We distilled decades of experience into the most impactful nutrition concepts for athletes.
Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Chris Case: Hey everyone. Welcome to Fast Talk, your source for the science of endurance performance. I am your host, Chris Case here with Trevor Connor, Jared Berg, and Julie Young. Between the four of us, there is a wealth of knowledge about nutrition principles and practices. I’d say about a century of experience.
If I had to guess. So since I like to propose absurd things, I suggested the idea of sifting through all that we know about nutrition and distilling it into a list of the five most important ideas of all. Obviously an impossible task. You might even say ridiculous, but here we are. You need not know anything else about nutrition except for these five things.
Here we are. Jared chose maintain energy balance for optimal performance. I chose embrace the idea that food is fuel. Trevor selected eat nutrient dense foods. Of course he did. Julie went with the importance of protein. And finally, I guess because what list would be complete without a little rant. I also chose don’t believe the hype.
Most nutrition products are overpriced candy. To be fair, these are all critical concepts, and as you’ll hear, they’re inextricably linked with one another. As so many things are in sports science and particularly in nutrition. Interestingly, many of the tips lead to discussions that take us un unexpected directions, which makes for a very compelling conversation.
Before we begin, today’s episode is brought to you by Samira, MD and Trevor. This is a supplement company. In the past, you’ve been quite hesitant to work with and support supplements, but this company is different. Very different. Tell us why.
[00:01:49] Trevor Connor: Yeah. We’ve had supplement companies reach out to us and it’s been pretty much a no right from the start.
We had Dr. Shaef on the show a few weeks ago to talk to us about the immune system as a a doctor. It’s something he knows a lot about and we had a really lengthy offline conversation with him where I was really impressed with their mission to the point that we asked him, said, please come sponsor the show.
[00:02:12] Chris Case: Mm-hmm.
[00:02:13] Trevor Connor: Because we like what you’re about. He is an MD and he has seen over the years. How quickly doctors, you know, in his case he works mostly with heart patients, how quickly doctors will go to major surgery or very powerful medication with also very powerful side effects. Almost immediately. And he really felt there has to be an intermediary step.
There has to be something that we can do with people before we do something that, well, it may save their lives, there’s gonna be consequences also for the rest of their lives. And he just started digging into the research to see is there something more natural that can help these people? And some cases he didn’t find any things.
In a lot of cases he did find things. And when there was a ton of research. He would just start creating, and it was just for his patients. Initially, he would just start creating these supplements for them and found out that it helped, and this led him to create this company. But unlike other supplement companies, this is my issue, other supplement companies have everything under the sun.
Thousands of different supplements. Most of them have no science about them. They might have kind of half a study that sort of says something that everybody jumps on. And the other issue you see with a lot of supplement companies is they often go with the cheapest form of whatever. Particularly you see that with multivitamins.
Mm-hmm. You look at the forms that. The multivitamin companies use it, usually the most un bioavailable form.
[00:03:37] Chris Case: Mm-hmm. A
[00:03:37] Trevor Connor: great example is B six. Often they use a form of B six. It has a purine ring attached to it. Our bodies can’t use it with the purine ring attached, and we can’t remove the purine ring, so we can’t really use that form of B six.
But it looks great on the packaging saying, oh, it’s got all this B six in it.
[00:03:54] Chris Case: Mm-hmm.
[00:03:54] Trevor Connor: Likewise, most multivitamins have folic acid in them. Folic acid doesn’t exist in nature. Folate exists in nature. Folic acid was created in the lab, so this is not what they do. They have, I think, 35, maybe 40 products. All of which started with, here’s a problem, here’s an issue that we need to address.
Here’s what my patients are experiencing. Him looking into the research and saying, this seems to help. And then he creates a supplement to help, and these supplements do help. I remember on the episode he was talking about he’s got MDs up in Alaska that they’re ordering it because it’s really helping their patients as well.
Every single one of their supplements started with a Let’s solve a problem. Let’s find something that’s got science behind it, and then create the product and their products. He tries to go more natural. He does have a multivitamin, but it is created completely with ground up herbs. So that’s what this episode is about, is eat more natural nutrient dense foods.
This isn’t a multivitamin created in a lab. This is a multivitamin based on actual natural foods. So they’re doing a great thing. This is where supplements can actually really be beneficial, and we’re really proud to get behind them.
[00:05:03] Chris Case: Excellent.
[00:05:03] Trevor Connor: Be sure to check out Mira our trusted source for supplements@sera.com slash fast Talk and use code fast talk 15 at checkout for 15% off all products.
That’s FAST. T ALK one five for 15% off.
[00:05:21] Chris Case: All right, everybody grab some vegetables, maybe a bit of protein. Skip that candy. It’s time to fuel for performance. Let’s make you fast. I think this is gonna be a great episode. There’s so much you can talk about When it comes to nutrition, how are we describing it?
The five most important things to know about in all of nutrition. Huge statement. Not really possible, but I think it’ll lead to a very interesting conversation and we’ve all sort of thrown our ideas in the hat and come to a conclusion that these are the five we’re gonna talk about. There’s just plenty more that could also be deemed the most important things in nutrition.
[00:06:00] Trevor Connor: We could do a whole series on nutrition tips. Yeah. And just keep going. Yeah. So this is five, but all four of us threw in two ideas each, and we took a vote on the five that we wanted and. Chris is the lucky person I got to.
[00:06:13] Chris Case: I don’t have much to say apparently, but I have really good ideas.
[00:06:19] Trevor Connor: And Jared, back on the show, thanks for joining us.
[00:06:21] Jared Berg: Thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure.
[00:06:23] Trevor Connor: So you have our first tip?
[00:06:25] Jared Berg: Yeah, so I got the honor. I guess, or maybe the challenge of being a little more procrastinating, I guess. And so it’s a challenge. Yeah, the challenge, so like all you guys came up with some amazing ideas and you guys had your, like, I look over your four tips.
I’m like, oh man’s, now what am I? I gonna think of what’s left. Well, of course there’s lots of nutrition tips like Chris alluded to. So I came up with mine, which I feel like is a very simple. Overarching theme, but very, very relevant and super important, and that is maintaining energy balance for optimal performance.
And so we talk about energy balance. What does that mean in the most simplest forms? That means. We need to basically have the amount of calories that we’re taking in, in any given day or week match the amount of calories that we’re expending in that day or week or, or life, if you will. So that basically everything is sort of in balance and we do have that balance.
We are going to be fueling. You know, giving ourself the necessary energy for the workouts that we’re doing, the, the intensity, the intervals, the long endurance rides or runs, and that’s pretty simple. But I bring this up because very often. Athletes I’m working with are eating significantly less, basically have a lot less energy than they need to meet the demands of their training.
Right? We’ll do what are you eating in a specific day and try to do a comprehensive diet recall. We’ll plug it into all the, you know, the food banks or use ai and we compare that to how much you’re exercising and they will be significantly. Lower. And then what does that mean? You know, from a performance standpoint, it really undermines their ability to produce power and their interval workouts or to go longer, stronger in their endurance rise or runs or.
