Episode 178 - Key Nutrients for Masters Triathletes: Fuelling for Performance & Longevity

Key Nutrients for Masters Triathletes: Fuelling for Performance & Longevity

If you're a masters triathlete, you might think your PR days are behind you. But here's the thing: with the right nutrition strategy, you can absolutely continue to dominate in triathlon well into your later years!

I'm not just talking about finishing - I'm talking about competing at your absolute best.

The reality of being a masters triathlete is that your body has different needs than your younger training buddies. But this isn't a limitation - it's an opportunity to get smarter about how you fuel. When you understand these changes and adapt your nutrition accordingly, you can maintain (and often improve) your performance.

Let's break down exactly what you need to know to keep crushing those finish lines.

References:

Reimers CD, Knapp G, Reimers AK. Does physical activity increase life expectancy? A review of the literature. J Aging Res. 2012;2012:243958. doi: 10.1155/2012/243958. Epub 2012 Jul 1. PMID: 22811911; PMCID: PMC3395188.

Links:

Download your free Blood Test Guide For Triathletes

Check how well you’re doing when it comes to your nutrition with our 50 Step Checklist to Triathlon Nutrition Mastery

Start working on your nutrition now with my Triathlon Nutrition Kickstart course 

It’s for you if you’re a triathlete and you feel like you’ve got your training under control and you’re ready to layer in your nutrition. It's your warmup on the path to becoming a SUPERCHARGED triathlete – woohoo!

Connect with me: 

To learn more about the Triathlon Nutrition Academy, head HERE | dietitianapproved.com/academy

See behind-the-scenes action on Instagram: @dietitian.approved

Follow along on Facebook: @DietitianApproved

Join our FREE Dietitian Approved Crew Facebook group

Enjoying the podcast?

Let me know what you loved about it and what you learnt by tagging me @dietitian.approved on Instagram!

Episode Transcription

Episode 178 - Key Nutrients for Masters Triathletes: Fuelling for Performance & Longevity

Welcome to the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast. The show designed to serve you up evidence-based sports nutrition advice from the experts. Hi, I'm your host Taryn, Accredited Practicing Dietitian, Advanced Sports Dietitian and founder of Dietitian Approved. Listen as I break down the latest evidence to give you practical, easy-to-digest strategies to train hard, recover faster and perform at your best. You have so much potential, and I want to help you unlock that with the power of nutrition. Let's get into it.

[00:00:00] Taryn: If you're a Masters triathlete, you already know that training in your 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond isn't the same as when you're in your 20s. Recovery takes a little longer, it takes longer to warm up, and muscle maintenance becomes so important as we get older. Your energy levels might also not be what they were when you're in your 20s.

[00:00:24] But the good news is that the right nutrition for triathlon can help you to train harder and recover faster keep smashing your goals into your eighties and nineties, if you wish

[00:00:36] in today's podcast episode, I want to dive into some of the key nutrients for masters triathletes to help you perform at your best, we'll cover some fueling strategies for endurance training in particular, and And how to support your muscle recovery and the key nutrients that are going to help you stay healthy and strong.

[00:00:56] and that's where healthspan comes in. Unlike lifespan, which is just simply how long you live, healthspan is about how long you can live well. So still training, still racing and feeling great without chronic disease, injury, or a decrease in mobility or brain function.

[00:01:15] The right nutrition isn't just about fueling today's session. It's about long term resilience, preserving muscle mass, maintaining strong bones, reducing inflammation, and supporting your heart and brain health as you get older. Now, a well balanced diet that's rich in protein, healthy fats, antioxidants, and some of the key micronutrients that you need as a triathlete is your foundation for longevity.

[00:01:42] And quality of life way beyond when we cross the finish line.

[00:01:47] It's something that personally I'm getting more and more interested in as I get older. Now I turned 40 this year and you might be thinking, man, Taryn, you're a spring chicken. but I'm feeling it and I'm feeling like [00:02:00] my. Midlife crisis point is happening now as I crossed this threshold from my thirties into my forties.

