Jonathan Toews

[Pez68]

Here's a question for those "in the know" when it comes to gluten free, no red meat diets... How do you get the typical 5000-6000 calories a hockey player needs to operate at full capacity?? How do you make sure you're getting 2000-3000 calories of carbohydrates that a hockey player should be consuming??

You're sure as hell not getting that kind of caloric intake eating leafy greens, oatmeal, nuts, and berries. Is Toews lactose intolerant as well...?

Here's a great story about how hockey players can struggle to get the nutrition they need, when they AREN'T limiting themselves to certain foods:

Hockey nutrition plan key to NHL players’ success

“But we also wanted to do something that he could manage, because it’s obviously not easy to eat 6,000 calories with all the meals you have to prepare.
“So what we did was put more fat in his diet to keep the calorie intake up.
“He’s not having saturated fats and french fries and that kind of thing, but he doesn’t have to be afraid to have guacamole and whole fat milks.
“What happens is that they try to eat so clean that they just can’t get enough calories.
“They can eat bushels of spinach and chicken and fish, but the problem is that they don’t get enough calories.
“We try to get them going back a little bit more to how our grandparents ate. Don’t be afraid of fats but know what are good fats and what are bad fats.”

 

[JaegerDice]

Here's a question for those "in the know" when it comes to gluten free, no red meat diets... How do you get the typical 5000-6000 calories a hockey player needs to operate at full capacity?? How do you make sure you're getting 2000-3000 calories of carbohydrates that a hockey player should be consuming??

You're sure as hell not getting that kind of caloric intake eating leafy greens, oatmeal, nuts, and berries. Is Toews lactose intolerant as well...?

Gluten is pretty easy to avoid. The best carbs come from fruits and vegetables anyway, and it's pretty damn easy to find gluten-free pasta for those who like old-fashioned pre-game meals. Wild rice, oats, berries, bananas, chickpeas, yams, sweat potatoes, etc all great sources of both immediate and slow-burn carbs, and it's pretty easy to scarf down a ton of them.

Protein calories are different. Calories are basically a unit of energy derived from a food, that will either be used or stored as fat. Protein doesn't give the body energy... the body actually uses energy to use protein for muscle build and repair. And your body can only use a certain amount of protein depending on when you ingest it... you just piss out the excess if your body doesn't need to repair any muscle tissue.

So calorie numbers from meat aren't as important as just raw grams of protein per day. And even if Toews did have a no red-meat diet, he could more than enough protein from meat sources that are generally considered better and more efficient, like poultry and fish.

If your concern is energy level, more protein won't help. If your concern is strength, then it could, but he specifically chose to lose muscle mass this off-season to get faster (which has worked, frankly).

Combine all that with the constant flow of protein shakes and veggie shakes he (and every other athlete in 2017) makes and the team seems to hand out (remember Seabrook's 'fruit and crap' comment after the OT win in Nashville in 2015?), Toews caloric intake is almost certainly fine.


No idea if Toews is lactose intolerant.

In truth, Toews diet probably isn't much different than most athlete's diets, he's just more critical of where it comes from (local organic, grown yourself, etc) based on what he's said in the media. He wouldn't have much trouble getting the requisite caloric intake.

 

[Pez68]

I'm not sure you realize how much food 5000-6000 calories is...

I can tell you that no red meat and no pasta is a HUGE divergence from a hockey player's diet. Their team meals consist mostly of pasta and chicken....

 

[JaegerDice]

I'm not sure you realize how much food 5000-6000 calories is...

I can tell you that no red meat and no pasta is a HUGE divergence from a hockey player's diet. Their team meals consist mostly of pasta and chicken....

Im well aware of how much food 5000-6000 calories per day is. It's roughly double the average adult male's daily calorie intake.

Toews can still eat pasta. You can get gluten free pasta very easily. You'd just be better off with better carbs. If he's desperate to do it like people with less information and had less money did it for so many years, he can have pasta.

Likewise, you can very easily replace red meat with chicken and or fish and get your necessary daily protein intake. And thats before you factor in protein shakes.

Nothing Toews has ever said suggests he doesnt eat red meat anyway. I wouldnt be surprised if he went with chicken and fish though, since they're both equal or better sources of lean protein, plus he's an environmental nut and raising cows is pretty hard on the planet.

