In this episode, we explore how endurance athletes and coaches are using today’s top nutrition apps—and what to consider before relying on them.
Episode Transcript
Griffin McMath 00:00
Dr, hello and welcome to fast talk, your trusted source for the science of endurance performance. I’m Dr Griffin McMath, today’s episode marks an exciting new chapter for our show. We’ve got a hot topic to explore, and you’ll also hear from a very familiar voice returning to fast talk and a new role. Nutrition apps are everywhere these days, from in platform features to standalone AI driven tools that promise to optimize fueling. But how helpful Are they really? What do they get right? Where can they lead athletes astray to help us tackle these questions, we’ll be hearing from fast talk labs, Director of Exercise Physiology and sports nutrition services, Jared Berg Olympian and veteran World Tour rider Brent buchwalter, endurance sports scientist Dr Paul Larson and our own CEO, Trevor Connor. And with that, let’s jump into today’s conversation, which begins with a warm welcome back to my new co host here on fast talk, Julian, so tune your instincts before you tune your app, and let’s make you fast.
Athletica.ai 01:06
So we all know that the fastest way to stop progressing is to get injured, and that’s why managing load matters. Athletica keeps an eye on your training stress, helping you adapt before it’s too much. It’s the same principle we talk about it. Fast talk labs, train smarter, not harder. Learn more@athletica.ai and use code fast talk to save 15% off a six month plan. We’ll see you there.
Griffin McMath 01:31
I have something very exciting to share today. Today, we are welcoming back a very familiar voice at fast talk podcast, the former co host of fast talk femme, but today is her inaugural episode now as the new co host of fast talk podcast. Welcome back, Julia,
Julie Young 01:50
thanks, Griffin. I appreciate that, and I’m super excited to be back. I love the opportunity to do these episodes. It’s so stimulating. Get to talk about fun topics and meet neat people. So I’m super excited.
Griffin McMath 02:03
Can you help us understand what are we talking about today? Why is this so important, especially to you, and who did you bring along for the ride?
Julie Young 02:11
So I thought today, no one better to talk about this subject than Jared Burke. And I know Jared has been on the fast talk podcast in previous episodes, but Jared, welcome to fast talk.
Jared Berg 02:24
Thank you, Julie. I look forward to going over this with you guys. I’m definitely really excited to be here. Very interesting topic, and it’s gonna be fun to start thinking critically about these and sort of offer what insight I can give as a registered dietitian and exercise physiologist,
Julie Young 02:41
Jared, would you mind? I think your background is so pertinent to this episode, and I think you know, you provide so much legitimacy in terms of what you have to offer. Could you provide the listeners with a little bit of information on what you’ve been doing in the past and what you’re doing now?
Jared Berg 02:56
Sure, can. Yeah. So for years, I’ve been working as an exercise physiologist. I’ve done that with CU Sports Performance Center on campus here in Boulder, Colorado. And then most recently, I’ve started on with fast talk labs as their service director for their exercise physiology and sports nutrition services. And then, yeah, I have a master’s in nutrition, and I’ve been practicing rd for a few years now. And yeah, it’s just exciting world. I’ve been working with lots of different athletes for, gosh, almost three decades. You know. I work with a lot of elite level professional triathletes and cyclists and amateurs and individuals, you know, looking to climb Mount Everest and those kind of adventures. I have one actually an athlete coming in in about two hours, who is looking to climb all seven of the highest peaks on the seven continents. So, yeah, all kinds of exciting adventures I get to sort of be a part of, which is really pretty cool. Yeah, love my job. That is
Griffin McMath 03:53
so cool. Jared, that’s fun. What a feat. Wow. Yeah,
Jared Berg 03:57
yeah, she’s super cool. I’m excited to work with her this afternoon. And I’ve worked with her before in the past. And yeah, just it’s fun to dive
Julie Young 04:03
- And Jared, you’ve done quite a bit of work with Dr San Milan as well. Correct?
Jared Berg 04:07
Yeah, he was a mentor of mine at CU sports performance. Super fun guy, brilliant and also humble. And yeah, it’s been fun working with him for years, and look forward to actually reconnected with him sometime in the
Julie Young 04:19
future here. Well, I really appreciate just your depth of, obviously scientific experience and knowledge, but also your application and practice. So I thought we would start by just talking about a few of these apps and features that are on the market. Because, again, there’s a gazillion out there. I thought for today we would talk about the nutrition feature that’s built into training peaks. I’m sure people that are users of training peaks have probably noticed there’s now included a feature for carb and fat use during a ride, and then also the fuelin app, which I’ve started to see. So I’m really curious about this one, because I’ve definitely started to see. Populate training peaks with athletes that I work with, and then athletes food coach, but those were the few that I thought we would focus on today, because I think it essentially helps us understand, probably, that whole environment.
Griffin McMath 05:12
Is there a reason you chose these three specifically? I mean, I
Julie Young 05:16
think selfishly, it’s just what I’ve had experience with and so, you know, I think in my world where I’m working primarily with endurance athletes, and the majority of those being cyclists, these are the apps that I’m seeing mostly. So, of course, you know, training peaks. So many coaches are working on training peaks. Now, like I said, fuel in I’ve started to see a couple of my athletes use it, and it’s populating into training peaks. So I’ve been curious about the principles behind that app. And then athletes food coach was developed by Dr jukindroup Asker. Jukindroup, who’s worked quite significantly with the yumbo team, yumbovisma, and from what I gather, this is probably based on the work he’s done with that team, which kind of puts into question. Maybe, I don’t know, Jared, what you think about this, not to get too far ahead of the game, but you know, if you’re working with that kind of a population with a bunch of outliers that are these elite athletes, like how translatable is that to all of us, Mere Mortals? So I think, you know, really credible sources and obviously some interesting data, kind of, in terms of how they built these apps. So Jared, those were the top of my list apps and features that I want to talk about. Were there any others that you had in mind? Oh,
Jared Berg 06:35
I would say that there’s basically two other apps I have in mind. Only one I feel like we really need to cover. But the two apps I’m thinking of is My Fitness Pal and chronometer, right? Chronometer is a, is an app that is just, you know, has really good database of accurate nutrition logging features to help you figure out how many calories you’re taking in and where your macros lie and such. And it that’s kind of a neat app, just because it has, from a dietitian perspective, they have a sort of dietician or provider dashboard. I don’t want to cover Coronavirus too much. It’s because it doesn’t really integrate with training peaks. From my understanding. However, I do have quite a bit of athletes that I work with using my fitness pal as a nutrition logging app, and that can sync up with training peaks, so we can understand energy balance right, and then at least get a feel for whether the athlete’s expenditure is matching up with their intake. And MyFitnessPal has a pretty good database of foods and such, and allows the athlete to fairly easily track their nutrition throughout the day and week.
