Episode 476: Carbohydrate Fueling Strategies For Runners | Claire Shorenstein

High carb fueling has been gaining momentum over the past few years. Claire Shorenstein shares some things to consider around this process to make it more sustainable and long lasting. Claire is a sports dietitian who hosts Eat for Endurance. She is a Board-Certified Sports Dietitian (MS RD CSSD) with over a decade of experience helping active people achieve their nutrition, health, and fitness goals. I'm also a longtime endurance athlete, with a passion for trail and ultra running.

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Timestamps:

Episode Transcript:

[00:00:00] Alright Claire, well thanks for taking some time to come on the show. Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm really excited to chat a bit about kinda the role of carbohydrate in terms of performance as well as maybe some things that maybe influenced that. 'cause I think it's a topic that's just kind of grown on a lot of momentum, especially, I shouldn't say, especially just in general, but in the ultra running world.

I think we've learned a lot about how to properly implement it and gain some better strategies perhaps compared to some of the guesswork that we were maybe doing earlier on in the, this most recent growth spurt with ultra marathon running. But I'm really excited to have you on and kind of chat about all that.

Yeah, definitely. And of course you were recently on my show and uh, we talked all about carbs there as well, so continue the conversation. Yeah, hopefully this one will pair really nicely for that, for a bit of a, a turning of the, the, the chair, so to speak. And I can ask you some questions and then if people wanna listen to both of them, they can get an idea of like, [00:01:00] my kind of experience with trying Chi High carbohydrate now for, I think I'm probably, I'd have to go back and look at the actual start date, but I'm probably a good eight months into it at this point.

But one thing I was really interested in kind of early on in that process was. The whole digestion side of things in terms of just getting your body ready to intake higher muscle carbohydrate during training and racing sessions. And that became kind of clear to me pretty early on that that wasn't necessarily just an intra workout strategy.

There are a lot of things that you could potentially be doing or should be doing just in your daily nutrition that can help influence that. So maybe we, we jump in first with, uh, is there like strategies around just the way you're kind of fueling your day-to-day nutrition with carbohydrates that are a little more conducive to what you're gonna be able to do when you're out there?

Their training? Yeah. And, and so what I think you're getting at there is talking about gut training, [00:02:00] right? So mm-hmm. You know, we talk about gut training and of course the primary fuel source that we're going for during exercise is carbohydrate, even in the ultra space. So it's really kind of. Figuring out how we can get our gut, which, you know, what does that even mean?

I mean, we're mostly referring to the stomach and intestines, and we say that, right? The GI tract, of course, involves many more organs, but that's what we're really talking about. And it's, how can we get the gut to tolerate more volume, more fluid and absorb more carbohydrate without the gi distress that so many people unfortunately, uh, experience in, in the endurance space.

And so. What's interesting about gut training is, you know, people always think about as you're kind of alluding to, it's like, yes, of course the before, the during. That's really important about practicing all of that. But people kind of forget that what you eat day to day also influences your ability to digest and absorb carbohydrate, um, without as many issues.

And of course as many things are like, we need more research in this space. Right? But, [00:03:00] you know, we do know that a high higher carbohydrate diet can influence the activity of the transporters and how many transporters we have in the intestine. And thus kind of allow for a greater absorption and oxidation of carbohydrate, uh, during exercise as well.

So if we think about it, okay, well. Day to day. And I guess how I like to think about this just more holistically. So, you know, we're talking mostly about carbohydrates today, but of course we can't just think about one nutrient. We are interested in all the nutrients as athletes. So if we think about building a really solid foundation with our daily diet, and then a really solid sports nutrition plan kind of goes on top of that, right?

So you can't really have one without the other. You know, you can't have, like even if you have your daily eating, like really dialed and then your sports nutrition is just a complete mess and you're winging it, whatever, like, that's not great. But then you can have your sports nutrition totally dialed, but then if you're not eating enough day to day, then you're just, that's not gonna be great either.

So [00:04:00] I always like to really remind people to think of both of these things together and they're just building off of one another. And so when it comes to kind of the daily intake of carbohydrate. We know that carbohydrates are so important as a fuel source during exercise, especially during, uh, longer duration activity and especially during higher intensity activity.

Right? And, you know, we also have to remind ourselves that carbohydrates are so important for so many other aspects of health. So it's a primary energy source for the brain. Uh, it helps protect your muscle or preserve your muscle mass and protect your bones. It can help in some cases with iron absorption.

With heart health. With gut health. I mean, there's so many things that carbohydrates are so important for, aside from exercise. So, again, I. I know sometimes athletes can be really like, you know, single, uh, have the single focus on performance. But again, I like to remind people to think about things a little more holistically.

But when it comes to, okay, well what are the guidelines? For research based, guide based guidelines for carbohydrate intake, we're [00:05:00] typically looking at that range of five to 12 grams of kilogram per kilogram of body weight per day. So that's often where endurance athletes are falling somewhere between that.

And we can kind of break it down by thinking about, okay, well, you know, yes, we're making these little like day-to-day shifts. Like one of the things you talked about, you know, on your own podcast, but you talked about on my show too, is kind of how you change up your own carbohydrate intake from one day to the next, from one training phase to another training phase.

And so we do wanna think about those things both day to day, like how we are shifting things around, but then also zooming out a little bit and thinking, oh, well what's this, what's the volume like this week? What are things doing? So, you know, if you're at a really low volume, maybe it's like. Less than an hour a day on average of easy effort, maybe like even three to four grams per kilogram is enough for you.

But then kind of as you progress, whether it's in duration of easy efforts or intensity of slightly shorter efforts, that's kind of where we gradually build and [00:06:00] build up in this kind of framework of that five to 12. So you know, maybe like more of a moderate volume intensity of say like one to two hours per day of easy for a shorter kind of intense, maybe that's more in that five to seven grams per kilogram.

And again, we kind of step up with that 10 to 12 grams per kilogram being carbohydrate loading or very, very high volume or intensity. So we think about that and then. The other thing I like to tell people too is like guidelines. They're there for a reason. You know, they're based on research, they're quoted heavily all over the place.

They're not rules though, right? They're, they're guidelines. So sometimes people get really freaked out because they calculate these numbers and they sound insanely high from what they're used to doing. And so, even though I'm still advising that people work up to this level, like, again, these are goals, these are targets, and we can play around with stuff.

And I know you're like the king of playing around and experimenting and all that. So, you know, you do wanna kind of think about what is my, like, what makes sense for me? What feels good to me is what types of carbohydrates [00:07:00] I'm having. Again, this is something we talked about, like, you know, fiber, like higher fiber, carbohydrates, which have so much more volume in your stomach versus kind of lower fiber, simpler, easier to digest carbohydrates.

So there's a lot of places we can go with this, but that's, that's the general way I'm, I'm talking about it with people. Yeah, that was perfect. I was gonna follow up with a question with the recommendations 'cause that's always an interesting one to me because that number does sort of get thrown around.

I don't know if it's intentionally, casually, but it can be easily interpreted that way if you're kind of skimming things or not diving deep into what a conversation or something is referring to. And the way I always try to explain it is like if we look at that range, because that's a pretty big range, five to 12 grams.

And I think like, well, if we took someone like Connor Manz and looked at his typical workload and skewed him down to that five grams per kilogram. That is gonna likely make up a minority macronutrient for him on a big training day. So you sort of have this situation where it's context specific [00:08:00] with the individual's lifestyle, but it's also context specific within what they're doing inside their lifestyle.

Because like all of us, Connor Mans also has an off season, rest days and things like that. So then there maybe is some opportunity for him to still be in the higher carb category at five grams per day, but probably not on his 20 mile long run with 12 miles of gold marathon pace in it or whatever he happens to be doing.

Yeah. Yeah. And, and I mean, I don't know, I have no idea what conman does for his diet, so I can comment on that. But, but but yeah, I, I mean, what I always on a, like the big takeaway and like on the most basic level, I just am always trying to tell people with carbs and just generally with what they're eating, we have to match like how you're feeling yourself to the work you're doing, right.

So. Again, like the basic thing is as you step up, how much, how much volume and or intensity you're doing, the more carbohydrates you need, the more total energy intake you need. You know, protein needs are going up fat, and it's like everything's kind of scaling up, but like we do really focus on carbohydrate because that is such a big fuel source [00:09:00] for people.

So that's kind of that takeaway that I'm having people, you know, keep with them at least on a basic level. Mm-hmm. When, when you're working with athletes and you kind of do an assessment of what they've been doing and you determine, okay, this person is low on their carbohydrates in terms of what we'd like them to be, for what their goals are, is that something where you're gonna gradually work that up over time?

Or is it something where you can start kind of being a little more aggressive with increasing their carbohydrate intake quite quickly and, and notice some of the performance advantages? I am always very gradual with anything I do. So, um, in the daily diet, first of all, we, I, I'd much rather someone be adherent and be able to sustain a change that we make than, you know, kind of try something and set themselves up to like, not be able to do it.

So typically, like I work. With a lot of recreational, like very competitive, but recreational endurance athletes and other types of athletes, everyone's very busy, you know, and they might be dealing with other [00:10:00] issues too. So maybe they're already dealing with GI issues, which, you know, let's not load like a ton more cover dates on someone's gut or any other change.

So yeah, I'm typically having them make small, gradual changes and noticing those shifts and seeing how they're feeling with carbohydrates. We also wanna increase our fluid intake. So if you were to, and especially if you're, if you're also increasing fiber, we wanna do that slowly, we wanna add more fluid to that.

