Do you need a daily supplement?

"The term 'dietary supplement' describes a broad and diverse category of products that you eat or drink to support good health and supplement the diet. Dietary supplements are not medicines, nor should they be considered a substitute for food." -From the Quality Supplements website.

Dietary supplement ingredients can be one or a combination of any of the following:

• Vitamin
• Mineral
• Herb or other botanical
• Amino acid (the individual building blocks of a protein)
• Concentrate, metabolite, constituent, or extract

Although some herbal and mineral compounds have been used for hundreds of years to treat health conditions, current dietary supplement manufacturers are not legally allowed to say their products cure, treat or prevent disease. Supplement makers are allowed to claim that products support health or contribute to well-being.

Congress does not regulate dietary supplements the same way it regulates medicine. Except for new dietary ingredients, dietary supplement manufacturers do not need to prove to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that a product is safe or effective before selling the product to the public. And, unlike medicines - which are required to meet USP standards to help ensure product consistency across multiple manufacturers - USP standards are voluntary for dietary supplements.

Dietary supplements are widely available in health food stores, drug stores, grocery stores, fitness centers and online. They come in many forms such as 2-piece capsules, soft gels, tablets, bottles of liquid, powders and chews/gummies.

Supplements are not in the same category as sport nutrition products (ex. sport drinks, bars, gels and chews). Sport nutrition products are formulated in a way to optimize performance and health by providing the body with nutrients (ex. carbohydrates, sodium, fluids), in a precise formulation, that are used by the body during activity. They are backed by science/research to demonstrate a performance benefit if used correctly. Because not all sport nutrition products are created equal, prioritize simple ingredients in the nutrition profile (carbs/sugars/electrolytes).

So when it comes to supplements, why do fitness enthusiast and athletes take them?

• To boost performance.
• To improve health.
• To gain the competitive edge.
• For medical reasons.
• Because it's trendy (ex. endorsed by a professional athlete).
• Because a coach said so.
• Because an article said so.
• To overcome a nutrient deficiency.

Occurring in many different forms, like tablets, liquids, powders, bars, creams, injections and capsules, commonly sought-after vitamin and mineral supplements include iron, B12, probiotics, creatine, beet juice, Ashwagandha, Rhodiola rosea, vitamin D, calcium, multivitamins and antioxidants like vitamin C, E and Q10.

Because most supplements are poorly regulated and contain multiple ingredients, many supplements can be problematic to your health and performance. Because supplements are not well-regulated, it can be difficult to know (or to predict) the efficacy and safety of your desired product. As an example, consuming high-dose antioxidant supplements (vitamin C, E) may prevent important training adaptations from happening - such as creating new muscle mitochondria, muscle growth and improving insulin sensitivity.

Supplementing in certain situations may be necessary, especially if you fall into any of the following categories:

• Dieting/intentional undereating
• Vegan/Vegetarian
• Lactose intolerant
• Food allergies
• Crohn's or Celiac disease
• Limited sunshine
• Extended periods of traveling
• Considering pregnancy/pregnant
• Elderly
• Peri/post/menopause
• Nutrient deficiency determined by a blood test (ex. iron, vit D, vit B12)

If you are currently using or considering a supplement, here are a few tips:

☑️Choose your supplements wisely. Do your research. Only take what is most necessary for your health. 

☑️Review your supplement on Supplement411 for banned substances (or being high risk).

☑️Look for the NSF certified for sport mark.

☑️Ask yourself "what are the benefits and risks to taking the supplement?"

☑️ Choose nationally recognized, reputable brands.

☑️ Make sure you consume the recommended/appropriate amount by reading the label.

☑️Test don't guess. Get your blood tested to determine the right individual nutrient (and how much you need) for a true nutrient deficiency. Stay tuned - I'm working with a new blood testing company!

☑️When a specifically identified nutrient hole exists in your diet (from a blood test) and food won’t fill the gap, choose an individual vitamin and mineral supplement to ensure you are consuming exactly what you need - nothing more, nothing less. In other words, if you are deficient in iron, seek out an iron supplement and not a MVI.

☑️Consult with a Board Certified Sport Dietitian to review your diet and medical/health history/status. Many foods/supplements have interactions where certain foods should be avoided when consuming a specific supplement.

As a reminder, it’s best to first try to obtain your vitamins and minerals from food – just like Mother nature intended you to eat.

Facing your food fears

 

Have you recently taken healthy eating to the extreme? Have you rid your diet of all processed or non organic food? Has your fear of sugar reached a new level of obsession? Do you put carrots, bananas and raisins in the same "off limit" food list as candy, ice cream and cookies? 

Food restriction is a common disordered eating symptom. This avoidance behavior involves setting rigid rules that tell you which foods are "allowed" in your diet and what foods are "off limit." 

While calorically-dense foods are the most commonly avoided, fear foods vary from person to person and they may even vary depending on the day. Fear foods are foods that you may feel anxious or uncomfortable eating - thus the reason why they are feared. The fear may come from thoughts of how this food may affect your weight or body composition, how this food may affect how you feel about your body or any past negative experiences from a food. With no underlying medical, ethical or religious reasons, the thought (or act) of eating this food can make you feel ashamed or guilty. 

The reason behind your thoughts and fears about a food can stem from friends or family but more common reasons include social media, news and the ever-so-damaging diet culture. In our weight-obsessed society, diets are filled with "good" and "bad" foods. In attempt to lose weight or change body composition, the "bad" foods are removed in an effort to succeed with the diet plan. These off limit foods are correlated with the idea of cheating on the diet - and things bring great anxiety, guilt and shame. The more diets or meal plans that you follow, the more rules you develop - which can lead to many different food fears. 

Consider your diet as a whole before obsessing over and restricting sugar, gluten, dairy, carbs, calories or any other food, food group, ingredient or food component. The more fear you have around food, the more anxiety and guilt you bring to eating. This can cause lack of pleasure in food (and eating), food rigidity (only eating "safe" foods), isolation (not eating out or eating with others) and avoiding food-related events and activities. Food fears also creates an increased obsession with food which can lead into an eating disorder. Food fears requires a lot of time and mental energy with so much thinking and planning regarding food - which means having less time and energy to living a quality-filled life. 

All foods can fit into a healthy and active lifestyle. A nutritious diet is built on long-term, sustainable behaviors that enhance your quality of life. Challenging your food fears takes time, effort and courage. Disordered eating habits keep your life small. If rules and restrictions are not challenged, it's difficult to make your life big and meaningful. 

Because of the great fear of binging on fear foods, it's best to work with a dietitian who specializes in disordered eating when facing food fears. The dietitian will help you work through your food fears by helping you build confidence and trust in your food related decisions as you create coping strategies to use during the feared food process. 

