How to Optimize Nutrition with Registered Sports Dietician, Angie Asche

technically even if you're maintaining your weight or even if you're gaining weight you can actually still be under-fueled and it's really just a matter of that nutrient timing and not fueling your body in key moments when it needs it most that can be under-fueling so you are starting your practice or your game or whatever else under-fueled and that in turn can impact your performance let's try to at least get some of the right nutrients and by the right nutrients carbohydrates protein pre-during and post if we can at least get the timing spot on with that then you'll see a world of a difference with performance with recovery, sleep all of it and yeah she welcome thank you for having me I'm so damn pumped to talk to you you have such just a really interesting mix of experience both with men athletes and female athletes and we're just gonna dig in to all of it today so I'm excited you ready to go yes all right we're gonna start with a little rapid fire ice breaker okay which will come back to a lot of a lot of these but feel free to you know expand at any point so true or false eating too little is more common than eating too much in high performers true you should eat differently depending on where you are in your menstrual cycle true to an extent true or false recovery shakes are mostly marketing hype true hmm I can't wait to talk about all these yes or no you can't out supplement a poor diet oh yeah you definitely cannot gosh right 100% wish we could be a lot easier huh it'd be so much easier just to take a damn pill right make meals and yeah um true or false carbs are essential for hormonal health true oh for hormonal I mean I would argue more fats but still true very true yeah this is such an interesting point I just talked to do you know Dr. Benjamin Bigman no he's a a metabolic scientist okay he's out of Brigham Young and he was just talking about it and I think I think this is what I'd love to talk to you you know about today is just this idea of you know well some of the differences between fueling for performance versus fueling for longevity and you know he says basically carbs are not essential which one I've heard that are you about it you know when you look at it mechanistically it's not not true you know it carbs are not essential but obviously they they play a role totally the conversation is very we're going to focus on athletes that are going to focus on performance mainly and carbs are essential for performance 100% yeah but you know fat and protein should be prioritized probably first for most humans hmm but athletes it might be different totally well and it's it's difficult because that true or false I mean it's it's not so much black and white because of course I'm thinking of my clientele right so I'm like technically if there are not consuming enough carbohydrates then they're having to get those calories from somewhere else they're dipping too much into the protein too much into the fat so in the end it's not going to be you know ideal for home mono health but obviously that fat is going to be the the real key player there in your hormones and if you're under consuming fat especially you know I think it's below 20% of your total calories from fat that can really really start to impact hormonal health yeah I just see your brain function too oh 100% yeah like just there so if we're to think about performance versus aesthetics you know I think it's pretty easy to get caught between this you know tension of how you look and how you perform and you know I know for feel lucky we wore like a single it yeah yeah it was really tight yeah for sure you know like I mean it's hard not to think about aesthetics yeah what have you found in your experience in terms of just kind of getting over this hurdle between performance and aesthetics you know it's it's really hard and I kind of speaking to what you were saying with feel talking is what you did yeah I was a swimmer in a dancer so talk about like all aesthetics yeah definitely underfueled a lot of my dancing and swimming career too but I will say that especially with athletes they have this this common misconception that the leaner you are the faster you are the better you perform and unfortunately what I'm seeing especially even at you know in I think automatically of this hockey player in this MLB picture that I worked with recently where their main goal was to just get leaner they just wanted to get under that 10% they really want to be under 10% and there really wasn't a reason why it was just more aesthetic like they were they were mainly just trying to be lean for just to look better in general and be the be the leanest one on the team and then they realize they their performance started to suffer from it they both of them will tell you it's the worst they've felt truly during a season and also they had a higher risk of injury they did actually both get injured that season and a lot of it just goes back to they assumed it meant to eat less like to get as lean as possible how to eat less and doing so that kind of led them to that underfueling cycle they didn't have enough energy in the tank to really optimize performance optimize recovery so I think it's just a common misconception with you know to get as lean as possible I need to eat less I need to eat less carbs and it ends up kind of resulting in underfueling them which macrodution where they under eating so actually both carbs and fat they were doing well with protein I actually do see my most of my pro athletes do a pretty good job of protein they know how important it is but it's the carbohydrates and the fat that both tend to get neglected you know you mentioned it when we were talking we weren't yet recording but you you mentioned this idea that I think we think that women are the ones that are fueling but clearly you're just talking about ice hockey player and MLB player who are underfueling within this kind of pursuit of being as lean as possible yeah are there different repercussions for women versus men when they're in this kind of constant hypochloric state yeah I would say I mean obviously with women we run into more issues with loss of menstrual cycles so they're they're more at risk of I feel like more fluctuation with their hormones because there's so much going on every single month we have you know the estrogen that takes off after the follicular phase and then you've got the progesterone so I think there's just more at stake there with their hormonal health than there is for men I think that with women we can see that they're underfueling a lot sooner than with men too so that's why we assume and this is just an assumption by me that's why we assume that it's more common more prevalent in women because well there's a lot of menstrual cycles so clearly she's underfueling with men you get this really clear signal yeah like with men I feel like they can brush it off as oh it's just been a long week and that's why I'm feeling tired or oh it must be because of XYZ and and they often don't look at the fact that they they are underfueling they they may just not have the education or you know just just not be aware they're unintentionally underfueled without even really realizing it unless we can look at you know testosterone levels and or see you know vitamin D and iron and take a look at different micronutrients and see what's going on there do you see markers of sleep and recovery shift absolutely yeah sleep definitely when when someone is underfueled it can have a huge impact on sleep so typically what can happen is your I'm sure you've heard of leptin obviously leptin and grellins talked a lot with appetite and hunger they're hormones but we see decline in in leptin when someone is underfueled and so that can start to impact sleep