Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

Every athlete has unique nutritional requirements dependent on the training program, body composition goals, genetics and fitness level. Therefore, there is no one best diet to follow. More so, your nutritional requirements, food choices and strategies will change throughout the year, depending on training volume and intensity. But even during peak training when energy requirements are increased, your food choices should remain nutritious and health-promoting. Leaving your diet to chance or training to "earn" your food may result in nutrient poor food choices, lacking key nutrients. And a diet of restriction, sacrifice and obsession will lead to less-than-optimal energy availability. Being well-nourished puts your body into a state of optimal functioning, helping you become a better athlete. The foundation of building a healthy sports diet is to consume a variety of nutrient-dense foods from all food groups. Your diet should not include an off-limit food list unless you su...

Nearing the 2-3 months out from a key race, many athletes start paying close attention to any limiters that could potentially sabotage race day performance. Weight is typically one of those "potential" limiters that comes to the front of the mind for my athletes. Although weight can play a positive or negative role in performance, it's not the only way to improve or destroy performance. Sadly, when athletes start looking at performance and how to get faster, stronger or go longer, weight becomes the only focus. It's not uncommon for the athlete who wants to achieve a specific body composition to look for strategies and behaviors that are extreme in order to make for quick changes. Because most people won't keep up with new habits if they don't result in quick changes or feedback, many of the strategies that athletes take to change body composition adversely affect health. Fasted training, restricting fluids and calories during prolonged sessions, not focus...

As an athlete, you probably feel that you work very hard to develop the necessary skills, resilience, stamina, power, speed and endurance to help you prepare for your upcoming athletic events. Developing the fitness to participate in a running or triathlon event requires a lot of training and it takes commitment and requires patience, so it's assumed that skipping workouts, being "all in" all the time, not caring, deviating from your training plan to do what other athletes are doing, or haphazardly guessing your way through training are not effective ways to reach your race day goals. You simply become inconsistent with training, you lose confidence in what you are doing and you may compromise your health. Is nutrition an important component of your training? If you don't work at healthy eating, you miss out on one of the best opportunities to improve your performance and to keep your body in good health. To perform at your best, your body needs to function at it...

The Paleo diet is marketed as a "lifestyle" as it it is described to be  "the healthiest way you can eat because it is the only nutritional approach that works with your genetics to help you stay lean, strong and energetic because our modern diet is at the root of degenerative diseases such as obesity, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, depression and infertility." It's a way of eating based on the supposed habits of prehistoric hunger-gatherers or caveman.  I absolutely agree that the Western diet is too full of refined foods, added sugar, unhealthy fats, extremely processed food and fast, convenient food. As a dietitian, there is absolutely nothing wrong with any dietary approach that favors a reduced intake of processed food and emphasizes real food. However, there is no basis to removing major whole food food groups, like dairy, whole grains and legumes from the diet. Foods that are wholesome and contain a variety of ...

A passion of mine is helping athletes adopt a more real food diet. I don't think I need to discuss the many benefits of eating real food, grown from nature, to support your health needs as you train for your fitness/athletic goals. For many athletes, there's a lot of confusion as to how to eat as an athlete vs. as a non-athlete. Yes, all human beings should adopt a more real food diet but for athletes, there are many times throughout the year when your lifestyle is not normal, and you need to relearn what "healthy eating" means as an athlete. You see, as an athlete, your body processes food differently than your sedentary counterparts and you need a lot of it. You burn more calories, your body requires key nutrients, at certain times, to help assist in metabolism, protein synthesis and glycogen resynthesis and food is not simply consumed for health but it is also your fuel. Far too many athletes think they are eating healthy but in reality, they are underco...

It seems like every day there is a new diet telling us what not to eat and a scientific article for reference, a nutrition expert, doctor or personal trainer touting a diet plan, a book, blog or website telling us what foods are destroying out heal and a food company excited to grab the market share by introducing a new “healthy” re-engineered processed food alternative which has the opportunity to be highly profitable.  Whether it’s lack of confidence, common sense, passion or effort for healthy eating, much of our society relies on diet plans as the best way to lose weight or to improve health. We all know why people struggle with food and body weight. It's not so much because people are eating too many vegetables, eating healthy fats and quality proteins, consuming grains like buckwheat, quinoa and wild rice and eating lentils and beans. In defense of carbs, we know very plain and clear that added sugar, soda's, processed and fast food are to blame.  In America, eati...

Are you wanting to lose 15+ lbs before your key race this season? Are you looking to change your diet/fueling in order to maximize your short distance or long distance racing performance? Do you struggle with your body image or relationship with food? Do you struggle to maintain a healthy body composition while training for long distance events? Do you experience GI issues, fatigue, headaches or low blood sugar symptoms while training/racing? Are you confused as to how to eat and fuel to stay healthy as an athlete? Are you overwhelmed with all of the diet, nutrition, fueling and eating advice you hear/read and want to understand what will work best for you as an athlete? If you answered YES to any of these questions, I invite you to come to my FREE talk at  Run In  in Greenville, SC on Monday January 11th, 2016 at 6:15pm.  If you are able to attend this talk, my goal is to help you better understand how to eat and fuel smarter as an athlet...