for looking foolish, for showing up the next day anyway.

Failure hurts.

That’s exactly why most people stop.

Keep swinging. 💪

07/14/2026

🎉 What a way to finish the season! 🎉

SPAN Athlete, Clay Bates, saved his best for last, hitting not one but TWO home runs in his final weekend of summer play! 💪⚾

And here’s what makes it even sweeter: these weren’t just his first home runs of the season. They came after months of grinding through a tough stretch, battling back from a .100 batting average. Clay never stopped showing up, never stopped swinging, and never stopped believing.

That’s what resilience looks like. The scoreboard doesn’t always tell the story, but character does. Setbacks aren’t the end of the story; sometimes they’re the setup for the best chapter.

Mindset matters. Resilience is a life skill, and Clay just showed us all how it’s done.

Congratulations, Clay! We can’t wait to see what you do next. 🙌 Stacy Bates

06/14/2026

Want to know one of the biggest myths in sports nutrition?

👉 If an athlete isn't losing weight, they must be eating enough.

But that's not how physiology works.

The body is incredibly adaptive.

When energy availability stays low for too long, it starts making trade-offs to protect survival:

→ Metabolism slows
→ Hormones shift
→ Recovery declines
→ Performance suffers

And all of this can happen while body weight remains completely stable (or even going up a few pounds!).

In fact, some of the athletes struggling the most with REDs have:
✔️ Stable weight
✔️ A "normal" BMI
✔️ No obvious signs of underfueling

Yet they're experiencing fatigue, GI issues, poor recovery, hormonal disruption, and declining performance.

This is exactly why we need to STOP using weight as our primary marker of athlete health.

In my newest article, I explore why weight stability does NOT equal adequate fueling, the hidden adaptations that occur with REDs, and the signs providers should be looking for instead.

👇 Read the full article below and let me know: Have you seen athletes whose symptoms were missed because they didn't fit the stereotypical picture of REDs?


Lindsay Werkhoven Patrick
Stacy Bates

Kudos to McConville for this excellent post.

One of the most common misconceptions in sports nutrition is that if an athlete’s weight hasn’t changed, they must be eating enough. At first glance, it seems logical.

06/02/2026

WHOOP! 🙌 Let’s go Cammy! 👏

05/30/2026

🏋 STOP GUESSING THIS SUMMER 🏋️

Are you training hard but still not seeing the gains or the results you want?

The problem might not be your effort. It might be that you’re guessing at your nutrition.

At SPAN Athletics, our Sports Dietitian Coaches take the guesswork out of the equation. We actually TEST your metabolism to find out exactly how many calories your body needs to hit YOUR specific goals; whether that’s building muscle, leaning out, or fueling peak performance.

No more generic calorie calculators or online meal plans. No more trial and error. Just real data and a plan built for you.

This summer, stop guessing and start progressing. 💪

📩 Message us today to book your metabolic testing and meet your coach.

05/23/2026

This weekend remember those who gave everything so we could have the chance to chase something we love.

On the field, in the gym, on the track - every rep, every early morning, every moment we spend doing what we love is made possible because of their sacrifice. They didn’t get the luxury of quitting when it got hard. They stood firm so we could stand free. 🇺🇸

As athletes we talk about discipline, commitment, and heart; but this weekend is a reminder of what those words truly look like.

Honor them by showing up. Honor them by pushing further when you think you’ve reached your limit. Honor them by never taking these opportunities for granted.

We are able to play, compete, and dream because they gave us that right.

Freedom Is Never Free. Never forget. 🇺🇸