Episode 145 - Nine signs your nutrition sucks

Nine signs your nutrition sucks

 

How can you know if your nutrition sucks?

Well, bad nutrition can cause big issues in all areas of your body, so there are plenty of warning signs, but they’re easy to miss if you don’t know what to look for.

Today I want to share nine critical signs that your nutrition needs immediate attention. Starting from you taking naps during the day.

Links:

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!

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Episode Transcription

Episode 145: Nine signs your nutrition sucks

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: Welcome to episode 145 of the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast. I can't believe we are almost cracking the 150 mark. Blows my mind. I hope you're having a great week and thank you so much for wrapping me around your earholes today. I'm having a cracking week. We have doors open for the Triathlon Nutrition Academy program and we're wrapping up Triathlon Nutrition School today.

[00:00:47] Taryn: And it's been so much fun. Helping triathletes from all over the world pick up some little gold nuggets and some foundations that they can make with their nutrition. It is a little too late to join us. If you are listening in, you can catch the replay if you wanted to. It is only available for a couple of more short days though.

[00:01:04] Taryn: but if you have major FOMO, you can go to dietitianapproved.com/school to check that out. All right, today's episode, I've got a curly one for you. I have nine signs that your nutrition sucks. Yep. I started with five. I got on a roll. I easily got to nine. And then honestly, it was so many more than just nine signs.

[00:01:28] Taryn: But these are some, I guess, big hitters or things that if I'm talking to you and you tell me these things, I go, okay, there's definitely something. That we can change or adapt or evolve with your nutrition to prevent them. So let's get straight into it. The first one, which for me is like one of the absolute biggest is that you need a nap in the day.

[00:01:51] Taryn: Okay. If you are somebody that has to have a nap or feels like you need a nap, or, you know, has a time to have a nap. Jeez. You know, there's retired triathletes out there, or potentially on the weekends, right, is a time where you might be able to have a nap in the day. But if you feel like that, or you feel like you need it, or you sit down on the couch and you fall asleep, then that is a huge red flag to me that your nutrition sucks and you need to do something about it.

[00:02:20] Taryn: Now your body is very, very smart. It loves to maintain homeostasis, which is this balance point, and it'll do whatever it can to maintain homeostasis. And if you are burning the candle at both ends, and you're not getting enough REM sleep, or not getting enough sleep, or, you know, you're not Having enough fuel, you're not putting the things in your body that it needs.

[00:02:43] Taryn: It will do what it can and what it needs for itself to get you back into homeostasis. So if you've absolutely smashed yourself and under fueled and haven't eaten properly for that day or days leading in, your body's going to go into a bit of a shut down mode and be like, hang on a minute. You need to stop for a hot minute and you need to rest.

[00:03:05] Taryn: Now. If you can't make it through a day without napping for a lot of people, that is problematic. If you listen to last week's episode with Laura Hoffman, she works full time, has a job and was having to duck out of meetings to go and take 20 minute power naps once or twice throughout the day. Uh, and you know, spending weekends.

[00:03:27] Taryn: sleeping for as long as she could to just try and maintain her training volume. And she wasn't doing anything crazy, but it was her nutrition that was her missing link. And for her, when she got her nutrition right and sorted out a deficiency issue. She doesn't nap anymore. She doesn't need to nap. She doesn't feel like she needs to nap.

[00:03:46] Taryn: So for me, if you're a napper, then that is a big red flag to me that there is something that we need to fiddle with, with your nutrition to get it right. Whether that's fueling during a session, how you front up to that session, what you've been doing for the days leading in, and just your overall periodisation, your nutrition that's matched to training demands is obviously got some work.

[00:04:07] Taryn: Now. When I first started triathlon back in 2009, this was definitely me. I would go and do long rides on the weekends and long runs. I would always fit my endurance sessions in on Saturday and Sunday cause I worked full time. And for me, I would go for a long ride and the whole rest of the day was wasted.

[00:04:27] Taryn: I had a great time riding, like it's super social, could knock over a hundred kilometers, like relatively easily, but I personally, I'm very, under fueled my rides because I felt like I didn't need it, or thought I didn't need it, because I felt so good during the ride. But the whole rest of the day I was absolutely exhausted and wrecked.

[00:04:47] Taryn: I needed to take a nap, and so I'd waste hours there. I couldn't function enough to go and do the grocery shopping. So I started doing it on Friday night, preempting that I wasn't going to feel like doing it on a Saturday. And you know, I was wasting that whole day to have like this short little window of feeling great in the morning on my ride, few hours.

[00:05:07] Taryn: to the whole rest of the day being a write off. Now I wasn't a parent at that point, but I know there's a lot of parents out there that when they get their nutrition right, they're like, Oh my God, thank you, Taryn. I can now parent for the rest of the day. I'm not feeling guilty because I'm like lifeless on the couch, like putting movies on for the kids so that they will sit still for a second.

