Understanding fatigue as an endurance athlete

After completing 17 Ironman distance triathlons, I have become good friends with fatigue. Over the past few years I have become much better at tolerating fatigue. Winning my age group at IM Chatt ('17), IMWI ('18) and IMLP ('21) and qualifying for the Ironman World Championship six times has proved to me that becoming a better long-distance triathlete is all about consistency, patience and strength. 

Over the past few years, there's been a great amount of talk over fat burning as a metabolic approach to delay fatigue and to improve endurance performance. Carbohydrate fuels are limited in the body and glycogen (stored carbs) depletion is a major cause of fatigue during high duration activities. Therefore, by increasing the reliance on fat for fuel (because fat fuel supplies are unlimited in the body), endurance athletes can delay fatigue through increased fat burning. To increase fat oxidation during exercise, athletes often resort to fasted training, a high-fat/low carb diet or a high amount of very low-intensity ("fat burning zone) training. 

With so much hype over fat burning to delay fatigue, many athletes are blaming poor race day performances on not being metabolically efficient (aka not being a fat-burning machine) and in turn, are spending a lot of time and effort on manipulating training and dietary methods to increase the body's capacity for fat oxidation. 

Fatigue is certainly a limiter to endurance performance. It affects your physical and mental ability to perform as it's the point when you can no longer maintain a given output of force. Too much training fatigue leaves you unable to perform well the next day. Minimizing fatigue on race day means faster times due to less of a slow down. Interestingly, there are many causes of fatigue - from neurological to mechanical. Fatigue is a product of many factors and the mechanisms that cause fatigue are specific to the task being performed. Many times, fatigue is mental - it's a feeling or a decline in mental function. 

With no single cause of muscle fatigue, the primary definition leads us to believe that fatigue is the inability to continue a task - whether it's finish a workout or a race, the body and/or mind become too exhausted to continue the task at a given effort. 

This brings me to my point - is metabolic inefficiency to blame? 

While fatigue can result due to depleted energy (carbohydrates), becoming more fat-adapted does not necessarily improve the capacity of your muscles, nervous system and cardiovascular system to work better. Being fat adapted does not mean that your muscles will no longer be imbalanced, it does not improve your terrain management skills or that your movement patterns become more economical. 

Not fueling appropriately will not make you a better athlete. Intentional fat adaptation will not improve your performance if you are not training in a way that enables you to become a stronger, more resilient and fitter athlete. Not eating before a workout doesn't mean you are changing your physiology through training. Becoming fat adapted doesn't guarantee that your body composition will change. 

Instead of blaming fatigue (or lack of endurance) on not being a great fat burner, be consistent with your training, fuel and eat smart, be patient and build up slowly. 

Endurance refers to the ability of a muscle to undergo repeated contractions against a set resistance for a period of time. 

Building endurance and becoming better at resisting fatigue takes time. It's a very slow and gradual adaptation. Naturally, overtime your body will become more efficient with how it uses fuel. You do not have to force it through fasted training, a high fat diet or a significant amount of low intensity training.

Consistent training at various intensities (to stress different metabolic systems) will induce major adaptations in your skeletal, nervous and cardio systems to improve your ability to better perform endurance exercise training. The stronger you get, the less you fatigue and the faster you will be. 

Addressing the body positive movement and weight loss

Picture source

Body positivity challenges the ways in which our society presents, celebrates and views bodies.  Sadly, far too many body shapes and types have been shunned by the mainstream media or not classified as beautiful. Our society has a fixation on the "tiny" ideal and encourages everyone to fit the social standards of being lean. This is why there are so many movements promoting body positivity. Because many people feel discriminated against because their body doesn't meet the "ideal" image, the body positive movement challenges social norms and promotes the belief that all bodies - regardless of size, shape, gender, physical abilities or skin tone - should be accepted.

The body positivity movement is a necessary movement but it can also be controversial - can you have a positive relationship with your body and desire weight loss/a change in your body composition? 

First off, it is a myth that large bodies are unhealthy. Being bigger doesn't mean being unhealthy. Someone can be thin and unhealthy. As an example, all runners are susceptible to injuries and overuse injuries - not just larger bodies. 

Secondly, your body = your choices. You deserve respect, equality and kindness regardless of your body size, what foods you eat or your health status.

Lastly, large bodies are not the only humans who can struggle with body image. Learning to hate your body is the primary goal of the diet industry. You can be small/thin and have a negative body image.

One of the missing focal points when discussing the body positive movement is the topic of developing and maintaining a positive body image. A positive body image means you embrace, accept and appreciate your body for all that it can do. You can be body positive but not have a positive body image - and vice versa. But both are important when it comes to weight loss. Body dissatisfaction often leads to unhealthy behaviors. If you love something, you are more likely to treat it well.

First off, the decision to lose weight should be a personal choice - not because you feel pressure to achieve an idealized image. This is why the body positive movement is so important. You should never feel pressure to look a certain way. If you desire weight loss, you need to be body positive and have a positive body image.

Choosing to become more active, eat a more nutritious diet and to live a more healthy lifestyle doesn't need to happen because you hate your body. Taking better care of yourself is a positive thing to do for your body.

The diet industry wants you to believe that your looks are everything and with weight loss, you will be happy and healthy. This desire of happy and "healthy" can lead to unhealthy behaviors like overexercising, dieting and eating disorders. When it comes to body positivity, I want to remind you that health is made of many different factors. You can't tell how healthy someone is from how they look.

And just because you lose weight or change the way your body looks, this doesn't mean that you will feel happier - or become healthier. Don't pin your happiness on achieving a smaller version of yourself. Weight loss should not come from a place of hate towards your body. Changing your body doesn't change how you feel about food, exercise and your body image.

For those who don't understand the body positive movement, there's a belief that this movement is normalizing unhealthy bodies. And this is not what this movement is about.

There's tremendous social pressure to look a certain way. Most people are not comfortable with what they see in the mirror because society has brainwashed you to believe that you need to change how you look in order to be healthier, fitter, happier and more successful. The diet industry has created an illusion that smaller = healthier.

All bodies deserve to be accepted. Your body should not be judged. But let's also celebrate self-care - even if your self-care acts don't lead you down the road to significant weight loss - and that is ok.

Body positivity is about finding an exercise regime that you enjoy, changing your diet because it makes you feel good, sleeping well to be more rested and looking after your mental health. Weight loss goals or not - don't forget to be kind to your body.

Accepting your "ideal" body composition

Height, hair color, eye color, skin color.

We can't control or determine these things when we are born. Yet we are taught that we can (and should) force our bodies to achieve a specific shape, weight, size and appearance.

We are fed information that our weight matters, even if it comes at a cost of our mental and physical health.

But not all bodies are set to be at a specific body composition.

Every human has a specific weight range for their body to function optimally.

If you've forgotten or failed to learn the importance of maintaining a healthy weight, you may be familiar with the difficulty and frustration of restricting food in an effort to change your body composition.

