The Everyday Responder

#87 - How Tactical Athletes Fuel for Peak Performance - with The Tactical Dietitian

• Coach Justin McCartney

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0:00 | 1:14:47

Susan Lopez, "The Tactical Dietitian," has over 15 years coaching high-performers on nutrition for tactical demands.

In this episode, she breaks down what actually works when it comes to fueling tactical athletes - from military and law enforcement to fire and EMS.

We covered:

  • A simple nutrition system you can apply right away
  • Two camps: The Under-Fueler & The Burnt Out Dieter - and how to fix both
  • Blood work, supplements, and TRT/peptides

Tactical athletes must fuel the machine. After this podcast, you have the system to be able to.

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SPEAKER_00

What's going on, everybody? Welcome to the Everyday Responder podcast. We have the Tactical Dietician with us, which I am super excited to get into some of these topics. I know these are things near and dear to your heart, so we will get into it. But 15 years of experience, probably more, um, with coaching high performers, obviously tactical athletes as well. So I'm super, super stoked to get into some of that stuff. Um, before we get into it, I'd love to give kind of a quick origin story. You can go into the depths if you want, but either way, just kind of give us a quick little background.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, no problem. So I uh sort of became a dietitian by accident. I didn't even really know it was a profession for a long time. But the way that it came about is I was actually uh enlisting into the army, and I initially enlisted to go into a reserve unit in my hometown, which was a medical unit. And what they had available for me was something called the nutrition care specialist, which is just a fancy term for hospital cook. Um, and so I took it and went through basic, did all the things. Um this was right before 9-11. 9-11 happened, and I decided that I wanted to be active duty full-time. And so I spent about a year at my reserve unit, broke my contract, went active duty, and during my time on active duty as a nutrition care specialist, I got to work with some really amazing dietitians who allowed me to do things like giving nutrition seminars, working with helping people with their nutrition meal plans, uh, just seeing really what that profession could do was really amazing. And I decided that uh that's what I wanted to do with my life. So I got out of the military around 2007, went back to school full-time, and became a registered dietitian uh around 2012 and have just been doing that ever since. Um, and my goal was to always come back to the military in some capacity working as a civilian dietitian. And, you know, I was able to do that. I was able to work, you know, with some amazing individuals in the military to really hone my skills. Uh, eventually went into special operations, and now I have a tactical dietitian, and hopefully uh that'll be around for a while. And I get to be able to help individuals not only in the military, but I work with a lot of first responders, uh firefighters, law enforcement officers, and even some civilians who are just extremely high performing athletes. Um, and so it's it's kind of what gives me joy is being able to do that and really help people flourish and thrive with their goals.

SPEAKER_00

That's awesome. Yeah, the it's so funny. I feel like once you are in a uniform, whether it's police, military, fire, you kind of just stay that path. Like I can't speak for you, but speaking for myself, it's like, uh, I don't really know what else to do or or what I'm good at. Like, so it's just like you find that niche. Um, do you find the did you find the same with you? Like you found your niche and it's like, oh, well, this is uh, I'm gonna take this to the to the moon kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, you know, people talk about being able to separate your work from your life, but in a lot of ways, like what I do for work is my life. You know, I'm married to a special operations service member, like I came from the military. Um, and it's it's very difficult when you've live that culture or you've lived that culture. It's very difficult to work in the civilian world. It makes you fantastic at your job in the civilian world a lot of times. And, you know, sometimes what people are impressed by, I'm like, well, I kind of feel like this is the bare minimum, but okay. Um you know, so it it's it's nice to be able to work with individuals who you feel like you resonate a little bit with and that you can connect with on a little bit of a deeper level, not necessarily because you always closely know what they're going through, but you can definitely empathize and you have some idea of what their struggles are. And and and so I feel like when I work with individuals from that space, like there's just a deeper connection that goes along with that coaching athlete relationship. And so that's very rewarding.

SPEAKER_00

For sure. Yeah, you have a definitely a better understanding of like the bureaucratic nature or the BS that people have to go through with schedules and crazy, crazy shifts and different things like that. So it's always cool to have that perspective. Um, do you think that's why you went the or stayed the tactical route instead of going into the gen pop kind of route?