[00:02:07] And for me as a dietitian, health is one of my highest values and I want health span. I want a long and prosperous, healthy life Without decline in functionality. And so what we do with nutrition now sets ourselves up for success in the longterm. The whole foundation of the triathlon nutrition Academy program, and everything that I do as a dietitian has always been health and performance because while we want to perform in our sport, we need to be healthy doing that.

[00:02:36] And particularly with triathlon. If we want to be doing it for a long time, I know a lot of athletes that have goals around doing a full distance race in every age group, as an example. And if you want to do that, then the work starts now to set you up for 20, 30, 40 years down the track to keep you in the sport.

[00:02:57] So let's do it, grab a coffee, jump on the trainer, lace up your running shoes, and take me for a long run with you. Let's talk about how to feel smarter as a masters triathlete. so before we dive into the specifics, let's talk big picture here. How does your nutrition change as you age and you become a Masters athlete? particularly in this life category, we juggle a lot. You know, in your fifties, your sixties, potentially your kids are grown, but you're working full time still, or working a lot.

[00:03:49] And it's kind of the peak of your career. So there's a lot of competing things for your time. You're juggling work, you're juggling family commitments, and you're still training and you're still racing and doing a [00:04:00] lot with life.

[00:04:01] So there's many responsibilities. On your plate. And if you're anything like me and the triathletes that I work with, you're always striving for your best, right? Striving for your best at work, striving for your best at home, striving for your best in the sport that we love, but to truly excel, you need to focus on the one thing that fuels it all.

[00:04:22] And that is your nutrition. And it is the first ball that people drop when life gets busy or you get thrown curve balls or things get too stressful. Nutrition is always the thing that drops out first. We know that aging impacts performance and recovery. Muscle loss is a big one and we're always battling age related muscle decline.

[00:04:46] Recovery is slower and we have often increased inflammation. Because there's potential changes to metabolism as we get older as well. Now, triathlon is very much a lifelong sport. I know people that have been doing it from childhood and still continue to do it today. So the right nutrition now is going to help you stay active and injury free and competitive for years to come.

[00:05:11] If you are the type of person that wants to keep racing in every age group. 

[00:05:15] As a triathlete, you definitely have one up on the general population when it comes to longevity, because all cause mortality is decreased by about 30 to 35 percent in physically active people compared to inactive subjects. I'll link that paper in the show notes, but you exercise, which is a massive tick for health span and being healthy.

[00:05:37] As we age compared to somebody that does nothing. So your job, because you've got the exercise box ticked is to do the right type of training. That's not my wheelhouse. You'll need to go elsewhere for that, but layering in the right nutrition to support that training too.

[00:05:53] And I would argue that it becomes even more important as we get older so that we've got the right building blocks for our [00:06:00] body to maximally support our training adaptations, maintain energy levels and long term health. Some really common mistakes that masters athletes make is not eating enough protein in particular.

[00:06:12] It is one of the key nutrients that you'll need to focus on as you get older. Relying too much on sports nutrition products and packaged foods and not focusing enough on the key nutrients and also inadequate recovery. Like you are busy. You are potentially, you know, training hard and running to work and not having time to think about what your recovery plan is or organizing it ahead of time.

[00:06:37] Like you often just scrambling

[00:06:39] and that's not doing anyone any favors if that is you. So let's break it down. One of the key principles for anyone really, but particularly for masters triathletes is your energy balance. It's really important as we get older, because we don't want Too many surplus calories. And we also don't want to be the other end of the spectrum where we're not having enough calories.

[00:07:02] So overall energy balance. And that is one of the hardest things to get right as a triathlete when we don't have a stable energy equation for every day, your energy needs on a daily basis change and periodize food to that. It can be difficult. It can be challenging if you have no idea how to practically do that and how to apply that.