[00:05:29] Taryn: and so, Whether you are a parent or not, wasting the day sleeping, like, is a waste of time, honestly. If I can get you to the point where you don't need to nap, then that is a huge shift in your nutrition. And I know that we're on the right track if you can fix that. Now I know that people love to nap and there might be, you might be that person listening going, hang on a minute, I actually love taking my nap.

[00:05:52] Taryn: Great. Fine. It's the, do you have to have a nap? Like, is it strictly necessary for you to function or is it just an enjoyment? And then my other question is, is that affecting your sleep at night as a result of that daytime nap? Because we know that too much sleep in the day at certain time points can affect our evening sleep and then it's like this big snowball effect of not sleeping well at night and then needing to nap in the day.

[00:06:19] Taryn: You get me? You're following? Gabish? So if you feel like that on the weekend, particularly with the long endurance sessions or like in a work week where you don't have the ability to nap and so maybe you start Your body sends out all those signals to start craving sweet foods, because you're in a hole and the only way to pick you up out of that hole is to go and make coffee, particularly after lunch coffees.

[00:06:43] Taryn: Not ideal. It's going to affect our sleep in the afternoon and evening if you're having coffee that late in the day. And the other thing that people do if they really need a nap is go and find something sweet. Like that's where you start craving lollies. You go find cookies.

[00:06:57] Taryn: Like I had a lawyer once that would walk to the shops every day and buy huge king size Mars bar. To get her through that afternoon slog. So if you're a worker and you can't nap and you're reaching for fast acting sugars to get you through that slump, that is, I guess, tied into this big. napping is a problem with your nutrition and we need to do something about it.

[00:07:20] Taryn: So that would be number one, right? That is it indicated to me. If you're sleeping, if you tell me that you're having a nap in the day, then I reckon your nutrition sucks. I reckon there's lots of different elements of your plan that we can tweak so that you don't feel like you need to nap. All right. The another one, another kind of big one, I've put the big ones up front.

[00:07:40] Taryn: I think is if you tell me that you have any form of gut issue. So I'm talking about things like nausea, vomiting, stomach cramping, pain, distention, gas production, that's like excessive or stinks. Yep. I'm a dietitian. I don't mind talking about all these things, you know, sweat, urine, poo, gut things. It's all good.

[00:08:02] Taryn: It's safe, comfortable place. Yeah. also like upper GI stuff, so that gastric reflux, any sort of vomiting or things like that, particularly when you're exercising, , and you know, the other end of the spectrum is like diarrhea or constipation. So anything that's involving our gut, if you have issues there, then you know, not everyone, but chances are there's something that we can tweak with your nutrition because you shouldn't have to deal with that.

[00:08:30] Taryn: And so many people. live with horrific gut issues and just think that is normal. Like are you somebody that knows where every single toilet is on your long run? Just in case I once had a lady who every long run, she knew that at the 7k mark, like clockwork, she needed to find a toilet. And so she would plan her routes around where, a public toilet was at around that mark.

[00:08:58] Taryn: And so if you're somebody that's like that. then there's something in your nutrition that we need to tweak so that you don't feel that way. Like, yes, there's a lot of gut things that may not be nutrition related, but like you need to get to the bottom of it. Whatever is going on, whether that's a medical specialist or a gastro specific dietitian or a sports dietitian, go and get some help with that.

[00:09:23] Taryn: Stop suffering in silence. Particularly with triathlon, it's, it's a stress and exercise is a stress in our gut, and we do a lot of exercise and so there's a lot of stress in our gut. Now, 70% of our immune system resides in the gut, and so we will talk about that as another red flag. in a minute, we're affecting our immunity by having these things going on in our whole gastrointestinal tract, which we need to not have happen.

[00:09:51] Taryn: You know, when you're trying to do three sports in a week, a lot of stress, we need that nutrition to kind of dampen down that stress so that we can adapt from the training that is thrown at us. There is no point doing all this training if we're not adapting from it. Do I need to say that again? Like you're doing junk miles if you're not adapting properly, if you're not recovering properly, and that includes nutrition, sleep, body maintenance type things.

[00:10:17] Taryn: If there's no adaptation, then what is the point? We train to get fitter and faster. I would assume most people do that. Like absolutely. There's like mental health, there's health. There is just, you know, the endorphin rush of exercising and the addictive nature of triathlon. But we exercise to get fitter and we exercise to get faster in the sport.

[00:10:42] Taryn: What I love about working with triathletes is that we are generally high achieving type A personalities. And there is always. Always something to get better at, right? Always. It's like carrot dangling all the time. There's always something that you want to improve on. So we do all this training, but 90%, maybe even more of the triathlete population don't then have their nutrition aligned to that training load.

[00:11:08] Taryn: And so. All the adaptations that are there and that program is designed for, whether that's, you know, speed or strength or whatever it is, power, endurance. If you haven't got your nutrition dialed in to support those sessions correctly, then your body's not achieving those things that your coach or whoever's doing your programming has set to.