obviously cortisol we see an increase in cortisol when when athletes are chronically underfueled so they are in a chronic energy deficit we see that increase in cortisol in the evening essentially so instead of that like natural decline that it has it kind of spikes in the evening so and I mean you can definitely speak more onto this too with a sleep topic but that's something that I think can absolutely be impacted by by underfueling well I'd love to get your thoughts on this fasting maybe if you could just unpack you know the why people fast so if you were to talk to all the clients that you work with yeah both men and women you know what is the impetus behind fasting I guess that's the first question and then what kind of impact do you see fasting has on performance so to go with your first question and you know it's interesting because I obviously my clientele is athletes but I also work with a lot of CEOs so I work with a lot of business executives people that have very very stressful jobs but aren't necessarily on the field right and so for some of those people I have seen fasting be very beneficial especially males it just helps with weight loss number one especially if they stress eat and late at night kind of stopping that that late night feeding or especially if they're drinking it's you know setting that set all right it's 5 p.m 6 p.m. whatever else I'm done but it's also been helpful for their mental clarity they just feel like it's how to improve in there for women I honestly have not seen as much fasting I think you know thankfully there's been some you know Stacey Sims for example has spoken on about it but it's not been as promoted as much in women because we don't see the same benefits so I want to say it's like more like if you do prolonged past 12 hour window fast now with athletes I think it gets a little bit tricky because you just especially if you have such high energy needs you're really just making it that much harder on yourself to get that many calories in so for a shorter window totally yeah so if you have a baseball player who's you know trying to get 4,800 calories in and you don't start eating until you know let's say they're doing a faster window of we'll say 12 and 8 that's a common one 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. well your game is at 7 so we're gonna stop eating at 8 p.m. and then what are you gonna do about post game and then you know it just again makes it really hard for you to actually hit your caloric needs in such a small window so there's certain certain athletes I should say that that really should not be doing intermittent fasting especially especially if you're trying to you know maintain or gain lean muscle so you think like the biggest downside is that number one you're just not getting enough calories is there any reason why we would want to distribute those calories more evenly across the day as opposed to kind of putting them you know consolidating them into a shorter window yeah yeah so kind of going back to that myth of underfueling only being in female athletes or only the case if you are losing weight like I have a lot of athletes still they'll come to me you know and I'll take a look and I'll be like you know you're really underfueling and they'll be like what what are you talking like how and I'm like well technically even if you're even if you're maintaining your weight or even if you're gaining weight you can actually still be underfueled and it's really just a matter of that nutrient timing and not fueling your body in key moments when it needs it most that can be underfueling so you are starting your practice or your game or whatever else underfueled and that in turn can impact your performance so sure by the end of the day you hit 4,000 calories but you did the bulk of it after your body needed it right so you're not going to get those same benefits that you would have seen how do you space it out a little bit more appropriately so the one thing that I really try to work on with athletes is okay let's try to not necessarily saying every athlete needs deep breakfast but like let's try to at least get some of the right nutrients and by the right nutrients carbohydrates protein pre-during and post if we can at least get the timing spot on with that then you'll see a world of a difference with performance with recovery, sleep, all of it and once you deploy this intervention do you see mark changes 100% yeah yeah are that athletes happier too like maybe talk about some of the subjects just mood and emotional regulation that we know obviously right well with with underfueling I mean a lot of the symptoms are signs that you see they they have poor energy so they have that like greater perceived exertion so the same workouts they feel harder and I know I mentioned with you you know earlier right before we started recording I was just talking about how you know some athletes they get to June in a in a baseball season for example and they feel like I'm already gassed you know and it's like well it's June like many minutes I'll start break it and so it's it's it becomes such a long season and so you have to really prioritize your nutrition every single day or it'll catch up to you with with that rate of perceived exertion those same workouts will feel so much harder and so they do notice an improvement there obviously helps with the sleep they sleep better when they're fueled and they don't you know they're not experiencing the blood sugar dips things like that so definitely see some improvements cognitive health wise to less irritable mood swings a little bit more focused because that can play a role too if you know you're you're underfueled and just help with with that cognitive health during workouts and games so when athletes again maybe have a much narrow window where they're trying to like cram in 4800 calories or whatever you know based on their activity requirements throughout the day but when they're I guess pushing the timing really close to bed do you see anything different versus like maybe loading a lot of the calories you know more so in the morning like is there any benefit to either one of those approaches usually your cravings your appetite is so much larger if you are in such a huge deficit and I know I keep bringing up baseball but it really is a key part of my clientele here but what I see is typically they go all morning without eating so then it's about one o'clock and that's their first meal the day and usually their appetite is kind of poor because they had a not great night of sleep the night before which we'll get to because it's a never-ending cycle here so one o'clock might be that first meal the day and then they kind of get busy they're doing stuff at the field they may or may not even have a single snack but they likely have one if not two different coffee drinks and so then they're having caffeine likely before that seven o'clock game which kind of it's it's tough because obviously you know caffeine is such a great organic aid right like it's so beneficial but when you have those games every single night at seven it's it's just kind of a it's it's a double-edged sword like you you want to have the benefit of the caffeine but also it's you know now it's going to potentially impact your sleep if you're having that six o'clock seven o'clock at night then they have that you know pre-game meal maybe it's really light especially what I see I work with a lot of pictures they like to pitch on a light stomach they don't like to have a lot of food so now they're really under fueled and then they go in and usually in the middle of the game they're not really eating much especially carbohydrates they may have like sunflower seeds which is great for the sodium but not really great source of carbs and then of course post-game is when they really overindulge