The last thing we want is for you to be like, bloated and constipated and just not feeling well. Um, as that can happen, if you increase carbs too fast, increase fiber too fast I've had people, you know, just come to me after having increased protein really quickly because of all the protein craziness going on right now, and they're like, oh, I suddenly need so much protein.

And they're like. Suffering all these GI issues, and they come to me and we're like working it out. Um, so yeah, I always, I always advise, make some kind of small shifts and, and maybe you're making a bunch of small shifts throughout the day, so it's not like all we're doing is adding, okay, just add one more piece of toast or add a glass of juice here or there.

You know, it's like, Hey, yeah, maybe you're adding one piece of toast [00:11:00] here and you're adding another fruit there and you're adding one more spoon of rice there. You know, you're kind of just gradually shifting things and increasing your fluid intake. And then again, if we are shifting carbohydrates again in the daily diet, we're not talking about intra workout yet.

We are paying attention to fiber, right? So because as I said, we don't like, yes, we want you to get enough fiber. Typically we're aiming for 30 to 40 grams per day. But if you are only consuming like 15 or 20 grams right now, you don't wanna suddenly double that. Like, again, we wanna be slow with that.

And there's the other concern of you might be filling up really quickly and we have to maybe rely a little bit more on these, easier to digest, you know, kind of simpler carbohydrate sources to make sure you're getting enough in. So we're, we're constantly kind of balancing all these different things.

Also things like food preferences and whatever else, you know, whether goals you're working on. So there are a lot of things when I'm working one-to-one with someone, like we are taking lots of different things into account. And then when it comes to intro workout stuff. Similarly, like if we're taking [00:12:00] the before, like if I'm, I always like to say, okay, well, with anything we're doing, you know, whether it's daily diet or interwork workout, we always wanna assess what is your baseline

What are you currently doing now? How's it feeling? How's it going? And we go from there. So if someone is coming to me and they're not eating anything before working out, I'm not gonna be like, great, yeah, let's go straight to doing like one gram per kilogram of carbohydrate. Like, no, like maybe, especially if they're a little scared or they've had GI issues or something like maybe we're starting with.

They're having little sports drinks, they're having a bite of a banana, they're having a graham cracker. Like we might start really small, but we're trying to be consistent. And gradually increasing and just, and, but like the consistency piece is important, but seeing what can you tolerate and keep trying and practicing, um, and getting some fluids in.

Maybe we're starting with a sports product, maybe we're starting with a very simple carbohydrate. And then during, similarly, if, if our goal is let's get you to 60 grams per hour, or whatever the goal might be, and you're at 30, I'm not gonna bring you to 60. [00:13:00] I'm gonna say, Hey, let's aim for 40, maybe 45.

You know, let's take that for a little bit of time, see how that feels. And then of course we're thinking about where it's coming from, what types of products we're looking at hydration strategies, because hydration can play into GI issues. And, and so that it's, you know, with all this stuff that's, that's what's always tricky is like we're dealing with so many layers of things going on.

So it can, it can get a little bit complicated. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. There is probably just a little bit of individual trial and error that's part of the game, but I think if you look at it that way, you can not freak out when something happens and make an adjustment. I know with my experience, I was probably overly aggressive based on your description with regards to the shifting of the daily nutrition stuff.

I mean, I went pretty 180 very quickly with that. And I did notice, uh, early on the, the fiber side of things was like, yeah, with this volume of food I'm taking in, I probably need to be mindful of what carbohydrate sources I'm take I, I'm, I'm gravitating towards and [00:14:00] saving some of the more fiber rich ones maybe for the end of the day after my workouts were done and I had more space between then and, and the next training session.

The one that I, I was a lot more gradual though with the introduction of intra-workout stuff where I did kind of layer that up a little more gradually over time. I don't know what would've happened if I would've gotten more aggressive. Maybe that would've been fine, but, i, I did it the way you described, I guess so I'm not gonna look back and change it now.

Yeah. I mean this is, again, like with all this stuff, I mean, everyone is so different. Mm-hmm. You know, I, you know, every time I say, oh, be careful of fiber before a workout, I'll get like a client that eats black beans and is fine or whatever, you know, it's like there will always be people who are outliers or who have iron stomachs and there will be people on the other extreme.

Right. So anytime we're kind of. Listing general recommendations or all these things. It's, it's because generally speaking, a large number of people, you know, this would be helpful. But there were, you know, again, this is why it's so important to try all this stuff yourself, to [00:15:00] know your body, to know what you tolerate and don't tolerate.

And also to just to not, like, especially with gut stuff, like to know it's not set in stone. Like we can train the gut. It's as if we train our muscles when we're training, you know, just training for a race or whatever things can change. And I say this from personal experience. I, you know, when I started out running my stomach was a mess.

Um, largely because I was under feeling at the time, unintentionally. But I mean, I had, like, my first marathon was a GI disaster and for years I was so scared and scared from that trauma of having to basically poop between two cars in Paris. And um, you know, it was just like never again, you know?

But then I realized, I'm like, I'm fine. I just needed to trade my stomach. I needed to start eating enough. I don't have issues like that anymore. So it's, it's, yeah. So just not thinking like, oh, this is just how it is. You know, one thing you know, many dieticians often say is like, just because something is common, it doesn't mean it's normal, and you also don't have to just accept that as your reality, right?

So, mm-hmm. Um, don't be afraid [00:16:00] to kind of keep playing around and also don't like, feel like despair. Like, you know, oh, all hope is lost. I'll be like this forever. You know? Yeah. It, it's kinda the same way with coaching too, where there are great starting points and kind of recommendations and like proper order of operations and things like that, but then at the end of the day, once you start applying those, the communication piece is huge in terms of finding where those individual variances are gonna be.

So I imagine for you, it's kind of the same way. You've got maybe a scaffolding of what you'd like to see, and you start putting that in place and then you're like, okay, well this needs to adjust for this person, or We need to spend a little more time here to get them to that spot, versus what you'd maybe see on average.

Yeah. And then there's the, also the layer of them as human beings. Like what are they actually willing and able to change, you know? Yeah. So, you know, I, I have people where, you know, I generally believe that they should for the, for what they're doing right now in this season of life and the amount that they're willing to eat and all this, that they need to reduce the exercise, and they're not willing.

And it's like, well, [00:17:00] okay, like there's only so much, there's a ceiling at a certain point sometimes, right? With the work I do with people, or they're, they eat a certain way. And like, I was just having this discussion with a past client of mine that went for a run with this morning who used to be a vegan, and now she's kind of brought some other foods in after having a baby, because that's what felt good for her body.

And we were discussing, you know, a vegan diet for many people can work wonderfully, that when it's really thoughtful and intentional and then I, I encounter people where it's just not working for them, at least not with the combination of things going on in their life. So, you know, I think it's, it's. It's just one of these things where you Yeah, you, we, again, we have these guidelines, we have all these things we know, I mean, our knowledge is always evolving, right?

But what we know for now and, and then we have like all the other layers of things, all the details of someone's life, what they're willing and able to do the mental piece of things with someone else's body stuff going on. I mean, there again, there are lots of things involved when you're working with someone.

And sometimes it truly is like, I, I think for you, I get the sense where, you know, you [00:18:00] kind of just like, let's try this out. And it's very like, not mechanical, but it's very, you know, it's more scientific. It's like, oh, I'm boop b boop. We kind of fix these, change these things around with some people. It's just so much.

It's just, they can't just switch things around like that. You know? It's like, it's not just like levers you push, you know? Do you know? Does that make sense? Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. And people get, people get habits, I think, and they, and, and there's some comfort there, right? There's predictability with a lot of that stuff.

So, yeah, I think, um, I think you're probably right about that. I don't know what it was. I got really curious about some of that stuff at one point, and I think that just became my, kind of my baseline or my, uh, my interest point. So then switching things in and out was exciting. Like even when I was low carbohydrate, I would always go through these phases where, like after a training cycle and a race, I would look, okay, what were the food inputs that I had for that one that got me to the macronutrients I wanted, what can I shift out and shift in differently just to play around with something different?

So I think there was like maybe just a little bit of an interest there in terms of. [00:19:00] Curiosity maybe, I don't know. Or, or, or a lack of, uh, that habit grabbing type of, uh, behavior with respects to the food at least. Yeah, totally. Yeah. No, for sure. And I, I mean, that's what I love about you. You're really curious and very flexible and I think those are great qualities to have as a human being, but also as an athlete.

One thing I was gonna ask you about when you were talking about kind of someone reintroducing gradually mm-hmm. Do you see a lot with that? 'cause I think like if you have someone who's doing just very little to no fueling during their workouts, and you bring in a little bit, I find that to be interesting because for one, they're probably gonna notice a decent difference just with even like suboptimal, but greater than they had before fueling inputs.

Yeah. And then at a fairly low risk because like if someone's going from no fueling to like 10, 15 grams of carbohydrate per hour. They're likely not getting a digestive issue from that. If they are, they may have some other issues that you'd probably be able to speak more to than I would, but then they kinda get [00:20:00] that win or like, oh, that felt a little better.

And then maybe it kind of helps you with the adherence side of things because now you're saying, well, what if I told you it could be a little bit better yet? And then now they've already got that baseline, that new baseline at slightly higher and you can kind of start micros stressing it up. Yeah. You know what's more common than that?

