Mastering Your Macros: Fueling Intentionally for each Training Day

TriDot Podcast Episode 223

Mastering Your Macros: Fueling Intentionally for each Training Day

Announcer: This is the TriDot podcast. TriDot uses your training data and genetic profile combined with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to optimize your training, giving you better results in less time with fewer injuries. Our podcast is here to educate, inspire and entertain. We'll talk all things triathlon with expert coaches and special guests. Join the conversation, experts, and let's improve together.

Rich Soares: Welcome to the year 2024 and welcome to the TriDot podcast. It's a new year and we're thrilled to announce we have a new host. Kidding. Absolutely kidding. I am TriDot coach Rich Soares and I am guest hosting today. Andrew sends his best to everyone. Unfortunately, Andrew got Covid for Christmas. It's his first time ever going down with COVID and of course it had to happen over the holidays. He asked me to jump in and host today's Try Dot podcast conversation. And while I'm sorry Andrew isn't feeling 100%, I am 100% excited to be here with our two special guests today. We've got a great show lined up to kick things off this year. Today we will be talking about adjusting our day to day caloric intake based on the training sessions we have on our calendar. Our first guest is the founder and Chief Nutrition Officer of Fuelin Scott Tindal. Scott has over 20 years of experience in professional sports and is a nutrition coach to professional triathletes and executives. He serves as an expert advisor to companies on nutrition, product development and health optimization. He holds a postgraduate diploma in sports performance nutrition and a master's in sports and exercise medicine. Scott, welcome back to the TriDot podcast.

Scott Tindal: Thanks so much, Rich. Excited for this episode. I think it's going to be a very good one. Hopefully, you know, bring a lot of talking points. I think after the podcast and you know, it'll be really interesting to see what athletes, both male and female, think of what we discussed today. So thank you for having me.

Rich Soares: Also with us today, professional triathlete and TriDot coach, Elizabeth James. Elizabeth is a USAT Level 2 and IRONMAN U certified coach who quickly rose through the triathlon ranks using TriDot. From a beginner to top age grouper to professional triathlete, she is a Kona and Boston Marathon qualifier who has coached triathletes with TriDot since 2014. Hey there, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth James: Well, hello. Always great to be podcasting and just so thankful that you were able to step in for our captain of the middle of the pack as he is down with COVID today.

Rich Soares: I feel like the captain of the middle of the pack most of the time. I'm Rich Soares, host of the 303 Endurance podcast and your guest of today's TriDot podcast. And as always, we'll roll through our warmup questions, settle in for our main set topic, and then wind things down with our cool down. Lots of good stuff. Let's get to it.

Announcer: Time to warm up. Let's get moving.

Rich Soares: In a conversation about Fueling our days properly. Let's warm up by talking about dessert. This isn't try related, purely a foodie question here and possibly influenced by some extra sweets going around during the holidays. But Elizabeth, Scott, what dish is your all time favorite dessert? Elizabeth, let's start with you.

Elizabeth James: For me it is chocolate upon chocolate. So I'm talking chocolate ice cream with additional chocolate mixed in. Like when you go to Marble Slab or Cold Stone Creamery, get some delicious chocolate ice cream, then add in some brownie bites, hot fudge. I, I am a sucker for chocolate, so that would probably be it for me when we're talking dessert.

Rich Soares: Nice, nice. Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first. Love the chocolate. Scott, what is this question for you?

Scott Tindal: Well, I think as an Australian celebrating Christmas, it would have to be a pavlova. We, we tend to always have pav afterwards. Do you, as everyone, do you know what a pavlova is?

Rich Soares: Can you describe it for our audience?

Scott Tindal: Oh, it's like so it's a meringue base. It's very soft and gooey in the middle and then it's a bit crunchy on the outside. And then you cover it in whipped double cream and then you finish it with like blueberries, raspberries, passion fruit, mango, kiwi fruit all over it. And it's just, it's just heaven. Like it's such a, a beautiful, fairly light dessert. Although it doesn't sound light with all the double cream and everything, but it's just a very refreshing dessert.

Rich Soares: I know Andrew's answer to this question is tiramisu and I have to say I completely agree with Andrew on the tiramisu. When we were in Panama Beach, Florida for the Ambassador camp, one of the meals, they brought out a tray full of tiramisu and I was sort of tempted to eat that first. It looked delicious. So Andrew and I are tiramisu buddies. We're going to throw this question out to you, the audience, make sure that you are part of the I Am TriDot Facebook group. And on January 1st, when this show comes out, we will pose this question to the Facebook group. So go find that post and let us know what your all time favorite dessert is.

Announcer: On to the main set going in 3, 2, 1.

Rich Soares: If you are doing the right training, right, no two training days are exactly the same. So it would make sense that the way we fuel our training days shouldn't be exactly the same either. But what do we adjust, when do we adjust it and how much do we adjust our Fueling based on the physical needs of the day? That is exactly what we aim to learn today with Scott and Elizabeth. Now, before we get into the different types of training days, let's first talk about the different types of athletes. Scott, how much can athletes Fueling needs change just based on their biology and their gender.