in I see a lot of ice cream post-game and well when I say post-game I mean like once they get back home late at night playing video games and whatnot they do the all the all the snacks just really late at night and then probably don't go to bed until one o'clock so that starts to impact their sleep a lot of them struggle with you know waking up multiple times or just taking a long time to shut off their brains after games and that high-fat food that excess amount of calories is really just making it that much harder for them to go to sleep and then that cycle just continues over and over and over and over again yeah I mean I think professional athletes you know so it's just a vicious cycle these late games are really tough for from a performance standpoint you know they just count on every day every night I know I know and yeah and then you know trying to wind down playing the video games all of a sudden a 3 a.m. you know and we know where that goes yeah yeah yeah I worked with an MLB pitcher who was addicted to video games oh yeah a lot I wonder why his sleep was so messed up I'm like well this is probably why yeah yeah and I get it I mean it's it's hard to shut off your rain and it's just one of those things that it can it can really help to shut off your rain essentially but like not that late at night that's not it's not ideal so it's tough yeah really tough just under one week left to take advantage of our best offer of the year you can get up to $60 off annual memberships plus save 30% on 5.0 and MG accessories in a peril get it now before that sale ends on December 2nd let's talk inflammation recovery and gut health I love your take on this are the gut biome tests beneficial so I mean I think you know yeah there's lots of tests that can kind of that claim the GI mapping and give you yeah yeah and I'm just a little skeptical of them because they seem to lack innerization and some clinical validation yet they seem so widespread right and everyone's using these you know kind of tests is some sort of diagnostic I don't really see the evidence for that so I'm so curious to get your thoughts on I never have ever used them I have had some athletes come to me because they're maybe they outsourced and they went to someone and they want me to analyze the results so I have looked at results myself yeah but to me I feel like it's almost just a little bit that the marketing has just been far far far quicker than any of our research right yes it's outpace of science yes thank you yes and so for me it all comes down to you know every time I've seen the results which I think I want to say it's mainly only been three or four times probably max every time it's oh you need more prebiotic fiber and oh you'd benefit from a probiotic okay cool like did we need you to send your stool sample in to to get this like you know we we could have looked at your diet history we could have even looked at blood work to see if there's any underlying issues of you know unexplained micronutrient deficiencies things like that to see that your gut's not working properly or if you're you know constantly getting sick you're getting respiratory infections and colds all the time and that can be a sign of poor gut health too so do I think they're necessary absolutely not I don't run them I don't fully trust the accuracy of them either I think it'd be great to see more research and I've changed my mind you know over the years of certain things that hey if more research comes out and proves me wrong and great like let's let's do it but for now I don't it's the same with food sensitivity testing I don't I don't do the IGG testing either so yeah yeah maybe say a bit more about that yeah well at least in my experience IGG testing has not been very accurate this is I'm specifically talking about the at home one drop of blood test that some athletes have done and it's always come back as the foods that they like just had the night before or within the last 48 hours and then we've flagged the sense of it yes mm-hmm so it's like a false positive that has come up for them because those antibodies are just currently and then you get a brain that I'm sensitive to these foods and they're like obviously yeah they're like oh my gosh well no wonder I love sweet potatoes no wonder and it's like well you just ate it you know yesterday and and then we'll introduce it back in and then it's it's almost just creates this like false fear over very nutrient dense foods that's unnecessary so I always recommend they meet with an allergist get a little bit more actual you know professional advice there and then we can always run the test too but for one example I I like to give is the athlete that took the IGG test and then you know three months later it came up with completely different foods that came up as sensitive they didn't even change anything really about their diet so it's a static test uh-huh kind of measuring one point in time yeah and that one point in time is very much influence to your point what you just ate yes slept what you trained how you trained that day and the other supplements you might have taken yeah 100 percent yeah yeah yeah nutrition's complicated and I know you know with this all the all the research you do it's it's really complicated to you know I'm not an nutrition scientist we do I do lots of type of you know nutrition research but I'm I'm not a scientist in this area so I really appreciate your perspective you know I think inflammation is a word that gets thrown around a lot you know what does inflammation mean in your world and how do you think about it in terms of nutrition you recommend yeah and how do you think about recovery yeah to get your thoughts so you're right that it's it's thrown around everywhere on social media and you know it's like people think and see the word inflammation and they automatically think like oh it's bad I'm inflamed um and there's acute and there's chronic and and really that acute inflammation is is actually kind of a good thing especially for athletes it's it's helpful for that training adaptation a scene progress and as you know it it basically it takes place right after a hard workout you have you know a little bit of that acute inflammation that happens now with chronic inflammation that's something a little bit more more serious more in depth going on it's almost like how like I would compare it to like with with underfueling you can do underfueling here and there maybe one day two day three day but once it becomes chronic underfueling that becomes low energy availability which then becomes reds that's the same with like acute inflammation if you don't manage it you don't do anything to it now it's chronic and then that's where chronic inflammation can then turn into so many other health issues down the road so reds relative energy yes yes yes is this just women or men men can men can men to reds do yeah yeah so it does yeah and when I was in college it's interesting uh when I was in college it was still the female athlete triad so it was um basically that that female athlete triad that that then turned into reds relative energy deficiency in sport because it's not solely just women it's also in and men too so um yeah I know kind of backtracking a little bit but so with inflammation it's going to be more so about me energy in it from a nutrition standpoint when it becomes chronic so again that acute inflammation I wouldn't be concerned about that that's important for you know adaptation so you don't want to introduce nutritional interventions or protocols to try to reduce inflammation per se for that acute no and that's actually a really good point you bring up and we see research where supplementing with like say large doses of vitamin E or vitamin C immediately after a workout is actually detrimental to the recovery process