The more power you give to food, the more you obsess over it. Disordered eating removes important things from your life - from relationships to travel. In an effort to gain control over eating, it's likely that you may lose more than just weight - relationships, careers, family, friends, vacations, joy, travel, etc. It is possible to have a healthy relationship with food. You have within you the courage and strength to face your food fears as you work toward a life where food no longer has power of you.

What defines a healthy diet?

Food is fuel and nourishment. Your diet should include food that you enjoy. Eating should never cause anxiety, worry, guilt or frustration. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case. Every individual comes to the table with a unique food history - which shouldn’t be ignored when creating a personal nutrition plan. For example, an athlete may understand the importance of nourishing the body with proper nutrition, but when having to negotiate a packed work schedule and the diet needs/likes/dislikes of your family and/or spouse, it may be difficult to make nutritious choices that help you meet your body composition and performance goals. And in our weight and image-obsessed culture, trying to match energy intake to energy output may be tricky if you have a complicated relationship with body image. But for you to remain in good health, the daily diet is key. This means taking the time to learn about the nutrients that your body needs to function properly, and having a practical game-plan of how to turn this knowledge into action.

Proper nutrition is essential for all bodies. Whether you exercise for 30-minutes a day a few days a week or train for 15+ hours a week, your diet is the only vehicle that delivers nutrients to your body. These nutrients are required to support your overall health, supply your body with essential nutrients, reduce risk for disease, maintain a healthy body composition and power you through your busy work day A nutritious diet that supports your daily activity level will keep your body functioning at its best.

Because not all calories are created equal, learn to see food differently. It's the composition of your diet that helps you meet your nutritional needs - not individual foods or macronutrients.

Don't neglect proper eating until a setback occurs. Through education and a smart action plan, you can optimize health, delay fatigue, change body composition in a healthy way and consistently improve athletic performance.

The three macronutrients – carbohydrates, protein and fat – are required in relatively large amounts. Carbohydrates, like fruit, bread, potatoes and vegetables, are used as an immediate source of energy or stored in your muscles (glycogen) as a quick fuel source during intense and long training sessions. The liver both stores and produces glucose (digested carbs) for your brain and to stabilize circulating blood sugar levels. Protein, such as chicken, fish, milk or tofu, is not a preferred energy source during exercise but when broken down into amino acids (building blocks of protein), your body can use this nutrient to maintain, build and repair tissues. Fat is a slow, but long-lasting, source of energy. Foods like olive oil, nut butter, seeds and avocado are needed to support cellular growth, protect organs and support your hormonal health. Fat is also important for hormonal health and to keep you satisfied. Plus, fat tastest good! Micronutrients, like iron, B12, calcium and magnesium, are equally as important but are consumed in much smaller quantities. Although specific nutrients play a beneficial role in your health and performance, it’s the synergy of nutrients that greatly affect your well-being, recovery, sleep, mood, body composition and fitness.

Healthy eating doesn’t have to be overly complicated. It’s not about strict rules, eliminating food groups, counting calories or depriving yourself of foods that you love to eat. Improving the nutritional quality of your diet doesn’t have to be all or nothing. You don’t have to be perfect and you don’t have to change everything all at once. Like your love of physical activity or sport, think of your diet as something that you want to stick with for the rest of your life. Make small changes to keep you satisfied, energized and fueled, without feeling deprived. Prioritize nutrient-dense, real food, packed with vitamins and minerals. When cutting back on nutrient empty foods like chips, candies or soda, don’t view these foods as “off limit” – this will only heighten cravings and make you feel like a failure if giving in to temptation. A healthy diet is supported with a nutritious foundation but includes "extra" foods for enjoyment. As with most things in life, don’t make healthy eating complicated. 

Before you change your diet, consider these tips

Changing your eating habits may help improve your overall health, fitness/performance, improve your body composition and reduce risk for disease. Despite these benefits, many people struggle to maintain dietary changes in the long-term. To ensure that your dietary changes are practical, beneficial and health promoting, consider the following tips before you make an extreme lifestyle change with a new style of eating.

1. What's your motivation/reason for change? - If you are wanting to eliminate or add certain foods to the diet, give yourself a really good reason to do so. "Because it's trendy" or "because I need to lose weight" can be motivating but remind yourself that for any diet to be successful, long term nutrition compliance is key. 

2. Don't go all in - I caution you not to wake up one morning and start living with a dietary title (unless it's for medical/health reasons). Like anything in life, dietary changes take time. Make small tweaks and adjustments and for anything you eliminate, find a nutritious alternative so you don't end up with a nutrient deficiency. Making gradual changes and continually assessing how you feel is key.

3. Create a positive relationship with food - To start, there are no bad foods. Unless for medical/health/ethical reasons, your diet does not need an off-limit food list. Consider the "food talk" that you think to yourself in your own head or what you hear around you. When changing the diet, it's important to keep a healthy relationship with food. This means there are no cheat foods, bad foods, and unhealthy foods. Avoid categorizing food in a black and white way.

4. Learn to indulge responsibly - When a diet is overly restrictive, energy and nutrient deficient and rigid, you may be worried about how you will eat at parties, events, eating out or traveling. Removing certain foods from the diet because you feel you have a lack of self-control, fear or guilt when eating those foods, is not the answer. Because one of the side effects of a restrictive diet is food preoccupation/obsession, the more you restrict in your diet, the more you will think about food. Within every diet is room for indulging. Learn to indulge mindfully and responsibly. 

5. Cook - At the backbone of every diet plan is an emphasis of real food. And with good reason! If you find yourself gravitating toward processed food as a convenient option in your new diet plan, you have not changed the most important thing in your diet - eating more real food. No matter what diet plan you follow, you must make time and learn to appreciate grocery shopping, meal prepping and cooking.

13 questions to ask yourself before starting a new diet

→You recently watched a documentary and you are convinced vegan is the right diet for you. 

→You've been following the recent health and fitness trends on social media and you are convinced that carbs are evil and keto is the way to go. 

→You are ready, more than ever before, to get your diet under control and to get yourself back into good health. Starting tomorrow, you will eliminate all dairy, gluten, sugar, sodium and processed food. 

If you are considering a change in your diet, you are not alone. Whether it's for weight loss, body composition changes, health, self-confidence or mental well-being, you may feel that a significant change in your diet is exactly what you need right now in your life.

Unfortunantly, a healthy and well-balanced diet is not something that can be rushed. For long term success, quick fix diets are not the answer. In such a food and body obsessed society, dietary extremism seems like the norm. Radical, overnight changes often stem from misleading pseudo-scientific claims and empty promises. At the cost of your health, well-being, time, energy and money, I encourage you to ask yourself the following questions before starting a new diet.

