Episode 287: Nutrition & Body Composition - 1 on 1 with Scott Tindal of Fuelin
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On this week's Purple Patch Podcast, IRONMAN Master Coach Matt Dixon welcomes Scott Tindal back to the show.
Scott Tindal, the co-founder of FuelIn, Purple Patch's nutrition partner, joins the show and shares his expertise as a Nutrition Coach to discuss building a foundation of health during the off-season with a particular focus on body composition.
In their conversation, Matt and Scott cover essential nutritional practices and habits that all athletes and performance-driven individuals should adopt over the next few months.
They provide helpful advice on achieving a healthy body composition and developing a positive relationship with food while avoiding fad diets and dogmatic approaches.
Matt and Scott take a global approach to building a solid platform of health, emphasizing the interconnectedness of nutrition, sleep, recovery, endurance training, and strength and conditioning.
Together they simplify nutrition and provide a platform for better performance, whether you're an athlete or simply seeking a healthier life.
Episode Timestamps
00:00 - 04:58 - Welcome and Episode Introduction
05:06 - 08:32 - Matt's News-ings
08:40 - 52:57 - The Meat and Potatoes - Episode 287: Nutrition & Body Composition - 1 on 1 with Scott Tindal of FuelIn
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Full Transcript
Matt Dixon 00:00
I'm Matt Dixon and welcome to the Purple Patch podcast. The mission of Purple Patch is to empower and educate every human being to reach their athletic potential. Through the lens of athletic potential, you reach your human potential. The purpose of this podcast is to help time-starved People everywhere, integrate sport into life.
Matt Dixon 00:24
Hey guys, today's show, we're talking all about nutrition. And we're gonna actually focus on body composition improvements. But what I want you to listen to, with great intent as you go through today's show, is how the primary focus is about building a foundation of really positive habits. Now, if you're athletically inclined, it's really about establishing great habits, a platform of health, so that then when your training starts to build, you can layer on the more appropriate and supporting calories to meet the demands of your training. And when you get a system of health and then you are in a place where you can find great performance. That links directly into the premise of when we talk about InsideTracker. Where really what we're looking to do with our athletes is to identify their strengths, and their weaknesses and take a look inside of biometrics. So that we have a landscape of all of the health parameters that relate to improving performance and we can make targeted decisions on how to build that platform of health. Because from a platform of health then, you get the opportunity to build the performance in whatever arena you're looking for. Whether you're trying to chase World Championship titles, or whether you're simply looking to shore up the best version of yourself. We leverage this across the Purple Patch athlete population. And you can take advantage as well. All you need to do is head to insidetracker.com/purplepatch that's insidetracker.com/purple patch, and you can use a sneaky coat Purple Patch Pro 20 that gives you 20% off everything at the store. We welcome Scott Tindal. It's a fascinating conversation and I think by the end, you'll realize it puts the power of nutrition and how it relates to being a better version of yourself into great context. Enjoy the show.
Matt Dixon 02:19
And welcome to the Purple Patch podcast. As ever, your host, Matt Dixon. And today we get to welcome back a guest. Now this is becoming a little bit of a regular occurrence. But we get to welcome Scott Tindal, who is the co-founder of our nutrition partner FuelIn. Now, we're not going to be talking about race day performance, we're not going to be talking about fueling for Ironman triathlons or anything like that. Instead, we're going to be talking about building a platform of health and also improving your body composition, if that's a necessity, over the course of the coming months. This discussion is really timely because as most athletes are emerging into the offseason, or as most lifestyle performance-focused people are edging in towards the holidays, this is a really appropriate time to set your foundation and create a platform of health. Now as we go through today's discussion with Scott, I want you to prick your ears a little bit and I want you to really listen to a couple of important themes that come through. The first is the 360-degree focus where any element of performance, whether it's nutrition, whether it's sleep and recovery, whether it's endurance training, whether it's strength and conditioning, we shouldn't look at these things as single entities, because ultimately, they correlate and work with each other. The second thing that I want you to really listen for is the importance of actually building a platform of health, and actually being able to fall in love and build a positive relationship with your eating habits. And so dogmatism quick fixes, and voodoo diets are not a part of today's discussion. In fact, the way that Scott talks about finding better body composition, and actually setting yourself up for great performance is an investment in building a base of great nutritional habits. And when the body gets healthy, and you're eating really well, and then yes, body composition will start to improve. But on top of that, you have this foundation of habits, that over the course of next season, particularly if you're a competing athlete, you can keep those habits the same, but you're in an opportune place where you can layer on the necessary calories to then fuel your training. And it's a really novel, very basic, and most importantly, effective way for you to build a positive relationship with your fueling and your food. A great, great conversation ahead. So we're gonna get cracking pretty quick with Scott. But I do want to do very quickly Matt's News-ings
Matt Dixon 05:06
