Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

~18 years old On Monday, as I was about to dry my hair after my early evening swim, I overheard three young girls (~9-11 years old) talking to one another by the bathroom mirrors. I didn't think much of it until I heard one of the girls talking about her body. Still in her swimsuit, she stood in front of the mirror and was telling her friends about her body. She first said that she liked how she looked from the front but she didn't like how her butt looked in her swimsuit. While "fat talk" or self-degrading, negative body-related comments have sadly become somewhat normalized among adult women, it saddened me that these young girls were taking part in body shaming.  I started swimming when I was 10 years old. Although I really enjoyed being in the water, I always looked forward to swim practice because it was an opportunity to be around my friends. There was no social media to make us feel dissatisfied with our bodies so any negative body talk would have been learned ...

I've had something weighing on my mind for the past few days and I felt like today - International Day of The Girl Child - was the right time to share my thoughts.  I'm very passionate about helping females develop a positive body image - especially female athletes. I've got a long way to go but I refuse to give up. There is no escaping the fact that female athletes are objectified. Female athletes do not deserve to be judged, shamed and sexualized. A female athlete's looks should not override the celebration of her athletic ability.  Far too many girls (and women) feel they can't be happy and accepted because they don't have an "ideal" body. Females have learned to see themselves as a collection of body parts - stomach, butt, breasts, legs, thigh, arms - none of which relates to who they are as a human being or what they have to offer as people. The media has brainwashed our perception of beauty. It's becoming increasingly difficult to raise healt...

Sadly, sport, science and exercise are still dominated by men. For example, women are grossly understudied when it comes to research on exercise physiology and sport performance. A big part of this is due to menstrual cycles. When a female has monthly hormone cycles, there are two phases to consider when it comes to exercise physiology and performance. Although it's well-documented that menstrual disturbances (ex. amenorrhea) can result from chronic energy imbalance (either increased energy expenditure or insufficient caloric intake), most research on performance, nutrition and exercise is done on men - with no menstrual cycles to plan for or fuss over. So where does this leave female athletes who have to train and race with fluctuating hormones? How many coaches talk to their female athletes about their period and how to manage training and racing during this time of the month? What about the uncomfortable symptoms that female athletes experience before and during their cy...

Meet my nutrition athlete Christine. She is in the 70-74 year age group and she recently placed 1st in her age group at Ironman Lake Placid, in a time of 16:16.37. She was the oldest female finisher of the day and earned a slot to IM Kona (she declined the slot in order to focus on IM 70.3 WC). Meet my nutrition athlete Stacey. She recently earned a spot to IM Kona at Ironman Switzerland by placing 3rd in the 55-59 age group in a time of 13:07.58. These two inspiring ladies are among several older female athletes that I have the honor to work with on nutrition, along with several Trimarni coaching athletes who race in a 50+ age group category. Although it's easy to classify age based on when you were born (chronological age), these ladies, among many other female athletes, are showing us that sport can play a positive role in the aging process and that age is just a number. What can you do with your body at your age? Although aging may negatively affect the physiol...

Writing an article for a magazine usually goes like this.... I pitch a lot of articles to a magazine and a few (or one or none) gets selected OR a magazine reaches out to me with an article topic for me to write about. Back in December, after I received confirmation that I would be writing three articles for Triathlete Magazine for the May ( Fueling the Vegetarian athlete ), June ( Sport Nutrition - progressing from short to long course racing ) and July ( Common fueling mistakes ) issues, I was asked to write a 2000-word, feature assignment for the March/April issue on "How do I fuel if...." with the following topics discussed: -I don't have time to cook -I'm trying to lose weight -I'm (going) gluten-free -I'm a female athlete -I bonk in races The article would include 5 different scenarios (each around 200-300 words or the equivalent of a short article) with specific advice, tips and suggestions for each topic, in addition to a sidebar of c...