Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

Dear athlete,  On the first day of the New Yearm you are likely reflecting on the past twelve months. The New Year brings with it excitement for new beginnings and hope for a better future. As you look ahead to the upcoming year, you may be planning your New Year goals, resolutions or intentions as a way to officially begin anew.  Although goal-setting is an important component in the journey of self-improvement, I ask that you carefully think through your New Year, New You thoughts, actions and behaviors.  The New Year symbolizes a time when most people resolve to make changes in health. I'm assuming that one of your New Year goals involves your diet, training, body composition or health. Even if you have great intentions with your New Year goals, I am concerned. Because the month of January is so deeply rooted in making changes in body size, shape or weight - supported by the toxic diet culture - I am extremely worried about how your current thoughts about your body siz...

Food is fuel and nourishment. Your diet should include food that you enjoy. Eating should never cause anxiety, worry, guilt or frustration. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case. Every individual comes to the table with a unique food history - which shouldn’t be ignored when creating a personal nutrition plan. For example, an athlete may understand the importance of nourishing the body with proper nutrition, but when having to negotiate a packed work schedule and the diet needs/likes/dislikes of your family and/or spouse, it may be difficult to make nutritious choices that help you meet your body composition and performance goals. And in our weight and image-obsessed culture, trying to match energy intake to energy output may be tricky if you have a complicated relationship with body image. But for you to remain in good health, the daily diet is key. This means taking the time to learn about the nutrients that your body needs to function properly, and having a practical game-plan...

How many times have you fallen victim to the dieting trap? -Restrict food to try to lose weight or to gain control over food choices. -Feel deprived. -Crave foods you are restricting. -Feel miserable, isolated or confused. -Give into temptation and eat off-limit food. -Mentally beat yourself up for eating something you shouldn't be eating and think "What the heck. I failed again so I may as well eat it all." -Feel guilty, uncomfortable and anxious. Become overly critical of your body. Feel like a failure. Get angry. Blame yourself for not having willpower. -Binge eat or give up on the diet and go back to your old ways of eating. -Begin the cycle again. If you are one of the 45 million Americans who go on a diet each year, please keep these important reminders in mind when you consider a new/popular diet as a new way of eating. Dieting affects your self-esteem. You don't fail at dieting, the diet fails you. Diets severly restrict your food choices, making you feel ...

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...

There is a lot of information available to athletes on the topics of nutrition, specifically as it relates to how food can change your body composition, improve your health and boost your performance. I think it is safe to assume that most athletes view food as a naturally safe way to boost athletic performance and the diet as a method of changing body composition. But with so much information available to athletes, the topics of eating for health, eating for fuel, eating to change body composition and so forth, can make the simple topic of "diet for athlete" so confusing and overwhelming. Due to information overload, I wouldn't be surprised if you are one of the many athletes who have explored (or tried) a dietary trend or fad at least once a year (likely around January) in an effort to get your diet under control in order to change body composition. The interesting thing about a diet trend is the unique marketing of the dietary strategy which accurately ident...

If you have been trying to train your way to great fitness with a dieting mentality,  you better believe that in your attempt to improve performance, you may actually be becoming less healthy. Don’t assume that just because you are an athlete, that health and fitness are interrelated because for many athletes, they are not. Just because you can run for 2 hours, swim 4000 yards or bike 100 miles, perhaps all in a weekend, this doesn’t mean that you are healthy, especially if you are not fueling and eating adequately and making smart lifestyle habits (like good sleep, good stress management, etc.).   I have witnessed many athletes who are extremely active, look fit or are dedicated to training, yet when it comes to making smart choices with their diet, they are either too extreme and restricted or too careless and negligent.      Have you or someone you know, experienced one or more of the following while training for an event?  ...

A few things are going to happen in the next few months. In a few weeks, you will see and hear a lot of people trying to kick-start a new way of "healthy" eating in order to lose weight. People will say they are ready to get "back on track" and may say other things like "I'm going to be so good" "I'm so tired of being fat" "I ate so bad over the holidays" "I need to get beach body ready." Sometimes, people will talk about making a lifestyle change for a health improvement. In a few months, I can assure you that most of these people will find it difficult to maintain their "healthy" eating plan if the plan was not realistic, flexible or non-extreme.  But if the plan was extreme and strict, they will likely say "I couldn't follow it any longer," feeling like a failure (crazy how diet plans make you feel like that) and move on to the next diet plan. But for you, the athlete, you don't ...

Healthy Eating Without Following a Diet Plan (for the original source, visit  USA Triathlon multisport zone ) By Marni Sumbal, MS, RD All fitness enthusiasts and athletes must understand the importance of consuming a balanced, wholesome diet. And above all, this diet shouldn't leave you unsatisfied, without energy, feeling isolated, requiring an excessive amount of planning and prep or costing you a lot of money. It’s time to start thinking about food for fuel and health.  Here are six tips for eating a healthy diet without following a diet plan. 1. What's your motivation to change?   If you feel the need to eliminate or add certain foods to the diet, be sure to have a really good reason to do so. A good reason would be doctor's/dietitian's orders or lab work that reflects the need to place emphasis on certain areas of your diet. Weight loss is typically a top priority for most people wanting to change nutrition habits but a better focus would be on wha...

Hello 2015!!! The best time of the year to start a diet!!  Big feast, lots of treats/sweets, off your typical routine.  You have gone a bit overboard and now feel as if you have sinned with overindulgence or enough is enough and you are tired of your flaws and you have self-criticized yourself enough that you now have all the motivation in the world to finally start that diet plan.  Sure, these are all things associated with the holiday season but they are also associated with individuals who seek diets.  And let me tell you about diets these days...they are all over the place in terms of the rules, guidelines and promises that they make.  What's always the same?  They offer best-seller books and cookbooks because the media loves the attention that the diet is getting. You know about the diet because it's all over social media. Of course, those who aren't on the diet don't talk about it and those not on social media, w...

Have you found yourself (for non clinical reasons) recently eliminating food sources or food groups titled dairy, sugar, grains, gluten, refined foods, carbs or un-natural in an effort to eat more “clean” or because those foods are bad? It’s ok to have good intentions with diet changes as you want to better understand what foods work best for your body in motion but extreme dietary shifts in eating patterns are one of the most common red flag signs that you may be developing (or furthering) your unhealthy relationship with food and your body. Sure, improvements in any area of life require attention and perhaps some degree of obsession but when your eating/food thoughts and habits are all-consuming and have taken over your life, it’s time to re-evaluate your relationship with food. If you are a performance-driven athlete, keep in mind that rule-based eating does not take into account your personal needs, your performance goals, your periodized training plan, your lif...

When I was 10 years old and decided to not eat meat anymore, my choice to become plant strong was not for a body image, to get healthy or to follow the crowd. I had made a personal decision that not eating meat would be my way of showing respect to animals and thus I titled myself as a vegetarian.  Almost 23 years ago I made a dietary choice to become a vegetarianism. But unlike the brand of shoes I prefer or my favorite color, choosing to eliminate meat from my diet started a lifestyle change that had no deadline in place. Because plant strong became my new lifestyle, it required commitment and knowledge to make the diet work for my personal health and performance goals.  I have never persuaded anyone to be a vegetarian athlete to boost performance and I have never told a person that his/her health and performance will automatically improve once meat is removed from the diet.  All fitness enthusiasts and athletes must understand the importance ...