Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

  Self-sabotage has a simple definition - making choices that undermine your own goals and values. As a dedicated athlete, as it relates to nutrition, you may be making choices that directly conflict with your commitment to training - this is self-sabotage. For example, are you guilty of any of the following? ❓Intentionally undereating before a workout in order to "save" calories. ❓Forgetting to fuel before an afternoon workout, only to cut the workout short because of low energy/fatigue/hunger. ❓Saving calories to validate consuming sport nutrition products during the workout. ❓Intentionally underfueling during a workout in order to indulge post-workout. ❓Restricting food in order to lose weight. ❓Skimping on recovery nutrition because you are pressed for time or not hungry. Whether your self-sabotaging behaviors are intentional or unintentional, everybody engages in self-sabotage at some time. If done occasionally - such as indulging in a big meal or forgetting your sport d...

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...

Source Through this approach, your body composition will change because you are able to perform well and maintain a realistic and sustainable style of eating.  Are you an athlete looking to change body composition and improve your performance as you train for an upcoming event? Consider this:  Manipulating your eating before, during and after workouts in an effort to enhance the adaptive response to training will only provide a marginal performance and body composition improvement if your daily diet is not well-balanced, well-timed and consistent. It's remarkable how the body performs and changes when emphasis is placed on the daily diet as a vehicle of nourishment and when workouts are supported with food as a vehicle of energy. Far too many athletes choose sport nutrition restriction over daily diet manipulation whereas the later can significantly help to change your body composition without comprom...

Great performances are built on great health. If you are carelessly eating whatever you want or intentionally restricting energy and fluids before/during and after your workouts, in an your attempt to improve performance, you could actually find yourself becoming less healthy. You can't expect to train your way to great fitness and live an unhealthy lifestyle. Sure, you may not smoke, eat fast food all day or drink excessively but how are your dietary choices enhancing your health? Great health is the foundation to great performances.  As it relates to  healthy living and healthy eating, how much time you devote to getting fit compared to how much time you devote to improving your health?  Don’t assume that both are correlated as many times, they are not. You can be very fit but also very unhealthy.    In the February 2016 issue of Triathlete Magazine, you can check out two pages (Pg. 68-69) of my nutrition tips relating to fueling your body for ...

In case you missed it, check out my previous two blogs discussing: Cycling nutrition: keep is simple Debunk the myth: Do you need sport nutrition? EASY FUELING TIPS HYDRATION For triathletes, I recommend 1 water bottle cage for every  hour of training, up to 4 cages. Your hydration set-up should be on your bike at all times but certainly this will come in handy for your longer rides. If your bike does not hold 4 cages, you can alter the set-up with a bottle on your aero bars, two rear cages, set up an additional hydration system (ex. bladder if built in on the bike) or have, at minimum, 3 cages and plan to stop in training after 3 hours. I have 4 cages on my bike (2 in the frame, 2 in the rear) and I am very comfortable grabbing the rear bottles and moving around bottles as I am riding. As you can see from Karel's picture below that he has his bottle on his aerobars with computer attached on top of the cage. He only has three cages on his bike.  GELS Rat...

Do you ever find yourself having a fantastic carb-rich meal post workout but then (for whatever reason), hours go by without eating and then you are starving around 4 or 5pm? Do you find that it is hard to understand how to eat throughout the day when most of your morning is spent working out and your first real "meal" comes around 11 or 12pm but you have dinner plans (with family/friends) around 6 or 7pm? Should you eat a snack, should you not eat, can you afford to eat another meal? Are you constantly hungry all day post workout? Is your post workout meal so filling that you don't have an appetite until 7 hours later? Do you feel like you need to make more of an effort to eat better post long workout but life just gets in your way? Mini meals An effect way to maximize glycogen repletion post long workout (and to increase the chance of faster recovery before your next workout the following day) is to focus on eating two mini meals within ~4 hours post ...

Pre-workout fuel Training is your gut is one the most (if not the most) important concepts when it comes to perfecting your pre-workout/race snack/meal. Eating before every workout (30-90 minutes before) will not only help boost your performance (ex. time to fatigue, mental focus, recovery and energy production) but you will also recognize what foods work/digest the best so that you can use those similar foods, in a larger quantity, on race day. Karel and I eat before every workout, every day in our season. Absolutely no workout is started without some type of pre-workout snack.  If you aren't use to (or comfortable with) eating before a workout, start very small in terms of quantity and carbohydrates for 7-10 days by selecting the most appropriate low-residue food/foods that you feel will work the best, depending on the workout. You may find that your pre-workout snacks may vary workout to workout and that is ok but try to keep it simple and have no more than 5 st...

Where: Run In When: December 8th What time: 5:45-7:30  It is within the daily diet AND what you eat before, during and after workouts that can help you gain the competitive edge. You can be the hardest working and most passionate athlete out there but if you don't eat right or constantly tell  yourself that something needs to change but never change anything, you will never reach your full potential. Taking pride in your fueling and eating strategy throughout the day can help boost performance, assist in recovery, prolong fatigue, keep the immune system healthy, help you maintain a healthy body composition and reduce risk for illness/disease and injury. No matter what your fitness goal may be or your workout routine, your diet is more than calories in and calories out. You must learn how to eat for fuel. If you are tired of making the same mistakes over and over with your fueling/eating strategy during training and racing or are looking for new tips to take your fit...

Research studies are great especially when it comes to improving athletic performance. When the human body is required to work so hard for a specific amount of time, it's important to understand how to properly fuel the body, train the body and recover the body for health and performance gains. Effective research studies (or studies reflective of the masses) are great sources to learn from and can be a valuable tool for athletes and coaches.  But current sport nutrition guidelines and research can only take an athlete (or coach) so far because the key is knowing how to properly apply the information into the real world.  It's important to always consider the pros and cons when it comes to applying research into your real world for just because a research study (or the abstract which most individuals have access to) states that something works in a controlled, laboratory setting, doesn't always imply that that same message will apply to your setting. Additionally, j...

Ironman Lake Placid 7.28.13 There's no better feeling that putting all your hard training to good use on race day and having a strong race day performance. Ironman World Championship 10.12.13 But if there was one factor that would make or break an endurance athlete's "perfect" race, most athletes would blame their performance on nutrition (or, perhaps how often they saw the inside of a port-a-potty).  I work with a lot of athletes on nutrition, specifically sport nutrition. I find that most athletes are not in need of nutrition help to enhance performance but instead, performance is limiting because of nutrition.  You see, there's a big difference between the two. For most age-group athletes, sport nutrition is another confusing topic that is thrown into the mix of understanding how to eat "healthy" on a daily basis. Among the athletes that reach out to me for nutrition help, the majority have some issue with nutrition/fueling/sp...

Do you have questions about sport nutrition or eating for fuel or for health? Join me and Oakley Women on Friday March 7th, 2014 on Facebook and I'll answer all your questions throughout the day.  Throughout the  Trimarni triathlon endurance camp  this past Thurs - Sun, I was rather strict on my campers to make sure that everyone fueled properly throughout the camp. Sport nutrition includes everything you are eating/drink around and during workouts. Although I was not in control of what they ate for meals or what they put into their bottles (if choosing not to use INFINIT which was the sponsor for the event for sport nutrition), I gave very specific suggestions as to what foods to consume before/after workouts as well as as much to consume during workouts and when. Thankfully, every athlete was open to my suggestions and we had no bonking, no injuries and minimal GI issues. There were two GI issues (one stomach cramp on a long bike and one tummy feeling a little ...