We've rounded up an all-female cast for this episode! Host Vanessa Ronksley chats with nutritional expert Dr. Krista Austin and professional triathlete and coach Elizabeth James about fueling the female triathlete. When it comes to proper nutrition, what differs for male versus female athletes? Do those needs change with the phases of the menstrual cycle? Listen in as Dr. Austin discusses the type and amount of protein recommendations for different female age groups, periodization of carbohydrates, signs to ensure you are fueling properly, and much more! A big thanks to UCAN for being a long-time partner of the podcast! At TriDot, we are huge believers in using UCAN to fuel our training and racing. To experience UCAN’s LIVSTEADY products for yourself, head to their website UCAN.co! Use the code “TriDot” to save 20 percent on your entire order. Participate in Triathlon Research! The Preseason Project® is a triathlon research initiative that helps us quantify and enhance the performance gains that TriDot’s Optimized Training™ delivers over training alternatives. Qualified participants receive 2 free months of triathlon training. Learn more and apply at: https://psp.tridot.com/psp23pod/
TriDot Podcast .177
Fueling the Female Triathlete
Intro: 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 and let’s improve together.
Vanessa Ronksley: Well hello there everyone! I am thrilled that you are joining us today so we can chat about triathlon and nutrition, which are two of my favorite topics. Andrew gave me the reins of the show today so that we can specifically focus on fueling the female body for athletic endeavors. Joining me to help put the pieces of the puzzle together are Dr. Krista Austin and pro triathlete Elizabeth James.
Dr. Austin is an exercise physiologist and nutritionist who consulted with the U.S. Olympic Committee and the English Institute of Sport. She has a Ph.D. in Exercise Physiology and Sports Nutrition, a Masters degree in Exercise Physiology, and she is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist. Krista, thanks for coming back on the show!
Krista Austin: Thanks for having me back, and it’s great to get an opportunity to work with the new co‑host of the TriDot Podcast. Vanessa, I’m excited to do this one with you!
Vanessa: Thanks Krista! I’m really excited to be here. We also have pro triathlete and coach Elizabeth James here with us. Elizabeth is a USAT Level II and IRONMAN U certified coach who quickly rose through the triathlon ranks using TriDot, from a beginner, to top age‑grouper, to a professional triathlete. She is a Kona and Boston Marathon qualifier who has coached triathletes with TriDot since 2014. Elizabeth, thanks for being here! I am really looking forward to talking about nutrition with you today.
Elizabeth James: Thank you so much for having me on! I just absolutely love the episodes we’ve done in the past with Dr. Austin, so it is such a privilege to be here. You and I are just going to pick her brain about all things nutrition-related, especially as it pertains for our female athletes today.
Vanessa: Absolutely, this is going to be amazing. I’m Vanessa, your Average Triathlete with Elite-Level Enthusiasm. We are going to start things off with our warmup question, which I can hardly wait to hear about from Krista and Elizabeth. We will then move into the main set, talking about specific nutritional needs of female athletes, and then we’ll cool down with our Coach Cooldown Tip.
Before we get too deep into the show today, I want to give a shout out to our good friends at UCAN. Here at TriDot we are huge believers in using UCAN to fuel our training and racing. In the crowded field of nutrition companies, what separates UCAN from the pack is the science behind LIVSTEADY, the key ingredient in UCAN products. While most energy powders are filled with sugar or stimulants that cause a spike and crash, UCAN energy powders, powered by LIVSTEADY, deliver a steady release of complex carbs to give you stable blood sugar and provide long-lasting energy. So head to their website, ucan.co and use the code TRIDOT to save 20% on your entire order. It used to be 10%, but the fine folks at UCAN have upped it to 20% off for TriDot Nation. So once again, that’s ucan.co, promo code TRIDOT.
Warm up theme: Time to warm up! Let’s get moving.
Vanessa: Today’s warmup question is about photography, because aside from triathlon and nutrition, photography is another favorite hobby of mine. What is the most recent multisport-related photo on your phone camera reel? Elizabeth, let’s start with you.
Elizabeth: Well, training for multisport, my answer’s pretty easy there, because it would be from the swim session earlier this morning. I was very fortunate to have my husband Charles with me there at the pool. It was just a long aerobic swim session, and he was capturing some video for me so that I could look it over myself and then send it to my coach later today. So I’ve actually got quite a few pictures of my swim from earlier today. If we’re thinking more along the lines of events versus training though, it would have to be a photo from Laura Siddall that she sent to me from Challenge Daytona. I wasn’t able to be there to cheer on our TriDot crew, but my teammate Sid was there cheering a bunch of other people on. She snapped this really cute picture of herself and Coach Joanna soon after Joanna finished the race. That would probably be one of my most recent multisport event photos on the camera reel.
Vanessa: I heard that Challenge Daytona was an incredible experience, so I can only imagine the photos that came out of that were pretty awesome. What about you, Krista, what’s on your photo reel that is multisport-related?
Krista: Well, I guess I’m going to give you a little bit of a different answer. I’ve been doing a lot of work right now with a sport called Team Handball. Technically, that sport’s a function of football, basketball, hockey, soccer, and wrestling all rolled into one, so I’ve got action-packed photo reels for sure. I would say that’s on my phone at the moment if you were to dive in. A little bit different from triathlon, but it gives us some variety here on the show.
Vanessa: Absolutely, that sounds like a really fun sport to watch, with all of those different aspects rolled into one. I’m going along with you, mine is not 100% multisport-related, I’m not sure it classifies as a sport either. But my parents were just here recently visiting us in Sydney, and we did our own sort of triathlon that was fit for all ages and abilities for the most part. We did a transportation triathlon on one day on our way to the zoo, which is an unconventional multisport but I consider it to be one, because we started off on the light rail train, that was number one. Number two was we transferred over to a water taxi, and then number three we finished off the trek on the gondola. You have to take the gondola to get all the way up to the zoo entrance. So I’m classifying this as a multisport because there were three events, it was really long, and it most definitely required fueling and a little bit of problem-solving as well. So it sounded exactly like a triathlon to me.