Whatever training they’re doing, and there are lots of challenges or pitfalls that can happen when we are in low energy balance. When we’re in negative energy balance, lots of things happen with our physiology, right? We end up with a slower metabolism, right? That metabolism can be slower during exercise, and that’s basically gonna result in lower work output.
Poorer performance. We’re gonna even have a slower metabolism when not exercising. You might have less general movement through your day, less fidgeting. You might show up by having cooler body temps. You just don’t feel as energetic. You’re gonna have less energy from eating food simply ’cause you’re not eating as much food, so you don’t get thermogenic effect of food digestion.
Then we also can have reduction in our hormones, including our thyroid hormones, our testosterone. Then we’re gonna end up with that low energy balance. We’re gonna really end up with a loss of active tissue, that being our muscles. So when we get low energy balance, we have to get energy from somewhere.
And a lot of times what we’re gonna do is get energy from protein stores. And where we store protein, we store protein in our muscles, so we’re actually gonna lose our muscles, and then we can have general low energy through our day lethargy, those type of feelings. And. Also there is with low energy, we all know that we could have decreased bone density and you know, sort of those osteoporotic kind of concerns.
[00:09:51] Chris Case: The biggest question that I think a lot of people will have is, how the heck do I know if I’m in energy balance?
[00:09:58] Jared Berg: Yeah, that’s a good question From a physiological standpoint. I have the tools to help people understand I can do a resty metabolic rate. I can do a metabolic test and we can figure out how many calories that somebody is burning in their day without exercise while they’re doing exercise.
And you can really get into the woods for how much energy expenditure is happening. And then you have to be really good at accounting your.
[00:10:23] Chris Case: Caloric intake
[00:10:24] Jared Berg: and things. YeahOr intake. Yeah. Through all those apps,
[00:10:26] Trevor Connor: you know, day to day it’s really hard to track. You know, people count their calories, they’ll step on the scales and get estimates of how many calories they burn per day.
But the margin of error is two, 300 calories. And the, the key point they make is the difference between somebody who’s in the obese category and somebody who’s quite thin. It can just be two, 300 calories per day. So the margin of air is actually quite big. So trying to track every day and figure out exactly how much you’ve eaten, how much you’ve burned is difficult.
But over time, if you’re in low energy availability state, you’re gonna lose weight. If you’re consuming more than you are burning, then you’re gonna gain weight over time.
[00:11:10] Jared Berg: Yeah. And I find this interesting paradigm though, when some people will be in a low energy state and they’ll say to me, well, I’m not losing weight, right?
And why is that? And it’s sort of interesting. And I’ll be like, well. Probably ’cause of some of these symptoms that I illustrated. Mm-hmm. Just a little bit ago, I discussed a little bit ago, and that is your metabolism is significantly downregulated,
[00:11:34] Trevor Connor: so this is the thing your body’s going to adjust. So it’s the, there’s two sides to it.
There’s how much you’re eating, how many calories are you taking in, but how many hour calories are you expending? And that can change. As you said, metabolism slows down. Another thing you can see in a low energy state is brown adipose tissue shuts down, which is just fat tissue that burns calories.
[00:11:56] Jared Berg: You can also key in a little bit on even some of these symptoms that I mentioned, like.
Do you feel low energy? Like in general, in your day, do you feel a little bit low? Are you cold? So if you kind of notice some of those symptoms, that might be an indication that you’re low energy balance.
[00:12:14] Trevor Connor: I think it’s important to recognize the level of the energy deficit. So let’s put aside the fact that we just said there’s a big margin of error.
Let’s say that you could track it every day. I always tell athletes, if you are in a a hundred, 200 calorie deficit, it’s not gonna have that big a, a performance impact on you. It’s when you see athletes going, okay, I really need to lose weight, and they start trying to do a thousand calorie deficit or a six, 700 calorie deficit, so they’re dramatically under consuming.
That’s where you rapidly see ’em start going through these symptoms, loss of energy, everything else. So if you’re trying to lose weight, you know, just having that little bit of deficit and losing the weight over time is, is gonna be a more effective way.
[00:12:58] Chris Case: We asked exercise physiology researcher Dr. Jamie Whitfield for his most important thing you need to know about nutrition and here’s what he had to say.
[00:13:09] Jamie Whitfield: I think the most important thing that I’ve learned through my experience in research, but also working with athletes is people are never actually fueling as much as they think they are. And so being aware of what you’re actually consuming and not obsessing over it, but making sure that you’re actually fueling for the work required is probably my biggest tip.
It’s super easy to think, oh, this is just a low intensity ride. I’m not really gonna work around consuming anything on the bike. But if you’re doing that for, you know, three, four hours or doing that a couple times a week and you’re not consuming anything while you’re on that bike, that can be quite an energy deficit that you start to build up.
Over time. So it’s not just one single training session, one single race. It’s about building up consecutive days and weeks and months, and that’s how training works. And Nutrition’s no different. And so probably the most common piece of feedback I get with a lot of our performance based studies where we’re giving a standardized breakfast that’s say two grams per kilo of carbohydrate, which is.
Consistent with what nutritional recommendations are for a pre-race meal, just about every single person says, this is way more food than I would ever eat before a race or before a big training ride. And so that’s usually an indication of, well, maybe you’re not actually fueling as much as you think you are.
And so that would probably be my biggest piece of advice is I think that the days of needing to do fasted training are hopefully behind us and providing energy allows you to do more work. Each training session and hopefully day on day. And so as opposed to worrying about that caloric deficit, realize that what you’re doing is you’re actually providing your body with fuel so that you can do the type of training that’s being asked of you.
[00:14:57] Chris Case: We also spoke with nutrition expert Angelo Poey, who had this to say.
[00:15:03] Angelo Poli: I think that people should look at the whole fasting thing in endurance sports. I’m not sure why, but just a trend that I’ve been noticing over the last few years is I have a lot of endurance athletes asking me about fasting windows.
I understand there are documented health benefits, but I feel like there may be some missed. Understanding in the community when it comes to performance and recovery. And so I feel like that’s a kind of a hot topic right now that I think athletes in particular should look at, look into the latest research and more research should be done.
Although there is a good amount on, you know, glycogen replenishment and things like that to really help the average weekend warrior identify who the fasting scenarios apply to in an optimal setting and who should avoid it.
[00:16:00] Trevor Connor: Well, we got five tips, so I think we need to move on to the next one, Chris. Yeah, let’s hit your first one.
[00:16:07] Chris Case: Yeah, I wanna share the idea, but I want it to be a little bit more conversational because I feel like the concept. Is a good one, but everybody deals with it perhaps in a slightly different way. That is this idea that food is fuel before training, during training, and after training or after exercise of any kind.
