Episode 100 - I Can’t Believe We Made it! 🎉 Giveaway Winner Announced

I Can’t Believe We Made it! 🎉 Giveaway Winner Announced

I honestly can’t believe we’ve hit the 100 podcast episodes milestone! It seems like only yesterday I was setting up the cupboard and hitting record on my first ever episode. We took a dive, head first into the wonderful world of podcasting and haven’t looked back..

To help me celebrate, I’ve brought back the legendary Stef Hanson, former chief of Witsup to flip the mic on me! We talk all about:

• Why I started podcasting
• The lessons I’ve learnt along the way
• Some of my highlights over the last 100 episodes
• What’s got me fired up the most!
• And a look into the future of the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast

Plus we also announce the winner of my 100th episode giveaway! Tune in to see if it was you!

Cheers to the next 100!

Links:

Register for our online Triathlon Nutrition Training Camp! thetricamp.com

Check how well you’re doing when it comes to your nutrition with our 50 step checklist to Triathlon Nutrition Mastery: dietitianapproved.com/checklist

Start working on your nutrition now with my Triathlon Nutrition Kickstart course: dietitianapproved.com/kickstart
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: instagram.com/dietitian.approved

Follow along on Facebook: facebook.com/DietitianApproved

Join our FREE Dietitian Approved Crew Facebook group: facebook.com/groups/DietitianApprovedCrew

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 100: I Can’t Believe We Wade it! 🎉 Giveaway Winner Announced

Taryn Richardson  00:00

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.

Stef Hanson  00:41

Welcome to the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast. Now, as strange as this may seem, this is not Taryn's voice. My name is Stef Hanson and you would have heard me back in Episode 52 when Taryn was celebrating one year of podcasting, and I'm back again to help her celebrate 100 episodes!

Taryn Richardson  01:05

Woohoo!!

Stef Hanson  01:05

Welcome to the big 100 my friend! How are you feeling? 

Taryn Richardson  01:08

Ah, I honestly can't believe we're here. It is a freight train you can't get off, that's for sure. But yeah, very excited to be celebrating 100 episodes with you, Stef. I can't imagine doing it with anyone else, let's be honest. 

Stef Hanson  01:21

Oh, you're so sweet. But in all seriousness, 100 episodes is phenomenal. You have not skipped a beat. What I want to know is when you first started podcasting, did you ever imagine 100 episodes? And also, what was the initial thing that triggered the start of podcasting? 

Taryn Richardson  01:40

Yeah, no, I honestly didn't foresee 100 episodes. When I first started, one of the things that I did though, was I listed out over 100 topics so that I knew that I had enough to talk about. Because there's some crazy stat that 90 something percent of podcasts don't get past Episode 7. So I knew that if I was going to start, I had to have enough to talk about for at least 100. 

Taryn Richardson  02:02

And the reason I started podcasting was really just to reach more triathletes' ears. Like, you know this, but I have huge goals to help as many triathletes as I can understand the fourth leg, which is nutrition, and podcasting is just a great way to do that. And it's really allowed me to expand my, like audience, if you want to call it that. Sounds super lame, but get into more triathletes' ears in a way that's evidence based, too. There's so much bullshit out there that just makes my blood boil. So I'm super stoked to have 100 episodes out there that are evidence based nutrition to try and help triathletes eat better, fuel better, recover faster, and you know, train as hard as they possibly can - get the most out of their body. So yeah, that's where we're at. 

Stef Hanson  02:33

I also love that you planned 100 episodes from the get go, which I imagine was quite daunting to begin with - how the heck am I going to come up with 100 different things to talk about. But once you ... and you referred to it as a train that you can't get off ... once you start, it just keeps snowballing about the different things you can talk about in terms of sports nutrition.

Taryn Richardson  02:45

Yeah. And that is one of the reasons why I started - because I knew I had a lot to talk about. And I've given that list a good nudge but it's still there. And there's probably over 50, if not more topics and discussion points to talk about that I haven't even touched yet. So bring on the next 100. 

