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Today I interview sports dietitian Stephanie Hnatiuk to answer all your Facebook questions including: What is the best race weight? Is it okay to run on an empty stomach? What are the protein requirements for runners? Are collagen supplements good for tendon health? How can I prevent runner's gut? Should I fuel with fats on long endurance races? Explore Steph's website https://www.stephaniehnatiuk.com/ And follow her instagram @steph.the.runners.dietitian Become a patron! Receive Run Smarter Emails Book a FREE Injury chat with Brodie Run Smarter App IOS or Android Podcast Facebook group Run Smarter Course with code 'PODCAST' for 3-day free trial.
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On today's episode, Race, Weight, Fueling and Helping GI Issues with Stephanie Natchek. Welcome to the Run Smarter podcast. The podcast helping you overcome your current and future running injuries by educating and transforming you into a healthier, stronger, smarter runner. If you're like me, running is life. But more often than not, injuries disrupt this lifestyle. And once you are injured, you're looking for answers. and met with bad advice and conflicting messages circulating the running community. The world shouldn't be like this. You deserve to run injury free and have access to the right information. That's why I've made it my mission, to bring clarity and control to every runner. My name is Brodie Sharp, I am a physiotherapist, a former chronic injury sufferer and your podcast host. I am excited that you have found this podcast and by default, become the Run Smarter Scholar. So let's work together to overcome your injury, restore your confidence, and start spreading the right information back into your running community. So let's begin today's lesson. nutrition episode with sports dietitian Stephanie Natchek and I reached out on Facebook for some questions from the listeners and a whole bunch of questions came in. I had about 15 or so questions to sift through and couldn't answer them all unfortunately. So sorry if I didn't get to answer your question but I had eight questions prepared all with sort of different categories. So As the title suggests, we dive into raceway to dive into different ways of fueling and the different windows of eating, talk about intermittent fasting a little bit, talk about running when running on empty and then some stuff around GI issues and Dave also asked at the very end, what is your number one most important nutrition tip for runners? And so I asked that at the very end to. See what Steph had to say after answering all the other questions. And I am super, super happy with all of Steph's responses. She's just a wealth of knowledge. She was very passionate, very excited to answer all of these questions and did so in a very practical manner without getting too technical so that runners can really just understand and sort of start making adjustments straight away. Very happy with how this turned out. And I've been more than happy to have Steph on in the future to answer all of your nutrition questions, because I understand that this topic is very popular, but not my expertise. Unfortunately, which is why I have guests and world-class professionals like Stefan to come answer, and I hope you enjoy. So let's dive in. Stephanie Natchek. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining me. Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited to be here. Yes. Uh, the topic of nutrition has, um, is always a popular one on this podcast. Questions are always flooding in and so always nice to get an expert to hear their opinions on these specific topics. But before we get into those questions, can you just educate me and listeners how your career has kind of evolved into where it is today. I'm very, very curious to see or hear about the developments. Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, I actually got into nutrition, interested in nutrition as a career when I was young. I mean, younger than a lot of people are when they know exactly what they wanna do for a living. So I was in junior high when I decided that nutrition was gonna be my career choice. So through high school and then into university, I was able to pursue that. I brought in the fitness aspect of it while I was doing my nutrition degree. And so then I was... a personal trainer and working with clients on, you know, both the nutrition and the fitness angle for a number of years. I always say that I love working with athletes and I love working with runners because I like to tell people they have to eat more. And so I really love the angle of sport and performance nutrition because it's really about, you know, what can we add into your diet? What can we give you more of in order to help you perform and feel? your best. And so yeah, it's, it's a wonderful field to work in. And I'm really excited to chat more about all of these great questions we have today. Yeah. So what's your day to day like? Do you do like one-on-one consults with people and you know, your Instagram handle, the runner's dietitian, is that mainly who you see on a day to day basis? Yeah, absolutely. So my Instagram handle is Steph, the runner's dietitian. And yeah, I do both one-on-one work with clients as well as group work. So I have a call it the fuel trade recover club. And it's a group program where I have nutrition modules that people can work through. We've got live coaching. So I kind of do a combination of both so that, you know, people can get that one-on-one help with their specific challenges, but also, you know, just get access to some really solid advice when it comes to fueling as a runner. Excellent. All right. Well, we have, like I said, questions flooding in from the listeners. And I gave you a heads up about these questions before the interview. So I want to start off with Carl. He asks about what is an ideal race weight as someone who struggled a bit with weight fluctuation over the years. How does someone hone in on their recommended race weight? What do you have for Carl? Yeah, okay. So this is a really great question. And I want to start off by saying, of course, that runners come in all different shapes and sizes, right? There is no one size, shape or weight that runners should try to strive for or aim for. But, you know, and I've seen the question that it's more about how can you tell if this is the right weight for me? What's my personal best race weight, which we can talk about. So a couple of ways that you might want, a couple of things, a couple of indicators that you might want to look at. When determining if you're at your best race weight, the first is going