Trying to achieve or maintain a body composition that goes below your body's set point often by restricting energy or over-exercising impairs the functioning of your body.

No matter how hard you fight, your body will fight back to stay within a range where your body operates and functions optimally.

The body slows metabolic rate, it shuts down non-essential functioning and eventually bone, immune system, well-being and cardiovascular health become compromised.

Enough with trying to achieve or maintain an idealized image.

It’s not that you shouldn’t care about your weight. But your thoughts and behaviors around food, your body and exercise matter so much more than an image.

Reasons why you are having a "bad body" day.

In our weight and image-obsessed society, it can be difficult to maintain a healthy relationship with food and the body when you are having an "uncomfortable body" day.

Our culture is really tough on bodies - we are taught that our current size/shape/weight is a problem and it requires immediate fixing.

The human body is amazing. It’s constantly working for you. As you go through life, it’s only natural and normal that your body will change along with you. The body is complex and dynamic. Every day your body is adjusting to its environment and the stress placed on it.

Let's look at some of the incredible ways that the body works for you and why you shouldn't overhaul your diet or exercise regime if you feel or see your body making a small shift in size, shape or weight throughout the day.

The never-ending race weight discussion

Within certain sports (ex. triathlon, running, cycling, etc.) it’s not uncommon for athletes to manipulate the diet in order to achieve a lower body fat percentage - believing that a body that weighs less will lead to athletic success. Whether for aesthetics, competitive leanness, body dissatisfaction, or in pursuit of an ideal “race weight,” what may start as an innocent attempt to lean-up or to lose a few pounds, can easily spiral out of control - undermining health, training, recovery, performance and mental well-being. Although there are safe and healthy ways to change body composition, it’s not uncommon for athletes to engage in unhealthy weight loss methods, resulting in great emotional and physical consequences.
Disordered eating is a general term describing harmful, obsessive or extreme eating behaviors that are used in attempt to achieve a lower than normal body weight. Examples include rigid or righteous eating, fasting, anxiety, control or preoccupation with certain foods, food rituals, extreme concern with body size and elimination of food groups.

Unfortunately, comments made by coaches, social media, body shaming, fat talk, attributing poor performances on weight, and regular weigh-ins intensify body image concerns, leading to disordered eating behaviors.

Because many athletes are given a socially acceptable setting to justify excessive exercise and strict eating habits, it’s not uncommon for the performances by an energy starved athlete to be celebrated. However the initial performance improvement occurring from disordered eating is typically short-lived as nutrient deficiencies, fatigue, anemia, reduced cardio function, chronic illnesses or injuries and low motivation will eventually impair physical and mental health.

How you need to look to live a quality-filled life may be different than how you think you need to look. The process of developing a positive body image takes time but to love your body in motion is worth the patience and hard work.

Preparing for an athletic should never require obsessive training and restrictive eating. As you build your fitness, build a better body image. In today’s fad-diet obsessed society, it can be difficult to keep a healthy perspective on the look of your body. You can still be an athlete even if your body doesn’t match the unrealistic images seen on social media. Athletes come in all shapes and sizes. Every Athlete has his/her own optimum performance weight where the body functions the best and this body type is achieved by consistent training, nutritious eating and proper fueling and hydration. If you are concerned about body image, remember that a performance-ready body is more about how you feel and perform, not what the scale tells you.

Your training and diet should promote long-term health and longevity in sport. Eating is not cheating. If you need personalize nutrition assistance, reach out to a Board Certified Sport Dietitian for help. 

For additional reading:

Chasing Race Weight

Changing your perception of race weight

Still trying to reach your "race weight"?

Attempting to reach race weight

DEXA Body Composition Testing - Review (and results)

Several weeks ago I was contacted via email by someone from a company who asked if I was interested in receiving a complimentary DEXA Scan (along with Karel) in return of a review. As you may know, I am not a fan of the scale and I never weigh myself. Considering all that makes up your body, your body weight can’t accurately be told by a number on the bathroom or BMI scale. But this doesn't stop far too many athletes from daily or weekly scale weighing - often feeling like the scale runs or ruins the day.

A DEXA Scan is a reliable, gold-standard way to precisely measure body composition (I discussed this in my book Essential Sports Nutrition). DEXA stands for dual energy x-ray absorptiometry.  More than just a weight, a DEXA Scan tells you what you are made up of - muscle, fat and bone. You can see muscle asymmetry, visceral fat and bone density.

For the athlete with excessive body fat, weight loss may improve health and sport performance. However to pressure from society, coaches and social media, it’s not uncommon for many athletes to have body image struggles, feeling like the body should always look differently. Because many athletes resort to unsafe weight loss methods and strategies when feeling “fat”, the first step in a weight loss program is to gather baseline information of your current body composition – what are you made of? Your bathroom scale does not tell you what you are made of - it only tells you a number.

Understanding body composition 
Your body weight is made of two parts: body fat and lean body mass.

Body fat can be divided into two types; essential fat and storage fat. Essential fat is stored in organs, like the heart, lungs, spleen, kidneys, intestines and liver, as well as in muscle tissue, the central nervous system and bone marrow. Although a small amount stored in the body, the body requires this type of fat for bodily processes. Essential fat is very important for your overall health. Women have more essential fat than men for child-bearing purposes. Essential fat is also needed for hormone related functions.

Storage fat (the more familiar fat) consists of fat accumulation in adipose tissue. Subcutaneous fat helps to protect the skeletal structure and to conserve body heat. Visceral fat (or abdominal fat) lies just beneath the skin surface. An excessive amount of visceral fat has been linked to health issues. It's important to know your android fat level and gynoid fat level (and ratio) for metabolic health. Gynoid fat storage (pear shape) is common in women as this fat is stored primarily around the hips and thighs. This storage is often seen as healthy for child bearing. Android fat (apple shape) is stored in the midsection, predominately in the abdomen, but can be also be found in the chest and upper arms. This type of fat is consistently shown to place people at a higher risk of heart disease, diabetes, hormonal issues and more. Knowing the distribution of fat in your body can be helpful to monitor health risks and to minimize health issues later in life. Because a DEXA scan measures different types of fat in every region of your body (even your head!), the ratio of android to gynoid fat (A/G ratio) is something to monitor. You want this ratio below 1.0.

Lean body mass is everything that is not fat. Your bathroom scale doesn't know how much of your body is lean vs. fat. For example, your scale doesn't tell you the weight of your bones, organs, muscles, fluid, ligaments and tendons. More so, if your body composition is changing, your weight won't tell you why it's changing - is it more/less fluid, more/less muscle, more/less fat, more/less bone?

When we think of words like lean, fat or overweight, what do those words really mean? For example, according to a height and weight table, I may be classified as normal weight (but on the high end), but this table doesn't take into account my muscle mass and bone density. And although excess body fat can have an impact on your overall health, you do need body fat for important bodily functions.