 

[Pez68]

I doubt the team meals consist of gluten free pasta. Pasta isn't eaten by hockey players because they have less information and money than they did years ago. What an ignorant statement. It's eaten because it's a fantastic source of complex carbs AND calories. Both things hockey players need in mass quantities. You really think the teams are feeding their guys pasta because they're uninformed or being cheap? Get real. It's the most efficient way to get what they need back in their system, and quickly. A pro hockey player needs 800-1000g of carbs a day....(At a weight of 200 lbs.) You know how many fruits and vegetables that is?

Fruits are simple carbs. These have very limited usefulness for a hockey player....

Yeah, you can replace red meat with chicken or fish. But again, hockey players need fat as well... If you're not eating upwards of 5000 calories a day, you're going to feel like garbage. Your muscles don't recover properly. You're sore. Your power is gone. You fatigue easily. I know this from experience, and I'm older, with a slower metabolism, and don't play at near the intensity level these guys play at... I still consume that many calories when I'm playing 3-4 games a week, and on the ice coaching another 2-3. It's very difficult to get the calories I need and not feel bloated and full come game time.

He has mentioned a few times that he tries to stick to a "vegetarian" diet whenever possible. That's not just no red meat, that's no meat period....

 

[Marotte Marauder]

I doubt the team meals consist of gluten free pasta. Pasta isn't eaten by hockey players because they have less information and money than they did years ago. What an ignorant statement. It's eaten because it's a fantastic source of complex carbs AND calories. Both things hockey players need in mass quantities. You really think the teams are feeding their guys pasta because they're uninformed or being cheap? Get real. It's the most efficient way to get what they need back in their system, and quickly. A pro hockey player needs 800-1000g of carbs a day....(At a weight of 200 lbs.) You know how many fruits and vegetables that is?

Fruits are simple carbs. These have very limited usefulness for a hockey player....

Yeah, you can replace red meat with chicken or fish. But again, hockey players need fat as well... If you're not eating upwards of 5000 calories a day, you're going to feel like garbage. Your muscles don't recover properly. You're sore. Your power is gone. You fatigue easily. I know this from experience, and I'm older, with a slower metabolism, and don't play at near the intensity level these guys play at... I still consume that many calories when I'm playing 3-4 games a week, and on the ice coaching another 2-3. It's very difficult to get the calories I need and not feel bloated and full come game time.

He has mentioned a few times that he tries to stick to a "vegetarian" diet whenever possible. That's not just no red meat, that's no meat period....

Maybe he's tired from eating the by the bushel basket! It's only 10 baked potatoes, 5 cups of beans and 40 green peppers per day.

It's funny how the "new" way of exercise and diet is always great until they get walloped by an old school guy.

We didn't know what we were doing, they think.

 

[JaegerDice]

I doubt the team meals consist of gluten free pasta. Pasta isn't eaten by hockey players because they have less information and money than they did years ago. What an ignorant statement. It's eaten because it's a fantastic source of complex carbs AND calories. Both things hockey players need in mass quantities. You really think the teams are feeding their guys pasta because they're uninformed or being cheap? Get real. It's the most efficient way to get what they need back in their system, and quickly. A pro hockey player needs 800-1000g of carbs a day....(At a weight of 200 lbs.) You know how many fruits and vegetables that is?

Fruits are simple carbs. These have very limited usefulness for a hockey player....

Yeah, you can replace red meat with chicken or fish. But again, hockey players need fat as well... If you're not eating upwards of 5000 calories a day, you're going to feel like garbage. Your muscles don't recover properly. You're sore. Your power is gone. You fatigue easily. I know this from experience, and I'm older, with a slower metabolism, and don't play at near the intensity level these guys play at... I still consume that many calories when I'm playing 3-4 games a week, and on the ice coaching another 2-3. It's very difficult to get the calories I need and not feel bloated and full come game time.

He has mentioned a few times that he tries to stick to a "vegetarian" diet whenever possible. That's not just no red meat, that's no meat period....

I'm well aware of the difference between simple and complex carbs, I didn't only list fruits, I listed vegetables and grains as well.

Pasta is a fine source of complex carbs, but it's not like it's the only one or even necessarily the best one. It's just one that people are comfortable with, what they grew up with, particularly in 20th century North America. Long grain brown rice, for example, has more carbs and good calories than Pasta.... but we didn't grow up with it, so it's not the go to. In other countries, it is more so.

The fact is, we know a lot more about nutrition today, but what people eat is influenced by culture and habit. That was my point. Even in the presence of new information illuminating better options, many of us lean back to comfort and routine.

I'm pretty sure if Toews says no gluten, but wants pasta, the team will get him some gluten-free pasta, or he'll get it himself.

