Episode 183 - The 5 Signs Your Nutrition is Holding You Back (And How to Fix It)

The 5 Signs Your Nutrition is Holding You Back (And How to Fix It)

Struggling to hit your training targets—even though you're doing all the "right" things?

Your gear is dialled in. You’re ticking off sessions and watching those green boxes stack up in Training Peaks. But deep down, you’re wrecked. Tired all the time. Sore for days. Motivation? Slipping fast.

Or maybe you're trying to shortcut your way to better performance with every new gel, bar and supplement on the market - still waiting for something to actually work.

Here’s the thing: most triathletes don’t have a clear, strategic nutrition plan. But once you start fuelling with purpose? Everything changes.

You train harder. You recover faster. And you finally start performing at the level you’re capable of.

In this episode, I’m breaking down five key signs your nutrition is holding you back—and exactly what to do about it. Let’s fix it.

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!

Connect with me: 

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Episode Transcription

Episode 183: The 5 Signs Your Nutrition is Holding You Back (And How to Fix It)

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: Are you constantly feeling tired and fatigued? Now you're a triathlete, you're probably gonna feel tired relatively frequently, but to the point where it's constant or you know, you're not recovering quickly and you're really struggling to recover.

[00:00:13] Or are you running outta gears mid session and having to slow down? Are you struggling to get motivated to do your training because you aren't actually recovering properly? Or maybe you're getting through your training, but you're not actually seeing the results that you're expecting.

[00:00:28] Maybe you're ticking off all your training sessions, you're winning unicorns, you're making training peaks go green, but you're not actually sure if what you're doing is helping you get fitter and faster. Now, if any of that sounds familiar.

[00:00:42] The chances are that your nutrition is probably the thing that's holding you back. And the truth is, most triathletes don't have a solid nutrition plan. They are completely winging it. And I say that after working with triathletes for almost two decades now, I haven't met one athlete that really has a solid plan unless they've had advice from a sports dietician that specialises in triathlon.

[00:01:07] Maybe you have a resemblance of a plan, you've got some advice, or you've tried to piece it together from the internet. But you're not really sure if it's dialed in for you. And that guesswork, honestly, is costing you energy. It's costing you performance. It's probably costing you money, and it's even probably costing you some race results as well.

[00:01:28] But the good news is because you listen to the TNA podcast, you don't have to keep making these same mistakes. And in today's episode, I wanted to break down five of the biggest signs that your nutrition is the missing link, and most importantly. How to actually go about fixing it, because sometimes you don't know what you don't know, and you might think you're doing a good job, but are you really? [00:02:00] 

[00:02:11] When you fuel properly for you, everything changes. You will train harder. You'll find another gear when it gets hard, and you'll back up and recover faster so that you can absorb your entire training program, not just parts of it. And actually perform to what you're capable of, what this body, this high performance engine is truly capable of.

[00:02:34] And I wanted to share Sam's story with you really quickly because she has just had an epic race at Geelong 70.3. she's a local and has done that course for many years in a row. But the difference this year is she just finished phase three of the Triathlon Nutrition Academy program.

[00:02:52] She came first in her age group and she just did a massive 14 minute PB on the same course. Which is massive, huge. Congratulations, Sam. And she thought she was doing a great job with her nutrition, but sometimes you don't know that there's a problem until you figure out another way. And 

[00:03:11] And so today's episode, I wanted to cover five of the common signs that I just see over and over again with triathletes. So that you can identify if any of these things are what may be holding you back.

[00:03:24] And then let's work on actually fixing them. And if you are serious about taking control of your nutrition, now is the perfect time to do something about it, because the next cohort of the Triathlon Nutrition Academy program is about to kick off. So this is your chance to get expert guidance from a triathlon dietician.

[00:03:42] And a proven step-by-step system that is personalized to you so that you can stop winging it and start fueling with confidence.

[00:03:50] So let's dive into the deep end. 

[00:03:53] Here are the five biggest nutrition red flags that I see in triathletes and how to turn them [00:04:00] around.