Griffin McMath 07:41
I think what Jared just said is really important. He just pointed out who is using these apps. So for the second one that he mentioned, a lot of clinicians or healthcare practitioners, a variety of types will use that with their patients, not necessarily coaches, with their athletes. So for those who are listening, I think we need to really frame the apps that we’re going to talk about today from the perspective of the athlete with their nutrition in their sport, not necessarily for their nutrition and their health care. So I think as long as we keep that in mind, then this selection of apps will really make sense, and we’re going to understand why we’re diving into these in particular
Julie Young 08:21
good point. Context, always important. Context and relevancy, I
Griffin McMath 08:26
think we have to look at this as what tool and what we’re hoping to get out of it and the purpose of it. So could we just again for context, understand what the purpose of these apps should be for the athlete Julie, or what you’re hoping to imply. The
Julie Young 08:42
main theme may be like, Hey, we’re not looking for perfection here. I think maybe it’s an eye opener. Maybe it’s a little bit of a reality check. And I think, per what Jared said, there’s no intention to be perfect with these things. And I think, you know, it’s keeping perspective, which is so important in terms of using these in a healthy way.
Griffin McMath 09:00
Exercise Physiologist Dr Paul Larson is experienced with nutrition apps, and is seeing firsthand what AI can do for our training software. Here are his thoughts on the potential for these apps.
Athletica.ai 09:14
I’m pretty familiar with the nutrition apps, and I think they’re doing a great job to get insight into some of the various different aspects around nutrition, the calories, macronutrients, micronutrients, phytochemicals, minerals, vitamins, all these different things that are important, like anything we have to take it with a grain of salt. There is going to be, certainly, variation between what the user is providing in terms of their dietary recall with those that being said, the world of AI is definitely exploding, and pictures of the food that are being consumed is now possible with some of these dietary apps, and that’s going to only enhance the. Accuracy of some of the food and nutrient data and insight from it. So it’s an exciting space, and I’m sure we continue to evolve. We’re going to see that more and more and very near future.
Julie Young 10:14
So I thought, before we dive into like, our specific experience with using these different apps and features that perhaps Jared you could provide us with kind of the principles that are, in most cases probably guiding these recommendations from these apps and features in terms of metabolism, bioenergetics. Can you kind of give us an overview of those concepts? Sure,
Jared Berg 10:37
I can try to do that. So ideally, what the apps are looking to do is to, number one, be able to help an athlete achieve the energy balance they’re looking for. Okay? And then you’ll see in these apps, they’ll be like, Hey, what are your goals? Right? Are your goals to maintain weight, to gain weight, to lose, and ideally, the app is hoping to adjust its recommendations based off of what your goals are, right and then what it’s going to do from there is go from energy balance, then break it down into the specific macronutrients, how many carbs, how much protein, how many you know, how much fat do you need to consume on The daily or at each meal or in your snacks, in order to sort of optimize your nutrition intake, to sort of meet your needs and also help you towards your goals. So I’m not speaking for every app, you know. I’m talking about more as a whole. Maybe that app is looking to try to understand, hey, you did this type of workout, right? If you did this type of workout at this intensity for this length, how much should you be trying to consume of carbohydrates versus fat or protein in order to optimize your performance, your recovery and achieve that energy balance you’re looking for, right? And that’s sort of what it’s going for.
Julie Young 12:05
So would you say, like, the overriding, probably the main priority of these apps is first and foremost that energy balance, and then secondarily, the macronutrients? Yes,
Jared Berg 12:16
it should be. I mean, I think it would be too deep in the woods, if we’re trying to, hey, let’s try to match out the right micronutrients and see if we’re getting the bioactive compounds, you know, that’s necessary to, you know, increase health span and longevity and support, you know, mitochondrial health and that kind of thing. That’s a little too deep for, I think, an app to go through. And that’s where you might work with a, you know, a registered dietitian or an MD to figure out those specifics, but those apps in general, yeah, if we talk about energy balance, that’s going to be the, I would say, the utmost importance. That’s number one priority. And then the macronutrients.
Julie Young 12:50
Can you explain to our listeners how the resting metabolic rate plays into these numbers? So
Jared Berg 12:56
we’re trying to, like you and I, yeah, we’re trying to figure out what are the sort of the experts in design of these apps. What are they thinking about? What are they doing, and how are they coming about these recommendations? And so we were looking at a training peak files, right? And those files would give a specific calorie amount. That is really it’s estimating that you burnt in that specific workout, right? And then we’re wondering, Well, is it, are those calories accounting for the resting metabolic rate that is happening in the background? Everybody needs to exist as a body in space, right? How many calories does it take to exist? And so is that, you know, existing calorie expenditure accounted in the total calories and training peaks. And we worked out some numbers and sort of kind of crunch some stuff, and we felt like it really wasn’t right, that in the background, that I don’t know 8090 or so calories per hour, that somebody is sort of burning at rest, and that’s gonna vary from 80 to 90 based on the individual right wasn’t being counted for the total calories. However, when we did the math on kilojoules for cycling, we found out the kilojoules actually match up with what was expended during the ride, right? And so and it actually counted more for like, what we needed to replace, and we could find a little more accurate recommendation for what needed to be replaced during a bike specifically
Julie Young 14:25
so the kilojoules are accounting more directly for the actual work being done, yes, as opposed to kind of bringing in what the body’s doing behind the scenes.
Jared Berg 14:34
Exactly. Yeah, we have this really cool mechanism, and our bodies actually two mechanisms. One is hunger and the other satiety?