I'd say most people who come to me, not all, but a lot of people come to me, they may not be consuming enough during, but most people are consuming something. It may be one gel in two hours, which is way below what I would want them to do. Yeah. But they're consuming something. Right. But I'd say more often people are.

Not eating before, eating enough, before a run, like a shorter run or a long run or a workout or something like that. Um, it's often like the before and the after that we're working on. Um, and especially when someone is doing something like an earlier morning session, right? And so often what I'm encouraging 'em to do is like, yeah, listen to your body, [00:21:00] see how it feels.

Do you notice a difference? And people don't always notice a difference. Like, I I, and I tell them like, you know, I want, tell me, is it positive, neutral, negative, you know? And a lot of times people are saying neutral at the moment. Like they don't necessarily feel the difference in the workout itself.

It's much later in the day that they're noticing, oh wow, I'm not. Like reaching for sweets at night or I'm not ravenous at this point or whatever. So yeah, absolutely. It's, it's looking for kind of that positive feedback in your body in whatever way, shape, or form it's coming. And whether it's the performance itself in that session, whether it's the recovery, you know, when I get people in a long run to actually fuel and hydrate appropriately and then they come back and they're not, like, they don't have a headache and they're not like crashing on the couch afterwards and they're able to actually like, be a human and live their life and deal with their other responsibilities, not like, just feel dead, you know?

That's huge. That's really huge. Um, and then we also, you know, some of the work we [00:22:00] do is a little bit more subtle and 'cause you know, when, when, especially when I have people who are a little bit resistant to feeling, and it might be fear of weight gain or whatever it might be, you know, I've had people who were like, oh wow, I was able to have.

Dinner with my friends and not being like staring at my plate and being stressed out and anxious. I could actually talk with someone and just enjoy my meal and stop when I'm full. And you know, so there are all kinds of different things we measure in terms of quote unquote progress or success or however you wanna call it.

But yes, we definitely look for those things and then sometimes we get negative things like, oh well okay, that didn't work, or, we need to slow down, or This was not the right product. And all information is great information and we use that and then we kind of adapt and, and figure that out. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. One thing you mentioned that I find really interesting, and this is something I had to work on 'cause like intuitively and preferentially, I just would rather eat a ton at the end of the day and catch up and I don't know what that is. Maybe it's just like the busyness of the day and probably to some degree.

Sure. It's just, it's not [00:23:00] as comfortable to have food in your stomach when you're trying to be productive. Whereas at the end of the day, I think you kind of turn down and you get that like, sort of like, okay. Now I'm done. And then it's just like, okay, I'm gonna feast. And that's just, that's what proved to be so unsuccessful with respect to sleeping well and just feeling good in general.

That I, I kind of learned the hard way, I guess that's all right. I need to be mindful of making sure I'm getting enough in during that bulk of the day so that at the end of the day I'm not trying to catch up by nearly as much. And I'd be curious if, how, if that is a common experience that you see people coming to you with, or is that something that's pretty unique?

Well, my first question, when you said that, you said you don't feel as comfortable. Being full, like, or, or eating when you're being productive like that? Like what do you mean by that? Like just feeling full or feeling like, what do you mean exactly? So like if you kind of know if you have like a larger meal and then you feel just like a little bit tired afterwards.

Oh, okay. [00:24:00] Yeah, yeah, yeah. That kind of slump in the afternoon is what you're talking about. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But you don't feel an energy slump if you don't eat, like you're not feeling kind of a little bit of a dip or a crash or anything like that? Nothing extremely. Uh, it's not like I'm, and I guess when I say like, back loading, I'm not talking like two thirds of my energy or anything like that.

But like, the way I like to think of it is if I'm finding myself in a situation where I'm getting anywhere near half of my calorie needs in the, like, around dinner time, that's too extreme lopsided. But yeah. You know, for me, like even, even in that context, I'm still getting in like. A couple thousand calories during like, kind of like the morning to early afternoon timeframe.

Okay. So, there's still like energy coming in, but you're probably just, just not enough to keep up with the workload I'm doing if I were to just have a normal dinner after that. Yeah. So I definitely see this is a very common pattern, but to me what you're describing sounded more intentional in a way because you [00:25:00] preferred to eat that way.

And usually people come to me, it's more unintentional. So people almost always are like, there, sometimes people are kind of nailing the breakfast and then there's like a huge nutrition gap during the day at some point, whether it's between lunch and dinner or maybe it between breakfast and lunch or wherever it is or both.

Um, and, and then, yeah, sometimes people like to have all the best intentions, but they're, they're not planning or preparing or they got stuck in a meeting or they're taking care of their kids or whatever the case may be. So often we are, what I see as people are often. They're making sure their training's happening.

Like, 'cause that just always happens. And then they're just not giving that same attention to their fueling. And so my, my role is always to come in and be like, those two go hand in hand. They're just as important. You cannot do one without the other. And if you cannot prioritize fueling, you cannot prioritize training at that same level.

We have to bring it all down. So that's kind of my non-negotiable with people. And, and so this is how we are, this is where [00:26:00] we're just like, identify the obstacles. Like what is it that's getting in the way of you fueling consistently and adequately? Because I am usually trying to get people to have three consistent meals and a handful of snacks throughout the day, so they're not going more than two to four hours without eating.

Right. And, at all of those meals and snacks, we have carbohydrates to meet your carbohydrate needs 'cause they are high and depending on a meal, you know, be a balanced meal. And then, and then a snack may or may not have like protein, fat, fiber, all that stuff depending on timing and if you're about to work out and all the other things.

So yeah, so we kind of are identifying like what are the obstacles and how do we overcome them? Overcome them. If they're purely logistical, like, oh, I just didn't have anything available or, you know, something like that, then it's like, okay, cool, well let's throw some snacks in your car. You know, keep them in your glove compartment, a little console in between.

Throw something in your bag like, you know, is there anything you can prep? Like what kind of convenience items are, whether it's perishable or non-perishable, can you keep around? What can you carry to the office? Like we kind of just [00:27:00] talk through how we can remove that barrier and make sure this happens for you.

And it doesn't mean you have to spend hours preparing meals. So we are trying to be very practical and realistic when it comes to this stuff. And then, and then if it's not just logistical, but more like. More of a belief system. And this is where, again, food can be really tricky and complicated for people and maybe they just don't think they need to eat that much or or whatever the case may be.

A lot of caretakers, if I'm working with a parent or, or something like that, maybe they're just really prioritizing caring for others and not for themselves, and they can't seem to make the time for themselves to fuel, but they make the time for training, you know? Mm-hmm. Again, this is the pattern. And then again, we have to go through like, okay, well this is a little bit getting more into the mental side.

Obviously I'm not a therapist, so like when this needs to be deferred to a therapist, we do that. But then it's really making sure, like, how can we make sure you are, you know, prioritizing yourself and feeling yourself and, and make sure it's important. So yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on there, but for sure I see the pattern [00:28:00] of.

People try to play catch up at night and sometimes they just simply can't play catch up. If their needs are so high, they're training for an ultra or an Iron man or, or whatever the case may be. Or they just fueled so little at such low amounts during the day it can interrupt sleep. We then get into the whole issue of low energy availability, which has so many different performance and health impacts, negative impacts and just all kinds of things kind of pop up from there.

So yeah, I'd say that one of the first things I do with people when I'm doing a full assessment is looking for those nutrition gaps and figuring out how to correct those. And, and that kind of opens up the discussion because very quickly I can see like, is this just a simple like logistical situation that we can solve with some planning and for prep preparation and all that, or is this a little bit more complicated and we have to have some, you know, many different discussions about why these gaps are there.

Yeah, I mean, those are all some really interesting things too. I, I wonder too, with like the relative energy deficiency syndrome stuff [00:29:00] too, when you get those cases where the person is, it's not like they're eating a tremendous amount underneath what they need, but they're maybe just not fueling at the time their body's really asking for it.

And we do have these, like, especially if you're a morning training person, you kind of have this window of time where your energy output is just massive relative to the, to the total. And then it's like, if I always wonder about some of them, like how the body's actually perceiving that. Is it like, are you putting yourself in a position where you're metabolically creating problems 'cause you're scarce in the times your body's asking for the most, and then you're abundant in the times.

Your body's maybe a little more relaxed and, and less, uh, screaming for fuel, so to speak. Yeah. And so, and there's research that's looking at both kind of within day energy deficits and then kind of slightly more short term acute and then chronic low energy availability. And and, and, and the thing to think about, so like not eating enough is a form of stress [00:30:00] on the body.

And that has impacts on all kinds of different things on blood sugar, on, on all kinds of stuff. Um, and, and you know, stress is one of those things where it can just, uh, like, like inflammation. Like it's not like all stress is bad, all inflammation is bad, but like too much of it chronic like that, that's when it can be bad and harmful.

So, when we think about what it's doing and how we can best kind of care for ourselves, you know, the other thing I'd mention is, is recovery, right? So recovery often people are like pushing, oh, you have to do it within 30, 60 minutes. Um, then other people are like, oh no, you don't, you know, this whole thing.

And, and. I like to think about it as if there are two windows of recovery. And especially if you're doing a long and or hard session, like your body as you're kind of pointing to, like your body's just so receptive to getting that nutrition. And more importantly, it's an eating opportunity in your day and you have to like to take advantage of that, especially if you're a busy person and you have a lot going on.