Scott Tindal: Yeah, I think it's obviously a very timely question because I think there's a lot of information floating around certainly on social media regarding the differences in, you know, and we can break it down from, you know, protein requirements to carbohydrate requirements for males, females, and then even talking about age differences. And I think from, from our perspective, obviously there's some recent research that's come out which is, you know, super interesting and sort of maybe cast some question marks over previous thought processes. And I think that is important as well. I think, I don't think there's any absolutes in nutrition and certainly anyone who is saying that there are absolutes, I think needs to be questioned in that, in that respect. But you know, if we look at protein, for instance, there was a recent study that came out from the Scandinavian Journal of Medical Science and Sports. It was actually 20, 23 December. What they looked at was, you know, 24 women, they were fairly young, around 26 years of age, but they were resistance trained women. So they had a history of lifting weights. What they did with this group, and this is, I think important, is that what they did was provide them with either 15 grams of protein, 30 grams of protein, or 60 grams of protein in between after following a weight session and then doing a second weight session, which is a little unusual, but still very interesting. And what they found was that the 30 and 60 gram bolus of protein after the first weights training session was effective at helping with muscle building. In the period that was measured afterwards, the 15 gram dose was ineffective. What they also found was that Both groups, the 30 and 60 gram group, were taking in excess of say, 2 grams per kilo of body weight. Now I think that's, that's probably the important part to take from this study. So these were young women lifting weights and in order to see a positive effect around muscle protein synthesis, they were taking in at least 2 grams per kilo of body weight. The group below that, which was still a high group, around 1.8 grams per kilo of body weight. It was found to be ineffective in terms of muscle protein synthesis. And then you come into, okay, let's talk about specifics, talk about menopause and talk about older women. What do we know? Okay, we know that 1.2 grams per kilo body weight is ineffective in terms of improving muscle protein synthesis or muscle building in those women. Even up to 1.5 grams is probably ineffective. And some studies have shown even up to 1.8 grams per kilo body weight of protein is ineffective. So now you're saying, okay, well, menopausal women, probably 2 grams per kilo body weight as well. And the reason it's like sort of like mind explosion, brain explosion about women, older women needing more protein. It's not that, it's not that. It's like women suddenly need this extra protein. We just didn't know that women needed this. The notion was, oh, you're getting older, you just don't need as much. But the research is catching up with the age as opposed to this. It's suddenly evolved. It's more that we're just learning now that older women and older men require similar amounts as their younger counterparts. Yeah. So it's not like menopausal women special. It's not that they're special. It's just that we now are learning that menopausal women and older men need more protein. And this is such an important point. There's no distinction, honestly, you don't have to distinguish being a menopausal woman or an older man and saying, I need more protein. No, you need the same amount as the 24 year old. As the 24 year old. So let's just keep it simple and just say, and again, I'm probably put a blanket statement on this and I could be pulled apart for it. But if you're an athlete, if you're male, female, young or old, I can guarantee you that you will do better on at least 2 grams per kilo of body weight, probably higher. And certainly as you get older, you could bump that amount up and certainly up to 3 grams per kilo body weight. As long as you don't have renal disease, kidney disease, you're going to be absolutely fine. And you're probably going to do a lot better in terms of recovery and how you perform. That's for protein. Now this may change. Science will catch up. Nutritional studies are going to keep coming out. But I think to just try and simplify it for everyone listening, if you are a male, a female, young or old, certainly from our perspective at Fuelin, we would be recommending at least sort of 2, 2 grams plus per kilo body weight of protein. And that will help you.

Rich Soares: And Scott, what I loved is you talked about the continuous learning that happens as a part of, you know, this process of helping athletes. You know, research will, you know, new research will come out and it sounds like you're pulling that information into your process of developing the platform and that we just talked about protein. How does this extend to other macros like fat and, and, and carbohydrate?

Scott Tindal: If you're doing an hour a day of training, whether that's light, moderate or even high intensity, I think if you look at total calorie requirements, you would be hard pressed. If you're taking in, you know, 2 to 3 grams per kilo body weight of protein and taking in, you know, somewhere between 0.8 to 1 gram per kilo body weight of fat and then you've got the leftover caloric requirement and then saying, oh, okay, Now I need 10 grams per kilo body weight of carbs. You're going to be in a huge caloric surplus. And if you're doing this exercise to improve your health, potentially to improve your body composition, and I'm not saying body composition is the be all end all, but there are a lot of people, women and men out there who are in this sport to try and improve their health and improve body composition because we know that being overweight or obese is actually going to have negative impact or implications on your health, that if they then take on 7 to 10 grams per kilo body weight of carbohydrates, they're going to be in a huge caloric surplus and gain weight. And again, I think it's like, let's be specific and let's put everything in context and not just throw out these big blanket recommendations, but like, look, look at, you know, especially around carbohydrates, what is required for health and what is required for performance.

Rich Soares: I was just going to add, in your first interview with us, you talked about periodize, periodizing your carbohydrates based on your volume and intensity. And maybe the question goes to you both, maybe you can talk about how Fuelin takes into account that periodization and EJ maybe how you advise your, your athletes to periodize their carbohydrate, carbohydrate consumption based on intensity and Volume.

Elizabeth James: Well, the first thing that I'd just jump in here for. Yeah, I. Scott, I love how you mentioned, you know, the possibility of a caloric surplus, because I think that's one of the things that a number of athletes do get into the sport for improved health, for improved body composition. And, and as they're training and they're hearing these recommendations of, oh, my goodness, you have to have this certain amount of carbohydrate to be able to fuel properly and get through your workout and make sure you're recovered well. And then they're coming back and asking their friends, their training partners, reaching out to coaches and saying, I feel like my training is going well, but all of a sudden I'm 15 pounds heavier than I was four months ago. And they're like, I got into this for improved health and I feel like I'm headed the wrong direction. And I think it's more common than maybe we've talked about previously that athletes are looking at some of these recommendations and can easily be led astray in a way and thinking that they need to consume this much in order to perform their best and recover properly from a training session and where they're hoping to improve their health, they may actually be headed a little bit in the wrong direction if they continue to be at that caloric surplus and basically over fuel for the work that they're doing.