to be, is the weight that you're at sustainable? So are you able to maintain that weight? Generally speaking, without having to do really extreme things with your nutrition or your training to get to that weight, because if you have to completely sacrifice any kind of social events, you can't have any fun foods in your life. You have to be super restrictive with calories or, uh, you know, do. really high volumes of training, chances are you're not gonna be able to maintain that and your performance is more likely to suffer in the long run. And so, you know, the mental and physical aspect of health and performance really come together there in just making sure that whatever weight you're at, it's a weight that you can more or less maintain for a long period of time. The second thing we wanna consider is how are you performing at that weight, right? Are you getting good results from your training? Are you seeing improvements in your strength and in your speed? Do you have enough energy for everything else you need to do in your life? Are you getting through the day or are you just ready for a nap by mid-afternoon? And so if you're getting stronger and more fit consistently then your weight is probably in a pretty good place as well. And then the third thing that I'd wanna look at is are you seeing any signs of low energy availability? So are you having any issues that can be signs that you're not fueling enough? Like... injuries, illnesses, fatigue, hormone imbalances, sleep disruptions, appetite changes. You know, if you're struggling with any of those types of symptoms, then you know, your weight may not be where it should be. So most of these criteria have really nothing to do with the actual number on the scale, which is why I really like people to move away from using their weight as a metric of success or an indicator of success. And instead really look at these other performance markers because these are things that we can take action on. when we don't have as much control over what the scale says. Particularly around what you talk about, are you performing well at a certain weight? I guess it might take a little bit of like trial and error for people to just hone in on something or just, I think people intuitively know what feels good for their particular weight. But if they do think they are a couple of pounds over a couple of kilos over, is it worth? you know, trying to lose that weight and then seeing if they do feel better, if they do have more energy, if they do start performing better, is it worth that trial and error? Yes, it a hundred percent is because, you know, the only way we're going to find out is to test different things and figure out what works for us. And we, that's a very personal, um, you know, journey that we have to go on to kind of figure out what feels the most comfortable and what feels sustainable. And we also want to be taking into consideration body composition. So if. you know, maybe someone is five pounds heavier than they were two years ago, but that person had gained five pounds of muscle over those two years, then losing five pounds may not really give them a performance advantage. In fact, they may be performing better at this slightly higher weight. So we wanna keep that in mind as well, that all weight gain isn't necessarily a bad thing. And if we're in a place where we're really under fueling, then weight gain may be the thing that we absolutely need in order to really unlock our full performance. Hmm. Is there about, is there like, um, recommendations or like guidelines about body composition in terms of running performance and what we should be aiming for? Yeah. I mean, certainly there are sort of averages or kind of, you know, um, what we would see typical for elite level athletes compared to, you know, average and, and things of that nature, but for each of us as an individual. There would be no set body composition that guarantees good performance or issues with things like low energy availability. So again, it is all very personal and very, um, unique to each runner. There's no one size fits all for this kind of stuff. Yeah. And it's usually the answer for most of these sort of things, but I like how you yeah, you've delved into like the, the running performance side of things, but also the lifestyle or just day to day. levels of energy and how you're feeling. I think that's very important for people to know because they might be trying to get a marathon PB and really strive and really focus on weight loss, but then they're just tired all the time. They're not really getting the energy that they require. And yeah, they might not notice or think about sleep disruptions or those sort of irritabilities carry over into their race performance or think that they that's due to maybe not. being heavy enough or losing too much weight. So I'm glad that you've sort of covered those bases as well. Yeah. And I mean, running, like running is hard work, right? Like, you know, running is difficult and it's strenuous, but I think people don't realize that when they're fueling properly, it doesn't have to be as hard as it is when we're under fueling. Yep. Well said. Okay. I have, Jill asks, I've never, I've never, eaten until later in the morning. So just cause she doesn't feel hungry. So I run on empty and don't eat until at least an hour afterwards, usually run about 10 to 25 kilometers. I've read this is bad as it, uh, but it does seem to suit me. I'm not intermittent fasting or trying to lose weight if that, if that matters. So is this an okay strategy for, for Jillian to, you know, run on empty in the mornings? Unfortunately, no. So I'm normally not someone who wants to kind of say like, this is good, this is bad, and kind of make things so black and white because there's always gonna be nuance. But in short, fasted training, especially durations of 10 to 25 kilometers, like that's not just a quick run around the block, right? That can over time lead to a worsening of performance in body composition compared to fueling. properly, especially around the time that we're most active. So our training quality, and then of course, our long-term results of that training can suffer when we don't feel properly. So ideally, we would consume more energy around the times of day that we're most active. If we're looking at our ability to perform well, right? To hit target paces on workouts and to lift heavier weights, to be able to finish a 25 kilometer workout feeling really strong. as well as having the motivation to be able to complete that. Fuel is really a big part of this. In our minds, we tend to think about nutrition requirements in like 24 hour blocks of time. And we're gonna talk about