If you are concerned or interested in your body composition, I highly encourage you to ditch the scale and get a DEXA scan. The DEXA Scan website will help you find the nearest location (and pricing) to get your body composition tested. Although not every center with a DEXA scan is listed on this website, it's a good starting place. The average price of a DEXA scan varies from $50-150 (on average). I'd say that's extremely reasonable, considering all the information you receive and the ease of the test. It only takes ~6-8 minutes for the machine to run the scan on you - while laying down - and you immediately get your results right after the test.

Because a DEXA scan tells you a tremendous amount of information about your body composition, here are some practical applications from the analysis of your body composition:

• If you feel the need to change your body composition, you should know exactly what you are made of before attempting to change your diet or exercise regime. And because you can't target your fat loss or spot reduce, even if you try to build muscle or reduce body fat, repeated testing (ex. every 3 months) can show you trends over time after establishing a baseline - particularly, how your body composition has changed over time. This will also emphasize the fact that healthy and sustainable body composition changes can not be quickly achieved, especially through extreme exercise or strict eating methods. Far too many athletes overexercise and undereat for the reasons of wanting to weigh less to perform better. If you are serious about changing your body composition, you need a very specific program/approach that will help you achieve your goals (ex. decrease body fat, increasing muscle) without compromising your health, performance and quality of life. And because body composition changes don't guarantee performance improvements, your primary focus for changing body composition should be for health reasons - not aesthetics. 

• Although a DEXA scan is not a bone density exam, it does give you a general overview of your bone strength. As an athlete, you should be very concerned about this number. A high bone density (higher Z-score), means strong, healthy bones. Interestingly, a DEXA scan may tell you about  imbalances, that may have resulted in (or predispose you to) an injury. This information may help your PT/trainer better understand the exercises that you need to be doing to rehab appropriately (after an injury) or to reduce the risk of an injury. For example, in the DEXA scan, you can see the difference between your right side and left side bone density. A large imbalance may indicate a muscle imbalance from a past muscle injury or an injury waiting to happen.
• Body weight is a sensitive topic and many athletes are trying to avoid the scale for that reason. I agree - the scale is not a good indicator of your self-worth, athletic talents or overall health. Because poor body image can lead to obsessive behaviors (ex. eating/exercising), a DEXA scan may give you reassurance and satisfaction that your body is actually in great health. I feel there's something extremely powerful in knowing exactly what you are made of - it also shows you how incredible your body is because of all that it's made of. Plus, if you have recently gained or lost weight, you want to be assured that it's the "right" kind of weight. For example, you could avoid carbohydrates for a few days and lose a lot of water weight. Your weight may be lower but your weight loss likely didn't come from fat. 

Karel and I found this experience to be very enlightening. We never obsess about our weight/body image and our eating habits are not regimented or strict. The information we received from our scans was more about knowing what we are made of, instead of feeling like we need to use this information to make changes. We don't plan on making any changes with our diet (or training) to change our body composition for we are both healthy, performing well and enjoy our current style of eating/training. Plus, we feel our body composition  naturally changes throughout the season based on our ability to adapt to training stress and recover between sessions. We also know that serious health issues can occur from getting too lean (the body gets weaker, not faster). And seeing that it's only June and we still have over three more months of Ironman specific training, we don't want to jeopardize our health in favor of attempting a leaner body composition.

Here is a recap of our body composition analysis from the Lovelace Family Medicine Center in Prosperity, SC. 

KAREL

Age: 42
Weight (weighed with shoes and clothes on, I feel this should have been a naked weight): 145.0 lb
Height (shoes on - I feel they should have taken our shoes off): 67.5 inches
Body fat percentage: 12.4%
Android: 13%
Gynoid: 13.6%
Android/Gynoid ratio: .96 
L Arm: 10.7% fat
R Arm: 11.3% fat
L leg: 12.9% fat
R leg: 12.2% fat
Head: 21.7%
Z score: 0.1
T score: 0.1
(a score of -1.0 or above is normal bone density. A score between -1.0 and -2.5 means low bone density or osteopenia and -2.5--4 is osteoporosis. A T-score is your bone density compared to what is normally expected in a healthy young adult of your sex. Your Z-score is the number of standard deviations above or below what's normally expected for someone of your sex, age, weight, ethnic or racial origin). 
L Arm: 0.950 BMD (bone mineral density, the amount of bone mineral in bone tissue)
R Arm: 0.997 BMD
L Ribs: 0.736 BMD
R Ribs: 0.639 BMD
T Spine: 0.887 BMD
L Spine: 1.093 BMD
Pelvis: 1.205 BMD
L Leg: 1.251 BMD
R Leg: 1.254 BMD

MARNI

Age: 37
Weight (weighed with shoes and clothes on, I feel this should have been a naked weight): 114.0 lb
Height (shoes on - I feel they should have taken our shoes off but I'll take the height increase :): 61.5 inches
Body fat percentage: 17.1%
Android: 13.9%
Gynoid: 23.2%
Android/Gynoid ratio: .60 
L Arm: 16.5% fat
R Arm: 14.3% fat
L leg: 21.3% fat
R leg: 19.5% fat
Head: 21.3%
Z score: 0.5
T score: 0.8
(a score of -1.0 or above is normal bone density. A score between -1.0 and -2.5 means low bone density or osteopenia and -2.5--4 is osteoporosis.)
L Arm: 0.794 BMD (bone mineral density, the amount of bone mineral in bone tissue)
R Arm: 0.842 BMD
L Ribs: 0.571 BMD
R Ribs: 0.632 BMD
T Spine: 0.966 BMD
L Spine: 1.212 BMD
Pelvis: 1.078 BMD
L Leg: 1.128 BMD
R Leg: 1.148 BMD

Although athletes tend to have lower body fat percentages, extremely low body fat can pose health issues - for men and women. When it comes to seeing where you stack-up with your body composition compared to someone else, be mindful that your body is unique. We must keep in mind that there an extreme variability of body shapes, sizes, heights, bone structure, genetics, weight and fat and muscle distributions. No two bodies are the same so it's not worth comparing your body composition (or image) to that of another athlete. Two athletes, each with 15% body fat can look extremely different. You can also be very fit at different body fat percentages. You can also be extremely lean but in poor health. This is why it's also important to never assume that weight loss will result in performance gains. Through DEXA testing, you can see how your body is put together and what you are made of. It's up to you if you want to do anything with that information.

Final thoughts....we found this process informative. I saw this as a wonderful opportunity to see how strong and healthy my body is in the inside and to see what I am really made of. Because athletes can become so overly focused on body image, make sure you are spending your energy in the right place - to become a stronger, healthier and better athlete. Performance gains don't come quickly and you should never make assumptions that lean = fit. Strive to be in great health and don't tie your happiness, confidence and self-worth to an image or body composition.

If you are interested in getting your body composition tested, you can use this link, DEXA Scan, to find your nearest location. 

I was not paid to write this post and all thoughts/feedback are my own. In return of this blog post, I received two complimentary DEXA Scan tests at a location of my choice. The closest location per the DEXA Scan website was ~90 minutes away. The test was performed on June 4th, 2019. 