SPEAKER_03

There's a couple of reasons. I think that's one of them for sure, is because of that ability to empathize and relate to what somebody is going through. And so when I'm talking to somebody for the first time and they're kind of telling me what's going on with like their goals and you know, their physical training and stuff like that, and I'm able to relate that back to things that I know that are happening with their lifestyle and like their mental health sometimes, and you you know, things that come along with the job that really resonates with them. And so, again, that just helps with that deeper uh understanding and coaching athlete relationship. I think on the other side of that, it's also because the mentality with a tactical athlete is very different than somebody who is gen pop. I don't have to do a lot of hand holding with my tactical athletes, right? There's a lot of like they are given guidance by me and they just execute, and they also can think for themselves, and so a lot of times that guidance that I'm giving them, it's not just me spoon feeding somebody information, like I'm just guiding them along their own self-discovery path, and then they just execute it. There's no whining about it a lot of times, right? There's no like, oh, but they are just very good at okay, I I already know what I need to do, but I need you to guide me down the path of what I need to prioritize, maybe give me a little bit of education, and then they just knock it out of the park. So it's very rewarding, I think, for both of us when you see a high percentage of success in that type of uh person.

SPEAKER_00

For sure. Yeah, they just I I I say they we we just kind of thrive in with that autonomy, which is something that I absolutely love. And I found like similar to like what you were saying, it's almost like what we have to do is is hold up a mirror and just kind of showcase, like allow people to reflect and ask questions. And then it's just like, holy crap, like this is what I was missing. And you're just like, yeah. Like to me, I think that's a big, that's one of the biggest parts of coaching where it's like, okay, you already have the answers. We're gonna ask questions and we're gonna give you kind of a path or set the left and right bounds so so you can find them, right? I think that's the most powerful coaching tool.

SPEAKER_03

And I think that's a big differentiator between a coach who's who has that experience and who doesn't sometimes is, you know, and I'm sure we probably both did this at the beginning of our coaching careers is you know, a newer coach typically is going to want to give somebody the answer, right? Versus like an experienced coach is going to help somebody find the answer that's right for them.

SPEAKER_00

For sure. Yeah, absolutely love it. So with it, with all this said, it seemed, and I've seen you talk about it before, it resonates with me. Absolutely love it. The system thinking mentality with nutrition, with training, with all those different types of things. Um, so when it comes to that type of thinking, what is the what are some of the things that you do or principles that you stand for to really simplify nutrition? Because obviously it can get very complicated. Um, but at that that base level, what are some some guiding principles for you?

SPEAKER_03

Don't change everything at once is number one for sure.

SPEAKER_00

That's good.

SPEAKER_03

I think sometimes when we get excited, and I think this is especially true for some of those hard charging personalities, is when we get an idea in our mind, we want to just like do it all at the same time.

SPEAKER_00

Full send.

SPEAKER_03

Full send, right? And that's not always going to work. And so we don't want to change everything at once. A lot of times when we're building systems, we want to evaluate our existing systems already. So a lot of people don't realize that they already have systems, but sometimes those systems aren't beneficial symptoms systems, right? So, like, you know, if our system for like when we're hungry and we don't have any meal prep prepared is to just go through the you know, fast food drive-thru that's next to the station, like that is a system, but it's not a beneficial system, right? And so sometimes when we're developing systems, we're just looking at how can we change maybe like a small system that we already have in place. Or, and I talked with another individual about this recently, is how can we stack different habits onto existing systems that are maybe already working well for us? And so don't try to change everything at once, right? Evaluate your existing system, write it down. What are my daily habits? What is a system within that that I can make a small change to that's gonna give me the biggest bang for my buck? And then we kind of start from there, right? I know it's like it can be somewhat gratifying and exciting to go full send all the time, but this is one of those things where like slow is fast.

SPEAKER_01

For sure.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's a that's a huge one. And I I love it too because then you can kind of find like root causes of what's actually going on. Like if you just give yourself whiplash and it's like, all right, we're gonna change everything. I'm gonna lock in on Monday with my nutrition, and then I'm gonna like pile a new program on top of that, and I'm gonna do these 25 habits that I saw on Instagram, and all of a sudden it's like, all right, well, we don't know what worked, we don't know what's kind of burning you out because everything, everything changed. So that's a huge one for sure.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Do you have uh any other ones?

SPEAKER_03

Oh, let's see. I uh I do harp big time on nutrition systems, obviously. Um, so whenever somebody comes to me, they're like, oh, I just need my macros and like a meal plan and stuff like that. And I'm like, you know, you're gonna have to slowly roll, brother, because that's like step 10. And we don't even have steps one through nine working for us consistently. Uh, a good example of this is a lot of times when I'm doing uh a call with a new athlete and we'll talk about what their nutrition looks like. A big one is they're not eating at regular times. You know, they're missing meals during the day. Uh sometimes it's their fault, sometimes it's not, right? Uh, they're not eating enough calories throughout the day. We don't have any like pre- or post-workout nutrition strategy optimized or even in place. Sometimes it's just caffeine, nicotine, and a prayer.