same with NSAIDs use like I see a lot of pictures they're just you know poppin NSAIDs and and that can also interrupt that acute inflammatory response which you want like an ibuprofen yes we actually see when folks so just population levels when folks report using NSAIDs they have a cis-shocking almost 15 percent decrease and sleep efficiency really huh and I wonder what the mechanism yeah got biome right like some sort of oh it's such a huge irritant to the guy yeah yeah somehow is not allowing you to drop into these deeper stages of sleep I don't know exactly that is interesting because I know I mean it definitely is it got a irritant so yeah I wonder I wonder how that impacts it so maybe just pause there because I think that a lot of athletes I mean I know when I was an athlete when I was coaching I mean I look back on my student athletes I'm like they were popping and said literally all season long and you know I just I feel so bad that I didn't have the knowledge to be able to be like well okay we're probably overtraining because your sodium swirl time yeah yeah how do you like maybe just talk a little bit about sure well yeah if you're and I think it is yeah it's it's used as a crutch like oh this muscle soreness is so intense like I need something to help with it and so they reach for that NSAID and I think that's where like okay uh-huh light bulb moment like I think something else is going on we need to address nutrition and could it be under fueling that's causing it absolutely or it could also be the types of foods you're fueling your body with that are not very anti-inflammatories so that's why I really preach and my athletes like we'll roll my eyes at it but fruits and vegetables are so key here because they are so rich in antioxidants so if we can get things like berries and leafy greens and nuts and seeds and things like that in your diet it really does make such a big impact things that are rich in vitamin C and vitamin E and just you know different types of polyphenols will be so helpful for inflammation what kind of quantities do folks need to eat in order to get the benefits that you're talking about in terms of just helping with systemic inflammation gosh so the general guidelines are five servings of fruits and veggies a day and I would say the bulk of our pro athletes are eating like at least 12 servings if not some or eating like closer to 15 servings just because I mean in general they're calorie needs are so much higher too that it's easier like it sounds like a lot you're like holy cow but a cup of fruit is one serving and and then you've got you know two cups of veggies that you're putting into a smoothie then you've got you know let's say a little bit of orange juice or some type of fresh juice you've already got four servings right there in a smoothie so it's a lot easier to get than you think but yeah I'd say if you can get at the very very bare minimum five if not more that's ideal when you think about anti-inflammatory supplements is there anything that you recommend for your athletes so I would say that omega-3 fatty acids are probably the one that I do often recommend and especially in timing components that I haven't found I mean especially with food like a meal that contains fat yes but as far as you know taking it in the morning versus taking it at night I would work out post-workout I'd say whatever's most consistent like when it's it's kind of like like with creatine like creatine people will say you know does it matter when I take it like sure around your training like either pre or post but it matters more so that you are consistent with taking it daily and to the same sense omega-3 fatty acids so whenever you are most likely to remember taking it and also with some sort of fat because it needs that fat to be absorbed I want to say it's like 10 grams of fat is ideal in a meal to to help absorb the omega-3s and the reason I recommend that is there was a study done gosh it's been a few years now and I am blanking on the actual percentages but a large number of their collegiate athletes weren't even coming close to the recommended omega-3s daily what would be recommended for an athlete maybe just break it down males and females what would you recommend probably about probably about two grams per day of omega-3 fatty acids and I mean we're just a lot easier than you think if you can get eight ounces of salmon in a week I'd say salmon because it's prevalent pretty much everywhere but you know macarole sardines any fatty fish I love halibut those cans are like a godsend I know that there's probably something with the can that's not good for you it's giving off some sort of plastic I don't know nothing is good for you anymore I know like what kids are anything that we can eat but I mean macarole yeah throw that in everything I think of a candidate at least the cool thing about the canned salmon and it sounds kind of gross but if you get the salmon with bones it's actually an excellent source of calcium too so for women that like don't get dirty it's just ground it will be because because they're like absorbed you know they basically like descent not disintegrate but they basically like absorb into the into the salmon so if you get salmon with bones in the can they're a fantastic source of calcium so it's so funny I've avoided that because I thought it was going to be just the bone in there I was like no choking my bone you don't have your little like things to pick it out yeah no thankfully they're like pretty absorbed in there okay so if I we're going to try to hit your recommended amount of omega's per day and let's say and I know it's going to vary by kind of weight and high and all that yeah just get a general recommendation um how much salmon would someone want need to have how many ounces of salmon with something to have to hit those requirements to hit the requirements you wouldn't even have to do it every single day I'd say salmon twice a week four ounces each and if you want to go more than that you want to do six ounces or maybe you know to hit your specific protein and fat goals you need a larger portion eight ounces is great too but that bare minimum would be four ounce portion two times per week now if you're not a fish eater you would have to eat a larger amount of plant sources so walnuts are a great source chia seeds flax seeds hemp seeds getting like a variety of seeds in there would help but otherwise yeah it gets a little trickier so that's why I do recommend because in in college athletics we just we don't see a lot I see this in the minor leaks too not a lot of fish consumption so that's where omega three is coming handy for sure that supplement quality fish and like yeah settings is where you're you've got packaged meals that you're kind of getting on the go and yeah it becomes tougher yeah what do you just as a nutrition scientist you know if you can give the audience myself a rundown of you know what supplements are easily absorbed versus not and what affects absorption timing other foods you know this seems like the wild west to me it is it is a wild west and there's I mean a lot of things that I I'm not even aware of for sure it it kind of just depends on so it depends on the supplement because obviously you can have something that is inhibited by other nutrients like I'll give you the example of calcium and iron so they compete for absorption so if you have a multivitamin that you're taking that like give the example of a prenatal I always thought it was fascinating to me that I would have this you know prenatal and it would say it has 18 milligrams of iron but then it also has a thousand milligrams of calcium so it's kind of like they cancel each other out right so you have to I would I would honestly work with you know sports dietitian or someone to help pinpoint what supplements