that with some of the other questions we have today. I'm gonna break things down into per day requirements. So we think of it because it's a convenient way to measure our needs, but our metabolism and our bodies and all those processes, they're moving, they're always in a... constant state of balancing those ins and outs. So our body is not able to predict future food intake to say, oh, it's fine that we burn all these calories now because she's gonna eat later. That's not something that our body is that, we're not that sophisticated. So we're not able to, we can only respond to what's happening in the moment. So what that means is that if we're waking up, training fasted and then delaying our post-workout meal for that length of time, we're not gonna optimize our workout quality. And then we're also gonna be missing out on some of the recovery benefits and some of the muscle building and strength building capacity that we could have from incorporating that post-workout meal. Yep, well said. So if Jillian says that she just doesn't feel hungry in the mornings before a workout, what would you recommend in terms of consumption? What to eat if it's something light or? Yeah. And this is a super normal question. I mean, we hear this all the time from people who, it's early in the morning, you don't have a big appetite, you don't feel great when you run and you've got something in your stomach. And so just starting with a few bites of something or even a few sips of a sports drink. Like if nausea and some of those GI issues are the problem, then having liquids can be really helpful. So liquids rather than solids when you're running first thing in the morning, but like half a banana, half a slice of toast, a half a cup of breakfast cereal. Those are just a few bites of food that you can put in your system to start training your gut to tolerate those things better. Over time, with practice of front-loading your day's calories a little bit better, then what we're able to do is hopefully start to see a little bit more of an appetite earlier in the day. You know, your body and your brain sort of adjust to getting food and fuel in earlier, and then it's amazing how much better people feel when they run, when they take that fueling into consideration and really time. their nutrition around their activity. Another small hypothetical because Gillian's like running 10 to 25 kilometers, which is quite a substantial distance. What about someone has like a 20 to 30 minute low intensity, not focusing on performance, just a really low intensity to skid out and run. Um, is it okay to run on empty in those circumstances and then during the week when there is a harder effort or a longer effort, that's when we should be feeling. Is there any damage or is there any detriment to running on empty on those shorter, low intensity, not really straining sort of exercises? Yeah, so I mean, what I always like to say is if you're gonna be doing your run within an hour waking up, so like if you're getting out of bed and you were gonna be out the door within an hour and you don't feel hungry on the run, like if as you're on that run, you're not starting to get your stomach growling, like you don't feel hungry. then something very short, very non-strenuous, it's not the end of the world to do a workout like that fasted. However, anything longer, or if you find that you're hitting maybe that, you know, 30, 45 minute mark, and you do feel fatigued, or you're getting dizzy, or lightheaded, or you have that feeling in your legs like you just can't take another step, then there's more benefit to including that pre-run snack than not including it. Like if we're looking at this from a weight loss perspective of, oh, Maybe this is a time that I could cut a few calories and maybe increase my fat burning benefits of running by not having that pre-workout fuel. Unfortunately, that's not how it's going to work. So there's always benefits to having that little pre-run snack. You're not going to see, um, unwanted change in body composition, or you're not going to negate some of your weight loss efforts by having half a banana or a slice of toast before you head out the door, even on those shorter runs. Great. And then anything after that's just focusing on symptoms. Like you might have a little something to eat and then still be a little bit lightheaded or lack energy during the run or your stomach's growling. And that might be indication to have more before a workout. Like you might be under-fueling. Would that be right? Exactly. And now we're talking about putting just a little something in our stomach, a little bit of carbohydrate just to stabilize our blood sugars on that run. If generally speaking, we're not getting enough carbohydrate in our diet day to day, and we're trying to run, you know, 10, 25 kilometers on a regular basis, we don't have enough muscle glycogen to be able to fuel that run. So that little pre-run snack is not 100% of the calories that you're going to be burning during that run. There's, you know, more to it in terms of those glycogen stores that we're going to be digging into. But that's just what's helping to maintain blood sugars for the time that you're going to be out there. Excellent. All right. Um, I have a question from Aiden. What are the protein requirements for runners and what about for runners who are also strength training two to four times per week? Um, what's the general advice for Aiden's question? Yeah, absolutely. So when we're talking about protein, um, I, what I find is a lot of the confusion comes around, are we using pounds or are we using kilograms to look at the numbers? And depending on where you're getting your information from. you're gonna see things kind of shown in different units and then sometimes flip-flopped around a little bit because of that. And in addition to that being part of the pounds and kilos is some of these recommendations are based on total body weight while other ones are based on lean weight. So there are some that we do that could be based on muscle mass, some that are gonna be on your total body mass. So that's fine, except that like most people don't really truly know their body composition to that degree. a lot of the tools that we use for estimating body composition, like they're okay, but they're not super reliable. And you know, most of us don't walk around knowing our specific body fat percentage. So for simplicity sake, what, what most of us will use in kind of these real world terms will be 1.2 to 1.7 grams per kilogram of your body weight per day. So if you do like pounds, if you happen to be listening from somewhere that pounds are your go-to, then that would be point. 