He does eat a mostly plant-based diet, that's true. More and more athletes are as nutritional science evolves and more and more plant-based supplements continue to be developed, though Toews seems doubly motivated by the fact that it's better for the environment. He also says he still eats hamburgers in the same breath though, so how strict is 'whenever possible' really?




IN any case, this is a discussion for the Health and Wellness thread.

I don't think Toews diet is an issue. I think he's a guy who plays a taxing style that has a lot of miles on the odometer.

 

[Panzerspitze]

Toews on the Paris Hilton diet? Ouch!

 

[Pez68]

I'm well aware of the difference between simple and complex carbs, I didn't only list fruits, I listed vegetables and grains as well.

Pasta is a fine source of complex carbs, but it's not like it's the only one or even necessarily the best one. It's just one that people are comfortable with, what they grew up with, particularly in 20th century North America. Long grain brown rice, for example, has more carbs and good calories than Pasta.... but we didn't grow up with it, so it's not the go to. In other countries, it is more so.

The fact is, we know a lot more about nutrition today, but what people eat is influenced by culture and habit. That was my point. Even in the presence of new information illuminating better options, many of us lean back to comfort and routine.

I'm pretty sure if Toews says no gluten, but wants pasta, the team will get him some gluten-free pasta, or he'll get it himself.

He does eat a mostly plant-based diet, that's true. More and more athletes are as nutritional science evolves and more and more plant-based supplements continue to be developed, though Toews seems doubly motivated by the fact that it's better for the environment. He also says he still eats hamburgers in the same breath though, so how strict is 'whenever possible' really?




IN any case, this is a discussion for the Health and Wellness thread.

I don't think Toews diet is an issue. I think he's a guy who plays a taxing style that has a lot of miles on the odometer.

“What happens is that they try to eat so clean that they just can’t get enough calories.
“They can eat bushels of spinach and chicken and fish, but the problem is that they don’t get enough calories.

This is from the Senators' conditioning coach. Someone that actually gets paid to know this stuff. Someone that knows how to maintain an athlete's muscle mass and weight throughout the season..

This was your quote: The best carbs come from fruits and vegetables anyway

Pasta and rice are pretty much identical when it comes to carb/calorie efficiency. So yeah, pasta kinda IS the best source.

Someone needs to explain the "miles on the odometer" to me. Because your body doesn't just break down drastically in your late 20s without significant injuries... I don't care how much hockey you've played. Unless, of course, you're not taking care of your body the way you should be.

 

[ClydeLee]

Why so much bickering when wasn't Toews goal to slightly slim and work on turning that into speed after he had noted he gained upper body mass the year prior?

 

[Pez68]

Why so much bickering when wasn't Toews goal to slightly slim and work on turning that into speed after he had noted he gained upper body mass the year prior?

Because outside of a couple games, and brief glimpses here and there, he looks just as slow, weak, and lethargic as last year.

He looks like a guy that just doesn't have any energy out there. Or a guy who lost his fire. Either way, the Hawks aren't winning anything if they're paying a guy $10.5M a season to put up 50 points.

 

[Marotte Marauder]

e.

Someone needs to explain the "miles on the odometer" to me. Because your body doesn't just break down drastically in your late 20s without significant injuries... I don't care how much hockey you've played. Unless, of course, you're not taking care of your body the way you should be.

Because outside of a couple games, and brief glimpses here and there, he looks just as slow, weak, and lethargic as last year.

He looks like a guy that just doesn't have any energy out there. Or a guy who lost his fire. Either way, the Hawks aren't winning anything if they're paying a guy $10.5M a season to put up 50 points.

This what I think it is.

 

[Pez68]

I'm beginning to think the same thing, unfortunately.

 

[JaegerDice]

This is from the Senators' conditioning coach. Someone that actually gets paid to know this stuff. Someone that knows how to maintain an athlete's muscle mass and weight throughout the season..

This was your quote: The best carbs come from fruits and vegetables anyway

Pasta and rice are pretty much identical when it comes to carb/calorie efficiency. So yeah, pasta kinda IS the best source.

Someone needs to explain the "miles on the odometer" to me. Because your body doesn't just break down drastically in your late 20s without significant injuries... I don't care how much hockey you've played. Unless, of course, you're not taking care of your body the way you should be.

Ok, and Gary Roberts, widely considered the BEST conditioning and nutrition guy in hockey believes basically the opposite. He mandates a clean diet for every player that he works with, a diet that cuts out pasta entirely among other things. The closest he allows? Brown rice pasta.