I’m going to throw this question out there to the TriDot community, so head on over to the I AM TriDot Facebook page, and I can hardly wait to see all of the multisport pictures!
Main set theme: On to the main set. Going in 3…2…1…
Vanessa: Hey folks! TriDot is currently running the 2023 edition of our annual research project called the Preseason Project, which was recently featured in Triathlete Magazine and NY Weekly. We are looking for non‑TriDot athletes who want to jump into the research project this year. Qualifying athletes get two free months of TriDot training. My journey with TriDot started with the Preseason Project in 2020, and I thought I was going to do the free trial, learn how to do the program, and then end my subscription. But I fell in love with the training schedule, and in two months I saw huge improvements in my swim, bike, and in the run. More importantly, I enjoyed the TriDot community so much that I was hooked. I continue to get faster in all three disciplines, I am the most fit version of myself, and my love for the sport of triathlon continues to grow. So if you are a podcast listener and you’ve never given our training a try, head over to tridot.com/psp to learn more and apply.
Nutrition is what some people call the fourth discipline of triathlon, as it can make or break your training session or race. We have known for a long time that there are differences between males and females, and recently there has been a movement to recognize these differences. It is thrilling to see an increase in research on females and how their nutritional needs might be different from that of males, and the three of us are here to talk about some of the things that female athletes can use to their advantage to take their training and racing to the next level. So, Krista and Elizabeth, I was walking past a pharmacy the other day, and in the window there was this display for the Man Shake on one wall, and the Lady Shake on another wall. The marketing was just mind-blowing to begin with, but it clearly worked because it sparked my curiosity to check out the differences between these two products. I found out that they were weight-loss supplements geared towards the general population. I wasn’t at all surprised that there was mostly a difference in the vitamins and minerals, more calcium and iron for the Lady Shake compared to the Man Shake. But this also got me thinking about triathletes and how they put a lot physical stress on their bodies, and I’m wondering if you can give a quick rundown of the nutrients and extra requirements that female athletes might need to have in their diets.
Krista: Well, I’ll go ahead and kick off for you, Vanessa. Really it depends on the volume of training, and as a result the overall energy intake. Typically women are on the smaller side when compared to males, so oftentimes the challenge we have in terms of getting all our micronutrients in, or the highest quality of amino acids in our diet, is oftentimes due to the total energy intake. When our volume of training is high it’s a lot easier, but as it diminishes, that’s when we either have to get that much more refined in what we take in, or understand that supplementation may in fact be necessary to ensure we hit all the wickets. I’d say both males and females do have a tendency to need insurance for certain minerals. Those are ones like Vitamin D, calcium, and iron, where in both populations I would say I’ve seen it equivocal, to be honest. I’ve never seen a predominance in one of them or the other. I think a lot of it is because it doesn’t necessarily have to do always with total energy intake, it has to do with exposure to the sun, the person’s metabolism – metabolism requires iron – and sometimes the tendency or ability to take in products or foods that have higher levels of calcium in them. Sometimes people just don’t respond to high levels of calcium well because it tends to come from more dairy-based products or items like that. Oftentimes you have to look at a few factors to understand if there’s differences between males and females, then understanding why do those differences occur in an athlete.
Elizabeth: I’m really glad that you mentioned iron as one of those, and I want to stay there for just a moment. I know that iron is something that I’ve needed to supplement over the past few years, and so I also recommend that my coached athletes do bloodwork at least annually. Many of my female athletes, as well as a few of the males, have needed to begin an iron supplementation. We’ve talked about how there’s not necessarily a big difference between male and female in terms of some of those things that may need to be supplemented, but are we more likely to see this in athletes versus the general population, that may need more of that supplementation for iron?
Krista: I would say yes, absolutely. The thing is, the more you train on the endurance side, the more likely you are to use iron as a cofactor in metabolism, but also to create an inflammation within the body that may inhibit iron absorption. I think that’s why a lot of times the iron deficiency that I’ve been most familiar with is in younger athletes, especially the college-age population. They’re typically getting to these highest volumes that they’ve never experienced before. They’re still learning to eat right, so that’s where I’ve always seen my largest prevalence. I think it’s the lack of education as to how they should be eating in that age group, that really lends towards that iron deficiency. For example, when I was working with college students, they were great at going and grabbing their favorite slice of pizza at a place called Moe’s. But Moe’s didn’t have a lot of iron availability in the food, so at the end of the day they usually were iron deficient because they didn’t eat iron-rich foods. Some of my favorite calorie-intake female athletes were iron deficient because they chose the wrong foods. They love chocolate cake, Pringles, all the good things because they had the metabolism. They had the ability to burn it off, so they just ate whatever, they didn’t really pay attention. So getting them to learn the benefit of a pound of ground chuck, and how you can make it into all these different things like chili, tacos, a hamburger, spaghetti Bolognese, things like that, that was just something they had to learn. But it was really equivocal amongst the males and the females. As you get into older age groups, you’ll see it more so in those females that are smaller, and a lot of it is just that they’re not taking in the bioavailable iron. Or they may be on a specialized nutrition plan to help manipulate body weight, such as being on a vegan diet, and they don’t know how to incorporate enough iron availability because they just haven’t been taught how to refine it well enough. I’ve had great results with vegan athletes getting enough iron from their diet, but it takes a lot of work. So the question is what is driving it, and why do they need something. Oftentimes what you find is that women are just more inclined to trend towards a lower calorie intake or specialized nutrition plans to help control body weight and composition. It’s just what I’ve found over the years, I could be right, I could be wrong. But when you take a look at a common supplement, like a protein powder, in a female you’ll find that they’re taking it because they cannot get the available amino acids that they need, because they do have caloric control that they need to implement. So we’ll use a protein powder to help them meet it, versus just looking at total protein intake. Conversely with the males, I find that they’re like, “How do I help control my appetite? How do I get enough calories then?” It's factors like those that they rationalize using protein powder. A lot of times it’s about the why.