1. Is this diet practical for my current lifestyle, health needs and activity regime? 
2. Does this diet fit within my food, health and athletic ideologies?
3. Am I choosing this diet for health/medical/ethical reasons? 
4. Am I choosing this diet because it is popular/trendy and/or I need a quick fix? 
5. Do I need to seek nutritional assistance from a dietitian before making changes to my diet to ensure I do things correctly so that I don't negatively affect my health/performance?
6. Can I realistically maintain and committ to this style of eating for the next 6 months? 
7. What changes will I need to make to my lifestyle to make this a sustainable style of eating so that it doesn't negatively impact my health and/or performance? 
8. How will this diet impact my social life, family, relationships, work/career, physical abilities and/or mental well-being? 
9. Does this diet negatively impact the environment/planet?
10. Is there well-supported scientific research and long-term studies to prove that this diet is effective, safe and health promoting in the long-term?
11. How will the "off limit food list" impact my physical, mental and emotional well-being? 
12. What aspects of this diet will help me with my unhealthy lifestyle and eating habits (ex. emotional eating, overeating, poor sleep habits, don't like to cook, etc). 
13. Is there a chance that I will become fixated with this style of eating and risk an unhealthy, obsessive relationship with food? 

Bonus question: Without overhauling my diet, what's one thing that I could do to add nutritional value to my current diet?

Coach vs. the Dieting Athlete

In many sports, it is considered beneficial to achieve a leaner body composition for locomotive efficiency — in other words, the less you weigh, the easier it is to move your body. Within the sport of triathlon, triathletes are not immune to this mindset and will often manipulate the diet in order to achieve a lower body fat percentage. Although there are safe and healthy ways to change body composition, triathletes can be very rigid and inflexible with their thoughts and actions. When a driven, perfectionistic, competitive, achievement-oriented triathlete is constantly exposed to diet discussions, advertisements, articles, endorsements and images on social media, a general interest in weight loss may manifest into an unhealthy obsession.

With so many ways to enhance performance and to optimize health, two of the most popular sought-after strategies by athletes include diet and body composition changes. When done correctly, performance may improve. However, it’s not uncommon for athletes to engage in unhealthy weight control methods, resulting in great emotional and physical consequences. Whether for aesthetics, competitive leanness, body dissatisfaction or in pursuit of an ideal “race weight,” athletes often place unrealistic expectations on performance and their bodies. 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.

Earlier this year, I was asked to contribute an article to the USAT Performance Coaching Newsletter - an educational newsletter provided to all USA Triathlon coaches. For the month of June, the USAT Performance Coaching Newsletter was dedicated to nutrition. As we all know, for optimal performance, nutrition is just as important as training. For triathlon coaches, it is important that you are familiar with nutrition guidelines and recommendations as well as understanding how to effectively speak to your athletes about nutrition and body image.

If you are a coach, you have a responsibility to take care of your athlete - physically, emotionally and mentally.

When your athlete feels pressure to achieve a leaner body composition, an increased fascination with nutrition, body fat, weight and calories can develop into an unhealthy group of eating behaviors called disordered eating. Typical disordered eating behaviors include obsessive counting calories, clean eating, carrying out food rituals, fasting, avoiding sport nutrition products, having an off-limit food list, or avoiding certain foods or food groups for non-medical reasons.

If you are concerned that your athlete may have an unhealthy relationship with food and the body, start the conversation with a non-judgmental tone in order to make your athlete feel safe and cared about. Making it clear that you care about your athlete’s health and well-being, you may say, “I’m worried about you because I’ve noticed that you are struggling to complete your workouts lately.” You may also say, “you’ve been experiencing a lot of injuries/sicknesses lately. It may be best to consult with a professional to make sure you can adapt to your upcoming training load.”

The most common precipitating factor in the development of an eating disorder is dieting. What starts as a well-intentioned diet plan, slowly transforms into skipping meals, undereating, removing specific foods or entire food groups from the diet and sacrificing calories before and after workouts. An eating disorder is a serious psychiatric condition that affects all types of individuals. Eating disorders are complex and multifactorial. Interestingly, athletes are at higher risk for an eating disorder compared to the rest of the population. A disciplined, goal-oriented athlete can be guilty of chasing perfectionism. Feeling great pressure to succeed, restricting food can become an easy way to exert control. Constantly pushing the body to the limits, athletes don’t realize how much food and fluids are needed for training. Lastly, many athletes believe that leanness is an essential factor in improving performance. With these realities in mind, it’s not difficult to understand why so many athletes suffer from eating disorders and disordered eating behaviors.

With several different genetic and socio-cultural triggers, risk factors for an eating disorder include dieting, need for control, weight stigma, body dissatisfaction, perfectionism, anxiety, biochemical imbalances, traumatic life events, behavior inflexibility, nutrition misinformation, low self-esteem, and being teased or bullied. With a strong stigma behind eating disorders, it’s important to show support to those who are struggling and to emphasize that help is available.

As a coach, routinely remind your athletes that optimizing performance should not require excessive training and restrictive eating. Resorting to destructive methods of manipulating body composition will only sabotage performance and health.

Pay attention to any warning signs that your athlete may be eating too little and training too hard. Fatigue, anemia, compromised bone health, hormonal imbalances, hair loss, notable weight loss, lack of energy, a decline in muscle mass and strength, mood changes, amenorrhea, restless sleep, and overuse injuries are common signs of an energy imbalance. Inadequate caloric intake relative to energy expenditure (RED-S) will result in extra stress on the body – increasing the risk for injury, sickness and burnout. 

Encourage athletes to maintain healthy training and eating behaviors that will favor long-term health and longevity in sport. It’s encouraged to partner with a Board Certified Sport Dietitian to provide effective, safe and personalized nutrition advice to athletes. If you are concerned about an athlete’s weight or health, a Board Certified Sport Dietitian can counsel athletes who are struggling with the physical and emotional consequences of dieting.

As a coach, how much emphasis do you place on body image? Do you often talk about weight loss, body fat or dietary trends to your athletes? Body composition is a sensitive and personal issue yet far too many coaches share an overvalued belief with their athletes that a lower body weight will improve performance. Inadvertently, you may be placing your own values and attitudes regarding weight, dieting and body image on your athletes. As a coach, you should never assume that reducing body fat or weight will enhance the performance of your athlete. Every athlete has his/her own optimum performance weight where the body functions the best and this body type is achieved through consistent training, nutritious eating and proper fueling and hydration. Acknowledge an athlete’s strengths beyond the physical, for athletes are more than just a look. Making remarks about body composition and performance can trigger or exacerbate disordered eating thoughts and behaviors. Don’t be the coach who makes stereotypical assumptions about the ideal body type for athletic greatness.