Scott Tindal: Yeah. And look, and it really does come down to it. Again, like, if we look at everything in isolation, then, yes, if you're taking in very low amounts of protein, very low amounts of fat, potentially you're. You're just bolstering up, you know, your total caloric intake through carbohydrates. Now that that will serve a purpose and now you'll probably be good. Yes, we know that. Look, carbohydrates are really important and I think, like, we're very pro carbohydrates at Fueling, but I think it's using them in the correct manner. And yes, you certainly, if you've got a session of a decent amount of duration, let's say it's somewhere like around 75, 80 minutes, and it's of high intensity, you certainly want to be eating something before that session. There's a good possibility, depending on where you're at in your training phase, that you want to be consuming a moderate amount to high amount of carbohydrates to help you practice training your gut, Fueling the session correctly. So that could be somewhere depending on your size and your power output. So again, like a zone let's say a zone three for, you know, one of your, your good athletes could be something like, you know, normalized power to 260. For another athlete, their normalized power at zone three could be 160 watts. Now, there's a very big difference in power output and total work done, which means total caloric expenditure is also a lot lower. So it's all relative. So that athlete, the lower one, may only need 50 to 60 grams per kilo, sorry, 50 to 60 grams per hour of carbohydrates during that session. But for the athlete pushing out the 260 watts, yeah, they're probably going to be aiming 70, 90, maybe 120 grams an hour, and that's to fuel that session appropriately. Carbohydrates after the session. Absolutely. Why, yes, you can talk about muscle glycogen. You're probably not going to take in enough to fully replenish unless you're very on point and you've got a second session that you need to be back on point. But you would have to take in a lot of carbohydrates. Okay, so we're doing maybe 3 to 4 grams per kilo of body weight in that post meal, which a lot of athletes aren't going to take in that amount. But carbohydrates are important for bone, so bone formation, bone mineral markers are going to be improved. If you take on carbohydrates after a training session, doesn't have to be a huge amount, but certainly if you're avoiding carbohydrates after a training session, that could have negative consequences to bone mineral markers. So again, carbohydrates are important. How much you need. Well, this then comes into the big picture of, okay, how much training have you got throughout the entire week? What is the intensity of all that training throughout the week? How does that compare to the previous week? What's your current weight? What is your weight goal? Now you start putting all these pieces of the puzzle together, then you can start working out what your total caloric intake is for that week versus the week before. What is that spread across the seven days based around what your training is in terms of your volume and your intensity. And then you start working out actual total amount of carbohydrates. And that's probably going to vary from day to day. And it doesn't mean that on light days you don't have to take in carbohydrates either, because the next day might be your big training day. So Friday classic. I don't know how you plan it out, EJ. But I say this all the time. 40 minute swim on a Friday. And it's just the swim, maybe a little spin on the bike in the afternoon, 30 minutes the next day, Saturday, big brick, three hours on the bike, you know, 90 minute run, something like that. And athletes never fuel properly on the Friday because they've only got a 40 minute swim. And then they wonder why they die in the ass like on Saturday. And they don't have good sessions. It's because they're not fueled correctly the day before. And Fueling the day before is actually getting you ready for the day after. And so the point of this is a perfect example. Yeah, I mean, the point of all this is it's bloody complicated. And that's exactly why. It's exactly why I created Fuelin. Because it just removes that guesswork. Because as I've highlighted there, there are so many moving parts. And for an athlete to manage this appropriately on their own, I think is very difficult. And you know, for a coach, as you said, EJ, like, it's hard. You're focusing on the training, you're focusing on them swimming, biking, running really well. And then you're sort of like, okay, you're taking enough protein, enough carbs, enough fat. Are you taking enough calories? And you're like. And they're like, oh, yeah, I think so. And you're like, cool, that's hard. And it's so.

Elizabeth James: There's a lot of moving pieces.

Scott Tindal: It's so common for athletes, like, to just say, oh my God. Like, it's just nice to be told what to eat. Probably in the same way it's nice to be told what training to do. Yeah, I guess that's the point of TriDot, isn't it? Yeah, it's wonderful. I open the app and it just tells me, right, you got this today. And I'm like, cool. And you just see the progression. And it's no different with nutrition. It's like you've got to practice it and you've got to, you've got to know what you're doing and it's gotta be consistent. It's gotta be in line with your training.

Rich Soares: You know, I'm kind of looking to EJ here. I saw her reacting to your, you know, you're talking about how, how you're planning ahead for future sessions just like you would for a race, you know. You know, we have big days that are almost as demanding as some of our half, half IRONMAN and IRONMAN races. And yet we don't Treat the nutrition preparation maybe the same way we do when it's race day or the, you know, two or three days before race races. And I know, EJ, you have some experience with that.

Elizabeth James: I think racing is the perfect example of that. You know, we aren't doing much the day before we race. There's hardly any physical activity there, and yet people seem to have no problem Fueling well the day before the race in order to perform their best on race day. And yet that same consideration isn't made for, you know, the Friday before a long brick session. And so that's something that I, I have asked my athletes to really put in their session notes for me to say, okay, how did you fuel not only for today, but to set yourself up for tomorrow? And I mean, as we talked about earlier, I'm, I'm not going to have all of the nutrition answers, but at least there's a record of the thought process that's been going into this. And should we run into some issues, we at least have a lot of information that we can go back and review together or then take to a professional as well and say, here's what has been done previously and where can we improve upon this to really make sure that we are performing our best in the training to then prepare ourselves the best for racing as well. So I loved your example about the Friday going into the brick, and it just makes me think of that compared to race day and how much consideration we give for our best performance there. But we need to practice to get there on race day. So we need to practice both the nutrition going into those bigger sessions so that we can practice the physical aspects of them too.