55 to 0.75 grams per pound of your body weight. If you're strength training regularly, or you're doing a high volume of training in general, then the higher end of that would be appropriate for you. If you're someone who is running less often, maybe you're just in a base building cycle and you're doing strength training two times per week, but nothing strenuous, then on the lower end might be okay for you to hit. So somewhere between 1.2 and 1.7 grams per kilo. going higher than that. So you see lots of people who will recommend even higher amounts of protein, two, 2.5, you know, stuff like that. There's no harm or there's no detriment to doing that as a runner. Like you certainly can go higher with your protein, but at a certain point, the protein calories that we're trying to aim for will be competing with the carbohydrate calories that we need to fuel our training. So even if we are strength training regularly, we do still need carbohydrates and we don't want those things to be competing with each other for space on our plate. Okay. And do you have any recommendations for those who are just following a normal diet versus like vegetarian where, what quality protein or where they should get their protein from? Yeah. So I mean, variety is great. You know, variety is really good when it comes to our protein sources. And so of course, you know, your meats, your fish, your eggs, your dairy products and plant proteins too, you know, for people who are vegetarian, vegan or not, mixing in some of those plant proteins for everybody can be really beneficial for the fiber and the nutrient content. So there's really no right or wrong place to get your protein from. It comes down to personal preference, how much time you have to cook and what you've got around. The question that a lot of people ask, and this is a little off topic, but about whether or not we need protein powders and whether protein supplements are required. And generally the answer to that is no. Most of the time people don't need a protein powder. The thing about protein powders is they can be great for convenience. So they're easy, they're simple, you can use them in a lot of stuff, they don't require any cooking, as opposed to a lot of other proteins that we have that do require a high level of preparation and skill to be able to make them. So they're a convenience food, but they're not required, even if we are trying to hit some of those higher protein targets, we can get that with whole food without a protein powder. Okay, yes, very good advice. And I'm more than happy for you to go off topic on any other question that because this is a good insight. Alright, so the next one is from Sherry who says, collagen supplements beneficial for tendon strength and repair and not too sure if this was up your alley or not, but I thought I'd propose it to you and see what advice you had. Yeah, yeah. So the first step is to make sure that you're getting enough total protein. So number one, that we want to make sure that we're doing when it comes to recovery and repair of all of our body tissues, right? Not just our tendons and, um, you know, other soft tissues like that, but also our muscles and everything will be making sure that we're hitting that protein target. So again, that's the 1.2 to 1.7 grams per kilo of our body weight. We also want to ensure that we're spacing that protein intake out fairly evenly over the course of the day. And the reason for this is because we actually can't store protein in our body for later. Like we don't have a method of keeping protein for when we need it. We have body fat and we have muscle glycogen, which is how we store fat and carbs. But we don't have anywhere that we can just put protein. We have our muscle tissue, but like that's active tissue. That's not just a storage form of amino acids. So, you know, kind of going back to that question previously about fasted training and delaying our post-workout protein, you know, spacing it out is really important for optimizing our recovery after we train. So we wanna prioritize recovery as well for tendon strength and repair, because, and that's just basically giving us ourselves enough time in between workouts. So what I do wanna define though is like, what is collagen? Especially collagen supplements, you know, the powders and the liquids, and there's so many things on the market these days with collagen, collagen is simply a protein. So collagen is just a protein like any other protein that we would consume in our diet. What happens when we eat protein in that food form or in that supplement form is we break down these large whole proteins into their individual amino acids. So amino acids are what make up these big proteins that we find in our food. So we absorb the individual amino acids through our GI tract, which then get transported to our body cells, and our body cells build the proteins that they need out of those individual amino acids. So... When we take collagen, we are not getting collagen just being shipped directly to our body's tissues, like our skin or our tendons or our joints, where that collagen is required. Instead, we're taking those individual amino acids from the collagen, breaking it down to its basic parts, and then our body's rebuilding what it needs out of that. So this is why getting all of your basic protein requirements met, and then giving your body the rest and recovery time to build those new tissues that you need is really kind of your best bet when it comes to making sure that you're getting that adequate recovery and repair. Now it's not like, again, people, there are people out there who really like their collagen supplements and they really enjoy taking them. They feel like it's working for them. And so collagen is one of those supplements that is certainly, you know, very low risk, you know, likely to not cause any harm. I can't imagine, you know, it's just a protein powder. So I can't imagine a situation where it would be harmful to anyone. However, you know, it may be unnecessarily expensive or a bit of an unnecessary supplement. OK, we can also support our body's natural collagen production by getting enough vitamin C. So eat your fruits and veggies and get enough protein. And your body will be set up to make it on collagen as best as it can. Oh, great. Well, Sherry also asks like in, um, whether when it comes to the collagen, or I guess now protein sort of stuff, the timing to consume those sort of things. You said that there's not necessarily a storage for protein. So is there a time of the day, or is it multiple times of the day that we should be having, uh, consuming these sort of proteins? Yeah, so protein, you know, we do want to be getting it spread