Stef Hanson  03:24

And I imagine the more episodes you release, the more feedback you're getting, which just will give you ideas for the next upcoming episodes. 

Taryn Richardson  03:31

Yeah, there's always new things in the sports nutrition space. Like we saw the arrival of things like hydrogels. And I was lucky enough to talk to Andy King, who was one of the key researchers in the hydrogel research. And because of podcasting, I was able to basically pick his brain on if there's evidence behind hydrogels and endurance performance or not. 

Andy King  03:53

And hydrogel is a newish product by a company called Maurten out of Sweden, that effectively does the same thing to deliver that carbohydrate. It started off just as a drink. They now have a gel product as well just to confuse people with gel and hydrogel. All it is is essentially the same ingredients, so sugar, water, and two other ingredients. One of those is pectin, which is a polysaccharide, a sugar type substance that you might have heard of if you're a keen baker, it's used in jam making. And another one which is called alginate, which is derived from seaweed of all things. And both of those are what we term biopolymers and they're just chains of molecules that are just mixed in with the carbohydrate solution. You drink it, it goes down as a drink. And on contact with the extremely low pH, so high acidity in your stomach, it gelates and it forms this kind of thick, viscous substance, which is then the hydrogel, if you like. 

Taryn Richardson  04:50

And that was one of my favorite episodes because of podcasting that allowed me to do that. 

Stef Hanson  04:56

Yeah, I love it. 

Steve Duquette  04:57

Hey, Taryn. This is Steve from Ontario, Canada. I just want to tell you how much I love your podcasts. I listen to them all the time in my car, at home, when I'm training - they're all really good. But I will say that what I love the most about your podcasts is that you take this no BS approach to nutrition and that's been a real game changer for me. I love that approach. And it's made a big difference for me in my training, in my approach to nutrition and how I fuel my body for my training both before and during and after. And that's made a huge difference in how I feel and how my training has progressed. So thank you so much and keep those podcasts coming. Looking forward to the next one.

Stef Hanson  05:46

I've got a tricky question for you, it's a two parter. 

Taryn Richardson  05:49

Okay.

Stef Hanson  05:49

What's the biggest thing you've learnt in terms of the podcasting world but also a platform with what you do? And then what's the biggest thing you've learnt about sports nutrition?

Taryn Richardson  06:02

Ooohh, great question. Podcasting is honestly a world I knew nothing about before I started. There is so much you need to know. And I think we talked about that a bit in Episode 52. Just getting your audio right. I hide in my cupboard to record my episodes because it's the best sound quality in my noisy Queenslander house. I also learned a lot about the way that I speak.  Listening to yourself back is really confronting, and I realised I say ‘so’ a lot and I've untrained that myself a lot over the last 100 episodes. But maybe we need to start a drinking game when Taryn says ‘so’. Everyone would be poleaxed after 20 minutes. 

Taryn Richardson  06:41

But I guess I also learned how much work is involved. And you don't really see that when you listen to a podcast episode because you might hear something that's 20 minutes, 30 minutes and it sounds simple, and it seems seamless. But for something that goes for half an hour, there's probably 5 to 10 hours of work that have gone into that short little episode. 

Taryn Richardson  07:05

And we do a lot of repurposing here at Dietitian Approved - like we turn it into a blog, we get the transcript, we put some audio snippets on social media, the video goes on YouTube - like there's a lot of things that happen with this one tiny little episode. Plus, I also need to think about what I'm talking about and then the time to record it. So I guess just so much is involved in it, which is probably why podcasts don't get that far off the ground. Because it's not until you start that you do realise how much is involved in that tiny, crisp audio that you listen to in your ears when you're out going for a long run. 

Stef Hanson  07:43

And I love the thought that you put into the quality of the sound because a poor sounding podcast just shouldn't exist anymore. 

Taryn Richardson  07:50

Amen. 