specifically you're trying to take and why so that you know that you're not also taking it at a time when it's gonna you know inhibit absorption same going back to iron again if you're having it with say a cup of coffee like that can also inhibit absorption too so but then there's certain things like say vitamin C that increase absorption so kind of depends on on the supplement and or the the nutrient and yeah what what you're taking at west so we can't rely on companies to put out products that are not going to cancel each other out yeah definitely not no unfortunately yeah you can't rely on supplement companies for much and I will say I mean if it's a really you know trustworthy company like I'll say I love to see like a college and supplement that has the vitamin C already added to it like they've done their research they know oh vitamin C is a you know a precursor to you know collagen production so that's gonna help and helps with absorption so like cool they've done their research yeah versus like the prenatal that has iron and the calcium together right so I remember sticking my head um doctor David Sinclair said um he's talking about his own personal regimen in terms of how he thinks about supplements and this guy takes you know hundreds of pills right so this is not the direction I would ever want to go down personally or I think you'd probably recommend for anyone but but it was it was interesting because I always had this thought that I need a certain amount of oh my gosh every single day I need you know vitamin D vitamin C but it's but how you're talking about is it's more about what you're getting over the course of a week hundred percent maybe just talk a little bit about that as a principle because I know I had like this really I think incorrect assumption that I need to be having everything every single day and maybe what do we actually need to be having every single day oh I mean I love this because I do as a dietician I look at an entire week when I do a nutrient analysis so one day shows me like sure like a little snippet but as you know it can vary so much day today maybe you were traveling that day or you know is a birthday celebration or something so it matters more so the course of what you're doing over seven days so you can see just a little bit more of an average number and I I feel like you probably know this too with all the data you have it who've been looking at sleep and strain and seeing it's definitely is more helpful to see a full week probably for you than just one off day and so I would say what one thing should you do every single day I think if you can get as as close as you can to say your carbs protein and fat goals that's where to start for sure so hit those macronutrients I don't even worry so much specifically about like calories per say first I'd rather look at okay are you getting enough protein are you getting enough carbs are you getting enough fat and then from there you know your vitamins and minerals maybe slightly also maybe one day you were a little bit under on vitamin E but then the next day you were over 100 percent vitamin E again that's why it matters more so what you did on the whole week plus you're getting hopefully a variety of foods every single day so if you ate sweet potatoes one day like your vitamin A may be great and then you didn't eat them the next but instead you ate a huge I don't know kale salad so your vitamin K is great you know so again by the end of that week you've got sufficient amounts of all vitamins and minerals so yeah there definitely is this pressure like the tissues and they're in the bone you know like right there it's not like you just have one day they're gone you're yeah like yeah exactly so you would be fine if you don't get say enough of you know vitamin E in one day and then you do the next day like you're you're gonna be you're gonna be all right same with you know magnesium too magnesium your body will be able to have an amount of magnesium until you you know eat some more the next day too so it's just hopefully you're getting some of it like if and that's why the week really matters because if we go a whole week goes by and you're only at 50 percent of your magnesium like all right that's an issue you know versus like oh one day you didn't eat enough magnesium like open then the next day you ate like three large handfuls of almonds like I think we're like more okay than we thought we were what's up folks if you are enjoying this podcast or if you care about health performance fitness you may really enjoy getting a whoop that's right you can check out [email protected] it measures everything around sleep recovery strain and you can now sign up for free for 30 days so you'll literally get the high performance wearable in the mail for free you get to try it for 30 days see whether you want to be a member and that is just at whoop.com back to the guests. What are the benefits of a prebiotic and a probiotic and is that something you recommend supplement or food or food yeah so I always say food first when you can especially since a lot of Americans we just do not get enough probiotics to begin with in our diet so if you can start incorporating more from food there's just something to be said for that synergistic response it comes from eating whole foods right so when you're having something like kefir or yogurt like not only are you getting those probiotics those life cultures but you're also getting calcium you're getting a little bit of vitamin D you're getting protein like you need those nutrients anyway so I hate to just have that be a supplement now for some people that are say traveling overseas they may benefit from something like a like a probiotic supplement to kind of in the in the meantime but it just it just depends on the person what's needing to be addressed if there's something else going on with their with their gut that they need a specific strain and then in the case of prebiotics I really really recommend food as much as you can I actually think just in general people struggle with getting enough fiber I want to say the average American gets 10 to 15 grams a day when they should be getting at least 25 if not up to like 38 grams for men daily and so that's something in general that if you get more of those fiber rich foods in your diet you will be getting prebiotics in yeah we should have 30 grams of fiber a day right ideally so it's yeah I mean general like recommendations are like 25 for women 38 for men which I would assume a lot of that is like mainly on body size which I know Stacey Sims has talked a lot about too it's like I feel like a lot of women would benefit for more like 38 grams but yeah I would say I mean if you can get 30 grams at least it's a lot easier than people think it and once I shouldn't say supplement because it's technically it can be a food or a supplement one that I do recommend is psyllium husk psyllium husk is amazing for people who are yeah wanting to get more fiber but it's also been really helpful for cholesterol we're seeing benefits with up with reducing LDL cholesterol with psyllium husk and you can take it I mean it's it's at the grocery stores like next to the black seed and the chia seed and those things so you don't have to like take a psyllium husk pill you can literally just do like a scoop of it in smoothies you would definitely have to put that in a smoothie because it's pretty it's a pretty gross taste on its own oh is it really yeah it's pretty bad oh it's your saying yeah it's like eating the outside of a corn husk yeah yeah essentially yeah yeah you'll get tired of it real quick if you just like mix it in water that's amazing all right what's the best way to keep track of all this you know I mean I think for for me I mean that's why nutrition's so hard and why I love physiological data is I