[00:04:00] The first one is you are feeling tired, you're feeling fatigued, you're lacking energy, and potentially alongside that, some motivation. Why this happens for people, it is very multifactorial, but here are some of the big rocks. Number one is under fueling, and that means not eating enough carbohydrate, whether it's outside of training, in training or both to meet your demands for your program and your body.

[00:04:28] Another big one is poor recovery. If you are shit at recovery, you are crap at it. You might think you're doing the right thing, but it's probably not optimized for you. Then you aren't backing up and recovering quickly in between your training sessions to be able to go again for the next one, and that fatigue just builds as a week goes on.

[00:04:49] Do you ever find that like you can muscle through the work week, the training week, but then by say Friday? You are absolutely smashed and you are not sure how you're gonna get through those big, long endurance sessions on the weekend.

[00:05:03] Another reason why this might be a problem or might be one of the things that is letting you down is that your carbohydrate intake is not timed correctly either. So you're not eating the right amounts before training sessions. You are not eating the right amounts during training sessions, and you're not properly refueling again, post-training.

[00:05:22] You may also be limiting in some of the key nutrients that we need as endurance athletes. Iron is a big one. It's involved in so many different processes in the body It's really common for endurance athletes to be deficient in iron, particularly if you're a female, And particularly if you're a vegan triathlete, you're a high risk group for having inadequate iron stores, and that's something that you do wanna fix. And quickly because there is no point training and training hard on low iron.

[00:05:53] and finally, another reason why you might be feeling tired and fatigued all the time is that you're actually [00:06:00] dehydrated. Even mild dehydration negatively impacts performance and our energy levels. And so it might be one of the pieces of your puzzle that you need to fix so that we can get over this tiredness slump.

[00:06:12] Now I wanna say this, and I feel like I say this all the time, but you need to not wear tiredness and fatigue as a badge of honor, as a triathlete, like yes, you will feel tired, you do a lot of exercise, you do a lot of things in life, but it shouldn't be something that we're proud of.

[00:06:29] And we need to get away from that mindset of like, I'm completely smashed, I'm completely fatigued. I must have done a good job. There is another way to do it, and I wanna show you how to fix it.

[00:06:41] Firstly, you need to get really strategic with your fueling timing type. Amount of carbs matter. You can't eat the same way each day, day in, day out, and expect a different outcome. You need to optimize your periodization for the training program that you're doing, and that is going to evolve every day, every week, every month, every season.

[00:07:03] It's not a set and forget thing, but you need to understand. Why we need to do that, and then how specifically to manipulate that for yourself so that you can make those really quick, rapid finesse changes as your training program changes. If you have a meal plan that you are rinsing and repeating, you are not doing yourself any justice you haven't got all of your building blocks dialed in to support that training program to the best of its ability.

[00:07:29] To fix your tiredness. You also need to do a really good job of recovery, and most triathletes think that they do a good job of that. But let me tell you, when athletes come through the TNA program and I show them how to do it for themselves, what they need to do, what macros they need to tick, the timing, all those types of things, they always tell me that they thought they had it right and they were so far off it.

[00:07:53] It's not funny. That is a big one, is to rapidly recover so that you can train again [00:08:00] in the afternoon or the next morning. We don't have the luxury of time to recover as triathletes. We've gotta back up and train again that day, the next day, like it is just over and over and over. It's like a freight train that never stops.

[00:08:13] Compared to somebody that goes to the gym, they might have, you know, 24, 48 hours to recover before they go and do another heavy set. We don't have that luxury. We've gotta swim and bike and run and do strength training and do life in a very full week. And so recovery's something you need to get good at and make it habitual and be doing it day in, day out for the rest of your career.

[00:08:35] So if we're gonna get strategic with our fueling, learning how to periodize nutrition to match your training load is key. There is no one size fits all. I don't hand my athletes a plan that everyone gets the exact same copy of. I teach them how to periodize their nutrition for themselves because everyone has a different training program.