Stef Hanson  07:51

Invest in a decent microphone and just take a few steps and it will sound crisp. But so many people don't even bother and it's such a minimal outlay just to get that part right.

Taryn Richardson  08:02

Yeah, it's something I knew that I wanted to do to start as well. I didn't want to start and put out crap audio. I'm a bit of an audio snob. I don't like this listening to shitty noise. And there is a lot of big, well known podcasts that are amateur hour. Like they just get the audio off Zoom - I'm like, what are you guys doing? Honestly, it's not that difficult, like you said. This microphone is $100 bucks, maybe $150 Aussie dollars, and I sit in my cupboard, and then I have some audio editors that go through and I guess tidy it up a little bit. But yeah, it's not that difficult and way better than the audio quality that you kick out from Zoom because you're literally in someone's ear and I don't want to listen to something that's all crackly and grainy and... ugh!

Stef Hanson  08:48

Totally, yeah. Okay, so the second part of the question - what have you actually learnt I guess from researching some of the topics or some of the guests that you've had. What's the biggest thing you've learnt from the episodes that you've produced?

Taryn Richardson  09:00

I guess I've learnt a few things. I don't find anything too groundbreaking these days, because I do a lot of reading, and I do a lot of research. But I was talking to Dr. Ben Desbrow way back in the archives about alcohol. And we went on a random tangent and he was telling me about the bomb calorimeter he has, which is basically the way that you test the amount of calories that are in a food. And he threw this massive knowledge bomb at me that the energy in a food can vary from what's on the nutrition information panel by as much as 20% either direction based on the testing that they're doing down at Griffith University. 

Taryn Richardson  09:39

And that is to me like just mind blowing. It's also not clearly published information. It's something you have to kind of know the people or really dive deep into research. But that was one of the huge light bulbs for me. Like getting to talk to really high quality people and get that information from their brain. Because research is about three years behind what they're actually doing. Because it takes so long to plan a study, get it through ethics, run the study, write the paper, get it published into journals. So if you can get the word straight from the horse's mouth as quickly as it's happening, then you're ahead of the game. Yeah,

Dr Ben Desbrow  10:17

In Australia, we don't even have a requirement for the label to have a certain degree of accuracy. All's we say to a food manufacturer and this includes alcohol manufacturers is, all you need to do is add up the ingredient macronutrients and the amount of protein, the amount of fat, the amount of carbohydrate and the amount of fibre as well. And then from there using an equation, you can come up with the total energy that's derived from that product. Now, as I said, that's the only requirement that we have in Australia, apart from recording a certain level of accuracy, certain level of decimal places. And so what we've done is we've looked at the US, so the Food and Drug Administration, the FDA in the States. What do you think would be a reasonable level of accuracy? What sort of percentage away from what's written on the label? What do you think would be reasonable?

Taryn Richardson  10:31

10%? 

Dr Ben Desbrow  10:43

Yeah, well, I think that's probably okay. You know, if you're manufacturing, you know, a muesli bar and, you know, you cut it up sort of slightly differently, or you've got more sultanas in one versus the next one, you know. 10% gives you a reasonable margin. Their actual allowance is plus or minus 20%. 

Taryn Richardson  11:22

Wow. 

Dr Ben Desbrow  11:23

So it's very broad. It's very generous. And we've done as I said, some comparisons to the hospital food. And we've got a number of foods, quite a number of them, that fall outside of that plus or minus 20% range. We're seeing large variations on a very generous equivalency boundary, if you like - a plus or minus 20%. But we haven't published that works. I'm not going to say anything more about it.

Stef Hanson  11:44

And then to I guess, follow on from that, what advice would you give to people then from that knowledge bomb that you got?