[00:11:30] Taryn: And a lot of people don't really think about that. Like, we do a lot of training and generally we love, you know, training peaks to go green or whatever platform you are using. We love to tick off that we've done all our training. I was the same. I was like, okay, I can do training. And I can work. , and then nutrition is the next piece and the next layer of the puzzle, because you feel guilty if you miss training or if it's a rainy day and you can't do the session or you've got to move indoors or whatever it is.

[00:11:59] Taryn: But we don't feel guilty when we miss our targets and our strategies around nutrition. So we need to start layering that in. To our strategic approach that we've got all the beautiful levers working and your body's doing magic things. And you will honestly feel supercharged when you get all of that even remotely right.

[00:12:19] Taryn: So if you are struggling with anything gut related, it tells me that. You definitely need to work on something with your nutrition. I can't tell you exactly what it is, but you'd need to work with somebody to understand what is the problem for you and find a resolution. Like stop suffering through that.

[00:12:37] Taryn: You shouldn't have to know where every toilet is on a run route. Uh, you shouldn't have to have this like weird process around getting out to train in the morning. I'm not going to dive into that. We've talked about enough gut stuff as it is, but if you are feeling like you're, you know, nine months pregnant at the end of the day because you're so bloated and sore and distended, then there's something in your nutrition that we need to look at to stop that from happening.

[00:13:03] Taryn: So go and get it sorted, like line in the sand. If you've been suffering with anything like that for a while, your nutrition probably sucks in some way. And I promise you there is an easier way. and a less painful way. All right, number three is annoying little niggly injuries. Chances are if that is you, then there is potentially a gaping hole in your nutrition that we could rectify.

[00:13:30] Taryn: It could be loads of things, right? It could be position on the bike, it could be your shoes, it could just be your overall training volume. But with the right nutrition, we shouldn't be getting these annoying soft tissue or tendon type injuries. that just keep kind of coming back or they don't disappear.

[00:13:47] Taryn: It takes a long time for the body to heal and repair and get over things like that. And when you don't have consistent blocks of training because you're out with injury, then your performance is not going to get any better. It's going to stagnate or even go backwards and we can see that with the elites because they track their training metrics, like their training availability.

[00:14:09] Taryn: There's a great episode with Dane Baker that we talked about training availability, quite a few episodes back, if you want to go and find it. Training availability is the availability to train. You are available to train because you're not sick, you're not injured, you're not, I don't know, on a holiday, but you.

[00:14:27] Taryn: have the ability to consistently piece together week after week after week of training and that is where the magic happens. And you see that with the elites. I loved watching and seeing all those metrics evolve working with Triathlon Australia for six years. The athletes that performed when they needed to were the ones that weren't out on the sidelines.

[00:14:49] Taryn: not training or missing competition because they were sick and injured. The ones that stayed fit and stayed healthy and well and not injured were the ones that performed. And you are the exact same as that. Yes, you might have to hold down a full time job, parenting, all those things, all those balls that we juggle as an age grouper, but your training availability needs to not be interrupted by injury.

[00:15:12] Taryn: And so there's lots of beautiful things that we can do around training every day across each week as our training load and volume changes to make sure that we aren't ever dipping in the red, and our energy availability is good, and all of our strategic sports nutrition adaptations are happening around training so that we aren't, you know, putting ourselves into that sick and injured hole.

[00:15:36] Taryn: So if that is you, if you keep getting these weird soft tissue, like, I don't know, foot things are always, rearing their head, head with triathletes, Achilles, like torn calves, all those types of things that are just annoying. Then I would suggest that there's something that you could do with your nutrition.

[00:15:56] Taryn: to prevent and minimize that happening. Now that's not an overnight fix. That's a more of a long term thing, but in my mind, that is a big red flag that there's something nutritionally that you need to work on so that that doesn't keep happening. Alright, number four. Man, I could honestly, like, we could talk about 20 or 100 things, but number four, for me, is a cupboard or a pantry or a medicine cabinet full of supplements, full of vitamins, multivitamins, like all the things, pills and powders, that you take, sometimes maybe, or all the time, or it's sporadic, and you kind of have accumulated these things over the years and you don't really know why you're taking them or when you should be taking them is another one.

[00:16:41] Taryn: People take these things but are probably not even taking them at the right time and you have no idea if anything's helping anymore or if any of it's improving your performance. But you take it because you're worried that if you stop taking it you're not going to perform anymore. If that is you, I have one athlete in mind when I say that I'm not going to name him.

[00:17:03] Taryn: I'm not going to name and shame him, but I remember so clearly that when he joined the Academy program, he was like, Taryn, I have all these things and I'm so worried that you'll take them off me. And I'm worried that I won't perform if you do that. so long story short, he doesn't take 95 percent of the things that he was taking before.

[00:17:24] Taryn: He's saving so much money each month on all of that stuff, and he is performing better than he ever has in his life. So if you take all these things that you have no idea why, or if it's the right dose or if it's at the right time of the day or the time of your season or anything like that, then your nutrition sucks.