out over the course of the day. I encourage people to be eating at least three meals a day. So I want, you know, people to be eating at least three times. Runners probably are going to need to eat even a little bit more often than that when we take into consideration things like a pre or post-workout snack, potentially even other snacks between meals. But I find that it's very hard for us to meet those nutrient requirements. and get that adequate timing and spacing if we aren't eating frequently enough, we're not getting that protein and often enough throughout the day. So we can take that 1.2 to 1.7 grams per kilo, we can break that down a step further to say, aim for 0.4 to 0.5 grams per kilo of your body weight at each eating interval, so five or six eating intervals over the course of the day. That's, that's where people really need to start working with a dietician more one-on-one though, to figure like, what does that mean? You know, we take the numbers and we take the math and we break that down. So, um, for most individuals, as long as you're eating frequently enough, um, getting in that pre and post workout snack, not skipping meals, then you're probably doing pretty good. Well said. Uh, Sherry also asks, um, runner's gut is my enemy. What foods can minimize this if running? greater than 20 kilometers. I guess we might start off with, well, is there a definition of runner's gut or are there common signs and symptoms? Like what is it? And then what can we do about it? Yeah, so digestive issues, runner's gut, GI issues, we call them lots of things. It can really mean any number of different gastrointestinal symptoms or distress that a runner can experience while running. So this can be anything from acid reflux, burping, nausea, vomiting, bloating, gas, cramps, diarrhea, the whole gamut. Um, they're incredibly common. I mean, most runners, the vast, vast majority of runners have at least at some point in their lives experience some GI issues. Like, you know, if you've made it through your whole running career and you never once have had a problem, that, that'd be, that'd be pretty crazy. Great. So, um, yeah, now certainly. one and the causes can be, there can be many, many causes of these, you know, there are so many things that can contribute and lots of factors to consider. So if this is a frequent issue for someone, then I've, you know, we've got a whole list of things that we can talk about and go through. But what I appreciate in this question is that it specifies longer runs, like runs that are over 20 kilometers. So a lot of times it can be eating the wrong things before we run. But typically if it's a problem of, oh, you know, I ate a higher fat meal or I had too much fiber, you know, I had lactose before my run. Typically those symptoms, you know, the having to run to the bathroom is going to occur a little bit sooner in that run. You know, it's not gonna be 20 kilometers later, less likely at 20 kilometers later, all of a sudden we're gonna start to see those problems. So the first thing that I would actually look at when we're talking about GI issues that pop up later in a longer run would be hydration. What's happening with our hydration status? And the reason for this, of course, blood, our blood flow is made up of mostly water. And so our blood volume decreases when we start to get dehydrated. So blood flow is required for two things. I mean, blood flow is required for everything around the body, but two major things when we're running, That's gonna be our muscle contraction, right? Keeping us moving forward and then our digestion. And so when we're at rest, we're in this mode that we call rest and digest mode. The blood flow is more centered around our GI tract. So our GI tract has more blood flow, which means that our digestion is happening more efficiently, we're getting nutrients out, all of these things are happening. That's where the concentration is. When we run, that blood flow is then redirected out to our working muscles. So lack of blood flow to the gut is where a lot of these runners gut issues can stem from. So when we get dehydrated on a run and our blood volume drops, there's even less blood flow to the gut, which means that any fuel we've taken in recently, like if we're taking in gels, we're taking in energy chews, they can be left sitting there undigested. That can be a big, big problem. So it's not the gel. It's not the chew. It's not the fuel necessarily. but it's the fact that we're now dehydrated and those things aren't getting digested that now we're running into problems. What's also really fascinating is that plain water can even be a problem for a lot of people when they run because plain water is absorbed from the gut more slowly than things that have a little bit of salt and a little bit of sugar in them. So a sports drink is like optimally sort of created for rapid absorption, rapid digestion, and that water is gonna leave the gut more quickly. If we're drinking plain water, and then we're not taking in any electrolytes or any carbohydrates, then that water can even be sitting there and that can lead to symptoms like nausea and even vomiting. So what do we do if this is a problem? You know, we're getting to that 20K mark, we're out on these long runs and we start to run into problems with digestion and gut issues on those later miles. First, look at hydration and see what's happening with your hydration. Are you drinking enough and then keeping up with your hydration during that long run? If you're drinking just plain water, I would try swapping that out for a sports drink. Or if you really, really want the plain water, then just make sure that you're consuming electrolyte replacement regularly alongside with your water. And ensure that you're getting ahead of your hydration really early. So sipping on fluids every 10 to 15 minutes during your run, rather than waiting until you feel thirsty or feel dehydrated to start trying to chug a whole bunch of fluids to get up to speed. make sure that you have that hydration plan set out so that every 10 to 15 minutes, you're having a few sips. I like to use every mile marker as when I make sure that I have a few sips. Cause otherwise when you're on a long run, miles go by. You're trying to get in the zone. You're trying to not think about all of those things. And all of a sudden four or five miles goes by and you realize you have a sip of water. So I use my mile marker as my trigger for me to make sure I take a few sips of water. And every time I'll be running along and my watch will buzz that I've hit a mile and the... Three seconds later, I'm like, oh yeah, okay, I got a drink. Like you just forget so easily. So you do really have to be on top of it. This episode is sponsored by the Run Smarter Online course. 