Scott Tindal: And EJ, I mean, you mentioned a couple of things there, like practicing, well, talking firstly about going into a race and are they doing the carbohydrate intake appropriately? So most people think they've done a carbohydrate load and that consists of a large bowl of pasta the night before. And you're like, no, no, no, that's part of the carbohydrate load. And then you start talking about somewhere in the 8 to 12 grams per kilo body weight for that day, and they're like, what? That much? And if you try and do that the day before a race and you've never done that amount before, it's pretty tough. And a lot of athletes will fail just to simply consume that amount of carbohydrates because they actually choose the wrong types of carbohydrates or carbohydrate containing Foods to consume. And so actually your point of practicing that carbohydrate load in the weeks leading up to and nailing that is just as important as the training aspect. Because if you take in too much fiber, if you're choosing, you know, low glycemic index foods, it's all the, you know, the good foods for you become the bad foods for you. Because actually you want to be consuming really probably quite terrible types of carbohydrates, if you're talking about general health. So your kiddie cereals, your white rices, your white breads, using maltodextrin in, you know, bottled water, things like that, that's how you'll manage to get in that huge amount of carbohydrates. Now you're not gonna do that every day. If you did that practice every day and took in your 7 to 10 grams per kilo body weight in that form, like you're fast track yourself to diabetes type 2, like that, that's just a given because they're not good foods from a health perspective. But when it comes to the context of preparing yourself for a race, it becomes a very different animal and a very different beast in that. But you need to understand that you need to practice it and you need to do it several times in order to prep yourself for something. A race that you've probably been training an absolute minimum of three months for. And actually when I see the stats for how long athletes train for a 70.3 or a night, man, it's, I think it's, on average it's about nine and a half months. It's like, do you really want to go into that race you've spent nine and a half months preparing for and you're giving nutrition an afterthought. And that nutrition is absolutely going to determine how you perform on that day. Like, it does not matter how much training you've done. If you mess up your nutrition either under consuming or taking in too much of something that doesn't sit well with you, your day is gone. But it just blows my mind how little consideration athletes give to nutrition.

Rich Soares: Scott, I wanted to come back. I'm kind of curious. How much does an athlete's caloric needs change from kind of session to session? I mean, like, can you give us like an example of like how drastic the day to day difference might be?

Scott Tindal: Well, that's actually a great question. It's something that was flagged with me the other day. This athlete was like, you know, I'm looking at my days and a lot of the calories look very similar from day to day. And the way we do it, we split up in session Fueling from their day to day nutrition. So we, if they are trying to be in a caloric deficit because they are trying to lose weight or improve body composition, then yes, focus on having that caloric deficit outside of training. But when it comes to the training, okay, you've got a long fuel it. Absolutely. If you're licensed to fuel, go for it. And so it removes that sort of guilt around, oh my God, I'm doing a two hour training and I haven't burnt 2000 calories or whatever and I'm not in that deficit. It's like, no, no fuel that session because your coach wants you to smash this. Okay, Outside of that, yes, post session recovery, absolutely on point. But then let's control the rest of your calories throughout the day, but most importantly across the week. And so when you look at day to day, sometimes you'll have high training volume, lower training volume, the total calories spread out across the entire week may not look completely different. And that often throws a lot of athletes because they're like, back to the point. Oh, but I'm doing a light session here. Why, why isn't my calories down to 1600 for instance, or something like that? If they're a small athlete and trying to lose weight versus like the next day, I've got a three hour training session. Why is it all the same? Well, you got to look at the big picture. You've got seven days in a week, you've got four and a half weeks in a month, you got 12 months in a year. Like you're not going to suddenly drop, you know, five kilos in a week. You're probably going to lose something like half a kilo, maybe a little bit more. What's that? It's one a pound. You might lose a pound in a week. Okay, like, that's sustainable. It's same like, and I'll say this over and over again, you didn't get good riding a bike the first time you jumped on it. Like, it takes time and building in these good nutritional habits. It takes time and you've got to be patient with it. And I know in today's world everyone sucks with patience and everyone wants the fast, you know, the fast fix and all that. But like nutrition is no different from your training. Being consistent, doing the right things over and over again will bring the results and you'll get the results, whether that be in health, whether it be in performance, you'll start to see, okay, if you need to drop a few kilos because you actually again, we were talking about this. It's when does someone actually need to improve body composition versus not improve body composition? And it's all right to talk about being overweight or obese in much the same way. It's great that we're talking about when athletes are under Fueling and actually have a very real issue with under Fueling. There is that distinction with some athletes, as you said, EJ over Fueling. So let's quantify this and say, okay, well where do you sit with things like your fat mass, with your lean muscle mass and how do you quantify that? Yeah, use a DEXA scan. 100. If you've got access to a DEXA scan, get a DEXA scan, quantify. There's things called a fat mass index, there's a lean mass index. Probably more importantly or just as important is looking at bone mineral density. Start to look at yourself in an objective manner and then say, okay, where do I sit based on my gender, based on my age, around the amount of fat that I've got on my body, the amount of lean muscle mass I've got, and how does my bone mineral density compare? And then start to put in place a specific plan that is targeting what your requirements are.

Elizabeth James: Scott Another thing that I get often as a coach, a question that my athletes have asked me is like, well, is it different for swimming or biking or running? I was wondering if you could speak to us a little bit about that because it's a question that I get frequently.

