Running nutrition masterclass with Renee McGregor

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Today I'm speaking with sports dietitian Rene McGregor all about how to nail your nutrition as a runner. Rene's got a new book out called Fuel for Thought and she's going to be kind of looking at some of the highlights from that and giving you a really good kind of masterclass really in nutrition on race day and also in general. So definitely worth listening to if it's an area that you're interested in as I know a lot of runners are. I'll be running this weekend at the Arundel and South Downs Way 15. Nice part of the world. I feel like I always like to try and get a race in the diary in January just because it kind of it keeps you honest a little bit over December and it kind of starts a year off on good form I think. So yeah, let us know if you're running as well. Let us know at podcast at runnersworld.co.uk. Ben's still away at the minute. He's injured his lower back. I think he was talking about that a little bit last year. But hopefully he'll be back in a couple of weeks. So it's just me for now. But yeah, Ben will be returning imminently. So don't worry about that. Hey, look, I've got a little bit of science for you. It's too long that jingle, isn't it? It's a little bit too long. I like it, but I think maybe I need an edited version. We need to get an editor in here. Anyway, this study is about super shoes and how much super shoe use you should be doing as an amateur. For context, we're pretty sure many elite runners wear super shoes quite often in training. They say so in interviews. But what should recreational runners do and what are they doing? That's the kind of context for this piece of science. So a recent Italian study asked 61 recreational runners about their super shoe use and their reactions. And the main result was the more experienced high mileage runners use super shoes more than lower mileage runners, particularly during key workouts, where performance or recovery is critical. And some of the findings were that runners using super shoes six times a week were more likely to report injuries than those using super shoes three times a week. Runners reported that super shoes gave them increased forefoot support but produced more calf muscle strain, altered torso position, and also created a greater sense of instability. So the researchers from this have concluded that we propose that non-elite runners, probably most of us, gradually incorporate super shoe use into their training routines to allow for adaption to the biomechanical demands these shoes impose on the foot and lower extremities like the calf and Achilles. We recommend a transition period of four to eight weeks during which runners initially integrate super shoes into one to two weekly sessions initially at lower intensity and progression should be gradual. Incorporating strength and flexibility exercises targeting the lower extremities, especially the calf and Achilles tendon, may further support adaption and reduce injury risk. So something to bear in mind, I think a lot of people are probably already using super shoes in lots of their sessions, but possibly, particularly if you're feeling any issues in those areas like the calf and Achilles, it might be something to look at. And also maybe there's something to be said for kind of rationing your use of super shoes so you get that kind of a kick on race day. I feel like if you just do all your sessions in a kind of shoe that's giving you a little bit extra, then actually on the race day itself, you're not going to feel it, as opposed to someone who's actually been doing most of the running in non-super shoes. And then on race day, there's like this kind of tangible benefit. So yeah, something to bear in mind there. Right, so I think we should bring Rini on to talk about her new book and also just nutrition in general for runners. Is it a social media star? Or just someone who's running far? Is it a name of somebody new in the field? Interview. Rini, thanks very much for coming on the Runners World Podcast. Absolutely great to chat to you about your new book, Fuel for Thought. For anyone who's unfamiliar with you and the work that you do in this area, could you give us a sense of like your background? Sure. So yeah, I'm Rini McGregor. I'm a sports dietitian. I'm a columnist for Runners World as well and author. And yeah, I mean, I work in a range of sports and I have done over the last 15 years. So, you know, I've kind of worked at the very high end of sport, working with Olympic and Paralympic athletes and now work with, I guess, more professional sports. So doing quite a lot of work with professional cyclists, with ultra runners who are, you know, kind of sponsored athletes as well as the everyday public. So I guess my passion is helping people to have a better relationship with food and exercise and just making sure that if you are somebody very active, whatever sport or discipline you're doing and regardless of whatever level, you actually know how to fuel your body appropriately and cut out all the noise that seems to be out there and can kind of derail us. So yeah, that's kind of, I suppose, me in a succinct way as possible. And your new book, Fuel for Thought, obviously you've written other books in the past. What was kind of the big motivation behind this one for you? So it's a really good question, actually. Lots of people have asked me that. When I wrote More Fuel You, which came out two years ago, it was a really good opportunity to write a book that helped people to understand the theory of eating, you know, like to understand kind of what influences our food choice and understanding how we work physiologically and actually why, particularly if we're active, we have to make sure we're