The "food" at swim meets is mostly junk and candy. But outside of that kids are burning a lot of calories swimming are hungry and need to eat. My child was regularly eating 3 eggs after swim practice!

Not proud to say this, but there quite a few pizza dinners. We spend a lot of time at the pool and that was the easiest thing.

Be ready for 2 dinners if your swimmer has evening practice. DS will eat something smaller and light (PBJ, pasta, etc) before practice and then INHALES a second (more hearty) dinner post practice.

If he’s going right from camp to practice or camp to B meets, bring the food he likes with you. Get a good quality thermos type container and bring pasta. My kid likes plain buttered pasta in a thermos in his swim bag for late afternoon meets. Pb sandwiches are easy to pack. We’ll bring rice in a thermos with a side of chicken nuggets and broccoli for my one kid (if it’s a regular practice) and the other likes egg/sausage/cheese sandwiches on an English muffin before he swims. We also throw in applesauce pouches, clementines, and sometimes cheese its or other fast snacks like that.

Carbs! For morning practices, my kid usually just wanted toast with jam beforehand. Evening practices, he wants a bowl of pasta. Saturday morning meets, he has a donut, then gets a hamburger after he's done swimming.

Our swim team does Donut Fridays but for an active (and already skinny) kid, that's hardly going to move the needle. OP, for swim meet mornings, my 10 year old likes and egg and cheese sandwich and juice on the way to morning meets, and I usually pack her fruit (cut up melon, apple slices, a banana) and simple carbs (Belvitas, granola, a bag of dry cereal, sports drink) for snacking during the meet. After, we do a meal with protein. Before evening meets, we'll do tortellini, a sandwich, or chicken nuggets to eat between warm-ups and events, and same snacks.

I belong to a pool that has swim club and from what I see and overhear, they are constantly insisting parents volunteer to bring junk food and sell crap at concessions to the kids. Whatever calories these kids burn off is probably less than the junk food they eat.

Kids eat more junk food calories than they burn at summer swim.

Another newbie question. Did you find your swimmers lost weight or had a lot less energy for other things the first summer of summer swim team? I have a fairly skinny 10 year old and we will be on the go a lot this summer so I want to make sure I’ve got some good hearty food on hand. What did your swimmers like?

Right now he’s got a moderate level of activity and eats a lot of pb sandwiches, heavy pasta dishes, and ground beef. But he isn’t a big smackers besides sometimes wanting toast or crackers or an orange.