Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

  Many diet plans follow a restrictive eating model with specific 'good' vs. 'bad' foods. This type of restrained eating demands rigid control. Food is an essential requirement for survival. When you diet and feel hunger, this isn't a lack of willpower, it's a biological drive to protect you. Interestingly, there is no drive for eating too much but rather, if the body senses extreme weight loss, it will kick in physiological mechanisms to slow down your metabolism (and energy) or the brain will send signals to get you to eat as soon as possible. Stomach growing, irritability, inability to focus, lightheadedness, headache, fatigue, and sugar cravings are all signs that your body is asking for food.  Although stress, trauma history, certain medications, extreme exercise (especially in the heat) and life chaos can supress your appetite, dieting makes it difficult to understand your hunger cues. Diets require that you ignore your hunger cues as most diets require yo...

Mindful eating. Intuitive eating. Both approaches are used by Anti-Diet and Health at Every Size dietitians. While these two eating approaches complement each other, there are some important differences. Intuitive eating is a framework created by dietitians Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch based on their work with eating disorder recovery. They are most known for the 10 principles of intuitive eating, which center around making peace with food, rejecting the diet mentality and to learn how to develop a healthier relationship with food. Intuitive eating goes beyond the eating experience to encourage people to change their relationship with food and the body. Mindful eating is awareness that arises from paying attention, eating with purpose, eating non-judgmentally and being in the present moment. Mindful eating encourages you to use your senses in choosing to eat food that is satisfying and nourishing to you and your body. It means you acknowledge your likes, dislikes and neutral respon...

How did you do with your homework today from my last blog post? Did you find yourself with positive or negative thoughts when you ate? Did your thoughts turn negative when you ate foods that you term "off-limit"? What foods made you feel the best and what foods gave you the most anxiety? Continue to work on this so that you learn how to quiet the voices in your head so that eating is a peaceful, joyful and positive experience. I promise - it is possible and it will make a huge impact on how you fuel for your athletic endeavors.  ----------------------------------------------------------------------- So why do I continue to talk and talk and talk about mindful eating as it relates to athletes? As a Board Certified Sport Dietitian, shouldn't I be spending most of my time talking about supplements and sport nutrition products? Well, every athlete has to eat. And in my field of work, far too many athletes struggle with their relationship with food...

A few days after returning home from Kona in mid October, Karel and I went to an Ironman celebration party in Greenville. We spent the evening talking with several Ironman finishers who live in the Greenville area. To finish the evening, we enjoyed cake from a local baker.  And to top it off (literally), the dot of the cake had our names on it. So sweet (literally, again) ! After cutting into the M part of the cake for everyone in the party, the dot remained uneaten. The host of the party insisted that Karel and I take home our personalized section of the cake. After returning home from the party with a beautiful round cake, I wrapped up the cake and put it in the freezer. I figured there would be a good time to eat the cake but the right time wasn't anytime soon.  --------------------------------------------------- As a sport dietitian, when I think about athletes and their relationship with food, I often see/hear two different types of athlet...