Embracing that mentality that food is fuel necessary for. Preparing for the activity, maintaining the activity, and recovering from the activity is a really, I think, a really powerful concept that can help people. And I feel like in some ways goes hand in hand with what Jared has talked about fueling life, but also fueling the exercise itself so that you get the biggest rewards out of that activity.
So I think there’s ways for people to. Conceptualize this and embrace this idea, and it can be different for different people. I’ll give an example, and Trevor, you’re distracting me with your smile over there. Well, I can’t wait to hear what you have to say. Trevor thinks of himself as a Ferrari. Mm-hmm.
[00:17:19] Trevor Connor: Do I?
[00:17:21] Chris Case: No. You’re probably think of yourself more as a Chevy Tahoe. Something like that, like a, you know, family
[00:17:27] Jared Berg: cruiser kind of
[00:17:29] Trevor Connor: family. I’m just waiting for him to get down to like a fiat and
[00:17:31] Chris Case: No, we’re not gonna go,
[00:17:33] Trevor Connor: just gonna go show.
[00:17:35] Chris Case: Go for a line. You’re definitely not French.
[00:17:38] Trevor Connor: I was, I am Canadian.
[00:17:39] Chris Case: You French people.
Hey, I mean that’s, I think French people would think that’s slightly offensive, but in a case, let’s talk about food now.
[00:17:46] Trevor Connor: Ouch.
[00:17:49] Chris Case: I don’t necessarily like this analogy, but if you are thinking about yourself as a car. You gotta put the right fuel in the car before you go to the racetrack. During the race, you’ve gotta put fuel in the car so you can maintain speed, high speeds and all that sort of stuff.
And then of course, after you don’t necessarily put the high octane stuff in the tank again for recovery. You put in healthier stuff. It’s a bad analogy. There’s flaws with it, but that’s the concept that I’m getting at. Trevor, since you are smiling, I’m gonna have. Turn it over to you for a second here. I just want to know what’s on your mind.
[00:18:26] Trevor Connor: You honestly wanna know what I was thinking about?
[00:18:28] Chris Case: Nothing related to anything.
[00:18:30] Trevor Connor: It’s appropriate for this show. Yeah, I was thinking about Family Guy.
[00:18:34] Chris Case: Family guy. Tell us more.
[00:18:36] Trevor Connor: There was, I haven’t seen that show in years.
[00:18:38] Chris Case: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:38] Trevor Connor: But there was an episode where Brian, the dog’s. So Brian gets into running marathons.
[00:18:44] Chris Case: Okay.
[00:18:44] Trevor Connor: And gets obsessive about it. And he is driving the whole family nuts. And at one point they’re having dinner and they offer him food. And he is like, food is fuel, man. Food, fuel. I can’t eat that stuff. And when you said your thing is food is fuel, that’s all I could think of. And they all wanted to kill him.
[00:19:00] Chris Case: Okay. Do you think of food as fuel?
[00:19:05] Trevor Connor: I used to be big on this expression. I am moving away from it a little bit.
[00:19:09] Chris Case: Mm. Okay.
[00:19:10] Trevor Connor: I will be honest with you there because I like the idea of you’re trying to take care of your body. So I think of food as nutrition.
[00:19:18] Chris Case: Mm-hmm.
[00:19:19] Trevor Connor: And you really want to give your body the right nutrition, keep it functioning well to keep your energy levels up.
A whole lot of important aspects to nutrition. But you know, for example, getting ready for this episode, there was a recent review that came out that I found interesting and, and went through a couple days ago. Called the diet quality of athletes is measured by diet quality indices, a scoping review, and basically it says that athletes tend to eat a pretty low quality diet.
[00:19:49] Chris Case: Mm-hmm.
[00:19:50] Trevor Connor: And that affects both performance and ultimately really impacts health. And part of the reason for that is because of this attitude of food is fuel.
[00:19:59] Chris Case: Mm-hmm.
[00:19:59] Trevor Connor: And what you see in these athletes is they forget about. Food having all these nutritional values, they just look at it for performance and they focus purely on carbohydrates and protein.
So you know, the strength athletes try to get a lot of protein. The endurance athletes are trying to get a lot of carbohydrates and it pushes them towards eating a lot of processed foods and going. Well, I’m eating great. ’cause this is all this sports nutrition. When it’s now, and this is gonna be, get to your final point.
[00:20:28] Chris Case: Mm-hmm.
[00:20:28] Trevor Connor: They’re actually eating pretty low quality food, but going, yeah, I’m fueling my body. Right.
[00:20:33] Chris Case: Yeah. There’s lots of things to discuss about this topic that’s an interpretation of the word fuel. There’s many ways you can define the word fuel, right? And we’re gonna get to this with other tips. I define fuel as nutrient dense food, giving the body what it needs at certain times, and it needs other things at certain times.
So maybe that’s a more nuanced. Definition of fuel in that it shifts from time to time and it can be appropriate at certain times and inappropriate at other times.
[00:21:04] Julie Young: I’d love to jump in because Trevor, what you describe in that review that you mentioned is something that just came up. With an athlete who I coach.
His mom had reached out to me, he’s a high school mountain bike athlete, and his mom had reached out and basically the mom was like, oh my gosh, he’s driving me crazy. All he is eating is like rice and chicken and pasta and this. It’s, I mean, just as you described, just like focused on. Carb and protein and really just no variety whatsoever.
So not thinking about the micronutrients, just obsessed with getting those macronutrients. And you know, just for me it’s like I love to eat. I love like the different flavors, different ethnic foods and that sort of thing. And I think it’s a bit of a shame when we just get so robotic in our eating. But with this.
Young athlete. I had a conversation with him just encouraging him like, Hey, this is, and he’s actually heading off to college next year. And so it’s like, Hey, maybe this is an opportunity to take some cooking lessons, like learn to cook, expand your repertoire. And I do think it’s also a really nice thing for athletes too, just to.
Kind of immerse themselves in that, like when they come home from training, I know sometimes you just want leftovers outta the fridge, but you know, to really prepare good foods for yourself and just make it more of an event, keep that social piece to it. And then along with that comes like probably eating better, having more variety, not just focused on, I’m gonna eat a bunch of pasta and a bunch of chicken.
[00:22:35] Trevor Connor: You think about the different ways you can view food, there’s certainly the food is about enjoyment, so, mm-hmm. You have the foodie approach and it’s all about the taste and the experience of the food. And then there’s the, you know, food is nutrition. That’s how we take care of our bodies. And then Chris, as you said, that’s kind of how you view this.
Mm-hmm. When you say food is fuel, but there’s a lot of athletes who look at it differently and very much simplify it down to it’s protein, it’s carbs, and it’s literal fuel. Yeah. All they care about is the energy side of it. Mm-hmm.
[00:23:06] Jared Berg: It becomes a pretty interesting situation when we do have athletes going out and they’re riding for.