Scott Tindal: So swimming's fascinating actually and there's been some updates in terms of calculations for caloric expenditure in, in the water. And so we're doing a lot of QA at the back end with, with Dr. Alan McCubbin who works for Fuelin. He's a researcher and based at Monash University in Melbourne. And so we're looking at like again, talking context where we're splitting up the high performing athletes. So the Sky Munch, Holly Lawrence, Rachel Zelinkas looking at what is their caloric expenditure actually look like and how do we, are we Fueling them appropriately versus very good age groupers, you know, looking at what is their output and then looking at age group as male and female, young and old and what are we seeing in terms of their caloric output and how does the Fuelin sort of, you know, algorithm, how is it working? And what we've realized with the swimming, especially for the high performing athletes is, you know, you have someone Like Rachel, who, you know, was U.S. olympic open water team, you know, in the national swim team, she's doing in 60 minutes. Oh God, I might stuff this up probably 5 or 6Ks. So she's swimming a lot in a very short period of time. So. But her efficiency in the water is excellent. So you've got to factor that into the equation. But what we're seeing is, you know, we're seeing caloric estimations, you know, in the 15, 16, 1700 calories for that hour. Now that is huge. And yeah, and we were like, oh. And she's like, really? Is that as much now? They're new equations and we're looking at this. So what we're seeing now, and we used to always say for 60 minutes, between 60 and 90 minutes, we used to be recommending 30 grams of carbs for athletes to be consuming in the pool. So they'd do that generally through liquid carbs, maybe a banana on the side, things like that. Usually it's liquid carbs cause it's just more convenient. But athletes like her, like Sky Holly, and that they're regularly taking in, you know, a session even just lasting 45 to 60 minutes, 60 grams of carbs per hour, which still leaves you in a significant potential caloric deficit after that swim. So before every swim session, we absolutely recommend Fueling. So every athlete should be Fueling before a swim and before a weight session. In my opinion, that that's just how we set it up because we know that the caloric expenditure in water, because it's heat transfer, you're in a denser medium than air, you're going to lose a lot of energy through heat. So Fueling before, I'm not saying you have to Smash, you know, 100 grams of carbs before, you know, a swim session, but certainly, you know, a piece of toast or a couple of bits of toast, something like that, 30 to 60 grams of carbs with, you know, some jam, peanut butter, whatever you want. Banana. Certainly getting that in before a swim session is good practice. Depending on like your, your ability in the pool and how long you're swimming and your distance, we are updating and looking at saying, okay, maybe these athletes need to be consuming 60, 70, maybe even 90 grams an hour in the pool. You're not going to be doing that in a race, obviously. But in terms of recovery and then allowing them to do second sessions in the day, it could be a really important piece of the puzzle. So I think swimming is one of those ones where it's very hard to quantify caloric expenditure. But we're getting better at it and there are, you know, improved calculations and equations for that. So I think that's one thing. But yes, caloric expenditure in the water is going to be much higher than bike or running. You then go onto the bike and it depends on power output. Someone who's pushing out 120 watts isn't doing nearly as many as 240. And so I think you got to look at that. It's your caloric expenditure on the bike is going to be lower than say a run because it's non weight bearing power output. So on efficiency is generally normalized on a bike versus running where running economy plays a big role. So Fueling on the bike again you can start to look at this. You know, you'll have estimated caloric expenditures from the sessions. And I think something, you know, we've talked with TriDot about this. If we can start to predict what caloric expenditure is before the session, then what we can start doing is actually recommending specifically rather than just sort of buckets. We could start saying to you, hey look, your caloric expenditure for this session is going to be a thousand calories. Okay. We want you to be consuming maybe 6, 700 calories, aiming for that small deficit. Fine. And then reFueling afterwards, running. Very rough calculation is you're going to have one calorie per kilogram of body weight per minute, per, per minute. So you're going to go through roughly 80, 80 calories. So for me I'll go through 80 calories, sorry per km. So over a 10k run I will roughly burn again depending on pace and everything. But somewhere in the realm of 7 to 800 calories, that's, that's roughly how you start to sort of build out these equations and think about what you might be doing. So you know, you're doing an hour run, you don't take in anything. You could be 800 calories in the hole. What are you doing through the rest of the day?

Rich Soares: I'm going to shift gears just a slight bit here. Elizabeth, Scott, you guys are both incredibly fit athletes. You both train hard, you recover smart, you fuel as best you can. What does Fueling for the needs of the day, I mean like look for, look like for you? Like specifically like what do you go to for you're Fueling for the day based on the types of workouts or what your demand is for the day?

Elizabeth James: One of the things that Scott said earlier really just resonated with me as something that I find myself doing in practice quite frequently, which is my daily caloric intake outside of training doesn't vary much day to day. And I actually find that Monday as like my easiest day of the week is when I am the most hungry. A little bit of that seems to be kind of an appetite suppressant from some of the harder training sessions that I'm doing over the weekend. Finally, you know, having that little bit of reprieve on Monday to, to kick back a little bit more than I do on, on Saturday, Sunday, and the appetite kicks up a little bit. And for a while before I had a good understanding of this, this is something that I was almost like kicking myself for. I'm like, oh my gosh, like why am I so hungry on Monday? Like, I'm not doing anything on Monday. And what Scott had talked about is just looking at the big picture. It's like, okay, I'm super hungry on Monday because I burned a ton of calories on Saturday and Sunday and I'm probably still in a deficit from the weekend despite reFueling after those sessions. I mean, if I go out and do six and a half hour break on Saturday, you know, that's six and a half hours worth of activity that I am just not going to get in all of those calories that I burned yet that day when I have a couple hours until I'm ready to crash for bed for the night. And so I find that day to day, even if it is a hard training day or an easy, easy day like my Monday recovery day, the calories are fairly similar. And then where I find the biggest difference is the sports nutrition for Fueling the sessions that are on, you know, the calendar for the day. And that comes down to, you know, is this high intensity session is a low intensity session. How, how long is that session going to be? And then also where am I in terms of the proximity to my next race? We talked a little bit previously about being very specific in terms of practicing what we will want to implement in terms of race day or preparing for those days leading into the race and practicing an increased load in terms of carbohydrates. And, and so I find the biggest differences in the nutrition to be the long sessions as I'm getting closer to a race because I'm very specific in terms of the couple days leading into it. So I know how my body is going to feel kind of on, on that race rehearsal morning. Um, and then as I'm getting closer to a race, I, I use strictly like sports nutrition. What I'm going to use on the Course, whereas earlier in the season I may be more likely to fuel, you know, with a peanut butter sandwich going into a session. Whereas, okay, closer to race day, no, I'm, I'm really looking at what am I going to fuel on the course for that session itself.