[00:08:55] Coaches have different philosophies. You might be doing your own programming whichever way you are going. You need to understand how to eat for that work required for that training session in that day and in that week. You need to also layer in some hydration and a strategy to that. There is just generic information on the internet about how much to drink and when, and that's not going to serve anybody because our sweat rate and our own hydration needs are highly, highly individual and they also change on a daily basis.

[00:09:27] So you need to understand what your needs are and make sure that you are dialing in your hydration strategy to prevent that performance limiting dehydration.

[00:09:36] If you are feeling flat and sluggish and fatigued, mid session. You're also just feeling exhausted all the time, then that is a major red flag for me that nutrition is a missing link for you and it's what is holding you back. It is one of the key things that I love to teach athletes how to do is to eat for their training program.

[00:09:57] It is relatively easy to do [00:10:00] when you understand how to do it for yourself. So if you are feeling tired, you're feeling fatigued, then I would get you to address those big rocks with your nutrition first. There are other things that we can do as well, but ticking off those big ones is going to make a huge impact to your energy levels, so you're not feeling like a tired triathlete all the time.

[00:10:20] Sign number two that your nutrition is holding you back is that you are recovering slowly. Maybe you're always sore. Maybe you're always kind of waking up feeling fatigued, or you head to a session feeling a bit flat. That often happens when you do have really poor recovery practices post training. So you're not getting the right balance of the macros for you.

[00:10:42] the timing's not right, but you know, just recovery in general post-exercise is not good. You could also not have the right amount of protein in your diet on a daily basis, whether that is not enough. Or some people actually too much because I don't know. There's this trend at the moment for more is better with everything, and because we're high performing humans, we think more, more, more.

[00:11:06] But dialing in your protein needs for you on a daily basis is really important to make sure you are recovering. Because we are training a lot, the body is always recovering. Like I said earlier, we don't have the luxury of time to sit back, rest, recover. We've gotta be as aggressive as we can with our nutrition principles to help the body recover as rapidly as possible.

[00:11:29] Now different life stages, genders, training status, athlete level, are going to dictate some of your protein needs. and it does change across the lifespan as well. So again, it's not a set and forget number. It is something that we can really dial in for you based on where you're at, what you're trying to achieve.

[00:11:51] It's not just blanketly pulling a number off the internet and. If you pull a number off the internet, chances are it is way under what you need, [00:12:00] or the other way it's going at the moment is it's gonna be way over what you need. So I give my athletes a range, but then we talk about where they would sit in that range based on them as an individual.

[00:12:11] Another reason why your recovery might be slow is because you're not also refueling post-training, particularly if you've got back to back sessions in a row or days at a back to back, you know, morning session, an afternoon session, and then you've gotta back up again and go the next morning. If you're not refueling for whatever that work that was done, then you haven't topped up your fuel tank to give you that energy to go again in the next training session.

[00:12:39] The other reason, another big rock, why this one might happen while your recovery is just not very good is because your general diet is shit. Yep. I'm very no bs. I have seen many a triathlete eat terribly and wonder why. It's just not all falling into place for them. Yes, you do a lot of training, but that doesn't mean that you can put shit fuel or the cheap economy fuel into your high performance engine and expect it to perform like a race car.

[00:13:11] You have to put the right building blocks in on the daily. You may be able to get away with eating a little more junk than the average person that sits on their butt, but Is that the right things to be putting in to get the most out?

[00:13:25] So if your recovery is slow, here's some key things that you need to do to try and fix it. Number one, dial in your recovery nutrition for you. Make sure you're ticking off my four R's of recovery in the right time. In the macronutrients that are dialed in for you, they are not blanket. You need to understand how much to have and when, 

[00:13:46] And also finding, you know, fast, easy recovery meals or snacks that fit into your lifestyle. There is no point creating this amazing, fully detailed, convoluted plan if you can't [00:14:00] actually action it, because there is no benefit to having a plan. If you can't then put it into place. So learn exactly what you need.

[00:14:09] Figure out an option that fits with your lifestyle, and you can do it when you're running around. It's like a headless chicken, getting kids to school, running into the office. Whatever it is that you're doing, there's no point. If you've left it at home, if it was perfect, you need to actually get it into the system.