Griffin McMath 14:42
Yeah. I don’t know if you’ve heard of these two things that are pretty cool. You’ve heard
Jared Berg 14:45
of it. They’re gonna catch on. I know it, yeah. So you have to think about it like that perspective. It’s like our bodies should ideally know that we’ve just worked out, we’ve done a lot, and we need. To fill those needs, and then we’re gonna sort of eat and take in our nutrition and hydrate until we have satisfied those needs. So it’s as simple as that, and are the apps gonna be able to tell us? Maybe they can give us some good insight and some reminders and some cues and some targets, and they can certainly help. I do have athletes I work with who we’re pretty convinced do not have those healthy hunger and satiety cues, but that’s not the norm. Most of us do pretty well. We have a great hormone regulatory system and biofeedback between our gut, brain access and so there’s just lots of positives. Our bodies are amazing, and they help us stay in check.
Griffin McMath 15:43
Yeah, if I could snap my fingers and ask all the apps to do a prerequisite before they focused on all of the data they are focusing on right now, it would be after a workout gets logged, or after you input what you’ve eaten and the gels that you’ve used that it actually pops up questions to help increase the self awareness of that particular user. How did you feel? Did you notice x, y, z, symptoms during this period? So that instead of this kind of learned helplessness, so that I’ve put the data in and this AI model is going to tell me something back about myself, so I’m going to increasingly rely on this, because it has this information that you’re actually teaching the user, just as much as the model is learning at the same time about themselves. So if we were able to have the app say this is the composition of what you just ate, this is the impact of the workout that you just had, did you notice x, y, z? That would be amazing to me, as far as data that the athlete can actually use without having to rely on this AI model down the line. I mean,
Julie Young 16:43
it’s like helping athletes connect the dots. It’s basically what you’re saying. And I think no matter like personalities, whether we’re talking food or we’re talking technology, we all come from different places. So I know some people, like athletes that I work with, want nothing to do with data. They’re just like all perceived exertion, and some are just so, like, just obsessed and enamored, and I think that’s we just need to be careful, like, we don’t want to turn the decision making over. We want to use it to better inform and I think trying to bring people to that middle point. Because I do think this can be valuable, and I do feel like it can help athletes become more intuitive, because, like Jared, as you said, you know, most people probably have that ability, but I know some athletes that I work with that are such hard chargers, and they’re so in control, and they can really deprive themselves. And so I think it is a good little eye opener, and it’s at the end of the day, you just want the athlete to become intuitive. You know, you don’t want them to become ever reliant on these things, ever reliant on logging, but it’s just an eye opener. I think
Griffin McMath 17:48
that’s why so many coaches or practitioners will have some type of, you know, they might even formalize it like a usage contract with their athlete or their patient about how they will use this particular tech tool, and that’s not only this is the expectation for how we’re going to use this, how you’re going to input data, and your relationship with this, and how I’m going to read the data, but also how you might off board from a particular tool during off season or something, so that there isn’t this lifestyle obsession with this data, right? And not only okay, this is the contract, the expectation of how we’re going to onboard with this tool, how we’re going to relate to it during this time period, how you’re going to wean off of it at a certain point, and then also how often you’re going to check this data. And I think maybe at the end, we should circle back on each of our experiences with best practices of these but I know that some people will also say you’re only allowed to look at nutritional data as the user once a week, so that you’re not obsessing over numbers or going down a rabbit hole. But I really liked the idea of usage contracts with an athlete and their coach or athlete and their rd
Julie Young 18:56
but I also do think it is the personality too, because I know just having kind of done these kind of things with certain athletes, you know, those that are very type, a very perfectionist. It’s tough, you know, you gotta just set the stage, create that perspective, or not trying to be perfect with this. You just don’t want to get too far down in the weeds. You want to stay up high. Let’s
Griffin McMath 19:17
pause for a moment and hear from Brent buchwalter, who emphasizes the point that an athlete’s experience with nutrition apps is very individual.
Brent Bookwalter 19:27
What can really help and support someone enhance and optimize a strength or improve a deficit or a weakness for one person can be totally different for the next person. So I do think that there is no one size fits all. Approach of you cannot universally say if you’re going to run a team or if I’m going to coach and guide a team of riders. There’s no way that I would require every athlete on that team to use and comply with a nutrition app. It means something different to everyone, and it’s a loaded area of body image. Age and self identity, the relationship we have with food as endurance athletes is a very complicated one that I think we need to be sensitive to on an individual basis.
Griffin McMath 20:09
I think it is really important for people to understand that there is this tool, and anytime that you’re experiencing certain symptoms, or if you have really lofty goals, these are circumstances where you should be seeking out a professional rather than using an AI tool to give you guidance, and that could be from a rd, there’s MD, I obviously am an MD, and nutrition was a massive component of my Nash path. Like medical education, you also have a variety of other healthcare practitioners who have training and background in providing this expertise.
Trevor Connor 20:44
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Julie Young 21:04
so I thought now we would just kind of dive a little deeper into these particular features and apps that we’ve mentioned and just dive a little deeper into how they’ve been formulated the models. So I thought we’d start with training peaks. And I’ve actually been chatting with the folks that are helping to develop that feature, and so they’ve shared with me the ways that they’re developing these models, which I think is interesting. I would assume this isn’t something that I verified with them, but I’m assuming they’re predicting a ride’s caloric requirement prior to that ride, because I’ll see that populated in training peaks prior to the athlete actually completing the ride based on intensity factor and TSS, because they’re obviously, they don’t have any heart rates to go off of. That
Jared Berg 21:52
seems like a pretty fair assumption. Julie, yeah, I mean, they know how long the prescribed ride is supposed to be. There’s recommendations for intensity, so they’re gonna have a pretty good feel for the intensity that the ride is supposed to be at, and then be able to make an assumption of how much carbohydrate versus fat is gonna be expended during that ride.