eating enough fuel, not eating less fuel. And that did so well. But I also then wanted to create something that was more practical, so something that could offer readers just tips and information. I guess information that I've learned working in this field, hands-on with people, that you're not going to pick up even really from my column or you're not going to pick up from any textbook. It's like when you're stood in a tent at major championships on a 24-hour race and you've got athletes coming in and they're being sick and they've got diarrhea and you need to keep them moving and you're trying to work out what to do, and you learn so much in that moment. And I guess I wanted to make sure that people who want to take these opportunities had that information and they didn't necessarily have to work with me. So I guess that was the motivation, was to create a really practical book. But at the same time, one of the feedbacks we got from MoreFuelU was people wanted my own running journey in them. And so I guess Fuel for Thought has got a lot of me in there. There's a lot of my professional experience, but there's also a lot of my personal story. And what I hope people get from it is understanding that, yeah, I've made a lot of mistakes myself. I'm not perfect, but actually I try and use my experience to help others because that's kind of what I've always been about, really. Yeah. It would be interesting to know, really, what mistakes do you think that you have made in this area? Maybe some of the kind of common ones that you see other people making and what are the kind of lessons that you've learned through that? Yeah. I mean, where do I start? I guess the big ones, I would say when I first got into running, I, like everybody, I was really excited. I got carried away. I definitely didn't do things quickly. I was definitely somebody who did a 10K, then did several half marathons before I jumped into the marathon world, did several marathons before I jumped into the ultra running world. So I definitely took my time in that respect. But I think definitely when I was working, not working, when I was running on the road specifically, I got caught up with the numbers big time. I'm quite an obsessive, compulsive individual, I think, like most runners. Yeah. And I am a big high achiever, so I think I definitely got caught up in the numbers game and didn't always rest enough. And at the end of the day, like most people who will be listening to this, I was a mother, I am a mother, I had a full-time job, I had a relationship, I had a social life, and I was trying to fit way too much in and have this really high expectation of my ability. So I think the biggest mistake I made early on was not resting enough, not fueling really appropriately because of not really having enough time and not prioritizing my needs, I guess. Yeah. And that definitely meant that I didn't always achieve the goals that I had hoped for, particularly in the marathon game. I think, if I'm honest, probably with marathon, maybe it was the wrong time for me because I had two young children. And I just don't, for me, it wasn't practical to try and be hitting the numbers I wanted to hit while also looking after them and working. It was a lot of pressure. I think, like, other mistakes I've made, which are, I guess, a bit more generalized mistakes, you know, I've been to the race and I've forgotten my salt, you know, and then I've definitely impacted because of that, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've definitely not had a good race because I've basically felt sick for the entire time. I've definitely done that mistake of, right, yeah, I've trained with this fuel. I'm just going to take this fuel and not take any backups. And then you get to race day and you're like, I really don't feel like this today. You know, I've made that mistake. I've definitely made mistakes of not carrying the right kit. I think, you know, like I've made all the mistakes, big and small, but I would say hopefully one of the key points that comes out through the book is my learning has shaped me to be a much more rounded and I suppose kind of runner to myself now. Like, you know, I still compete. I still like to do well like everybody does, but I definitely listen to my body better. I respond to it. I stop when I'm tired. I eat really, really well. And I guess that's part of the job, right? You're reading the research all the time, so you're also adapting accordingly all the time and that helps. And it's not just, you know, yes, I'm providing that information to the people I work with, but I'm also applying it to myself. And I suppose I see the results. And I'm not saying N equals 1 is what the book's about because that's not me at all. But I think it just helps people to trust me because they're like, oh, well, she's running and she's, you know, she's owning up the fact that she doesn't always get it right, but actually she's also doing well in her running still. And, you know, now I'm in my late 40s. It's quite nice to still be progressing really. Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, I think that's really inspiring when people are kind of getting faster as they get older as well. I think that is great. I think that your column in Runner's World, part of its appeal and its job is kind of myth-busting. And I feel like there's a lot of misinformation about nutrition, which is an area that, you know, I think should be relatively straightforward and simple, but maybe it's made confusing, I think, by lots of kind of conflicting voices in there. Probably one area, I know you've written about as well, would be kind of under-fueling stroke fasted running while this is having a bit of a moment, maybe has done for a number of years. Could you sort of give us your take on this area, if there is a kind of application for fasted running or whether it's something that needs to be treated with quite a lot of care? Yeah, no, absolutely. And so I think, yeah, it's good to start with where it came from, I think. So, you know, fasted training is something that has been around for quite a long time. And I remember the first studies that came out in it, and it was like, oh, wow, this could be something really, really beneficial to us endurance athletes. And the kind of concept around it is that, you know, it's particularly endurance training when you're doing over 90 minutes over two hours, so we're looking at marathon and beyond. We know that we have a finite amount of stores in our glycogen to keep us going, right? Like at some point that's going to run out and that's what ultimately people would describe as hitting the wall when you've run out of glycogen. of glycogen stores and carbohydrate. So we've known this for quite some time and physiology hasn't changed and that definitely continues. And so obviously there were lots of researchers looking at, well, how can we progress this forward? How can we help endurance athletes spare their glycogen and get better at tapping into another source of energy within the body? And obviously the kind of the most obvious would be fat because we all have a certain amount of fat stored in our body. We need that for several reasons, but we also all probably have a little bit more than perhaps we need. And it can be a useful source of fuel because fat provides a lot more energy. So the concept was around, if we can sort of mobilize our fat stores for energy, then we can spare our glycogen stores and we don't need to basically take on as much carbohydrate particularly when we're running fast. That was the concept. The problem is, is that it's not as simple as that. And the human body is not as simple as, okay, well, if we remove one source of energy, but the body will utilize another source of energy. It's not quite as clear cut. And while yes, there is some evidence that if you do some training in a fasted state at a particular level of intensity, there may be some benefits in that you do start to utilize more, you become more efficient at using fat for fuel. So it's not that you start using more fat, but you start becoming more efficient using fat for fuel. So that means that at a certain pace, you'll be using a higher percentage of fat for fuel. And you probably will spare your glycogen. That there is definitely some evidence of that. And it's lower pace, isn't it? We're talking sort of slower, the slower end of running here. Very slow running. And I think this is where it gets very confusing because in the studies, what we talk about is the first ventilatory response, but identifying that in everybody is really difficult. So unless you do the testing in the lab, it's quite hard to identify where that sits for most people. We can say, oh yeah, it's a conversation place, but we don't actually know that. So this is where it becomes confusing for people because they think, oh, well, I'll just do, I'll do my training at this pace and I'll benefit from it. And yeah, you might get some benefits from it, but we don't know that for every single person. The other thing is that, the other kind of constraints around it is that this session should never be really very long. So never be really over 60 minutes. Ideally, you should never really do it more than a couple of times a week because you're not going to progress in other aspects of your running. So the key thing is like, whenever we're looking at run training, we're always trying to shift the kind of what we talk about, the kind of the curve, the lactate curve. We're trying to shift it to the right so that we can run at a faster pace for longer before our muscles fill up with our acid fundamentally and fatigue, right? That's what we're trying to always do. And to achieve that, we have to do lots of different types of running in our week. So that's why we have our harder sessions. That's why we have our easy sessions. That's why we have our long sessions. Like they all deliver a purpose. So the issue with fasted training is that when people are doing things like intermittent fasting, or they're doing fasted training all the time, they're not benefiting their bodies because they're doing every single session in this fasted state, which means their body can't progress. So when you're doing high intensity training in a fasted state, you can't achieve the paces that you want to achieve. And so then you don't get that adaptation that you're expected to get. And similarly, we found with long training, actually, if you go into a long run fueled, and you actually fuel as you would in a race, your body in itself, just that long endurance training is another just a good way of the body becoming better at being more efficient at utilizing fat for fuel. So you don't have to do the fasted training is the bottom line. I guess one final point where people kept going wrong is fasted training then became like, let's try and avoid carbs altogether on those days. And this is where it became really problematic because what we do know now with up to date research is that the carbohydrate availability piece is really important in terms of ensuring progression, ensuring that we get that hormonal cascade that we need. So we get enough growth hormone being produced that helps us to become faster and stronger. But also that carbohydrate availability is really important for our bones. So when we finish our run session, our bone activity is at its highest. But if we don't fuel that well, if we don't give it the carbs and the proteins that it needs, then it means that the bone activity can't be efficient and potentially can start to lead to