Appreciate your body image

We all come in different sizes and shapes based on our unique genetic make-up. However, it’s common to turn to exercise to change the way that you look. Some athletes may desire a body composition change to help improve endurance, speed, strength, power and agility. Others may want to improve health. While health and performance may be of interest, athletes are often heavily invested in appearance - wanting to look leaner or more like the idealized image of an athlete in their sport. Keeping in mind that athletic success cannot be predicted based solely on body weight and composition, athletes come in vastly different body compositions. Because no two athletes are alike and sports invite athletes of all different sizes and builds, your body weight should not be your sole focus for sport enjoyment. 

Due to pressure from society and coaches, it’s not uncommon for many athletes to have body image struggles, despite not being overweight or over fat. In turn, many athletes resort to unsafe weight loss methods and strategies when feeling "too fat."

It’s not uncommon for athletes to significantly limit caloric intake, believing that a body that weighs less will lead to athletic success. Harmful or obsessive eating behaviors are often used in attempt to achieve a lower than normal body weight or in pursuit of an extremely healthy diet. Examples include rigid or righteous eating, fasting, anxiety, control or preoccupation with certain foods, food rituals, extreme concern with body size and elimination of food groups. 

Unfortunately, comments made by coaches, body shaming, fat talk, attributing poor performances on weight, and regular weighing intensify body image concerns, leading to disordered eating behaviors. Because many athletes are given a socially acceptable setting to justify excessive exercise and strict eating habits, it’s not uncommon for the performances by an energy starved athlete to be celebrated by coaches and on social media. Bear in mind that any initial performance improvement occurring from unhealthy weight loss is typically short-lived as nutrient deficiencies, fatigue, anemia, reduced cardio function, chronic illnesses or injuries and low motivation will eventually impair physical and mental health. 

If you are struggling with body image problems or fear gaining fat/weight, remind yourself that sport participation should improve the health of your body – not destroy it.  

As you learn to love your body image, I wanted to share this quote passed along to me by one of my athletes. 

The wrong way to change body composition

Many athletes believe that a change in body composition will improve speed, power, fitness and performance. Whereas some athletes are genetically made with a body composition that is suited for a specific sport, most athletes put a lot of work into trying to reach a body composition goal.

This leads me to the point of this blog post...athletic success requires work but how much work is too much work? Should athletes have to "work" on changing body composition on top of the training that is required to physically prepare for an event? 

This is why I caution athletes to be careful how they go about body composition changes. The body should change naturally as a result of a solid foundation of eating, nutrient timing and proper use of sport nutrition products. It's also important to make sure your idea of how you think your body should look isn't based on the idealized image seen in media - one that emphasizes little to no body fat and extreme leanness and/or muscular definition. When athletes have a strong desire to change body image, extreme changes often result. As a reminder, restrictive eating alongside excessive exercise is counterproductive to the performance goals of becoming a stronger, fitter and faster athlete.

Consider the example of a triathlete who wants to become a strong and resilient to tolerate the training load for an upcoming Ironman. Building muscle while obtaining optimal body fat levels may help optimize fitness and race readiness. In order to build strong muscles, you need to optimize your muscle-building efforts (ex. strength training, cardio-based strength work). You do the "work" in the gym, but what happens next? To become stronger, your body requires enough calories so that your body can actually build muscle. For the athlete who is constantly worried about eating "too much," restrictive eating measures in attempt to lose body fat may actually prevent you from building lean muscle mass. In sport nutrition 101, one of the most important nutritional guidelines for building muscles is to eat enough calories and to time specific foods with your training. This isn't just about protein (more protein doesn't build more muscles) but the combination of protein and carbohydrates -in the appropriate amounts, timed well with your workouts.

By neglecting to eat "enough," the diet becomes limited in nutrients and energy. Consequently, a greater the loss of muscle occurs alongside a decrease in your resting metabolic rate. In other words, your body becomes sluggish and weak instead of energetic and strong.  This is why it's highly advised not to make extreme changes in your diet, especially when you are training for an event.

Consequently, the strategies that most athletes take to change body composition are unsafe, extreme, health damaging and performance sabotaging. I find that most of the nutritional tips that athletes follow to try to change body composition are from uneducated or poorly trained nutrition "experts" with little to no background in sport nutrition or exercise physiology.

Food is your fuel. Your body can't perform at its best when its fuel stores are inadequate. Because a race-ready weight is more about how you perform than how you think you should look, consuming adequate calories is key to providing your body with the energy and nutrients that it needs to perform at its best, while maintaining optimal health on a consistent basis.

Now is not the time to diet

Nearing the 2-3 months out from a key race, many athletes start paying close attention to any limiters that could potentially sabotage race day performance. Weight is typically one of those "potential" limiters that comes to the front of the mind for my athletes.

Although weight can play a positive or negative role in performance, it's not the only way to improve or destroy performance. Sadly, when athletes start looking at performance and how to get faster, stronger or go longer, weight becomes the only focus.

It's not uncommon for the athlete who wants to achieve a specific body composition to look for strategies and behaviors that are extreme in order to make for quick changes. Because most people won't keep up with new habits if they don't result in quick changes or feedback, many of the strategies that athletes take to change body composition adversely affect health. Fasted training, restricting fluids and calories during prolonged sessions, not focusing on good recovery, eliminating food groups, drastically cutting out calories and not having an all around good relationship with food can cause a host of issues, such as : hormonal disturbances, slow tissue growth/repair, slow energy metabolism, declining energy and excessive fatigue, bone issues, endocrine issues, altered pyschological and physiological functioning and a decline in performance. The athlete who feels the need to make extreme changes in the diet is typically the athlete who will experience the greatest risk to health and performance down the road, if not immediately. In other words, a strong desire to get leaner for performance actually destroys performance, instead of helping it.  

Keeping in mind that even short periods of intentional or unintentional food restriction, food group elimination or poor sport nutrition fueling can negatively affect how you train, compete and recover. Poor exercise performance and an increase in injuries and burnout is common in the underfueled and undernourished athlete. 

Let a change in body composition be a direct and non-forced result of good nutrition habits and behaviors. By doing a great job of meeting your daily energy needs, focusing on nutrient timing, using sport nutrition properly and not neglecting your health, you'll find yourself with a body composition that you can be proud of because it's the body that is fueled, fit, strong and healthy and ready to perform. 

A healthy body performs amazingly well. Instead of making strict changes in the diet in order to change your body image, focus on fueling and nourishing your amazing body.

I never said you can't lose weight or change body composition to boost your performance. But now is not the time to diet (nor is it ever OK to make an extreme change to your diet that isn't sustainable). If your strategies for weight loss or body composition change are counterproductive to your initial goals of being faster, more resilient, healthier, stronger and more powerful or you are unable to meet the athletic demands of your sport with your new lean and toned body, your dietary approaches are not productive. 