can I can see your age or do you of course the week and I can calculate your coefficient of variation and I know how you're adapting to load yeah it's just so much straight so like straightforward how do you do it how do you how do you help folks track and kind of keep you know know if oh wow you need more vitamin E oh well you need more magnesium you know yeah well that's what I'm here for um so I try to I try to take all that pressure out of of it for them so especially I mean during I try to take as much like because it's just an added mental load for them so if they're in the middle of the season they like they don't want to be tracking you know how much vitamin D they ate from food and versus supplement like they they just basically send me food photos my phone is like just full of a food photos if that's what I find the easiest sum will like track in like a notes app some go as far as using something like chronometer but very few athletes actually like put that much work until like you know actually tracking themselves which hey I don't I don't believe I'm it's a lot yeah and so the food photos are really helpful because then I can see right off the bat immediately like hey you know this meal is missing this and then and my goal is that eventually which it sounds weird but my goal is so that they eventually don't need me anymore like I want them to it becomes obsolete right like I I want them to feel so confident in their nutrition that they don't have to rely on me you know to get through a whole season again and and if they are you know constantly having to come back then then you know it means I need to hopefully provide some more education now I shouldn't say like you know hopefully they come back to me at the beginning of let's say every off season or at the start of every season just to kind of like you know touch base make sure that their their goals are aligned with or their nutrition is aligned with their new goals for the season but my hope is that eventually you know they they feel confident in making food choices without me so for the layperson who might not be able to afford a nutritionist you know what's your recommendation in terms of where to where to start like if you're like all right I really you know I suppose tracking macronutrients and there's lots of great online calculators yeah yeah I figured that out pretty quickly right I say chronometer is a good one for that um it's I think it's much more accurate than something like a my fitness pal where you can go in and I you can at least get a baseline target energy needs it won't be completely accurate but it'll like at least give you a good good idea of where to start some information yeah yeah yeah yeah you know your activity level you will have to log and and I will say it's so much easier if you don't go out to eat because there's so much variation that can happen yes with even like Chipotle like if you're looking if you type in that you had a Chipotle burrito bowl which again rice and cheese like that can vary by hundreds of calories depending on which Chipotle you went with and if they were very generous with their help beans or if they were really stingy on their help beans right so like you could be off quite a few hundred calories if you got to eat a bunch of holy tip oh okay what's your tip so if you want more protein uh don't tell them you want double protein double protein until they give you the first protein and then say oh I want double protein and then they'll do it again okay okay you end up with more protein interesting okay did you hear that baseball player is because this is a my son literally I'm like dude pro no more door dash yeah be like can I have a little bit more protein oh and also I want double yeah yeah and then yeah and then you get oh very smart yeah so it's yeah I will say it's so much easier and more accurate and if you're like me and I've been tracking and I don't know why I'm not losing weight like it's if again if you go out to eat this could be why because those estimates are just they can just you know be so so far off so you would say I mean I think for I know for me when I was trying to figure out this was after I um I had my daughter so it's my second child and I was like trying to get back on track and I really started tracking and I'm more of like in the two-debuter nowadays like I don't but but I think I'm able to be in a two-debuter because I did track hundred percent my food pretty religiously for like six months yeah and now I really don't need to yeah and I guess is that what you'd recommend I you know like I don't I know it's hard for women uh just or anyone in general we don't want to get obsessive right but I think there is something to just understanding what your body needs oh for sure half of that is just being knowledge it's it's again about having a little bit of that nutrition knowledge if you have you know know like let's say you're trying to make improvements to your body composition you're not even trying to you know necessarily like become the fastest person in your crossfit class or whatever else like you just really want to start seeing a little bit of improvements to your body composition but you have no idea what you're eating in a day as far as like protein carbs in fact I would absolutely start with tracking just for a week to kind of get an idea it's so I think it's so eye-opening and even with my clients on their very first meeting I'll have them fill out like this assessment form and they won't even take pictures they'll just write things down and they'll be like wow this was so eye-opening just to write it down and realize like it's almost like they could they could kind of see why they weren't reaching their goals already without even meeting with me just from like and I think it's just we get so busy throughout our day we we don't even realize you know kind of what we're what we're eating is just not a priority for us and so I think if if you can track even for just a little bit and like you said way things for without you know it becoming an obsession was like a game change right it's helped a lot of my clients too for sure because they just they didn't know and it can go in both ways maybe they're like way overestimating their food or way under estimating and so if you can weigh it even just a little bit like you'll be like oh wow why going back to that like significantly or unknowingly underfueling like oh wow I'm not even close to how much xyz I need so so when people under fuel why do they not lose weight or does that happen oh it does yeah so so it can go it can go one of three ways right so you can be underfueled and lose weight unintentionally you can be underfueling and maintain and still be maintaining the same weight or underfueled and actually be gaining weight and again the the underfueling and the example of maintaining or gaining weight would be because you are underfueling at those key moments when your body needs at most so essentially you are underfueled for performance and so you're not necessarily in a caloric deficit per se like they're you're still hitting your calories but maybe you're underfueling in carbohydrates or protein or fat or a combination of you know maybe you're it's it's just that macronutrient distribution is off or the the nutrient timing is off so that's where providing that nutrition education so they know it's way more than just calories but also timing macronutrient distribution that that makes a difference amazing for women specifically what do you what have you seen with your your client population and maybe what even what you what have you experienced yourself in terms of where do women go wrong most of the time are there specific nutrients where female athletes tend to be most efficient well you know it's funny because if you were to ask me this I'm