Elizabeth: Gosh, I love that. I’ve always appreciated how you help athletes understand WHY they may need to take something. We aren’t just blindly putting things into our body thinking or hoping that it should help our performance, at least that’s what we shouldn’t be doing. There needs to be not only a need for it, but then also a benefit from doing so. As I’m thinking of my own personal experience here, I know that I use a combination of my bloodwork results and some micronutrient tracking to determine what I may need to supplement, and Dr. Austin I know we’ve covered this before, but what would you say is the best way for an athlete to know what, if anything, they should be supplementing into their diet?
Krista: I take usually at least a three-fold approach. One is looking at bloodwork at frequent enough intervals so that you can objectively evaluate. Then secondly doing a dietary analysis, and then third looking at a performance outcome. Like maybe you ARE normal according to these ranges on a biochemical test, or you might be low-normal. Or you may have adequate intake according to that nutrition analysis, but maybe the performance isn’t there. So what I always encourage athletes to do is use a multi-factorial approach to say, “Okay, do I possibly need to increase my ferritin stores, is there a reason to do that? Do I need to change the way I eat to fuel my body better, and therefore get a better performance outcome?” So at least those three for me is kind of important.
Vanessa: I think getting bloodwork done by their doctor should be easy for an athlete to do, then they could even use an app or some kind of tracking measure to look at their dietary analysis. A lot of apps are really great, because they show the breakdown of all of the different minerals and nutrients and calories and macronutrients. These things are available and easy to access for anyone. I think it’s a great idea to do all of those things.
Krista: I think the only thing I’ve got to point out is that a lot of endurance athletes are Type A personalities. They’re big into data, so sometimes they can get a little too obsessed with that data. I encourage all athletes to know when data for them is maybe a little too much, and to ask for help from someone else – maybe it’s a sport nutrition professional or your coach to take a look – because sometimes numbers get us as endurance athletes. Just a word of wisdom, because we can’t always process the numbers, especially on our own. Consult with someone to help you understand your numbers and walk you through the process.
Vanessa: Yes, I one hundred percent agree with that. It’s always beneficial to get an extra set of eyes on those types of information that’s coming in. I think that one of the most frequent words that athletes talk about in terms of nutrition is protein, so we’re just going to fit right in here with this next question. What are the protein requirements for female athletes, and are there specific types of protein that are better suited for females compared to males? There’s lots to unpack there, so Elizabeth could you start us out with the protein recommendations, and then Dr. Austin follow up with the specifics for women?
Elizabeth: Yeah, absolutely. First of all, I have to go back to how you emphasized protein. I think right now our society is just on this obsession with protein. You can’t even go to the grocery store without looking at the packaging and it’s like, “Oh, grams of protein in this! Grams of protein in that!” I mean goodness, even the brownies are like, “Five grams of protein here!” We’re kind of obsessed with it as a society right now, and think this is a big push that we need, protein is important. But on the flip side of that, it’s not our end‑all-be-all of what we need to camp on. We still need that balanced approach, we need those fats and carbohydrates as well. So taking a step back off my little rant there, let’s answer your question in terms of general recommendations. A lot of the literature points to this range from 1.2 to 2.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. Honestly that’s a pretty huge range, so I know we’ll need to dive into further as we sort through this question. For endurance athletes that’s maybe a little lower, typically that is more like 1.2 to 1.4 grams per kilogram per day. When you start adding in some resistance training, then there’s a greater need for some of that protein, I might up it to 1.6 or 1.7 grams. Here’s where the type of activity that we’re doing is going to really influence what our body needs in terms of those protein intakes. Somebody that is doing some light jogging and yoga is going to be very different from someone that is in a body-building competition, or an endurance athlete. So we’ve got this really wide range of recommendations for the general population, and then based on activity is where we get more specific.
Vanessa: That’s great general information, thank you for that. Dr. Austin, any specific recommendations for women versus men?
Krista: Yeah, I think the biggest thing I try to do is to get males and females to pay attention to any factors, like the menstrual cycle or age, that may influence their need for protein intake. For example, with some women – depending on how noticeable the influence of their menstrual cycle is on their ability to perform, or their ability to just feel good during certain phases – we will in fact go in and manipulate the amount of protein to help them feel better and perform better. For example, in the luteal phase of a women’s menstrual cycle, oftentimes the response they’re getting is the antagonization of progesterone with estrogen. On top of that they’ve got a hormone called prolactin that’s increasing water retention, it’s increasing sodium retention from the kidneys. So sometimes, if they’re taking in all the same levels of carbohydrates that they typically do, they just report feeling sluggish. They have these highs and lows, and a lot of it is that they’re having a greater reliance on fat or carbohydrate as a fuel source, depending on how much of a change in estrogen and progesterone to create that luteal phase. So at the end of the day, for those female athletes who notice a change, I’ve got to take that into account and we will in fact drive protein content up. It helps reduce some of the water retention. We’ll make sure that their hydration practices are really on point, and then see if that turns around and helps performance. The biggest thing is that estrogen usually is a very anabolic hormone, so it helps us build muscle. But when progesterone is there to antagonize it, you sit there and go, “Okay, we’re not able to be as anabolic as we usually are,” so maybe we want to increase protein during that phase. It’s about a ten‑day phase that we’re trying to account for, so if you’ve got a 26‑ to 28‑day cycle, you’re talking about a significant chunk of time there that we will actually spend in a relatively higher protein intake for that individual. Now they might be on the lower end of the typical recommendation for athletes, and all we’ve got to do is push it up toward that higher end,. Or in the cases of some females, depending on caloric intake, we may push above the recommended range of 2.2 grams per kilogram of body weight. What they’ve actually shown is that for short periods of time, that’s absolutely fine. Just know that women may have a greater need. The other point in time that you may find a greater need for protein, and this is both for males and females, is as they move on into an older age in life, and you see a decrease in estrogen, or testosterone in a male’s case, and they actually need to do whatever they can to help maintain muscle mass. They can maintain metabolism, they can maintain strength, and their ability to actually do high-intensity workouts. There are good reasons to pay probably a little bit more attention than just the general guidelines. But just note that a lot of the women I’ve worked with over the years, they will talk about their menstrual cycle and some of the effects that they tend to experience during it. So it's really important to pay attention to each person as an individual.