Taryn Richardson  11:51

Don't count calories! Which is an episode that we did a little while back. It's one of the reasons why I don't really think it's that useful, particularly for the triathlon population. One, it's really hard to estimate energy intake - like what's going in, but it's also really hard to estimate your outgoings - your energy expenditure. And so that knowledge bomb around what's on a label is not necessarily what's in food, I think really should shift people's perspective around calorie counting because it is a bit of a guessing game. Like yeah, you can kind of get it close-ish, but it could be out by 20% either direction. And is that worth your time and stress and overwhelm? In my opinion, definitely not. Like I'd rather teach you how to eat without counting calories which is not that difficult. You just need a little bit of knowledge.

Stef Hanson  12:43

I imagine the anxiety around counting calories can get quite high particularly with athletes. 

Taryn Richardson  12:49

Yeah, yep. It's like basically like putting petrol on a fire. Like I know that triathletes, being one, you can also, you know, you kind of retired, you can call yourself on as well. We're different type of people, right? 

Stef Hanson  12:50

Little bit. 

Taryn Richardson  12:51

Little bit high achieving, little bit Type A, like to know all the numbers, do everything perfectly, don't want to get anything wrong. And so it's kind of putting petrol on that fire in a way - but calorie counting is not an exact science and so why bother?

Stef Hanson  13:19

I love it. I'm just making just making a quick note about that one as we talk.

Lyna Naseri  13:24

Hi, Taryn. My name is Lyna. I live in St. John's, Newfoundland. I listen to your podcast during my workouts and the second time taking some notes to ensure I don't miss anything. I really appreciate the quality of the information you're sharing with us, the topics being picked, and how well this is all structured together. I have seen myself instant results and would recommend anyone to follow your precious advice with nutrition. Either it is to get ready for an event or just for everyday lifestyle, working out, during the triathlon adventure. Thank you for everything you do.

Stef Hanson  14:03

And now obviously the things that you've learned are probably highlights but is there anything else that sticks out to you over 100, that's right 100 episodes, as a highlight?

Taryn Richardson  14:12

I think the other thing that's really cool for me is giving age groupers a platform. Like I get to highlight some of the athletes that I get to work with, more to come always, and age groupers are doing some pretty epic shit. Like we had Denise Wilson on the podcast a little while back and she did Ultraman Australia and she's preparing to do Ultraman Australia again. Like you don't have to go that long, but you know, that's some pretty crazy shit. 

Taryn Richardson  14:40

Also, we had Jason Currie on who took almost an hour off his 70.3 time simply going from not having any idea about nutrition, not having any form of plan, to then having a race nutrition plan for 70.3 and everything that goes with that as part of the Academy. Now, you wouldn't hear about that, or nobody would know about that, unless I could give them a platform to share that story, so that's been really cool for me. Because all we see is pros on social media, in the media, and I don't know, age groupers I think deserve a bit of a platform too, because they fit all of that training in for three sports, plus working full time, plus family commitments and all the other things that go with being an age grouper.

Stef Hanson  14:40

And obviously highlighting those athletes, it's far more relatable to the people who are listening to this podcast. And pros obviously can tell a story and we can learn a lot from them but generally, they're at a point where they're tweaking the one percenters. Jason, who's taken an hour off his time, at a guess, that's a 20% performance improvement, you know. That's crazy! 

Taryn Richardson  15:51

Yeah. Huge!

Taryn Richardson  15:52

That's what age groupers forget is that they look at the pros for inspiration and ideas and they want to do what they're doing because they don't want to miss out. But they are tweaking those one percenters. So the supplements and the tech and stuff that they're using is to really dial in that top end. Whereas an age group triathlete, they need to work on those foundations first. And that's something that I'm really passionate about teaching them in the Triathlon Nutrition Academy program - is building that foundation layer from the bottom up. Because most pros, not all of them, some of them are still really shit at nutrition, most pros have got those fundamentals right and they've been working on that for a long time. So I think that's a really important message to hear is that you can't compare yourself to somebody that is a full time athlete because again, they don't juggle all the things that you potentially do with work and family - on top of training.

Stef Hanson  16:47

Yeah, I think that's one of the biggest things I used to talk to age groupers about a lot- is the biggest difference between going from age grouper to full time professional is it's not that they necessarily get to train more, they don't do extra training, they get to recover more, they get to spend more time working on recovery. However, that looks - nutrition, rest, active recovery, what have you. And people forget about that. 