[00:17:44] Taryn: No offense. If you take a multivitamin. Your nutrition sucks because there are so many things that you could eat and I teach athletes how to do that, build their daily, day to day nutrition plan to get all of the beautiful nutrients that you need from your diet. And we fix deficiencies if we need to, but a lot of people take, say, as an example, a little bit of iron every day, but have no idea the type of iron, like the form of iron that it is, the dose, and even at the right time of the day to maximize absorption.

[00:18:20] Taryn: I've had so many athletes do that, and With a little bit of education around how much and form and when, and being strategic around those sorts of things, then, you know, we actually can fix the underlying problem. And I think that's really important because we do take stuff. We never get our bloods checked.

[00:18:41] Taryn: We have no idea whether anything's working or not working or why we even take this stuff. But we are so like, we hold so tightly onto these things that we're worried. that without them, life's not going to be the same. And like, please don't get me wrong. I don't take every athlete off everything that they've ever taken, but we are much more strategic around the things that athletes take and why.

[00:19:06] Taryn: And I love to teach you why you might use something and how to do it properly. rather than kind of just throwing spaghetti at a wall and hoping something sticks, but really having no idea if it's making an impact or not. You're basically just kind of throwing money down the toilet. And I'm not about that.

[00:19:22] Taryn: I'd rather you spend your money on what you need for triathlon to be a better athlete and to be healthy. long term. Not a quick fix type thing. Like let's be strategic around the things that we take so that we have got a performance advantage, or we're doing something to fix a deficiency, and we're strategic around that, and we're monitoring, and we're not just doing this forevermore.

[00:19:44] Taryn: Because you probably have a whole heap of stuff at home that you could probably throw out. Now that's also very wasteful. So is there a way that you could gift it to somebody or I don't know, use it up or whatever needs to happen so it doesn't just go in the bin because you spent your hard earned money on that stuff.

[00:20:00] Taryn: But once you know what type of things to take and how much and when to maximize the absorption, then we're actually doing a good job of the things that they need to be doing. All right. Moving on. Number five is you have no idea. What's in your sports nutrition products? Yeah, blows my mind that triathletes don't know what their sports drink is made of or what their gel is made of.

[00:20:26] Taryn: Now, I'm talking more than just carbs and calories. A lot of triathletes will know that. But do you know what type of carbohydrate it's made of? And do you know how much specifically is that ratio? Do you know how much electrolyte it provides? Do you know Why you would use certain things and when, or are you just taking whatever?

[00:20:46] Taryn: Did you start with something because it was marketed to you or your tri coach sold it to you through like a, what's it called? Where they get commission for supplements. Heaps of squads here in Brisbane in particular have an allegiance with a particular brand. And. coach or whoever the squad is will generally get commissioned for the amount sold.

[00:21:08] Taryn: So one of the things I'm really passionate about is not being aligned with any form of supplement company. I have been offered many a times, don't you worry. We offer discount codes to our athletes, but I get absolutely nothing back for that. And I'm really pro being independent so that. You can be confident that if I recommend something it's because it's actually good and you need it, not because I get commissioned and paid to use that.

[00:21:32] Taryn: I think that's very important because there's one big company that is now global. I'm not going to mention any names, not going to throw them under the bus or, you know, have somebody like knocking down on my door. That is very much the whole methodology is using that. commission model. And so a lot of triathletes are now using that, but again, they still have no idea what is in it.

[00:21:55] Taryn: And I ask them is this your custom blend? Is this, you know, off the shelf? How much is it providing? What's this, you know, what's the caffeine, what's the carbs, what's the electrolytes, what's the ratio, blah, blah, blah. And they're like, I have no idea. I'll send you my label and you can tell me.

[00:22:10] Taryn: And, you know, if you don't know what's in your products. Why you're using something and what you would specifically pull the levers for all of those components of our sports nutrition, then I would suggest that your nutrition sucks. Yep. No offense. You need to understand what is in your products. So more than just calories and more than just carbohydrate.

[00:22:34] Taryn: What's actually in there? Look at the label. If you don't know how to read a label, it's something I can teach you and why you would use specific things, because there are a lot of products on the market. and not everyone needs everything. You know, do you need a hydrogel? Probably not, but a lot of athletes use a hydrogel, but they don't understand how it works or why you would use that same as the two is to one ratio.

[00:23:02] Taryn: Not every athlete needs that, but if you have no idea why or when to pull those levers, then you need to start educating yourself. Number six, another big one, and this is huge. Is If your hormones are whack for whatever reason, then your nutrition sucks. As a triathlete that trains for three sports in a week, you do a lot of training hours, a lot of volume, you probably work, you probably parent, like you have a very busy life.

[00:23:31] Taryn: Nutrition is very important for age groupers because we do juggle a lot of balls and you often burn the candle at both ends. Our body again is very smart and if you're not giving it the right building blocks at the right time, then we. can dip into what's called low energy availability. It means that your body doesn't have enough energy to sustain basic functions of its life, like our hormones, and they start to get affected.