issues with our bone health. And the final piece of the puzzle is that carbohydrate availability is really important for our hormones production in terms of things like estrogen and testosterone, which again are really key in pretty much every aspect of being a human. So it's not as straightforward. And like you said, it's very, very popular. And the other thing is that it, you know, yeah, it does work for some people. Of course it does. There's always going to be something that works for some people. And so that was for other people. But what I will say is that the female body is particularly sensitive to fasting because we are fundamentally put on this planet to reproduce and our bodies are much more sensitive than males. So anything that causes threat to the system will mean that the body will shut down. And so this is where it has, you know, has kind of, I think gets these quite polarized views that some people are saying, no, but it's really good for you. And then some people say, no, it's really bad for you. And the reality is there's probably a place for some fasted training in a weekly schedule as long as it's done sensibly and you're not trying to do high intensity work. And as long as you then fuel after your training session. So again, if someone's doing intermittent fasting, this again can be really problematic if they're doing their run session, say at six in their morning, but then they're not breaking their fast until midday, then that can be a little bit problematic. So it's a confusing picture and I get why people do get confused by it. But my advice would be to ideally try and fuel your sessions because you actually, we see more benefits from that than from fasted training when it comes to performance outcome. I still think carbs have a bit of a PR problem and it's strange. I think the science is firmly in favor of quite high carbohydrate intake, particularly if you're active. I mean, you cover this subject in the book and I know that you're a fan of carbs. You're not someone who's kind of promoting the keto diet or anything like this, but do you think actually that runners might have a tendency to undervalue that the importance of carbohydrate or not to not actually realize the full extent of the benefits of carbs? A hundred percent, a hundred percent. And I think you're absolutely right in that there's still so much scaremongering. We've had this massive kind of influx of people and organizations going down the CGM routes, the continuous glucose monitoring route and giving people all this data that they don't understand, but also creating this real fear of our glucose levels rising. And yet, if you look at, if we were to measure our glucose, let's say generally for a whole day and we just ate normally and we did that for a year, we would see huge variations in our glucose levels, not just based on what we eat, but actually based on what's going on in our life. So for example, stress has a huge part in raising glucose, right? When we're stressed, we get that fight or flight response. What happens? We release adrenaline, we release glucose because we're trying to get ready to fight, to flight. So like stress has a huge part to play in our glucose. First, dehydration has a huge part to play in our glucose levels. In women, our menstrual cycle has a huge part to play in our blood glucose. So it's really frustrating because what's happening is, yes, absolutely, when we eat food, our blood glucose goes up. That's a very normal response, like it happens to us all fundamentally, but we also all have, apart from if we're type one diabetic, we all have, or type two diabetic, we all have the ability to control this because we have homeostatic control in the form of our pancreas and that produces the right hormones, namely in this case, insulin, which then brings our blood glucose down. Like that's just human monitoring. That's how we've evolved and why we're able to do what we're able to do. Yes, it's complicated when you start bringing in clinical conditions and absolutely things like type one diabetes where individuals obviously are not born with the ability to produce enough insulin. They have to administer insulin and they're actually, interestingly, majority of type one diabetics are like, they're shouting the most about the fact how this CGM information is so poor and actually is problematic. And then yes, you have type two diabetes where it's a complex multifactorial issue and yeah, your lifestyle has probably got a huge part to play in the development of type two behaviors. But again, you still don't need to be monitoring because all it's doing is creating this massive amount of anxiety. And in normal individuals, it's absolutely acceptable for our blood sugars to be out of range for periods of time daily without it being negative to our health. And we know that you speak to any endocrinological expert and they will tell you that. So it's frustrating because- It must be, yeah. It must be really frustrating for you, I think. As a genuine expert in this field, when you're getting like, this stuff comes through and it becomes really popular and you're a bit like, I'm not sure people actually completely understand the data they're working with here. Yeah, and it is, it's really frustrating because fundamentally, these are organizations and brands and individuals who are preying on, I guess, the worried well and those of us that are slightly more obsessional and making money out of them as well as causing their anxiety. And I think that's one of my biggest irritations of modern society is that it feels like very few people really care, like really care about the people. It feels more like everyone's trying to make a buck out of everybody. And I find that really sad because, I don't know, it just, it doesn't work for me. It's not how I operate anyway. So, yeah, it's, it is annoying. Excema isn't always obvious, but it's real. And so is the relief from Ebglis. 