Alright guys, Matt's News-ings. And yes, I just want to give you a couple of heads up. And it would be remiss of me not to talk about FuelIn. They are world experts in nutrition, they work with many of the leading professional triathletes in the world, Scott has a deep, deep background in professional sports from rowing, to professional rugby, recently with the Toronto Maple Leafs in hockey, across multiple professional sports. But now his primary focus is helping endurance athletes perform at the highest level, and also everyday folk find their best version of themselves. And that's why there's great synergy between the two organizations. Now I trust the FuelIn team deeply. And what I really like is their highly accessible and science-driven approach to building positive habits. And at this time of the year, I actually think it's a wonderful time to engage. If you really want to draw from today's discussion of building a platform of health, and also potentially thinking about improving your body composition, it should start now, and the whole of the FuelIn team is actually pointing their spotlight on that whole topic. Let's build foundational habits. Let's help you get healthy. And for those folks that need it, let's facilitate some really positive shifts in body composition. The other thing I like about their app is not only does it integrate into your training and exercise program, but it is also fueled much in the same way as being a part of a Purple Patch or ecosystem globally, by in-depth education, real-world education and touch points with the coaches that are at the FuelIn team. Fantastic opportunity. If you're interested, here's the website to go through. It's fuelin.com/purple patch. So w-w-w-dot-revolutionary-fuelin, FUELIN-dot com-slash-purplepatch. Go in, make sure that you know that you tell them that you heard all about FuelIn via this show all of course, if you're a Purple Patch athlete, because they always give you some very extra special treatment. Really, really powerful, very useful. Last thing, I'll say, hey, this is a great time, we kicked off last week, our offseason programming, and the first week, tremendous fun. We had a ton of people on the live educational sessions, people really engaged across our live video training and of course, our video-based strength training, a lot of fun, and you can really feel the energy. And so if you want to become a part of this, it's absolutely the perfect time for you to build your physiological platform of readiness. And if you're racing still, don't worry, this is a phase of our training that actually lasts 18 weeks, so it's going through Valentine's Day. So you have lots of opportunity, even if you're racing in November to get onto the wagon then, but if you're done, if you're thinking about going random, this is the time. All you need to do for that is head to our website, PurplePatchFitness.com, and head to the squad page. Or of course reach out to us directly if you want some individualized coaching, one-to-one coaching, or you just want to talk about the program. A free consultation awaits. Info@PurplePatchFitness.com. Alright, guys, with this, Scott Tindal world-renowned nutritionist, co-founder of FuelIn, and a compelling conversation. I give you, and pardon the pun, Barry I said I wouldn't say it but it is the meat and potatoes.
Matt Dixon 08:40
All right folks, the meat and potatoes are very aptly named for this week's show. And I'm delighted once again, as mentioned in the preview in the introduction to get to welcome you back once again. Scott Tindal, the co-founder of Fuelin. Scotty, nice to have you back on the show.
Scott Tindal 08:59
Thanks very much, Matty, excited to be back on here discussing everything and anything about nutrition.
Matt Dixon 09:06
We are indeed and we're going to try and narrow our focus today. And we're going to try and make this as broad-reaching as simple and as actionable as possible. But because the season is creeping to the end for the athletes, we want to actually broaden our time and really dial into a topic under the banner of nutrition, which is body composition. And, and I'm gonna sort of frame this out for everyone that's a listener here. We've tried to construct this conversation in which we're really talking to three populations. The first are triathletes and endurance athletes that are in that offseason that are seeking really simple, actionable, not necessarily overly committed, don't want to make nutrition, a sort of lifestyle as much as they want to have a focus. Then we have the very serious triathletes and endurance athletes that are also entering the offseason, fully committed very detailed focused. And then finally, we have non-athletes that are more related to performance across the life looking for health span longevity, that might be looking for improved body composition changes, but also improved daily energy and components like that. And so we're going to try to mix our discussion up and, and consider all three of those groups in population here. And I guess, to kick us off, because I know we can be wordy, but we're going to do our best to keep it pretty succinct here. I'd love to set the tone with a big sky question, as you call it, which is this time of the year as the days get shorter, at least at my end of the world, I know you're experiencing the other end of the whale, but in the northern hemisphere days are getting shorter, it's colder. It's an offseason as well, for the athletes, why is this time of the year a really good time to consider improvements in body composition?
Scott Tindal 10:55
Or I think there's probably, you know, the simple answer is that you've got less training stress. So I think overall, that athlete can have a little bit more time to focus on what might be required from a, especially if we're talking about body composition and actually apply themselves because that race stress has sort of dropped off. And that training stress, as you very much know, with your focus on the Q4 is like you can just reduce that overall training load, maybe improve the intensity, but actually have a little bit more time to focus on things. And I think that's for the probably more the amateur athlete, I think from the everyday performance-driven folks, you know, I think it's a really good time because you go into this holiday mode and you regress, and all that great work you've done during the season, could be undone in a matter of weeks. And it's not that you have to stay as you know, so be an absolute angel and be on point all year round. But it's just being focused enough to not let all that great work, go. And that's where I think that Q4, that holiday season, is a great time to really sort of keep your focus and ensure that yeah, as I say, all that good work hasn't gone.