[00:07:24] It's one of the key things that I love to teach my athletes is how to do that, but then we are constantly working on it because nutrition is not a stagnant set number set and forget. Once you've got a plan that's periodized, you are going to have to tweak it and finesse it because you are your own experiment and equals one and we can put something in place, but then you need to know how to adapt it and change it over time, which is why I love it.

[00:07:48] Educating triathletes on how to do things for themselves so that you can do that forevermore into your nineties if you want to be doing Ironman or hitting Kona in that age group. [00:08:00] While overall energy balance is important and not overdoing that and underdoing that, the quality of the things that make up those calories are just as important because you can have all of your calories in a day from Big Mac meals, ice cream, chocolate, whatever, That might still put you in energy balance, but that is still not the right things to put in our high performance engine. We need to think on quality as well. 

[00:08:28] The other piece of that puzzle is your macronutrient distribution, and that will shift as you get older. One of the things with triathlon in particular is that your carbohydrate needs are going to change all the time as your training changes. It is our primary source of fuel. As an endurance athlete, but as we get older, are we still training and racing at the same intensity?

[00:08:51] Have we got the same amount of training hours? Have we got all that duration? We need to actually think more strategically around how much carbohydrate you have on a daily basis. So I can give you a range to aim for, but that's pretty bloody useless. So I'd much rather speak to you and help you with your nutrition at an individual level than blanketly go have this much carbohydrate, because that's not going to serve anybody particularly well, or maybe one in 500 people that would be right, but the rest of you, it's not particularly valuable.

[00:09:23] You want to think about carbohydrate around training, so before, during and after, and then the rest of your day would just totally depend on what your training load looks like. Something to consider as you get older, particularly if you've got any risk in your family history is doing things like monitoring your diabetes or blood sugar levels.

[00:09:44] So HbA1c, your insulin levels, fasting glucose. Some of those things are discussion points to open with your doctor to make sure you are monitoring that over time. triathletes guide if you'd like to go and get it. It's not all encompassing, but it is a great starting point. to educate you around some things to ask for and then what the data actually means.

[00:10:09] So you can get that for free at dietitianapproved.com/bloods, but we do dive much deeper into all of those things inside the triathlon nutrition academy program.

[00:10:20] The next macronutrient which is so important and probably doesn't get enough importance weighed on it is protein. It is the key macronutrient that is non negotiable as you get older, because we get protein resistance as we get older, which means that we don't extract as much or absorb as much protein from our diet compared to when we were younger, as well as we naturally lose muscle mass, a process called sarcopenia as we age.

[00:10:50] Add triathlon training into the mix of that as an endurance sport, protein becomes so significantly important. We need it for muscle recovery and repair from just general training, as well as maintaining our lean mass. And you want to be hitting that target. That is individual to you on the daily. It's not a, I'll miss it this day and catch up the next day.

[00:11:15] It needs to be on the daily because you are not a snake. You can't eat once every month and be okay.

[00:11:21] So making sure you've got high quality protein foods in your diet. Animal products are the most complete in their amino acids. So all your meats, red meat, chicken, fish, eggs are important. Dairy is important. And if you are a vegan or a plant based athlete, then making sure you get enough from your plant based sources like tofu, tempeh, legumes, and those types of foods.

[00:11:44] Protein powders can have their place. As long as it's a good one and you're not relying on it heavily. Like every meal, every snack, that kind of thing. Occasionally it's fine, but I would much rather teach you how to get your protein needs from food, because there are so many other [00:12:00] nutrients in food that don't exist in a protein powder.

[00:12:03] A protein powder is just protein. It doesn't have, it won't have carbohydrate, fat. Doesn't have other micronutrients. So want to focus on whole foods and real foods as much as possible and lean on those more convenient options when we're stuck or when we have to rather than it form the foundation of your diet, it is a supplement and which means it's supplements, a good quality diet.

[00:12:26] It's not the foundation of it.

[00:12:29] You'll need to prioritize protein, particularly in your post exercise recovery window, but I would suggest trying to spread it out across the day as well so that you are meeting your needs. You're not trying to chase it and get it all in at dinnertime and catch up from a day of not having enough.