Attempting to reach your race weight - part II

A change in your body composition to ensure a performance improvement (race weight) should be the outcome of a well planned and executed fueling and training plan, alongside a healthy and balanced, non-restrictive daily diet. Just because you lose weight or achieve a certain body fat percentage, this doesn't mean that you are physically, mentally, emotionally and nutritionally prepared to perform well on race day. You may "look" a certain way but this doesn't mean you will preform a certain way.

When a healthy change in body composition is desired, it should not involve restriction, elimination and obsessive strategies. While some sports may reward a "leaner" build, this doesn't mean that you can't be successful in your sport with a little more cushion with your strong bones. As it relates to the sport of endurance triathlon, you are not penalized if you are carrying around a little more body fat on your frame for a strong body can better tolerate training stress versus a weak and fragile body that may be lighter. Furthermore, if you desire weight loss for a performance boost, you should not be unsupervised in this process as it can lead to performance and health declines. You should reach out to a team of professionals to help you safely lose weight without sabotaging your health. Most athletes do not take the "hard work" approach as they want a quick, inexpensive and easy fix to assist in weight loss.

When an athlete steps on the scale (or looks in the mirror) and responds with "I'm too fat/heavy" or "I don't look like an athlete" or "I will never perform well at this weight", this thinking may trigger the need to make an instant and drastic change in the diet and/or pushing harder or going longer than the workout calls for. When a vulnerable athlete feels uncomfortable in his/her skin or feels pressure to lose weight, the next step is not a patient and long-term approach. Typically, athletes will go the route of calorie restriction, carbohydrate elimination and improper fueling and hydrating strategies to try to gain control over eating and body composition - none of the former strategies assist in weight loss OR performance gains but instead, the body becomes weak and you lack the energy and motivation to stay consistent with training.

Let's consider two athlete scenarios as it relates to attempting to reach race weight:

Athlete A is motivated to lose weight in order to improve athletic performance for an upcoming endurance event. This athlete is not aware of how much energy is needed to support the metabolic demands of training and despite consuming around 1500-2000 calories a day, he/she is not losing weight and always feels as if he/she is "too big" for the sport.  This athlete only uses the scale to asses weight loss and each time she/he doesn't see the scale change, he/she makes more and more food restrictions during the day and around/during workouts in order to see a drop in body weight on the scale. Eventually, the athlete does lose weight through his/her tactics. But seeing that a number of key hormones play an important role in the regulation of body composition and energy production, the glands in the endocrine system (ex. adrenal, hypothalamus, ovaries, pancreas, parathyroid, pineal, pituitary, testes, thymus, thyroid) are slowly being compromised - unbeknownst to the athlete. Athlete A doesn't realize that his/her diligent dietary adherence to a restrictive diet and poor fueling/hydration strategies alongside strict dedication to training are actually destroying his/her health.  While this athlete may have arrived to race day at his/her "race weight", this athlete is in poor metabolic health and race day performance is likely to be compromised. There's also a good chance that this athlete will need to spend the next few months or year, trying to fix his/her overtaxed, overloaded and damaged endocrine system (and potentially poor bone health). It's worth mentioning that even for athletes who are not seeking weight loss but do not understand the great energy demands that are needed to support endurance or high intensity training, many endurance athletes may suffer from health issues during training as a result of unintentionally damaging hormonal or metabolic health by not "eating enough" or timing food appropriately with training, to support training stress.
Athlete B follows his/her training plan by keeping the easy sessions easy and hard sessions hard. She/he works with a sport dietitian to better understand how to time nutrition with training, to understand individual energy and nutrient needs (to eat "enough"), he/she always eats before/after workouts and learns how to use sport nutrition properly to support long and intense training sessions and to maximize recovery. This athlete can train consistently throughout the entire season and puts the focus on performance over weight. Although the athlete would like to lean-up or lose weight, she/he is not making it a focus. Ironically, athlete B notices a change in body composition over an extended period of time through sustainable healthy eating habits that support training demands (especially as the volume and intensity of training increase in the hot summer months). This athlete increases lean mass while reducing overall body fat without intentionally trying and has improved strength to create a more resilient and durable body to withstand training. She/he also has great training sessions to build confidence for race day and also has a great relationship with food and the body. There is little risk for injury or sickness because the athlete is properly supporting training stress with proper eating and fueling. This athlete arrives to race day in great health, with a strong body and feels prepared to perform and just like with training, can bounce back relatively quickly from the race to get back into structured training.

THE BIG TAKE AWAY
Intense/high volume training + extreme caloric/carb restriction places athletes at risk for losing lean tissue, bone mass, depleted energy stores and a possible gain in body fat. So why would any athlete want to compromise health with this approach? Isn't the point of training to become a better, stronger and faster athlete? Your race weight should not come at a cost of damaging your health and performance. If you are training 10+ hours a week and struggle to see a change in favorable body composition, there's a good chance that you are not eating enough to support your training demands and/or not using sport nutrition products properly and/or improperly timing food with workouts to delay adaptions to support lean muscle mass and strength gains.

If you are attempting to reach your race weight through extreme measures, you may placing yourself at risk for illness, injury, poor recovery, decreased performance and a host of hormonal, bone, cardiovascular and metabolic health issues. ....All of which will negatively affect training and can compromise overall well-being.

For you to perform at your best AND to adapt to training, while still functioning well in life, focus on lifestyle strategies to achieve/maintain a healthy weight and let your race weight take care of itself. With optimal fueling and hydration strategies, a healthy and well balanced diet, consistent quality training, good sleep, stress management, a healthy relationship with the body and food and great recovery habits, you will not only reach athletic excellence but your great daily habits will continue to bring you long-term health benefits with a body that you can be proud to call your own. 

For more on this topic of when to reach your body composition goals, check out a past Ironman article that I wrote on this topic. 

Body composition through the competitive year

Changing one's body composition will only offer a performance advantage, however, if we first establish the goals and methods uniquely suited to each athlete's individual needs. Numerous so-called "magic bullets" circulate in the health and fitness world for losing fat; triathletes should be cautious of "strategies" that promote quick results. These methods pose a great risk for losing lean tissue, bone mass, and gaining body fat, lingering fatigue, illness, injury, compromised recovery, and ultimately, performance decline. Perhaps even worse, a reckless weight reduction program can trigger disordered eating habits, paving the way to a dangerous eating disorder.

Although a certain perceived "leanness" may in fact be athletically advantageous, every athlete has an ideal body composition range where he or she will feel, function, and perform the best. It cannot be overstressed that the bathroom scale provides irrelevant information about your true body composition and should not be used as a method for measuring body composition for health and/or performance improvements. If you are still convinced that reduced body fat will offer you a distinct advantage, before your get started, it's very important to accurately measure the proportion of your body that is excess fat in relation to muscle, bone, and essential fat.

In an attempt to prevent the aforementioned evils of quick-fix weight loss and to ensure athletic longevity (a.k.a. continued enjoyment!) for cycling, running, and other endurance sports, planned body composition changes should be the direct outcome of a well-executed training plan, proper recovery, restful sleep, well-balanced eating, and effective fueling/hydration strategies.