Kelly Estes  17:10

This is Kelly Estes from Idaho Falls, Idaho in the USA. I love listening to the TNA podcast because it keeps me up to date on things happening with triathlon nutrition. I learned about the Triathlon Nutrition Academy through the podcast. And when I first learned about Taryn Richardson, the Triathlon Nutrition Academy. I was excited to be a part of the program. Now, a member of TNA for the past nine months, I realised how little I previously knew about triathlon nutrition.

Kelly Estes  17:37

I used to always wonder if my nutrition plan was optimised for my performance. Because my old way was optimising nutrition to trial and error with all the gels, powders, and other products that was on the market. And the marketing often drove the choices I made about which products to try. I've learned so much about triathlon nutrition from Taryn that I'm confident my nutrition plan is on track to optimise my performance now. Thank you, Taryn for the Triathlon Nutrition Academy and your podcast.

Stef Hanson  18:15

I want to know what's the thing that's got you the most riled up over the last 100 episodes?

Taryn Richardson  18:23

Ah, as in my podcast or going on other people's podcast? Because that's been the most blood boiling thing. 

Stef Hanson  18:29

Interesting. 

Taryn Richardson  18:30

Yeah. So I went on a podcast with MoTTIV, Triathlon Taren. We are two Taryn's on one podcast, that was interesting in its own. But he just talked about, and wanted to know, the details about all the myths and the rubbish that's online and I'm always pretty sweaty after that one. And the other one which actually hasn't seen the light of day and it probably never will, I was interviewed by a nutritionist. And she was really pro taking all these powders after exercise because you just can't get there with food and like completely against my whole ethos around nutrition. I'm getting like sweaty already talking about it. 

Stef Hanson  19:11

Love it. 

Taryn Richardson  19:12

She was just like, what do you mean like athletes don't need this powder after exercise? I'm like, what are you talking about you weirdo? No, I didn't say that. But it won't see the light of day because our views were so incongruent to my whole ethos around food first. And you honestly can get everything that you need from food without taking some greens powder that's got 100 different things in it, which honestly probably doesn't have any nutritional content left in it because it's been processed so much. Anyway, calm me down. Why'd you ask me that question, Stef?

Stef Hanson  19:43

Because this is one of my favourite Taryn’s.

Taryn Richardson  19:44

Ah, riled up, ranty Taryn, look out! Hey, it's a celebration. Let's not make my blood boil because I could go on for a long time.

Stef Hanson  19:52

But it's nice to see the passion is still there after 100 episodes. 

Taryn Richardson  19:57

Sorry. Mean well, mean well!

Stef Hanson  19:59

So bringing it back to the actual podcast what are your plans for it? Because I know you do a lot of solo podcasting. Where do you want to take it next? And have you got any teasers for us? 

Taryn Richardson  20:11

Oh, we've actually got a really awesome episode coming up shortly. We're about to open doors to the Academy program in just a short week. And honestly, one of my favorite episodes that I've recorded so far is two Academy athletes talking about how much money they're saving by joining the Academy! Like it blew my mind. I didn't know the number before we hit record and I was just like gobsmacked during that episode. So that's coming up, looking forward to that one. 

Taryn Richardson  20:45

And I am going to do a good mix of solo episodes and guest sort of spots. I've really loved talking to people, I'm a total extrovert. And I love how podcasting, not opens doors, but I guess gives you the opportunity to talk to people that you just wouldn't talk to in in everyday kind of life. And that's been really cool. Like talking to Liz Blatchford about her career - thank you for the connection. 

Stef Hanson  21:13

You're so very welcome. One of my favourite people. 

Taryn Richardson  21:16

She's awesome and I'd love to get her back on. But I think I'll continue doing a good mix of solo and other people / guests.

Stef Hanson  21:26

Guests, that's a good word. Yep.