And especially if you've just been out like exercising for hours on end, right? So [00:31:00] you already may have, if you're an ultra runner, you did a really long run, you may have already missed a meal. Mm-hmm. Or, you know, if you were really prioritizing carbohydrate as that first meal, maybe you didn't have that much protein in there and depending on what you ate during, like you're still in a deficit.

You need to make up for it. So your body is just really primed and ready to go to be rehydrated and you know, get that protein and carbs and all the things in. And then also recovery is ongoing. So recovery is this. It's not like the door slams shut, but we have that kind of period there and then the rest of the day.

So, also remembering to kind of like to continue to kind of eat throughout the day is really important there. But, but yes, so, so we do, you know, when it comes to kinda low energy availability and all that stuff, like, we just have to remember that our body is, it's, it's very demanding with this energy and us just sitting around doing absolutely nothing, not even digesting food requires a ton of energy.

People forget that, you know, people are like, oh, it's a rest day, or, I didn't do anything today and I don't need to eat all that, all those carbs, because I'm just sitting here and it's like, well, you [00:32:00] just sitting there, first of all, are you really just sitting there or are you like cleaning the house and running up and down the stairs and walking your dog and blah, blah, blah.

But also, like you still have huge energy demands and people kind of forget that. So, you know, when we talk about energy availability, what that's talking about is having enough. Enough energy for all of the normal functions of your body, of just keeping itself alive after the cost of exercise. Because we don't get to choose if we're putting energy towards exercise, we just do.

'cause we have to, you know? Mm-hmm. And so we want to have extra money, if you can even think about it like, in terms of a budget, we wanna be, we wanna have enough of a budget left over for all the essential things going on in our system to keep us healthy and functioning well. So yeah, that does mean that we want to be eating consistently and adequately.

And again, in line with the amount of activity that we do, and not just our intentional exercise, but all forms of movement. You know, like I just had a client come in who she's training for a Boston Marathon, and she's like, oh yes. And I play [00:33:00] like what I call old lady tennis like four times a week.

And I thought that didn't count, but then my coach was like, it definitely counts. And it's like, yes, that does count. Yeah. You know, so it's like really just the whole picture of how active you are, it's important to think about that with feeling. Yeah. Yeah. I wanna kind of move into something like intra-workout or intra-race fueling.

Yep. And kind of get a grip on that because I think it's interesting to me because we sort of had this wave of low carbohydrate nutrition that sort of got surpassed by this new wave of high carbohydrate, in some cases, extremely high carbohydrate nutrition. And when I first saw the super high come in, you start seeing some of these numbers reported of like 150 grams per hour and things like that.

It was like, I wonder how many people are going to jump on that a little too quickly, have massive digestive issues, and then we see another wave of low carbohydrate come as a result. And it's like, is this gonna be a pendulum thing? This is gonna go back and forth as people kind of get [00:34:00] kind of too, too quickly or, or too quick.

And also just misapplying what they see versus what they actually need. Because I think like the general message of getting in. More carbohydrates during your training session to improve performances is gonna be a meaningful one for a lot of people. But that doesn't actually mean everyone needs to go up to 150 grams per hour.

No. So, definitely not. I would love to hear when you're working with someone, like how you're sort of formulating some targets with that. If you're looking at just workload oxidation rates and their body weight and things like that. Or if there's more to it than just, just the math side of things.

Yeah. So first I'll start out by saying very few people I personally work with are going above 90 grams an hour. Um, or, or need it like, so, I mean, I'm off for carbs. I love it. I love that people, a lot of, you know, elite professional athletes out there are, you know. Really pushing the limits on carbon take.

And [00:35:00] it's, it's for many people you know, for many people it's going great and we see in the cycling world, they've been doing that forever. Um, and people are just putting down crazy numbers of carbs per hour and that's awesome. That said, for the kind of average recreational athlete, that's not necessarily what someone needs to be doing.

And again, maybe it is in your case and you can tolerate it and you're doing great on it. Awesome. Great. Just from my experience and the type of clients I tend to get for the most part, like I am, I can, a lot of my people aren't even consuming 60 grams an hour. So it's the opposite problem. Like, Hey, can we just get you to take in the bare minimum?

So I mean, we can revisit that in a second, but I'll just say like, I love the high carb stuff, but I agree some people are gonna. Kind of swing to that pendulum a little too quickly and be like, oh no, that didn't work for me. And it's like, Hey, can we just like, maybe start somewhere in the middle and chill there for a bit and see how that goes for you.

And then gradually work up. And then maybe once you get to 90, if you feel like I know you do, or like you do [00:36:00] 90 to 100 grams or so. I dunno if that's changed since we last chatted, but like, like cool. Like if that works for you and you wanna push a little bit more, great. But like, you also have to keep in mind like, what are you doing?

Are you like, well, number one, are you running or not running? So obviously jostling, the stomach round can increase GI distress. Are you doing an ultra versus a marathon? Like, like what's your intensity level? I mean, there's so many things we wanna think about when it comes to how much you're taking in.

Go back for a second. So I always like to start with kind of the guidelines. Again, they're not rules, but they're guidelines and they're a good way to kind of direct you when you're not really sure where to start. And so, um, for the during piece, we can also talk about before and after and guidelines there if you want.

But just to start with, during, um, we're looking at typically anywhere between 30 and 90 now, plus grams per hour. We had, we recently been adding that plus but typically, yeah, 30 to 90 grams or more. And that's gonna depend on several things, including intensity, um, of course [00:37:00] tolerance, but, but most importantly, duration.

So usually we're doing that 30 to 60 gram per hour mark, if you're anywhere below two and a half hours. And then above two and a half or three hours is where we go into that 60 to 90 grams or higher range. So that, again, that's kind of what the research says. That's those, the guidelines that are quoted literally everywhere you turn, you know, and then if you're doing like a very high intensity, shorter session between 45 minutes and 75 minutes, that's where that kinda like small amounts of carbohydrate, mouth rinse, all that, that's where that lands. And then anything kind of below 45 minutes we're usually saying don't really need carbohydrate unless maybe you didn't feel well beforehand, or you just want it, or you're practicing or whatever.

So again, there's always flexibility with all this stuff. So like I tell people, let's say I get an ultra runner who's really working on gut training. They have a two hour session, so a short, long run. And they're really working on increasing above 60 grams. Or maybe they're, they're practicing 80 grams or 70 grams, whatever the case may be, maybe they're working on real food strategies, et [00:38:00] et cetera.

I'm gonna have them feel that two hour run. I'm not gonna have them be in the 30 to 60 gram range if they're already feeling good in that 60 to 90 gram range. Cool, let's practice that. Let's take advantage of that time and, and, you know, kind of try out some strategies. So again, all this we have to be flexible with.

What we're doing there, but that's what the guidelines say. Mm-hmm. In terms of body weight. Um, so these guidelines historically have been independent of body weight and were more about what we can absorb. So that 60 gram amount was historically connected to what we can absorb in the intestine of glucose.

Right. And, and it kind of, the science was kind of showing that, okay, 60 grams is kind of that limiter that we are limited by how much we can, um, transport, you know, through the intestines into the bloodstream. But then we started, you know, creating products with multiple sugar sources, right? So then we have that kind of glucose fructose or melt dextrin and fructose mixtures.

And then we don't have just one bridge to cross. We have multiple bridges. And so that kind of opened up [00:39:00] that 60 to 90 gram range, and now of course we're going higher. So, so yeah. So where we kind of are. Oh yeah, go ahead. So the body range, uh, body weight piece of things. There was a study, oh God, I forgot that, I forgot it wasn't that long ago.

Um, a smaller study, but it was kind of hinting at maybe body weight does actually play a part in it. Maybe people in larger bodies as well as kind of thinking about kind of tensing all that stuff. Maybe we do need more carbohydrates. So, um, I actually did an episode on my own podcast and there, a dietician on that topic, but yes, but historically these numbers are more independent of sex and and body weight.

They're just kind of, this is what we can do. It would in my mind make sense though that body weight would play a part, but so that, again, that's something that individually you have to just kind of test and play around with and see what makes sense for you depending on what you're doing. So if you're the type of athlete that maybe sometimes you're doing short, fast stuff and maybe sometimes you're doing longer, slower stuff, or maybe you're a multi-sport athlete, like.

You might have different [00:40:00] targets in different situations, maybe in different temperatures, because we know heat also can make things harder on gut absorption and, and, and GI can cause some GI distress and such. So yeah, that's kind of the guidelines. That's for the during, and that's usually how I'm approaching it.

And, and really like when it comes down to, okay, like we're setting, if I'm, I'm kind of trying to create goals with people, the starting point is, okay, what are, what's your, what are your goals for. Carbs per hour. Grams per hour. So we set a goal for that depending on where they're at, what we're doing. We're trying to determine, okay, fluid goals, what are your ounces per hour or liters per hour, whatever you're doing there.

Um, if we can do a sweat test to really get some solid individual feedback on that, great. Because we know that both well, sodium and fluid are very, very, very individual in terms of losses. So we kind of set a goal there and then we can then think about sodium. Sodium should always be tied to fluid. So we might, I'm usually thinking about sodium more in milligrams per liter, not milligrams per hour.

But if you [00:41:00] have a fluid goal and you know, you can kind of work that all out. But we set these kinds of three things we're thinking about if you are an ultra runner and we're thinking about protein and or fat real foods, like that's a whole separate thing. But we kind of work that in. But we have that.