4, 5, 6 hours and that’s where like food as feel becomes super relevant because there’s no enjoyment about trying to stuff carbohydrates down you just in order to keep going for that next hour. So you end up with a situation where you need, need to get whatever you can. You, however, there is an opportunity if you can just plan ahead, right?
And you can think about, do I need to just have so much Carb X or whatever it is during my ride in order to maintain it? Or what if I had. Two bananas. I had some apple slices in my jersey in a Ziploc bag, and I had some nuts and seeds and some, you know, dry cereal. Something with a little bit more nutrient benefit.
If you, if you do that in addition to some of the other stuff you need, you can really do a lot to give you exactly the carbohydrates and the type of simple calories that you need to keep going, but also have a little bit of nutrient density so you’re not just having sugar. The entire time, so just take some forethought.
[00:24:20] Trevor Connor: That’s what I was gonna kind of say is I think all three of those views of food, particularly for athletes, have a place.
[00:24:27] Jared Berg: Mm-hmm.
[00:24:28] Trevor Connor: I obviously put a lot more weight on the food as nutrition side, but I think all three of them have weight. And I’ll tell you, we were asked to recently review a nutrition app, and I’m not gonna give the name.
And it ended up just saying, I can’t fully back this app, because it was, it was a sports nutrition app, and all it did was recommend protein, carbs, fat, you know, here’s how much protein you need today. Here’s how much carbohydrate you need today. Here’s how much fat you need today. And I was looking through the app, like, where’s the rest of it?
Are you getting the micronutrients that you need? What are the sources of the protein, carbs and fat didn’t recommend any of that. Mm-hmm. It was just pure, here’s the ratio of those three things that you need, and I think you’re missing out on that. Technically is food is fuel.
[00:25:12] Chris Case: Mm,
[00:25:12] Trevor Connor: exactly. So I think you’re missing out on something important if that’s all that you look at.
[00:25:16] Chris Case: The more I think about this sentence and the way I wrote it, the more it actually, yes, I like the conversation. I think there’s lots of ways to define food, whether it’s fuel, nutrition, et cetera. I think the other point that I was getting at here is that I feel like a lot of people. The act of fueling becomes secondary.
They’re rushed. They get outta work. They’re like, oh, I have an hour before it gets dark. I’m gonna do a workout. Then they don’t eat anything, and then they do the workout under fueled nothing on the bike. Then they get off the bike. Then they maybe, oh crap, I don’t have anything in my refrigerator. They go to the grocery store, they spend an hour there.
They finally get home. They have a meal. So point being people are busy. People don’t take the time to fuel. Quote unquote fuel properly for the workout, and then it hinders adaptation.
[00:26:09] Jared Berg: So true. It, there’s just, it’s just a missed opportunity. If you’re not feeling appropriately before a workout, when you’re about to open up all your cells and all your muscles to take in those carbohydrates and use them to allow you to do amazing work, that’s a missed opportunity.
If you’re not having it during, and you need it, you’re just gonna slow yourself down. And then after there’s that window. Your body is most open to pulling in glucose into the muscles. It’s most open to rebuilding muscle fibers within that sort of 15 minutes or so for the carbohydrate within 30 minutes or so.
For the protein, you want to give yourself the best possible opportunity to get recovered and to do your workouts as strong as possible.
[00:26:57] Julie Young: Yeah, and I think just jumping into that, Jared, pretty much what you said, but I think big picture and kind of 30,000 foot view is that ability. To do it day after day and do it well is just basically what you said, but also keeping the immune system supported.
I think athletes tend to forget, like one of the best ways to stay on a positive trajectory is to reduce or avoid missed training due to illness. And I think we forget the connection here of, of how important this fueling is in terms of just staying healthy.
[00:27:31] Jared Berg: Yeah, agreed.
[00:27:34] Trevor Connor: Fast Talk listeners. We have exciting news.
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Just search for Fast Talk Labs and hit subscribe. This is all kind of segued into my nutrition tip. We’ve already kind of been talking about it, but to me it’s the most important one, particularly with athletes. ’cause like we said, a lot of athletes start really focusing on those macronutrients, the carbohydrates, protein, and fat.
And forget that you’re eating food. And my biggest tip is eat nutrient-dense foods because we need more than just carbs, protein, and fat. And you know, we hear a lot about the vitamins and minerals you need, but when they do studies of people that take a multivitamin, ’cause they go, well, I could just get them all through a multivitamin.
And look at longevity. Look at health consequences. You see the people who consume the most vitamins or people who are really focused on multivitamins actually live shorter lives, see more disease. It’s not because the multivitamin is causing it, it’s because they’re taking all these vitamins that compensate for the fact that they’re not eating whole foods and you can’t supplement your way around it.
We’ve talked about these on the show before as well, but a lot of these nutrients you need in the right ratios. So for example, you can talk about, yes, we need calcium, magnesium, but you actually need calcium and magnesium in a ratio of two to one. If your ratio is too low, you start seeing heart disease in people.
If the ratio is too high. You really start seeing risk for heart disease go up and something you don’t see reported a lot in the media, but you do see in the research is women are now exceeding men in heart disease, and their explanation for that is because a lot of women to avoid osteoporosis are taking a calcium supplement and the average woman in America is consuming about 4.7 to one calcium to magnesium.
And that contributes a lot to heart disease. So how do you get the right ratios? Yeah. Unless you’re sitting there and cutting your supplements and trying to, it’s, you get it. If you eat natural foods, yeah, natural foods are gonna come in the correct ratios. Likewise, you see the same thing. There’s an important ratio of potassium to sodium.
And then on top of that, you know, we talked about the research of Dr. Bruce Ames, who’s over at Harvard. He’s 95 years old and still a full professor, so he has something to say about longevity. And he talks a lot about there are survival nutrients, so that’s the ones you always hear about, vitamin B and vitamin C, and magnesium and calcium and kind the key vitamins and minerals.
But there’s also what he calls longevity vitamins, but I really think of as longevity nutrients and points out. There’s a whole lot that we don’t even know. There’s probably a whole lot that you haven’t heard of. How many people have heard of AST Zan or PQQ or Quinones, and I can keep going with the giant list and all the different polyphenols.
Again, you can’t supplement your way to that. But they’re found in the foods you eat if you’re eating more, more nutrient dense whole foods.
[00:30:55] Chris Case: Yeah. And it gets, like you said, or alluded to, if somebody’s trying to hit all of these magic ratios and numbers, it gets really, really complicated. It would be overwhelming for the average person to first know what the correct ratios was and all that sort of thing, and then, and then hit them.
Right. But. Point being, if you eat Whole Foods and you reduce, greatly, reduce the processed foods that you eat, or eliminate them if you can, then you don’t have to put thought into it because it’s gonna happen automatically that you’re gonna get the right ratios and you’re gonna get all of these hard to pronounce nutrients.
In your diet. Exactly. Yep.