SPEAKER_01

Yep.

SPEAKER_03

Um, or just straight anger, uh, whichever you prefer. And that's really it. And then their nighttime nutrition is just chaos. Um they're not cooking regularly for themselves, they don't know how to pick foods, right? And so now they want me to give them a meal plan, which would imply that they need to start meal prepping at least 21 meals a week when there's some weeks that they don't even turn on their stove. You know, that's a it's a huge ask. And so when we think about nutrition systems, the first thing we want to think about is are we eating regularly? And then a big one, especially for my high-performing guys, you know, they're training once, maybe twice a day on top of having a physically demanding job, is what does your peri-workout nutrition system look like? Because your peri-workout nutrition, your pre-workout, your post-workout, even your intra-workout systems are gonna give you a huge return uh on your performance, on your energy levels almost immediately when you go from having nothing in place to now we have like a structured system. So versus trying to again full send and do like a whole meal planning system implementation, we think about okay, what's gonna give me the biggest bang for my buck? It's gonna be eating regularly and it's gonna be my pre and my post-workout nutrition. So those are typically the two systems that we put together for somebody first before we even think about like super dialed-in macros, super dialed in meal plan. There's a lot of my athletes that don't even have a meal plan, they just have that initial system and they have an idea of how much they're supposed to eat. That's you know, I think important. But we don't like they're not sending me their macros every single day, right? I that that's not something that has to happen. They're not calorie counting every single day. Uh now, if they choose to, that's perfectly fine. But as you know, like first responder community, you know, military community, like that's not always like a reasonable ask to track your nutrition every single day and then adhere to like strict guidelines. So I think start with the foundational stuff first.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. So do you with those meals, like with a meal plan, do you give specific food or is it like, hey, here's some numbers that we want to try to shoot for for each meal just to get that consistency down?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I mean, it can be a little bit of both sometimes. So we usually start with like, hey, you know, our protein intake daily throughout the day, what does that look like in comparison to our carbohydrate intake? So we can definitely give those macros, right? And I think that's good information to have even in the beginning. But how we execute on those macros matters more than I think the number itself. So if you know our goal is to reach body weight and grams of protein per day, like we might have the athlete track that for a few days just so they know what that looks like, right? Just so they're not trying to guess at how much food they actually need. So that can be one strategy that we would implement a little bit earlier in the program if they feel like they just don't have that knowledge. Um, but again, just eating regular meals throughout the day, I think it still needs to be prioritized when possible. Um we will look at like specific grams of carbohydrate in a pre-training window. Um, but as far as specificity with macros go, that's typically where we will start before again we get into like the more detailed nuances of of what the day-to-day nutrition looks like.

SPEAKER_00

That's really cool. I I love the consistency idea of just not necessarily going down like a rabbit hole with meal timing, but that's something that I've definitely improved where it's like, hey, we don't need to eat the, in my opinion, the exact same times every day. But I think just even from like your body's perspective, it's like, okay, we know we are being fed at around these times. And the more and more I think about it, like maybe bodybuilders had it right this whole, this whole time with certain things. Um, would you would you agree with that?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I love that you brought that up. So this sometimes will blow my athlete's mind, but I'm like, hey, you know that you can actually train your digestive system. You can actually train your hunger signaling. And so a good example of this is like when athletes are not eating in the morning before they train, or they're either intentionally or unintentionally fasting until lunchtime and they're like, oh, I just don't feel hungry, or oh, my stomach just can't handle anything in the morning. Well, the reality of it is that your body could handle it, but you have to train it to be able to handle it. You have to train your hunger signaling a little bit. The body's always wanting to conserve energy in some way, shape, or form, right? It just does. It's it's it's for survival, it's just how the body's metabolism works, like you're only gonna burn what you put in, right? So we have to think about okay, if you've spent years fasting in the morning before you've waken up, at some point, you probably had some pretty strong hunger signaling in the morning, but after years of ignoring it, it's probably not hitting anymore. It it's just not, right? So we have to get some of that signaling turned back on. If your body, because your digestive system and your brain are very interconnected and they talk to each other constantly, if you have for years not put anything in your stomach before you train, your digestive tract is not going to efficiently move anything through during that time of day. And you're also going to be less efficient at nutrient delivery and digestion at that time of day, which is why training the gut, which I'm sure you've heard before, is really important. And so a question that I ask all of my athletes is what does your hunger signaling look like in the morning, in addition to what you normally eat? Right. And so I'm really glad that you brought that up because I think that's important to understand is that the habits that we have throughout the day or that we've developed, the systems that we've put in place, good or bad, are actually external cues for our brain and our body's metabolism. So you have to think about how like your day-to-day habits are actually affecting like your internal system. And I think a lot of times we we know that that's happening, but we don't think about it.