Scott Tindal: Yeah, I think what EJ said is, is bang on. And we, we probably push, you know, certainly for the race pace or above sessions, we do certainly encourage athletes to practice their race Fueling with those sessions. And even if that is earlier in the season, especially for athletes who either have a history of GI complaints or they've never really done this, if you think about it, most athletes probably only have one big session, big hard session in a week. And if you look at the science it can take, you know, when again they look at repeated training of the gut, 10, 12 sessions in order to see improvements. Now if you put that over weeks, that's 10 to 12 weeks now, leaving it until one or two weeks out from your race. If you're not experienced, that could again just be a little bit too late for you to actually nail it. So sometimes, depending again on the athlete and the context, it may be required like three, four, five months out, actually starting to go. Okay, what carbohydrate liquid do I want to use? How much can I apply based on my sweat rate, my minimum sweat rate? Okay, I know it's going to be a cool race, therefore I'm not going to be drinking a lot, therefore I probably don't want to use all liquid carbohydrates. So you're thinking about the environmental conditions, you know, what your sweat rate is, because you've done a lot of sweat rate testing. That is weighing yourself before and after the sessions, documenting what you consumed. You can do all that in fuel, in documenting, you know, your carbohydrate intake. How much did you get in? Oh, wow. I thought I was taking in huge amounts, but actually it works out of only taking in 35 grams an hour. Oh, so I need to be taking in at least 60 grams an hour. Okay, I gotta work on this. And then you start saying, and it's always this revelation, this light bulb moment for athletes where they're like, wow, I always thought I took in so much. And they're literally stuck in that 20 to 30 grams an hour. And they wonder why they feel terrible when they get off the bike because they're already in this huge caloric deficit and it's like, you're never going to be in a caloric surplus. I'll just throw that out there. Even if you're taking in 120 grams an hour, that's 480 calories. You're already in a deficit, like so. Depending again on what your power output is, that's going to probably determine how many carbs you're going to need per hour. And you may need some fat thrown in on top of that, just for total calories. So maybe EJ throws in a bar every hour, you know, just for an extra 200, 300 calories, depending on what bar you're eating, which has got some protein, some fat and carbohydrates you're then throwing over the top of that gels, blocks liquid carbs to get your total amount in. So now you're thinking, okay, from a practicality standpoint, how do I manage this? How do I carry it on the bike? Do I have my bottle set up? Do I have it in my bento box? Again, if you leave that to two weeks out and you haven't done this, like panic stations, massive panic stations, and you start freaking out, oh, no, I'm not going to be able to do it. So practicing all of this, you know, on the bike, on the run, setting up some little mini stations where maybe you do out. I don't know if you do this, EJ My coach had me do this like out and backs. So like I'd run out for a kilometer or half a kilometer and then back and I'd have a little station set up to mimic an aid station outside my house.

Elizabeth James: Oh yeah, we, we've got the card table at the end of the driveway. So it's, it's like a two mile loop around the neighborhood and back to the driveway. I think my neighbors know the drill by now, that they come and give the refills. Yep.

Scott Tindal: Yeah, you got your ice, your water gels. So yeah, look exactly the same thing. The intensity. Yeah, Zone two, zone one. I did a ride this morning before this, you know, it was a couple of little protein balls with some fat and carbohydrates in them. I had a cheap sort of muesli bar, which I was like, you know what, I just need some calories. I'm not trying to go into a huge caloric deficit. I never try and do that. I don't try and think about, okay, I'm doing a two hour ride and I want to burn a thousand calories. I'm like, I actually want to come off that bike in not too much of a hole so that I can function for the rest of the day because I've got Two young kids and I've got work to do. I can't afford to just be laid out on the couch all day. And that's going to happen if you don't fuel those rides appropriately. But then I manage my nutrition outside of that. So I don't go and have a big bowl of Cheerios afterwards and that I have some carbohydrates in the form of some whole wheat toast, have a couple of eggs, I have can of tinned salmon, might have some baked beans with that. I might have a banana as well to top that off. Total amount of carbs might be somewhere in the 50 to 60 grams protein, in the 40 to 50 grams fat. And, you know, I don't know, 10 to 20 grams. But that's plenty of recovery fuel for me based on what my requirements are for the day. And so when it comes to the high intensity stuff, absolutely. I'm smart. I use precision hydration. I use Morton Smash it. Love it. You finish these big hard bike sessions and you're sort of bouncing and you're like, I feel good, like I could run and 10k is easy now. That's what you should be feeling like when you finish these sessions.

Elizabeth James: Well, that's a huge confidence boost for athletes too. Like when they fuel the sessions well and they get done with them, they're like, I can do this versus if they're not Fueling the session well, they get done and they feel absolutely wrecked and not only just physically broken down, but mentally defeated too because they're like, how in the world am I going to do a 70.3? Or how am I ever going to get to the IRONMAN finish line if I am just bonked after an hour on the bike here with a couple intervals. And so both from a physical and mental perspective, there's a huge benefit in athletes making sure that they are really taking their nutrition into consideration.

Scott Tindal: I guess it comes back to the very first question that we went into, is like, look at what you're actually doing. And like EJ's point, like these athletes are saying to what do I need? It's like, well, take a little bit of responsibility about what you're doing as well and then become better informed about what potentially the work is that you're pushing out. And then how does that relate to what you're actually taking in? And then talking to your coaches about that, I think that is really a big part of it. Like you may be an athlete who requires 7 to 10 grams per kilo of body weight of carbohydrates but you may also not be one of those athletes. It's not to say you don't need any carbs. Carbs are absolutely very, very important. And we know if you go on a low carbohydrate or a ketogenic diet, it could have some disastrous consequences related to health parameters. Not, not talking about performance, like, we can leave that part of the equation out of it for another day. But from a health perspective, yes, carbs are very important. The total amount of carbohydrates, that then becomes the big question.