In a past Ironman.com article, I outlined how you can use your entire season—however it looks for you—to build fitness while creating healthy eating behaviors and sustainable strategies to meet your unique nutritional demands.

To read my guide to making peace with your weight all season long, building your fitness, and creating healthy eating habits, read more HERE.

Too focused on race weight?

Picture source

Are you counting down the weeks until your first triathlon race of the upcoming season? I am itching to race!!

As it relates to athletic performance, changing body composition will only offer a performance advantage if goals and methods are appropriately established. With many attractive approaches for fat loss, triathletes should be cautious of weight loss strategies that promote quick results as there is great risk for losing lean tissue, bone mass or gaining body fat, lingering fatigue, illness, injury, compromised recovery and performance decline.  Additionally, a weight reduction program may trigger disordered eating habits, paving the way to an eating disorder. 

Typically, low energy availability occurs when athletes consumes less than 30 calories per kilogram of fat free mass per day. For women to stay in good metabolic and hormonal health, this number is typically around 45 calories per kg of fat free mass per day.

I'd like to think that every triathlete understands that being in low energy availability will not promote gains in fitness/performance but time and time again, athletes will train through excessive fatigue from an energy deprived body and despite the red flags that the body is not in good health, athletes arrive to race day with an underfueled and undernourished body, expecting to perform well because they reached "race weight".
And we should not overlook the athlete who doubts his/her athletic race day potential because race weight was not reached. Who says that a weight will tell you how well or not well you will perform?

With so many endurance triathletes putting more focus on body image and training hours/miles than on making sure the body can perform high quality training sessions, while recovering well from every workout, I can't stress it enough that obsessing over a "weight" will not provide an athletic advantage if your methods and strategies for body composition change are damaging to your overall health. And plus, with so much energy that is needed to balance training with life, why spend that extra energy worrying about your weight?

As it relates to low energy availability, athletes can intentionally or unintentionally not meet energy needs. 

Intentionally - athlete wants to make “race weight”, get leaner or change body composition and goes about it in an extreme way, restricts certain foods/food groups, creates dietary food rules, limits carbs and fears consuming sport nutrition/food before, during and after workouts.

Unintentionally - athlete inadvertently does not meet energy needs due to poor nutrient planning, uneducated on proper fueling/hydration strategies, never learning how to eat like an athlete, busy schedule, poor meal planning, lack of appetite, lack of food availability, stress/exhaustion.

Knowing that an underfueled or undernourished body will not perform as well as a well-fueled and well-nourished body, understand that your ultimate athletic goal for every race is to achieve a race ready body. Your body becomes ready for race day through consistent training, good recovery, life balance, mental strength, great sleep, smart training, enjoyment for your sport and a strong and resilient body.

It’s pretty incredible what you can do with your body when it is healthy, injury free, properly fueled and well-nourished nourished.  

If body composition is your main goal, you are chasing the wrong athletic dream.

A trained, happy, confident and healthy body will always trump a tired, stressed and energy deprived body.

Considering that extreme, obsessive and ritualistic eating may increase the risk for disordered eating patterns and eating disorders, do yourself a big favor this season and focus on what your body can do, and not on what it looks like. With the entire season ahead of you, keeping your body in good health requires a lot of work. Not eating enough will not make it work any better. 

Ahhh, I need to lose weight!!

As an athlete, you probably feel that you work very hard to develop the necessary skills, resilience, stamina, power, speed and endurance to help you prepare for your upcoming athletic events. Developing the fitness to participate in a running or triathlon event requires a lot of training and it takes commitment and requires patience, so it's assumed that skipping workouts, being "all in" all the time, not caring, deviating from your training plan to do what other athletes are doing, or haphazardly guessing your way through training are not effective ways to reach your race day goals. You simply become inconsistent with training, you lose confidence in what you are doing and you may compromise your health.

Is nutrition an important component of your training?

If you don't work at healthy eating, you miss out on one of the best opportunities to improve your performance and to keep your body in good health. To perform at your best, your body needs to function at it's best and the best fuel comes from a healthy, balanced and well-planned and timed diet.

So what's an athlete to do if weight loss is a goal, alongside performance/fitness improvements? And for the purpose of this article, I'm speaking about weight loss that brings you to a healthy weight and not weight loss for aesthetics, to show off your abs or to tone up your butt or to lose a few vanity pounds.

I can't say it enough but eating a healthy diet as an athlete is not easy. When your time is limited, you are exhausted from training, energy expenditure is high, you get up early to workout and your appetite is ever-so unpredictable, energy comes and goes and you are tired and sore, developing the SKILLS to maintain a healthy diet as an athlete takes a lot of work.

Most athletes would rather put the time into training than to work on improving dietary habits but this strategy does not work. You see, if you don't work on developing healthy eating habits in your early season, how do you expect to carry healthy habits with you as your training volume and intensity increase as the season progresses?

Healthy eating and performance fueling requires education, trial and error, a lot of planning, commitment, organization and an open-mind. Most athletes need help to learn how to eat healthy as an athlete. Because of this, there are many credible professionals that specialize in helping athletes learn how to eat a healthy diet and how to eat for performance, so that you can develop healthy daily habits and smart fueling and hydration strategies in order to make the best food choices possible throughout the day and before, during and after workouts, in order to reach athletic excellence.

With so much nutritional advice available at your fingertips and a lot of overly confident nutrition experts, it's important that in your attempt to lose weight, you understand and accept that there are significant physical, psychological, emotional and social changes associated with dieting. Asking an athlete to restrict calories, starve the body of nutrients or avoid/restrict carbohydrates, when energy expenditure is high, can cause great emotional, cognitive and behavioral symptoms that are performance and health limiting....NOT ENHANCING. Intentional or not, when athletes do not "eat enough", the body systems become compromised and you feel horrible.

Dieting, or restrictive eating, may cause food obsessions, social isolation, fatigue, weakness, hormonal issues, bone loss, irritability, body temperature changes, anxiety, depression, low blood sugar, sleep disturbances and the desire or motivation that you once had to do what you love to do with your body is no longer a driving force to keep you present in your sport. Instead, your mind is obsessed with your body and not on performance or health.

Seeing that so many negative physical and psychological issues develop when exercise and nutrition are taken to the extreme, there must be a stop to all of this talk on "righteous, good vs bad, eliminate whole food groups, sugar is bad, don't use sport nutrition, fasted workout" eating. This is NOT a healthy approach to weight loss. Sadly, there are far too many misinformed athletes that do not have a good perspective on what is needed in the diet and before, during and after workouts, in order to keep the body in good health while working for fitness improvements. 

As for the athletes who ignore fad diets and work hard to organize and plan the diet in order to eat "enough" and fine-tune details like proper fueling and hydration for individual needs (often working with a sport dietitian), well, those are the athletes to look-up to on race day because not only are they having a lot of fun in training but they are fit, fast, healthy and prepared on race day. These athletes don't diet or obsess about body image, but they give themselves permission to eat, indulge and fuel for performance and well, a better overall quality of life.