thinking back of you know I've been in this for 11 years now and looking back I think I would have initially said protein but I think there's just been so much larger of an emphasis on protein now that it's almost kind of become a little bit more again on carbohydrates and fat and it kind of depends on what the environment is around them and who's who they're getting their information from on whether they're going to be like inadequate carbohydrates and or fat in the endurance population I still significantly see under fueling on actually fat just because you know they they do know okay I need carbs before I need carbs during I need carbs after but where's that leave room for fats and so these women are just not getting enough fat it's starting to impact their their hormones obviously because fat plays a huge role in that and and so I think I gosh yeah just it just really depends and you need fat to burn for fuel oh 100 percent yeah especially if you are an inter like a long endurance athlete you know and it's yeah yeah because you're going to use up the carbs fat yeah do you do you think that there's a perception of you know if I eat fat I'm going to get fat I do I and you know it's sad because I feel like we were almost like past that a little bit and now it's kind of coming back a little bit yeah yeah there's a fear over fat and a lot of that just I think has to go to the fact that it's so calorically dense compared to carbs and you know program compared to carbs and protein so I mean for those that don't know like program carbohydrates have four calories protein has four calories fat has nine calories so for someone who is you know trying to cut calories specifically or get lean a lot of the times fat is the one that goes out the window like I have one client in in particular I'm thinking of who is not an athlete and it's like scared to eat more than like a small handful of cashews because it's so calorically dense and I'm like but you need those nutrients all those minerals and so yeah I think it's it's definitely come back with with females is there anything else that you've learned with females specifically over the years that you just feel like our women listeners need to know with regard to fueling and performance yeah I'd say and I say this to almost every single one of my female athletes um we are not because most of the times it's they are not eating enough again it could be in key moments or just by the end of the day and I always tell them you know we're not eating more to gain weight we're eating more to we're fueling better to perform better and recover better so I think once they get that out of their mind of I'm not eating more to just to put on weight right like because they have that fear of when I increase their calories of oh gosh just you know this is going to make me gain weight like that that's not the goal here we're really trying to eat more to fuel your body in the right way yeah I feel like um you know you're as much your nutritionist but you're also a mindset coach in a lot of these maybe talk about that part of the job yeah just hearing you talk like you can you I can hear you kind of working through yeah to show us the yeah yeah you um you really have to understand the why and I've worked with a lot of females who have become very restrictive um towards food have different restrictions yeah well and I said different I shouldn't just say even females because I've worked with several males with with us too um in different sports but but yeah I would say they have like an all-or-nothing mentality they maybe they were told by a coach like I'll give the example of figure skating I've worked with a lot of figure skaters where they just have some not great information from you know the people that are closest to them and so it takes it takes a long time for me to build trust with that person I can't just come out and I have before one time um give the example of a just coming out way too hot on the first meeting and way too blunt and then kind of like they were kind of turned off by it um because I was basically like what do you need carbs whoa whoa whoa but they again just had so much trust in this coach if they have their whole whole life that if they're telling them like hey you can only eat 1200 calories and then I'm coming in like what they're crazy like you just you just have to like start to understand the why build that empathy and then really try to build that buy-in with them so that they do start to trust you and with these athletes in particular I try to do different challenges um try to kind of like get them to push past the restriction but it takes a long time it takes a long time I mean some of these athletes we work with for years for you know two three years till they really really are like okay I can go off on my own now but um it happens in mindsets from food are entrenched yes from the moment that from the toddler you know I mean it's yeah and now as a mom of two girls it's just so important for me to like make sure that I have a positive you know outlook on all foods and yes um because I would hate for them to have to go through you know that restrictive mindset around food I know and it's hard because you I mean you can do everything right in your home too and oh totally you know your children still can develop there's still a tick tock and the all the social media and the peers around them and yeah oh I know it's really challenging you know and I think you know I I think your lens is a really interesting one because you know you you work with a variety you work with men and women it's rare you know usually people are very have very you know I guess a niche I suppose that they operate in so it's really cool that you're kind of working across um both men and women I suppose when you when you think about some of these entrenched mindsets you know you mentioned epithee and kind of meeting them where they're at you know is there is there anything else that you found helpful to get a person thinking beyond just the the calories yeah um so I in my book I I have a book feel your body came out few few years ago um congratulations thank you thank you but um it's really hard it's hard it is it's a lot of work um but there's a chapter in there a very short chapter about nourishment over numbers so I talk about this a lot with uh again you know a few female athletes specifically that have built such a restriction an obsession over the calories in the macros but it's basically talking about how food is so much more than calories or so much more than macros it goes beyond that and it's you know how is this nourishing me mentally and physically so when I when I talk through that with them and and talk about you know like hey an avocado isn't just because they'll look at a food and be like that's too much fat you know like so I try to educate them from a sense of like hey did you know that this actually has you know it has fiber it's got vitamin E it's got antioxidants like and this is why it's helpful and just get health and your brain how totally like and so how can we you know and then that's where I do I actually have them right down their fears like and one of our first meetings and so that's where we try to push past you know and we don't ever go through all the fears you know right it takes a long time like I said but try to push back that you know through one fear at a time um and they feel so proud like once they can do it and then they're and I always say like okay and and what happened after you know like did you die no yeah like really like um and they did you gain 30 pounds overnight yeah yeah now actually it felt amazing you know so it's it's really cool once they kind of have that like click that happens when they realize that food is so much more than just just numbers yeah I feel for you it's