Players are assigned a diet that has no wheat, no sugar, no soy and no processed or packaged foods. Everything must be organic, from deli meats on up, and the 26-item list of what players should eat includes goat's milk, sunflower sprouts, mung beans, salba, chia and hemp.

- Full-fat yogurt, pressed cottage cheese, goat's milk (3.5% MF), organic cream cheese, raw or cured parmigiano

- Organic steak, natural sausage, organic chicken, wild-caught canned tuna, wild salmon

- Kale, baby greens (Asian mix, root mix, mache), sprouts (sunflower, pea, arugula), avocado, chickpeas, mung beans, lentils

- Quinoa, brown rice, brown-rice pasta, salba, chia, hemp, sunflower seeds

- Brazil nuts, walnuts, almonds, coconut

- Extra-virgin olive oil (and coconut oil)

- Variety of other fresh fruits (including goji berries) and vegetables

'Scary Gary' Roberts becomes diet guru for young NHLers

I don't know what Toews diet is. I'm going to take him at his word that he's not a vegetarian, and probably eats a good amount of animal protein, whatever the source. Even if he is secretly a vegetarian, he has plenty of options for good carbs calories to give him energy. Protein wise, he'd need to eat more grams per day of food (and supplements and whatnot) to hit the same grams of protein a meat eater would get but still very manageable, especially in this age of protein supplements.



As far as the miles on the odometer comment, it's pretty much what it sounds like. Toews is 6.2 200lbs. He's a big guy but not huge, and he plays a very physically taxing style of game. He doesn't shy from contact, he was the guy going into the corners and coming out with the puck. He's also played as many or more games of hockey than pretty much anybody since 2010. Wear and tear builds up. It's not only significant, 'event' injuries and recovery that slow athletes down.

And the decline can be steep once you start approaching 30 and your body's ability to repair slows down. At that point you're adding new wear and tear faster than you can heal up the wear and tear from the last game and it snowballs. Look at Mike Richards. At Toews current age, he was getting 4th line minutes. The next season he was sent down to the AHL. Now granted, he was slightly smaller than Toews and had drugs to help speed up the decline, but still.. Mike Richards was another guy that played a taxing style of hockey and played a TON of games.

I'm not sure we're ever getting peak 2010-2015 Toews back. I think he's been markedly better this season than the last 2, and the underlying numbers support that view. He's not producing, but he will if he keeps up the level of play he's had most of the season thus far. I mean hell, 2 weeks ago people were worried about Cat's lack of production despite the fact that he was obviously playing well, and eventually the goals came. Process leads to results. If he and his line get back to generating possession, shots and chances, the production will come.

The last 2 games are concerning, no doubt... though frankly, they're concerning for Saad too, and he doesn't have any questions about his diet or wear and tear. So it could just be two bad games.



If it IS as easy as diet, then yeah, I hope he changes it. I just don't think it is.

 

[b1e9a8r5s]

This whole diet convo is dumb. He needs to play better. Why speculate about his diet? It doesn't matter

 

[JaegerDice]

This whole diet convo is dumb. He needs to play better. Why speculate about his diet? It doesn't matter

The thing is, outside of like 3 games, he has been performing very well. Not as good as he was in 2015, but very well regardless. He just hasn't been getting rewarded.

The last 2 games are concerning, and I hope to see a bounce back next game, but if he keeps up what he was doing, I'm fairly confident the production will start coming.

 

[b1e9a8r5s]

The thing is, outside of like 3 games, he has been performing very well. Not as good as he was in 2015, but very well regardless. He just hasn't been getting rewarded.

The last 2 games are concerning, and I hope to see a bounce back next game, but if he keeps up what he was doing, I'm fairly confident the production will start coming.

I agree. Well last game wasn't great, but overall I'd say his game has been good, although the production hasn't been there. I'm confident that will come though.

 

[CokenoPepsi]

I'm confident that Toews needs to hit up a Carl's Jr before the next game...every bite is better than the previous bite.

 

[Blackhawks]

This diet junk has been speculated forever and if this was the case the team doctors and trainers would have let him know and he himself would have known that this was the problem and it would have been corrected.

Why was he playing well the first 10 games of the season?

This is all mental or the the training has not been at the same intensity level as it was before. Food can only hold you back so much, it doesn’t turn superstars into 3rd liners.