Taryn Richardson  21:29

And I've actually put a poll up on Spotify to get that information from the listeners, too. Like, what do they prefer? Do they prefer listening to my Aussie accent or do they prefer the guests? And you know, turns out it's a mix, which is what I thought the answer would be. I actually like doing the guest episodes much more than solo. Solo is actually really quite difficult. 

Stef Hanson  21:49

It's very hard. 

Taryn Richardson  21:49

Yeah. And I definitely started with the strategy of doing more solo type things. But I'm going to try and yeah, mix it up a little bit more. And we talked about Episode 52 that I wanted to get some athletes on the podcast, I hadn't kind of got around to that. That was a year of podcasting - 52 episodes, and I still hadn't had an athlete on. But again, thanks to you we've now spoken to Emma Jeffcoat. Woohh, Emma! 

Stef Hanson  22:13

Love Emma as well. Yeah.

Taryn Richardson  22:14

Legend and yeah, Lizzie Blatchford. So getting some more athletes on I think that's really good perspective. I'm mindful though, that there's a lot of podcasts out there that talk to the pros. And I don't want to emulate that. I don't want to be a copycat. I want to stay in my own lane and do my own thing. 

Stef Hanson  22:40

So perfect world, who's the one guest that you really think your listeners would love to hear from and that you would just love to spend 30-45 minutes with?

Taryn Richardson  22:48

Ah, Blummenfelt. That's a no brainer. I don't want to give any more limelight to how he performs at that body composition because it's absolute bullshit. But I would love to talk to him and ask him questions that he's probably never been asked before. Because I come at him from a different perspective. I could come at him from a nutrition performance perspective and I would love to pick his brain.

Stef Hanson  23:12

Yeah. Love it. Taz, 100 episodes my friend! 

Taryn Richardson  23:20

It's crazy! I can't believe we're here. But yeah, ready for another 100, although it is exhausting. I'm not sure if you can tell but I've been crazy sick heading into launch just because I'm trying to do all the things. I bite off more than I can chew and I chew really bloody hard. Sometimes things just have to give. And at the moment it is my body telling me to slow down.

Stef Hanson  23:43

Well, mate, hopefully I'm back again at 200 episodes and you've ticked off all those other goals that you've got with the podcast, which I'm sure you will. But for now, 100 episodes, I'm stoked for you. It's going really well. And I'm sure there's a lot more to tell.

Taryn Richardson  23:58

Yeah, so much more to tell. And so many more connections to make. The final thing we do need to do Stef though, is announce the competition winner for my 100th episode giveaway. Woohoo!! 

Taryn Richardson  24:10

So one lucky person gets a free 30 minute consultation with me, which is not something that you can buy anymore, like it's not available to the public. I only work privately or one on one with Triathlon Nutrition Academy athletes only at this point. And the other thing that person gets is free access to my entire Recipe Database for six months, which is bursting with over 150 dietitian developed recipes to fuel the active body. 

Taryn Richardson  24:36

And the lucky winner is Jess Thurtell! Woohoo! So, congratulations! I'll be in touch and I'll get that organised for you. But thank you to everyone that entered. It's really nice to celebrate ticking off 100 episodes with all of you.

Stef Hanson  24:55

And, congratulations again to you mate, 100 episodes, really well deserved and can't wait to hear the next 100. 

Taryn Richardson  25:02

Yes. Thank you so much for interviewing me on my own podcast, Stef. It's good to have you back after another, what? 48 episodes ago? 

Stef Hanson  25:10

That’s good fast maths there. 

Taryn Richardson  25:12

I'm very terrible at maths. Listeners will know, Academy athletes will know, maths is not my strength. I have a very language/colour brain. But write in your diary now, Episode 200, we're on, like Donkey Kong!

Stef Hanson  25:28

Done. 

Taryn Richardson  25:28

Done. Thank you everyone for listening to 100 episodes. And yeah, I look forward to 100 more to come!

Taryn Richardson  15:56

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!