Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

Running does not require a gym membership, it's fairly inexpensive and you can do it almost anywhere (and anytime). It comes with a list of benefits including body composition changes, fitness gains, stress relief and improved self-confidence. Plus, when you run outside, you get to explore nature with your senses. Running is also a great way to feel connected to your community.  While running can provide you with a great endorphin-rush, making you feel like you are capable of tackling everything on your to-do list after you finish your workout, running does come with a few downfalls. Running is very corrosive on the body and comes with a great risk of injury. Running requires good range of motion as well as exceptional cardiorespiratory endurance and muscular strength. Injuries due to overtraining, poor biomechanics and improper shoes or increasing mileage too quickly are very common in runners of all fitness levels. For triathletes, aside from injuries, one of the bi

Picture source For any athlete with Celiac disease, it may feel overwhelming to meet daily and athletic nutritional needs with a gluten-free diet. But just because you have Celiac disease, your diet doesn't have to adversely affect performance or sabotage health IF you plan appropriately. As a Celiac athlete, you should not feel embarrassed or frustrated with your dietary situation. With proper education and guidance, you can stay healthy and optimize performance to meet your athletic goals.  In the May 2018 issue of Triathlete, you can check out my latest case study article. I featured a Celiac triathlete that I worked with and his struggles relating to meeting his nutrition and energy needs while training for long-distance triathlon events and what we changed to help him find athletic success in training and on race day.  Here are a few tips for the Celiac athlete:  Read ingredient labels and avoid cross-contamination. When it doubt, go without.  Stick with your

It seems like every week we hear of an endurance athlete thriving on a ketogenic diet. While advocates boast about endless energy, bonk-free training/racing and rapid weight loss, there are several limitations beyond strict dietary compliance, bad breath and digestive issues. What is Ketosis? Under normal physiological conditions, glucose is the primary energy source of the brain. When dietary carbohydrates are restricted and insulin drops, the body becomes stressed and requires an alternative energy source to maintain normal brain cell metabolism. Fatty acids are subsequently mobilized and broken down in the liver to produce ketones. The liver then releases ketone bodies into the bloodstream where they travel to the brain to be used as the new fuel source. Although the ketogenic diet was originally developed as a drug-free way to treat epilepsy, athletes are now voluntarily putting the body into a state of ketosis in order to oxidize fatty acids and use ketones for energy. To

When was the last time you felt a sudden drop of energy during a workout but after a quick sip of a sport drink, swig of a gel or chop of a chew, you felt an instant pick-me-up? Because skeletal muscle glucose uptake during exercise is not an instant process, it's important to consider the practicality of sport nutrition products as it relates to meeting your fluid, electrolyte, carbohydrate and motivational eeds. Because of the time that it takes to digest and absorb nutrients (nutrients must move from the mouth to the small intestines, where absorption occurs), this is one of the primary reasons to rely on well-formulated sport nutrition products (instead of real food) in a convenient/portable form, to supply your body with a steady intake of "fuel" regularly throughout training/racing. Ironically, when you consume sport nutrition, your muscles don't receive a quick jolt of energy, but instead, your brain was rewarded by something sweet (glucose), giving yo

In our social media obsessed world, it's very easy to scroll through Facebook or Instagram and feel like everyone but you is succeeding in life - diet, training, family, relationship, career...... Living a failure-free life is not possible nor is it worth striving for. We all struggle at times. Furthermore, setbacks bring value to life as they give life greater meaning when things go well. A failure makes you appreciate the successful moments and forces you to learn how to react to unfavorable situations. Although it's normal to use social media to post/share your highlighted moments in life, it's important to acknowledge your setbacks and not hide your feelings when you are in a tough place. Instead of avoiding your feelings or pretending that you are ok, accept sadness, embarrassment, guilt, frustration, depression and fear in your grieving process. For almost every athlete, a setback is bound to occur at some point in your athletic career, if not at least once p

As a sport dietitian who specializes in endurance sports, one of the most common questions I receive from athletes is, “what should I eat after a workout?” For the performance-focused athlete, effective refueling strategies can help optimize recovery so that you can achieve the desired training adaptations from your workouts. But recovery nutrition is much more than drinking a smoothie after your swim, bike, or run.  Specific refueling recommendations vary based on fitness level, volume, and intensity of the workout, body composition goals, menstruation (for females), and daily energy intake needs. To help you get the most out of your training sessions and to reduce the confusion on what, when and how much to eat post workout, check out this recent article I wrote for Triathlete magazine online.  To read more:  The proper recovery fuel for every type of workout

When you think of a "sprint" you may imagine feeling out-of-breath with an uncomfortable lactic acid burn, going as hard and fast as possible for a very short period of time (perhaps 10-60 seconds). Although the intensity at which you race a sprint triathlon dictates how much you will suffer, a sprint triathlon is not technically a "short" race when it may take you over 60 minutes to complete the swim/bike/run distance. I find that many triathletes, especially newbies, assume that a "sprint" triathlon does not require the need for calories or fluids during the race because the race is completed in a quick amount of time. While you can complete the distance sans sport nutrition and you won't fully deplete your glycogen stores enough to sabotage your performance, ingesting carbs during a sprint triathlon may still give you the competitive edge.  You can learn more about my nutrition/fueling strategies and tips for performing at your best in a sprint