[00:14:24] There is a reason why I cover Recovery Nutrition first in the Triathlon Nutrition Academy program. It is our very first masterclass that unlocks On the 19th of April, it has the biggest impact first, and people feel amazing very quickly when they get it right.

[00:14:43] You need to also avoid. The common pitfall I see with athletes is skipping recovery. If it's an easy session, you think I only went for a 60 minute easy run, and so I don't really need to do recovery because I'll be right. It still impacts your recovery and your progress, so understanding what you need to do, specifically when you need to do it, and all the types of sessions that you need to be aggressive with recovery.

[00:15:11] proper recovery is one of the biggest game changers in the TNA program. I make it super simple so you can put it into place rapidly and hit every session with it. what athletes always come back and tell me afterwards is that recovery was one of the biggest game changers for them.

[00:15:29] Kelly, who just started with me in January, has just finished up with phase one now. And she is feeling like stark contrast night and day compared to what she was doing before, and it just took a few simple tweaks and a few habit changes to get that really dialed in for her,

[00:15:46] and she feels supercharged as a result of that one tiny fix. 

[00:15:51] The third sign that your nutrition is definitely holding you back, and this one's pretty clear, But whether you feel [00:16:00] bloated, uncomfortable, slushy, nauseous, insert any gut issue related symptom here during training. If you are somebody that knows where every portaloo or toilet is on your running route, then your nutrition needs to be adjusted.

[00:16:16] If you know that you have to stop eating X number of hours Before a particular type of training session, Then your nutrition needs some adjustment. If you are a trail runner and you know that you're gonna have to go find somewhere to hide mid run, then your nutrition is definitely holding you back.

[00:16:35] Now, for obvious reasons, all of these gut issues that we can have as triathletes are horrible and you don't need to battle with it forever. A lot of the time they are fixable. But most people dunno how to actually go about fixing it. And you need to be quite systematic to understand what the problem is for you.

[00:16:55] And then how do we go about resolving it?

[00:16:57] Why this happens for people. It is highly individual, and again, it's quite multifactorial, so you need to figure out what the issue and what the problem is for you and your little gastrointestinal system. But a big one is using the wrong sports nutrition products. There is the wild, wild west of sports nutrition products out there.

[00:17:16] Not all gels and drinks are created equal. There are some terrible sports nutrition products on the market. Now, I'm not gonna mention any names, otherwise I'm gonna get in trouble, but. Understanding what's in your products and where you're looking for the right things for you is a game changer because you're not just grabbing whatever looks good on the feed or what's on special, or you know, there's upsells and order bumps that you get in your cart and then you try them and then you still have no idea if they're right for you or not.

[00:17:47] Steve, one of our athletes used to just use whatever gels were available at his local bike shop and he hated them. He didn't even enjoy consuming them, but they were easy and he thought that they would be good [00:18:00] because they're available locally and you know the bike shops selling them, so they must be all right.

[00:18:05] One of the first things I did with him was change that because why would you muscle through something that you don't actually enjoy?

[00:18:12] And he was like, I didn't even think about doing that. And that is where the value of seeing a sports dietician comes in. So you need to be testing your race day nutrition in training, there is no point training on something and then racing with something completely different, which is what Troy was doing before he joined the TNA program.

[00:18:31] He was doing his own homemade concoction gels. as a way to save money because the products that he's using on course are one of the most expensive gels on the market. So he was making his own concoctions in training, and then for race day, he was flipping over to those. And I'm like, why on earth are you doing that?

[00:18:49] He's like, well, 'cause it's expensive. And I'm like, yeah, fair point. So let's train though with what you're going to race with. when we dug deeper, the real reason he wasn't racing on his homemade concoction was because he wasn't confident that it was the right. Mix of things for him. So what we did was we actually dialed in his homemade concoction specifically for him, and he's also just raced Geelong 70.3 on his homemade concoction.

[00:19:15] He's won saving a crap load of money, but he has way more confidence in his during training nutrition as a result.