[00:12:47] Muscle mass equals longevity and the stronger you are, the more resilient you are as you age. So if you're not lifting heavy things in the gym yet, you need to get amongst it, go and do it. Get a plan of attack and make sure you are including strength training,

[00:13:03] particularly for women, perimenopausal, postmenopausal women, you need to be in the gym, you need to be lifting heavy ish weights

[00:13:13] and you'll find even though it might be hard in the beginning, it will make huge improvements to your training, to your overall energy levels and your overall well being as you get older as well. Fats final macronutrient and this one definitely needs to feature the low fat kind of methodology from the 80s and before.

[00:13:34] We need to forget that it is a vital energy source. It is so important for so many components in our body. Every cell is made up of fat. It also supports our hormonal health, our joint function, inflammation. So low fat is not the message. Neither is high fat. Everything in moderation, they always say, but focusing on the right types of fats, particularly for brain health, [00:14:00] like omega threes, they're going to help reduce cognitive decline and supporting both performance and longevity.

[00:14:07] And we just don't get enough of that in our diet on a daily basis, generally. So your best sources of fats as we get older. Uh, our monounsaturated fats and your omegas. So things like avocados, nuts and seeds, olive oil, and fatty fish. And if you don't have the animal sources of omega 3s in your diet, there are plenty of plant based sources.

[00:14:28] It's something to keep in mind, particularly as we're getting older. Cause they're so beneficial. We want to limit the saturated fats and trans fats and processed oils. They can all increase inflammation and negatively affect performance.

[00:14:45] And if cardiovascular disease risk is in your family history, then I would encourage you to have that conversation with your doctor and monitor your blood lipids regularly. Plus, other things that they want to keep track of

[00:15:01] to make sure that any changes that you make with your nutrition or anything that you're doing is actually helping and not hindering.

[00:15:08] there is some information in that blood test guide if you do want to grab that, dietitianapproved.com/bloods. It's a starting point. If you want to dive deeper on that, open that conversation with your doctor

[00:15:21] because nutrition is something that we can change early in life to set ourselves up for success in this space.

[00:15:28] So moving on to some of the key nutrients that we need, particularly as we get older, calcium, vitamin D and iron.

[00:15:37] So calcium and vitamin D are both really important for bone health, particularly as you age, where our risk of fractures increases. I'm sorry, it's not pretty, but we have that repetitive motion of running and, you know, long training hours that, increase your risk of stress fractures over time, particularly in masters athletes.

[00:15:59] Taryn: And [00:16:00] we know that calcium and vitamin D work together to keep your bones strong and resilient, which is what we want. It's something you want to be focusing on on the daily basis as well, to set yourself up now for a long and prosperous career in the future as well, because if we don't get enough calcium from our diet, we will borrow it from our bones.

[00:16:19] And we don't want that, that compounded over time is bad news. So making sure you're getting enough calcium from your diet, your requirements. Increase for women, they increase at 50 and for men, they increase at 70 The 50 mark is menopause. Not everyone goes through menopause at 50 though. So around that time is where your calcium requirements are going to increase.

[00:16:42] Dairy foods are our best source of calcium, but if you don't have dairy in your diet, then you need to source enough on the daily basis from other plant based sources or calcium fortified plant milks or somewhere so that you are not limiting your intake. every single day. Vitamin D is synthesized by sun exposure, but for some people they don't live in the right wavelength of light through the winter months or they're not outside when the sun is out.

[00:17:13] You train indoors. I know it's dark when you go to work. It's dark when you leave work. There are places in the world where vitamin D deficiency is increased for those reasons. And again, that's something that you are going to need to understand for you. Go and get a blood test, check your levels. And check it in the depths of winter, check it in the height of summer and understand what your vitamin D status is doing over time, rather than just get one blood test and go, Oh, yep, they're good.

[00:17:40] And then a year's time you figure out that they are through the floor because that is not great for our bone health. So something to be really mindful of calcium every single day and making sure your vitamin D status is optimized.