Julie Young 22:13
So that’s the first step. And then for folks that have used this feature, basically you go into training peaks and you set your profile so they have these different metabolic profiles or categories. So you’re a recreational athlete, you’re amateur, you’re competitive, you’re elite, that sort of thing. And so what the folks at Trainingpeaks have shared with me is they’re essentially developing their models, mainly on these three studies done primarily by Dr Sam Milan one in conjunction with George Brooks. The first one is a 2018 study by San Milan and Brooks assessing metabolic flexibility using blood lactate levels alongside fat and carbohydrate oxidation rates. The next study was done by Dr Sam Milan in 2009 and it was metabolic profiling across cycling categories, helping to establish normative patterns of substrate utilization based on fitness level. And then the last one is one that’s actually under review. It was completed by Dr Sam Milan in 2024 but it was 200 male and female cyclists from Pro to recreationalists, to understand gender specific substrate utilization curves at a range of intensities. So that’s the basis for their models. Jared, do you have any thoughts on
Jared Berg 23:33
that? So those studies are all trying to look at at what specific intensity is an athlete using what type of substrate, and substrate basically means fat or carbohydrate. In this sense, we’re not looking at protein utilization. So I would imagine, in these studies, they’re controlling for diet. I would think that would be one of the variables, but I do not know. I’ve worked a lot with Dr samalan, and I feel like my practice and just like yourself, Julie is a constant study. And so you know, you and I are going through, you know, hundreds of metabolic tests each year, and we’re getting a chance to see what’s happening from a substrate utilization, total calorie expenditure at various intensities. But the big thing I want to sort of mention is how easily manipulated these substrate utilizations are based off of dietary habits, right? When someone comes into our lab with low carbohydrate availability, we often see a really different amount of fat versus carbohydrate utilization. That’s not irrelevant of their specific performance level, how strong of an endurance athlete they are, and so that’s one thing I want to think about. Yeah, it’s like these studies may give some good answers and some ideas, but somebody could have very different characteristics in their energy and substrate utilization based off of just their diet.
Julie Young 24:56
That’s a really good point, and something that I initially. Thought about when I saw these features is it’s not necessarily the intensity that you’re doing that determines what you’re burning. It’s, you know, obviously what you ate right before. So it’s hard to look at that and just a silo and just determine, oh, this ride is a long endurance ride, so you’re going to be doing this much fat and this much carb. So it’s taking into consideration that bigger picture. And then the other thing that is a little concerning for me, I guess, is, you know, being in the lab and doing these tests, and even within these metabolic profiles or categories, I still see a huge range of variability with athletes in terms of their efficiency. You know, some people are like burning carbs, like almost right away, and others are way out there, within the same category of profiled rider.
Griffin McMath 25:47
The last study that you mentioned that talked about sex differences, they’re trying to apply. That’s one of the critiques that I’ve seen in a lot of these apps, in their learning models and in what they’re recommending to users, is basically what information is being utilized to make those recommendations. When you create an account and you say male female prefer not to answer, what are each of these apps actually deciding based on that first click and being able to be shown the exact data that they’re using to completely make a left or a grand swing on any of these is really important, and so I’m curious. Jared, I was so excited when you talked about the athlete that’s coming in in a couple hours, and then you said she I was like, hell yeah. Love to hear it if you’ve noticed any discrepancy there on the recommendations. Because ultimately, these apps that are also using user information to further guide it, I do wonder if there’s additional error there, because how are we getting real time data that’s actually accurate for some of these apps, rather than some self reported metrics? Can you speak to any discrepancy there that you’ve seen? I would
Jared Berg 26:58
say there’s going to have to be discrepancy, really, there’s gonna have to be, like, an error. When you’re looking at like, you’re just inputting, like, a few different things about yourself, like, I’m an elite athlete, or I’m an amateur, or I’m in the middle, right? Then it’s not going to account for your specific muscle composition. Like, I will see a pretty good variability among athletes, and I’ll get somebody into my into the lab, and I’ll do a metabolic test with them, and I’d be like, I know you’re really shooting for half Ironman and Ironman competition, but have you ever thought about doing sprint nationals? Because you do have a metabolic profile that shows a affinity towards sort of faster, more, higher intensity, type proficiency, and so, yeah, I’ll definitely see that quite often, and I don’t feel like just by categorizing somebody that specific way, you’re gonna get exactly what You need, and you’re finding energy balance a little bit harder and actually more like, more specifically, the substrate that the carbs versus fat is gonna be a little bit off.
Griffin McMath 28:08
Julie, you just got really excited about what he just said there at her people listening. Julie was nodding her head a lot about this sprint comment. Can you explain why you’re clearly concurring with him? I think it’s
Julie Young 28:19
just, you know, working with athletes, and I feel like sometimes they’re just bound and determined to do a certain event. Because I feel like we’re in this world right now where more is better and always doing the longer, you know, unbound you got to do 350 or, you know, it’s like, always getting more and more. And I just think athletes do themselves a disservice when they’re not honoring, like, what’s their natural propensity, what’s their natural strength, and really leveraging that and setting themselves up for success. So feel like a lot of times it’s trying to jam that square peg into that round hole, and they’re kind of, they’re failing. And it’s like, consider some other options. You know, it’s, you don’t always have to do a 12,000 kilometer race, you know, like Jared said, consider what are your strengths as an athlete, and maybe pursue that.
Griffin McMath 29:04
So then Jared, have these types of apps and this type of data been a mirror for you back to athletes to say, hey, like the apps that data is showing you might be better suited for something. Is that a hidden benefit of these apps?
Jared Berg 29:18
I would say, not yet. No, it would be amazing if it was, but I still need my metabolic card for that. I still need to be doing a lactate in combination with, you know, respiratory data and to really see how much fat, how much carbohydrates somebody’s using, how much oxygen uptake, and then where does that lactate fall, along with those sort of physiological inflection points? Great.