And then from there we figure out, okay cool, how are we gonna get there? And there's no one right way. There are a million products on the market now, something for everyone really. And it just becomes this giant puzzle that you're trying to kind of piece together. And what is the simplest plan that we can formulate with some flexibility?

And again, are you running a marathon where maybe you are just doing the same product over and over again? Are you doing, you know, a 12 hour race? Like you, maybe we're mixing things in? Are you doing a 24 hour race? So this is where what you're doing is really kind of. Becomes important. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it along those lines too.

I remember one thing that was interesting to me while I was kind of going through the process was I had a Jeff, uh, Vero on the podcast and we were looking kind of at our, our fueling strategies and we had pretty similar averages. I think he might've been a little bit higher, like maybe 10 [00:42:00] grams per hour higher than I was.

But one thing we noticed, and this kind of looked pretty similar to what I saw with a lot of other guys that were reporting their, their data at like the a hundred mile distance was that a lot of these guys kind of start out quite a bit higher and then they kind of ease down as the race goes on to where the end, you know, they might have like some, some extremes where it's like, oh, they had 150 grams that hour, but then they might have an hour where it's like 65 grams and all sort of works itself out to be their average of right around a hundred grams per hour.

Whereas for me, I was just like, I didn't touch anything that high, like 150 grams, but I was basically. Rock solid within five, 10 grams per hour between 90. That's amazing. Hundreds. Yeah. And I'm, I was just like, we were kind of just hypothesizing about that. It's like, I wonder if there is something with that where like, kidding, trying to, getting a little too aggressive with it, you're gonna end up at this, this number.

So at that point, do you just hedge, I don't hesitate to say hedge low, 'cause a hundred grams [00:43:00] isn't all that low, but like No, it's not. Instead of going 130 to 150 grams in early stages, when you're maybe a little more receptive to it, staying at a hundred and staying at a hundred allows you to remain at a hundred versus having that fall off.

And I guess whether that's important or not, assuming there's no digestive issues, maybe it, maybe it's not, maybe it's a preference thing, but my intuition is that I would rather have a very consistent, steady stream of that coming in, especially if my workload is staying relatively consistent throughout versus having these big boluses and then under underscoring opportunity or points during the, during the race.

Yeah, I would agree with that. I would think that keeping things a little bit more even keel is better than having them, like bare loads and lower. I mean, if someone's having 150 and then 65 another, I mean, there's gotta be something going on there. Like that has to be a sign of like maybe GI stuff or something was happening where they couldn't get it in.

I would imagine. I would find it hard to believe that that would be part of someone's plan. But yeah, I think I agree that, and this is where you just kind of have to play around and then especially if. [00:44:00] It's a race where it's really hot, you know, just like you have to, depending on race conditions, you have to pull back on, you know, change up your pacing strategy depending on the environment or what else is going on.

Like similarly, you might have to adjust your, um, well you have to adjust your fluid plan. Obviously when it's hot, we know we sweat more. But you might have to kind of pull back a little bit, whether it's on intensity or, or your pacing, whether it's kind of how maybe you're doing smaller amounts more frequently.

You know, there are lots of different strategies and things we can do to kind of improve tolerance. You know, or maybe we're just kind of pulling back a little bit on how much, and that's something you got again, you have to kind of play around with. And I'd say like, yeah, when you're kind of an elite level athlete and, and you know, a hundred, like doing, you know, quote, quote just a hundred grams versus trying to get up there to that a hundred thirty, a hundred forty, a hundred fifty thinking it's potentially gonna give you that performance edge.

Yeah. I mean that's, that's tricky because. Maybe you are willing to kind of place that bet because [00:45:00] maybe that's the thing that's gonna get you on the podium or not. And that's, yeah, you just have to kind of play around with it. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and that's actually a good point too, 'cause heat is like, a lot of those, like reportings have come outta Western states, which is a, a lot warmer of a race than I would be comparing mine to.

So it's possible also that and this is a topic we can get into as well, is like, um, they're just carrying a little more relative dehydration than I was in there for their ability to tolerate, you know, say 60, 70 grams per hour at that point, when they'd been out there for 13, coming on 14 hours was just gonna be different than, than myself running in, I think it was like in the, maybe the low sixties or something like that all day long.

So altitude. So, you know, we're talking about like, if we're looking at Hard rock or any of these kinds of races where you're getting crazy up there that obviously has an impact on what you can tolerate as well. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I did wanna kind of jump into the hydration stuff, especially since you were talking about it with respect to the carbohydrate side of things is one thing that I [00:46:00] started thinking about more with that was there was a study that was, or I don't know if it was a study, but they were looking at this at Western States years ago and.

Basically the kind of the end product was there's really no way you're crossing the finish line hydrated. You're gonna have some level of dehydration and there's no, there's no real there. There's no way you're going to do that. So don't try to fight a battle that's not winnable. And I thought that was kind of interesting.

Like obviously you don't wanna neglect it. And in fact when I read that I was like, this is like almost a zero mistake situation. Because if you're already in the best case scenario, finishing dehydrated, that just means you can't be making mistakes with that. Because if you're underdoing hydration along the way in an effort where you're, even if you're doing it right, you weren't gonna get to what would be ideal, then that's gotta be kind of something you really try to nail.

Then the more I thought about it, the more I thought about like, yeah, I wonder how many of these digestive issues are based on that Then too, where people are just [00:47:00] off on their hydration and then therefore what was working in the first half of the race is no longer working and they're attributing that more so to, I just can't tolerate carbohydrates during race dates.

Like, well, maybe you could if you were getting more detailed with your hydration. So our hydration strategies and our cooling strategies have also been proven quite quickly in the ultra running world, along with the high carb. So I always wonder if some of that too is like maybe some, we're seeing some of these higher numbers 'cause people are getting better at that as well.

Yeah, and hydration is one of these things where it's like when we're thinking about the hierarchy of like what's the most important thing you can do fueling wise, like carbs and fluids are kinda the top things. And then as you get longer, sodium is also, I mean, sodium is always important, but the longer duration stuff, sodium becomes even more important.

Um, but yeah, hydration's so important because. Because it does, um, help with kind of reducing perceived effort and cognitive function. I mean, there's so many things that happen, like even mild dehydration. So they, you know, we [00:48:00] always point to that greater than 2%, right? That's body loss through sweat.

Like that's often what is quoted a lot of the time. Um, even mild dehydration can lead to kind of some of these impairments and in terms of the GI piece. So already when you're exercising we have that blood flow being shunted away from the gut to the working muscles and heat kind of heat. And then also dehydration is worsening that situation.

So you know, if kind of more blood flow is, you know, going away from the stomach and it can delay gastric emptying, it can or stomach emptying, it can kind of lead to more of that sloshing kind of bloating sensation that people get. Maybe some more like upper GI issues there. So yeah, usually when someone's coming to me, if they're complaining of nausea and vomiting, the first thing we talk about is hydration versus kind of lower GI stuff.

That could be something different. But yeah, so as you're saying people might be complaining, oh, carbs, but it's like, is it carbs or is it the fluid, or is it the concentration of the carbohydrate that you're taking in? Like maybe it's just too concentrated. And that's leading to kind of some [00:49:00] issues there.

So we can play around with what is the concentration of your sports drink? Are you taking in like a very thick gel because you know, with gels, some you do need water, some you don't. So are you taking this thick gel, like are, and you're also doing a high carb drink, like what's going on there? This is where you do kind of have to be a little bit careful with what, which products you're combining and also your fluid intake.

This is where also doing a fluid loss test or a sweat test can be really important. And, and so as you're, you know, pointing out there, yeah. The point is never to replace a hundred percent of your losses. Like not only is that not possible for many people, it's also just not the goal. It's not practical.

And then when we think about some of these races logistically. It's really not possible. You can't possibly carry that much water when you're in between aid stations for however many hours. So when we're thinking about creating a fluid plan number one, if we have sweat test results, which I always encourage people to do if they have and have very simple instructions on my website, if endurance.com there wants them.

But you know, if you can, if you have a scale and you can do that [00:50:00] simple fluid loss test at least once or twice in a training cycle, ideally in slightly different conditions that gives us some great information. And then we can think about, okay, how much do we need to replace? And typically we're trying to replace between 50 and 90% of losses.

And again, kind of like with the carbs where everything kind of scales up, the longer you go or the higher intensity, it's like similarly with fluid, it's like, okay, if you are doing a shorter effort, then as long as you're not like an insanely high or heavy sweater, we can kind of be on that lower end of that, of that range.

So maybe more like 50 to 75% of losses because. The longer you think about it, the longer you go, your sweat losses are compounded. The more total sweat you lose, the easier it is to lose more than 2% of your body weight through sweat. Right? So in order to reduce the amount of dehydration that's happening, 'cause as you said, we're never gonna be preventing, uh, dehydration.

Um, we have to be replacing a higher percentage of your losses. So once we get kind of [00:51:00] over that two or three hour mark, then yeah, maybe we're going more for that 75 to 90% of losses if it's possible. 'cause again, we have to think about tolerance. We have to think about what your sweat losses are. If someone's losing two and a half liters an hour, like we're not gonna be replacing 90% of that most likely.

So it's also a question of, okay, how can we train your body to tolerate as much as possible if you are a heavy sweater? And then the duration will determine that too because, you know, maybe you can tolerate taking a liter and a half an hour or whatever the amount is, but you know, for x number of hours, but at a certain point you can't.

