Trimarni Coaching and Nutrition

The best fitness routines and training strategies are only beneficial if your body is fueled properly. To help you optimize performance without disrupting health, realistic, effective and simple sports nutrition information, based on sound science, will help your body safely adapt to exercise. Did you know that athletes have unique nutrition needs compared to the inactive?  The interrelated roles of macro (carbs, protein and fat), micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), water and electrolytes significantly impacts your metabolism during exercise. For example, low energy availability (not eating enough) can impair athletic performance as the body is unable to tolerate high quality training sessions and make favorable physiological adaptations to exercise. Reasons for being in a low energy available state often result from intentional restriction of nutrients (ex. dieting, body composition changes), lack of available food or unintentional restriction from not understanding h...

  Trimarni Tathlon Tip - Tune-up Races Athletes often describe races as A (high priority), B (middle priority) or C (low priority). This can be misleading. Does this mean that C races are not as important as A races and you'll only try hard in an A race? Instead, I suggest to look at your races as either key races (one or two a season) and tune-up races. In other words, the key races are your main focus. Everything is leading up to this one (or two) race. You expect to be at your best fitness and everything you've done prior is helping you execute at your best.  All of your other races are still important but they have a different focus and perhaps, different lead-up as it relates to preparation and fitness. A few tips for how to mentally approach a tune-up race: Don't go into the race with expectations or pressure to hit certain goals/numbers. The best part of racing is actually racing - which means staying present and letting the outcome take care of itself.  ...

With only four weeks left until we kick-off our 2019 triathlon season, I have been thinking a lot about the athlete-coach relationship. With nearly five solo, music-free hours of swimbikerun training spread over Saturday for me, let's just say that I had a lot of time with my own thoughts. Coaching is a mutual commitment. The athlete expects the coach to be professional, experienced, encouraging and communicative. But coaches have expectations of their athlete in order to optimize performance, maintain optimal health, to get the most out of the athletic journey and to get the most out of the coaching relationship. When I think about the expectations that my coach has for me, I believe she wants me to be honest, responsive and engaged. I also believe she wants me to stay in good health - never restricting food or compromising sleep, or jeopardizing my ability to perform well in training and recover quickly from training sessions. Instead of trying to impress your coach wit...

People are hungry for nutrition information but how do you know if you are being fed the truth? There's a lot of conflicting advice when it comes to nutrition as the media is quick to report every nutrition study that comes out. Believe it or not, there was a time in the not-to-long past when research studies were read by scientists and collectively, only the most useful information, from the most useful studies, would make it into the newspapers. While it's great to take your personal health into your own hands by making your own nutrition decisions, being too reliant on every nutrition "fact" can lead to information overload. With so much nutrition information on Facebook/Instagram/Twitter, websites, TV, magazines, radio, advertisements, friends and family, it's easy to feel confused and conflicted. Accurate nutrition information is science-based, peer reviewed and can be replicated. Nutrition fraud is information that is not supported by science or is ...

What a fantastic day to be a Registered Dietitian! As part of National Nutrition Month, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics celebrates Registered Dietitian Nutritionist Day, which happens to be today! When you have a nutrition question, where's the first place you go? Do you check the Internet, read a magazine or ask a friend? While you may find a quick answer to your question, it may not be the most accurate, useful or personalized response. Although many people have nutritional experience, a registered dietitian is your nations qualified food and nutrition experts. Do you need nutrition help? Find a RD who specializes in a field that can be of assistance to your personal health and/or performance goals. As you may or may not know, the RD route wasn't originally in my career path. After obtaining a BA in exercise science and minor in psychology and then earning a MS in exercise physiology, I was focused on becoming a strength and conditioning coach. However, afte...

You are not alone. Everyone has that day when your stomach feels blah and you just want to feel better in your own skin. It's important to acknowledge that your body will change shape throughout the day. Sadly, there's no instant fix that will immediately change the way that your body looks or feels. In other words - don't restrict food and overexercise in order to try to escape this uncontrollable feeling. When you eat, the shape of your digestive tract changes. Your stomach may protrude and as your body breaks down food, you will retain water, develop gas and produce stool. This can all contribute to feeling bloated, "big" or heavy. Your physical weight (not body fat) can also increase due to constipation, sodium, water, hormones, exercise and medications. To optimize digestion, we want to be in a relaxed state - rest and digest. For athletes, this can be rather difficult as our body becomes rather stressed during (or in the hours after) a workout - fi...

                                       A throwback to Kona '18 and Acai bowls - yum yum. Wowzer - five weeks until IM 70.3 Haines City. I'm so excited to race I can hardly contain myself. My training is slowly increasing in training volume - specifically bike and run. My typical swim distances are between 3800-4600 yards (~1-1:15hr swim) and I swim five times per week. I also bike about five times per week and there's never an easy bike workout. As for the run, I also run about 4-5 times per week and while I have some solid brick run sessions (my favorite - I love love love running off the bike), my other runs are all about efficiency right now (around 45-65 minutes). With a long season ahead (20 weeks until Ironman Canada and 30 weeks until IM Kona), I'm being patient with my run volume/intensity (per the methods of my coaches). I'm lucky that I don't suffer from GI issues in tr...