Julie Young 29:40
I don’t know if Jared and Griffin, you’ve had experience working with those features in training peaks. I’ve
Jared Berg 29:46
just started. I was just able to get hooked up on having that the training peaks beta version, where I can get my athletes going on, yeah, sort of how much carb versus fat and total energy expenditures. Getting those sort of dialed. And I get that. Set up, I start to wonder, and I’m assuming, that, based on intensity, they’re adjusting, they’re sort of sliding, sort of how much carbohydrate versus fat you’re burning. So the higher intensity of a workout, they’re assuming that the athlete is burning more carbohydrate, and that’s what we see in a metabolic test. Lower intensity, longer endurance, higher volume, it’s a little bit more towards the fat side of things. And then from there, we can sort of start looking back at Hey, you did this workout. Training peaks is suggesting that you burnt this amount of carbohydrate calories. How should we adjust your feeling during training, right? What should your recovery look like after training? So that way, we can sort of fill the bucket that is your training and give you the proper nourishment that can help you with performance and recovery. The best going forward, I was
Julie Young 30:56
going to mention just kind of before we wrap up about training peaks and just my experience, you know, comparing what I see in training peaks in terms of those recommendations as compared to what I know as best practices in terms of recommendations. And I wanted to mention, I have had some really great conversations with Adam Pulford, who does the train right podcast, and he’s really enlightened to me in terms of how he uses the kilojoules to determine those grams per hour for rides. And so I do fall back on that when advising athletes. And I’ll use just this one example. It’s this one petite female rider, and I it’s quite a ways off for being in terms of what training peaks is advising and what like if I use that kilojoule kind of formula. And that’s, I guess another thing I grapple with is in nutrition practice Jared, we’re on a daily basis, typically advising athletes on grams per kilogram. But then when we get on the bike, we’re working on more absolutes, like, oh, you know, two hours, 45 to 60 grams. Three plus hours, 90 plus grams. And when I use this kilojoule formula I find for the smaller, typically female riders. It’s quite a bit lower than those kind of quote what we would consider best practices in recommendations for like on the bike, for carbs. So anyway, that’s just something I’ve been grappling with. And just like my little comparison of one athlete against what training peaks is advising, you know, I just saw kind of a significant difference. That’s something
Jared Berg 32:22
that I get a lot with athletes planning their nutrition for an event. You know, there’s all this, like media being thrown at us, you know, on the gram or the in YouTube videos and such as so and so had, you know, 160 grams of carbohydrate per hour, and this, you know, 6570 year old, 145 pound Ironman cyclist is like, well, then I need to have that much, right? And, oh no, that’s not the case, right? You actually are going to be just fine with 70 or 80 grams of carbohydrate per hour, you know? So I guess there’s a possibility that the apps like training peaks might help the athlete understand exactly how much, not exactly, but give them a better idea of how much they need and how much they need to adjust their fueling strategies based off of how much they’re putting out and how much of what they’re putting out is carbohydrate.
Julie Young 33:18
So now I thought we’d just quickly touch on fueling. I think I’m the only one that’s had any kind of experience with this one. So anyway, I just again, curious, because I’ve seen this with a few of my athletes. It’s populating in training peaks, and I’ve had conversations with the athletes that have been using it, and for them, it didn’t stick. They didn’t carry on with it for whatever reason. And again, I just did some kind of basic math. I was just comparing, again, what I know to be best practices compared to what I was seeing the recommendations in training peaks with fuelin. And quite honestly, I could not make rhyme nor reason of what they were recommending, like the proteins and fats were fluctuating quite a bit. And I guess my understanding of sport nutrition is the protein and fats are staying relatively constant. It’s more that the carbs are fluctuating based on the demands of the work and objectives of the workouts. Then I’d see, like, I’d compare two exact days, and it’d be entirely different, carbohydrate, protein, fat, so I was having a really hard time understanding the pattern. Yeah,
Jared Berg 34:25
I’ve kind of in that same boat. It almost felt like feeling was cluttering up. What I would see with my athletes on training peaks, and with the two athletes that I had who was who were using it, they didn’t use it a very long time. And it’s just sort of like sitting there in the background,
Julie Young 34:43
yeah? So I guess for me, personally, as a coach, I just did clutter up training peaks so much, I was like, Oh, I can’t take it,
Griffin McMath 34:51
yeah. So you just talked about the cluttered experience from the perspective of the coach or the rd right? What’s the impact that this has on the athlete?
Julie Young 34:59
I mean, I’m assuming. Seeming not great, since the ones that I had using it didn’t stick with it, so I don’t know, it just didn’t seem like they found it very valuable.
Jared Berg 35:08
Yeah, I guess here’s my perspective as the rd is from understanding the app and looking at the website and who’s developed it, it’s really set up for that group, like they make it where, yes, the people can have it, and they don’t need to be signed up with the fuel in coaches and dieticians. But it seems like it really is set up like maybe if those dieticians are in the background on the dashboard, helping populate and customize it and go over it, maybe it’s more effective. But for the rest of us, even the providers, we’re sort of left in the dark. It feels like, like we can’t do much with it. We have no control. We can’t make adjustments, and where we have to do it as like, third party, but like, Hey, you should change this on your feeling well, we’re not experts on the feeling app. We’re not gonna be able to so to me, it’s a great idea, but it’s not quite open for everybody to use effectively.
Julie Young 36:05
That makes perfect sense. Jared, so I was going to move on to athletes coach. So Jared, you had some experience, right? You’ve got the free trial.
Jared Berg 36:15
I’m trying, I’m trying so hard. I’ve been in conversation, which is like this, like delayed conversation, because I think the app is somewhere in Europe. I think maybe Germany, and so you’re working with the developer there trying to set you up so you can’t just automatically set up with the provider account. And so my experience from it goes as deep as watching their video, as to how does the feeling app work for providers, right? And how does that work for the athlete? And from what I was watching, I just really liked the concept. So it really to me, like the idea that the app will give you recommendations based off of what your training is and what your daily eating styles are, it’ll tell you how much carbs, fat, protein need to have at each meal, how much you should target during your training, based off of what training peaks or you told it that you were doing. And then the cool thing about the app, you know, if it does work this way, I don’t have experience with it yet, because I’m not not set up on it yet, but it is supposed to adjust, sort of based off of what happened. So if you didn’t get in what you told the app you were gonna do, but then it saw what you did, it’ll say because you did this and you had this for breakfast. Well now this is what you need to have for your post workout recovery. Here’s what your lunch should look like, and it automatically adjusts all the total calories, and it’ll adjust the macros based off that information. So to me, that sounds amazing. They have a library of foods based off of some of the big databases around the world, and it’s in specific countries. I have an athlete that I want to try it out. The one hang up, I think, is I don’t think they’re in the normal us, sort of, we’d measure announces and cups and, you know, like, I don’t know, quarters of a tablespoon, whatever it says. It’s a little. They haven’t quite gotten there. They’re more in that, you know, I would say the metric scale, which is commendable. And, you know, super smart way to do it. But we’re not that smart in the US. So Well,
Julie Young 38:19
I did sign up. I signed up for the athletes version because I was the same as you Jared. I wasn’t able to get onto the coach’s cockpit, but I did guinea pig myself as an athlete, and it was my first experience using any of these types of apps, personally. And I thought it was pretty slick, and it was a total eye opener, and it cracked me up, because it’s like, I am so far off the mark. Oh, goodness. You know, all the things you tell your athletes to do, I was so far off the mark. And, I mean, I just really liked it, you know, it’s pretty simple, and I think that’s good enough to my knowledge. I don’t know Jared, I don’t know if this syncs with training peak, so can actually view more details about an athlete’s training plan, but I just entered pretty simple stuff, like FTP, like the nature of the ride intervals, endurance race time. And then prior to that, it asked all the demographic profiling, age, weight, kind of your goals, that sort of thing. But yeah, I think it’s pretty slick. Yeah.