Matt Dixon 12:09
It's funny because it's, it's counter to that in both of those channels, if you want to call it that, most athletes are really obsessing around quote getting to race weight over the course of their triathlon season. And right when they've got so many competing demands, let alone elevated stress on their body that they're trying to manage. And for most of us just in the real world, we've got the holidays, and the natural inclination is I'll think about it in January, New Year, new you, and all of that. And, and it's really the reverse in both of those cases, it's actually this is the time and sort it out now. And in an athletic sense, you're setting yourself up for a much better season, when you can do this now. And the body's better equipped to do it because training stress is low, is much, much lower. And then from a lifestyle-type performance-focused person, it's really making sure that you're not dropping off a cliff and actually pushing the lever here that you can really make gains. And then you're just setting yourself up for a year ahead of success globally.
Scott Tindal 13:15
And I think that's going to be -- for a lot of people, that's a big shift in maybe their mindset, and it will be okay, they've gone from probably hard training in season. And now they may have to actually think about doing some hard training in the offseason to reestablish that new sort of focus. And then the upcoming season in 24 can actually be a little bit easier because you're actually already at or close to that body weight. So your focus doesn't have to be on losing weight during the season, you can actually just focus on doing the sessions feeling great fueling correctly, and not being in this constant chase of I need to be at my race-weight. And it will take a little bit of effort to change that mindset and also apply yourself to that off-season training. But I think if you can do that, then 24 is going to be a great year. And it just provides you with that sense of relief. It's like Oh, I'm not having to try and, you know, as I say chase that race-weight.
Matt Dixon 14:17
I think it's important that if we're urging folks to consider these sort of focus areas and changes potentially which we're going to dig into today, we should probably establish a baseline set of expectations and mindset. So in a broad sense, when you think about improving body composition, what jumps to mind? You know, what should it be and perhaps more importantly, what should it not be?
Scott Tindal 14:45
Yeah, look, I think all of this, you know, and I was talking about this with someone the other day, it's like this notion of like nutrition is separate from training and it's just not like it's just a continuum. Now you can manipulate that over time, and depending on the time of the season, yes, you can manipulate nutrition, but it is just a continuum. It's part of life. And I think getting again, that mindset that just eating well, and whatever that means, and we might dive into that, but being on point with nutrition, the majority of the time is just a lifelong habit. And I think, again, getting beyond like, oh, I need to get my nutrition, right for this race. It's like, sort of the wrong mindset, I think to have. So I think it is a continuum. It's long-term behavior change, it's changing what you have in your fridge, what you have in your pantry, what you might eat, when you go out, you know, instead of the burger and chips, maybe you do order the grilled fish or the nice piece of steak. And I think, yeah, just touching on that. I know because I've been there. And it's like, you look at the menu, and you, you always look at the burgers because they probably cheapest and they, they smell great. And there are chips. And you look at the piece of fish and you're like, oh God, it's $35 or $40. And, the reality is you pick the fish, you eat it, and you feel great afterward. There's always that like, post-burger sort of lull where you're like Oh really shouldn't have eaten that. And it's like, again, it's just mindset. And if you can get yourself over that sort of initial barrier, I think it, again, it sets you up for this lifelong sort of continuum and habit change, and mindset. I think in terms of nutrition, again, banging on about that, like it's just not short-term intervention. And that sort of is again, reinforced by what I said there.
Matt Dixon 16:39
Yeah, that's, I mean, at Purple Patch, we always talk about one of our sort of major cute little Dixon-isms, as my team likes to call them, but embracing the journey is one of our driving factors. And really, what you're talking about here is we're not talking about short-term interventions, we're not talking about the dirty word diet, we're not talking about sort of radical restriction or some radical shift here. This is about behavior change, mindset change, that is lasting, and where you're shining your focus right now, because your body is most equipped to accept it, because you're under less training demand is some shifting behaviors, to set yourself up with the platform with improved body composition, whatever that is appropriate to the person, obviously, without compromising health, obviously, so that you can go and be successful, whatever your arena is. And so I guess with that, maybe that was a sort of guiding little summary that I couldn't help but do as a coach. But what do you think the top two or three mistakes that you think people make if they, you know, as we record this early October, I'm going to improve my body composition, I listened to this geezer Scott Tindal and goodness me he was compelling and I'm gonna go and change my body composition for the positive, they go out and do it. What are the what are the few mistakes that you see consistently?