[00:23:59] Taryn: Now that is, that is not good. So if you're a female and your menstrual function is not masked by an oral contraceptive pill, but it is light or irregular, or completely absent, then you need to organize a consultation with a sports dietitian or join us in the Academy today and get that fixed. Your body doesn't have enough energy to support it.

[00:24:25] Taryn: So it shuts down all of your reproductive functions so that you can't. support another life because you can't even support yourself. Now, I've talked about lower energy availability on the podcast before, if you do want to dive into that. But it is a huge sign that things are not working. And the longer that goes on for the worst, it is for you.

[00:24:45] Taryn: Long term we start to do damage to our bones and our whole body system if we don't have enough energy available. So sorry to, that's all I've got. Be the bearer of bad news and just be the grim reaper there. But it is like a real kick in the butt that if your menstrual function is not normal, in inverted commas, if you're watching on YouTube, normal, then your nutrition sucks.

[00:25:08] Taryn: And you need to deal with that today, not tomorrow. next week or next month today. Same thing for you lads. If you are male and your sex drive is low, your testosterone is low, then this is a huge kick in your butt that you need to do something better with your nutrition as well. You're in this exact same camp as a female and your body is telling you that you don't have enough energy to support it.

[00:25:34] Taryn: And so we can't then support another life. Okay. So big kind of. other end of the spectrum signs to look out for there, but it is very much a spectrum of low energy availability. And that is like down the, you know, the really red end as we're heading into amber, there's other signs and you know, there's more sort of greener light, what I call like feather, brick and truck.

[00:25:59] Taryn: warning signs, you know, feather is that light little nudge that if you are attuned to it, or you know what you're looking for, is telling you that things aren't working. Then we start to get into more louder warning signs, like say a brick being thrown at you. It's like, Hey, Wake up, listen, I'm trying to tell you a message here and you're not listening.

[00:26:19] Taryn: Here's a brick to the face so that you actually wake up to it. And again, you need to know what you're looking for, but there's lots of things in that middle area of the spectrum, like things like niggly injuries and getting sick and run down all the time. And then that far end, that truck. warning sign.

[00:26:34] Taryn: It's like, hey, you didn't listen to the feather and you didn't listen to the brick, so here's a truck to the face. Not pretty, but it is a huge wake up sign if, you know, you're getting things like stress injuries, your menstrual cycle's not regular. There are so many big signs and red flags there that we need to look out for and we should have listened.

[00:26:53] Taryn: way up in the green end of the spectrum, in that feather end of the spectrum. Okay. So if your hormones are whack, your nutrition definitely sucks, no offense, but I want you to do something, do one thing today to work towards fixing it. Whether that's making an appointment with a sports physician that can help you, not a general doctor, unless you need to see a general doctor to get to a sports physician, or getting help with the sports dietician, because you need to fix that.

[00:27:21] Taryn: You needed to fix that back in the feather end of the spectrum. It went down in the truck end of the spectrum. All right, so kind of moving on from that, segwaying a little bit, but number seven, your nutrition sucks if you have any form of restriction, overeating, binge eating type behaviors with food. Now, I know that is probably a lot of people.

[00:27:44] Taryn: we get ruined from like babyhood by our parents in the way that we are taught to eat food. It honestly starts right at like that introduction to solids at four to six months is the current recommendations. Some are in there when the baby's ready. It's that force feeding, their mouths are closed, their heads turned to the side.

[00:28:05] Taryn: the other direction because they don't want it and you're forcing a spoon into their mouth. , I'm not a pediatric dietitian, but I have kids of my own and I've seen parents of friends, like friends of mines that are parents that have kids that do that. And it just makes my heart really sad because we're overriding our body's natural ability to say we're full.

[00:28:26] Taryn: We've had enough. I don't want any more thank you, but I can't tell you that just yet because I don't have words. If you are a parent of really little people or you're going to have a baby and you want to introduce solids, I would definitely suggest, you know, finding some dietitians that specialize in introducing solids and setting up that healthy relationship with food in babies because that's where it starts.

[00:28:50] Taryn: So, all of my kids I don't know whether they like having a dietitian as a mom. They probably have no idea just yet. They probably hate me because we don't eat a lot of junk on a regular basis. And when we do, we eat it mindfully, but setting them up for success at that age so that one, they can feed themselves and two, they know when they're full.

[00:29:08] Taryn: We always talk about eating till your tummy's full rather than eating till your plate is empty, or, you know, it's also not a race. My kids, it probably doesn't surprise you, but my kids are quite competitive. Uh, and sometimes it's a competition to see who can do better at dinner. Silly. But we talk about eating till our tummies are full because that is a much better, more in tune way of eating than eating till your plate is empty.

[00:29:34] Taryn: But you know, my generation, the generation above that, we were taught to finish everything on your plate because you never know where your last meal is going to come through, come from. And that is not a great relationship with food. And so we were set up. This is a long story. We are set up from like baby time and, you know, young children heading into older adults with this feast and famine type mentality.