[00:31:39] Jared Berg: Yeah, I mean, it’s hard to be able to comprehend, but I mean, cupboard space, my gosh, you start trying to add in every single vitamin and nutrient and then all these extra amazing bioactive compounds that Trevor was talking about. It would take a whole. Kitchen and then some instead.
It’s already prepackaged in vegetables in the ratio and fruits and some of the proteins we get. Right. It’s just, it’s amazing.
[00:32:02] Trevor Connor: And that study I was citing that just came out that was talking about the fact that athletes aren’t getting the nutrients they need in this study. I believe they used the DQI, which is a diet quality indices.
So they used a, a couple different tests to evaluate the quality of the athlete’s diet. And it looks a lot at these, what sort of micronutrients are you getting? Are you getting them in the right ratios, the right quantities, and saying athletes are pretty poor. And that’s what they pointed to and said one of the issues is they don’t need enough fruit.
[00:32:31] Julie Young: You know, as you guys are talking and we’re saying it’s relatively simple to get those levels, if you just eat Whole Foods. To me, it seems like there might be situations where it’s more complicated. So for example, you have like a female endurance athlete who lives at altitude and who is vegetarian. Can you comment on that in terms of like iron and vitamin B, how those interact and the importance of that?
[00:32:56] Jared Berg: Yeah, that’s a big question and a very important area that definitely needs to be discussed. I would say first thing you’re gonna want to do before you try to come up with an intervention is you need to. Determine the needs. In order to determine those needs, you’re gonna have to do some, some assessments.
You’re gonna have to look at your, your blood work. You’re gonna have to do, you know, a ferritin assay and then you’re gonna have to do, you know, get all your CBCs, most specifically your red blood cell count. And then, um, sort of other. Markers of iron saturation. But once you get all that taken care of and you realize, yeah, there is a need for additional iron in my diet, then you have to come up with a strategy and how you’re gonna get that.
And you can certainly. Do really well with getting that iron from, from natural sources, including, you know, animal proteins. It can be a lot more challenging when you’re a vegetarian and that might warrant some supplementation, but just because of that bioavailability of iron from high iron foods like spinach and other leafy greens and, uh, you know, some nuts and seeds and stuff isn’t, it’s not there.
As much as it is with, uh, animal protein. So you might need to work with your doctor, your provider, to help you. Get your iron levels to an appropriate level. And also B12 is a big one that you mentioned too. You might have to do some supplementation with the B complex or B12 vitamin.
[00:34:25] Trevor Connor: So I think it’s time to move on to the next question, but where I’ll leave my tip with is just we did a ranking of the different classes of foods in terms of their nutrient density.
And for anybody who’s interested though, I don’t think there should be a surprise to anyone. If you’re really trying to focus on nutrient-dense foods, the five most nutrient dense food categories in order for most nutrient-dense is number one, vegetables, number two, seafood. Third is fruit, fourth is meats, and fifth is eggs.
Those are your most nutrient dense foods, so trying to get more of those in your diet is gonna help you get a lot more of the nutrients that you need. So Julie, let’s move on to your tip.
[00:35:06] Julie Young: So my tip is the importance of protein. We did take a deep dive into protein in episode 4 0 4, so listeners can take a listen to that one.
But first and foremost, it’s one of those sayings, and I think we’ve touched on this throughout our conversation. It’s one of those very simple yet. Effective strategies and easy to implement. I often find that endurance athletes seem to chase these very sensational, complicated strategies, but yet this is one that’s again, simple, easy to implement.
And the reason I feel it’s important to talk about this for athletes is that there is such a big difference in terms of. The RDA recommendation as opposed to what’s optimal for athletes. I was reading the couple papers that will be published as part of that UCI consensus on nutrition for cycling. Big overall paper project one was focused on mountain bikers and cyclocross athletes, and the other one periodization.
And in those two papers, the recommendation for cyclists was. 1.6 to 2.1 to 2.2 grams per kilogram. And that’s far different than what the RDA recommends. And the other reason I wanted to bring this up is it’s really how that protein is distributed across the day. That can be the game changer. My experience, it seems like the American diet is.
Little to no protein in the morning, like maybe a slice of Turkey at lunch and then a steak at dinner. But in order to really get the benefit of the protein intake, it’s, it’s that relatively consistent distribution across a day of 0.3 to 0.5 grams per kilogram every three to four hours. And then the other part of this that I think is super valuable is that idea of a little dose of.
Protein before you go to bed, to really take care of that eight to 10 hour overnight fast, and kind of compliment the growth hormone release with that amino acid availability. So, yeah, and I also think, you know, a lot of maybe newer athletes are bombarded by this idea of carbohydrate and they may start neglecting the importance of protein.
[00:37:21] Trevor Connor: I couldn’t agree more with everything that you’re saying. And if you remember, we, not all that long ago, had Dr. Phillips, who’s one of the top experts in the world on protein on the show. You know, I always, when I, I think about athletes, look at the recommendations to them, similar to how I look at it for elderly people, because you have a lot of sarcopenia, has loss of muscle tissue in the elderly athletes, same sort of thing.
You’re doing a lot of muscle damage. You’re always trying to. Rebuild muscle or grow muscle, so you, you have a lot of the same issues and some of the same demands. And Dr. Phillips had a really interesting paper looking at older adults and their needs, and some of the things he recommended in that paper was they should be having at least 0.4 grams per kilogram protein with every single meal.
So they should be, as you’ve been saying, Julie, you should be having it through the day and said that’s kind of a minimum. Below that, you don’t really see any muscle protein growth stimulus. That you need above a certain amount to kind of spark that. Okay, now we’re gonna start promoting muscle growth.
[00:38:26] Jared Berg: I really like when you start to use that 0.4.
You know, I think Julie said 0.3 to 0.5 grams per kilogram of body weight at each meal. So when you go into like rather around that 0.4 grams per kilogram and you use somebody who maybe weighs, like say go into like 60 to 65 kilograms. We do the math and at breakfast they should be shooting for, you know, if it was 0.4, that would be probably about be about 25 grams of protein, right?
And then the same thing at lunch. At dinner, naturally probably have a little bit more, but that might get us right up to 25 plus 25 and maybe 30, we’re right around 80 grams of protein for the day. And then we start to think about, hey, now if we just have that protein that we need after our workout within that sort of ideal 30 minute window for protein, and we’re shooting for, you know, 10 to 20 grams, that gets us up close to a hundred grams.
And then we have a little bit of protein at snacks. You know, if there’s some nuts and seeds. Maybe a little bit something before bed. Now we’re pretty easily getting up to that 115 to 120 grams that that individual who’s right around 60 kilograms or 65 kilograms would need. And we’re even nearing in on that like two times their body mass, which is really a pretty awesome amount for that athlete.
So that’s sort of me breaking down the math.
[00:39:50] Trevor Connor: I think another really important thing to point out, and this gets complicated, but I’m just gonna give the simple overview of this. Really important to remember that protein is satiating. So when you eat a high protein meal, you’re gonna feel quite full carbohydrates.