As a coach, use your power and authority. In today’s fad-diet, body image obsessed society, it can be difficult for athletes to keep a healthy perspective on body image. Help your athlete understand the importance of maintaining a healthy body composition – even if that image doesn’t look like the idealized image seen on social media. Protect the physical and psychological well-being of your athletes by discouraging dieting and enforcing health and performance-promoting eating habits.

Extreme nutrition habits are extremely trendy while discussions of health are lacking. Be a role model and encourage your athletes to care for their mental and physical health. Eating is not cheating. Meeting daily nutritional needs and supporting training sessions with proper sport nutrition is a necessary component of athletic success, and it keeps sport fun and health-promoting.

My article can be found in the 2019 June issue of the USAT Performance Coaching Newsletter.

Don't fear dietary fat

In our body-obsessed society, there’s a lot of confusion on dietary fat.
“Fat makes you fat” has controlled the population mindset for many decades.

Thankfully, nutrition research has evolved to prove that dietary fat, in the right amounts and types, is important to a healthy functioning body. In my varied and nutritionally-balanced diet, you'll find olive oil, eggs, avocado, nuts, seeds, 2% dairy, cheese and peanut butter. Yum, yum, yum. 

Due to its slow digestion time, fat may contribute to satiety, delaying the onset of hunger pangs, cravings and overeating. Fat also acts as an energy reserve, provides fat soluble vitamins, supplies essential fatty acids, offers thermal insulation and protects vital organs. 

Because it’s easy to overeat on delicious high-fat cakes, cookies and ice cream, it’s important to prioritize fat from natural sources, primarily plants.  Bottom line: there’s no need to fear fat in your diet.

So what about the Keto diet? 

On the surface, this high-fat, low carb diet sounds attractive, especially with success stories boasting about a drop in appetite, rapid weight loss and improved endurance. In a ketogenic diet, ~75% of calories come from fats, 20% from protein and ~ 5% from carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are restricted to less than 50g per day, which looks like one cup milk and 1.5 cup cereal.

Under normal physiological conditions, glucose is the brain’s major energy source. Under ketosis, the body must find an alternative energy source to maintain normal brain cell metabolism since it's no longer obtaining glucose from carbohydrates. Fatty acids are broken down in the liver to produce ketones, which then travel to the brain to be used as the new fuel source. The ketogenic diet was originally developed as a drug-free way to treat epilepsy.

Although current literature has shown metabolic adaptions from a high-fat, carbohydrate restricted diet, the performance and health benefits are not consistent enough to encourage this style of eating for athletes. Implications include impaired metabolism, hypoglycemia, increased sickness/injury, hormonal disturbance, dehydration, disordered eating, restless sleep, nutrient deficiencies, reduced capacity to utilize carbs, and central nervous system fatigue. 

To learn more about dietary fat and how to include it (along with carbohydrates and protein) in your healthy and performance-enhancing diet to support your fitness, health and body composition goals, you'll find a lot of easy-to-read info in my new book Essential Sports Nutrition. 

Because my line of work focuses specifically on sport/athletes, I wanted to pass along a very informative read from a friend of mine, Jenna Braddock (and fellow Registered Dietitian) who wrote an excellent and well-researched post on the Keto diet that I feel will help answer your questions on the Keto diet. 

The Keto Diet - questions answered

Will your current diet fail you?

When it comes to sports success, diet is a big piece of the puzzle that many athletes struggle to appreciate and master. Around this time of the year, when the temps are moderate to cold, overall training load is low and the training stress is not extremely high, it's easy to get away with haphazard fueling methods and inconsistent eating habits. However, as training intensity and volume increase (especially with the added stressor of heat), the previous style of eating that you thought was working for you, may soon present major issues for your health and performance.

Karel and I are currently in Clermont, Florida for a mini train-cation. 3.5 days of a training overload in a different environment. While we can't completely check out of our daily work responsibilities, there's the understanding that we are here to train and to absorb as much training stress as we can.

With this comes a huge responsibility to our bodies to make sure we are fueling and hydrating well (it's hot here!) before, during and after every training session. Any major slip-up and we could compromise our health and performance. Similar to training in our home-environment, our goal of training is always to make a positive return on our training investments. With this comes attention and awareness of what and how we are eating.

An athlete who is dehydrated, glycogen-depleted, deficient in nutrients, sleep deprived and stressed will not perform at his/her best. Whether it's intentional (rigid dieting) or unintentional (poor planning/lack of understanding), it's not uncommon for athletes to suffer from hormonal imbalance, anemia, stress fractures, loss of strength and power, GI issues, fatigue, moodiness, lack of appetite (or overeating), low motivation and an overall decline in performance due to not meeting energy, fluid and electrolyte needs. In other words, as your training changes, your diet needs to change as well. The greater the training stress, the more emphasis you need to put on what, how much and when you are eating.

While some of the symptoms of improper fueling and inadequate nutrition will not show up until health and performance is already compromised, pay attention to the following that may indicate that your current diet is no longer meeting your training demands:

• Feeling dizzy, lightheaded, weak or "fuzzy" when training (or during the day)
• Headaches
• Nausea
• GI issues - bloating, gas, loose stools, constipation 
• A significant decline in strength, power, speed and stamina
• Trouble sleeping (falling asleep or staying asleep)
• Lack of appetite
• A significant change in your appetite
• Unintentional weight loss, specifically a quick amount of weight loss in a short amount of time
• Unintentional weight gain, specifically around the midsection
• Prolonged recovery, abnormal muscle soreness, chronic joint aches
• Heavy reliance on anti-inflammatory meds
• Increased reliance on caffeine to "survive" the day and workouts
• Decrease in self-esteem, mood and confidence
• Suppressed immune system - more frequent sickness or more time needed to recover from sickness
• Chronically feeling dehydrated, change in urination habits
• Increased injuries
• Loss of enthusiasm for the sport
• Irritability, trouble concentrating 

Although disordered eating and rigid dieting are often the cause of not meeting the energy and hydration demands of training, most athletes lack the knowledge and appreciation for the amount of fuel, calories, nutrients and fluids that are needed to support sport specific training.

To reduce the risk of a health or performance setback this season, reach out to a sport RD (CSSD) who can optimize your diet and provide fueling strategies for before, during and after training to help you reach athletic excellence without compromising your health and well-being.

Don't just be dedicated to training. You can train as hard as you want to, but without good nutrition and fueling, you'll never reach your full potential.

Athletes - be careful of trending diets

It seems like fasting is all the rage these days. Although not a new concept for athletes (fasted workouts have been studied by researchers for several decades), not eating has grown in popularity over the years as a way to enhance and optimize fat burning and to promote weight loss. There's also the claim that fasted training can improve athletic performance in endurance athletes - although according to consistent research, that doesn't appear to be the case.