Scott Tindal 18:09
Uh, probably, as you said, picking some radical, Fast Track diet, I think is probably just, it's the number one mistake. They they'll go and do severe caloric restriction, probably severe carbohydrate restriction because it creates an instant water weight loss, so you suddenly are two kilos lighter by the end of five days. And it's just not sustainable. And so after a week, two weeks, yes, the weight, the number on the scale has changed, but you start to feel pretty terrible. You're starting to miss Mr. Dixon's bike sessions. And then Mikey and his run sessions go out the door, and then you know, your weight training, wherever your weight training starts to get really hard and not enjoyable. And it all drops off the cliff. So I think just that's the number one issue. Actually, we were talking about, I was talking about this yesterday with Dr. Alan McCubbin, and we kept getting this question about fat oxidation, how do I improve fat oxidation? And it's like, people will go to extremes. So it's either your low carb, high fat, or your high carb, low fat. And it's like, in order to create metabolic flexibility, the whole idea of flexibility is to be able to shift from one to the next. Now, if you go down the high-fat, low-carb route, yes, you can improve fat oxidation and your ability to utilize fat as a fuel source at the detriment of being able to use carbohydrates when you actually need them when you want to hit the top gear. And so it's the complete opposite of metabolic flexibility in my mind because you're actually just going to one extreme. And so rather than doing like, and yes, you can change your ability to use fat as a fuel source in a very short period of time. Like we're talking five days if you pretty much eliminate carbohydrates and go high fat. Cool. That's going to probably have a detrimental impact on race performance and how long it takes to get back the ability to use carbohydrates, it's a little bit unclear. So why not just go about this in a systematic manner and be patient with your ability to use fat as a fuel source through what you do with daily nutrition, which is changing probably your daily habits? Yes, you may be, and this again, without going too deep, probably relates to your glycogen threshold. So how much glycogen you have in your muscles at the end of sessions? Now, for most people doing one session a day, yes, you could finish that session slightly lower. And you don't need to go and eat 10 grams of carbohydrates per kilogram. After that session, you may just have lower amounts of carbohydrates, certainly high protein, making sure that you are refueling appropriately, but not necessarily going full bore with glycogen replenishment. So over time, what you start to see is that athlete may be performing some sessions in a slightly lower glycogen state, without necessarily compromising their performance, but over time, that could improve their ability to use fat as a fuel source. And so it's, but it's going to take weeks, if not days, it's probably weeks of this continued, like, yes, you're eating carbohydrates. But those carbohydrates come from good quality sources. So I eat vegetables and fruits, not necessarily all your high glycemic carbohydrates that are going to be more required when you're doing long, high-intensity training, which is probably not going to be happening in Q4. You're focusing on good quality proteins, making sure you're getting your optimal amount of protein in for each meal, and also across the entire day. And you're doing that each week. And you're doing it over weeks that accumulates into months, and you're keeping your fat intake at probably a moderate amount without going overboard. And it's that gradual patience, just enjoying each day, like focusing on the training going, geez, I feel good at this. In this weight session. I feel great on this run, I feel great on this bike. It's that over time, effort that will bring the results. And I think it comes back to like, what's the biggest mistake, everyone wants things to happen super quickly. And when things happen too quickly, usually it's too good to be true. And it just all breaks down. So again, the analogy of like, don't treat nutrition any differently from your training, you don't get on a bike one day, and suddenly you're a great cyclist, like it's time in the saddle that makes you great, or improves your performance.
Matt Dixon 22:46
So with that with timelines, when people come to FuelIn for advice and guidance or work with their local nutritionist or whatever it might be, or they devise their own plan -- you set the landscape and you set a like timeline. It's early October, right now, when we're recording, Is there a shift to say, hey, let's make these changes, while as you go through the holidays and be on the other side, as you go through all of your offseason before training stresses, is very hard, let's think about this over the course of months. And then also, it doesn't just turn off and shift back to a different thing, then all you're doing is adding on to this your caloric support for training, you're fueling necessary for training. So is this as much establishing a baseline of really good eating, that by the way is going to improve your body composition over this is some intervention? Is that a good way for people to think about this?
Scott Tindal 23:51
It's a perfect way of thinking about it because it's and it's even how we talk about meal building. Like, you might have a red again, in our system, like a red meal would be lower amounts of carbohydrates. I.e. focus on vegetables, and maybe some fruits in there and things like that. If you go to a yellow meal, you're just layering up. So yellow. So red would be 30 grams of carbs, yellows, 50. So you'd still for that yellow meal, have that base of vegetables and fruits, but then you may be layering in maybe a piece of toast, some bread, some grains, and then it's like, okay, green meal, that's 100 grams of carbs. Now, if you don't have a race or anything, you're not worried about fiber and reducing fiber, you're having that base of vegetables and fruits, maybe, then you're layering in, okay, instead of one serve of grains, you've maybe got two or three and you've got an extra couple of pieces of bread with that. And so it's just layering as you said to support what your training is. And I think in that same way like Q4, you're just building that base. Think of it as your red base, your good habits, lots of fruits, lots of vegetables, and then you're layering in as training intensity and training volume pick up, you're going to need more energy, you're going to need more food to support you. And if you don't layer up, that's when the hole gets dug, and you can't get out of that hole.