Vanessa: I just feel like getting out of my chair and running laps around the room, because I am so excited to hear that there is a fluctuation in how we feel that’s related to the hormones that we are pumping out at different times of our cycles, and to hear that there is an impact in what we eat during those different phases of the cycle. It’s just mind-blowing, and I just appreciate so much your wisdom in this area. Thank you so much, I know that’s going to help a lot of people to help to regulate how they’re feeling. That’s really amazing.
Krista: Well, what they have to remember too is that some women won’t feel anything at all. They have little blips to really create their menstrual cycles. Some of my athletes say, “I want to measure this. I want to see how much my hormones change over the course of my menstrual cycle.” Then they take a look at it, and what they find in some instances is that small fluctuations create their menstrual cycle, and in other instances there are major changes in those hormones. You see major surges in estrogen for some women, and you’re wondering why they feel so powerful in that late follicular and ovulation phase. Their estrogen has surged, and it’s very anabolic, known for promoting muscle contractility. So those are the women that say, “Yeah, I feel really good if you periodize off my menstrual cycle or help me manipulate my nutrition that way.” It’s not a false experience, it’s very real, but they are the ones having those larger shifts in hormones. The most recent research backs that, that when they measure relative change in females, they found that to be the factor that was most impactful towards what they experienced throughout their menstrual cycle. So it’s important to understand, and it probably explains why men feel it more so as they age, or when they’re doing anything that suppresses testosterone levels. I’ll get that question from males as well, they’ll say, “Why is it that during certain phases of training, I really feel like I need higher levels of protein intake?” And I say, “Well, you’re listening to your body, because you may be suppressing testosterone with endurance training.” So you turn around and say, “My body’s trying to repair, it’s trying to do something here.” It doesn’t have the same overall concentration of testosterone consistently, so it may be that the protein just becomes that much more important. Something to think about. I don’t think the guys are totally off the radar, I think they need to be considered just like women do. They may be doing training as well that impacts their need for protein.
Elizabeth: I know we talked a little bit about getting into those different age groups and the protein requirements that may change. For the males, the decrease in testosterone may be requiring some additional protein, and females as they’re aging going into perimenopause, menopause. Is there a big change in terms of how much a female should be taking in for protein as she goes into these different age groups?
Vanessa: I would say yes, absolutely, unless they’re already at that higher end of normal. But I notice that as women age, they started catching on to a new nutritional trend which is called the “carnivore diet”. It’s a little bit different than the concept of ketogenesis, where in carnivore they do more animal proteins. They’re getting a higher protein intake, little bit of a higher fat intake, and while they’re supposed to eliminate carbs, typically as endurance athletes they’re not, and you don’t want them to, but they’ll start to trend that way. So envision if you are that menopausal female or you’re starting to go through menopause, then all of a sudden you have these declines in estrogen. You can’t produce the same force and stimulate the muscle with strength training like you used to. You’re not as anabolic as you used to, because you don’t have as much estrogen. You’re sitting there going, “How do I hold on to all of this?” Sometimes the only thing we can do is to manipulate what we can control, and that’s the protein intake in the diet, and the frequency with which we do strength training. So with a lot of women I recommend that they increase the frequency of strength training – and I mean heavy strength training – so that they can actually try to maintain muscle mass, maintain metabolism, so we don’t see the weight gain and what have you. They also won’t see the difference in performance if they can maintain their strength. So we try to go after those factors as they age.
Elizabeth: Okay, so camping out here for a little bit longer, another common discussion point that I get from some of my female athletes – especially as they are getting a little bit into those upper age groups – is in regard to creatine, especially coupled with some heavier strength training. We do know that creatine provides an energy supply to the muscles during high-intensity training activities. I know that there are some research studies that show that it can help build the lean muscle, since it can sustain that higher energy level throughout those more intense workouts, and that sometimes it can support mental clarity by improving the oxygen uptake in the brain, which can offer that function in terms of not having that foggy brain during those challenging workouts. With what we know about creatine, do you recommend it for female athletes, and if so, under what circumstances?
Krista: I would say it’s all dependent on the athletes themselves. Some women carry more muscle mass, so they have different responses to creatine. If they have an interest, absolutely, but I think it’s about strategic use. I tend to follow a protocol that they’ve shown to have efficacy, in terms of optimizing training and workouts and performance, where you give a gram of creatine prior to the workout. Then if they respond well to that, we’ll do up to a gram in a recovery shake. The reason we do that is because a lot of women don’t care for the extra water retention of the actual creatine protocols that are out there, where they’re taking 3 to 5 grams a day. We’ll be very intentional with it to ensure they have the fuel supply to help fuel the workout and recover the muscle. I try to approach it that way with my female athletes because typically they tell me they don’t care for the water retention effects. So I think it’s always worth a try, but it’s all about how you approach it. Are they a responder to it or are they not? Just note that the same protocol with one female may not work for another female. They’ve shown that repeatedly in the research literature with creatine. It may just be because some women naturally have more phosphocreatine stores in the muscle itself, so the body just hits the reject button, whereas if you’re more inclined to deplete those stores, providing an external source obviously might be of benefit. It’s about working with the individual I would say.
Vanessa: Let’s switch gears here to a different macronutrient, fat. There has been a lot of research done on the ketogenic diet, which includes increasing fat consumption and minimizing consumption of carbohydrates. Is there any evidence that keto or low‑carb diets are beneficial for females?