A few months ago, I saw an email in my inbox from my contact at Triathlete Magazine.  I assumed it was a request for an article so I opened it to see what topic I was asked to write about. Well, to my surprise, the email was to inform me that Triathlete magazine wanted to feature me in an article! I was shocked, surprised and honored. Although the article was just one page, I found it to be a fantastic opportunity to share my messages on how I fuel my body. In today's society, female athletes are bombarded with unrealistic body images and misleading nutrition advice. As an athlete, you can't let these images and misinformation derail you from achieving athletic excellence in your own personal athletic journey. As an athlete and as a nutrition professional (and coach), I want to be a good role model for female athletes of all ages. As a strong, confident and healthy female athlete, I aspire to encourage other female athletes to use sport as a healthy outlet to build conf

As a Board Certified Sport Dietitian, I have a rewarding job of recommending sport nutrition products to athletes in order to enhance performance and to help athletes maintain good health throughout training and on race day. In order to make proper recommendations, I am always trying out new products to better understand the application of the product and to give my feedback on taste, texture and digestibility. The above picture is a look inside three of our kitchen cabinets full of sport nutrition products (with more products stashed away in the dining work and in our workout room closet - because everyone keeps sport nutrition products in a dining room hutch, right?).   For decades, scientific breakthroughs by exercise physiologists have driven the evolution of sport nutrition products to help maximize athletic performances. Since the ancient Olympics, when athletes fueled dried fruit and wine before competition, the study, practice and promotion of sport nutrition has grow

There is a lot of information available to athletes on the topics of nutrition, specifically as it relates to how food can change your body composition, improve your health and boost your performance. I think it is safe to assume that most athletes view food as a naturally safe way to boost athletic performance and the diet as a method of changing body composition. But with so much information available to athletes, the topics of eating for health, eating for fuel, eating to change body composition and so forth, can make the simple topic of "diet for athlete" so confusing and overwhelming. Due to information overload, I wouldn't be surprised if you are one of the many athletes who have explored (or tried) a dietary trend or fad at least once a year (likely around January) in an effort to get your diet under control in order to change body composition. The interesting thing about a diet trend is the unique marketing of the dietary strategy which accurately ident

A certain level of obsession is needed when it comes to dreaming big and working hard for goals.  With the Ironman World Championship event now behind us, alongside the Olympics and many notable road running races and other athletic events, there's a good chance that you may aspire to achieve something incredible with your body in the next few years. While this big dream of yours may excite the heck out of you, you also know it will require a lot of sacrifices, investments and hard work.....but that doesn't scare you. Whereas some athletes choose words like "determination and passion" when speaking about their love for their sport, chasing a goal requires a high level of commitment and sometimes you may even feel addicted. In the October 2016 issue of Triathlete magazine (pg 62.), Gloria Petruzzelli (who also happens to be my best friend and one outstanding clinical sports psychologist) says "Addiction in this sense can be defined as en

As a board certified sport dietitian who specializes in fueling the endurance athlete, I find it critically important that athletes develop appropriate daily eating and sport nutrition habits to support an extremely active lifestyle. It's important to remember that your extreme exercise routine (which you call training) is also very stressful on your body. Although we need to stress the body for it to physically adapt, the human body can not tolerate too much stress without adequate fuel, hydration and proper nutrients. When Triathlete Magazine gave me the topic of "x-fueling mistakes that triathletes make", I struggled not because I couldn't select the mistakes but that I only had 500 words for this article. With the experience of working with many endurance athletes, I see common fueling mistakes time and time again. However, I find that more mistakes are made due to misinformation and poor planning than by no information. Clearly, in our society we do not struggle

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

Fueling the Vegetarian Athlete – nail the basics In the current (May) issue of  Triathlete Magazine  (pg 64), I discuss some of the important considerations in fueling the vegetarian athlete. This month I am celebrating 24-years of being a vegetarian (lacto-ovo). In the month of April, when I was 10 years old, I came home from school one day and told my parents that I didn't want to eat animals anymore. I've always loved animals and even at a young age, it was my love for animals that prompted me to be a vegetarian. I'm pretty sure I didn't call myself a vegetarian in my early years as that word wasn't part of my vocabulary but instead I just told people "I don't eat meat". My diet has evolved over the past two decades, especially as I learned more about nutrition and sport nutrition. But in all reality, my diet is no different than yours except for that I don't eat meat or fish. I'm assuming you eat a lot of plants too, right? Even thou

Before a race, after a workout, at work, around your training buddies, in the bathroom, with your family/kids, when trying on clothes..... How often do you criticize your body? Before a race, after a workout, at work, around your training buddies, in the bathroom, with your family/kids, when trying on clothes..... How often do you feel guilty or hate what/how you are eating?  There are millions of people affected with an eating disorder at sometime in their lifetime however, eating disorders are often termed a silent epidemic. Some individuals never get the help they truly and live decades feeling overwhelmed or anxious around food or feel uncomfortable in their own skin. Others choose to remain quite in treatment and eventually gain the strength, tools and support they need to recover and to live a quality filled life with a healthy body and mind.  It's no surprise that in a body and food obsessed society, it's not very easy to maintain healthy relat

April 2014 issue of  Triathlete magazine Knowing what foods to eat to fuel your training is important, but to reap the benefits of the nutrients, it’s the when that really matters. Before and during a workout, your goal is to increase the delivery of nutrients to your working muscles to maintain glucose levels, postpone fatigue and improve your hydration status. After you’re done training, the focus shifts to replenishing glycogen stores and initiating tissue repair and muscle growth so you can bounce back even stronger for future workouts. With the following fueling suggestions, I will help you reduce risk for GI distress and help you find yourself gaining a competitive edge. How To Fuel Before Workouts Eating something before a training session is critical, as it will better prepare your gut for race day and help you to become more aware of how your body absorbs and metabolizes fuel in varying intensity levels, durations and weather conditions. Note : For an individ