Matt Dixon 25:11
It's actually a great way to think about it because athletes can globally appreciate the concept of base building, building a foundation. Really what we're, what we're talking about here is, hey, you haven't got all these competing demands, either from a just a focus standpoint, but also a physical standpoint. You're not asking for too much of the body. So you can build your base that is providing a huge platform of health, is supporting your immune system over the course of this, you're really healthy, it's also going to have a knock-on effect that when the body's healthy, and you're feeding it the right things in the right amounts, we can start to improve the composition of your body. So in other words, trying to move towards appropriate fat, appropriate muscle, et cetera. And from that base, as the demands go up, you meet the demands, to your point, by layering on the caloric necessities to meet those demands to stay healthy, so that you can adapt. And nothing in there was intervention, diet -- you know what I mean? -- starvation, et cetera, and nothing was radical. There wasn't X-Y-Z voodoo x, it was just a really strong baseline of a scientifically valid diet. So if we get more granular, because we do have athletes listening, and we certainly have non-athletes that are listening to the show. And we also have people that love the details and want to talk about 40 grams of carbohydrates and what's happening to their glycogen, and other people saying, I don't even know what he was talking about with glycogen. And that's okay. We don't need to go back -- a stored form of carbohydrate in liver and muscle, by the way, but -- you know, other people just want really basic habits and some essential sort of building blocks to go from. So maybe you could just sort of frame a little bit of a step-by-step process or approach to improve body composition.
Scott Tindal 27:24
Yeah, I think, Okay, so the first point is like, think about the stress, this total stress that you're going to be applying to yourself. Now in that Q4, as Matt said, if you are, you know, training for a race or something like that, there's going to be fairly high stress, high volume. So probably in Q4, it's going to be lower, lower total training volume, plus or minus lower intensity, depending on what those specific sessions are. But I think that's really important. And then, prioritizing in terms of stress, I think everyone talks about it on an ongoing basis of sleep. And I think prioritizing sleep and really getting again, thinking of habits, getting in that habit of somewhere between seven and nine hours. I know how that sounds, it's like what you're always told, oh you should get eight hours of sleep. Yeah, because there's actually science behind it. But those individuals who get somewhere between seven and nine hours are generally healthier from a whole range of sort of physiological parameters. So I think prioritizing sleep, rejuvenation, whatever you want to call it, is really important thinking about that total stress on the body and how you're applying that. Certainly having structure to your training week, I think is the most underrated thing that an athlete can do. I hear this all the time, like friends, they're like, Oh, I just do a little bit of this and I do a little bit of that. And that's like, don't you want the structure in your life where you know what you're doing every Wednesday and things like that? It just makes life easy. So I think that would be the first thing. I think for those people who do want a little bit of data in their life, and they want to think about being, you know, am I making progress? Well, you have to establish a baseline. So look, if you want to get a DEXA scan done, I think it is valuable. Certainly, if you are looking at body composition, you want to understand better body composition, and also check your bone mineral density, which I cannot, like, emphasize enough that we are seeing so many young people with low bone mineral density. And it's actually it's slightly terrifying that, you know, 35-year-old females and males present with the bone quality of a 75-year-old. And so I think it is important from a health perspective, that's where I see the real value in a DEXA not to tell you exactly like your percentage of body fat. Don't really care to be honest. Look at more meaningful parameters there like your lean mass index, like your fat mass index. How do you compare based on your gender and your age group to the rest of the world? Are you in a state of good health, or do you need to improve that? You know, is your visceral fat, the fat in and around your organs, is that too high, because again, that is going to predispose you to disease, chronic diseases, non-communicable type diseases like Type Two Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome, types of cancer, cardiovascular disease. So again, stepping back not even thinking about performance, we're thinking of just your overall health and getting your health baseline in that sense and thinking, okay, I need to do something about this. I know you and I've talked about…
Matt Dixon 30:37
Performance is built on a platform of health. Performance is built on a platform of health. Yeah.
Scott Tindal 30:42
And, you know, I know, we've talked about this before, it's like, I think, you know, talking about being overweight or obese, it's okay. Like, and we can't neglect the fact that there is an obesity crisis occurring worldwide. And it's not okay, just to say, oh, that's all right. You know, let's all feel happy. It's like, there's got to be a balance between physical health and mental health. And quite often, when people start to get physically healthier, they start to feel mentally better. And so I think there is there is like, you know, a strong interaction there. And I think it's I know, it's always controversial when you start talking about being overweight and obese. But, you know, I think there's enough science and enough research to support the negative impact of those, you know, those types of conditions on the individual's health. So I think from that baseline perspective, I think that's really important. Whether you use something like that, whether you use just a simple tape measure, measure your height, fold it in half, does it go around your waist, if those ends touch fantastic. If they don't, there's a good chance you probably, you know, your health could be improved by improving your body composition, something like that. And then I think, I think like from some very high level ABCs, in terms of what can you actually do? Start off with six to nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day. Don't be scared of fruit, fruit is not going to make you fat. It's not going to kill you. You know, look, two pieces of fruit per day. Absolutely fantastic. Perfect pre-training, snack, and have a banana. Fantastic. It's even prepackaged. It's got its own wrapper. I heard Kelly Starrett who is a local, I think in San Fran, of Supple Leopard fame. He, I always talk about six to nine vegetables. And as a classic American trumps me, he talks about, I think six to 900 grams. So he talks about the six to 900. And so he's talking about like, if you just aim for 100 grams of fruit, or vegetables and have six to nine serves that that you'll hit that six to 900. And I thought that was really smart. Like, it's like, just try and just challenge yourself to make it a game? Did you have the same fruit and veg that you had yesterday or did you actually try something different? Try and have all of those six and nine, fruits and veg, try and have six or nine different fruits and vegetables every day, make it a game, and see if you can do it. And I think it's just it's so important. And again, you could talk about the importance the the role it plays in sleep, nutrition will impact sleep and sleep will impact nutrition. So definitely number one priority improve your fruit and vegetable intake. The second thing would be your protein. Absolutely focus on your protein intake. Keep it relatively high. The simple way Americans think about this, whatever you weigh in pounds is what you should be aiming for grams per day. If you're a 130-pound athlete, aim for 130 grams, If you're 210 pounds, aim for 210 grams per day, very simple.