Krista: You know, I’ve always been someone who’s a big proponent of trying to make sure women don’t run low on energy availability. But at the same time, you will have certain medical conditions where a high-fat diet may be of benefit, especially a condition like PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome, where you do have higher levels of hormone concentrations, and it may be that a ketogenic diet helps control all of that. It might also help control their insulin response, because insulin in and of itself is a key factor with regards to that disease state. Another one might be diabetes, that’s probably going to be more common in women who are a little bit older or who need significant weight loss, so that’s where we do want to take the circumstance into consideration. Then there’s of course those females that just say, “I don’t feel good on carbohydrates or the recommended range of carbohydrates,” so we need to look for alternative fuel sources for them. Maybe that’s giving them ketone esters, or maybe putting them on a more high-fat diet. You have to look at overall, how is that helping them, do they stay healthy? And that means, for those women who should be having a menstrual cycle, actually having that menstrual cycle, so maybe just have a more carbohydrate-controlled approach. Then for others, making sure that whatever health factors might need to be addressed, like cholesterol control. I’ve seen that be a major negative impact of high-fat diets, or just even moot. Sometimes when we get on very stringent nutritional protocols, people talk about the shift in the person and their personality. I try to take all these factors into consideration, but for sure if there is a medical aspect, we want to make sure that we’re pursuing what’s in their best interests.
Elizabeth: As we continue to look at some of these specific dietary guidelines or a stringent recommendation of how to eat, one of the things that I also think is really important for us to discuss is the topic of weight loss during athletic training. I’ve coached some female athletes before that have had the desire to lose weight while triathlon training, and this can often be challenging. First of all I just have to say, Dr. Austin, you have been the greatest resource, because it’s like, “Okay, let’s first figure out if we do need to lose the weight, and if so, let’s get Dr. Austin on board so that we can do this in a very intelligent way while still being able to maintain some level of training.” Because energy intake still needs to match the energy expenditure to maintain that high level of training. Maybe not necessarily match it completely if we’re looking for weight loss, but at least be at a point where we can build and repair body tissue. We can cover the energy costs of daily living, we can prevent illness, and maintain reproductive function. As you’ve talked about, low energy intake is scary stuff. Not only is there the risk of fatigue and injury, but menstrual dysfunction, lack of improvement in performance, the beginning of the list of some things that we don’t want to go down. So when you have an athlete, I guess male or female here, that asks for advice on how to best lose weight while still fueling appropriately, what would you tell them?
Krista: I think the first thing that I always do is to say, “How much wiggle room do we have here?” The second is to set their expectations appropriately. If you’ve ever attended some of my TriDot nutrition sessions that I do for TriDotters, I talk about that expectation, where we try to work in increments with weight loss, or shifts in body weight, that are reasonable, and that we can manage psychologically. I tend to work in five-pound increments typically, and say, “Okay, we’re not going to push past this point.” The question is, where is your wiggle room, and what is the impact of changing your diet while you’re in heavy training? Now, I’ve done it successfully in athletes, but those were also my most dedicated athletes that said, “Script out the nutrition plan for me, because otherwise I’ll go off rails on this, because I am training so hard right now. I’ve got to have it spoon-fed to me.” Because they’ve tried it, typically, on their own, and they go all over the scale. So we script it out, and they follow the script. Does it work? Absolutely. We usually use techniques like volumetrics. We make sure that carbohydrate availability is not too low, we make sure protein intake is high enough to make sure they are not breaking down muscle mass, we work on all those factors. So I think the biggest thing is controlling the amount of weight they want to lose, and then psychologically saying, “We’re going to take this one step at a time,” and making sure that they know how to script that out and what’s going to be required to really help hit the goals. I remember with one of my athletes, she said, “I need it one kilogram at a time.” She’s like, “We’re at that point where I want to see the effects of one kilogram.” And I said “Okay, no problem, we’ll do that acutely, and from a long-term perspective,” mainly because we’re test-driving every kilo. But she also knew that it was going to be restrictive in the sense that she was a foodie, she loved going out to eat. She knew part of getting the job done meant eating at home a lot, and not living some of the lifestyle factors that she actually enjoyed. So I think it’s all about is that actually necessary, and how far are you willing to push it. For someone who it’s not necessary, the return on the investment isn’t going to be there. In her case it was, so I said, “Okay, let’s try it.” But we always have to sit back and take all of that into account.
Vanessa: Can you describe for us what nutritional periodization actually is, and how someone might implement that into their own training schedule?
Krista: Yeah, so nutrition periodization is usually really dependent on goals initially. If someone goes into their triathlon cycle and they’re like, “Look, I really don’t have any specific goals towards nutrition, body weight, body composition, things of that nature,” nutrition periodization just really doesn’t apply. I would say for a lot of new triathletes, it’s probably not the road to initially go down for you, because with everything they’re learning and doing, you’re going to need to just learn the basics. However, as triathletes progress, what they start to realize is that they do have a body weight, body composition aspect that they want to take a look at. They have a greater need for recovery, they need to address things like inflammation or diminishments in micronutrients. So once they learn that’s something they’ve got to pay attention to, we typically scale out the year and say, “What are we going to address at each of these time points?” In the off‑season it’s about recovery, replenishment of stores, making sure the immune system is good, because oftentimes heavy training compromises that immune system. Also understanding if we’re going to take on any new dietary approaches, because we want to do that with as little stress on the body as possible. So we tend to start those changes in the actual preseason, so that as you build into the season, your goals around weight loss and body composition are hopefully already achieved. Then as you get into heavier training loads, we can manipulate the macronutrients – carbohydrate, fat, and protein – to help ensure the recovery of the muscle, to make sure you’re not in significant energy deficits while you’re underneath heavy training loads, you have the ability to recovery appropriately. So that’s oftentimes why we like to use periodization, because it’s intentional planning for success. That’s the definition of it, regardless of whether it’s nutrition or training periodization. We encourage that with athletes, because oftentimes if they don’t understand the concept, they go running into competition and just haven’t thought about it. They do it at the last minute. They try something new, they get excited or they get forgetful, and they just end up with an outcome that isn’t what they wanted. So teaching periodization, when to implement it more strongly for an athlete, is really key. I know with a lot of TriDot athletes, they’ll get periodization in their training regardless. But the actual nutrition side can be forgotten, or not something they’re always aware of, because it’s not something you naturally teach to every person. You’re going to do it when it’s time to do it, because otherwise we do want your focus on enjoying your triathlon, enjoying your training, and not getting too obsessive or too Type A, too data driven in that process. So I’m really big on making sure athletes are in that right place before they go down the periodization road.