If you are trying to lose weight for health and/or performance reasons, you should not have to devote every minute of your day eating or training as you try to lose weight. And never should you have to use extreme exercise and food restriction in order to achieve or to maintain your "goal" weight.

It makes me so sad to hear that there are so many athletes who feel so unhappy with their body shape, size or weight. Worrying all day about what to or not to eat, trying not to eat "too much" and grinding out workouts on empty just to look differently. When you restrict yourself from food, you don't become a better athlete. Instead, you become weak, tired and withdrawn. Extreme exercising to burn calories or to reward yourself with food is not performance enhancing and it's not health promoting. You can't perform well with this type of lifestyle. You may think that you look fitter but you may not be able to do much with your body. The mindset to be "thinner to be a winner" is not worth the price that your body has to pay when you are energy deprived and trying to train consistently.

Seeing that there is a safe way and an unhealthy way to lose weight, ask yourself the following YES or NO questions to see if you are taking a smart approach to weight loss?

-You have drastically cut out a significant amount of calories?
-You are avoiding specific food groups?
-You are frustrated that you are not losing weight fast enough?
-You are intentionally avoiding taking in calories before and during workouts?
-You have your weight on your mind when you are working out?
-You are finding yourself overeating on the weekends because you "deserve it"?
-You feel irritable and moody, often low in energy and hungry?
-You feel confident that you can maintain this type of diet for the rest of your life, and be happy?

A smart eating approach maintains energy levels as you change your body composition. A smart eating approach does not negatively affect your health.
A smart eating approach does not limit you from food groups.
A smart eating approach keeps you training consistently. 
A smart eating approach helps you get fit, fast and strong.
A smart eating approach is sustainable and sets you up for a lifestyle of healthy eating habits. 

If you have recently found yourself saying "Ahhh, I need to lose weight!!" remind yourself that it won't come from a diet, weight will not rapidly fall off, there's no quick fix and you can't maintain good health and optimize your performance with a rigid and restrictive style of eating.  

Not sure if you can safely and confidently lose weight on your own, without affecting your health and/or performance?

Don't use forums and the internet for advice.

Reach out to a Board Certified Sport Dietitian for help. 

Healthy Weight vs. Race Weight? A must read for performing at your best.

Source

Athletes are constantly being told to lose weight.

Whether it's directly from a coach or from the messages and images viewed on social media and in articles and on TV, we live in a body obsessed society.

With so many different body types and so many different styles of eating (aka "diets"), driven by misconceptions about food, body dissatisfaction and misguided strategies for eating "right", it doesn't surprise me when I see the health and performance of competitive, body conscious, goal oriented and driven athletes, deteriorate.

Most athletes have no idea how much energy is needed by the body to perform at a high level. Most athletes do not feel they deserve to eat "that much food".

Now more than ever, most athletes are very obsessed with how much they weigh. Due to so many false statements relating to body weight and performance, athletes are constantly trying to be thinner, leaner and lighter, while trying to get faster and to go longer.

As it relates to your healthy weight, it's very hard to define a healthy weight as an athlete. Most charts (ex. BMI) do not account for the extra muscle and denser bones that you will develop through training. I know for myself, I am always on the high end of a "healthy" weight for my height because of my athletic build and from my genetics. For much of the year, a healthy weight is one that puts you at little risk for disease or illness, is a weight that allows you to function well in life without following dietary rules or restrictions, is one that allows you to have great energy throughout the day and is a weight that is easy to maintain with your activity regime.

Unfortunately, many athletes try to maintain and achieve a weight that is based on a look or a number on a scale for much of the year, often comparing this "ideal" image to one that was achieved in peak training. Self-identity to a body image is often a struggle for athletes because your healthy weight may not be the one that you accept for what it looks like, but it may be the best weight for you to maintain great health for much of the year. My advice for athletes is to work on body acceptance and to not try to fight for a certain "lean or defined" image, size or weight. Through good lifestyle habits and a great relationship with food and your body, a healthy weight will be easy to achieve and easy to maintain regardless how much or little you are training.

So now we get to the topic of race weight. As it relates to the topic of athletes being obsessed with weight, far too many athletes are using a number on the scale to determine athletic readiness for an event. Unfortunately, this approach does not tell athletes what type of weight is being lost - is it fat, muscle or water?

Your body composition provides very specific information about your body make-up, much more than simply looking at a number on a scale. As it relates to body composition, you are focusing on the proportion of fat and lean body mass in the body.

Your body is made up of body fat and lean body mass.

Body fat can be found as storage fat and as essential body fat.

The human body stores fat in the form of triglycerides within fat (adipose tissue) as well as within the muscle fibers (intramuscular triglycerides). Through endurance training (without any dietary manipulation), there is an increase in fat oxidation from intramuscular triglycerides. As exercise intensity increases, fatty acid mobilization from adipose tissue slows but total fat oxidation increases due to the increase use of intramuscular triglycerides. Let's not forget that dietary carbohydrates influence fat mobilization and oxidation during exercise.

Storage fat is located around organs and beneath the skin, which protects the body and acts as an insulator. I don't need to tell you this but excessive accumulation of visceral fat is associated with health issues, which is why it is important to keep your body composition within a healthy body composition range - not too high but not too low.

As for essential fat, this is fat found in the marrow of bones, the heart, lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys, intestines, muscles and lipid rich tissues throughout the central nervous system. Essential fat is critical for normal body functioning. Women tend to have higher essential fat compared to men.

Your lean body mass represents everything in your body that is not fat - the weight of your muscles, bones, ligaments, tendons and internal organs. Certainly, you don't want to lose any of this "weight" through dieting or exercising.

As you can see, athletes should not be using a scale to assess a "healthy weight" and a number on the scale is an impractical method to determine "race weight." 

Let's continue on with this discussion for application purposes....

Athlete A is motivated to lose weight in order to improve athletic performance for an upcoming endurance event. This athlete does not want to hire a sport dietitian but has his/her own methods for weight loss. Let's not forget to mention that this athlete is not aware of how much energy is needed to support the metabolic demands of training and this athlete does not have a practice method of lowering body fat while retaining lean muscle mass. This athlete only uses the scale to asses weight loss. Seeing that a number of key hormones play an important role in the regulation of body composition and energy production, the glands in the endocrine system (ex. adrenal, hypothalamus, ovaries, pancreas, parathyroid, pineal, pituitary, testes, thymus, thyroid) are slowly being compromised. Athlete A has no professional guidance on his/her quest to weigh less and through diligent dietary adherence and structured intense and high volume training, this athlete loses weight. While this athlete may have arrived to race day at his/her race weight, this athlete will now spend the next few months or year, trying to fix his/her overtaxed, overloaded and damaged endocrine system. It's worth mentioning that even for athletes who are not seeking weight loss but do not understand the energy that is needed to support endurance or high intensity training, may end up unintentionally damaging hormonal or metabolic health by not "eating enough" or timing food appropriately with training, to support training stress.

