Category: Sports Nutrition

Journal, Nutrition + Health, Running, Seasonal Eating, Sports Nutrition, Summertime

Field Notes: August 10th, 2024

by RebeccaLeave a Comment on Field Notes: August 10th, 2024

Something I’ve been thinking a great deal about the last few weeks is the shift that occurred internally for me within the last couple years regarding becoming a mother. Since childhood, I’ve always aspired to have kids some day and when I was younger, I thought it would occur much sooner than it did.
But then William and I got married, and we just weren’t ready. For years. There was a lot that went into that including a health crisis, turbulent finances, politics in this country, the climate upheaval (also a crisis, actually). But ultimately, there was being ready for the lifestyle adjustment. And a switch in my brain that hadn’t flipped. Until it did.

Since having our baby, it’s become even more dramatic. At first, I worried that I’d lose myself and my ability to make time for the other things I enjoy. We’re only a bit over three months in so there is much of parenting we haven’t gotten to yet, but one thing we discussed early on in planning for a child was that we were going to include our child (or children) in doing the things we love rather than give up ourselves for the sake of our new person(s).
As it turns out, in the first few months anyway, that last aspiration is quite challenging. We’re still trying to get back into a regular routine of going to church and we’re several months yet from being able to go for a run together, let alone a day-trip adventure run. But it’s certainly a work in progress.

My parents were visiting recently, and since they live so very far away now, it was extra special to see them enjoying their latest grandchild. With that, here are some other tidbis of what I’m enjoying.

Reading

  • “Matrescence,” and the Transitions of Motherhood: If I’ve suddenly transitioned to talking a lot about motherhood, you can blame my new brain!
  • A diet-wide Mendelian randomization analysis: causal effects of dietary habits on type 2 diabetes: In this study, poultry consumption was positively correlated with type 2 diabetes, and intake of dried fruits and cereals was correlated with lower incidence of T2D. Pretty counter to what the low-carb tribe will have you believe. According to study authors, “possible reasons include the breeding process, where commercially bred chickens may be exposed to hormones and antibiotics, which can act as endocrine disruptors and potentially affect glucose metabolism. Additionally, processed chicken products often contain high levels of sodium and preservatives. Cooking methods also play a role, as fried or fat-added chicken products can be high in saturated and trans fats. These cooking methods can lead to the formation of advanced glycation end products (AGEs) through frying, grilling, and high-temperature baking. These fats and compounds are known to increase oxidative stress and inflammation, which are contributing factors to the onset and progression of type 2 diabetes”
  • Impact of Plant-Based Dietary Fibers on Metabolic Homeostasis: “The gut microbiota contributes to metabolic disease, and diet shapes the gut microbiota…”
    There are a lot of caveats to this study since it was done on mice, they were on a high-fat diet, and the implementation of dietary fibers was via supplementation rather than as part of a well-balanced diet. But the results are where I start to reference oats and oatmeal consumption again! The authors found that “Only βeta-glucan supplementation during HFD-feeding decreased adiposity and body weight gain and improved glucose tolerance compared with HFD-cellulose, whereas all other fibers had no effect. This was associated with increased energy expenditure and locomotor activity in mice compared with HFD-cellulose.” Guess what the richest source of Beta-glucan fiber types are? Yep, it’s rolled oats, and oat bran!

Enjoying

  • Speaking of oats, I made my Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble recently and it is super easy and delish!
  • This flatbread with roasted zucchini, hummus, and a crunchy, seedy salad.
  • Kohlrabi Soup – Kohlrabi means “cabbage turnip” and that’s essentially the best way to explain what kohlrabi is like; a combination of the two. Admittedly, I like both cabbage and turnips more than kohlrabi, but we grow a handful every year, and they are amazing in this soup.
  • Apricot, Date + Turmeric Bars: a favorite fruit/nut snack bar with balanced carbs + protein for athletes.
  • The Olympics! So far, I’m extremely behind and mostly watching Equestrian Dressage (which was my sport back when I had a horse), Equestrian Eventing, Road Cycling, and all the (distance) track and running events. And if you’re able to but haven’t yet watched the opening ceremony, I highly recommend.
  • Nigel Slater’s garden
  • Making elderberry syrup. ‘Tis the season.
All those health-promoting polyphenols in elderberries make for purple hands for a couple days after syrup making!