[00:19:24] And he smacked out an epic performance despite having gastro for the week. Leading in, he had the fastest swim. He held that on the bike and just like me, he's a strong swim biker. He ended up coming third after being passed in the run, damn it. Don't you hate that?

[00:19:41] Another big reason why. Gut issues can happen in training or in racing is because you actually have the wrong food outside of it. So big rocks are too much fat, too much fiber. They slow down digestion and cause all that discomfort that happens during training, [00:20:00] during racing. But often we are blaming what we've done just before.

[00:20:04] Or what we're having during, and really it's what we've had in the time leading in. The other big one is dehydration. When you're dehydrated, your digestive process doesn't work particularly well, and the longer you're out there for and the more dehydrated you get, the worse it is going to get. So there are kind of some big reasons why it would happen.

[00:20:24] There are plenty of others. But how do you actually go about fixing that? Like firstly, you need to choose the right fuel for your body. Sports nutrition products are not a one size fits all, and I love getting real nerdy and talking about the ingredients of our sports nutrition products, the different kind of transporters that happen to get that fuel into our bloodstream where it's actually usable My athletes know how to look at a label and go, is this a good product or is this one absolute bs? And one of my favorite parts about our alumni Power Hour sessions is they will bring bogus products and then we'll have a nice, robust discussion around why that's a joke. but at least I'm saving them money by not going down random rabbit holes and seeing these shiny new things and going, yeah, that looks good.

[00:21:11] I'm gonna give that a go.

[00:21:12] The second thing you can do to fix it is to develop a gut training protocol so that your stomach can handle in a race situation what it does in training. So you need to be able to build that gut tolerance up through your sessions so that when it comes to race day, you're confident that you can handle it.

[00:21:29] You also need to work through what types of foods. Feel best and most comfortable before a training session. And if you're waiting multiple hours from eating to training, then we need to fix that because that's not an ideal setup. You probably already know which ones to avoid, but there's probably other things that are sneaking in there that you don't know about or you're not aware about that are causing havoc and wreaking havoc when you actually go and do a training session.

[00:21:57] And then finally, hydration, right? If [00:22:00] dehydration is going to negatively impact our gut, then we need to make sure we understand our hydration needs and we are hydrating properly before. And during training as well as rehydrating again afterwards. and that'll help keep all of your digestive processes running nice and smoothly and minimize any gut impact that may have happened by dehydration.

[00:22:22] The fourth sign that your nutrition is probably holding you back is you running out of energy mid-session or in races. Now that is definitely a continuum. It's not a, alright, I'm good. Okay, now I'm not good. It'll start with like a fatigue build and even some negativity coming through your mind.

[00:22:40] When your legs are getting tired, your lungs are hurting all the way down to starting to slow down. Because the body's just not able to go at that same pace, at that same intensity that you were rolling with before. And then you know, far down the continuum is actually boning or hitting the wall 

[00:22:56] your liver, glycogen stores are running low. They're never gonna be empty. Empty. You'd probably die. That's not gonna happen. But your body will stop you from getting to that point by making you hit the wall, making you slow right down to a walk or stopping altogether. Now why that happens along that continuum is because your fuel tank is running low, it's getting towards the E empty, and that could be because you're under fueling during those long training sessions and racing.

[00:23:25] So not taking enough carbohydrate per hour for what you need, or you're not actually digesting and absorbing what you're throwing at the system and it's useless in your stomach. You need it absorbed into your bloodstream where it can be transported to the muscles for energy,

[00:23:41] so not practicing what you're gonna race with in training properly. is a real reason that this could be happening. Race day should never be the first time you test your fueling plan. You should have it very well practiced and very well rehearsed. It's not just winging it with whatever's available [00:24:00] at aid stations in that race.

[00:24:03] another reason why this is probably happening is that you haven't started. Well fueled, you've started training or racing and you're already carb depleted, and that doesn't come from what you eat just before that session. It comes from the 24 to 48 hours before that training session. And when you're constantly training, it's like this big washing machine or melting pot of fueling and recovering so that you can perform across all of your training program.

