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Showing posts from January 6, 2019

Recipe: Peanut Butter Pretzel Balls

While it's extremely important to think about what you eat before, during and after exercise, as well as on rest days, most athletes fail to plan ahead or question what and how much to eat. When you fall short on your meal planning and nutrient timing, you also fail to ensure that you are delivering the nutrients that your body needs to help you perform (and recover) at your best. When writing my book Essential Sports Nutrition ,  it was important to me that all recipes were nutritionally balanced and delicious. As an athlete myself, I want my recipes to come together quickly and to include easy-to-find ingredients. To help you out, here are a few recipe ideas from my book to help with your meal planning: Breakfast - Blueberry Stuffed French Toast Lunch - Southwestern Salad Afternoon snack - Carrot Cake Muffins Dinner - Maple-Dijon-Glazed Salmon                                                Dinner - Sesame-Honey Tempeh with Wild Rice Peanut B

Are your healthy food swaps unhealthy?

The other day I received an email from a former Trimarni athlete who asked my thoughts about a product called Tofu Shirataki Spaghetti.  This athlete has been working on losing weight and regaining a healthy lifestyle and is looking for a gluten-free pasta alternative. At first glance, this looks like a delicious protein-rich noodle option. But when reviewing the ingredients, you'll quickly realize that there's not much to this product.  Water, soybeans, yam flour, calcium hydroxide, glucono delta lactone, calcium sulfate.   While the intention was good, with only 10 calories per serving (and less than 1g protein), I told the athlete that I don't feel this is the best "pasta" alternative. First of all, I can't see how this product would be satisfying. Secondly, I don't see much nutritional value in this factory-made concoction.  The athlete then mentioned if spiralized noodles would be a good option in place of pasta. While offering a good dose

The power of a present mind

The other day on Facebook and Instagram, I shared videos of me and Karel on our trainer bikes. The piece of information that I failed to include was that we were both performing a bike test to establish training zones. The test was the  4DP Full Frontal Fitness Test . We each performed the test on different days - thus the opportunity to secretly film one another during the test. My video was during my 20 minute section of the test and Karel's video was during his last one-minute effort of test. There was a lot of suffering between us both! Because we have never done this test before, we had nothing to compare to. There were unknowns and no way to predict the future. We were both truly in the moment in order to bring forth the best effort possible throughout the test. For athletes, there's great power of a present mind. While it sounds simple, many athletes struggle to stay in the moment before and during training and on race day. Especially in a sport like triathlon wh

Becoming more body image positive in 2019

The New Year is flooded with ways to improve your health - specifically through diet and exercise.While there is nothing wrong with embarking on a new journey, the first step to improve your health is to learn to be kind to your body. To start the New Year, I wanted to share a few of my thoughts on the topics that I feel athletes become vulnerable to as it relates to diet and exercise. Athletes are very disciplined, dedicated and hard working individuals but tend to function on the side of extreme. Many athletes are so focused on an outcome that they forget to be kind to the body. Most diets and exercise plans require a lot of willpower and discipline. People fall in and out of programs because they are exhausting - mentally and physically. In turn becomes body shaming, critical judgement, self-hate and unrealistic body ideals. In other words, in a quest to become healthier, you lose sight on the first step of improving your health - being kind to your body. I hope you find the