Nutrition and Food/Cooking Questions

  • I see that you are not an RD. What does your CNS credential mean?
    This article explains the difference well. I’ll add that the training to become an RD and a CNS are similar but also quite different. An RD pathway will have a big portion of training for acute care (like in a hospital), and/or planning for creating nutrition plans for an institution, whereas my training leaves that out and focuses solely on preventative and chronic conditions. Additionally, a CNS will have functional medicine training and a focus on integrative health and getting to the root cause of an imbalance, as well as training in using herbal medicines and other traditional approaches, in addition to food and nutritional supplementation. Ultimately, in many states an RD and CNS share the same licensure, meaning we have the exact same scope of practice.
  • What’s an easy summer vegetable side dish?
    Roasted summer squash and/or zucchini! This is such an easy go-to that’s mostly hands-off, delicious, and easy on digestion (unlike all those crunchy summer salads). Just chop up a bunch of zucchini and/or yellow summer squash, lay out flat on a parchment lined baking pan, preheat your oven to about 400-425 degrees F, and lightly season with salt and pepper. You can add other spices too, such as thyme, Herbes de Provence, or Italian Seasoning, but they’re not even necessary. Roast until soft and slightly golden on the edges/bottoms, stirring once or twice throughout. No need for any oil or water in the pan; the squash will create it’s own juices and make it just the right consistency.
  • What’s been growing well in your garden this year?
    Every year some things do well and others flop. I’ve already mentioned the boysenberries and blackcurrants in previous posts, but we also had a great harvest of black raspberries, and the everbearing strawberries are coming back around for their smaller second harvests. As for vegetables, many things are growing great! We have a steady supply of yellow crookneck squash right now, zucchini (hence lots of delicious roasted squash!), green beans, carrots, broccoli, and there were several heads of amazing cauliflower a few weeks ago. We also have a whole garden full of giant sunflowers. Such perks of constant joy.


Until next time ~ Rebecca

p.s. if you have nutrition or cooking questions, you’d like to submit, enter them in the comments, or submit via the contact form.
If you’d like to sign up for my periodic newsletter, you can do so here.

Journal, Nutrition + Health, Running, Seasonal Eating, Sports Nutrition, Summertime

Field Notes, July 20th, 2024

by RebeccaLeave a Comment on Field Notes, July 20th, 2024

I feel like a really fragile human, I told my husband this morning. It’s the day after I took baby boy to his two-month pediatrician visit. I’ve quickly learned that I become anxious before all baby’s doctor appointments, and I generally enjoy them about as much as him. Which is not at all. We both came home feeling fragile. He whimper-napped and whimper-ate all day, and I cried with him off and on.
There are SO MANY challenges to being a parent in most of the phases, but the combo of months of inadequate sleep due to a newborn and a baby in pain, is absolutely right up there. This weekend, I have hopes to rest as much as I can, shower even more love on baby, and take care of my mental health by going slowly, being gentle with myself, and getting some time in moving my body.

With that, I’m still moving slowly into flexing my creative muscles. I’m back to work very soon, and it feels imperative that I soak up the last of my less rigidly scheduled routine until then.

Reading

The chai-spiced pear oatmeal I enjoy when pears are in season

Enjoying

  • The Hippie Bowl from Sara Forte’s Sprouted Kitchen Bowl + Spoon cookbook. Bonus that William told me it’s one of his favorite meals I make!
  • My own version of the Courgette Flatbreads with Lots of Herbs from Gill Meller’s Root Stem Leaf Flower. This is one of my all-time favorite cookbooks for seasonal meal inspiration, and an absolute work of art as well. I used my sourdough pizza crust, which is still the best gluten-free pizza base I’ve tried.
  • Our boysenberries are nearly done for the year, but the black currants are still practically dripping off the bushes. So many to harvest!
  • Aviva Romm’s new Mama Pathway group/program. It is sooo helpful to have a community of like-minded individuals and experts to gather with and gain answers from. It’s a new parent re-assurance goldmine.
  • Slowly easing into longer runs after baby. I’ve been trying to be very conservative in coming back to running postpartum due to the extreme taxation that childbirth has on the pelvic floor and core muscles (I now fully understand why childbirth really is like having a major injury!), the inability to recover from day to day due to lack of sleep and always being on, and the nutritional taxation on the body from breastfeeding. Ooof. Together, it’s quite the combination!