So it's, again, very tricky. It's something we just have to keep playing around with. But yes, I very much recommend that people do a sweat test so we can kind of dial in the hydration plan a bit more, and then just be aware of how it's affected. So like if it is, you know, if you are doing a higher intensity effort, if it is warmer out, if [00:52:00] you're at altitude, like there's certain things that do influence kind of your sweat rate.

And then we have to make adjustments. Yeah. Yeah, that's always interesting. I think like it's an actual thing people can do at home to, to gauge some of that stuff and at least get some, some ballpark figures put down to, to play around with and then see how they feel in their workouts. And then ultimately in races, the harder one is always, sometimes figuring out what their electrolyte needs are, because that's such a wide range.

And yes. You know, we, I, I'd be curious if you've got an approach to this. I usually just suggest if people are totally unaware they don't, haven't gone and got a test that kind of suggests where they're at. Just start around where the averages are around like, you know, 800 to a, to a gram of, of electrolytes per liter of, of, of fluid that they're taking in, which I like.

I like that it's, uh, per liter because then it's just like you can kind of just. Drink what you're supposed to drink based on the conditions and not have to worry about having different amounts. It's kind of just [00:53:00] like you tie that electrolyte to the fluid that you're taking in, and then if you drink more, then you have the right concentration, you drink less, you still have the right concentration.

But inevitably, you know, you're gonna have people that are like way up on the other side of the bell curve on the far right, where they're like double that. And then there's gonna be people who are just barely losing anything and could probably almost get away with no electrolyte intake because any salty food they eat during the day is probably gonna account for their loss rate.

Um, yeah. So like once you kinda like play around with that middle, if it's still not working, are you, are there signs that you look for that suggest like, Hey, you might just be a heavy sweat or a heavy electrolyte loss person, or a really low and we should just course correct downward or upward based on what we're seeing.

Yeah. And, and just real fast first before you answer that I take a similar approach where, you know, if someone's coming to me, we're, we're generally starting in that kind of average range. I might go down to like 600 to 900 milligrams liter or something like that, but somewhere it's probably like 500 to thousand, [00:54:00] depending on also if someone thinks they're a saltier sweater, we kind of get a little bit more anecdotal, kind of, you know, reports from that person and then we kind of pick some products there.

But yeah, if, if someone, if we've kind of explored all of the options, you know, we, we've done the sweat test, we, we've dialed in the products, we think it's appropriate, we've gut trained, we've done all the things, and someone is like really consistently having issues, especially in longer duration and or like hot events or training sessions.

That's where I'm like, hmm, maybe we wanna get a little bit, you know, some additional information. Or maybe this person really is. Kind of either on the high end or on the low end. And so that's sometimes where I will have someone do a test. It's not like these tests, you know, really are like a hundred percent accurate.

They're not, but it's just a little bit of information that can be helpful, and especially depending on which one you do. Some of 'em are like fully not accurate, but um, but you know, maybe I'll have them get a test and we kind of look at that. But, yeah, so the things I, I look for so when [00:55:00] someone is taking in too much salt you know, well the funny thing is both ends of the spectrum, whether you're too little or too high GI issues.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. So I'm like, great. Awesome. That's really helpful. But like usually, if someone's taking in too little, like you can normally tell from their feeling plan, unless again, they're just like, like they're taking a normal amount and they're such a salty sweater. But. So we're, we're looking for things like, is someone really thirsty?

Like they're drinking and they're just so thirsty. Sometimes we look at frequency of urination, which again can be potentially a sign of just fluid overload, generally speaking, like over hydrating. 'cause we do get people over hydrating or maybe like you're just trying to get rid of some of that salt.

We can look at fluid retention as well. Those are some of the things that I look for. And then, yeah, gi distress being kind of the other one. It's, it's, it's really hard. I will say sodium when those things where like so many people get tripped up and can be super confusing. [00:56:00] And even myself as a dietician, sports dietician for over 11 years, I'm like, have to take a step back and like, okay, like, lemme think about this for a minute.

Because like, it's not like something like, it's not like I look at this and I just automatically know this is exactly how much you need. You know, it is something that I also have to figure out with somebody. Um, and it can be really confusing sometimes. And, and the other thing too, like you mentioned, like, okay, you just mix your drink, you drink your thing.

It's the same concentration. But where it gets really tricky is that maybe someone, like if someone's not taking, like let's say someone's taking a gel that has zero or low, very low sodium, you know, great easy peasy, like great. But if someone's taking products, food, whatever, where more sodium is coming in, or maybe they're switching up the drinks they're using, like it can get a little bit confusing and, and you know, like when you're tired, you don't wanna be doing math in your head.

This is where it just gets hard to track and like, oh, suddenly I'm actually, 'cause sometimes, um, some of my clients, we haven't talked about approaching yet, but like sometimes my clients, maybe they're doing a recovery drink because they wanna get liquid [00:57:00] protein in and that has lower sodium than like the typical drink.

You know? So it can get really tricky if you're not just doing the same thing hour after hour. And then often when we're, you know, when we have someone doing a hundred miles not on the track or on a, like a flat course like you, but like a mountain race or mm-hmm. Something where it is, maybe they're.

If they're not as fast as you, they're really, maybe it's like over 24 hours. Like they just, they cannot do the same thing all the time. So this is where it can get really tricky. And so again, we do our best to simplify. But yeah, it can, it can be hard. Mm-hmm. And I think the other thing too is like, what I'll tell coaching clients is like, we wanna be like directionally in the right spot with that sort of thing.

'cause it's not like we're not so feeble that if you're, you know, 500 milligrams of sodium off one hour, all of a sudden the wheels are coming off. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Thankfully we're more resilient than that in most cases. So I think it's generally, like a lot of times it's like getting people to even think about it in the first place versus going out there with just the idea of, I need a drink and I should take in some electrolytes occasionally, or eat some salty foods [00:58:00] occasionally.

And that's maybe where people will have the, the biggest issues with that stuff is they're just, they're not thinking about it at all. Not think about all, or they think that every single problem they have, they're like, oh, pop a salt pill. And it's like, well, don't, that's not the, like, that's not the answer to all life's problems.

Okay. Like, I wish it were that simple. But yeah, I think paying attention to what you're craving, what tastes good. Are you craving plain water? Are you craving plain water or do you just need a flavor change? And, and you know, we're talking about ultra endurance athletes specifically.

Like, it's really important to have different flavors and textures, you know, whether it's sweet, salty, more of a fresh tasting, like a fruit kind of thing, or crunchy, you know, like having that variety, even if it's just a little bit. So even if it's not like, like, I mean, there are only so many pretzels and chips you can eat, right?

Right. But maybe you're having like two chips and it's like, oh, that's amazing. And then you go back to doing your thing. So the chips aren't really giving all that much, but it's like just that nice palate cleanser, right. So, um, yeah, there are lots of different strategies and things we do kind of, [00:59:00] you know, get us feeling good.

Yeah. One thing you mentioned that worked really well for me when I was sort of playing around with that stuff was your own internal, like perceptions of some of these things where I would notice, like if I'm staying on top of fluids and I'm just not like, and I'm getting to that point where like I'm starting to crave salty foods and things like that.

Or the reverse, you mentioned this one earlier where if I'm doing a little too much electrolytes, all of a sudden I'm like, I've been drinking plenty and I'm still thirsty and I know I've been drinking enough. It's like, okay, I probably just need to peel back a little bit on the electrolytes and balance it out on the other end a little bit.

So yeah, I mean being, I guess maybe having a variety in your race day fueling plan where you have those opportunities to test that. Or like when you go into an aid station, if your mind goes straight to the chips and pretzels because you're craving salt, then that's probably a good indication that maybe you'd benefit from a little bit more of that.

So you, to some degree you don't wanna be overly reliant on your intuition 'cause [01:00:00] we do have. Weird things going on when you've been out there for hours and hours on end, but in, in some cases you can as well with, with respect to that. Yeah, and it's always interesting to me like, like even when I am like, 'cause you know, I get samples of products all the time and, you know, sometimes I'll taste them just in my kitchen, but I try to do it when I'm running because I don't know about you, but things taste different when I'm running, like mm-hmm.

A, a product that might taste really sweet in my kitchen, tastes just right when I'm running. I'm like, Ooh, delicious, refreshing. You know? Or maybe like after hours of something, something that was fun and, and different is like, oh my God, I'm gonna barf, but I have this anymore. So, you know, it's important to kind of test things like that.

Um, and yeah, I mean. I'm sure we've all had that moment where we get to an aid station and we're just like, oh my God, chip or pretzel, or whatever it is, Eminem, you know, like whatever the case may be, you're just like, this is the best thing ever. You know? So I think like, even though you know nothing new about race , saying yes, be careful about certain things, it's like you can have like one little thing and if that's just tasting delicious too, it's like, [01:01:00] okay, great.

But, um, mm-hmm. Getting that kind of in the moment, feedback and, and paying attention to your body is important. And really like when it all comes down to it, whether it's with your daily nutrition or intro workout, nutrition, we're always trying to balance kind of listening to our body and then more objectively thinking about our plan and what we know we need because we know that we can't just rely on thirst to meet our fluid goals unless you're like a really light sweater.