Particularly simple carbohydrates, when you’re not consuming them with fiber, spike your hunger so you can eat a whole lot of carbohydrates and come out of it. I want to eat more food. So going back to your point of, of energy balance.
[00:40:21] Jared Berg: Yes.
[00:40:22] Trevor Connor: So Julie, going back to your point about the trends are not to have a lot of protein with breakfast.
You know, my recommendation is definitely have some protein with every meal. It’s gonna leave you satiated.
[00:40:33] Jared Berg: Yeah. And then plus it’s gonna give you that sort of amino acid profile you need to turn on muscle making.
[00:40:40] Trevor Connor: Yeah.
[00:40:41] Julie Young: Speaking of that, Jared, another interesting point in this periodization paper that’s part of the UCI consensus, they had noted that typically the protein intake is higher on rest days as compared to training days.
Not necessarily for fuel substrate, but more for the. Anabolic signaling and tissue repair.
[00:41:01] Jared Berg: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. ’cause I mean, you’re just really feeling yourself with the foods you need for what you’re doing. And if you’re not doing much, you don’t need that sort of high octane carbohydrate feel to, you know, sit on your but and scroll through the gram or watch the Olympics.
[00:41:19] Trevor Connor: Right. No, that’s a really good point. The carbohydrates you need for the activity when you’re not exactly doing the activity, you don’t need them as much.
[00:41:27] Jared Berg: Yeah,
[00:41:27] Trevor Connor: and I can’t believe I’m having a big conversation about carbohydrates, protein, and fat. ’cause I always hate talking about just those. So I just have to point out again, eat whole foods, focus on foods.
But yes, to that point, making sure you’re getting plenty of protein during recovery. It’s critical.
[00:41:45] Chris Case: Perfect.
[00:41:45] Trevor Connor: Alright. I think it’s time. Chris, you’ve been excited about this question.
[00:41:51] Chris Case: Well, yes, and it’s great to follow up a healthy discussion about protein with, let’s talk about expensive candy, shall we?
[00:41:59] Trevor Connor: We’ve
[00:42:00] Chris Case: done it
[00:42:00] Trevor Connor: this one before.
[00:42:01] Chris Case: What was it? Episode three?
[00:42:02] Trevor Connor: I think it was episode 15.
[00:42:05] Chris Case: Oh 15. Wow. Has it?
[00:42:06] Trevor Connor: Okay.
[00:42:06] Chris Case: Perhaps.
[00:42:07] Trevor Connor: Oh, it goes way back.
[00:42:08] Chris Case: This is a conversation we had. The first time at about a decade ago now, we’ve probably had it on the show multiple times before. It’s this concept that, you know, don’t fall to the hype around all these nutrition products, quote unquote nutrition products, sports, nutrition products out there.
They are overpriced candy. Essentially, there are alternatives that are perhaps better, cheaper, better for you. Just as good in terms of performance. That’s the discussion I think we can end with. I’m sure there’s other thoughts you wanna share, Jared and Trevor and Julie about this, but that’s, that’s the idea.
Are we all just, we’re we’re running Yes. And candy in our face.
[00:42:54] Jared Berg: Yeah, I mean, I love this. This is so much fun and, and yes, we are. I mean, this is me, like if there’s Halloween candy, you know, like that I had a buy, had a handout or whatever, and I’m riding in November, there’s a pretty good chance in my bento box on my bike or my back of my jersey that there’s gonna be Snickers.
[00:43:10] Chris Case: Extra. Extra.
[00:43:11] Jared Berg: Oh yeah.
[00:43:11] Chris Case: The unused Halloween
[00:43:12] Jared Berg: candy. Candy. Yeah. There’s gonna be a few gummy bears from Welchs or something like that. Sure. It’s not like expensive designer, whatever nutrition products. I know. Straight up candy is the same thing as. Expensive high performance nutrition candy a lot of the time.
I just had a discussion yesterday with an athlete that I was working with who shared his concern about, yes, I know I need to have these carbohydrates, but I’m so tired of buying all this stuff. You know, it’s expensive. There’s all kinds of excess packaging. And I’m like, well, you don’t need to, if you want to get some glucose, some fructose.
Well, there’s this product that’s been. Out there for a while now called table sugar. It’s a, it’s a thing, right? And you can put that in water. You can add a little lemon juice, and if you want an electrolyte, there’s something called salt, right? It’s, I mean, it’s there. You can add a touch of salt, maybe an eighth of tablespoon to get 300 plus milligrams of sodium.
All right. You have that in your little lemon water with some table sugar, and you’d be amazed how much table sugar it makes to make a sports beverage. You might be like, oh, that’s kind of disconcerting. But anyway, you can make your own sports drink and you can tune it into the taste that you like. If you wanna do something a little more natural, you can do the same thing with maple syrup, and that even has a little more scientific glucose to fructose ratio.
A little bit closer to that two to one. So there’s really a lot of. Crazy cool things you can do with very simple things in your pantry.
[00:44:41] Chris Case: I thought you were gonna say something about the humble banana.
[00:44:45] Jared Berg: Oh yeah. Banana or an apple. It’s crazy. Like you start, you start looking, thinking about like, yeah, we need glucose specific ratio, fructose.
Then you start looking at analyzing, well, how much glucose is in the banana? Compared to fructose. Huh? It’s like right about one to one. The same thing that’s in these sports beverages or these fuel or these gels. Yet you get the packaging that the banana comes in, which is all these bioactive longevity enhancing.
[00:45:11] Angelo Poli: Mm-hmm.
[00:45:11] Jared Berg: You know, compounds. You get a little bit of fiber, which fiber they put in a $90 a month supplement and it’s just fiber that’s supposed to help build up your. Digestive flora that can maybe lower lactate that comes in a banana crazy or an apple. And so it’s, it’s pretty interesting.
[00:45:33] Trevor Connor: I thought you were going that same place when you said there’s something that’s been around a while.
[00:45:36] Jared Berg: Yeah, exactly.
[00:45:37] Trevor Connor: I thought you’re gonna go fruit.
[00:45:40] Jared Berg: Oh yeah. I mean, that’s even better than me saying table sugar. I totally, but
[00:45:43] Trevor Connor: is fruit has these, these sugars in them.
[00:45:45] Jared Berg: Yeah, exactly.
[00:45:47] Trevor Connor: But comes with fiber. It comes with a whole bunch of other nutrients, so,
[00:45:51] Jared Berg: yep.
[00:45:52] Trevor Connor: Yeah, when we did this episode, God, that’s 10 years ago now, isn’t it?
[00:45:55] Jared Berg: Yes,
[00:45:56] Trevor Connor: almost 10 years. Been a long time. So the, the quick story behind that episode, that’s when I lived in Toronto and I would fly out to Boulder and we would record like eight episodes in three days. And this was the third day we had done all the episodes we were planning. And the tech director for VE News walked in as we were finishing episodes, said you guys aren’t done yet, and just threw all these sports nutrition products on a table.