Rich Soares: Yeah. Circling back to that original, that first question and discussion that we had, we've discussed a lot of principles here and a lot of what you've shared with us, you know, are all very sound, you know, and there's a lot to consider when, you know, coming up with what someone needs to fuel their sport and the different demands of each day and of each discipline in. And, you know, how does Fuelin? I mean, like, you've talked about your perspective on these things, and I imagine that Fuelin is really just an extension. The algorithms are an extension of, you know, the research and the thinking and the principles that you've described here. But how does it actually, like, how does it work in practice? Like.

Scott Tindal: Yeah, no, no, absolutely, yeah. I mean, all the things that AJ and you've discussed today and we've discussed, like, I think, total volume across the week, intensity of these individual sessions, the duration of these individual sessions, then throw on top, you know, what are the, the characteristics of the individual athlete? What is their current weight? What are their goal weights? How quickly do they want to try and achieve that, that goal weight? If it is a, a drop in weight, how big is that weight drop? I would always suggest to athletes, make it manageable, make it smart, you know, specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timed. Don't try and lose, you know, 15 pounds in the next three weeks. Like, it might be a five pound drop and just, yeah, it might take five weeks and then enjoy, actually that. Win for that. And then just sit comfortably at that weight for a bit, see how you actually perform. Maybe you thought you needed to lose again, if you don't have some data around it. People always say this, oh, I need to be three pounds lighter. And I'm like, well, why do you say that? And they're like, oh, I just know I need to be £130 instead of 133. And it's like, really based on what? And they're like, ah, just, you know, I feel better and it's like, well, how about we get you Fueling your sessions better first, see how you go with that. And they're like, oh, wow, I'm like, absolutely smashing it. And I'm at 133 pounds. And you know, it's just because they're actually Fueling those sessions appropriately that suddenly performance improves. And it's like, yeah, it wasn't the three pounds that were going to make a difference. It was actually what you were doing in and around training that's going to have the biggest bang for Buck. And yeah, if I, if I relate that to a specific athlete, like, I would just encourage everyone to listen to the conversation that Sky Munch had the, the other day on the triathlon hour with Jack Kelly. And I think it's like, it's a really important podcast to listen to. And I know it's a different podcast, but I think the messaging there is like, you don't always need to lose weight to perform at your best. Okay. And again, this is probably looking at a subset of population, like, sky did not need to lose weight. Okay. Like, and it's always funny, isn't it? Like, you hear about these pro athletes and that being told they need to lose weight and you're looking at them and you're like, pretty sure she doesn't need to lose any weight. And this is the thing about, like, some of the very high performing, we see this in practice all the time. High performing age groupers or high performing professional athletes still saying they need to lose weight. And you're like, you're not the population who needs to be losing weight. It's like, let's focus on you Fueling everything properly and then let's see how performance goes. Whereas that other side of the equation, there is that other side of the population which could benefit from maybe losing some weight and improving body composition for health reasons, not performance reasons, although performance may invariably be improved by losing some excess weight, but it's more about health for them. And that's again, where I think this conversation gets a little confusing for a lot of athletes where, you know, you have someone reaching out to Coach EJ Going, do I need to be taking in this amount? She's like, well, no, let's break it down and look at you as an individual as opposed to the blanket recommendations.

Elizabeth James: Well, and Scott, I can say that, you know, as TriDot and Fuelin have started to work together, this is an incredible resource for every athlete, but it is an incredible resource for us as coaches because we get so many questions about nutrition. And like I said earlier, when my athletes come to me it's like, let's have an open discussion about this. I can offer some of my personal experience, we can look at some of the research together. But you have this tool now in the athlete's hands where it applies the research and provides that recommendation. And it's great for the athletes, but it's great for us as coaches knowing that our athletes are going to be well fueled going into these sessions, that they are going to get the nutrition they need to perform their best and to really enjoy the sport. Because if they're continually, you know, under fueled and therefore underperforming, that's not fun. It's not fun for them. It makes it difficult for us as a coach if we are looking at these sessions and going, you know, what are you eating? Could this be an issue for it? And I'm just thrilled both as an athlete and as a coach for these tools to be in tri athletes hands.

Scott Tindal: Thank you so much EJ for just saying that. And I think what's lovely to hear there is a coach seeing this as a complementary service as opposed to a combative service. And it's like we're not trying to take coaching away. Like that's not the point of this. It's to actually facilitate and assist. And I think anything we can do as a, you know, we don't want to work in silos. I think, you know, I've seen this time and time again working in pro sport when there's silos existing, it just doesn't work. Whereas if, if we can all work together on this and say, you know what, like I'm not a coach, I'm not going to help someone like do a better bike session or like tell them how to train. It's not my role but I can tell them how to fuel that properly and work with you as the coach to actually make that better then I think then we're, you know, it's that open mindedness I think that is so important in this and working together as opposed to against each other.

Rich Soares: And so Scott Fuelin and TriDot are obviously integrated. The two platforms communicate with each other. I see it, I see Fuelin in my connections list in TriDot. How does a TriDot athlete get signed up for Fuelin and get those accounts connected?

Scott Tindal: Yeah, well there'll be a link in, in the show notes which they can simply click on. And that gives tri athletes a decent discount because obviously the partnership, but that's probably the easiest way to go through that. There is a specific URL that we will supply you with. Certainly just look@Fuelin.com you can just check out information around the program. A couple of things I would say obviously try dot really important to have in order to integrate and then that you're on an iOS we are only on iOS at this point in time. They can do that and they can also check out a lot of information at Get Fuelin on Instagram and Facebook and they can just look at some of the information that we're pushing out generally on a day to day basis.