Um, for the most part, we can't just rely on hunger to meet our energy needs, especially if you have really high energy needs. There will be times where you do have to eat even though you're not hungry, like after a really long workout. So. You know, it's just kind of constantly balancing that in intuition and, and kind of listening to those cues and then kind of just kind of rationally thinking about like, what do I need to do in order to stick to my plan?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. No, it all makes sense. I think it's, uh, it's fun, it's fun to be able to play around with this stuff too. It's like we, if you embrace the gamification of it, I think it, it gets a little more [01:02:00] exciting, so. Yeah, definitely. I did wanna ask you too about just like, uh, from a, from a gut training standpoint, there's like the actual exposure of having that amount of carbohydrates coming in and processing it, and there's also just like.

Your, your gut's perception of how much is in there. Mm-hmm. Do you see any value in training that independence of just what you're gonna get as a byproduct of taking in enough carbs and, and fluids and things during training? Like are there things you could be doing either outside of training or during training to kinda stress test that so that when you get to race day, all of a sudden what otherwise felt like, kind of like a full uncomfortable stomach now feels a little more natural, a little more comfortable?

Do you mean like, like leaving yourself less time to digest so you kind of like going into a workout more full, like that kind of thing? Yeah, that'd be an example. What you mean exactly. Or like higher amounts of fluid in, or, or taking like a bigger bolus than you normally would on race day. Yeah. And training just to, [01:03:00] to, to stress test kind of the upper limit.

I mean, you certainly could. Like sometimes what I have. People do it, let's say they're doing something like a short speed session. This is kind of also going back to what I was saying earlier where I'm having a person doing a two hour session who doesn't necessarily need that much fueling during, but we're doing it anyway to practice gut training.

So similarly, like, you know, if someone wants to work on fueling at a higher intensity, you know, can they take on something during an interval? Can they take on something while they're power hiking and working really hard, climbing up a mountain? Like, you know, we can kind of get in moments where or maybe when, if we know we're training for a really warm race and we're training in colder weather and so we know we're gonna have to tolerate more fluid, then potentially there could be some benefit in like, okay, cool, I am just gonna replace more of my losses, even though I don't necessarily need them in this moment.

I wanna make sure my stomach can handle them. So yeah, I think there's, there are particular [01:04:00] cases where. Of stressing the gut a little bit more, as long as it's like a mild discomfort versus like, I need to urgently run to the bathroom. Um, you know, like I, I, yeah, or, or like the example I gave, like maybe you're just allowing a little bit less time to digest and you're running on a fuller stomach you're practicing.

What does it feel like if I have this cheese quesadilla or whatever I plan to eat in my ultra and, you know, have that in my car and then immediately head out to the trail head and do my run, you know, so yeah, you can, I think you can practice those things as long as they make sense for you in terms of what you're doing.

You know, don't like, obviously don't go do that if it's like there's no, you know, there's no reason to do it. Like but I think there are some situations where that could make sense. What about if it's just like, or maybe, maybe the question is like, is there any value in expanding your gut's actual volume capacity?

Like, almost like, hmm. Like a competitive eater would maybe do, I guess, in training. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, I, yeah, I've [01:05:00] read some research. What was it like one of the Ask Oscar, um, asker. J uh, what's his JI never, you know what I'm talking about one? Yeah. There was an older paper I remember reading, but it was talking about competitive eaters, because that's what we always, you know, reference or often we're referencing with the stuff is like, we see what happens with competitive eaters when they are practicing.

Maybe they're chewing large amounts of gum or they're, you know, they're eating more and more and they're able to tolerate it with perceptions of less fullness. So we know that the gut can adapt to that. And, um. So it's kind of thinking about, well, how does this translate to athletes? And so, I mean, kind of what I was saying earlier about just adequate amounts of carbohydrate affecting our ability to absorb and oxidize carbohydrates, right.

And then yeah, greater volumes of fluid and kind of stretching out the gut can potentially lead to decreased kind of perception of fullness potentially. Yeah, I mean, I, I, I think that that could potentially be helpful. [01:06:00] Um, I don't, beyond that, yeah, I don't have anything on the tip of my tongue that I can share beyond that.

I haven't done enough research on that, but I, but yeah, I, I think there, I'm sure there are some benefits and some situations where that would matter for particular people. Mm-hmm. Yeah. We're, we're, we're well into the realm of like theory and hypothetical at that point. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. I mean, and this is where, again, it really depends on who you are and what your goals are and what's your sport and all of that.

I'd say, yeah. I mean, a lot of the time, like I'm not even getting to that point with some of my athletes because again, we're like, can you get in 60 grams of carbohydrate per hour consistently without pooping your pants? You know, it's like we're kind of at that stage of things, or can we get in. Can we get inconsistent meals and snacks during the day?

And, so a lot of the time my efforts with people, and again, this is just my current population or my typical population of athletes we're working on really those, those nutrition foundations and also the basics of inter workout fueling. And then if we get there, we're kind [01:07:00] sprinkling a little bit of, you know, okay, great, let's look at caffeine and neighbor, look at other supplements and that kind of thing, you know.

The final cherry on top of supplementation and like performance, um, enhancing supplements and such. But often it's like we're mostly focusing on the basics because that's honestly not only where the biggest performance gains are, but also where most people need to work, work on. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And if you nail the basics and you get to a point where you can play around in the margins, then that's a fun spot to be perfect.

That is a very fun spot to be. Yeah, exactly. I have yet to get someone who is nailing the basics and we're just working in the margins. Like that never ever happens for my clients spending even the basics. I need rehearsal. Continual rehearsal. Yeah. Yeah. And, and hey, you know, and some people are like, I felt really good and now things have changed.

My training goals have changed. Mm-hmm. And I mean, you're a great example too, of like, something was working and now I wanna explore something different because my goals have changed or I've evolved. So yeah, I mean, we're always constantly exploring this stuff. Yeah. Well, and it kind of goes to what [01:08:00] we were talking before, even within the basics, there's enough nuance and context within certain situations where the basics are applied differently here than they are there.

And getting what, like you said, if you decide to do something different, like many people do, they don't always wanna just keep doing the same thing over and over again. With respect to events and stuff like that. Then, then they may have to relearn the basics in this context versus the one they were just in prior.

Totally. Yeah. Cool. I had one other topic I wanted to chat with you about if you got time. Yeah. Um, I have plenty of time. We keep going. Awesome. Awesome. So it's, it's interesting to me 'cause like the kind of endurance world sort goes through this like a high carbohydrate quest of trying to figure out where is the, the, the maximum amount we can get away with and still see performances at.

And you know, we're exploring a lot of that. The other side is kind of swinging. Hard against that with okay. Well, low carbohydrate performance is [01:09:00] gonna be something where it can yield a similar performance result, but with the context of fueling being like drastically on the other end where we're getting to like recommendations of like, say 10 grams, not necessarily recommendations, but I guess the best way to maybe summarize this would be like the question we're trying to answer here is a blood sugar balance.

Yeah. Which can be met with something as little as 10 grams per hour, which is obviously drastically lower than what we'd be getting at when we're in the 60 to 90 plus gram range, or 30 to 90 plus gram range depending on the Yeah. The context of the situation. I mean, I got all sorts of thoughts about this.

I was curious if you had looked at any of that and had any initial thoughts. Yeah, so what you're referencing is the narrative review by Tim Noakes, et all, and um. And yeah, I mean that was one of these papers that caused the entire endurance world to like, not freak out, but you know, there was a lot of response to it.

Mm-hmm. Um, and yeah, so when it comes to blood sugar, I have a whole episode [01:10:00] on this with a dietician who is a sports dietician who works with diabetics as well. But yeah, people, first of all, you need to remember that like our blood sugar, like how we handle carbohydrates during and after exercise changes with exercise.

So like. Because part of this paper, and, and I will admit I did not deep read, I told you the softline, I did not deep read all 53 pages of this paper. I like skimming a few things. I looked at some overviews and a colleague of mine did a really great kind of summary and pulled out some graphs and I kind of glanced at that, but I got the gist, you know.

Um, and, and the main claims, if in case anyone hasn't looked at this narrative review, the main claims of this study is that, you know, basically we don't need to carb load, that you should follow low carb, high, low carb, high fat diet, um, and that you only need 10, 10 grams per hour to fuel adequately to, 'cause it was, it was basically talking about EIH or exercise induced hypoglycemia and kind of what we need to do to [01:11:00] prevent that.

And so, and then it was also kind of, I think one of the other claims was basically that. High carbohydrate intake in healthy athletes will lead to diabetes, essentially, which is like an outrageous claim. Like that's really not something that happens very often. And so kind of what I wanna say there is just a reminder.

'cause all too often people are really scared of blood sugar spikes, you know, and they have this kind of belief that we should just somehow be flatlined with our blood sugar at all times. Like it should just be as even as possible. And really, like, naturally, like our blood sugar should vary. It should, it naturally varies.

It should vary. If we are healthy individuals without. Diabetes and, and insulin issues, like we keep it very tightly regulated. It's not so much a problem. And then when exercise comes into play, because of course everyone's always worried about sugar and yes, excess sugar outside of exercise and crazy amounts, all that like, yes, of course like that has an impact on health.

But keeping in mind, um, 'cause often [01:12:00] people are worried about sports nutrition products and people come to me being like, I don't wanna take so much added sugar. And I'm like, okay. So. Keep in mind that exercise improves insulin sensitivity, right? It changes basically how this all works. It changes glucose uptake, you know, during exercise.