And I was exhausted from all the recording and he is like, we’re doing an episode on these. And then I proceeded to spend a very grouchy hour tearing them all apart, reading the ingredient list and just.
[00:46:34] Jared Berg: There you go.
[00:46:35] Trevor Connor: Being very mean
[00:46:36] Jared Berg: content
[00:46:37] Trevor Connor: and basically saying they’re all expensive candy and just buy candy.
It’s cheaper. And then said, I do Swedish fish. And since then I’ve had people yell, Hey Swedish fish guy at somebody mail me a bag of Swedish fish.
[00:46:55] Chris Case: Oh goodness. For one of the Thank you. The 300th episode, I think we were trying to throw Swedish fish into each other’s mouths. Yes. You
[00:47:02] Trevor Connor: box fish and you were throwing them at me
[00:47:04] Chris Case: on video.
There’s video footage of this somewhere on the internet.
[00:47:09] Julie Young: I’m partial to a coke and a payday.
[00:47:12] Chris Case: Yeah.
[00:47:12] Julie Young: Not to say. Better for me. Right
[00:47:15] Chris Case: heyday with a little bit of salt, right?
[00:47:16] Julie Young: Yeah. It’s so good. But the other thing that came up for me with this tip is as you start doing the longer events, you just get so tired of the sugar and there really are no packaged products that are savory.
I’ve gone through this with different athletes I coach, you know, you wish there was some sort of Marmite goo or something. So I think that. The packaged products put you in such a narrow space and when you, when you are experiencing this food fatigue, you know, to come up with different options, whether it’s chip or potatoes or whatever the case may be, that I think is also a part of this.
[00:47:50] Chris Case: It’s true. The convenience can’t be understated at times in terms of the job that companies have done of well, making it seem like you need these things. Yeah. For one, the marketing budgets for sports nutrition companies.
[00:48:05] Trevor Connor: Well that’s, that’s the key thing, is they put in this very scientific packaging and they make all these claims on the outside of it.
And that’s, you know, when we were looking at these products 10 years ago, that’s what we were looking at was the claims and then going, okay, does it really meet the claim? And most of the time, no.
[00:48:21] Chris Case: Yeah.
[00:48:21] Trevor Connor: And people go, oh, you know, it’s. Instead of like candy or it’s got a picture of a teddy bear or whatever on the, the packaging, it’s got all these graphs and scientific stuff on it.
So it must be good for you. It must scientific be different.
[00:48:34] Jared Berg: Scientific gets formulated,
[00:48:35] Trevor Connor: and this is why I say it’s, it’s just candy with, with better marketing or different packaging.
[00:48:39] Jared Berg: Yeah, that’s true. I’ll like, you know, play the advocate here. There’s a time and place for some of these. Efficient, easy to work with nutrition products, and when we’re talking, yeah, we’re talking about a race and the idea is that you’re able to sort of practice and control a little bit.
Better. I get it right. You’re trying, I want this much sodium, I wanna go for this time of carbohydrate per hour. And you can really sort of dial in in and come up with the products that that work for you. But we’re not racing. Every day. Most of our exercise is training throughout the, the day, month, and, you know, weeks and months and such.
So then it is the opportunity to keep things interesting to to mix and match, have whole Foods while we’re out there. Training I used to. Do a three four hour ride with half of a legal Pete’s burrito in my back pocket. Pull that thing out top of James down and start woofing it down.
[00:49:37] Chris Case: That’s right.
[00:49:38] Trevor Connor: You know what this whole thing reminds me of?
I love this. If you go to the website for the high fructose Corn Syrup Consortium. They have this, is that
[00:49:47] Chris Case: a real thing?
[00:49:48] Trevor Connor: It is,
[00:49:49] Jared Berg: and I know
[00:49:50] Trevor Connor: my, I, I think it’s consortium, but there’s definitely a, a advocacy group for high fructose corn syrup and you go to their website and right on the main page, at least last time I went there, they have a defense of high fructose corn syrup and their defense is, it’s got the same glucose to fructose ratio as all natural table sugar.
So it’s just as natural as table sugar. So therefore it’s good for you. And you go, I agree with you. It’s basically the same thing as table sugar. But who was ever saying table sugar was good for you?
[00:50:23] Angelo Poli: Yes.
[00:50:24] Trevor Connor: And we’re kind of doing the same thing where everybody goes, well, candy’s bad for us. Of course, bad candy’s bad for us, but you take the same thing, you package it and go, now it’s performance in hats.
And look, yes, it is. It helps on rides.
[00:50:36] Chris Case: Yes.
[00:50:37] Trevor Connor: But
[00:50:37] Chris Case: especially in races when you’re cross-eyed and you have to reach into your pocket
[00:50:41] Trevor Connor: Right,
[00:50:41] Chris Case: right away because there’s an attack going on the road or whatever, and it’s situational.
[00:50:46] Trevor Connor: I have personally moved away from it, even on my rides. That’s my choice. I mean, I get, I, I lose some performance because of that.
I’ve had this conversation before, but these studies that look at athletes, the concern that you have is you are seeing, particularly in high school athletes where they’re taking these gels and and drink mixes and all that, and consuming ’em throughout the day and going, well, I’m an athlete, therefore this is good for me.
[00:51:11] Chris Case: Mm-hmm. Yes. It’s a justification for consuming garbage.
[00:51:15] Trevor Connor: Yeah. But you know, it’s not, they’re fooling themselves. They, they believe it.
[00:51:20] Chris Case: That’s,
[00:51:20] Trevor Connor: that’s when the, they listen to the marketing and go, this is good for me. Therefore, not only should I consume it when I’m riding or whatever, I should consume it all the time.
[00:51:28] Jared Berg: Yeah.
[00:51:28] Chris Case: That’s when that food is fuel mentality gets misappropriated, misused, skewed to fit with the marketing that the company has told you you have to abide by.
[00:51:40] Trevor Connor: Yep.
[00:51:40] Jared Berg: Yeah. I mean, and the fact that like, even. You need a recovery nutrition product, come on. Like really? I mean, you can’t just make a little smoothie with like milk and some, you know, almond butter, you know, some nut proteins or throw some hemp seed in there.
Maybe have a, you know. A scoop of your favorite designer protein, whatever. It’s like you don’t need to have everything just like mixed in. I mean, I get convenience, but it’s actually not that inconvenient to just spend a minute in making something before you go to your workout.
[00:52:16] Trevor Connor: And what I like. You are now seeing that you didn’t really see back when we did that first episode on this topic.
You just had a, a bunch of top name researchers, put out a bunch of reviews for the UCI on the current position on nutrition for cyclists, and there was a lot more in those reviews saying, here’s what we recommend when you are riding or racing, but when you’re not on the bike, whole Foods. Get back to Whole Foods.