[00:24:31] The other reason why this might be happening is that you are. Dehydrated or you've got some electrolyte imbalances going on causing that fatigue. but generally it's fueling first before going down that path. But it could also be that as well. And what you wanna be able to do to make sure that you are performing to the best of your ability is you're able to find another gear in that second half of a training session or in the back end of your race where others are starting to fade.

[00:25:00] That is where the magic happens, and that will mean a faster race time at the end of the day because you haven't slowed down as much in the backend. Now I'm doing a lot of gym training at the moment compared to more endurance training, just the phase of life that I'm in, and I can be 45 minutes into a hard 60 minute workout and find more energy.

[00:25:22] It is amazing, One, because I'm a spores dietician and I know how to support that training session to get, you know, that second kick, that second wind more energy when everyone else is fading and dying in the ass. And people often ask me like, oh my God, Taryn, what did you eat for breakfast?

[00:25:41] And you know, I tell them what I do and they're like, oh man, I, I didn't eat anything. Or I just had some lollies. And I'm like, well, these are some things you could try if you wanna do better. And. If you can find that second gear pick it up a notch in like an interval run training session or a fart leg or hill sprints or [00:26:00] crit race or your race, then you are going to perform so much better than if you were just dragging your sorry butt to the finish line with whatever energy you can piece together at the end.

[00:26:13] So how to fix it. How to find that extra gear. Learn how much carbohydrate you need per hour and actually need for you, because following generic advice for 90 grams of carbs an hour, a hundred grams of carbs an hour, 120 grams of carbs an hour, whatever you find on the internet is not serving you. And then once you understand what you're trying to achieve, then you also need the ability to adjust it, tweak it, evolve it 

[00:26:39] So that we don't have this set and forget number that we just do all the time. You need to develop a personalized race nutrition plan and everything that goes with it from your week leading in carbohydrate loading, if you need it for that race, your pre-race meal, what you're doing on the day, and then recovery out the other end and testing it lots.

[00:26:58] Before the actual dance, you need to understand how to carbohydrate load properly because it is not just eating a big bowl of pasta the night before your racing going. Yep, I'm carved up. It's not binge eating at the pasta party, it's not sucking back extra sports drink on the day before you race to try and top up as well.

[00:27:17] Getting all those electrolytes stored. That's BS my friend, and you will not be served by doing random things like that. You need an actual structured. Evidence based and science backed carbohydrate loading plan that works for you. 'cause it's not as easy as it sounds. And I've not met one person that carbohydrate loads properly until they've been educated on how to do it.

[00:27:41] And if you are fading because you're getting too dehydrated where you know performance is being affected, then dialing in your hydration plan is gonna be key for you. And it's not just pop and salt tablets randomly because the internet told you to, or you know you got marketed that you needed it.

[00:27:58] You actually need to understand what you're [00:28:00] replacing and how much and why rather than blindly taking stuff.

[00:28:05] So if you've ever like properly hit a wall or bonked mid training session or mid race, or you just can't find the extra gear to go hard at the end, and you are slowing down, you're doing more walking through aid stations like you're dragging yourself to the finish line rather than running through it strongly and with a smile on your face.

[00:28:25] Then nutrition is probably holding you back and that's something you wanna work on to dial in a proper fueling strategy so that you can finish strong. And my fifth sign, this is a big one. That you don't have a clear plan. You're guessing you're winging. And the problem here and why this happens is because you're probably getting random, varied advice from training buddies, your coach, the internet podcasts, like none of that is specific to you.

[00:28:54] It is all generalized and there is no limit to the amount of information we get thrown at in today's age, 

[00:29:01] The problem is not the amount of information available. The problem is understanding how to apply it to you and your situation. And I guess that's where my superpower comes in. As a triathlon dietician, I understand the science and can deep dive into that, but I'm very much a practitioner. I then apply that to what on earth you eat, what do you put in your mouth and when.

[00:29:23] And understanding, reading food labels, putting together meal plans, getting everyone's requirements dialed in for them. That is my superpower and that is my job.