One of the major reasons for a massive shift in how athletes eat is an overwhelming obsession with energy, performance and body image. Athletes are also hungry for direction, guidance and quick fixes.

In addition to fasted training and intermittent fasting, there is a wide spectrum of diet ideologies these days - ketogenic, vegan, clean eating, Gluten free and Paleo to name a few. What's interesting is the culture around these diets and their "communities."

The dieting behaviors embraced by followers is worth discussing for eating ideologies is very cult-like. It's almost as if athletes are joining a movement and you are either in or you are out. Behind every diet is a number of extremely passionate individuals. The more rules, the greater the devotion among followers. Advocates of certain diets (or styles of eating) can often get very defensive when methods are questioned. Sadly, within every diet is a lot of unhealthy and unethical information. Question your dedicated followers and you'll quickly be attacked.

Interestingly, those who are successful with a diet often become more credible when it comes to offering advice. It's almost as if those who can succeed the best are given higher authority to promote the diet. Sadly, this is almost always independent of nutrition background. Often, those who lose the most weight, can fast the longest or perform the best on a certain diet quickly become an expert and chief advocate of the diet. As a very important reminder, what works for one person doesn't give that person a right to give advice on nutrition.

As a professional in this field (with a license to prescribe dietary advice), I find it important to not be tied to one diet belief. While there are healthy eating components that everyone should follow, dietary choices and patterns can differ. There's no one-size-fits-all approach to eating - especially when it comes to health, weight loss, body composition or performance. Genetics, metabolism, culture, emotions, economics and health status all influence eating patterns and should be concerned when personalizing a diet that is sustainable and health and performance promoting.

If you are following a diet hot topic and its working for you - that's wonderful. But if you are questioning if you should be doing fasted workouts, putting your body into ketosis, going vegan or giving up sugar, dairy and grains, be mindful that diet does play a role in health and performance but food is not the answer to every health and performance concern. There's great power in food but food isn't the be all end all. Your diet needs to be flexible and shouldn't take over your life. If you experience shame, guilt, anxiety or stress because you can't be perfect with your diet, you are falling into a dietary trap that isn't right for you or your body.

Diet hot topics will never go away - especially when athletes are eager to find the "next best thing" to help improve performance or body composition. Athletes are overwhelmed by choice so it makes sense that athletes will seek a style of eating that has strict rules and a diet "leader" to reduce confusion. As a human being, you have a responsibility to your body and that means not believing everything that you hear. There's a lot of bad (and sometimes dangerous) advice out there - especially on the internet, in forums, on Youtube and from podcasts. When you are vulnerable for a health change (or performance boost), it can be difficult to decipher good from bad advice.

It's important to take charge of your health and find ways that work for you to help you reach your performance goals. That being said, be cautious with online diet communities, forums and podcasts as the advice you receive may be counterproductive to your health and performance goals.

If you have a health or performance concern or question, consult with a knowledgeable and credible professional, such as a Board Certified Sport Dietitian.

7 triathlon nutrition myths and misconceptions

Within every sport, there are "must try" nutrition strategies for athletic success. While some are effective, most are extreme, unhealthy, unrealistic and unsuccessful.

In the sport of triathlon, combining three sports together can be challenging. The longer the distance, it becomes more difficult to master the art of fueling to delay fatigue and optimize hydration while minimizing GI issues. There's also the mindset that a lean body will outperform a body that is "overfat" because less is best when it comes to body weight. Sadly, more and more athletes are using extreme endurance training in an effort to achieve a certain body image over attempting to improve performance. Therefore, triathletes will often gravitate toward any style of eating that provides food control and helps take away the guessing of what to (and not to) eat in order to improve the odds of race day success.

To help with the dietary confusion and to ensure that your health isn't compromised in route to your upcoming event, Carrie Barrett reached out to me to hear my input on a few common nutrition myths and misconceptions in the sport of triathlon. Because these nutrition myths are found in many sports, all athletes and fitness enthusiasts should take the time to read this great article that Carrie put together. 

7 triathlon nutrition myths and misconceptions

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. 

Choose Anti-Diet in 2018

You've probably noticed the sudden increase of ads and commercials promoting certain diet products and plans to help you lose weight and get healthy in 2018. As a dietitian who specializes in endurance sports, I carefully equip and brace myself for the bombardment of diet/nutrition/wellness information as the diet industry does an exceptional job to guilt you into a style of eating that claims to change your life and help you finally reach your weight loss goals or improve your health. But let's get real....in about 18-30 days, most people have wasted a few weeks of life, all to eventually return back to old lifestlye habits.

I'm always amazed with the attention that people place on "healthy eating," making it so complicated and extreme. If you are confused as to the "best" way to eat, there's a good chance that you are searching for the best way to get back on track with healthy eating after all of the holiday indulging.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with healthy eating and I 100% encourage and support nourishing your body with a wide range of vitamins and minerals in an effort to reduce risk for disease, optimize health and to keep the body at a healthy body composition. 

But as it relates to the methods for healthy eating, there's no one "best" approach. Sure, there's a lot of comfort and security in joining a dietary movement (ex. Paleo, whole-30, detox, vegan) especially if you find it terrifying to make nutrition decisions on your own. And with so much food freedom and uncertainty, there's great safety when you have to conform to rules and have an army of other like-minded dietary members to support and to encourage you when you feel weak and vulnerable. 

Sure, you want to get rid of your sugar cravings and eat more real food and perhaps lose some weight and improve your fitness but for many people (especially those who naturally live with an obsessive and additive personality), you may find it easy to overdo things when it comes to changing your diet, wanting to be perfect with your diet and trying to control everything in your environment in an effort to eat healthy and to lose weight.

Healthy eating does not and should not be all or nothing. It should not be extreme. Your diet should never bring you anxiety, fear or guilt. And certainly, healthy eating should not destroy your health and quality of life.

It's easy to get sucked into the beauty of food pictures on the internet alongside perfectly sculpted bodies, posing half naked after a sweaty workout, all in an effort to make you believe that the person behind those pictures (or blog post) is healthy and you should eat like so-and-so.

We must remember that every person is on his/her own individual quest to become healthier and the chapters of your life book do not have to look like the perfectly edited chapters of the book of someone else. Although similar methods and ideologies may work for the masses, like eat more real food and cook more at home, ultimately, you are on your own nutrition journey and you don't need a rule book or off limit food list in an effort to succeed. 

Consider this...

To one person, healthy eating may include making homemade almond milk, purchasing eggs and meat from a local farmer and picking produce from the at-home garden.

To another person, healthy eating may include not skipping breakfast, eating a serving or two of vegetables each day and learning how to cook a whole grain, like quinoa or barley....for the very first time.

And then there are individuals who are seeking a healthier diet by learning how to not stress/emotional eat, trying to reduce binge eating and working through strong and destructive thoughts about food and the body. 