Announcer: Great set everyone. Let's cool down.

Vanessa Ronksley: Hey everybody, I'm Vanessa, your average triathlete with elite level enthusiasm. We are in for a treat because one of my favorite people is here with me today. She's the kind of person who you want to be around all the time and I have truly felt this way from the moment that we met. With us today is TriDot coach, pool school instructor, but more importantly my friend Kristin Overton. Kristin works as a physician's assistant for an orthopedic sports medicine group and she also teaches anatomy at Quinnipiac University. Not only has she qualified for ITU Long Course and IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships, she often finds herself on the podium for sprints, Olympics and 70.3s. On the coaching side of things, she loves working with beginner triathletes and those making the leap from short course to long course racing. Kristin currently lives in Middletown, Connecticut with her wife and 13 year old golden retriever. Kona. My friend, I am so excited that you're here. I almost feel the need to have. A little dance party.

Kristin Overton: Awesome to be here. So fun to talk with you and share some tips.

Vanessa Ronksley: Now one of the things that I love about you is how you find balance in your life and this is 100 exemplified by how you set your wife as one of your top priorities and one of the things that you like to do together is play golf. So tell me what your favorite thing is about the game. I know what I know what Terry's favorite thing is about the game and it's the outfits that you that you.

Kristin Overton: Come up with for sure. Outfits are always my favorite thing. My favorite thing is just being outdoors and walking the course. It can be a super frustrating sport. So I try not to make it that way and just make it fun and relaxed and being able to spend time with her and friends, it's just great. And I also find that it's just good active recovery. So if I've been training A ton. And I just want to go out for a nice walk on the golf course and between the club a few times. So that's amazing.

Vanessa Ronksley: What tip do you have for us today?

Kristin Overton: So I have hopefully a good bike tip for everybody, especially now that the weather's getting colder. We're finding ourselves more indoors and on the trainer. We sort of all get into the development phase and really start concentrating on FTP and more power, which is great and what we need to do during that time. But also I think it's a good time to concentrate on cadence and particularly working on some of those that higher cadence work, which helps kind of drive your aerobic engine as well as allow you to kind of have a nice, smoother pedal stroke, which helps you in the long run.

Vanessa Ronksley: So I'm thinking that there's a lot of people out there who struggle with getting into different cadences. So I know that in TriDot, the workouts are prescribed. When we do zone four, zone five efforts, the cadence often drops. And I know that it's a struggle for some people to get their cadence to match what's prescribed. So can you talk a little bit about the importance of the lower cadences and how to potentially improve at knocking that part of the workout out of the park?

Kristin Overton: Yeah. So I think there's a couple different. There's basically two different types of cyclists, and there's kind of the mashers that work is powering through lower cadence, higher resistance, and moving through and struggle with higher cadence. And then on the opposite end, there's like the spinners. So, you know, higher cadence start to struggle when the resistance gets harder and they just can't keep up that momentum with the lower cadence. So it's kind of figuring out, you know, which one are you and which one do I need to work on? So, you know, concentrating on certain things. So, you know, if you're. If you're more of a masher and need to work on your higher cadence, you're taking those, making sure you're doing your spin ups in your Zone 2 rides, making sure that you're. You're increasing your cadence at certain times. You know, take. Take that last section of your zone 2 ride and increase your cadence 5 to 10 rpms than you normally would and see what you can do. And as you keep doing that, you'll find that all of a sudden your normal cadence is a little bit higher. Vice versa, if you're kind of a higher cadence person and have a hard time working on that lower cadence, you know, when you have those Zone four intervals. You know, if it's just a straightforward threshold where it, you know, basically says stay at 80rpms, you know, that kind of thing, go ahead and drop that down and go to higher resistance at your threshold, and teach your body that, you know, you can get through that threshold. Work with a little bit lower cadence, higher resistance, and it helps you get into a better, better rhythm that way.

Vanessa Ronksley: Yeah. One of the things that some people might struggle with in the lower cadences is. Is continuing on with that smooth pedal stroke. Is there. Are there any tips or tricks on how to. To keep your stroke smooth while in a lower cadence?

Kristin Overton: I think the biggest key is learning how to relax. So as you start increasing that resistance and it's harder to pedal, you kind of tense up. You grab the handlebars really tight. You just. Your shoulders shrug. You know, you're just trying to work too hard, so you got to check in with yourself. All right, let my legs do the work. Relax your arms, relax your neck and shoulders, and concentrate on a rhythm, even counting, you know, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, two. That kind of thing. And that helps you kind of get into that. That nice, easy rhythm, even though you're really working hard at a higher resistance.

Vanessa Ronksley: I love that so much. I think that counting is very valuable in a multitude of ways when training, but I've never actually tried that one where you're counting to smooth out your pedal stroke. I always, like, when I'm in a zone 4 effort. I usually do this when I'm running because I find Zone 4 terribly difficult, to be honest. And so. And especially if you're on the treadmill, like, it's like, the worst thing ever, zone four on the treadmill. Um, but if. If I have two minutes left, I'll start counting backwards from 120, and then I know when I get to zero, I'm, like, done. And it's something to work forward to. But I actually like thinking about the counting aspect to try and focus on a piece of technique. I think that's brilliant. You're brilliant. I love it.

Kristin Overton: You know, the other thing is not only just counting, just put a song in your head and something that just has that kind of rhythm at that particular cadence and kind of concentrate on that. So, A, you're thinking about something else, so you are relaxing. And B, you're just getting into a rhythm but still working hard. So it's a little motivating that way.

Announcer: Thanks for joining us. Make sure to subscribe. Subscribe and share the TriDot podcast with your triathlon crew. For more great tri content and community, connect with us on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. Ready to optimize your training? Head to TriDot.com and start your free trial today. TriDot, the obvious and automatic choice for triathlon training.

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