Matt Dixon 33:51
Which is a lot of protein for folks listening. And it is a challenge, logistical and otherwise, to consume that, but that's a good target. That's a really nice one. Okay, good. And we won't dig into the why right now let's keep it ABC here.
Scott Tindal 34:07
And I think with that look, animal or plant proteins are fine. If you are focusing on plant proteins, you probably just need to eat a little bit more of them because of the amino acid structure. Make sure you eat varied sources of plant proteins to ensure that amino acid composition is complete but certainly achievable with plant or animal protein. You just need a lot of it as you said, and focus on foods first, focus on foods first. Yes, you can use a whey protein or a plant protein supplement to again complement your diet but it shouldn't be the mainstay of that diet to get the protein in. Think in terms of number three, or C, would be hydration. Focus on drinking water, water first and foremost. Okay. Probably somewhere between two and three liters of water per day. Okay, Depending, I know, it's not going to be that hot in the northern hemisphere, but you probably will be in air-conditioned offices where the heat can actually be turned up. And that could result in passive loss of fluids. Just because you are staying, you're in quite a warm environment. So be on point with your hydration. Often hunger can be disguised as or, thirst can be disguised as hunger, or I should say. If you are really hungry, maybe drink, you know, 500 mils to a liter of fluid, I think that's around 20 to 22 ounces for a liter. Drink that. Drink it over the course of you know, 30 to 40 minutes, you might find that your hunger has actually dissipated. And it may have just been thirst that was sort of driving that. I think number four would be to avoid processed and ultra-processed foods. Again, I think there is this focus on macros at the moment. And yes, we talk about macronutrients all the time. And I've seen this where athletes will be consuming bars, protein bars, processed foods, and yes, they hit their macros, but they're like, oh my god, I'm so hungry. And it's because that tiny little five-centimeter bar, which yes had 15 grams of protein and 10 grams of fat and 30 grams of carbs in it, which was perfect as a, you know, a macronutrient standpoint, but in terms of satiation and how it fills you up, it's terrible. You literally have eaten 220 calories, and you go looking for more food instantly. Whereas if you had a banana, if you had some nuts, if you had a couple of boiled eggs, if you ate a big salad with that, you know you're going to be eating for quite some time and feel very satiated. So, going on, two more, just two more, I think learn to cook. Absolutely. Q4, get a get a present from someone or sign up for a cooking class. If you don't know how to handle a knife, start with a knife handling course. How to chop properly. It will change your life if you learn how to use a knife properly, you can just go on YouTube and type in knife handling skills and practice it. But it certainly is one of those things learning to cook is the mainstay or probably the last point which is just being consistent. If you're not cooking your own food, you don't know what you're eating. And it's as simple as that. If you are cooking and you're adding your own ingredients, you suddenly become very aware of the amount of oils, the amount of sugars, the amount of ingredients, and what types of ingredients that are actually being used. And I think that probably is probably the most important I think in my view. Just be consistent. And as we said at the very start, Rome wasn't built in a day. And I think you've just got to be patient with it and just, you know, enjoy, enjoy each day you know, when you eat that meal, enjoy the fact that you've eaten that meal don't don't be thinking about what's coming next.
Matt Dixon 37:58
I want to sort of endorse or add a couple of things. I'm so glad to hear you started with one of the things you started with was sleep. Because people tend to isolate their training from their nutrition from their recovery in their sleep for you know, and they isolate it thinking about neutral entities but it's the same as your training. Your training will not get the same results if you're under-slept. You will not be able to show up in the workplace and perform with energy if you have not slept well. Your body will not respond positively to any sort of healthy eating. It will be on the platform of health but it's going to be compromised. Your results will be compromised if you're woefully under-slept. It is a huge stressor. It's also your cheapest performance enhancer. And so I thought that was very, very interesting. The other thing I just want to bubble up that I found really interesting was hydration because a lot of people really particularly in daily life, forget about athletes for a second, most people walk around like dried sponges with no real recognition, of when they are chronically dehydrated throughout every day. They have no appreciation of how low their energy is and the impact of lethargy, how it's driving them to poor food choices because they get hungry and usually it's the food that the body necessarily doesn't really want the most and when you when you hear two liters of fluid plus a day, you think goodness mean that's a lot. but just when we're asleep, we are getting dehydrated. Some reports show that it's a liter of dehydration that occurs over the course of the time that we're asleep. So when you first wake up that's a great habit to do just consume a liter of water then have your coffee and it's a very simple thing.