Nutrition and Food/Cooking Questions

  • Why do you say you can have digestion dysfunction even without GI symptoms?
    There’s a saying in Ayurvedic Medicine that when the diet is right, there’s no need for medicine. And when the diet is wrong, medicine will do no good. That may seem a bit extreme in today’s modern world, but truly, the majority of medicines are actually band-aids on bodily imbalances, and they are not “curing” diseases or treating the root cause. In the majority of cases, an imbalanced digestive system is at the root of other health imbalances.
    Let’s use a common challenge with many: overweight, obesity and blood sugar challenges. Much of what we are now seeing at the gut level is dysbiosis (meaning microbial imbalances and overgrowth) driving food cravings and inflammation, slowing down metabolism, and impairing liver function, as well as glucose and insulin. When we can get to the root cause by rebalancing the gut, we can chip away at a lot of the subsequent symptoms. This isn’t to say that by rebalancing the gut that someone who has been overweight their entire life will suddenly become thin (we all have different body constitutions we’re born with), but it can mean we’re as balanced, symptom-free and at the appropriate weight and health in our body as we can be.
  • Do you meal plan?
    I do! It started out as William buying me a five-year diary over a decade ago. I’d use it to write what I made for dinner each day. After filling up the journal, and each year realizing I was making similar foods on the same weeks of each year, I noted that seeing what I made at the same time in other years was super helpful in deciding what to plan for meals. The super-seasonality of how we eat means I often don’t make the same thing more than a couple times throughout the year.
    Now, I keep a multi-year table in my OneNote application, which I can access on my computer and phone – and I make a list of five to seven main meals for each week. And I still take inspiration from looking at past years when I’m out of ideas. I also update it throughout the week, making note of what produce and ingredients need to be used first to prioritize what to make each day, and/or move meals around if I need something that comes together faster or the weather dictates something different from day to day each week.
  • What do you think of fasted exercise? Like running first thing before breakfast?
    Like all nutrition questions, I’ll say it depends. For women of child-bearing years (essentially from puberty to menopause), it’s a huge stress to do fasted exercise, particularly if it has any intensity beyond a really short, easy run. The reason is because women’s hormones are quite sensitive to even subtle changes in the environment (and a hard workout on “empty” after an overnight fast is beyond subtle). Fasted exercise in this life phase can throw women’s hormonal and endocrine health completely out of balance if done long term. But for men and post-menopausal women, my answer might be different. But it depends on the person, situation, and context.


Until next time ~ Rebecca

p.s. if you have nutrition or cooking questions, you’d like to submit, enter them in the comments, or submit via the contact form.
If you’d like to sign up for my periodic newsletter, you can do so here.

GI Problems, Nutrition + Health, Running, Sports Nutrition

Training the Gut for Athletic Activity Part II: Fueling During Activity

by RebeccaLeave a Comment on Training the Gut for Athletic Activity Part II: Fueling During Activity
The author fueling on the run, Oct. 2023
I recently shared a primer on training the gut and fueling during exercise in Part I of this training the gut and fueling athletic activities series. This is a both a performance as well as digestive health topic that’s pertinent to endurance athletes, and particularly runners. As many athletes are beginning their early season race training, it’s a good time to start practicing and dialing in nutrition, because it will significantly impact performance for the months going forward.

Last time in part I, we laid the groundwork for what training the gut is and why it is important, as well as a brief discussion on under-fueling, both during exercise and throughout the day, and its consequences.

Today, we’ll delve a little deeper into how much fuel you should be consuming during exercise, and what factors might affect how much and what type of additional nutrition you take on while moving.

How much to Fuel During Exercise

You may have read that elite athletes such as professional cyclists on the world tour level are now aiming to ingest upwards of 120 g/h of carbohydrates. This is true and a showcase of what is occurring at the top end of performance fueling, as well as what’s needed to compete at an elite level. This is also what is most helpful for performance during intense ultra endurance events where athletes spend upwards of six hours on the bike, often at tempo or threshold efforts for much of that time.

For you, what’s important to remember is that your need for and rate of carbohydrate use depends largely on intensity. If you are exercising at a lower intensity, which is more common in many athletes and those doing longer races, you will likely need less carbohydrates. Similarly, how long you will be racing matters. A short but intense half marathon will require less carbohydrates per hour than a marathon that’s raced at similar but slightly lower intensity. That means instead of aiming for 120 grams per hour of carbohydrates, there is a large range depending on intensity and time, to the tune of 30-90+ grams of carbohydrate consumed per hour. 

So the answer as to “how much” will depend on your race distance, how long you’ll take to complete that distance, weather, and other factors such as your fuel tolerance, gut training, and practicality. 

You can find any number of articles on the internet giving specifics of how much you should fuel per hour during your particular goal distance. But these are broad numbers and aren’t specific to you. For specifics for your situation and performance goals, it is always best to work with a knowledgeable sports nutrition professional. See the end of this article for more information about individual consultations. 

The author fueling on the run, circa 2014.

What Types of Fuel During Exercise

Now, what about the choice of fuel you choose to consume during exercise? I’ve met many athletes that say they prefer “real food,” whether that’s a small handful of raisins, dates or dried apricots, a banana, homemade nut butter and fruit bars, a rice cake (popular in cycling), or even something like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. 

On the flip side, there are ample sports nutrition products to choose from on the market–in many cases there are too many options–hence the confusion. There are “real food” gels, various sugar-containing gels, drinks and drink mixes, sport beans and candies, gummies and chews, and bars. 