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Yeah, so there's some good stuff that you can do. Like, obviously, some of the key things to start with, you know, especially in the winter months, making sure that you're taking your vitamin D. We know vitamin D has a big part to play in our immunity. And there's studies that have shown that, you know, if you've got good vitamin D levels, then it reduces your risk of upper respiratory tract infections. So that's definitely something to stay on top of. Hydration is another big one. And it's the one, I'll be honest, Rick, it's the one I really struggle with in the cold months. I find it so hard to drink water because I don't feel as thirsty because it's cold, right? But hydration is so key because it's our first. line of defense you know saliva is our first line of defense and if we're not drinking we're not producing saliva basically so that's something that I think a lot of people get caught out in the winter months is just not hydrating enough and and that can definitely be um you know that can definitely add to our immune issues. The other thing is that over exercising and definitely not getting enough sleep can also be an issue so you know we will both know people who get up at the crack of dawn to try and fit in their own session because it's the only time they have and then they go to work and I'm not saying you shouldn't do that but I think we also need to learn to listen a little bit as well so if you've had poor sleep or you haven't been able to get into bed early enough and you haven't had a decent amount of sleep then actually that could almost be more detrimental to go and run in in a sleep deprived state particularly if you're doing it regularly that can definitely depress our immune system. If we also suddenly increase our training so this time of year you know obviously we're 20th of January now but this time of year when um everybody suddenly goes right I'm gonna I'm gonna start and I'm gonna do loads and they can almost overdo it in the first few weeks that in itself can depress our immune system and then especially if we suddenly increase our training and we don't increase our nutrition alongside which is the common thing right we yeah okay start of the year it's that all those awful messages of move more eat less everyone's feeling a little bit kind of overindulged after Christmas and so they become a little bit more restrictive and rigorous and that is a key issue with um a depressed immune system and and again like going back to the carbohydrate piece carbohydrate is a really important fuel when it comes to maintaining a healthy immune system as is making sure that we've got a good healthy gut biome so you know taking on plenty of whole grains plenty of fruit and vegetables plenty of fermented foods those sorts of things are going to help our gut biome which then also support our um our supports our immune health but once again if we if we do extreme exercise if we take things too far that can also have a negative impact on our gut biome so it's a real balancing act and I think yeah again it gets really confusing because on the one hand you get all this messaging of do more do more do more and then the other hand it's like but this is how we have to look after ourselves and I think people get so confused and I and I guess that's a big topic in the book is about it's it's it's trying to get people to realize that there's going to be a lot of messaging there always is going to be a lot of messaging right but but the issue with messaging is that it's not always relevant to you and it's trying to hold on to actually does this how does this fit in with me if I'm training for a marathon or how does this fit in with me if I'm doing um you know more strength-based work or whatever it might be or if I'm only able to train three times a week should I feel guilty because everybody else is normalizing the fact that they're doing two sessions a day did you see what I mean yeah yeah yeah trying to get people to realize that their journey is their own journey and it's very easy to get derailed off your journey because there's so much misinformation and noise out there yeah absolutely just very quickly on the vitamin d front is um is there a way of taking vitamin d that is better so is a spray better than I guess what's what's the other option a tablet and can kids do should kids be taking vitamin d supplements as well so kids should absolutely be taking vitamin d um and they normally get it in a liquid form something called abidec which is usually prescribed by gps and and they should be taking vitamin d there is there has been a move towards people using a spray the jury's out whether one's better than the other personally what I've found is that I find the tablets seem to definitely increase volumes um sorry increased levels within the blood a bit more efficiently than spray and that's just that's based more on observational data from my clinic rather than you know a study but we've had we've had some people use sprays but actually when we look at their vitamin d it hasn't really shifted and then we've had other people take supplements you know like daily tablets and yeah and it's improved significantly so that's the only thing I would say but you know I think like a different nutrient magnesium for example we know we absorb that better through the skin so actually that you're taking a spray or sitting in a bath of like magnesium salts you absorb it better than taking an actual tablet so yeah it's a good question um similarly with iron it we know that if you're going to use something like ferrous sulfate or ferrous