Jared Berg 39:21
And didn’t it use, if I remember, right? It used, like a hair’s Benedict equation or another equation to predict your RMR,
Julie Young 39:27
yeah, one was that was more athletically inclined, yeah. So, I mean,
Jared Berg 39:31
I feel like it’s asking and it’s doing a lot of the right things. So to me, that seems the most promising. And when, remember, when you introduced me to it, I got real excited about it, so I’m definitely still interested in wanting to sort of try out and see it from a provider standpoint, because I feel like that’s what feeling was maybe trying to do, but doesn’t offer for providers, right? And so it’s like, hey, if I can actually be in the background in the dashboard, helping the athlete populate their resting metabolic rates. Was able to test it in my lab, and then I can help figure out if the workouts need to be adjusted or not, or the FTP is giving the right output, and we can really dial things in. That’s powerful
Julie Young 40:10
for me. And as I’ve said, you know, along the way here, we’re not looking for perfection, but for me, just my personal experience is like, wow, I have some things I can do to get better, not to hit every single value absolutely perfectly, but it was a big eye opener for me. Yeah, that’s awesome to hear. I guess my one thing I would be curious to know if it can sync with training peaks and like in that case, then maybe it would be thinking of the whole week as a sequence, as opposed to isolated workouts, and advising based on those isolated workouts. So something to be determined.
Jared Berg 40:41
Yeah, you bring up a good point that kind of wanted to make sure I mentioned is just the natural ability I kind of went into this earlier of the body to regulate and adjust. And some of that’s good, some of that’s bad, but say, like, I think training peaks, you know, it’s logging all of the work that we’ve done in our training. You know, whether it’s all biking or swimming and running and biking and lifting, we can get pretty good estimate. It’s still an estimate of energy expenditure. Well, when you see a big day, right? You might see something like 5000 calories were expended today. Right? Now, you’re thinking like these apps are going to try to ask you to consume 5000 calories. That’s a big ask, and that may not happen, right? So with that in mind, we have to respect that, you know, what? If we do pretty good, maybe we just focus on the carbohydrates and not worry about the total volume of energy expenditure and rely a little bit of our body to regulate itself and allow us to sort of satisfy hunger the next day, or the, you know, two days later, and make up for some of those carbohydrates, then we’re going to be in a good spot. However, if, like you kind of mentioned, I was way off the mark, right? Well, for not letting our body naturally, sort of cueing into its natural hunger, right? Then our body might sort of down regulate itself. It might just start sort of slowing its metabolism down. It might try to just conserve calories and maybe try to store a little extra as fat. And then we’re wondering, Hey, why is our body composition off? Or why is my energy always low? And so those are the things that maybe, using the numbers that we get from these apps can help us override this thing that we’re missing with down regulated metabolism.
Griffin McMath 42:26
We did also want to touch on MyFitnessPal and chronometer, and host Trevor Connor has had a lot of experience with both, so we asked him to share his thoughts with us.
Trevor Connor 42:35
I’ve used both My Fitness Pal and chronometer pretty extensively, so I’m pretty familiar with both apps and definitely have my preference. I’m still using chronometer, but let’s dive into each start with my fitness pal. It’s probably the most popular nutrition app out there. They have a very large number of people that are using it, I would say, in terms of just a simple app where it’s easy to record what you’re eating. It’s no frills, but it really gets the job done. It integrates well with training peaks. It’s a really good choice. Their approach is a little more kind of open source. With their nutrition information, anybody can enter food. So if you are a MyFitnessPal user and you put a food in there, it goes into their master database, and then anybody can see that food, and there’s pros and cons. Of that nice side is there’s hardly a food that exists that you can’t find in the app, but you don’t always know how good the information is and how thoroughly it was filled out. So when I was using my fitness pal pretty extensively, I think it was great for tracking calories, protein, fat and carbohydrates. I know that’s what Jared really cares about. I think it did a great job for that. It was just a good, decent way to track the basic information for my nutrition. But if I wanted to go deeper, if I really wanted to get into the nutrient values, the micronutrients, which I do find important, that’s actually what I personally look at more it just never really provided what I wanted. And that led me to chronometer, which takes a very different approach, and I would say scientifically, this is the deepest of the apps. If you go to their website or use their app, you can constantly link to articles that are going to tell you the values of different ratios, the values of different nutrients, but more importantly, they are connected to several the main accepted nutrition databases. So these are the databases that would be used by rds, by researchers, where they did a pretty rigorous breakdown of the nutritional content of the various foods. And this is really important, because some of the databases are better than others. You know, again, you when you look at something like My Fitness Pal, somebody’s entering the information, you just don’t know if they did a really accurate job with it. With Coronavirus, they show you, whenever you pick a food what database it comes from, and that really allows you to. Know which information you can trust, for example, if it’s coming from the ncch database, you know this is pretty scientifically validated. This is good information about that particular food. I always use the ncch database when I can in chronometer, because it’s one of the few that will actually break down the polyunsaturated fatty acids into omega threes and Omega six, which is really important for me. And surprisingly, a lot of these databases don’t show potassium content of the food. And again, that ncch database has that. So when you go into chronometer, it’s going to give you a huge amount of information about the micronutrient breakdown of your foods far more than any of the other databases. Of course, it gives you calories, it gives you protein, fat, carbohydrates. I know Jared is not a huge fan of this, but it’s going to show you metabolic support, mitochondrial support, all those sorts of things. But what I actually go immediately to in chronometer, because I’m less interested in counting calories. It has several of the key, really important ratios when you’re talking about health, our sodium to potassium ratio is really important. Omega three to omega six ratio is really important. Calcium, Magnesium ratio is really important. And then there’s several others. Those are the three I care the most about, and I actually look at those more than I look at my calories or my particular macro breakdown. So I would say codometer is the most science heavy of all the apps if you’re really trying to dig into analyzing the health side of your diet, it does integrate with training peaks. I find it integrates pretty decently. But I would say that’s kind of the differences between the tools. If you’re just looking for that basic, user friendly, simple tool, My Fitness Pal is great. If you’re looking for the deep science and really looking at the health side, I would definitely take a look at chronometer,
Jared Berg 47:02
healthy eating can be a challenge. Sports Nutrition is all about knowing what to eat, when, how much, and avoiding temptations that can derail your plans. I’m Jared Berg, and I’m a registered dietitian and exercise physiologist with fast talk labs. I’ve created a new eight week sports nutrition course to help you break old habits and establish healthier high performance feeling practices for years to come, learn more and get started on fasttalklabs.com look for athlete services and sports nutrition.