SPEAKER_00

So how how would you kind of turn that that signal on or turn that signal up? Um, because I know for some people it'd be like if they if they don't eat until say noon or 11, um, and then we're we're expecting like a big breakfast or something like that. Um, how would you kind of turn up that signal over time?

SPEAKER_03

Well, the first thing we want to make sure that people realize is that being hungry is important. Being hungry is normal. We want to feel our hunger signaling throughout the day. That doesn't mean you have to feel starving all day long, but we just want those normal cues to hit every four or five hours throughout the day. We want to be hungry when we wake up in the morning. We want to be hungry, you know, three to five hours later, and we want that cycle to continue throughout the day, right? That tells me that you are in tune with your body's hunger signaling and that calories are moving through the body, right? So our metabolism, so to speak, is working the way that it's supposed to. Now, you know, if somebody is not hungry in the morning, do we want to have a full breakfast first day on the program? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. You're gonna feel terrible. Um, you know, especially if you're training afterwards. So we think about small things, right? Can we get something small in before we train? The ideal situation would be somewhere between 60 to 90 grams of carbohydrate pre-training for an hour or so of training. They're not gonna be able to tolerate that. So we start with okay, can we get something liquid in that has anywhere between 15 to 30 grams of carbohydrate in it? Can we start introducing some sodium? Can you eat half a banana and still have 30 minutes before you go train so it can move through your digester tract? We start very small and then we just continue to increase it as that gut becomes more trained, they're more tolerant of it, and as that hunger signaling starts to turn on. Same thing post-workout. Ideally, in most athletes, we're gonna be aiming for around 100 to 125 grams of carbohydrate in a post-training window, right? That's just a generalization. Um, but somebody who doesn't eat after they train right now and doesn't feel hunger after they train right now, is probably not gonna be able to tolerate that. They're just gonna feel bloated, distended, they're not gonna feel great. They might even gain weight over time. So um we want to again just get into the habit of something small before we train, something after we train. And then if we can hit those regular meal times with something small and get that hunger turned back on. And a lot of my guys, it only takes a couple of weeks before they start to feel hungry.

SPEAKER_00

Progressive overload.

SPEAKER_03

Progressive overload with your nutrition. Yes.

SPEAKER_00

We understand it and from like uh or some people uh maybe a little bit too uh going too heavy into the progressive overload. But um, yeah, it's so it's such a unique thing because it truly applies to everything. And I know, and you already mentioned how tactical. Athletes are where it's like, all right, I don't usually eat before training. Let me just have an absolute fiber bomb beforehand and see how the training session goes. And it's like, well, like you're gonna set yourself up for failure. Um, but I love that you mentioned um liquids because I think that's uh, in my opinion, a quote unquote hack, if you want to say that um for pre and post. Um, what kind of stuff were you referring to with liquids?

SPEAKER_03

So for just trying to get some calories, carbs into somebody's gut, get them trained, something super simple. It can be just about anything. Like if you're comfortable with like a Gatorade, let's just start with a Gatorade, right? Um, if you have access to things like carb powders that also have some electrolytes in them, great. That's a great place to start. Um, you know, fruit juice, I tell guys sometimes. Like if you, if you like apple juice, like have a small glass of apple juice, you know, especially if you don't have a ton of time before you go train. Um in some of my higher performing guys, especially with the heat the way it is now, we are taking in anywhere between 24 to 32 ounces of fluid in the hour or so prior to training, along with anywhere between sometimes uh up to 800 to 1000 milligrams of sodium within that liter of fluid. Because we do, there are some athletes that we'll do sweat testing on and we see, you know, where they're losing a liter of fluid per hour when they're training. And if we're wearing a hydration monitor, we could be losing around a thousand to twelve hundred milligrams of sodium uh during that hour. So again, in some of my well-trained guys, we are really pushing the limits on their liquids, their carbohydrates, their sodium. In some of my newer to fueling properly guys, we are really just tiptoeing into the shallow end of the pool before we jump off the diving board.