[00:29:33] And I do that day in, day out, week in, week out, year in, year out. And only with triathletes. I, Idon't work with other athlete groups. I love the swim bike runners that do it all in one event 'cause you're an awesome human.

[00:29:48] The other reason why this might happen is that you're not actually understanding or tracking or knowing how to adjust your nutrition and how it impacts performance. [00:30:00] You could be following random diets, the latest trends, the latest CRAs, what's the latest, oh, I don't even wanna mention it, but some like wasp, venom. 

[00:30:11] There is so much stuff out there, and I bet you feel like. You should do it and you need it, and you won't perform or have that competitive edge like someone else in your age group that's maybe doing it. But you need to understand whether that actually supports you and your endurance training and whether that'sgonna help you be a better triathlete or not, or you just throwing money down the sink at something that may or may not be working.

[00:30:37] A lot of triathletes waste money on supplements that they don't need. Uh, even missing the key ones that they potentially do need, the ones that might actually help them. And so often I hear people say, I've been taking this for years because someone back then told me to do it. For some reason, I didn't really understand why.

[00:30:56] And so I've just continued to do it and nobody's said otherwise.

[00:30:59] Let's get a bit smarter around the supplements that we take and take the ones that are actually useful, beneficial, performance enhancing, and that you need, rather than just throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping some of it sticks. There's a cool research paper that looked at multi supplement use, and the more different things you take, the worse it seems to be.

[00:31:21] They seem to wash themselves out in a way, so you wanna be really strategic around your supplement use. So we're not just taking everything we can draw on some things at certain parts of the season, drop some others, and actually get performance enhancement out of them rather than just taking everything because we should or we think we should.

[00:31:42] So how to fix it. If you are the type of athlete that is winging it, you need to stop this trial and error and actually get a clear structured plan that is tailored for you as a triathlete. learn how to fuel for your different types of training sessions, the intensities, the [00:32:00] durations, 

[00:32:00] Whether it's in season or off season, what you're building for the whole kit and caboodle, everything needs a nutrition strategy for it. And when you understand how to dial those levers in for where you're at, then that's where the magic happens, my friend. You need to understand what supplements are worth it and which ones are a complete waste of money.

[00:32:21] That is one of my favorite things to do with athletes in the TNA program, is to get them to give me their list or talk through what they're taking, and I have a little bit of a philosophy where I throw everything out and put back in things that are needed.

[00:32:35] and my favorite part about working with triathletes is that we wanna build nutrition habits that actually support you in your long-term performance as a triathlete and long-term health, because there's no point Training hard, working hard. Now in our younger years, if we don't have that health span later on in life as well, you might think that you're pretty fit and you're pretty active, but you don't know what is cooking on the inside and underlaying all of that work.

[00:33:04] You might be setting yourself up for osteoporosis in your older years, And that is one of my key passions to get you to eat for performance as a triathlete. It's different to eating for any other sport, but also give you a good side serving of long-term health in the process.

[00:33:21] So if any of those five signs resonated with you, let me just say quickly, you are not alone. I put those five together because I know how common it is for triathletes to struggle with At least two of them. But you don't have to keep struggling with nutrition if you don't want to.

[00:33:40] You can keep winging it and trying to figure it out for yourself and take the slow road, or if you want me to fast track you through all of that research and understanding and give you a clear structured plan. No fluff, no bs. Then the Triathlon Nutrition Academy program. Cohort for April starts on the 19th, [00:34:00] and this is your chance to get everything dialed in so that 2025 is your best year yet, and then we're only going to build stronger and stronger in years to come.

[00:34:10] So the Triathlon Nutrition Academy is gonna help you have a step by step plan. With guidance from me each week in power Hour for fueling training and racing and everything that goes with it. No more second guessing trial and error, having no real idea if things are working for you or not, and that structured support so that you can build sustainable nutrition and habits to enhance your performance now, but for life.

[00:34:37] So go and check that [email protected] slash academy. Sports are filling up fast. This round I'm capping it, and once we start, doors are closed until July.

[00:34:48] So head to dietician approved.com/academy and let's get your nutrition working for you, not against you. 

 

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!