[00:30:00] Taryn: And we have to finish everything on our plate. And so we, we go into life with not great behaviors around food, but that can kind of get exacerbated, particularly in our type A personality as triathletes, and then we throw triathlon in the type of personality that likes triathlon. often has these restriction and binge eating behaviors.

[00:30:23] Taryn: And often use exercise. to eat more food. And I, I know that because I've worked with triathletes for 16 years, but, and majority of them would do that. You'd get into triathlon for reasons to control eating. Now I'm not an eating disorder dietician at all. Um, if somebody is, you know, struggling with that, then go and see an eating disorder dietitian.

[00:30:47] Taryn: That is their specialty area. I don't have many skills in that space at all, and I will always refer on. I'm very much a triathlon specific dietitian, so I can help you understand all the things that you need to eat and should eat and when and all those types of things. But if you're struggling with those demons of restriction and binge eating and overeating and the control around food, then then you need to get an eating disorder specialist in your corner as well.

[00:31:12] Taryn: And you know, psychology, like, work on that so that it's not something that you carry with you for the rest of your life. We got a bit deep there, but if you are somebody that is like that, then. You need to deal with it. Okay. It's not, it's not conducive to the sport of triathlon because you will end up in low energy availability.

[00:31:32] Taryn: And that's not good for the sport or your health. And you know, that's not what I'm about. I'm about helping you perform to the best of your ability and making sure you are healthy for as long as you can. I like, I want to be a fit 80 year old. Does anyone want to do Ironman when they're 80? I don't want to do an Ironman when I'm 80, but I want to be able to like throw my grandkids around and be able to still do a handstand and, you know, be a fit grandma.

[00:31:57] Taryn: Not that I'm anywhere close to that just yet, but that's the goals. That's the life goals. So, I didn't really want to open a can of worms there, but a couple of thoughts is that you need to think about your body and respect your body for what it is, right? Your body is not the bin. So having this crazy restriction control of food and then binge eating a whole heap of shit is.

[00:32:22] Taryn: is not great for our body. We know that. And we have to get past this. There is no bad food type thing. There is, there is food, right? There is food that's much more nutrient rich and fiber rich, and it'll fill us up for longer and provide micronutrients that we need. And then there's food that is maybe.

[00:32:39] Taryn: lower in nutrients, but it's providing, you know, emotional support or, you know, flavor because food is to be enjoyed. So there's no good and bad food. And I love teaching athletes how to build that foundation the right way for the sport of triathlon. And, you know, like be a normal human. I'm a normal human.

[00:32:59] Taryn: I eat ice cream. I eat chocolate biscuits. You know, salted caramel gelati is my, one of my favorite foods. I eat those things, but I do them mindfully and it's not every day. And it's not in any way a reward system is the other thing. Like food as a reward is very problematic. And then again, that's trained from childhood.

[00:33:19] Taryn: The number of people I've seen give their kid an ice cream when they're crying and upset. That is how, that is how emotional eating begins. So please don't do that to your kids. If they're upset, give them a cuddle. Do not give them food. Thank you. Your body is not the bin. All right. Number eight is.

[00:33:38] Taryn: Another big red flag that your nutrition sucks is if you get sick often or you struggle to shake it. And the other key point where people get sick is like one to two weeks after a big event. If that is you, if you fall into an absolute hole after a big race, then there are so many things with your nutrition that are wrong that we need to fix.

[00:34:01] Taryn: It could be, you know, your race nutrition plan is not right. What you did leading into. That event, but also what you do out of an event in the academy. In phase three, we talk about post race recovery, and that is more than just that immediate recovery window. what you do after an event is also incredibly important to make sure that you don't go into a big dark hole afterwards.

[00:34:24] Taryn: And that means, you know, you're not getting sick a couple of weeks out. Often people get niggly little soft tissue injuries. like weeks up to sort of six weeks after a key event as well. And that is something that we can fix or minimize with the right nutrition before, during, and after that event. So nutrition is more than, oh my gosh, it's more than just like food is fuel.

[00:34:50] Taryn: We need to think so much more deeply about the things that we put in our body. It is, nutrients that we need, and there's particular things that are much more important for us as an endurance athlete compared to somebody that drives a desk is very sedentary all day. But food is way more than nutrients, okay?

[00:35:10] Taryn: That's a whole nother podcast episode. But you need to feed the gut microbes in your gastrointestinal tract as well for things like mood and your immune system. Like it's more than just carbs, proteins, fats, macros, done. Tick, I hate macro, tick. tracking type things. I teach athletes the right macros to hit, but we talk about the right nutrients as well, because it's, it's way more holistic than this meal is giving me this much carbohydrate, protein, fat done.

[00:35:39] Taryn: It's more than just calories in calories out. Okay. Sorry. I'm going weird tangents, weird, weird tangents today. Honestly, I'm so passionate about getting people's nutrition, right? I could talk for weeks. It's why I have a podcast. Cause I could talk about it for a long time and I just really want you to think better and do better with your nutrition always.