Perhaps healthy eating means making changes in your diet so that cancer doesn't return for a second time. Or, maybe healthy eating means finally admitting that you have been struggling with disordered eating or an eating disorder and after so many years trying to control your weight, health or performance, you want to get help so you can start living your life by not feeling controlled by food.

Healthy eating is different for everyone. Living a healthy life should not require you to do anything extreme. If you are considering taking an extreme dietary approach to kick start the New Year, I strongly encourage you to not waste your time, money and energy following an eating plan that is targeted to the masses.

In 2018, I encourage you to pledge NO DIETING.

It's important to eat healthy but not at the cost of your health and quality of life. Yes, you will need to make changes in your lifestyle and you may feel overwhelmed. But change doesn't have to be extreme. I strongly advise to skip the diet plan or 30-day challenge and start focusing on creating new habits in your life, one small change at a time.

If you choose anti-diet in 2018, here are some tips to help you kick-start your new healthy eating strategies in the New Year: 

1. Create a realistic plan for the day, before it happens. What will you eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner and for snacks? Don't get too ambitious as small changes make for long lasting results. When you have a plan for yourself, you will find it easier follow through and reflect on what went well and what didn't go as planned (and why).
   
2. Don't bring a diet mentality (or off limit food list) to your New Year eating strategies. Allow for flexibility and avoid making food choices with an all-or-nothing approach. Use your best knowledge to make educated food choices as to the most practical food swaps to help you move toward a more real food, balanced diet.
   
3. Make the time, don't hope for the time. Reorganize your life and dedicate 30 minutes a day to food prep/cooking. The more food that you have prepped, cooked and readily available, the easier it is to follow through with your healthy eating plan.
   
4. Take a social media break. If you follow a lot of health-related blogs/twitter/instagram/facebook accounts, you may need a social media detox from the people/sites that are making you feel depressed or not good enough. Remember, people selectively post what they want others to see so as you begin your new journey, it may work against you to click on a site for inspiration, only to feel like you can't keep up with the successes of others. Plus, social media take time out of your day when you could be spending that time on yourself.
   
5. Don't make eating complicated, time consuming or difficult.  Sure, at the beginning of any journey, change is tough and you will have questions but eventually, you should find that your diet easily fits into your life because it supports your life and doesn't control your life. A sustainable healthy diet shouldn't require an excessive amount of energy, thought and meticulous planning.
   
6. People thrive off rules because with rules, you eliminate options and choices. A healthy diet should not require iron-willpower or an off-limit food list.
   
7. Be kind to your body. If body composition modification is a desired goal to enhance performance or to improve health, the methods should not be strict or extreme. You should allow for gradual weight loss (not a quick fix), without extreme food restrictions, excessive exercising, unsafe behaviors (starving, purging, laxatives) or use of weight loss or performance-enhancing supplements. A health-conscious person cares about his/her body. Your diet shouldn't give you anxiety and your body image shouldn't make you feel frustrated or upset.
   
   Feel free to share and pass along in an effort to encourage others to not diet in 2018. 

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. 

Should athletes follow a Paleo diet?

The Paleo diet is marketed as a "lifestyle" as it it is described to be "the healthiest way you can eat because it is the only nutritional approach that works with your genetics to help you stay lean, strong and energetic because our modern diet is at the root of degenerative diseases such as obesity, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, depression and infertility." It's a way of eating based on the supposed habits of prehistoric hunger-gatherers or caveman. 

I absolutely agree that the Western diet is too full of refined foods, added sugar, unhealthy fats, extremely processed food and fast, convenient food. As a dietitian, there is absolutely nothing wrong with any dietary approach that favors a reduced intake of processed food and emphasizes real food.

However, there is no basis to removing major whole food food groups, like dairy, whole grains and legumes from the diet. Foods that are wholesome and contain a variety of healthy nutrients.

Consider that the Mediterranean diet is ranked as one of the healthiest styles of eating from around the world. It is rich in fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes and olive oil and low in meat. 

The Paleo diet is not only unsustainable but it's not healthy or beneficial for our environment.

If you consider some of the healthiest individuals from around the globe (consider longevity and quality of life as markers for "healthy" and not body image), they eat a lot of plants, they eat grains and legumes and they even consume eggs, cheese and milk.

If grains were so bad, we would all have health issues and that is just not the case. When people complain of health issues, like digestive troubles and low energy, you have to consider what people aren't eating that can assist in better health. Removing food is not the answer. Behavior change is the answer. This is why diets don't work. They don't change behaviors.

When people say that they feel so much better after getting rid of sugar, processed food and grains, it's only when real food is consumed in place of unhealthy alternatives, like processed food, that people will feel better. Oatmeal and berries or a bowl of Lucky Charms? A salad or a protein bar for lunch? A sweet potato with veggies and a lean piece of meat or fast food? Of course you will feel better when you eat real food! And when you eat real food, you spend more time in the kitchen as you have to put more thought into meal prep. When eating is an afterthought and you go into a meal hungry, you are more likely to make unhealthy choices. It's no shock that people feel better when they go Paleo. But grains are not to blame. When's the last time you told yourself that you should really cut back on all the lentils and Teff and Kamut in your diet?

Based on research, caveman were trying to eat enough calories to survive and reproduce. Their diet was not based on "health" but to thrive. The way a Paleo individual today eats is very different than in prehistoric times. Now a days, people are spoiled by the Paleo section of a menu at a restaurant to make ordering easier, there are Paleo packaged bars for when you are in a hurry, there are primal food blogs and cookbooks for inspiration and there is the Paleo friendly section at the Whole Foods salad bar for when you need lunch on the go.

Six million years ago, a caveman was making food choices based on where he lived and the season. He didn't have choices.

There are a lot of holes in the Paleo diet philosophy and let's be real honest, Paleo is all about marketing and food bloggers, nutrition "experts", food companies and magazines know this. If they can catch your attention by a dietary trend/fad, they will do anything possible to get you to believe that with this diet strategy you will get amazing results.

In today's society, it's very interesting to see the cult-like response of diets. People trust information from friends and "followers" and from popular websites and blogs, more than they trust scientific information. We live in a FOMO world where people feel the need to follow a similar style of eating of someone else for fear of not being liked or accepted. Think about all the people you know who are following a no sugar, gluten free, high fat or paleo diet. While people may say this diet "works" (for now), perhaps these people feel more confident in nutrition choices because everyone else seems to be eating this way too.

The truth is that there is no quick fix for healthy eating and what works for you probably won't work for anyone else. 

So while the Paleo diet, low in processed food, sugar and carbs, may work for some time for the average individual, it's still a diet that includes food rules and an off limit food list for no reason.
And once again, obesity and health issues didn't happen from people eating too much whole grains, legumes and quality dairy.