fumarate having a liquid form is better absorbed than than the capsule form because the capsule in itself is difficult to absorb and and digest but then there are other good you know there are some other kind of good products on the on the market that um they're in a much more active form so things like active iron for example they are slightly higher dose than your other over-the-counter iron remedies um but are better absorbed and and kind of uh in in a gentler format that women can absorb them as well and not have any digestive issues so yeah it supplements is another whole quite confusing subject but yeah yeah yeah but um yeah it's it it's interesting I had a conversation with a dancer just before Christmas a ballet dancer who I was working with and she'd gone out and bought all these supplements because you know she was like well I need to make sure I look after myself we're going into the big touring season and um she goes but I want to check I got the right one so we literally went through I think six or seven products she'd bought from a health food shop only two actually were the right dose of what they claimed to be on the tin and the others literally had so collagen for example is a big one that a lot of people are using a lot of runners are moving towards and there's there's definitely evidence that collagen can be really helpful particularly in older runners or particularly if you've ended up with repeated sort of tendon issues and injuries it can be really helpful yeah but the dose has to be right and if you look on the market there is so many collagen products now but I would say probably only half of them are the right dose the others literally have nothing in them so you know and yet some of them are being promoted by celebrities and yeah right you know so again it becomes confusing and ideally if you're if you are listening and you are taking collagen you you want to be taking a bovine collagen to start with and you also want to be as a minimum dose of of 10 grams a day um I probably wouldn't go much above 15 grams a day but somewhere between 10 and 15 is the right dose for most people to get that kind of benefit particularly to connective tissue which is what most people will use it for and I might think that collagen becomes particularly relevant maybe like like in sort of uh female runners they get older maybe we're talking the kind of like menopause age as well is that right yeah so there is there's some good studies that have come through that have shown that in particularly in post-menopausal women so when you're going through perimenopause and then you'll see you go through the menopause the ovaries start to fail and then eventually you get complete ovarian failure and then you don't produce estrogen which is a very key hormone in um in our bone health and so for both men and women our bone health does start to tail off particularly as we get older but there's a very significant tail off for women once they hit sort of mid 40s late 40s early 50s when estrogen is really dropping off so obviously some women will take hormone replacement therapy and that will definitely help with some of that loss um some women might not be able to take HRT or don't want to take HRT and and that's absolutely fine but what we have found is that providing women with 15 grams of collagen has shown to prevent decline in bone health particularly in those sort of menopausal post-menopausal years so that's definitely a time when I do encourage it particularly if a female has chosen not to go on HRT or even if they have I would still encourage it especially if they know they've got low bone density or they've been told they've got osteoporosis um so it's there's definitely a benefit from from that point of view I think like maybe the male equivalent is something I started seeing posted around instagram a really good mate of mine was talking about as well he's sort of slightly worried he said um what's like low testosterone is that like what's what is um what's driving that is that can that be is that something that can be fixed by a different nutrition and I and I and I don't know much about it actually I had to say I don't I'm not sure actually but I'd be careful kind of you know um worrying about that stuff too much is that something that's come on to your radar and what what advice might you have really yeah so obviously I mean just like women men can also have declining hormonal levels I mean low testosterone does happen as you get older in some males but again obviously within females everybody goes through the perimenopause in men's in men it's probably a very small percentage of the population where they'll see a decline in their testosterone it's not it's not a high amount of the population if you are somebody in your you know up to your 50s and you suddenly get a very low testosterone that would indicate something else is potentially going on so I'm not I wouldn't say you need to panic but it could be that obviously if we're very stressed that can have a negative impact on our testosterone um so first thing to check is am I stressed is my work stressful is home life stressful am I doing too much so that's another key thing is that just like for women we need that carbohydrate availability for um hormonal regulation you need it for men as well so if you suddenly are doing loads of ultras or you've suddenly increased your training you know what we are seeing is a lot of people doing both running and high rocks at the moment which is yeah right yeah yeah big big stress on the body right it's a huge amount of mechanical and cardiovascular stress on the body and again we'd normalize that this high intensity exercise is good for us but actually if you don't increase your nutrition alongside if you don't rest appropriately you