Basically the contracting muscles are almost like an insulin-like effect. So, 'cause like during exercise, insulin goes down because we're trying to prevent hypoglycemia from happening. And the muscles are able to do more rapidly, kind of taking up glucose to be used by the cells. And this is all great, like this is all a good, a good thing.

So that we can kind of more quickly use the glucose we're taking in and that's available and we can do the work that we're trying to do, et cetera, without kind of having these like raging, like people are worried that we're gonna have these like crazy high blood sugar levels and all that, and that's not really what's happening during and also after exercise.

So essentially those muscle cells are better able to use any available insulin, um, in order to take up [01:13:00] glucose. So there's kind of that, so I'm kind of reassuring people and there's also a lasting effect after exercise. So some of our kind of sensitivity to all that and our ability to use and kind of absorb that glucose is changed by the, just by exercising.

So that's partly why, you know, we really want to keep encouraging people to have these sources of glucose, right? That sugar isn't bad. You know, you and I had this discussion of kind of good and bad and trying to avoid that terminology and that can kind of get into not so great territory. And really recognizing that these products have their place, you know, no one's saying like, drink sports, drink all day.

Go take gels with dinner. Like, like no one, I mean, no one really wants that anyways. But they have a purpose, you know, they have a very specific purpose. They're formulated in a very specific way. And yeah, this, so this review paper, I mean, there's so much literature out there pointing towards the benefits of carbohydrate.

And you know, how, you know, for events longer than 90 minutes, [01:14:00] how carbohydrate loading when done adequately. Because I think, I can't remember all the details off the top of my head, but I think maybe the study they pointed to, I could be wrong here, but maybe in that case they weren't quite eating enough for their body rate.

But, you know, there's good research to support that when done adequately, we're eating enough carbohydrate, it can lead to a performance benefit of two to 3% for, again, these longer duration events and. There's plenty of research also saying that the more carbohydrate you're taking in there is a strong benefit to performance.

And so yeah, there, there this narrative review, which also I'll point out. So it was a study, but it's kind of a subjective interpretation of existing research. So it's not new research. It's like these people's interpretation of what's out there. And, and it doesn't, it basically has no inclusion or exclusion criteria like a meta-analysis would.

And it doesn't really count for biases. And these authors are very well known, low carb, high, high [01:15:00] fat people are in that world, so we know these authors have biases. So yeah, there, I mean we can go so many directions with this. But it didn't really serve to change my take on anything.

It wasn't really, I know that's how most of my colleagues feel as well. Other sports dieticians kind of looked at the research that was presented, um, it kind of only sought to underline what we all already believe, which is that carbs are beneficial and needed and not harmful. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

I mean, my biggest issue with it was mostly the communication around it. It was mm-hmm. Like, I, I agree. I mean, well, there, there was, there was issues within that that I think was, I mean, there was communication within the actual review that was problematic, but then there was the communication mm-hmm. That is like, here's this new study, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah. Was, was, was even more egregious in my opinion. And the thing that, like when you look at it, it's like if we're gonna make performance claims, like. [01:16:00] First, let's give the people that we're trying to pair them with the actual recommendations of what they would be doing. And we're gonna probably need to move into the world of highly pressurized sports at that point, competitive pressurized sports, to really get to the, uh, the crux of some of this stuff.

'cause there's always gonna be things we just don't know because we, we don't, we're not aware of it or we just have, we don't have strong research on it that is gonna find its way to the podium. And this is where I put this, it's like, it's one thing if we're making claims around sports that are like lower competitive pressure, less explored.

But when we get into the world of things like the marathon or the Tour de France and some of these events, we have seen some insane, almost kind of competitive pressure, if someone's leaving that big of a thing on the table, like. Someone's gonna learn it, find out, and leverage it to their advantage.

So like, yeah. You know, like why would the Tour de France athletes and the pro [01:17:00] marathoners not be going 10 grams per hour? If they could avoid all the logistical hurdles of fueling that high, like avoiding all the potential digestive issues that come along with it, it just would make a ton of sense for them to find that out and then leverage it and beat their competition as a result.

So like, I think when it, when you see that kind of communication come out where it's like, oh, this is like either there's no advantage to carb loading or there's no advantage to carb fueling, it's like it flies in the face of everything we've seen within the respect to the highest competitive pressure, right?

Sports. So if we want to have a conversation around things like making calculated compromises for other purposes. Or in a sport where we just don't have that information because it's not comparable enough to some of these other sports. That's one thing, but that's not really the communication I saw coming out of it.

I'm, the way I saw it come up was basically like, oh yeah, you know, pro marathoners and Tour de France athletes are sending the wrong message because they're doing this the wrong way, or they're doing a [01:18:00] way that could be done Yeah. This, this other way. And it's just, you know, they're unaware of it. Yeah. What I saw was just a lot of click bait crap that was just like, everything we know about carbs is wrong.

And it's like, what are you talking about ? That's not true. It's like, have you, it's like research that existed, like before this study came out, it's not like it just suddenly disappeared. Right. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. And, and as you said, like we're, we're literally watching so many people like, just like throw down these insane performances consuming a lot of carbohydrate and, and, you know.

Like, like there's no, look, there's no like one size fits all diet, diet. There's no one right way to do things. Like there is something where, and again, we talked about this too, where the research is pointing in a particular direction and we see the majority of people doing a certain thing. And there will always be outliers, there will always be outliers that are doing their thing.

And there are anecdotal things coming out of like, [01:19:00] this works great for me in this case. And, you know, and, and that's fine. You know, that's fine at the end of the day. Like, you do whatever feels good for your body, you know. But where it becomes so problematic is, I think where we see these studies that's basically telling people to have 10 grams of carb per hour, which is, in my mind, flat out dangerous for the types of, for endurance athletes.

That's not going to lead to a good place, especially when we think about energy availability. Yeah. And I, I think the, the other, the other argument around I always see is like, it, it kind of ends up getting into this like world of. These assumptions are made that are just not true. Which is like, oh, these, these pro athletes are all gonna get type two diabetes as a result of what they're doing now.

And it, yeah, it's like it's, I, I haven't seen that occur at any sort of alarming rate above and beyond what could be explained away by, here's a person who was eating 6,000 calories a day, they retired, stopped training [01:20:00] and continued to eat 6,000 calories a day. Yeah, exactly. And then they got diabetes, so, yeah.

Yeah. So I mean, again, you have to remember that endurance athletes, when we're, when we're thinking about the type of people who are consuming carbohydrate at this amount to, again, to match the amount of activity that they're doing, that's not the general population, right? We are not the general population as athletes.

So it's the same thing when people are freaking out about sodium. People come to me, they're like, oh my God, you know, I saw we're supposed to do less than 2000 milligrams of sodium and I could consume so much sodium. I like it. Okay, well, unless you have hypertension, which I do get endurance athletes who have diagnosed hypertension or high class, all these different things, like, and we manage that, right?

But like a healthy person without hypertension, who's losing a lot of sodium, like, we have to salt your food. We have to include sodium in, you know, what you're drinking. Like, don't be afraid of these things. And remember that you are not like the average American who is maybe [01:21:00] sedentary or whatever, you know, like you're different.

Mm-hmm. So, so you have, yeah. So you have to remember that sometimes the general guidelines for certain things just don't necessarily apply to you as much. And, and not to say like, we do have to keep in mind the basics. Tenants like healthy eating, like yes, having whole Foods, having complex carbohydrates going for, you know, making sure you are having enough fiber to support a healthy gut, like all that stuff.

Of course, it's so important, like not going insanely high with added sugars outside of exercise. You know, I, I always want people to enjoy their life and, and, you know, eat, not just because it's fueling their activity and, and all that, but also because it's pleasurable and they're, you know, they use it to connect with people.

Like food is about so many things. So yeah, like have a dessert, have this and that. It's not like you can only have sugar surrounding exercise and that's the only time, like having it when you want it, but. You know, also be sure you're prioritizing like fruits and starchy veggies and whole greens and like all that good [01:22:00] stuff.

So, you know, I think this is where it's like all the boring, non-sexy nutrition advice comes into play. And then, you know, so we have to kind of keep that around. And then, then the intro workout stuff where, yeah, like immediately before, during, and after. We aren't prioritizing high fiber carbohydrates. We want easier food, like quickly absorbable carbohydrates immediately after a long run or a really hard session to help replenish glycogen stores.

Um, same with before to prevent GI issues and just kind of get that fast acting glucose in. So like, so yeah, there's a time and a place for everything. I think that's kind of the bottom line. And, you know, we don't need this fear mongering towards carbohydrates, which, I mean, it's just everywhere. Or truly towards anything.

It really is not helpful. Perfect. Well. Claire, I don't wanna keep you around too much longer. Uh, it was a blast to have you on and chat, I'm sure. Uh, I'll have some follow up questions for you at some [01:23:00] point. If you're ever interested in coming back on and, and and chatting. I am happy to come on anytime.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, before I let you go, do you mind letting the listeners know where they can find you, uh, social media, website, where they can reach you and that sort of thing? Yeah. I'm pretty consistent with my branding. I'm eating for endurance everywhere, so you can find me on Instagram. Um, that's where I'm most active.

Although love, hate relationship with Instagram. I go in ebb and flow with my content production there. I will say, um, my website is eat for endurance.com. Yeah, I do one-to-one counseling. I have a really awesome, um, membership.