[00:35:59] Taryn: That is the goal. So if you get sick a couple of weeks after a race, your nutrition sucks. We need to fix that. There are lots of things that you can do to make sure that doesn't happen because a lot of people do plan for that. You know, you plan that after a race, you're going to be sick.

[00:36:15] Taryn: You shouldn't have to do that. You shouldn't have to take holidays afterwards or like have to flog yourself through working sick after something like a full distance race or a 70. 3. There's a better way, promise. You just need to know what to do differently. All right, I'm wrapping up with number nine.

[00:36:31] Taryn: There's honestly like 50 more things that we could talk about, but we're running out of time here. Number nine, I think if you are not organized with your nutrition, it sucks. Now that doesn't mean you've got an exact meal plan written out for the next month. If you aren't organized with what you're having for dinner that day, or you don't do things like grocery shop once a week, and you know, you have no idea how to eat for recovery after a session, just throwing together whatever, you don't know how to macro count in your head to plan your recovery meals because you don't know what your targets are.

[00:37:05] Taryn: You have no plan. You're eating and grabbing food on the run and going, Oh crap, the fridge is empty. What am I going to have for lunch? If you are not planned and organized enough to be getting all of those beautiful adaptations around training, then it sucks. Now you don't have to be dietitian level of organized.

[00:37:25] Taryn: this is definitely my strength. and it's my happy place is, is being super organized with food. It is the reason that I eat so well, despite the utter chaos of my life. and that is because I value nutrition so highly. Health is my highest value over so many other things in life.

[00:37:43] Taryn: And so I prioritize. exercise, and food. Other things go by the wayside as a result, but chances are you're probably the same. You prioritize exercise and you need to start upping the value in your life of food and nutrition so that you can be the best triathlete that you can be. So if you don't have a plan and you feel like you can be organized, I'm just going to call it your nutrition sucks.

[00:38:07] Taryn: You got to be a little bit better in that space. And that's something that I can teach you how to do is just to get your shit together. in the kitchen with grocery shopping, shopping lists, menu plans, recipes, all of those things. They're all the things that I've built for my business because I know it's what athletes need.

[00:38:25] Taryn: Like we have the dietitian approved recipe database, which has got athlete friendly recipes that are super quick and easy to make and full of all the right nutrients without you even really needing to know what, what to do. Uh, I've built a whole year of menu plans for each season. So summer, autumn.

[00:38:41] Taryn: winter and spring that has a meal for dinner and the shopping list to go and get everything that you need for a week. Now it's not cooking every single night because I know that as a busy triathlete you don't have time for that. So we do utilize leftovers on at least two nights of the week and they can be perfect for those nights we have evening training or things like that.

[00:39:02] Taryn: The whole thing's set up very strategically. It's like my love language. food and being organized with food. So it's got a beautiful range of protein sources. It's got all the right things that you need. And then you've shopping list to go and get everything. So it's quick and simple and easy because I know that something that people need and they hate doing, and it takes so much time.

[00:39:24] Taryn: So there's a whole year of that, which is something we gift to the Triathlon Nutrition Academy athletes when they come in, is both the recipe database and And my weekly menu plans just to take all that stress and overwhelm out of eating well off the table for them. So that's my nine, nine reasons or nine signs that your triathlon nutrition sucks.

[00:39:44] Taryn: There is so many more, but they would be some big heavy hitters. And I hope that if you've been listening for a while, maybe a lot of those things aren't you, but if there's a one or two or more of those things that are you, then I really would encourage you to do something about it. So, I'm gonna go a bit ranty here.

[00:40:04] Taryn: But maybe stop listening to all the podcasts and all the things and trolling the internet and reading articles on websites, trying to figure out nutrition for free, and using all that information to piece together what you think is right for you. Because basically you are kind of throwing spaghetti at the wall in doing that.

[00:40:23] Taryn: there's way easier ways, like work with a sports dietitian that can help you for you and your particular training program and your lifestyle and what you've got going on, so that your nutrition is unique to you and it is the best thing for you, rather than just trying to, like I hate seeing free seven triathletes, like following that is a complete waste of time.

[00:40:47] Taryn: What is the point of that when it doesn't take into consideration your unique needs and your whole lifestyle and how you're going to fit that in? But athletes love a plan. You love a plan and love to follow a plan. And so that's why they exist and that's why they get lots of downloads. But But like, go and actually do something about it and go and see a sports dietitian.

[00:41:06] Taryn: Join us in the Triathlon Nutrition Academy program, shameless plug, I can help you with all the things and make sure that everything is smooth sailing. we go everywhere else for our nutrition information first and waste years trying to figure it out for ourselves when we really could have just done that work once.

[00:41:25] Taryn: Dot all the I's, cross all the T's, and then you're set forever. That is quite frustrating to see people do that. Waste all that time and effort just trying to figure it out when really you could just stop, hang 10 for a minute, get a plan, figure it out, and then that's it. You're good. You're sorted for a while.