Vanessa: Something that you mentioned several times was the impact and the importance of recovery at different stages of the training cycle. I think that’s something that a lot of athletes overlook, is how important and valuable that recovery period is, both in terms of recovery of the musculoskeletal system, but also in terms of the nutrient stores that we sometimes deplete if we’ve had this excess of training. I would like to hop back to the weight loss just for a second, because sometimes with weight loss we get these unfavorable changes that might occur as an athlete might begin to under-fuel. So I’m just wondering what are some of the signs to watch out for if there is under-fueling that can potentially be happening.
Krista: I always say first and foremost is performance, but what we oftentimes get concerned about with females is the loss of menstrual cycle or any indication that there’s an injury related to bone or soft tissue that may be a function of inadequate micronutrients or macronutrients. When I work with my female athletes, I actually expect that when they get to the higher levels, we’re going to see some disruption in their menstrual cycle. That’s not uncommon, and it’s not something that you should sit there and go, “Aaah, this is so scary!” One of the things that I learned working with a coach years ago was he said, “Yeah, most elite female athletes who are pressing really hard with a high enough training load are going to step out into the zone for a short period of time, but the key is it’s got to be short.” He was very right. They’re not going to have their menstrual cycle, and it might be anywhere from six weeks to three months in which they don’t have it. But when you start pressing past three months – and unless it’s really intentional, I’ve seen very, very top athletes go to six and even nine months – we need to raise a flag of concern. What I try to teach a lot of mine is that we want to make sure we don’t miss it for more than three consecutive cycles in a row, and if possible, always make sure we have at least eight menstrual cycles a year. Not always possible the more elite the athlete becomes, but as long as we’re monitoring a female and understanding why there is not a menstrual cycle, that’s what actually matters. Is there a compromise in bone density, are there decrements in performance, are there increases in that injury rate? Also, an absence of menstrual cycle is also not always indicative of a lack of energy intake, it may be due to stress hormones. A lot of my females will say, “Krista, I’m going into competition, here’s one of my biggest concerns. My period is going to show up.” Because they’ve had a really high, stressful training block, and they’re elevating a hormone called prolactin, and it is inhibiting completely their ability to having menstrual cycle. They’re energy intake is actually fine, but it’s the stress of the training itself. Then as they’re beginning to taper, they’re wondering if it’s going to show up, and in fact a lot of times it does, all of a sudden it starts crashing down on them. That’s where periodization is really important to learn for female athletes so we can try to help mitigate that one, because we don’t want them to have to race on their menstrual cycle. As endurance athletes, that’s just not a pleasant feeling. So we try to make sure we understand menstrual fluctuations for a female as a function of hard training, and be cognizant that endurance training can cause that menstrual cycle to go away, whether they’re riding the line on energy intake because they are as light and lean as possible, or because they are pressing the line with regards to how intense their training is.
Elizabeth: I love that you brought that up that a disruption in the menstrual cycle may not be the red flag that we originally thought, that, “Oh my goodness, if we miss one period, we’re really in danger here.” But I do want to go back, because a couple years ago we had Episodes .45 and .46, which were so well-received, and those were the impact on triathlon training on women’s health for .45, and on men’s health for .46. One of the main things we talked about there was relative energy deficiency in sport, or RED‑S. How can an athlete differentiate, especially here for our female athletes, “Okay, I haven’t gotten my menstrual cycle. How do I know this is me just pushing the line, versus a sign of REDS and I’m really needing to have this looked at a little bit further?”
Krista: I think it comes down to a few different things. One is that it requires transparency with the coach, athlete, and a practitioner – whether it’s a sport nutritionist, or you might bring on a medical physician underneath those circumstances – and allowing them to actually evaluate the biochemical status. What I’ve noticed with many women who have RED‑S and they truly are riding that line, is that they will progressively get such significant diminishment in their sex steroids, and even the hormones that are responsible for stimulating the sex steroids, that it becomes very apparent. The other thing we see in them is reductions in thyroid hormone, they’re below normal range. So we tend to dig in on the biochemical side. The other thing that I like to take a look at is what is known as 24‑hour urinary cortisol patterns. If they’re fueling their bodies well, then you’ll typically see a pretty good control of that cortisol. But if they’re not, it’s going to be outside of range through quite a number of time periods throughout the day. So it’s about allowing us to do that, and allowing us to have the conversation as to why that menstrual cycle is going away. It’s also about the coach allowing us to measure what’s known as training load. Training load is really important to have when you’re working with athletes, to help understand why the biochemical changes may be occurring. What I’ve always noticed is that you can differentiate pretty well in a healthy female who has the proper energy intake, but is just stressing her body, because you’ll see the stress hormones elevated. They may be inhibiting the menstrual cycle to come on board and move forward, but overall those sex steroids are sitting there. They haven’t gone away, they’re just on pause in essence. Conversely, when women are not taking in enough energy intake, you’ll see that the sex steroids are stomped out where they’re below normative range. So are the hormones that are responsible for stimulating their production, and you’ll see the elevations in cortisol with that, you may also see the altered thyroid hormones. At the same time, you can see that for other reasons in a female. I’ve had female athletes on birth control that end up showing up that way, and their energy intake is not overly low, but it’s just their reaction to the actual birth control itself. So you have to take all the circumstances into consideration, and try to understand if it’s one or the other or a combination of the two. It’s not an overnight fix typically, usually the athlete has to be patient enough for us to understand why the menstrual cycle’s not there. I will tell you, in my ones that it is truly training-induced, as soon as they back off, it shows right up. That prolactin is elevated, and all of a sudden their body has this total release. Typically they also sleep better, because the prolactin was disrupting their sleep to a certain extent. Whereas my ones where it’s more of an energy intake issue, it’s like, “Okay, let’s sit down and rest you, and then increase body weight, or increase energy intake, and get those cortisol levels down,” and then it shows back up. So it’s finding out what it takes to get that menstrual cycle to return. Sometimes it’s really hard to women to talk about, because they do have RED‑S for a variety of reasons. Sometimes we push so hard because we want to be the best that we can possibly be, and is that a form of RED‑S? Well, it might not be RED‑S per say, but it is possibly the overtraining syndrome or an addiction to exercise that’s unhealthy. What you oftentimes see in those female athletes is that injury comes along because that training load is so high, and they’re not respecting the need for recovery. So you have to dig in a little bit, there’s got to be more transparency, and oftentimes just honest conversations as to why this is happening. But that goes back to whether the female athlete cares about why they’re not having that menstrual cycle. I have ones that show up and go, “Oh my gosh, why am I not having it? Am I going to have an issue having kids?” And I have others who say, “Krista, I don’t care. I want to be this way.” You have to respect that. I had one of my elite athletes who for years did not have a menstrual cycle until working with me. She went at least three consecutive years or so at least. She’d had other periods of time where she did have a menstrual cycle, but before she saw me she said it had been three years. She said, “Everyone was so concerned about this menstrual cycle, but you got it to come back. We did well, we lost weight, we leaned up, we optimized performance.” But she said, “Here’s my feedback to you in working with my own female athletes. I’m okay if they don’t have it, because I did not suffer long-term consequences.” It’s an interesting perspective, right? She just said, “I was going after performance and performance alone, and I did what was asked of me because everyone wanted my health to be sustained.” But you have to really dig in and have those honest conversations with that athlete, because they may have a different perspective than you, and you have to respect that. It’s always important.