Julie Young 47:32
I would say, Jared to your point about the data, you know, it’s only as good as the input. I think these apps are doing a great job removing those barriers to make it easier to log, because it’s kind of cumbersome, and you’re kind of like, uh, and you get behind a little bit at the end of the day, and you’re like, oh my god, it feels like work. But now with these options to scan barcodes, it’s pretty slick,
Jared Berg 47:53
yeah, especially if that technology gets better at like, taking a scan of your plate and having it like, Hey, this is what I see on your plate. And, you know, I understand that a plate is this size and this much of it’s filled with this amount of food, and to be able to predict your macros and total calories just from looking at a plate, that would be the next level, right?
Julie Young 48:15
Yeah, definitely. So let’s start working towards wrapping up and focus a little bit on what we perceive as the value and perhaps the concerns of these apps. So why don’t we start with the values? What do you guys perceive as being valuable about these apps and features? I think
Griffin McMath 48:31
there’s a couple of different things that I really like about these apps and what they’re providing. First and foremost, especially when I was seeing patients, and that was be patients who were athletes, that’d be patients who were undergoing cancer treatment at the same time. I think any individual, as long as they’re screened for No, you know, disordered eating patterns or something like that, can benefit from a tool that acts as a reflector back to them that acts as a mirror. This is what’s going on. Did you know? And I can hear Trevor in the back of my mind right now, talking about certain interventions like, well, once you hit the pros, it’s only going to help, you know, X percentage when you get to that level. But I do think that the tools now that provide trends like we just mentioned a little bit ago, of stacking data and then saying, Are you aware of this as a big picture, can be really helpful, because the one downside sometimes, of analog dietary logging and the different symptoms and the activities that you do is that you can get so stuck in the details and get so lost in analyzing the data yourself, of like, oh well, this is exactly what happened that this is exactly what happened that we don’t necessarily get to step back and see greater trends that these tools are able to pull together automatically and over time. So I think that’s one of my favorite things. I think also just the sheer existence of these tools and how we’re able to introduce conversations, both in a clinical encounter and in a meeting with your coach, that you’re able to say how it gets used in your training protocol and how it gets used in your life. So I think. That share existence is a great conversation starter. And then lastly, I would say that a hot topic right now, especially you’re talking about macros. You’re talking about these nutrients. There’s a really big conversation happening across the country with our protein obsession. And so I think when a lot of athletes are talking about what nutrients that they actually need. Protein is having such a domination in the conversation right now that these apps might, if used responsibly, serve as a tool to bring some of these obsessive conversations into check. So as far as timely things, I think that these tools could help prove you don’t need to go off the deep end on some of these nutrients, and just be a great data point that can speak louder and more clearly than some of the social media influencers who are speaking to especially vulnerable athletes who think this is the way to make their gains. What are
Jared Berg 50:52
your thoughts? Jared, I feel like as far as the pros and the cons of the apps, the biggest pro Griffin mentioned it is that reflection, that ability for you to think about how you’re energizing your body, what are you getting in? How much are you getting in, and how is that nourishing your daily life and your training life? And to me, that’s like the biggest thing that these apps can provide, if you’re not quite sure, if you’re actually, you know, meeting the needs of a specific workout, and that, you know, the app can sort of help you, like, think about it, and give you, you know, some tools and just figure out how many, you know, how many carbohydrates are in this particular food that I ate, how much fat is in my diet in General, and is maybe, if I look at my macronutrients, I’m could, you know, cut a little bit of fat out, add a little bit more carbohydrate, make sure my protein stays at this specific level, right? Because I will see athletes who have a challenge with getting enough energy in on the daily, and they’ll end up leaning towards fat, because fat is just easier. You don’t have to eat as much of it to meet your daily energy needs. Well, is that really doing the athlete justice? Yes, it is. I mean, the bottom line is making sure that we’re in good energy balance, especially for the athlete I’m describing, right however, we can do it even better if we get the carbohydrates more dialed, and we have proteins at a certain level, so we’re taking it one step further, and that one step further is going to improve recovery. It’s going to energize workouts, and it could also help with mood and help with sleep. All these different things can be affected when we’re we’re using these apps wisely, or we’re, you know, ideally, we’re cuing in to our natural hunger and satiety cues or feedback. The apps just give us a little bit more accountability and information. But they shouldn’t be the end all, and we can definitely get obsessive on every aspect of our life, and we have to, you know, remember that there’s more than just fueling with food, there’s enjoyment, there’s culture, there is art with culinary and eating, and so we don’t want to lose that and have that All lost in some application on our phone. I totally
Julie Young 53:22
agree. So I think for me, the value is just building more accurate awareness in terms of what we think we’re doing and what we’re actually doing. And I know it’s been said about other devices, but it does gamify it, and it’s kind of fun, and I hate to call them habits, but you know, kind of gamifies better habits, and just generally, like we’ve said all along, it’s we’re not striving for perfection. We’re just striving to move to a better place. And I think it can do that. I think my concern is, as we’ve discussed, like these different personalities that we’re dealing with, and kind of understanding those personalities, and I think an endurance sport where power to weight ratio is so critical as an endurance athlete, weight can be a very slippery slope. So I think being very mindful and aware of that, and again, I think it really depends on the person. And I think, as I also touched on just not turning your mind and your total decision making over to devices and AI and data, but just using it you know better understand yourself and better inform decisions.
Griffin McMath 54:23
I love that part too, Julie, because I think you know as preparing for this episode and looking at how someone is utilizing a tool like this, one of the best questions that I saw that people were saying to their athletes was, what does this app not know about you, that it should what’s missing here, that the app doesn’t know about you, that if it knew, it might make a different recommendation. And simply by asking an athlete that question, or telling you know, the athlete to start thinking about that helps them not only create a buffer between them and the app, and it being that kind of Almighty effect. That we talked about, but also helps them take this recommendation, that it might pop out as not medical advice, not guaranteed, and applying critical thinking of, Oh, it doesn’t understand that this and you’re again creating this empowered user. So I think that was one of my favorite ways to utilize this and to keep it in check.
