Fueling Endurance - Nutrition for Runners, Cyclists & Triathletes

Metabolic adaptation, adaptive thermogenesis, metabolic compensation or even metabolic damage. These terms are thrown around a lot online, but what exactly do they mean, how much is science vs hype, and what's the relevance to runners, cyclists and triathletes? Dr José Areta (Liverpool John Moores University, UK) is a researcher and co-author of a recent paper looking at whether the metabolic adaptations to an energy deficit in athletes is different if the energy deficit is induced by increased training load, or reduced calorie intake.   Follow José on Twitter/X: @jlAreta   Watch the talk mentioned from the The Royal Society Meeting in October 2022: https://www.youtube.com/live/hkuktx5FUto?feature=shared&t=17901   Read the accompanying paper: Halsey LG, Areta JL, Koehler K (2023). Does eating less or exercising more to reduce energy availability produce distinct metabolic responses? Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 378(1885):20220217.  https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0217   The Energy Stress Meeting at Liverpool John Moores University in September 2022 (José was an organiser and presenter): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyoTPwnnO4j3vpPsjU8AqWmdpYYekfiPw    

In the last episode, Steph and Alan discussed how general nutrition advice may not always be suitable for runners, cyclists and triathletes. In this episode, we chat to distance runner Elise Beacom about her experience coming into the sport, trying to figure out sports nutrition vs general nutrition advice, and what she had to learn the hard way. And what it's like to run a half marathon in North Korea.

Nutrition advice can be confusing for runners, cyclists & triathletes. With a firehose of information coming at you, from general nutrition professionals, sports nutrition experts, and wellness gurus, sometimes it can be hard to pick it all apart and work out what’s relevant to athletes, and what’s not. Today we’re going to look at those general nutrition messages, which whilst sensible for the general population, may be doing a disservice to runners, cyclists and triathletes. We’ll examine where the message comes from, why it might not be the best advice for you, and what to do instead. 

It’s called the sunshine vitamin, and given we’re just coming to the end of winter here in the southern hemisphere, our Vitamin D stores should be at their lowest point of the year. So what exactly is this nutrient that we can get without eating any food? Why is it so important to runners, cyclists and triathletes? How much Vitamin D is enough, when should you get tested, and when, how much and what type of supplements should you take to prevent or correct a Vitamin D deficiency? Today, we’re speaking to researcher Dr Dan Owens from Liverpool John Moores University in the UK, whose research is aiming to answer these and more questions about Vitamin D for athletes. We’ll also discuss the different types of Vitamin D in food, supplements and the body, ethnic differences and their relevance to Vitamin D testing, and how much sun exposure is enough to meet your Vitamin D needs.

In our last episode, we discussed with Dr Dana Lis how to decipher sports nutrition information you come across, and Dana shared with us her five step process for filtering that information. One of those steps was to figure out what is the cost and benefits of different nutrition strategies, your Return on Investment if you like. So today, we’re going to have a look at some of the most common nutrition strategies that can be employed to improve performance on race day. We’ll discuss some of the practical pros and cons, and find out what the science says about quantifying the actual performance benefits you might expect from each one.

As runners, cyclists and triathletes, you often come across new information about nutrition for your sport. It can come from anywhere - a fellow athlete, a coach, an article you saw online, or even this podcast. But how do you filter that information and decide if it’s valid, useful, and most importantly, worth implementing for yourself? In this episode we’re joined by Dr Dana Lis, a Canadian sports dietitian based in California who’s constantly asked this question with the athletes she works with: the EF-Tibco-SVB pro cycling team, and the Golden State Warriors (NBA). Dana will give you a framework to use when you encounter new information about nutrition for your sport, that you can use to decide whether it’s worth pursuing or not.

We often hear the message that plant-based protein sources are inferior to animal sources, and recommendations from sports nutritionists often emphasise the use of dairy and other animal-based protein foods. In this episode we speak to protein researcher Dr Alistair Monteyne (University of Exeter) who’s done of the more recent animal vs non-animal protein comparisons. We’ll look at where this common belief came from about animal proteins being superior, how the research has evolved just in the last few years, and what that means for this common sports nutrition assumption.

We’re joined by British ultra-trail runner and writer Damian Hall, who shares his personal journey to discovering the environmental impact of his running (including nutrition choices), the changes he's made as a result, and what he learnt along the way. We also chat about the Barkley Marathons which he ran earlier this year, and his recently published book, 'We Can't Run Away From This - Racing to improve running’s footprint in our climate emergency'.    To learn more about Damian's books, blog, etc: https://www.ultradamo.com/   Our World In Data - information on food & the environment discussed in the podcast: https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food#explore-data-on-the-environmental-impacts-of-food    To find out about The Green Runners: https://thegreenrunners.com/    Follow Damian: Instagram: @ultra_damo Twitter: @Ultra_Damo  

We’ve answered almost 60 common questions about sports nutrition to date on this podcast, but one thing we don’t often consider is the environmental implications of our advice. Are we inadvertently contributing to climate change and destruction of the very environments we love to train and race in? Can we be good athletes and good global citizens, or are we facing an uncomfortable conflict of values?   We're joined by Dr Alba Reguant-Closa (Agroscope, in Zurich, Switzerland), one of the only sports dietitians in the world who is actively working in this area. We’ll unpack and simplify the complex relationship between food and the environment, discover which food choices have the biggest environmental impact, look at the impact of sports-specific nutrition strategies on the environment, and finish with the 3 things athletes should do from a nutrition perspective if they care about reducing their environmental impact.   Alba's research publications on this topic: Meyer & Reguant-Closa (2017). "Eat as If You Could Save the Planet and Win!" Sustainability Integration into Nutrition for Exercise and Sport. Nutrients; 9(4):412. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu9040412   Reguant-Closa et al. (2020). The Environmental Impact of the Athlete's Plate Nutrition Education Tool. Nutrients;12(8):2484. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12082484    Meyer, Reguant-Closa & Nemecek (2020). Sustainable Diets for Athletes. Curr Nutr Rep.; 9(3):147-162. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13668-020-00318-0   

It seems every second runner, cyclist or triathlete you meet is taking, or talking about, magnesium. Ask them why and you often get some vague kind of answer - for recovery, for muscle function, or something a bit more specific like cramping. But when you delve into the sports nutrition guidelines, there’s no mention of magnesium in there. Literally nothing. So are athletes a step ahead of the science here, or have they been duped by the lure of a supplement that uses terms like “nervous system” and “muscle function” that are taken from a symptom list of clinical magnesium deficiency? In today’s episode, we’re joined by Dr Sophie Killer, a sports nutritionist and researcher who did some of the very few studies of magnesium and athletes during her time working with UK Athletics. We’ll look at what magnesium does in the body, how to know if you’re deficient in magnesium, whether deficiency is common in athletes, whether supplements can improve performance or reduce cramping, the benefits and risks of magnesium supplementation, and whether we should think about magnesium as a daily supplement like iron, or something that specifically needs replacing during exercise like sodium. Sophie's study looking at magnesium testing in UK track and field athletes over an 8 year period: https://doi.org/10.1080/07315724.2019.1691953