What you choose to consume during exercise will depend on your goals, your tolerance and gut training, convenience, and other factors like personal preference. For instance, if you’re aiming for an Olympic Trials qualifying time in the marathon, you’re likely going to be choosing a quick-absorbing carbohydrate fuel that’s convenient like a sports drink or gel. 

If you’re training for a 100 mile ultra run, and your pace and intensity is much slower, you may opt away from gels altogether and make your own sweet potato and maple syrup packs, or even pack a PB&J, stop for a real meal at an aid station, etc.

And if you’re just out for a slow Sunday long run or ride, and you’re not currently gearing up for a target race, you might have a pocket full of dates, a banana, or a rice cake or homemade energy balls that contain both slower absorbing carbohydrates and perhaps some fat. 

Based on how much you will be fueling per hour, the types of sugar in your chosen fuel will also start to matter, as there will be a need for carbohydrates from both glucose and fructose to increase absorption and utilization, once you start to consume above 45 grams of carbohydrates per hour (Rowlands et al 2015). 

There is no right answer in terms of what fuel you choose–but there is a correct fuel for the purpose of that day, and for the amount of fuel you need for that day.

Fueling During Exercise and Its Effect on Digestion and the GI

Finally, let’s turn to the topic of fueling during exercise and how it affects both digestion and GI function more generally. 

From research studies, we see that: 

  • There is a greater reduction in markers of damage done to the lower GI –damage resulting in injury to the cells lining the small intestine and causing “leaky gut” or intestinal permeability, where larger molecules than ideal get through into the bloodstream and cause inflammation and symptoms–when athletes took in glucose compared to just water during two hours of running  (Martinez et al, 2023).
  • There are improvements in carbohydrate malabsorption after two weeks of gut training with carbohydrate from a supplement during exercise (as opposed to taking in no carbohydrates or in that particular study, taking in carbohydrates from “real food”.) 
  • There is a significant reduction in GI discomfort both during and after exercise in those that consume carbohydrates during exercise and have undergone gut training protocols.
  • Performance can be improved. From some field data from professional cycling teams, the higher the amount of carbohydrates that were taken per hour of exercise, the faster the finishing time of the athletes  (Viribay, 2022)
    • On this note, in a study of trained Mountain Trail Ultra runners consuming between 60 and 120 grams per hour of carbohydrate, there was a lower rate of perceived exertion when consuming 120 gr/hr CHO. 
    • Consuming the higher amount of carbohydrates during their race also lowered markers of muscle damage after the race for these athletes when compared to consuming lower amounts of carbohydrate. (Viribay et al, 2020)

So far in this series, we’ve shared about the dangers of under-fueling both during and outside of activity, the advantages of fueling and training the gut on both digestion and performance, a brief overview of how much and what type of fuels to consume, and the knowledge that for every person has unique variables to work with, so for best results, tailoring your fueling plan to your needs and race goals is best. In the coming weeks, I’m planning to continue this topic of fueling sports performance in more detail. Stay tuned!

Learn More

If you’d like to know more, I work with clients in individual nutrition consultations, and as a Licensed Dietician / Nutritionist and Certified Nutrition Specialist, use medical nutrition therapy, integrative health measures, and a root cause approach to heal imbalanced health conditions. 

Conditions I specialize in include all digestive health imbalances and disorders, endurance athlete sports nutrition, vegan/vegetarian diets, intuitive eating, and autoimmune diseases.

If you’d like to learn more about how you can improve your symptoms of imbalance, I’d love to speak with you in a quick phone consultation! 

References:

Martinez, I.G., Mika, A.S., et al. (2023). The effect of Gut-Training and Feeding-Challenge on Markers of Gastrointestinal Status in Response to Endurance Exercise: A Systematic Literature Review. Sports Medicine, 53, 1175-1200. doi:10.1007/s40279-023-01841-0.
Rowlands, D. S., Houltham, S., Musa-Veloso, K., Brown, F., Paulionis, L., & Bailey, D. (2015). Fructose-Glucose Composite Carbohydrates and Endurance Performance: Critical Review and Future Perspectives. Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 45(11), 1561–1576. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-015-0381-0
Viribay, A., Arribalzaga, S., Mielgo-Ayuso, J., Castañeda-Babarro, A., Seco-Calvo, J., & Urdampilleta, A. (2020). Effects of 120 g/h of Carbohydrates Intake during a Mountain Marathon on Exercise-Induced Muscle Damage in Elite Runners. Nutrients, 12(5), 1367. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12051367
Viribay, A. (2022). “Training the gut in pro cycling and elite running.” WE Sports Nutrition Pre-Conference, 18 Oct. 2022.