continue to create threat in the body and as soon as the body sees threat it starts to down regulate so this could be another reason why testosterone has dropped so there's often a reason for it and I would definitely encourage individuals to go and explore and investigate with a practitioner what could be going on here definitely definitely don't get sucked into taking testosterone replacement therapy because that's not the answer particularly in men's it's not it's not the same I think it's important to understand the root cause and then be provided with the appropriate advice by somebody who's qualified and yes sometimes that might be the only the only answer but I'm those would be more clinical conditions but the people I work with a lot of the males I work with with low testosterone it has been because they've been in low energy availability or they've over trained and so we've adjusted their lifestyle you know in terms of food sleep training and their levels have come back up naturally and that's what you really want because that's much more holistic and better in the long term than taking any medication I reckon that probably most nutrition studies and maybe maybe sort of generalist advice is based at you know kind of white runners probably probably male white runners and obviously you're a woman of color and you've written this book and you touched on it in the book how like how should sort of different dietary needs be taken into account if people aren't fitting the kind of yeah white male kind of demographic yeah it's a it's a really good question I think again it goes back to what I said earlier about trying to understand what's appropriate for you and you know we are now getting more studies done in women which is a good first step there's not that same increase when it comes to doing studies in in sort of diverse population groups but hopefully that will come next but I think it's understanding that yeah your requirements will probably be a bit different and also things like our gut biome will be different because we've been brought up on different food to start with like you know I grew up on a predominantly a vegetarian diet I grew up with a lot of beans and pulses whole grains in my diet so probably actually have a very healthy gut biome because of that that was kind of the foods I grew up with but I think also it's important to appreciate that you know because of that if I suddenly change my diet that might actually mean that I don't feel quite so good on maybe say a very you know meat based diet that might not work for me yeah okay yeah and I guess it's similarly if you're somebody who has been brought up on a very carnivorous diet and then you're trying to go plant-based because that's what you know it's often encouraged at the moment, it might not work for you, it might not suit you, you might not be able to absorb all the nutrients that you need and so I think again it's so it's so so important to have this sort of self monitoring and this self awareness like how am I feeling on this? Is this really working for me? What's my goal? You know when I'm thinking about me, generally speaking I don't worry much about things like body composition or my weight or anything like that but I'm always thinking you know how do I maintain my running for as long as possible? How do I prevent becoming injured? Those are my kind of key things so that's why I might look at my diet in a slightly different way whereas an individual that maybe feels they do need to reduce a little bit little bit of body fat for legitimately they might have to think about that in a different way and again it's not being restrictive it's kind of maybe you just need to focus on moving a little bit more and maintaining what you're eating and keeping that deficit just small or equally maybe you need to reduce the amount of exercise you're doing because you're doing way too much like you know it could be it could be either of those options so yeah I think I think we definitely need to appreciate that we're all different and again I will keep banging on about it until I'm blue in the face but the information that's put out there is often especially when you're kind of following people on social media in particular it does tend to be very much this is based on their experience and I'm not invalidating that like it's really important that we all have our own experience and that if we want to share that that's fine but I also think as individuals we have a responsibility in how we share that you know like it's and do we need to share it that's the other thing you know like that's the other important bit of the puzzle really thanks so much for coming on the podcast and yeah I think it's talking with such clarity in an area that often lacks that quality I think and where can people get hold of fuel for thought if they want to if they want to read more so there's a link at the moment which is on adventure adventure books comm which is linked to vertebrate which is a publishing company and but all their books but there's a there's a particular piece at the moment on feel for thought it will be available on Amazon as well in a few weeks time there's information on my website and obviously there's always information on my Instagram as well great well I'll include a link to all those things in the show notes if anyone wants to look at that that way they can and thank you again really for making a time to talk with us much appreciated thanks so much so that brings the end of this week's podcast a huge thanks to our guest really McGregor and to you of course for listening please give us a review wherever you listen to this podcast we love to get the the positive reviews please that would be nice and thank you very much for listening and see you again next week