[00:17:55] Iron is another key one. Your requirements for iron don't increase as you [00:18:00] get older. For women, they actually decrease post menopause when we don't have those regular monthly losses, but it is such a key nutrient in our wheelhouse or toolkit as a triathlete because one of its important roles is to transport oxygen around the body.

[00:18:15] It has many, many roles, but that's a key one for endurance athletes. if you are deficient. And you have low iron, then you're going to feel pretty rubbish. And that to me is not happy, healthy health span. You're tired, you're fatigued, lethargic. You can spend a whole night in bed, get nine hours sleep and wake up and still feel like you've been hit by a truck.

[00:18:36] None of that is good quality of life to me. So making sure that you do have enough iron from your diet and something to keep in mind that you monitor with your doctor regularly as well. So the blood test guide can help you. Understand what the numbers are, what to ask for to get the right test, and keeping track of that over time.

[00:18:55] Because there are two types of iron in our diet. We have our heme iron and our non heme iron. Heme iron is our animal based sources, so things like meat, and plant based sources are our non heme iron. bioavailability of both is pretty rubbish, to be honest. Heme iron is much more bioavailable than our plant based sources.

[00:19:16] There are a couple of things that you can do to enhance and inhibit iron absorption though. So we can enhance it by things like vitamin C, as an example, and things like tea and coffee. Can inhibit iron absorption. So it's this big washing machine of stuff. So something to keep in mind for yourself to know what your status is and if there's anything you need to do about it to optimize it.

[00:19:39] Again, another topic of conversation to have with your doctor to make sure that you are not becoming deficient over time and you're monitoring that regularly as well.

[00:19:50] The next key thing for masters athletes is hydration. We have this altered thirst response as we get older, meaning it becomes more and more [00:20:00] important to try and monitor what's going on and making sure you're not relying on, I'm thirsty, I should drink. You should actually have more of a structured formulated plan.

[00:20:09] We need fluid to contract our muscles, maintain fluid balance, pump, nutrients around our body, get waste products around our body. Electrolytes. Also become important. Is hypertension a problem for you? And should you be sucking back a million salt tablets and things like that in your sports nutrition products, something to consider because the messaging at the moment is like, everyone should have salt tablets and everyone should have as much as possible.

[00:20:40] And I don't really agree with that, particularly if you're somebody that has hypertension Or you have a family history of hypertension might be worth having that conversation with your doctor as well. But being more strategic about your electrolyte use rather than blindly having crap loads and doing yourself an injustice when it comes to our health.

[00:21:00] Hydration is not just about race day though. It supports joint health, digestion, and your overall well being, and it's a pivotal part of life that we need to get right as we get older. and it's really important to understand your individual hydration needs.

[00:21:16] Sometimes we need to disregard our thirst response as we get older because it may not be a good indicator of what's actually going on. so we need to focus on being hydrated before training, turning up to your session, not in a dehydrated state. Maintaining hydration status during sessions.

[00:21:34] So we're not getting too dehydrated. One where performance gets affected and two, we're putting ourselves into too much of a hole. It's not great for a lot of things. And then after training, replenishing our hydration as well so that we can back up and go again. We're not spending the whole day dehydrated.

[00:21:51] All right. My final nutrient or group of nutrients for Masters athletes is antioxidants. They are so important for [00:22:00] recovery, immunity, and definitely longevity. We know that training increases our oxidative stress and you know, while that's a normal part of adapting as a triathlete, too much is negative and we want all the antioxidants to mop up that stress to combat it so that we support our long term health and performance.

[00:22:21] Antioxidants come from all of your beautiful colors, your fresh fruits and vegetables, you know, things like berries, leafy greens, as many different colors as you can get. Dark chocolate. Yes. And you'll notice that I haven't added wine to that list because I really think that you can get all of those antioxidants from food without needing to feel like you have to drink a glass of red wine to get your antioxidants.