Scott Tindal 39:49
Just on that Matty, have a look at have a look at like the color of your urine or urine first thing in the morning. And that's a good indication. If it's bright, you know, assuming you're not taking a B, vitamin or AG-1 or something like that, but if it's fairly, if it's smelly, and it's fairly dark, there's probably a good indication that you're under-hydrated. And just super practical, and you can just look at it. And certainly, if your second one is, then you know, you've got to be drinking some extra fluids.
Matt Dixon 40:20
Alright, so we're running out of time. But I do want to ask you a couple of things. And I can't help why you're not here for sort of direct big FuelIn promotion, I do want to actually investigate FuelIn just for a couple of minutes. And, and the reason for this is most people who are Purple Patch athletes and listeners who speak to me around FuelIn immediately think of you guys as coaches, and a platform, that is getting ready for racing. But that's actually not true. And right now, I know you've done a lot of work over the last year or so. And right now, it's really quite a different perspective from yourself and the other coaches. So can you just briefly explain that shift? Or what FuelIn's role is in this sort of approach?
Scott Tindal 41:11
Yeah, I think in season, it's all about keeping the athlete healthy. And obviously, creating a level of performance, you know, that is individualized and, you know, precise to that individual athlete and what they're trying to achieve. I think as you come into that offseason period, it's about, you know, again, thinking of mindset, but changing the approach in that you're building these lifelong habits, you're shifting that focus onto more sustainable habits, that will ultimately lead to an improvement in body composition, if that is your focus. So again, coming back to, you know, those that traffic light system that can be utilized in any manner, so you know, where an athlete will see, and becomes conditioned to seeing these traffic lights, so red, red, yellow, green, you start to understand how they can be applied in a health perspective or a performance perspective. And it really doesn't need to change in the sense that the system is the system based on scientific principles. And depending on what your focus is, whether that is health improvements in body composition, things like that, or high performance, it's just learning to recognize how those colors can be used for that specific purpose.
Matt Dixon 42:28
That makes sense. And then, I guess the other big part of it that most people I think, don't understand is the importance of the expertise in education that comes with FuelIn as well, which is a big part of what we're talking about today. Yeah?
Scott Tindal 42:43
Yeah. And I think that education again flips from the time of year, so you will have noticed, you know, with a lot of the Q and A's that's been focused on race performance, and FuelIn high carb fueling how to manage hydration for races, things like that, as we step into this postseason period for the northern hemisphere, yeah, that that education is going to focus more on probably habit formation, the importance of sleep, why fruits and vegetables are important and how you can manipulate your diet to bring about the change that you want in the time of season that you want. And that education element from, you know, Dr. Alan McCubbin, Elizabeth Inpyn, and myself, is crucial to the success of the program. And I think it goes way beyond just an app, you know, and we can talk about -- it is amazing that it's at your fingertips and it's like having your own dietician or nutritionist in your pocket, I guess -- But it goes way beyond just those colors and the macro numbers, like the end of the day that's built around a program and that's super important. But once you understand as an individual or an athlete, why you're doing what you're doing and how to implement that every day of your life, then that brings meaningful change. And I think that's what we see time and time, again, with athletes is when we get these beautiful emails and messages from athletes where it literally has changed their life. It's changed their outlook on food, it's changed their outlook on health, it's changed their outlook on racing. And that, you know, brings goosebumps to you. And I actually want to read just a couple of quotes from a professional triathlete, and one who is unfortunately, like so many were reading about recently, who has gone through disordered eating, eating disorder, had stress fractures, but thankfully has made a super successful comeback and will be racing at Kona she recently run Mont Tremblant in her first race back Mont Tremblant Ironman her name's Rachel Zelinkis. I just want to give just a few quotes from her just on the impact of what Nutrition has done. Yes, she was part of FuelIn but it's more, let's focus on what the impact of nutrition...
