Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

Are you tired of living with a rigid and restrictive style of eating? Do your food-related habits affect your relationships? Do you want to stop feeling so anxious, stressed, overwhelmed and conflicted around food-related events and decisions?  Are you wanting to make food choices that help fuel your active lifestyle, help you feel good physically and satisfy you mentally?  Are you ready to break free from food rules and build a healthy relationship with food and your body?  If you said yes to any or all of the following, you may find that there is one thing that is holding you back from feeling controlled by food.....you are worried about gaining weight/body composition changes.  Unfortunately, we live in a world saturated with diet culture. We are conditioned to group food into "good" and "bad" categories and it's almost universally acceptable to fat shame. Even worse, nutrition experts often encourage disordered eating strategies as a way to improve health, l...

  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...

  It's National Nutrition Month ! The theme this year is Personalize Your Plate.  We are all unique with different bodies, goals, fitness levels, backgrounds and tastes. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to nutrition and health. When your diet is varied – without restriction – it’s much easier to meet energy needs and to supply your body with adequate vitamins, minerals and macronutrients to support your health and performance goals. Eating should always remain a source of pleasure, not panic. Eating should never be extreme or all-consuming. Don't diet. Personalize your plate. The fact that there are thousands of diets out there, promoting different tips and tricks, should be enough to tell you that no one diet works. The diet industry loves to profit from exploiting your expectations and insecurities as they damage your relationship with food. No food is the enemy. Every food serves a purpose – from nourishment and fuel to fulfilling hunger, making memories and celebrati...

What behavior (or habit) has the strongest negative impact on reaching an athletic goal? What behavior has lead you into a vicious cycle of self-sabotage? What habits have you struggled with the most? What behavior, if changed, would give you the most leverage toward improving the odds of achieving your athletic goals? Changing a behavior to reach a goal sounds simple but it actually requires a process of changing the way that you think. The idea that if you change your thoughts, you can change your behaviors sounds straightforward but many athletes go straight to behavior change and neglect working on the thoughts that influence actions.  This is why I created The Whole Athlete.  As you enter the New Year, the motivation may be high to change behaviors in order to move closer to your athletic goals. While you may have good intentions behind your behavior changes, it's not uncommon for good intentions to lead to bad outcomes.  I want to remind you that your thoughts are c...

  Over the past few years, I've worked with over 250 athletes from all over the world on nutrition. From daily to sport nutrition and everything in between, I've learned that many athletes struggle with food and body image. Often at the root of having a poor body image and unhealthy relationship with food is the belief that "the lighter or leaner I am, the better I'll perform."  Many athletes come to me with good intentions when wanting to change the way that they eat or look. As a Board Certified Sport Dietitian, I can confidently tell you that there are healthy ways to improve eating habits to optimize sport performance by changing body composition. But the methods for changing body composition - especially for a performance boost -  should never require dieting, restrictive eating, underfueling and excessive exercise. Sadly, this isn't the case. Far too many athletes are not eating enough to fuel their body for sport performance. Influencing factors for int...

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...

When it comes to sport success, diet is a big piece of the puzzle that many athletes fail to master (or appreciate). Creating a healthy diet to optimize sport performance is not as confusing as many people make it out to be. Although intense and prolonged training increases energy, carbohydrate and fluid needs, the essential nutritional needs of active individuals are very similar to sedentary people in order to help maintain a healthy weight, reduce risk for disease, improve physical and mental health and live a longer, healthier life. Despite the strong relationship between good nutrition habits and athletic success, many athletes overlook consistent nutrition habits in favor of training harder or longer. However, it’s only when you supply your body with optimal nutrition can you perform at optimal levels. With many strong opinions on nutrition, it’s easy to fall victim to extreme dogmatic nutrition approaches. But the truth is that every human being responds differently to diff...

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...

We live in an era where our quickest source of information comes from our finger tips. To help with this, professionals, experts, bloggers and influencers are eager to persuade you - their audience - by virtue of their outreach. With a large following, this builds credibility. Social media platforms are often used to deliver a message, promote a product or build a brand. As a result, trust is built and you can't help but be influenced by the advice of a stranger.   While there are countless industries out there - like travel, lifestyle,  beauty, sport, fashion and photography - most people are persuaded to "follow" people who are in the nutrition/diet/wellness/fitness/health industry. There's no denying that there is a lot hype and confusion in the media about the best diet, supplements and lifestyle strategies to achieve weight loss, change body composition, improve fitness/performance, enhance recovery and to combat aging. Far too often, this is all drive...

Whether you are a highly-trained athlete or a fitness enthusiast, there’s always a risk for injury. While some injures are minor, such as a bruise or inflammation, others are much more debilitating such as a tear, broken bone, impingement, stress fracture or ruptured tendon. To avoid a decline in muscle strength, neuromuscular control and overall fitness, nutrition is vital in the healing and rehab process. Sometimes, with the right therapy, re-training program and dietary habits, athletes come back stronger and faster after an injury. Because the body has altered nutrient and energy needs during an injury, the following recommendations will help expedite return to sport: Protein - While the precise amount varies, be sure to keep up with your protein intake (ex. 1.5-1.8g/kg/d) – especially after exercise/rehab – to maintain strength and muscle mass. Carbohydrate – Slightly lower carbohydrate intake to prevent excessive weight gain and prioritize higher-fiber, satiating foods s...