Julie Young 55:21
So Jared, if you were to kind of take the best of all worlds, so we’re not just going to totally hand everything over to devices and apps and but like in your practice, for example, where you’re working one on one with athletes, but you’re also implementing some of these apps and this technology. What do you propose as the best of all worlds, where you can have that good knowledge base, and then just kind of be guiding yourself, or maybe working with someone like yourself, just kind of coupling it all together good knowledge and using some of this technology.
Jared Berg 55:50
So best of all worlds, it would be using this app to really understand your energy needs, right, maintain energy balance. Figure out how your macros are dialed and use the app for that purpose. Don’t rely on it like a crutch. Don’t become obsessive over it. Take a break every now and then that break should almost be an education opportunity itself to release 10 How well do I do on my own? How good are my hunger and satiety cues if I just listen to my sort of inner voices, and you know what I feel like I need, so definitely, like, on and off, that would be like the best of both worlds, being able to, like, eat, well, intuitively, right? And then being able to, like, you said, gamify, match up as good as you possibly can, inside that app with your energy in and your energy out. And then going even deeper into the best of all worlds would be to check in with your blood work, see how your nutrition is doing, meet with your physician, meet with an RD, see if there’s any sort of holes or areas in your nutrition that that app will never be able to see, and to see if is there anywhere that we can improve based off of, like Griffin has mentioned, off of those more subjective measures, like, how do you feel you’re doing? How are you feeling in and around your training and your daily life? You know, where’s your mood, where’s your sleep? In combining all those things together and having conversation with your coach, you know, with an RD, with the physician or other, you know, nutrition type practitioner, and really sort of dialing things in, keeping smart about as much as you possibly can.
Griffin McMath 57:35
It’s interesting that you say that about how that data gets used over the years and Jared, I’m sure that you saw this in your education to become an RD. Clinical Decision models over the years have been pretty fascinating diagrams with patients now being at the center right, or even historically, this hierarchy. And when it comes to apps like these, and I was looking at best practices for implementation, I saw a conversation about tiered decision models and how the first tier, the very, very base one, which is like the bottom, is all of this data, and that’s almost the least important data that you can be incorporating into a hierarchical Decision Model. Incorporating this the next one would be your own personal history. So the last time I did this particular ride under fueled, I bumped. So I know from having done this before, this is what I need to do. And then this next tier up being your body feedback. So again, the things that we prioritized and that final call being you personally, the athlete you’re making the decision, not the app. So I think it’s really important for people to keep in mind there is a hierarchy here.
Jared Berg 58:46
There is, yeah, that’s a great illustration. I love that.
Julie Young 58:48
Yeah, that’s a good visual. Griffin. So Jared, you’ve been on this podcast before, so you kind of know how we wrap up with your one minute kind of summary wrap up of the episode. So I’ll let you take it away.
Jared Berg 59:01
So I definitely feel like these apps, they can be a powerful, very useful tool, but we still need to cue into old fashioned sort of hunger and satiety cues, right? We need to listen to our bodies. We need to trust ourselves, but use these apps as a way to check to see how you know, how are we doing and can we do better? Right? These apps can provide some pretty good information on how much we need to do to recover, how many carbohydrates we can put into. You know, what our protein needs are based off of our resting metabolic rate. There’s all kinds of data that we can put in, but they are, again, like I mentioned before, only as smart as the information that we give them. And also, they are a work in progress. And so, you know, you can kind of help them grow as you grow as an athlete.
Julie Young 59:56
That’s great. Jared Griffin, anything else to add? I
Griffin McMath 59:59
would go. Back to setting up kind of a contract with yourself or with your coach about how you’re going to use this, understand that you can’t use this without a human and I think to sum up some of the comments I’ve talked about in building an empowered user, is before you open the app, asking yourself if you’re a coach listening or an RD, empowering the athlete to say, Okay, before you open the app and see what the app has to say to you, what’s your evaluation? What’s your analysis? What do you think the data would show? And then start to be able to build up that confidence over time, to understand your body, to understand the symptoms that you’re experiencing, to understand your hunger and satiety signals, to start to build your own kind of wisdom with your body and how you need to fuel or how you need to recover. So I think one of my favorite things is this is a really great tool, but do not underestimate that the learned data that will be provided to you by any of these tools can be really, really great when you look at the learned tool attached to your neck, right that brain. So if you try to build up your own model at the same time, maybe that’s the part that really needs to be gamified.
Julie Young 1:01:14
So for me, I think the biggest thing that comes up is that it’s still individual. Like everything else, it’s always individual. I think a lot of times we want to be told in absolutes, do this and this, and nutrition, like so many other things, is just so far from that. And so I think, as with everything, it just takes time experimenting. Obviously, you want to be working with those best practices, whether that’s working, you know, one on one with Jared, you know, in conjunction with some of this technology, or you want to, you know, give this technology a go. But you know, even with those ranges, you’re still going to take time to experiment different rides, like Griffin had pointed out, you know, just kind of being really cognizant of how you’re responding to these different fueling strategies with different training sessions, and just continue to just dial it in for yourself, because initially, you know you’re probably going to be working with some pretty big ranges, and then eventually, through experimentation and just experience, you’re going to be able to really dial in those ranges for yourself.
Griffin McMath 1:02:13
Well, that’s a great wrap up on your inaugural episode as a fast talk co host here, Julie, that was great. Thanks.
Julie Young 1:02:20
I enjoyed that. That was super fun.
Griffin McMath 1:02:23
So here’s this episode’s question for the forum, do you or have you used one of these nutrition apps? Maybe it’s just a feature. If so, what was your experience? Head over to forums.fasttalklabs.com, to participate. That was another episode of fast talk. The thoughts and opinions expressed on fast talk are those of the individual subscribe to fast talk wherever you prefer to find your favorite podcasts, be sure to leave us a rating and a review. As always, we love your feedback. Tweet at us at at fast talk labs, join the conversation@forums.fasttalklabs.com or learn from our experts@fasttalklabs.com for Brent buchwalter, Dr Paul Larson, Jared Berg, Julie young and Trevor Connor. I’m Dr Griffin McMath. Thanks for listening. You.