Hawks fans like to blame it on these things like health or food because they don’t want to come to grips with the possibility that their hero, the hardest working and most dedicated guy is slacking and isn’t putting the work or is mentally blocked and lost all confidence. I tend to think it’s a combination of all of the above plus some personal things. The reality is that he won 3 cups and has all the cash in the world and just can’t motivate himself like back in the day even if he truly wanted to, he is too comfortable especially when he knows the team has zero chance of winning this year...

 

[pvr]

...

Protein calories are different. Calories are basically a unit of energy derived from a food, that will either be used or stored as fat. Protein doesn't give the body energy... the body actually uses energy to use protein for muscle build and repair. And your body can only use a certain amount of protein depending on when you ingest it... you just piss out the excess if your body doesn't need to repair any muscle tissue...

I’m not going to comment or speculate on anything regarding nutrition or diet, but I will comment on the statement that the body will rid itself of excess protein via urination. That is just patently wrong. If protein is being lost in the urine, then filtration at the glomerular level is damaged, and protein is finding its way into the tubules. Protein in the urine is a sign of acute or chronic renal insufficiency and obvious renal disease (with very rare exceptions).

 

[CokenoPepsi]

As far as Toews it really is a combination of many things and no one factor.

Toews has always been a bit overrated and greatly benefited by the chance to play with all stars for virtually his entire career when he no longer has them of course he is going to struggle to produce. When you get overrated for so long and people in the media literally say "He could score 100 points in a season but he chooses not to" it makes the fall for some fanboys even harder I am sure... it becomes tough to accept that Toews simply does not have the talent of a guy like Crosby, Kane, Malkin, etc to produce regularly. Maybe this realization has hit Toews as well which is hurting him mentally.

Motivation probably is a big factor as well, he was drafted into a good spot and had alot of team success and now has more money then he knows what to do with, he probably simply doesn't really care that much anymore it would be great if everyone was Keith or Kane that were driven to be the best he could be but not everyone is like that.

He seems content to just ride the wave of his celebrity status now, making commercials for Chevy and Lemonade while also endorsing Canadian Tire up in Canada (he has a new toaster for sale)... sort of similar to say Brett Favre in the second half of his career.

 

[Salvaged Ship]

Want toast with Jonathan Toews' face on it? Buy a 'Toews-ter.'

Are you kidding me, he doesn’t even eat toast!

A good cause for charity but I doubt anyone in here buys it with all the moaning. I guess it’s time to hear some “Toews is toast” jokes now.....

 

[hawksrule]

This thread title so dumb it makes me annoyed. Toews and woes don’t rhyme, and the joke doesn’t work if you have to remove a letter and scramble the rest to get the word you want. 0/10.

 

[LordKOTL]

I'm well aware of the difference between simple and complex carbs, I didn't only list fruits, I listed vegetables and grains as well.

Pasta is a fine source of complex carbs, but it's not like it's the only one or even necessarily the best one. It's just one that people are comfortable with, what they grew up with, particularly in 20th century North America. Long grain brown rice, for example, has more carbs and good calories than Pasta.... but we didn't grow up with it, so it's not the go to. In other countries, it is more so.

The fact is, we know a lot more about nutrition today, but what people eat is influenced by culture and habit. That was my point. Even in the presence of new information illuminating better options, many of us lean back to comfort and routine.

I'm pretty sure if Toews says no gluten, but wants pasta, the team will get him some gluten-free pasta, or he'll get it himself.

He does eat a mostly plant-based diet, that's true. More and more athletes are as nutritional science evolves and more and more plant-based supplements continue to be developed, though Toews seems doubly motivated by the fact that it's better for the environment. He also says he still eats hamburgers in the same breath though, so how strict is 'whenever possible' really?




IN any case, this is a discussion for the Health and Wellness thread.

I don't think Toews diet is an issue. I think he's a guy who plays a taxing style that has a lot of miles on the odometer.

I'm not saying Toews diet is or isn't the issue, but last season Toews looked closer to 38 and Hossa looked closer to 29, and Hossa has a lot more miles on the clock and was saddled with more than Toews was.

So I really don't think the miles on the Odometer really flies--if Toews is the all-star captain who can do no wrong than all of us want him to be, he shouldn't get outplayed by a guy who's a decade older--especially one playing through the crud.

 

[Hawkaholic]

Players age/regress differently, not every player is the same. Some players can play at a high level for a long time, some players can only do it for a short period of time. Mike Richards was as good as Toews at one point in his career, and now he is completely out of hockey. Jagr is still playing, meanwhile guys in the same draft year as him have been out of the game for 15 years.