a hard job when you think about the short-term versus the long-term in terms of kind of your overall metabolic health what are some things that folks can do today that will contribute to their short-term performance but also ensure that they're you know healthy years down the road and I think about some of the just the statistics on just metabolic health globally and it is just really bleak yeah when you're talking just really by by the year 2024 I think it is predicted that a billion people will be suffering some from some sort of metabolic dysfunction so we're kind of in like a pretty big crisis mode yeah so how do you you know so if we think about like this long-term kind of you know problem how do you think about setting someone up in the very short-term in a way that's sustainable that will allow them to kind of have lifetime metabolic health oh gosh I mean this could go so many different ways I the the first thing that comes to mind is obviously movement like we know how important movement is whether it's actually going to a gym and getting a workout in or literally just going for a 10-15 minute walk like if you can walk I think that is so powerful if you can walk outside even more benefit you're getting that you know outdoor time too but from a nutrition standpoint I think you know I'm seeing two things going on I'm seeing us become very phone obsessed very screen time obsessed and then also relying so much on convenient foods and so much on older processed foods because we don't have time but I I thought of this you know actually on my flight over here when I saw like everyone on their phones and I thought I'm so curious what everyone's screen time is you know you can like swipe over and see what your daily screen time is so I would I would give a challenge to listeners and I would say go look today what your screen time is and specifically your social media your average weekly social media or social network time and let's say it's one hour so challenge yourself huh to cut that in half yeah which it's probably a lot more than that but challenge yourself to cut that in half in whatever time that you spent on social media so let's say it's an hour so half of that 30 minutes you have to devote to some sort of meal prepping cooking something that involves doing things with like actual whole foods versus ultra processed foods because you can't use time as the excuse when you've had three hours on TikTok like you just can't so if you are able to devote even just half of that time to even just 30 minutes to chopping up some veggies so that they're the first thing you see when you open the fridge or making five like I could make five yogurt parfaits with like a plain Greek yogurt little drizzle of honey some chia seeds and flax seeds and then like some berries on top and look like you have snacks ready to go for you know whole week in a few minutes so and this is something I like I myself need to listen to as well because I I'm not an innocent one here I spend too much time on social media too and in screen time but I think it's just as we can also though right right right right exactly so I think you know if we're able to number one devote more time to movement and number two less time to the screens and ultra processed convenience foods and spending more time on that going back to whole foods those would be helpful not only in the short term but gosh in the long term so much in the long term and fiber I just again I know I've talked about fiber but I cannot stress that enough if we can get more fiber in our diet it's gonna be so helpful for so many reasons yeah I think fiber you know we're kind of obsessed talking about protein but fiber yeah it doesn't doesn't get enough airtime it doesn't it doesn't hopefully it does hopefully it's you know that this is same with like creatine when I was being interviewed on podcasts like six seven years ago people were like you got to be the spokesperson of creatine like it's such a bad rap and now it's like everywhere I know okay great now is that part of the stack that you recommend oh yeah definitely definitely love creatine it's great so but yeah hopefully fiber has that moment and unfortunately like fiber is being put into things like the the pops that are like prebiotic sodas and the pop I'm from the Midwest so I say pop the soda soda that's you know it's it's you know prebiotic like that's not a great place to get your fiber it's not like eating a cup of raspberries you're gonna get it from like a whole food right right yeah yeah and there's so many like really tasty foods that have lots of fiber yeah exactly um you kind of you skipped it well I think you're gonna say it and you kind of skipped over it but um muscle just when we think about glucose control and muscle and you know I just feel like that has to be part of the strategy right the diet you know the long-term metabolic health strategy oh for sure yeah if we're able to do some sort of weight training like oh my gosh yes you've got to do some sort of weight training and especially females like it just it blows my mind how just I feel like it's it has been improving um especially with with people you know like the women are not small men type movement and getting more popular there but it's just really sad to me how you know few women especially as we get older are are scared to lift weights and when we hit you know perimenopause and menopause like it becomes even more important our estrogens decline we've got to find a way to help with that resistant without even for sure no diet changes yes just really frightening yeah it's very scary so and I mean our bone mineral density everything else so it's just if you start lifting weights walking lifting weights you don't have to you don't have to be running marathons you know like you just do some things in home at your home get some kettlebells yeah if you're uncomfortable little kettlebells higher get a get a personal trainer for a couple times or go to go with your friend to a to a you know some sort of like you know fitness class together and yeah yeah I mean I think about how much just the general American population you know spends on coffee drinks you know specialty coffee drinks you know like you could just save a couple of those per week and literally see a trainer yeah well and I I'm the dietician for center so center is a online platform they haven't happened and a lot of I mean fantastic at home workouts which require some that have no the minute all yeah some that have very minimal equipment like dumbbells um so you know not a not a plug to center but kind of yes a plug for center because they they're amazing I mean anybody can do them and you can start from very very very beginner to you know an extreme advanced wanting to do a center power program so so many online resources yeah for folks who are trying to get their nutrition on track um and are looking for resources I know folks can fall you online um what's your Instagram handle elite nutrition so but it's so ELET nutrition oh I love that nutrition yeah yeah that's amazing uh great so folks can do there obviously to follow you and and all your good work Andy thank you so much for thank you for having me and insight today just phenomenal thank you thank you for having me if you enjoyed this episode of the would podcast please leave a rating or review check us out on social at will at will I'm at if people questioned what's answered on the podcast email us podcast to woop.com call us 5084434952 believe I join in woop you can visit woop.com sign up for a free 30-day trial membership new members to use the code will WILL to get a $60 credit on woop accessories when you enter the code at checkout that's a wrap folks thank you all for listening we'll catch you next week on the woop podcast as always stay healthy and stay in the green