Take a good hard look at your daily diet and ask yourself in the past year, how often you did you eat out, cook a meal, or rely on processed food out of convenience because you were too busy? Do you like real foods like vegetables, fruits, bulgur, lentils, cottage cheese, yogurt and leafy greens? Do you LOVE processed foods like pita chips, cereals, bars, etc?
I'm not saying that the later is bad to consume but it's the former (and not limited to those whole foods) that needs to make up the majority of your diet for health benefits.

As for athletes, it can be very difficult to obtain all of your carbohydrates in a Paleo diet because one can only eat so much fruit and vegetables due to all the fiber. But let's also not overlook the health benefits and nutrients that one obtains from whole grains, dairy and legumes and these foods can be consumed in a healthy diet, alongside vegetables, fruits and your choice of quality protein. 

Ideally, carbohydrates should come from real food, like fruits, vegetables, grains, starches, dairy and legumes. Yes, you should also consume healthy fats and protein. This type of balanced diet is very healthy and satisfying and it doesn't leave a lot of room for sugar and processed food. It gives you energy, it offers great gut health, it protects your immune system and it keeps you well. Yes, you need to grocery shop often, meal prep and cook but a Paleo diet doesn't do that for you. A Paleo diet only tells you what not to eat. It doesn't change your lifestyle habits or thoughts, patterns and behaviors related to food.

As an athlete, when your carbohydrate needs increase, let's say from 3-5g/kg bw per day to 6-8 or even 8-10g/kg to account for the increase in training volume, I can assure you that you can't meet those needs from only whole foods as you will feel incredibly full and it may even cause GI issues. Therefore, as an athlete, you have some wiggle room to deviate from a normally high fiber diet and choose more refined foods. You can still choose real food but low residue foods, juices and sometimes bars may be needed to help you meet your daily carbohydrate needs. This is not reward food or food that you earned but instead, it's food that serves a purpose and a function. We prioritize these more refined foods around workouts due to energy needs and a change in appetite.

If you are trying to lose weight or lean up for performance, a Paleo diet is not the fix. Furthermore, you do not have to devote every minute of your life trying to reach or stay a specific weight, because essentially, you are living like a starving person, fighting your biology.
Your diet should make you happy. With behavior and lifestyle changes, you can learn to love a healthy diet and a healthy diet doesn't have to be perfect. It can still include treats and sweets and fast food and processed food.

It is through healthy daily habits and a smart training regime that you can achieve the leanest livable weight for performance and for your health. And guess what....you can still eat carbohydrates like grains, legumes and dairy!

To be a successful athlete, you need to a healthy body.
A healthy body requires you to be extremely organized, planned and intentional with your eating choices. 

You can't outtrain a poorly planned diet.

Don't assume that any diet will improve your health if you can't maintain that style of eating for the rest of your life. 

For further reading, check out this informative article on the typical American diet and how much processed food is consumed on a daily basis. 

Whole grains didn't make our country unhealthy. 

Start putting blame at one of the major causes of health issues and obesity. 

Source

Big results or marginal gains?

Picture Source

Not every athlete trains to win a race but most athletes train to maximize the potential of performing well on race day.

While your definition of race day success may be to simply complete the race distance and have fun along the way, there are a great number of athletes who pursue the many possible methods of getting the most out of the body through training, in order to meet performance standards on race day.

One of those popular methods is metabolically efficiency, which in simple terms, means burning fat in order to preserve carbohydrate stores.

As desirable as it sounds to an athlete to become more metabolically efficient, manipulating your diet and fueling strategies in an effort to become a better fat burner is not a requirement to be a better athlete. 

The idea of marginal gains lies in the strategy (or method) of trying to gain the 1% competitive advantage. In other words, big successes from a small change. 

With lots of confusion on how to properly become "metabolically efficient" or what it means to be metabolically efficient, it's important to stress that metabolically efficiency is much more than one tiny change in your training.

At Trimarni, we don't believe that fasted workouts are the best way to burn fat or to assist in weight loss. Seeing that many athletes have an extremely unhealthy relationship with food and the body as it is, asking/telling an athlete to voluntarily restrict food before and during workouts feeds the desire to be great at food restriction throughout the day. Many athletes are uneducated on the proper training and diet methods of how to be metabolically efficient, simply because there are too many nutrition experts offering their unique strategy, often while pushing supplements/products.

While this concept of metabolic efficiency is not new and there are many scientific truths and notable results in becoming great at burning fat as an endurance athlete, as a Board Certified Sport Dietitian, I don't view this dietary and training strategy as a necessity for all endurance athletes, as it can actually delay athletic development and heighten an already unhealthy relationship with food and the body.

Without proper guidance on how to become "metabolically efficient", it's very easy to assume that not eating before a workout or fueling during a long workout is good so not eating after a workout and restricting food later in the day, is even better.
Metabolic efficiency is not a diet plan - it's a sport nutrition strategy that may take your performance to the next level, but it is not a requirement. And due to athlete non-compliance, results are often positive and extreme in the beginning but do not last long term.  

I my opinion, for the majority of athletes, I see "metabolic efficiency" as a method that provides marginal gains and has more cons than pros.

Whether you want to become more efficient at conserving glycogen or you look to burning fat as a way to remove unwanted body fat and lean up, it's important to remind you that your success as an athlete starts with nailing the fundamentals.

This post is not to disagree with the concept of metabolic efficiency but instead, to encourage you to nail the basics before following a more extreme dietary and training methodology.

You must make smart choices with your daily diet and training regime in order to stay consistent with training while keeping your body in good health.
Eating a small banana with a smear of nut butter before a 90 minute run and consuming 150 calories of a sport drink and 20 ounce water spread over a 90 minute run may not fit the metabolic efficiency fueling standards but it will help you have a great workout and will likely keep your immune system strong during a time when it's very easy to get sick (sick = no training = loss of fitness).

Not eating before a workout or not fueling during a long workout will not help you gain the competitive edge if your training methods are haphazard, you don't sleep well, you have poor coping skills when it comes to stress, your daily diet is inconsistent, unbalanced and you have an unhealthy relationship with food and the body. 

Although it sounds extremely sexy to say that you are "metabolic efficiency training", the truth is that most athletes (even the elite ones) still have a lot to gain from continuing to nail the basics and progressing on with the developmental process, than simply restricting carbohydrates around workouts or performing workouts in the fasted state (as these are the two ways that I hear of athletes performing "fat burning" workouts).

It isn't until you have maximized your fundamental athletic capabilities that you will need to search for and attempt that one ethically safe way to gain the competitive edge.

Perhaps at that time, metabolic efficiency training can be the choice method for achieving the 1% advantage over your competition.