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Like I haven't heard anything about this so it's good that I'm being educated myself. What you're saying is like if you're getting these GI issues earlier in the run like quite soon that's when it might be what you're eating and how you're eating and maybe it's worse and trial and error of a few different sources of food to see what best suits you early in the run but later in the run it doesn't really matter what you've had beforehand if you're getting it later on down the track it's more likely due to that hydration status. Yeah, more or less. I mean, if you, you know, especially if you're someone who like you, you don't typically have any issues earlier on, you are able to, you know, go and have a bowel movement before you go out for a run, but it's like the cramps and the nausea and just like that, that... Like a rock in your stomach as you get further and further along. My first, my first step would be not to throw away the gels and not to immediately assume that whatever you're taking in for a fuel replacement is the problem, but actually to start by looking at hydration and fluid status first. Yeah. And I did interview in the past, I interviewed, uh, Andy Blow, who is, um, a part of precision nutrition and hydration was talking about runners having different sweat rates. you later on and it might be investigated to be hydration status, then maybe it's worth investigating how much you sweat or what's in your sweat and coming up with a better strategy and more of a tailored strategy based on your unique sweat rates and how much you should be replacing. Absolutely, absolutely. And I will often kind of tell people that one of the ways that you can know if you're what we call a salty sweater is if you kind of get like that crust, like you can sort of see like the white and you sort of get that crusty film, or if your sweat like burns when it gets in your eyes, then you're probably a fairly salty sweater. But that's a very inexact kind of measurement, a very inexact way of assessing that. So if you have access to things like your sweat analysis, sodium sweat testing, like absolutely, I would definitely recommend that someone get that done because it can make a huge difference in understanding how you can make it through some of those longer training cycles, longer runs and races and really feel good and not have it be a struggle and a question mark about whether or not you're gonna be able to make it through. All right. Let's move on. We've got Michelle who says thoughts on different eating windows. Now we've already like, I guess, delved into this a little bit, but, um, Michelle was asking like the difference between eating three meals per day versus five to six meals per day versus intermediate fasting, um, both for, I guess, weight loss, but also for the training performance side of things. Um, what are your recommendations for those specific windows? Yeah, yeah. So I'll start by saying, of course, just like there's no one perfect running weight and runners come in all shapes and sizes, there is no one perfect style of eating and there is no perfect number of meals per day that we should all eat. Researchers have been going, sort of going back and forth on is it three, is it six, bigger meals, smaller meals. And there's always lots of research in this area looking at weight and what happens if you change people's meal patterns around. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter that much. You have to do what works for you. Some people work, you know, some people's lifestyles are such that they can't eat six times a day, right? They might have a job where they get specific meal breaks. They're not able to snack throughout the day while they're working. Whereas other people tend to feel better and do better if they have smaller amounts that they're eating rather than big meals all at once. This is very personal. But again, a few criteria to consider, a few factors that kind of go into us as individuals figuring out what is our best meal pattern. And so the first big, big thing is of course the timing of our workouts. So we mentioned the importance already of being on top of that pre and post workout nutrition and how important the refueling and recovery meals are. So ensuring that first and foremost, you're getting enough energy around the time that you're most active. So if you were to adopt, say an intermittent fasting sort of approach, and that was something you wanted to do, just make sure that your eating window is not completely disconnected from your running window. Instead, you can have, you know, maybe a 12 or a 14 hour fast each day. but make sure that you are doing your run and getting in your pre and post-workout fuel and that your eating window overlaps with your exercise window. That's the first thing. The second thing is we do need to make sure that we're meeting our total nutrient requirements for the day. Now, of course, our bodies don't know what's happening on a 24-hour block of time, but we still like to think about nutrient requirements and make recommendations on a per day basis. So if, for example, If you're maybe only allowing yourself to eat once or maybe twice a day, can you get in? you know, 100 or 120 grams of protein in those one or two meals. Can you get 25 grams of fiber? Can you get all of your calcium and vitamin C and magnesium and potassium and like all of these things that we need to be a healthy, functional runner, but also a healthy, functional person, can you get all of that in just one or two meals? And a lot of times the answer to that is no, in which case eating a little bit more often is gonna help you get in more of that important nutrition We like to, you know, we tend to focus a lot on calories and macronutrients because we're focused on things like weight and body composition. But what we also want to keep in mind is the importance of essential vitamins and minerals, not just because they're essential, but also for performance. Things like muscle contraction, having enough iron to be able to ship oxygen around our body. The nutrients and antioxidants that are important for recovery and, you know, healing our body. So it's so much more than just calories and those sorts of numbers. We want to make sure that our nutrition is really dialed in as well. Okay. And so you've highlighted the importance of eating around close to that moments of exercise and that making sure that within the. the total, I guess, volume of food that you get the right amount of calories, especially the actual nutrients and vitamins. When it comes to