Scott Tindal 45:01
The building block. Yeah, the building,
Scott Tindal 45:06
Regardless of where she gets that from, let's focus on nutrition. So, you know, let's just start with this quote. So it was in relation to removing the guesswork. She said, 'It was a bit unintentional, but I was massively under fueling workouts. I just never took the time to invest in understanding how many carbohydrates athletes need when they're exercising.' And she went on further to explain, she said, 'it's literally been life-changing. I've never felt so good and consistent in my training sessions. And I credit that to the in-session and outside-of-session, nutrition recommendations from FuelIn. And the last thing I want to say, which is all about that enjoyment element, she said, following so following, the fueling plan, has turned cooking and eating into a positive experience for her. She said, 'I've reclaimed that area of my life, and it's become enjoyable when it hasn't always been.' And I think that last quote, for me, was like, and it just reminds me of Sara Piampiano. I remember Sara saying to me, she goes, actually, I enjoy cooking again, I enjoy eating again. And I realized the importance of fueling my body. And I think, it comes full circle doesn't it back to what we talked about at the start, let's not separate nutrition from training. It's just part of life. And when you can get your head around how important nutrition is and how life-changing it can be, and stop restricting, you know, nutrition, especially if you are one of those athletes who are under-fueling in this hope of getting race weight. Like, embrace it, because actually, your performance will improve, you'll feel stronger, you'll be healthier. And it's just it is such a powerful part. And I know it's a pillar of Purple Patch, where it is one of your main pillars, and I just want everyone listening, whether you're an athlete, whether you're an everyday hero, and just wants to improve their health, like nutrition is so central to that, you know that, oh, underlying health perspective.
Matt Dixon 47:12
And that's sort of why we're here today. And I really appreciate that. Let's not for a moment think about FuelIn. It's the role of her shifting her relationship and her habits to make her feel better and actually fall in love with it. Because success is not about like everything we read everywhere where pulled is into restriction, elimination, shackling, versus when you're doing it right, it should be enjoyment, liberating, energizing, you know, and that that's that that's really the purpose. And for folks that don't know Sara Piampiano was in many ways as your introduction to triathlon in many ways. Yes, yes, Scott? You are burdened with that with having the misfortune of meeting me and through Sara but with your work with her. And I, we haven't had the chance to sort of tell the story. I want to finish my own story because the folks who follow Sara Piampiano's journey who went from a Wall Street banker to a keen amateur triathlete to genuinely world-class, but Sarah had her very best results in the sport in the last couple of years, right before she retired 38, 39, 40 years of age. One of her best performances was certainly Ironman Brazil, she ran 251 I think off the bike. She finished it was the second fastest Ironman time for an American female athlete. Incredibly impressive, 39 years of age. And I can genuinely say this, and I hope that this doesn't come across as just to advertorial for you and for FuelIn. But I want to explain why I love to keep having you on the show. Because in that journey, for myself as a coach, and leading Sara, we didn't change anything over the course of that year, apart from one thing, which was her relationship with nutrition and fueling. And I distinctly remember, now this is five years ago or so now, I as a coach saying to you, you are and I'll say this word on here so people remember 'your fucking bonkers,' I said I can't believe how much you're making her eat during training, during racing and you want her to consume 90 grams per hour on the bike of carbohydrate. Now I know that this is a shifting conversation to race fueling suddenly, but it was madness. Now anyone who's a keen triathlete out there knows that right now this is common practice, but you were so far ahead of the wave. And what happened is she had a good swim relative for Sarah, she ain't a great swimmer, a good solid bike that was really even. But she came off and for the first real time, she had all of the resources. And that was just having the bravery and ultimately, adding the expertise of someone who could not only have the applicable component to solve a problem, even though you had no real background in triathlon, per se, at that time, but also help her build that positive relationship with food. And that was so impactful, I think, even now in her life. So that's a terrific way to end. Hey, Scott, as ever, we ran out of time, but at the same time, we want to have you back, we would do it in short order. You're becoming a regular on the show. But thanks so much for your time. And for everyone listening, I hope it was helpful. We'll leave FuelIn in the show notes. Of course, we have a special URL, if you're interested in connecting with FuelIn. It is it is the FuelIn website. But it's slash Purple Patch, very important to go through that link if you're interested. If you find FuelIn through socials or anything, always just reach out, and let them know that you're Purple Patch love, you're part of the family and those in the FuelIn team take some special care of you. So, that's good. But Scotty, thanks so much. I really appreciate your time.
Scott Tindal 51:23
Thanks, Matt
Matt Dixon 51:25
Guys, thanks so much for joining, and thank you for listening. I hope that you enjoyed the new format. You can never miss an episode by simply subscribing. Head to the Purple Patch channel on YouTube, and you will find it there and you can subscribe. Of course, I'd like to ask you, if you will subscribe, also share it with your friends. And it's really helpful if you leave a nice positive review in the comments. Now any questions that you have? Let me know. Feel free to add a comment and I will try my best to respond and support you on your performance journey. In fact, as we commence this video podcast experience, if you have any feedback at all, as mentioned earlier in the show, we would love your help in helping us to improve. Simply, email us at info@PurplePatchFitness.com or leave it in the comments of the show on the Purple Patch page and we will get you dialed in. We'd love constructive feedback. We are in a growth mindset as we like to call it. And so feel free to share with your friends, but as I said, let's build this together. Let's make it something special. It's really fun. We're really trying hard to make it a special experience. And we want to welcome you into the Purple Patch community. With that, I hope you have a great week. Stay healthy, have fun, keep smiling, and do whatever you do. Take care.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
athletes, body composition, nutrition, carbohydrates, training, eating, focus, people, race, habits, talking, building, patch, performance, fueling, improve, purple, year, offseason, scott