Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

It's always a special opportunity for me to share my words in a podcast interview. Of course, a great podcast interview requires a great host and I was in great company for my two podcast interviews over the past two weeks. Enjoy! I COULD NEVER DO THAT - Carrie Sapp Barrett Marni Sumbal prides herself on dreaming big and working hard. It's evident in her work as a Board Certified Sport Dietitian with a Master of Science in Exercise Physiology in Greenville, South Carolina, where she also runs a successful multisport and nutrition coaching practice.  It's also displayed daily in her athletic endeavors as a 14x IRONMAN finisher and 6x World Championship Qualifier. Today, she discusses the fruits of her latest dream come true - her new book called  Essential Sports Nutrition - A Guide to Optimal Performance for Every Active Person. Essential Sports Nutrition  is the new authoritative reference to eat right for an active lifestyle. Sports nutrition is a vit...

As an athlete, if your diet and hydration meets the training demands placed on your body, you will perform at your best, reduce risk for injury and illness and improve longevity in your sport. If you suffer from flat training sessions, subpar race performances, inconsistent training efforts, fatigue, injuries, chronic niggles, digestive issues, sleep disturbances and a reasonable amount of cold symptoms, you probably lack the essentials of a training diet that will boost your immune system and encourage optimal training enhancements. In my book, Essential Sports Nutrition ,  I start the first chapter discussing the topic of hydration. Why hydration? Despite not providing the body with energy (in the form of calories), water is the most essential nutrient in a healthy, performance-focused diet. Every tissue, organ, cell and body system requires it. Whereas you can survive for over a month without food, you can only survive but a few days without drinking water. Because yo...

When you purchase a high performance bike, there's a good chance that you'll become quite attached to it. So attached that you'll want to make sure your bike sets you apart from all the other bikes out there. When Karel was approached by Mike Furtek about a custom paint job, Karel couldn't turn down the offer. Mike was finishing a 31-year career providing one-of-a-kind services in customized painting, welding/fabricating of motorcycle parts and building/designing motorcycles for customers for show or for personal enjoyment. To help launch his new career, Mike offered to provide Karel with a complimentary paint job on his bike, helmet and wheels to showcase his talent. When Karel saw the finished products, he was shocked by the detail. And now, Karel's bike, helmet and disc wheel is unique to him and stands out in a crowd of triathlon bikes.  A little more about Mike:  Mike Furtek owned and operated MandD Custom, Corp. for 31 years in South Holland, Il...

Trimarni athlete Stephanie shared this beautiful picture on Facebook of my Slow Cooker Sweet Potato Quinoa Curry from my book  Essential Sports Nutrition .  So far, this recipe has been the most favored recipe in the book!  What's not to love about the slow cooker? Purchase and prep your ingredients, add to the slow cooker, press a button and your work is done. That's the wonderful part of using a slow cooker - you don't have to cook!  In addition to a slow cooker being a very simple way to ensure that a home-cooked meal is ready when you return home from work, slow cookers bring out the flavor in food and use less electricity than an oven. From meals, soups, stews and casseroles, a slow cooker is a must-have kitchen appliance.  To ensure that you get the most out of your slow cooker, here are a few tips from a past Trimarni newsletter.   Choose the right size  - Slow cookers come in a wide range of sizes, from extra smal...

One of the greatest challenges for an endurance athlete is translating the fitness gained in training into a great race day result. Interestingly, far too many athletes don't compete based on repeated training-related decisions. As an example, many (if not most) athletes tend to underfuel in training and overfuel before and during race day. To feel confident for race day, you need to feel confident with your training-related nutrition decisions. Therefore, train like you want to compete. It seems obvious that if you want to excel on race day, you should make repeated decisions in training that help you prepare for your upcoming race. Rushed and busy schedules, poor planning, misguidance from social media "experts", a complicated relationship with food and the body and unhealthy lifestyle habits make it easy to check off workouts without making significant gains in performance. Unfortunately, athletic success doesn't occur when you are a dedicated exerciser wh...

Pre-workout nutrition advice is confusing. The main reason for so much conflicting advice and recommendations (to eat or not to eat) relates to conflicting research studies. Because of the many different study designs, using trained, untrained and elite athletes, it's nearly impossible to compare results to prescribe one general pre-exercise fueling strategy. Interestingly, most athletes will perform better when eating a small snack before an early morning workout - regardless of the intensity and duration of exercise. However, there are reasons why athletes will struggle when eating before an early morning workout - specifically digestive issues and reactive hypoglycemia. As a Board Certified Sport Dietitian, my practice revolves around helping athletes eat in a way that fosters improved performance in training and on race/event day. At Trimarni, our focus is to help athletes experience athletic excellence without compromising health. Therefore, when prescribing strategies...

I have a lot of great memories of Thanksgiving with my family. Being with my dad, mom and brother (and often extended family) was a special time for it wasn't that often that we would all be together at the table. Since my dad passed away in May 2014, I find myself thinking of all the laughs, good food and memories that we made together as a family on Thanksgiving. This year was low key for me and Karel. With my mom out of town, we joined the family of my friend (and swimming partner) Kristen for delicious food, stories and laughs. Kristen use to race as a professional Ironman triathlete back in the late 90's so I had a lot of fun scrolling through her scrap books as she reminisced about her past Ironman/triathlon days.  I yummed over my Thanksgiving plate - it was filled with color and just enough (but not too much) food to leave me satisfied and feeling good in my belly. Pictured above is mashed potatoes, roasted vegetables, a wild rice mix with cranberries and my ...