like performance, you can obviously see how those would be important. Is it any different if someone isn't necessarily focusing on performance, but is a runner but also wants to lose weight? Is there any difference around that? So not really, and this is what's really fascinating, is that when we look at the research around meal timing and things like body composition and energy balance and body composition. Now I mean body composition, not necessarily in terms of the number on the scale and getting that low, but I mean reducing body fat percentage and increasing muscle mass. So when I say that, it kind of just clarifies. Sort of the difference of looking at like, what is best for getting your weight down, but all that weight loss, maybe some muscle loss, if we're not approaching it the right way. So we look at the research around, for active people and athletes. Where do we see the best body composition? The best body composition is in people who are timing their meals appropriately around their activity, and in people who are most closely meeting their overall nutrient requirements. So not under-fueling, right? Not getting into that low-energy availability space because that's where we see muscle loss. And also, sure, not over-fueling, right? Not eating way more calories than we need because then we can see body fat gain. But when we're pretty close to what our actual requirements are and we're really careful calorie deficits and calorie surpluses over the course of the day instead we're timing our nutrient around or timing our nutrients and our energy and take around when we need it that's where we actually see the most ideal body composition changes occur as well. So the things that support better performance are the same things that support us also finding our best body composition, therefore our best weight kind of by proxy of that. So it's not really that different. Makes sense because if someone is, I guess, maybe they're overweight, maybe they're overeating. And so their ideal nutritional requirements might be less than what they're currently eating. And so, yeah, following those guidelines and making sure that they're getting the ideal nutrient requirements would obviously benefit performance and also hone in on the right weight that's suited for them. Exactly, it's just about finding that right balance. The other thing that can happen is when we look at sort of the brain chemistry and the hormones around appetite and triggers for overeating, under eating and restricting our intake to too large a degree is one of the biggest triggers for overeating. So people can get into this kind of weight loss focused space where they're trying to cut calories for weight loss, which, and I see this a lot, where the most convenient places it would seem to cut those calories is our pre and post workout meal. Right? People think, oh, I'm going to lose more weight more quickly if I don't eat before and after I train, because that's when I'm in this like fat burning mode. Unfortunately, what happens instead is we under eat usually during the daytime, and then we find it's really hard to not overeat at night. So we get into sort of this like under fueling. during the day when we're doing our running. And then we just can't seem to not snack in the evening. Like we're just starving all evening long. And this is just a really vicious cycle to get into because there's this huge disconnect between when we need the energy and when we're getting it. And then when we're so hungry that we just like, you know, can't seem to stop it and aren't making the best choices, that's where the calories can add up really quickly. So being intentional about choosing nutritious foods. Eating enough of them to support our training can actually help with some of those later in the day food behaviors that people are often struggling a lot with. Well said, well said. Okay, we have Mick who asks, well, I am a fat adapted. Keto athlete in my mid sixties doing 145 kilometer, 9,000 meter vert race. So good luck, Mick. Um, usually takes, yeah. Um, he says he usually takes glucose lollies. He said lollies. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that term in North America, but like candies. Um, and he takes those for fuel. Yeah. Yep. Takes those for fuel. But since this is a 40 hour low intensity. race and not a two to seven hours should he's asking if he should have fats in amongst that racing or what should the changes be when doing such a race of such a long duration. Yeah, yeah, I really, really love this question. And it's because the advice and sort of the recommendations that I have here are really for ultra athletes in general. So if you're, you know, for your listeners, this podcast who are doing the ultra endurance events, but aren't keto or fat adapted, this information that I wanna share is gonna be the exact same. So for shorter race distances, and I mean that very, loosely, you know, shorter races compared to a 40-hour ultra event. So for your 10k, your half marathon, your marathon, we tend to give recommendations in carbohydrates per hour. So the intensity of those run, those races, right, we're running at a fast enough pace. that we can really only break down carbohydrates for fuel. We need that quick energy. And so we tend to really focus in on the carbohydrate calories as our number one source of calories during those events. For ultras. we can really instead talk about calories per hour. So not carbohydrate grams per hour, but actually overall calories per hour. And this is because we want to have a bit of a carbohydrate lean. Like we do want our calories to be coming from mostly carbs for those races, but it doesn't need to be exclusively carbohydrate calories in that sort of same sense that we would do for a shorter distance because the intensity is lower. We're actually able to digest a wider range of food. And most importantly, we want to avoid getting too hungry. Like we want to avoid running low on energy because we just can't keep enough carbohydrate calories coming in. So mixed foods can actually be a really good solution for these types of events. As well, we do also want to have a little bit of protein coming in for these types of events because amino acids start to really provide... more of a fuel source when we're talking about these hours and hours and hours of racing. So something, you know, something as simple as having like some BCAAs mixed in with your sports drink or having a little bit of protein that you're including as part of your fuel source as you go. So your calorie recommendation for this type of thing is going to be like at least 200 calories per hour. 400 calories per hour would be great if you can