Vanessa: I know, Elizabeth, that you do this very strictly with your own training and diet. Can you give us an example of what you might pay attention to on, for example, one of your really heavy training sessions that you have? What would you use as a recovery meal after that, what would it look like in terms of the balance of the macronutrients?
Elizabeth: Yeah, great question. One of the things that I have found to be really great resource is the “My Plate” diagrams, and one of the things that I just really appreciate about that is that it goes through and shows different examples of, “If you’re doing a really high-intensity workout,” and what you can use as your plate distribution, how much of your plate should be carbohydrates, how much should be protein, how much can be fat. Then same thing, if you’re doing an easier recovery day. To be honest, I have some of those printed out and hanging on the fridge, and it’s still something that I’ll refer to and be like, “Okay, if I just went and had an easier bike ride,” I probably don’t have the same needs – not only in calories, but in carbohydrate demand – as I do of, “Oh my goodness, I just finished a four-hour long ride.” So that’s one of the resources that I would point a lot of people toward, just to give them that good visual representation of how nutrition periodization might look like, and what they can lean on in terms of what their macronutrient breakdown might be based on different types of sessions.
Vanessa: That is excellent. Thank you so much, I can’t wait to go and look at this My Plate diagram, that sounds really fascinating. I was really excited to hear you say that we can increase the amount of carbohydrates that we’re eating, because carbohydrates are the greatest thing to eat in my opinion. But I am curious, if you’ve just had a very hard training session, and you’ve expended a ton of energy, your glycogen levels have decreased significantly throughout the body, is it possible to overdo it on the carb consumption in a recovery meal? And if it is, would you recommend breaking up that restoration of carbohydrates throughout the day or just right after the workout session? What would you suggest?
Krista: I think there’s a couple things you’ve got to pay attention to. One comes down to quality, that’s where I find athletes possibly don’t give their body the quality they need post a massive workout or competition. An example is those that go running for the candy, the cakes, cookies. They think they can eat whatever they want in that point in time, and they go indulge, and they forget that those calories do count, and they end up not giving their bodies what they need. They can also do that on the flip side with protein sources. I had an athlete who just loved steak after a race, and he’d go to a Brazilian steakhouse and eat all these meats. I’m like, “Yeah, but what about your carbohydrate?” At some point you need to replenish, and that’s more than carbohydrate that comes from alcohol, quite frankly. So we have to take a look at the circumstance, and understand that we may be doing something that may be inhibitory to recovery. I like to encourage people to take more of a balanced approach in the acute recovery phase. Let the mind recover from that energy depletion, especially long-course racing, and then start to make decisions about fun foods post-race. The other thing I’ve seen people do is justify recovery eating for days on end, where they don’t watch what they take in, and they think they’re supposed to stay eating the way they did immediately post-race. I think just putting everything into context is really important, and remembering that the body does need to repair, so taking a balanced approach initially of things that are easy to eat, but that give us the nutrients we need to help repair the muscle, recovery, reduce inflammation, get electrolyte balance back, that’s just really important. Then go out and have that fun meal. Just words of wisdom. Then I will tell you, during training, here is the other thing I see. Athletes will have a really hard workout, or they for the first time ever are engaging in prolonged endurance exercise, and then they think it’s time for carbs to go through the roof, and they come back to me and say, “Why am I gaining all this weight? I’m having my carbs to do my long run. I’m having more carbs because I’m training harder, what’s happening?” They don’t realize that they didn’t actually need it, because technically they’re not burning it. So I think there’s a lot of things to take caution on when we talk about what is a recovery meal, whether it’s training or competing. I’ve seen athletes definitely go off the edge, so just try to be careful about context.
Elizabeth: I know we’re running close to the end here, but I did want to also talk a little bit about hydration. I feel like we’d almost be remiss if we didn’t put a question in about that. So I’m going to shift gears here a little bit and I wanted to pose this question to you. Dr. Austin, do females need anything different from a hydration standpoint in comparison to the males?
Krista: I’m going to go back to the menstrual cycle. Our bodies are really sensitive to the hormone prolactin, and I will tell you that during the luteal phase, when that is elevated, women will tell me, “Oh, I feel so bloated or swollen.” We will pay attention to sodium intake, but we’ll also pay attention to the type of fluids they’re taking in to see if they contain excess sodium or carbohydrate, and maybe shift a little bit more towards water at that point in time. The other thing females report to me – and this may be hormonal as well, I’m not a hundred percent confident on this – but they say, “You know, I just don’t need all that fluid, because otherwise I do feel swollen all the time.” So we’ll step back and take that into consideration, make sure they’re doing well in training and competition, and maybe alter the requirements just because they’re body’s unique. I’ve never had a male come to me and say that, but you have to remember that they may have that going on as well, they might just not notice it. Just be cognizant that women are more attuned to how their bodies function and when something may not be quite right, and if they’re comfortable with another female that maybe has some insight for them, they’ll go up and talk about it. I pay attention to their menstrual cycle if they tell me that they feel like their fluid intake needs to be different. We go based off of that. But anyone who knows me knows that I say, “How do you feel?” a lot, so that may just be my typical overkill on that question. But women can have shifts in hormones that require us to hydrate them a bit differently, and skew or change the recommended ranges.