BUT.....until then, you haven't yet reached the marginal gain status of your athletic career.

Until then, make sure your daily diet strategies do not reduce the effectiveness of your training and above all, do not sabotage your overall health.

If you do feel as if metabolic efficiency is necessary in your training, consult with a sport dietitian who is specializes in the area.

 If you consult with me on the topic, you better believe that I will dive deep into your lifestyle choices, training methods, sport nutrition practices, dietary patterns and relationship with food and the body to discuss the many ways that you are not getting the most out of your body as an athlete.

For the majority of athletes that I work with, the missing link as it relates to body composition struggles and nutrition issues in training and on race is not because athletes are not metabolically efficient but because there is a clear limiter in the daily diet or sport nutrition regime...most common reasons include; an unhealthy relationship with food and the body, not using sport nutrition products properly (timing/quantity), poor nutrient timing or consistently not planning healthy and balanced meals.

From my experience in working with athletes, I encourage you to get to the truths of your daily diet and training regime before assuming that working out in the fasted state is the missing link that when accomplished, will improve your health, improve your body composition or improve your performance.

Now is the perfect time to learn how to make great daily nutrition habits as you follow a well laid training regime to keep you consistently training throughout the holiday season. 

The emotional athlete

It's hard to believe that just over 1 year ago, Karel and I qualified for the 2015 IM World Championship. And in two weeks from yesterday, Karel and I will be boarding a plan to the big island of Kona. And in 24 days, we will both be starting our 140.6 mile journey with 1500+ of the best Ironman athletes around the world. 

Just like you, we are on the same emotional roller coaster that so many experience when training for a key race. With any race day countdown in place, the ups and downs of training for an event can leave you exhausted and drained on some days and excited and overly energized on other days. 

No matter what the race distance may be or your fitness level, we all struggle with the dynamics of our emotions on a day to day basis.
Before you scream "why me?" when you find yourself angry, crying or stressed (or all three at once), what you feel is completely normal and not limited to world class, professional or elite athletes.
Every athlete has the opportunity to improve on weaknesses, experience gains in fitness and succeed on race day, so it is important to learn how to get your feelings under control.  

TRAINING MOTIVATION

                 It's truly remarkable how motivation can swing like a pendulum in any given week, day or even in an hour.
12 weeks out from a race and you may find yourself skipping workouts, not sticking to your training plan or struggling to get your butt out of bed in the morning (or get to the gym after work).  But 4 weeks out from your race, you realize that you can not change the past and all of a sudden, you feel unstoppable and it's no trouble to easily check off every workout on your training plan.
Monday through Friday, you can't seem to find your mojobut come the weekend, you can knock out hours and hours of training and still crave more.
And ask any triathlete who spectates or watches a triathlon race online (especially Kona) and within 24 hours, you can go from having no motivation to finding an enormous amount of energy to do the work....even when you haven't changed anything else in your life (ex. you are still busy, tired, stressed, etc.).

                 Motivation is the driving force for effort and with effort comes accomplishment. When you feel accomplished, you are more driven to continue to stay motivated to train. To perform your best and reach your goals, you must find ways to keep yourself motivated and be willing to go out of your way, sometimes, to get the work done. To help you out, dedicate 5 minutes before every training session to ask yourself the following: "What are my goals, why am I working so hard, why do I love to do this, how can I clear my brain right now to focus on my workout, why is this so important to me, how can I make this workout fun?

                  It is important that you allow yourself to manage the emotions that may cause you to struggle with motivation before workouts and to keep your thoughts positive during a workout so that you do not find excuses especially when the going gets tough. 

NUTRITION

                In my line of work, I work with a lot of athletes who struggle with the emotions tied to their body image. And, I also work with a lot of athletes who are performance-focused and want to learn how to eat for fuel and for health to maximize performance.
The immediate vulnerability that an athlete experiences before, during and after training often causes an athlete to intentionally underfuel or to use food as a reward. The big problem with this is that the times when the body is under the most stress (training/working out) is when the body needs appropriate nutrients, fluids, calories and fuel to meet metabolic demands. But for an athlete who has a poor relationship with his/her body, seeks body composition changes or lacks the education on how to properly fuel for workouts, will sabotage the workout and health by not taking advantage of fueling the body in motion.
On the flip side, there is often the tendency for athletes to carry poor eating habits in their daily life while training for an event which often creates negative internal dialogue, creating an unhealthy relationship with food. Examples include "I shouldn't be eating this, I'll be better tomorrow, I wish I didn't eat that, I feel so gross/fat, I'm being so bad". In this instance, you absolutely do not want to let emotional eating sabotage your performance, energy, health or body composition.

               Every athlete has the ability to put great passion into their daily eating habits where eating is not strict, an obsession, forced or boring. To ensure that you keep a good relationship with food, plan ahead. Plan, plan, plan! Just like with a well designed training plan, you can feel more balanced and more in control of your choices, when you set yourself up for good behaviors. 

INJURY

               Talk about an emotional roller coaster!
An injured athlete often goes through several stages to cope with the injury diagnosis, rehab and recovery process that often resembles grieving: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Depending on what stage an athlete is in after the injury occurs, this can often dictate how the athlete will manage his/her emotions relating to the injury and recovery process.

              To ensure that you do not make further damage by pushing through pain if you are denial or angry at the injury or while feeling down in the dumps you decide that the rehab, therapy and cross training routine is just not worth it, find an athlete who has proven that an injury doesn't have to be the end of your triathlon career and then keep them in the front of your mind as you manage your emotions and trust yourself that you will heal. Linsey Corbin, Jesse Thomas, Craig Alexander, Meredith Kessler, Janelle Morrison are among the many professional triathletes who have all proven that it is possible to be at the bottom with your fitness with an injury but with hard work, focus and determination, rise to the top again. 

EMOTIONS

Did you know that you can be nervous and confident at the same time?
Did you know that you feel ready and be worried at the same time?
Did you know that you can feel off but still perform well?

You may think that the training is tough leading up to a race but sports also test your emotional stability.
Feelings and actions are two different things and as athletes, we need to learn how to calm the feelings that may negatively affect our performance and instead, hold on to the feelings that help us enhance our performance.
Emotions are part of being an athlete and it is important that you learn how to embrace the nerves, anxieties, fears and concerns and bottle up the good vibes, confidence and excitement for seeing what your body can do on race day. 

I often view racing as the end of a chapter of life. We all have a "book of life" and we fill our life with many chapters. Every chapter is filled with emotions - lots of them! Some chapters are not so fun and we don't want to remember them but then there are chapters where it is exhilarating to write the pages of our life because no one can write them for you - only you! 
Training is fun and exciting but also it is challenging and exhausting.
With every training journey, you are in a chapter of your life. 
Make it a good one!