get there, but it doesn't need to be exclusively on. So we want to choose foods that we like and can tolerate. Of course, so practice is the key here. You don't want to be having nothing new on race day. We all know that. And having lots of options so that you can avoid flavor fatigue. Because you can imagine 40 hours of the same hard candies. after I can only imagine how many hours it would take before you are completely turned off of having to eat those and then you get you fall behind on your fueling if you're not keeping up with it because you can't stomach it. So you want to have lots of different options and you want to have things that you can choose what's appealing to you to eat in that moment. So, you know, for some ultra runners, like they're going to snack on potato chips or pretzels. Other people, you know, might want to do sandwiches like peanut butter and jam sandwiches, or maybe it'll be potatoes. research that they were doing where they were feeding runners pierogies, as they were running for a fuel source. So, you know, the sky's the limit on what you what you use. But yeah, definitely looking at it as more of like mixed foods, and mixed sources of nutrition rather than just being the focus on carbohydrate calories for that one. Yeah. You mentioned BCAAs and that kind of went over my head. What was that? Oh, yeah, so branch chain amino acids. Okay, so My apologies. So branched chain amino acids, BCAAs, they are the primary amino acids that are found in our muscle tissue. And so they are leucine, isoleucine, and valine. So these are the ones that we want to be replacing or sort of using for those like ultra endurance events where we can see that risk of muscle tissue being broken down as a backup fuel source. If we're not getting enough carbohydrate, like if we're not properly fueling with carbohydrates, then we start to dig into those amino acids from our muscles in order to continue to fuel that activity. So having a little bit of branched-chain amino acid replacement for these types of events, like on something shorter, it's not going to be a problem if you're fueled correctly in carb loading before a race. But for those types of events, then, you know, getting in a source of either complete protein or having some of those branched-chain amino acids along the way would be good. I have one final question. I want to ask this one just in case there was More information or like something that you wanted to repeat if it's that important. But Dave asks, is there, what is the number one most important nutrition tip for runners? If you were to only choose one and it could be something we've already said, or it could be something that we haven't covered on this, this episode yet. Um, do you have anything for Dave? Yeah, absolutely. Eat enough. If I had one thing, there was one thing that I could make sure that all runners were doing. And, you know, I said it when I was introducing myself how I love, you know, a big part of my job is telling people they have to eat more, but eating enough. And this is because, you know, getting the right amount of fuel to support our training demands and our recovery, there is absolutely nothing that can replace that. So. Even if the macronutrient split of our diet, which is like what percent of our calories come from carbohydrates, fats and proteins, even if we have that perfect. If we have great meal timing, if we have good consistency with our nutrition, but we're just simply not eating enough. None of that stuff matters. So getting in enough fuel day to day is, is the absolute number one thing. That's the most important thing that you can do as a runner. Yep. And I'm glad we've, um, highlighted that once again on this episode already a couple of times. So, um, good to know. Steph, the stuff that you've delivered, you explained things really well and saw in real practical terms that any runner can understand. So very, very happy for you to come on, more than happy for you to come on again and be our guide on these nutrition topics. Because I think I had 10 more questions flood in that I wasn't able to get to or ask on today's episode. But if people want to learn more about you, I know your Instagram, so Steph, the runner's dietitian, that will be in the show notes and I'll have your, your website. So, uh, which is just Stephanie Natchek, uh, at, uh, what's it.com or something like that. Yep. www. That's me. All right. Um, is there any other, um, links or things that you would like me to include in the show notes? Yeah, no. So my website is great. There people can find my blog. I love to share, you know, blog articles about breaking down some of these different nutrition strategies for runners and really getting into some of these, these questions, these things that everybody really wants to know. And yeah, Instagram is definitely where I spend most of my time on social media. So those are probably the two best places that you can go to connect with me. Great. And you did mention the Fuel Train Recover Club. Do you want to just explain that a little bit more? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So the Fuel Train Recover Club, this is a group program where you can come and learn all about nutrition and training and recovery for runners. PORF recovery is always forgotten about. We have course modules that you can work at your own pace and get really good advice that is specifically... created and tailored for runners as well. You know, we've got office hours and live coaching where you can come and ask questions and get a little bit of help and support. So it's really meant to be a all round good resource for runners who, you know, want to learn the right strategies so that they can really start getting faster and more confident and you know, see those successes with their performance. Steph, I've learned a ton on today's episode. So I want to really thank you for coming on and sharing your wisdom. My pleasure, Brody. And that concludes another Run Smarter lesson. I hope you walk away from this episode feeling empowered and proud to be a Run Smarter scholar. Because when I think of runners like you who are listening, I think of runners who recognise the power of knowledge, who don't just learn but implement these lessons, who are done with repeating the same injury cycle over and over again, who want to take an educated active role in their rehab. who are looking for evidence-based long-term solutions and will not accept problematic quick fixes. And last but not least, who serve a cause bigger than themselves and pass on the right information to other runners who need it. I look forward to bringing you another episode and helping you on your Run Smarter path.