[00:41:44] Taryn: So somebody contacted me recently cause they were quite frustrated that I didn't give them their race nutrition plan for free on the internet. And I did just, cause this is my platform to do that. This is my podcast that. Good nutrition information is not free and nor should it be because I'm not going to be able to help you to the best of my ability without knowing anything about you.

[00:42:08] Taryn: I love to work with my triathletes in the academy to know, like firstly, their medical history, their training history, what their goals are, what their body composition is, like all of that. all of the things that help dictate and guide my advice to them. It is a group program, but everybody gets their own individualized advice.

[00:42:30] Taryn: Because that is where our nutrition soars. that is where we're going to get the best bang for our buck out of training is when your nutrition is individualized to you. It's not just something that's pulled off the internet. I hate seeing generic meal plans.

[00:42:44] Taryn: I hate seeing. Seeing generic race plans that tell everyone to have a certain amount of carbohydrate per hour in a race of this distance, because that is not right either. my blood does boil seeing all that stuff. And it's just prolific at the moment. There's more and more platforms and more and more things giving that blanket advice.

[00:43:02] Taryn: So I want you to be smarter and not do that. Actually do a good job with your nutrition. so that you can go as fast as you want to go and cross the finish line still with a smile on your face and be able to parent after going for a six hour ride so that you're not like number one feeling like you need a nap.

[00:43:24] Taryn: There are so many indicators that can be fixed with nutrition and for a lot of people like I've saved divorces. I've saved marriages. I've saved parents and their children simply by educating triathletes with the right nutrition to put in their mouth. It's not complicated, but it is some work, right? You can't just take a pill and your nutrition is fixed.

[00:43:48] Taryn: And the two biggest kickbacks, I guess, when it comes to working on nutrition is one time. And I know how busy we are, right? Like finding time to educate yourself on nutrition and, you know, do some cooking or do some grocery shopping or just change when it comes to food is difficult. Uh, I know that it's hard, which is why we have a program the way that we have it to give you all those tools and resources that make that whole process easy.

[00:44:17] Taryn: , and the other kickback I guess is like money. Seeing a sports dietitian is so expensive. I get it. And triathlon is an expensive sport to work with me one on one. I don't even do it anymore, but It's expensive. It's thousands and thousands of dollars. And so I built the triathlon nutrition academy program to be a much more cost effective way to get everything that you need.

[00:44:40] Taryn: And it is still an investment. I don't disagree with you there, but it is a one time investment. And. then that's it. Like you're set for life then. It's not something that you have to keep going to a dietitian one on one for, for a new race plan every time you do a different race. I'm going to teach you how to set up your race plans for sprint, Olympic 70.

[00:45:03] Taryn: 3, full distance, and even beyond. We've got some of our alumni looking beyond full distance racing now into things like Ultraman, because they are feeling so supercharged with their nutrition. So for me, it's really just about what do you value? Do you value your health as highly as I do to put some work and some time and effort into your nutrition?

[00:45:26] Taryn: and maybe can you bump it up that priority ladder? Because we're never going to have time. Like you were never going to have pockets of time as a triathlete, but it's what you value. You will spend your time on what you value. And if nutrition is not a high value of yours, then you're unlikely to stop and spend the time on it.

[00:45:45] Taryn: But if, you know, it's Racing to win is, or getting to worlds or doing Kona, then you are going to need nutrition to help you get there. It will be your missing link and you might get there with, you know, Google alone. But is that really the best thing for your body and for the race? If there's lots of different levers that you can pull to maximize your outcomes there.

[00:46:09] Taryn: All right, we are very much out of time. I will get stuck back into some listener questions in the next few weeks. I've got a few more to tackle. And then if you would like to submit some questions for me, if you join our email list at dietitianapproved.com/subscribe, I will put a call out shortly to collect more questions as well, because I do love answering them.

[00:46:32] Taryn: Uh, and it's great to see where you are all listening from. That is so cool. Uh, and the people that I have answered questions for on the podcast so far have contacted me to say thank you and told me a bit more about them and stuff. And I just think it's so cool because I'm sitting here in my cupboard talking to you and whatever you're doing while you're listening, you might be on the wind trainer, you might be going out for a long run, you might be driving, you might be going for a walk.

[00:46:56] Taryn: It is so cool to hear back from you to, you know, see where you are and see what you're doing at the time. So if you are listening while you're doing something, you know, Take a selfie, chuck it on social media, tag me in it so I can see it on Insta. We are at dietitian approved, dietitian spelt with two T's or Facebook.

[00:47:13] Taryn: You can find us on there. All right. Thank you so much for wrapping me around your ear holes today. Hopefully you aren't all nine of those signs that your nutrition sucks, but if there's a couple there that we need to fix, then. Shameless plug for the Triathlon Nutrition Academy, which is open this week.  Dietitianapproved.com/academy. Hope to see you on the inside. Bye!

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!