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Rest week or holidays: should your son eat less?

The club takes a week off, and so does school. Many families cut portions, since he isn't training. More often than not, the opposite is needed. Here is what really drops, what doesn't, and how to organise his meals so the return to training goes well.

Published on 1 November 2026·7 min read·By Jérôme Devos

Empty football pitch at night under the floodlights, during a week without training — A week without training is when the body recovers from everything it has absorbed.

Autumn half-term, the Christmas break, a rest week the staff schedule after a heavy block. Several times a season, the pitch goes quiet for five to ten days.

And at home, the same sentence comes back: "he isn't doing anything this week, he doesn't need to eat as much". Breakfast goes because he sleeps until eleven. Portions shrink. Snacks disappear.

The intention is good: nobody wants him to gain fat during a week without sport. But a teenager who trains five times a week doesn't only eat for the pitch.

The rest week is when his body recovers from everything it has absorbed. If he runs short of fuel in exactly that week, he comes back less fresh than before the break.

1. What really drops during a week without training

A ninety-minute academy session costs a 60 to 70 kg player several hundred kilocalories. Over a week of four or five sessions, that adds up. When the pitch goes quiet, that expenditure disappears.

But it is only part of what he needs. The rest keeps running: basal metabolism, digestion, concentration at school and, above all, growth. The full calculation is in the article on how many calories a young footballer needs.

And on holiday, a teenager rarely sits still. Cycling, a kickabout with friends, days out: expenditure drops, but far less than people think. Halving his meals because training has gone to zero is the wrong sum.

2. What never takes a holiday: growth and repair

Between 13 and 18, the body is building non-stop. Height, bones, muscles, tendons: that work doesn't stop because the club closes its doors.

Then there is repair. After several weeks of load, muscles, tendons and joints have built up small amounts of damage, which the body repairs precisely when the load comes down. That repair needs protein and energy.

The UEFA expert statement on nutrition in football is clear on this: a player's protein needs stay high and regular, including on days without training. Protein does not come down during a rest week.

3. What you actually adjust: carbohydrates, and nothing else

The right logic isn't to eat less. It is to adjust what follows the training load, and keep everything else.

Starchy carbohydrates come down slightly on days with no activity at all: a slightly smaller portion of rice, pasta or potatoes, never removed. They are what tracks expenditure.
Protein stays the same at every meal: meat, fish, eggs, dairy.
Fruit and vegetables stay the same, or even go up. It's the ideal week to eat more of them, with no session to digest for.
The number of meals stays the same. Breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner. The snack can get lighter, but it doesn't disappear.

In practice, on a typical day, the gap between a training week and a rest week often comes down to a few spoonfuls of carbohydrate per meal. Never to a skipped meal.

The most common trap

The lie-in that wipes out breakfast

He gets up at eleven, has a bowl of cereal around midday as his first meal, then grazes all afternoon in front of a screen. On paper, he has eaten. In reality, he has gone fifteen hours without a proper meal, followed by scattered snacks that are often sugary and low in protein.

By the end of the week, he has lost weight. Not fat: water, glycogen stores and sometimes a little muscle. He arrives back at training with low stores, at exactly the moment the load goes up again.

The simple rule: keep meal times close to a school day, give or take an hour. Waking up can slide, breakfast stays a proper meal. What it should contain is covered in the article on breakfast for footballers.

The opposite excess exists too: the week with no structure at all, crisps, fizzy drinks and fast food every evening. One meal out changes nothing. Seven days with no structure does.

4. For a player building muscle, it's the best week of the season

For a player who needs to gain weight, a rest week is a rare opportunity. Expenditure drops, and if intake stays the same, the surplus builds almost by itself.

That is exactly the situation of a goalkeeper I'm working with right now. His club gave him a rest week with a few runs, and his dad asked me what needed adjusting. My answer: we take nothing away. His goal is to put weight back on, and this calmer week is the chance to do it.

We simply reorganised his days around his running sessions. The quantities didn't change. The full principles are in the article on how to build muscle as a footballer.

For a player who needs to lose weight, carbohydrates can come down a little more on days with no activity. A little. A rest week is never the time to start a diet.

5. Hydration drops without anyone noticing

No training means no bottle in the kit bag and no compulsory drinks break. Many players drink noticeably less during the holidays without realising it.

Body weight (kg) × 40 ml = baseline daily need

For a 65 kg player: 65 × 40 = 2,600 ml across the day, training or not.

The simplest guide is still urine colour: pale yellow, all good. Dark, he needs to drink. The full topic is in the article on football hydration.

6. The last two days prepare the return

The return comes quickly, often with a more intense session than usual, because the staff want to get things going again.

For the two days before, go back to the normal quantities of a training week, carbohydrates included. Glycogen stores refill in twenty-four to forty-eight hours, as long as they are given the means.

Sleep follows the same logic: gradually go back to a school-night bedtime two or three evenings before the return. A player who has lived on a shifted clock all week pays for it in the first session. For a longer break, such as the summer, everything is in the article on pre-season nutrition.

Medical note

When the rest is forced by an injury

Everything above is about a planned rest week. A break caused by injury is a different situation: protein needs actually go up, to limit muscle loss while immobilised. I explain it in detail in the article on nutrition for football injury.

And if your son loses weight at every break, has a poor appetite for several weeks or stays exhausted despite resting, it's worth seeking medical advice.

Key takeaways

A rest week reduces the energy the pitch uses. It doesn't reduce the needs of growth and repair, which keep running while the club is closed.

The adjustments are simple: slightly fewer carbohydrates on days with no activity, protein and fruit unchanged, all four meals kept, meal times close to a school day, and back to normal quantities two days before the return.

The player who handles his rest week well doesn't treat it as time off. He comes back fresher than he left.

Scientific sources

Collins J, Maughan RJ, Gleeson M, et al. UEFA expert group statement on nutrition in elite football. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2021;55(8):416-442. BJSM
Desbrow B, McCormack J, Burke LM, et al. Sports Dietitians Australia position statement: sports nutrition for the adolescent athlete. International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 2014;24(5):570-584. PubMed
Bergeron MF, Mountjoy M, Armstrong N, et al. International Olympic Committee consensus statement on youth athletic development. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2015;49(13):843-851. PubMed

Frequently asked questions

Frequently asked questions.

Very little. Carbohydrates come down slightly on days with no activity at all, but protein, fruit, vegetables and all four meals of the day stay. Growth and recovery keep using energy.

Not if he keeps a normal meal structure. A week with regular meal times and slightly smaller carbohydrate portions doesn't put on fat. The problem is the week with no structure, with grazing and skipped meals.

The same baseline as in a training period, around 40 ml per kilo of body weight per day, or 2.6 litres for a 65 kg player. Pale yellow urine is still the simplest guide.

Two days before the first session. Glycogen stores refill in twenty-four to forty-eight hours, so the player starts with a full tank at the moment the load goes back up.