In many sports, it is considered beneficial to achieve a leaner body composition for locomotive efficiency — in other words, the less you weigh, the easier it is to move your body. Within the sport of triathlon, triathletes are not immune to this mindset and will often manipulate the diet in order to achieve a lower body fat percentage. Although there are safe and healthy ways to change body composition, triathletes can be very rigid and inflexible with their thoughts and actions. When a driven, perfectionistic, competitive, achievement-oriented triathlete is constantly exposed to diet discussions, advertisements, articles, endorsements and images on social media, a general interest in weight loss may manifest into an unhealthy obsession. With so many ways to enhance performance and to optimize health, two of the most popular sought-after strategies by athletes include diet and body composition changes. When done correctly, performance may improve. However, it’s not uncommon for a...

Marni Race Day Nutrition  Pre Race Nutrition (race day) -2 waffles, peanut butter, brown sugar, maple syrup, cinnamon -Cup of coffee (Nescafe Gold Instant) -Small glass of water -Small glass of water w/ 1 scoop Osmo pre-load for women -In the 90 minutes before the race - 16.9 ounce plastic water bottle filled with 2 scoops NBS Carbo Hydration (100 calories/25g carbs/300mg sodium) -~15-20 min before race start - 3 Skratch Rasberry chews Bike:  -Front bottle cage - 26 ounce bottle w/ 6 scoops  NBS Carbo Hydration  Strawberry Lemonade (240 calories/60g carbs/720 mg sodium). -1.2 Liter (40 ounce) Ventum hydration system - 4 scoops INFINIT custom nutrition (pink lemonade flavor) mixed with water in a bottle, then poured into hydration system (total: 500 calories/122g carbs/1012mg sodium) -Rear bottle - 26 ounce bottle w/ 2 scoops INFINIT custom nutrition (grape flavored) (250 calories/62g carbs/506mg sodium) - only consumed a few sips, used as back-up fuel/hy...

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 ...

During our 3.5 day train-cation in Clermont, Florida we were spoiled by swimming in NTC pool - perfect water temp, lots of open swim lanes, surrounded by swimmers/triathletes and most importantly, swimming outside! Because the pool is my happy place, I was super happy to see so much swimming on my training plan. In four swims (over 5 days), I completed 17,600 yards of following the black line and I never stopped smiling. Two of our workouts went by extremely fast, even though they were 4000+ yards. Not always do Karel and I have the same swim workouts (or on the same days) but for camp we swam the same sets but had different cycles for the main set. Here were my two favorite swim sessions from camp: Tuesday (4000 yards) WU: 800 choice Pre-set: 100 drill 3 x 50's (kick/swim) 2 x 75's open turns 100 choice 4 x 25's build 3 x 50's head up free 2 x 75's kick/swim/kick 100 choice MS: All with paddles 18 x 100's as: #1: on 1:20 (cycle) #2: 1:30 #3-4: 1:20 #...

Within every sport, there are "must try" nutrition strategies for athletic success. While some are effective, most are extreme, unhealthy, unrealistic and unsuccessful. In the sport of triathlon, combining three sports together can be challenging. The longer the distance, it becomes more difficult to master the art of fueling to delay fatigue and optimize hydration while minimizing GI issues. There's also the mindset that a lean body will outperform a body that is "overfat" because less is best when it comes to body weight. Sadly, more and more athletes are using extreme endurance training in an effort to achieve a certain body image over attempting to improve performance. Therefore, triathletes will often gravitate toward any style of eating that provides food control and helps take away the guessing of what to (and not to) eat in order to improve the odds of race day success. To help with the dietary confusion and to ensure that your health isn't c...

The off-season is not the time to be focused on your race weight nor is it the time to look for a diet plan as a restrictive and controlling eating method to assist in weight loss. The off-season provides the best opportunity for you to learn how to create a foundation diet. And for many athletes, a prime opportunity to learn how to plan a healthy diet. By adopting a healthier method of eating in the off-season, you will likely find yourself in better health throughout your more specific phases of training. Ultimately, be creating a style of eating that helps you maintain a healthy weight (every athlete is different), while staying in great health in the off-season, you will be more inclined to maintain your realistic and balanced eating strategies when your training volume and intensity increase. Which, as you know, when training volume and intensity increase, healthy eating habits often get thrown out the window because of lack of energy and time. Yep, every athlete has b...

Far too many times, athletes who want results will try to rush the process of gaining fitness.  This is not far from the truth when it comes any individual who is seeking a positive (and healthy) change in the body composition.  As I think about individuals who jump from one diet plan to another looking for the magic fix, there is a tendency to think that one plan will solve everything - health issues, bloating, gas, inflammation, overeating, cravings, etc. Most magazines, diet plans and health-focused commercials want you to believe that you need fixing - you are broken, failing or desperate for change.  Thus, by changing this, eating that and eliminating these foods, you will feel better, be better and look better. Often times, athletes get wrapped-up into this diet-mentality thinking and stop seeing food for fuel but instead, see food as good/bad for weight loss. Despite the massive amount of calories we burn each day/week through structured traini...