[00:52:46] Julie Young: I think you guys have pointed out the context that it’s not an all or nothing, but there’s, there’s a time and a place and, and to your point too Trevor, like trying to think when it’s not a critical ride or maybe a high intensity it. Interval session where you’re maybe using lower to moderate glycemic foods as opposed to
[00:53:07] Angelo Poli: mm-hmm.
[00:53:07] Julie Young: You know, just always relying on the high glycemic. And then as you point out when it’s a race and you need that convenience, I do think there’s something to be said. Obviously you want to be able to train. That food that you’re gonna be racing with. So maybe there are times when you’re using those packaged foods in training, but I just do think it is context and always just asking yourself like, why am I doing this?
You know, to your point, just guzzling down a bunch of goose at school. Probably not necessary.
[00:53:35] Trevor Connor: Awful. I am completely sympathetic. I did that at the start of my cycling career. I, I wanted to get serious and this, I had read about all the sports nutrition and the benefits I
[00:53:43] Jared Berg: wanted to get serious. I must
[00:53:44] Trevor Connor: have, and I remember I would sit there at my desk working guzzling Gatorade.
[00:53:48] Jared Berg: Yeah, it’s like just sugar, water,
[00:53:49] Trevor Connor: fine. When you’re, you’re training fine when you’re racing. I think actually Gatorade has a, has a decent product that that’s, that’s not what I’m saying. Yeah, but Sydnee at your desk drinking it. No. It’s a whole different story.
[00:54:01] Jared Berg: Or what about when you start taking these products?
That should maybe even be more natural. Like Gatorade. Gatorade, regular Gatorade uses glucose or D roast. And fructose or something in table sugar, which is the same thing. Glucose and fructose, right? Very simple. Same thing. Other products like scratch, I think maybe Tailwind, but I could list out and I won’t ’cause it’s not like our place to 70, 80%, 90% of the products out there uses something called multiple dextrin, which, um, man sort of made glucose chain sort of manipulated to absorb faster.
Are we supposed to have something absorbed that fast? Is that really good for us? Is that good for our ask those questions? Is that good for our GI track? I have athletes who don’t tolerate it. Anybody who’s lactose tolerate does not do well with maltodextrin, and then it goes into even people without lactose intolerance.
So that’s like we’re talking almost all these nutrition products are multi dextrin base, and it’s not good.
[00:55:00] Trevor Connor: Yeah. And you know, another thing I will point out getting a little bit away from the sports attrition is again, you have this marketing effect where people get fooled and think they’re doing something that’s appropriate and healthy for their body, and it’s not.
There’s a ton of research looking at fruit juices. So you go to the store and you buy apple juice, or you buy orange juice and you go, okay, now I’m being healthier because it comes from a fruit.
[00:55:23] Jared Berg: Yeah.
[00:55:24] Trevor Connor: Well, sugar. Sugar comes from a fruit too. And basically they show in the studies the negative health consequences of the fruit juices is right in line with soft drinks.
[00:55:35] Jared Berg: Took it out of the packaging.
[00:55:36] Chris Case: You just condensed it.
[00:55:38] Trevor Connor: Yes.
[00:55:38] Chris Case: Yeah. Well,
[00:55:40] Trevor Connor: did we rant enough for you, Chris?
[00:55:42] Chris Case: That was great. That was great. I mean, no, you, that’s
[00:55:44] Trevor Connor: what you wanted.
[00:55:45] Chris Case: Hey, I think we’re all saying the same exact thing in different ways, and it’s not that this stuff is evil. It’s just, it can very easily be over-consumed because hey, marketing works on certain people.
I find it very easy to be skeptical of any. Business that’s trying to make money. And they do a good job of that by upping the cost of these products to exorbitant prices and people buy it ’cause they have been convinced that they need it. So it’s just a cautionary tale in the end. And it’s interesting how every one of the tips kind of is interrelated with every one of the other tips we’ve talked about here today.
Yeah. Nutrition is. Complicated in certain ways because it’s connected in a lot of different ways, but. You know, like if there was just one thing that we could probably pull out of this episode, it would be eat Whole Foods more often and you’d probably improve the health and performance of a lot of people out there.
Mm-hmm. Just with that one tip.
[00:56:54] Jared Berg: Yeah, I agree. I mean, ask yourself sort of why you’re putting this in your body, you know, and then you’re like, yep, I need it in my body because. There’s a specific action that I wanna do right now, or I need it, you know, to have this because I want to improve my recovery so I can do something better later.
Or I want to improve my, maybe like my inflammation response, my blood lipid profile, all these different things that happen from eating good, healthy, you know, nutrition. Why are you eating those things?
[00:57:24] Julie Young: Back to what Trevor had said and Chris had said that marketing effect and it does create a lot of confusion around nutrition and it seems things conflict a lot of times, but I think it’s really important just to be able to cut through that noise and.
Think that you can best do that by educating yourself with good information. And again, I think that’s sometimes hard to find. But another theme of this show is it really relates to this episode, is nailing the fundamentals. Doesn’t have to be fancy, it doesn’t have to be perfect, but educate yourself and nail those fundamentals.
[00:58:00] Trevor Connor: My point to that is you really did learn most of what you need to learn in kindergarten. We get very complicated with nutrition, but fruits, vegetables, seafood, things like that.
[00:58:12] Chris Case: Yeah,
[00:58:12] Trevor Connor: they’re good for you.
[00:58:13] Chris Case: You haven’t had a kindergartner have you? If they don’t eat seafood. Mm-hmm.
[00:58:17] Trevor Connor: I said, what? You’re cold in kindergarten.
[00:58:19] Chris Case: Exactly, yes.
[00:58:21] Trevor Connor: I never said what you do. I remember what I did in kindergarten.
[00:58:24] Chris Case: Yes, that’s true. That I was
[00:58:25] Trevor Connor: like, you go this, I would these little animal cookies and drop ’em under the tables and then go and grab them with gunk all over the many of those gross, how did you survive?
[00:58:36] Jared Berg: Or like how about eat the rainbow?
Right. Not the rainbow, not Skittles, not the ski, the actual rainbow and fruits and vegetables. Right. Those are. Yeah, that’s good Lessons.
[00:58:45] Chris Case: Perfect.
[00:58:46] Trevor Connor: You complicated. A simple message.
[00:58:52] Chris Case: That was another episode of Fast Talk. Subscribe to Fast Talk wherever you prefer to find your favorite podcasts. Be sure to leave us a rating and review. And don’t forget, we’re now on YouTube. Give us a like and subscribe there too and help us reach new audiences. As always, remember that the thoughts and opinions expressed on Fast Talk are those of the individual.
We love your feedback. Join the conversation@forums.fast talk labs.com or join us on social media at Fast Talk Labs. For access to our endurance sports knowledge base, continuing education for coaches as well as our in-person and remote athlete services. Head to Fast Talk labs.com for Dr. Jamie Whitfield.
Angelo Poey, Trevor Connor, Jared Berg, Angela Young. I’m Chris Case. Thanks for listening.
