Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

  If you are new to this blog, welcome! If you are a frequent reader, thank you for your continued passion for all things nutrition, health and wellness. It's crazy to think that I have been blogging since 2007!  Over the past few years, I have had the opportunity to write three fitness/nutrition-related books.  Each book was a labor of love. Words are powerful and it can be difficult to get the right ones on paper to appeal to a mass audience. Writing a book can be a fulfilling and rewarding experience but it isn't without challenges.  Essential Sports Nutrition was my very first book. When a publishing company reached out to me to write this book, a long-time dream had been fulfilled. I put so much time, effort, brain power and research into this book as I wanted it to be perfect. I was then asked to write The 365-Day Running Journal. While this book was not as scientifically in-depth as my first book, the creative process required me to think differently when crea...

  Although water has no caloric value, it’s the most essential nutrient required in your diet on a daily basis. Your body is made of water. It’s part of your blood, brain, heart, lungs and bones. As it relates to exercise, water maintains blood volume, reduces the risk of heat stress, regulates body temperature and is involved in muscle contractions. To optimize your hydration status, you must be an active participant in your hydration regime by consuming adequate fluids and electrolytes on a daily basis - as well as before, during and after exercise. Leaving hydration to chance or ignoring dehydration symptoms can be hazardous to health and performance. Sadly, once you are dehydrated, you can't 'make-up' for fluids lost. Going into a workout dehydrated and/or not replenishing fluids and electrolytes lost during exercise can cause great strain on your cardiovascular system. As dehydration reduces plasma volume, blood becomes thicker and retains more sodium. This makes blood...

Raise your hand if you also love carrot cake? I have a confession to make. I love carrot cake. Maybe because it’s a cake made with a vegetable. This sweet, spicy and moist cake is my favorite way to celebrate my birthday each year. A tradition that started with my  dear friend Laura  making me a delicious carrot cake for my birthday back in ~2009.  With my carrot cake muffins, we can all yum over carrot cake all year long and feel great about the nutritional quality in the recipe. Because the typical carrot cake recipe (with cream cheese frosting) can be extremely high in calories, sugar and fat, you can feel good about this more nutritious (on-the-go) version which uses applesauce to cut back on oil.  Since carrots are naturally sweet, you’d never know there was only ½ cup brown sugar in this entire recipe. Carrot Cake Muffins Vegetarian, Dairy Free Yield: Makes 12 muffins [1 muffin = 1 serving] / Prep Time: ~20 minutes / Cook Time: ~20 ...

There's no right time to focus on your sport nutrition and daily diet as it should be an ongoing focus. Unfortunately, many athletes neglect proper eating until a setback occurs. It’s never too late in your life (or season) to appreciate the power of food and proper fueling. By staying up on your sport nutrition, macros and micros and hydration needs, you can protect your health, delay fatigue and consistently improve fitness. When it comes to performance, nutrition alone doesn’t limit performance but it can certainly affect how your body performs. The best fitness routines and training strategies are only beneficial if your body is fueled properly. Upon writing my book, Essential Sport Nutrition , my goal was to create a go-to source of practical and effective nutrition strategies to fuel and nourish your active lifestyle. On a basic level, nutrition is important to reduce risk for disease and to provide a source of energy to perform activities of daily living. For...

We all come in different sizes and shapes based on our unique genetic make-up. However, it’s common to turn to exercise to change the way that you look. Some athletes may desire a body composition change to help improve endurance, speed, strength, power and agility. Others may want to improve health. While health and performance may be of interest, athletes are often heavily invested in appearance - wanting to look leaner or more like the idealized image of an athlete in their sport. Keeping in mind that athletic success cannot be predicted based solely on body weight and composition, athletes come in vastly different body compositions. Because no two athletes are alike and sports invite athletes of all different sizes and builds, your body weight should not be your sole focus for sport enjoyment.  Due to pressure from society and coaches, it’s not uncommon for many athletes to have body image struggles, despite not being overweight or over fat. In turn, many athletes resort ...

