Sigma Nutrition Radio

Episode 142: Sigma Nutrition coach Gar Benn discusses how to effectively troubleshoot your dietary approach, evaluating how to improve a diet and effively programming nutrition and training to get optimal results. Gar is a strength coach and nutritionist. He is the owner of City Gym, a strength training facility and powerlifting club based in Limerick, Ireland. Gar is also a coach for Sigma Nutrition, where he has been doing some amazing work with our online coaching clients.

BOOK: 'Making Weight' - The Ultimate Science Based Guide to Cutting Weight for Combat Sports Helping competitive athletes make weight in an effective and scientific manner is my principle area of practice with my own coaching clients. Currently, my personal roster of clients is about 90% made up of such athletes, so pro MMA fighters, boxers and then also powerlifters and weightlifters. And for today’s episode I wanted to get into some of considerations for performance nutrition and weight cutting with fighters specifically. Both in terms of nutrition to support training and to allow them to make weight and refuel appropriately. So what I’m going to get into is really in relation to competitive fighters, training 5-6 days per week, generally with double sessions on most of those, and who have 24 hours or more between the weigh-in and their fight. So please bear in mind that context for anything I may say. There’s lots of routes we could go down, but for today I just wanted to highlight 6 mistakes that I find to be very common in how many fighters, and even their coaches, apply and think about their nutrition.

Episode 140: Layne Norton, PhD is on the show to discuss his current journey back from injury, the psychology of elite athletes and the debate how much of a role body composition plays directly on strength and powerlifting performance. Academically he completed his PhD in nutritional sciences under Professor Donald Layman at the University of Illnois, who you regular listeners will remember being on the podcast back in episode 123. As a competitor Layne was a pro bodybuilder who has more recently achieved large success in powerlifting, winning USAPL nationals in 2015 before going onto win a Silver medal at 2015 Worlds in the 93kg class, breaking a squat world record at the time. Layne puts out content and provides coaching via his site BioLayne.

Episode 139: Answering a listener question: “How do you use 'days-off' or 'Diet-Breaks' with clients?”

Episode 138: Sports dietitian and PhD candidate Dana Lis discusses some new research examining the potential for acute low-FODMAP diets to help alleviate GI symptoms in athletes Dana is a well-known sport dietitian with broad experience at the Professional, Olympic, National and International levels. Her passion for high performance sport nutrition has provided her the honor of working with several world-class athletes, achieving top performance; including helping Canada's athletes win Olympic medals at London 2012 and Sochi 2014. As a registered dietitian and graduate of the renowned IOC diploma in sport nutrition, she is currently completing PhD research investigating the effects of gluten-free and acute low FODMAPs diets on gastrointestinal health and inflammation in endurance athletes.

Episode 137: Ketogains founder Luis Villasenor explains how to set-up a ketogenic diet correctly, discusses common mistakes and smashes misconceptions about all sorts of concepts related to ketogenic diets. Luis is the found of Ketogains, an online community that works to help people achieve their body composition and performance goals through a well-formulated ketogenic diet. They have a respected reputation due to their evidence-based thinking and non-dogmatic approach to nutrition. Luis has been personally using a ketogenic diet for ~ 15 years, whilst building substantial muscle mass, getting lean and training for powerlifting.

Episode 136: Answering a listener question: “If someone was to only use set sources of protein i.e. chicken and whey. Would they still see the same benefits as to someone who has a more varied approach? In terms of hypertrophy and when on a fat loss phase. With their protein intake calculated as it should be for both. Also would they see negative effects in terms of food intolerance?”

Episode 135: Nicola Rinaldi, PhD discusses the causes, treatment interventions and science of hypothalamic amenorrhea. Hypothalamic amenorrhea is a condition in which menstruation stops for several months (or more) due to a problem involving the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is in the center of the brain and controls reproduction.

Episode 134: Answering the question of whether branched-chain amino acid supplementation is a worthy consideration for gym trainees and athletes.

Episode 133: Performance dietitian Emma McCrudden of the University of British Columbia discusses important considerations for implementing evidence-based nutrition programs with vegan or vegetarian athletes. Emma trained as a Dietitian in the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. She completed her Masters at Loughborough University in Sports Nutrition and Exercise Physiology. She worked as an applied Performance Dietitian for the English Institute of Sport (EIS) with a variety of sports including, beach volleyball, England Netball and Bob Skeleton. In 2010 she split her time between England, continuing her work with the EIS and Dublin, working as the lead dietitian for Leinster Rugby. In 2013, she joined the Canadian Sport Institute Pacific in Vancouver and has worked with swimmers, Women’s Soccer team, the Vancouver Whitecaps Youth teams, BMX, the Canucks and winter sports in Whistler. Her work focuses on the specialist application of the science of nutrition to performance enhancement in sport aiming to maximise training adaptation and performance, optimize body composition while minimizing risk of injury, over-training, illness and burnout. She is currently based at the University of British Columbia, where she splits her time between lecturing and being a practitioner with the elite athletes on campus.