[00:22:47] There, I said it. So eat a wide variety of colors rather than getting stuck in the rut of the same things. Try and eat seasonally because there is more nutrients in our food that is grown in its right conditions in season, rather than something that's forced to grow out of season. And the closer it is and the shortest time from it being picked is going to maximize the nutrients as well.

[00:23:12] If it's got to come from the other side of the world and come across. In a plane to get, I don't know, for example, oranges for us in Australia come from the U. S. when they're not in season here. I like foot in the sand, don't buy them because the air miles are massive, but that time from actually being picked to being eaten, nutrients do get lost in that process.

[00:23:34] A lot of our vitamins and minerals and antioxidants are quite sensitive little things and they get affected by heat and time. So the fresh is best, the more variety have the better and eat in season is my biggest tips there.

[00:23:50] So to wrap it up, here are my practical takeaways and how to apply all of this to your training. We need to think about fueling smarter, [00:24:00] not harder and periodizing your nutrition to you and your training. also once you start to think beyond today's session, like every meal is an investment in your performance and longevity.

[00:24:14] I'm just going to let that sink in for a second because I think that's so important. Prioritize recovery and making sure that your post training nutrition is dialed in for you because that can make or break your next session and also help prevent long term injuries and of overuse and making sure you are maintaining your muscle mass as you get older.

[00:24:35] Test your strategies in training. Nutrition is a game changer on race day if it's dialed in early and you can practice often.

[00:24:45] And finally, what you do now impacts the years ahead. Consistent evidence based nutrition choices can help keep you training and racing and feeling great well into your later years.

[00:24:59] Spending some time and effort and investing in your health now is going to pay dividends in 20, 30, 40 years time. If you want to take your nutrition to the next level, then the Triathlon Nutrition Academy program opens again shortly. And inside, I'm going to teach you exactly what to eat and when to support your training and racing and recovery forevermore.

[00:25:23] Doesn't matter what type of you follow, what age group you're in. Your nutrition is custom to you and the faster you can implement that into your training program, the faster you'll reap those rewards so that you can keep doing what you love for many years to come.

[00:25:40] So I hope that helps get you started with some of the key things you want to consider as a master's triathlete. There are lots of things that you can really dial in and finesse over time. And it is really just about getting the right people in your team. So I really think that having a sports dietitian that works with triathlon is invaluable as well [00:26:00] as good medical professionals as we get older.

[00:26:02] This is something that I've been implementing myself recently and.

[00:26:07] There's a huge difference in getting the right people in your corner and having people that aren't kind of specialists in that area is all I'll say. One of the things that I'm working on for my TNA athletes also is a tracking spreadsheet to monitor this stuff over time, because I think that's going to be so valuable as we do get older to collect all the data and monitor trends and pick things up early.

[00:26:32] Um, rather than waiting for the medical world to go, okay, now there's a problem and I can fix it. We want to get to the point where we are not even getting to there in the first place. That prevention piece to really improve healthspare and that's kind of been my. Personal focus the last little while.

[00:26:50] Like I said, I'm having a midlife crisis,

[00:26:55] but the time is now.

[00:26:57] I want to be like kicking footies with my grandkids into my eighties. I don't want to be stuck in a nursing home or, or bedridden or, you know, not able to do the things that I love. So nutrition is a huge piece of that and we need to act now to set ourselves up for the long term. All right. That is it.

[00:27:14] Thank you for wrapping me around your ear holes today and I'll see you next week. 

 

Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast. I would love to hear from you. If you have any questions or want to share with me what you've learned, email me at [email protected]. You can also spread the word by leaving me a review and taking a screenshot of you listening to the show. Don't forget to tag me on social media, @dietitian.approved, so I can give you a shout out, too. If you want to learn more about what we do, head to dietitianapproved.com. And if you want to learn more about the Triathlon Nutrition Academy program, head to dietitianapproved.com/academy. Thanks for joining me and I look forward to helping you smashed in the fourth leg - nutrition!