When writing my book Essential Sports Nutrition , it was important that I included a variety of recipes that everyone could enjoy - regardless of dietary preferences/restrictions. I couldn't think of a more athlete-friendly recipe than one that included oats and blueberries. I prefer this baked oatmeal served warm, but it is also good at room temperature or chilled (I’ll leave that up to you!). This oatmeal keeps well in the refrigerator so it's great to make in advance - make sure you plan for leftovers. It's perfect for a pre-workout snack or as part of your breakfast meal. Blueberry Baked Oatmeal  Prep Time: 20 minutes Cook Time: 40 Total Time: 60 minutes Yield: 15 servings INGREDIENTS 2/3 cup chopped pecans 2 cups old-fashioned oats 2 tsp ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon baking powder ½ tsp salt 1 3/4 cups almond milk ⅓ cup maple syrup 2 large flax eggs (2 tbsp flaxseed + 6 tbsp water) 3 tablespoons coconut oil (measured dry, then melted) 2 teas...

The best fitness routines and training strategies are only beneficial if your body is fueled properly. To help you optimize performance without disrupting health, realistic, effective and simple sports nutrition information, based on sound science, will help your body safely adapt to exercise. Did you know that athletes have unique nutrition needs compared to the inactive?  The interrelated roles of macro (carbs, protein and fat), micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), water and electrolytes significantly impacts your metabolism during exercise. For example, low energy availability (not eating enough) can impair athletic performance as the body is unable to tolerate high quality training sessions and make favorable physiological adaptations to exercise. Reasons for being in a low energy available state often result from intentional restriction of nutrients (ex. dieting, body composition changes), lack of available food or unintentional restriction from not understanding h...

Athletes love pancakes! Therefore, I knew that I needed a pancake recipe in my book  Essential Sports Nutrition . However, I didn't want just a simple pancake recipe. When I make pancakes, I typically keep it super simple (basic ingredients) or I use a box of Kodiak cakes  (which also works great for traveling) but I wanted something a bit more nutritionally complete to help meet the needs of an active individual. Joey mentioned to me about her sweet potato pancake recipe that included cottage cheese. At first I was skeptical.....I love cottage cheese but in pancakes??? But these pancakes came out amazingly well! Satisfying, protein-packed and a perfect option for an on-the-go snack or for breakfast. Enjoy! Sweet Potato Protein Pancakes Yield 10 (4 1/2 inch pancakes) Prep: 15 minutes Cook: 15 minutes Ingredients 2 sweet potatoes 1 cup gluten-free rolled oats 1 cup 2% cottage cheese (my favorite brand is Daisy Brand ) 2 large eggs 4 large egg whites 1 tsp b...

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                              ...

Today is a very special day for me for it's one that will be remembered for the rest of my life. Today is the release date of my first book,  Essential Sports Nutrition . I never thought this day would ever come and I can't thank you enough for your support. Especially those who ordered the book before the release date! I'm so excited for you to get the book in your hands in this week. I hope the book lives up to your expectations and helps you better understand and apply nutrition to your active lifestyle. Tonight I'll be on the Run In Facebook page for a LIVE discussion about my book. You can tune-in at 7pm EST or re-watch it at a later time. We will be following up the chat with a podcast interview (Seconds Flat Podcast) answering your nutrition questions. It doesn't seem that long ago but ten years ago I started my educational journey to become a Registered Dietitian. It wasn't more than a year after completing my Master of Science degree in Exercise ...

As I wrote this book on sports nutrition, my goal was to give you scientific and real-world based nutrition advice and strategies to help you optimize your performance. But with every tip, guideline and suggestion, there are no extreme practices or restrictive measures. While it was important to me to provide you with appropriate advice, I also wanted the book to be easy to read and to apply. Many athletes struggle with healthy eating and proper fueling and I feel confident that my book will make it easier to eat, fuel and hydrate as you work hard for your fitness and sport goals. This book is not a quick-fix book or one with lots of rules and confusing guidelines. Sure, rules take away the guessing for how to eat "right" but these strategies often ignore long-term health and performance consequences. Regardless of your fitness level, sport or dietary choices, my all-inclusive approach in this book will give you practical strategies to enhance sports performance without...