So how about Athlete B. This athlete follows his/her training plan and works with a sport dietitian to better understand how to time nutrition with training, to understand individual energy and nutrient needs and to learn how to use sport nutrition properly to support long and intense training sessions and to maximize recovery. This athlete can train consistently throughout the entire season and notices a change in body composition over an extended period of time through sustainable healthy eating habits and a well-laid training plan. This athlete increases lean mass while reducing overall body fat without intentionally trying. This athlete recognizes that although the number on the scale has gone up by a few lbs, this athlete has actually lowered his/her body fat and has gained muscle. This athlete is in great health, has a leaner yet healthy and strong body and will arrive to race day confident and prepared.

THE BIG TAKE AWAY

A change in your body composition is the outcome of a well planned and executed fueling and training plan. When a healthy change in body composition is desired, it involves a team approach from a coach, sport dietitian and possibly an exercise physiologist for body composition testing and a doctor for lab work. Most athletes do not take this approach as they want a quick, inexpensive and easy approach to weight loss.

It's far too common that athletes will step on the scale and respond with "I'm too fat/heavy" or "I can never perform well at this weight". This triggers the need for control and immediate action and leads into overtraining, calorie restriction, carbohydrate elimination and improper fueling and hydrating.

Seeing that this approach places the athlete at risk for losing lean tissue, bone mass, depleted energy stores and a possible gain in body fat, why would any athlete want to compromise the body through this approach?

Isn't the point of training to become a better, stronger and faster athlete?

How can this be done with a body that you can't do anything with?

I hear about it all the time but unsupervised, uneducated and poorly guided athletes are most at risk for illness, injury, poor recovery, decreased performance and a host of hormonal, bone, cardiovascular and metabolic health issues. All of which negatively affect training and can compromise overall well-being.

For you to perform at your best AND to adapt to training, while functioning well in life, focus on achieving a healthy weight and let your race weight take care of itself. With optimal fueling and hydration strategies, a healthy and well balanced diet, consistent quality training, good sleep and great recovery habits, you will not only reach athletic excellence but your great daily habits will continue to bring you long-term health benefits.

Sources:
Fat metabolism during exercise
Metabolic adaptation to weight loss
Getting a grip on body composition
Diets gone too far

Daily diet or fueling manipulation?

Source

Through this approach, your body composition will change because you are able to perform well and maintain a realistic and sustainable style of eating. 

Are you an athlete looking to change body composition and improve your performance as you train for an upcoming event?

Consider this: 

Manipulating your eating before, during and after workouts in an effort to enhance the adaptive response to training will only provide a marginal performance and body composition improvement if your daily diet is not well-balanced, well-timed and consistent.

It's remarkable how the body performs and changes when emphasis is placed on the daily diet as a vehicle of nourishment and when workouts are supported with food as a vehicle of energy.

Far too many athletes choose sport nutrition restriction over daily diet manipulation whereas the later can significantly help to change your body composition without compromising energy when you ask your body to perform and adapt to intentional training stress.

Meeting your daily nutrient and energy needs in the daily diet ensures maximal adaptation to your training because you have met your foundation nutritional needs which will help allow you to perform (and recover from) a variety of workouts - from easy to moderate to intense and from short to longer to very long.

Once you place emphasis on your daily eating (which it will change throughout your season), you'll find that your body systems, hormones and metabolism work better. Your body ultimately works for you as an athlete, not against you. Thus, rather than trying to outperform a poorly planned diet by restricting nutrition around and during workouts (this statement in itself makes absolutely no sense but athletes continue to believe that this is the "best" approach to improving performance and to assist in weight loss) you'll find it much easier to optimize, adjust and personalize your fueling regime before, during and after workouts to meet your performance goals after you have taken the time to establish a healthy foundational diet.

If you know (or think) that your daily diet needs some tweaking, consider the straight-forward approach of creating a well-balanced, well-timed and consistent eating plan rather than simply not eating around and during your workouts with the hope that food elimination or restriction will make you a stronger, healthier and fitter high-intensity or endurance athlete. 

Ultimately, if performance and body composition changes are the ultimate goals of your nutritional changes, you'll find that when you create a foundation diet to support your current training load, your workouts become easier to accomplish, you can go longer or harder with better focus, form and motivation and you can maintain a great sense of enjoyment when you train (which leads toward more training consistency and longevity in your sport).

And ironically, with this approach, there's a better chance of unintentionally changing your body composition without intentionally trying, while maintaining a great healthy relationship with food and the body AND feeling fulfilled and happy in your sport of choice.

The athlete's body composition paradox

Have you been told that if you want to be faster, you need to lose weight?

Well let me tell you that athletic performances cannot be accurately predicted based solely on body weight and composition, assuming that if you are "less", you will gain "more".

I have seen and worked with many athletes who don't recognize their past/current successes in their healthy and strong body. Despite good, great and/or better race results through proper fueling/eating, the athlete feels he/she does not have "an athletes body" and is constantly trying to lose weight through overtraining and underfueling in an effort to train for a lower body composition.....not for better performances. 

We must also understand that to race "fast" we have to consider how you physically and mentally prepare for your races. Ultimately, the athlete who remains in the best health throughout a training cycle will out-perform a lean, yet underfueled, injured or undernourished athlete.

There are many dietary and training methods that will change your body composition as an athlete, which may positively or negatively affect your health and performance. 

So now I see a paradox that overwhelms and often sabotages the performance and health status of many athletes. 

The athlete's body composition paradox: 

-An athlete wants to achieve a specific body composition to become faster, stronger, more powerful and more efficient. Science has shown us that the human body can be faster and more efficient with an increase in lean muscle mass and a decrease in fat mass. However, the strategies for a change in body weight/composition can often adversely affect health, hormones, tissue growth/repair, energy metabolism, energy reserves, pyschological and physiological functioning and negatively affect an athlete's ability to train and compete at a higher level. 

Athletes, keep in mind that even short periods of food restriction/no sport nutrition fueling can negatively affect how you train, compete and recover. Poor exercise performance and an increase in injuries and burnout will occur in the underfueling/undernourished athlete. 

Let a change in body composition be a direct, yet non-forced, result of how well you can meet your energy demands around/during workouts in order to train harder and to recover faster and how committed you are to properly nourishing your body on a day-to-day basis. 

A healthy body performs amazingly well. Stop chasing a body image and pioritize fueling your amazing body in motion. 

I never said you can't or can't aim to lose weight or change body composition to boost your performance. But if your strategies for weight loss/body composition changes are counterproductive to your initial goals of being faster, more resilient, healthier, stronger and more powerful OR when you achieve your ideal image you can not perform/meet the athletic demands of your sport with your new body, your approach is not working. 

If you are struggling to understand how to fuel for performance and for health, it's best to seek professional help with a sport RD who can guide you in the best individualized approach for your health and performance goals.