Vanessa: That is completely fascinating. I had no idea about the interaction between prolactin and the requirement of sodium, and potentially decreasing the amount of sodium. I think that’s really fascinating, and definitely gives the power to the female to look at how they’re feeling at different phases of their cycle, and then to recognize that how they’re feeling can be impacted by the products that they’re using or the food that they’re eating. Thank you so much for talking about that, I think that’s really valuable information. I also have loved how much we have covered so far today about day-to-day training nutrition, and I’m wondering if there are any special fueling considerations for female athletes on race day that might be different for males?
Krista: I think everyone’s an individual, but I find that females tend to have a more sensitive stomach more frequently. So while there’s nothing out there that’s like, “Hey, this is going to be different for women on the day,” what we might find is that just due to sensitivity – and this may be hormone-based, just so you know – we may have to find alternative fuel sources for that female so that their gut doesn’t get as disrupted. Maybe that is a shift to things like ketone esters, so it’s not so carbohydrate-dependent. Maybe it's taking a look at high-molecular-weight carbohydrates, because they empty from the stomach easier. They’re just like, “Yeah, I just get this funky feeling down there, and I just don’t feel right.” So I try to pay attention to how they respond to the different product lines that are out there, and make sure that we take that into account. There may be a gut-related function that we’re not a hundred percent dialed in on with regards to women and where they are in their menstrual cycle, and how their hormones are impacting carbohydrate transport and even their ability to sweat. Just something to be cognizant of. Now if you follow the menstrual cycle in training, you should find out those things anyway, because typically they’ll report it there, and that’s when you have to take a good look at, “Okay, we’re going into competition, when is it going to be? Is it going to be impacted by my menstrual cycle and the changes that my body requires?” So we want to step back and take a look at that.
Vanessa: Thank you so much, we’re done! Yay! That’s not going to be on the recording.
Elizabeth: That’s not how we’re ending it?
Vanessa: Well maybe we will, I don’t know if Andrew will put it in there. “Yay, we’re done!”
Cool down theme: Great set everyone! Let’s cool down.
Vanessa: Welcome to the cooldown everyone! I’m Vanessa, your Average Triathlete with Elite-Level Enthusiasm! Today we’re going to hear a Coach Cooldown Tip from TriDot coach Diego Navarro. He lives in Stillwater, Oklahoma with his fiancée Kelsey, his dog Whimsey, and Huey the bunny. Diego is currently working as an animal nutritionist for a company that develops botanical solutions from plant extracts to improve the health of pets and livestock. That is a pretty cool career to have. On the triathlon side of things, Diego has been a triathlete for over 15 years, and became a TriDot athlete in 2020 and a coach in 2022. He is currently working with athletes from all corners of the world – in the U.S., Australia, and the Philippines. Diego is passionate about nutrition and race fueling strategies, and uses his robust educational background to help his athletes cross the finish line with an abundance of energy, perfectly hydrated, and with a happy gut. One thing that not many people know about Diego is that he has coauthored or authored eleven peer-reviewed publications, and over twenty conference proceedings, abstracts, and popular press articles in animal nutrition. So tell us, Diego, how many degrees do you actually have?
Diego Navarro: Well first of all, hi Vanessa, it’s great to be here. And to answer your question, I have a total of five. Two Masters in Business, and a Bachelors and Master’s and Ph.D. in Animal Sciences and Nutrition. But it is true that the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know. So my academic journey has definitely been a very humbling experience.
Vanessa: I hundred percent agree with you. The deeper you get in, the more you realize that you actually don’t know very much at all, because everything is so intricate and detailed, and there are so may levels to all of the things. That’s really impressive and awesome. So what nutrition tip do you have for us today?
Diego: My nutrition tip is to start training your gut a few months before race day. Months meaning plural, so I would suggest about 12 weeks out, because you need time to improve your tolerance for the amount of carbohydrates and fluids you will be ingesting, and the total volume they will occupy in your gut. First, you can work on your hydration plan by determining your sweat rate, and if possible, sweat sodium concentration, especially in the absence of the longer workouts, where you would be training your carbohydrate tolerance. The next step is then to get used to the amount of fluids you will have to drink in order to not to get too dehydrated. Now, if you ask nutritionist or coaches, they’d have different numbers as to how much dehydration is tolerated by the body and still be okay. If you ask me, that would be about 2%, would be a good number. For example, if you’re an individual whose sweat rate is about a liter per hour, you will need to drink about 700 to 900 milliliters per hour, of course depending on the conditions and duration of your race.
Vanessa: Just a quick question, is that an average amount of sweat loss for a person? Like on average, people lose about a liter an hour?
Diego: That depends on the intensity of the workout, and of course the temperature, but I typically sweat more than that. So 700 to 900 ml, you add all of that up, and now you’re talking about, especially for a half or full IRONMAN, those are big volumes, and you need to get used to all of that volume. So when you get to your longer sessions, you can incorporate training your gut for carbohydrates by slowly increasing the amount you ingest, say every week or every other week, until you hit or even exceed your targets. There will be discomfort, but that is why you train your gut, to allow your gut to make adaptations to what you are subjecting it to. So this is similar to say a 3 x 8 minute threshold session. You will get little to no benefit or adaptation if you stop after the first set due to discomfort, because then it becomes too hard, your legs burn, and you stop. So to make it a little easier, start early and train your gut about once or twice a week in a variety of different sessions to improve comfort level of your gut on race day.
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