SPEAKER_00

I love it. Yeah, so I know a lot of people, especially tactile athletes, train in the morning. So we talked a little bit about like the pre-fuel, um, different things like that. How important do you think that is from like a general sense of getting something in, even if you can't handle the 60 to nine, 60 to 120 um grams of carbs?

SPEAKER_03

It it's essential. One, because it's a missed opportunity if you're not doing it to get ahead of your energy needs, your uh energy production throughout the rest of the day. And it's probably like in a lot of guys, it's gonna be like the one time point in the day that you have more control over as far as being able to get some nutrition in. Cause, like, you know, in my military guys, it, you know, they don't always know what they're doing throughout the day. And so lunchtime and sometimes even breakfast isn't promised, right? Oh, you should have a backup plan for that, but getting to the dining facility or having meal prep available isn't always ideal. Uh, you know, if you're at the station and the tones drop while you're in the middle of dinner, right? Like that's you can't control that. Um, you know, if you're so there's just lots of opportunities to miss meals during the day, but that pre-training and even sometimes that post-training meal is the one that we're gonna have the most control over. So I think it's really a missed opportunity to get nutrition in if we're not executing on that. Uh, in addition to that, you know, if you're wanting to really maximize your performance, again, I know in preaching to the choir, if you don't have that glycogen and glucose available to fuel that training session, you are leaving gains on the table. No doubt about it, right? Just because you're not taking in carbohydrates and getting glucose and whatnot before your training session doesn't mean that your body doesn't need it. And if it needs it and it doesn't have it, it's gonna pull it from somewhere else, and that's gonna leave you behind on other nutrients throughout the day. So I think it's a non-negotiable.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and it's the thing with with performance too, it's something that you can legitimately feel. It's not like a nice to have, like, oh, like, yeah, I guess I can do this because I'm supposed to. It's like, no, you will legitimately feel it in your training sessions. Like you take a fasted training session and then you get a hundred grams of carbs and run that same training session, you will feel, and obviously, I know everybody loves like pumps and different things like that. Um, you'll feel amazing, like much, much different.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, there's no better pump fuel than sodium, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00

100%. Yeah. And I you you did a post about it the other day. It had me laughing um with the uh the pre-training. I think there was uh a woman or something that said, Oh, I got like a banana in for my pre-workout, and um I started laughing.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, like like the banana?

SPEAKER_00

Like I ate the banana. What the hell do you want to do with that banana? Like, what are we talking about?

SPEAKER_03

Um, so I don't know why people love it when I mean. I don't know why people Yeah, it's funny because it's true.

SPEAKER_00

Like I laugh and I joke with clients, and I'm like, hey, if we can triple what you just did, and obviously, like I said, not have like a firebomb or needing to go to the bathroom the entire session, but if we can progressively overload that and you get in 120 grams of carps beforehand, like we can we can figure it out with things like honey, with I've been loving like rice and grinds, very light things like that. Such an easy way to pack on performance gains.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

Cool. So now what I wanted to do is go over two popular camps that that I've seen, and I'm sure that you have as well. And obviously, there's people that do this stuff well. I'm not saying that there's only these two buckets. Um, but I've found that there's either the underfueler tactical athlete or the one who's just an overfatigued dieter that's just kind of crash dieting, going through certain things. Um, so I wanted to start with camp number one, the underfueler. And this is where it's it's in my opinion, kind of interesting because that uh the phrase of like you can't out train a bad diet or whatever, obviously it's applicable in certain stances. Um, but sometimes I feel like hybrid tactical athletes can definitely out train what they're eating. Um, so what would or what advice would you give that person who is definitely underfueling, but they're just like, ah, you know, I don't really like pay attention to nutrition.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, that's a that's actually a really common one. And a lot of times, you know, in the high performer, like what they're gonna be able to do training-wise, like we you have to be able to relate that to some of the things that they're not missing. So there's a couple of strategies that I'll use. One, if it's one of my athletes that I'm able to do VO2 testing on, I can actually show somebody how many calories they're burning per hour at each intensity level. And so when I tell somebody, hey, if you're doing even an easy training session, if you're doing zone two cardio on average, I see guys burning anywhere between a thousand to thirteen hundred calories per hour during an easy zone two training session, and their mind is just blown and they're like, I had no idea. You know, especially if you come to me and you're like, I'm having a really hard time maintaining lean muscle mass, and you know, I train and I feel like I eat so much, you know, and I'm like, oh, cool, bro. How much are you eating? And they're like, oh, I'm on like 2,500 calories a day. And I'm like, cool, that's my maintenance calories.

SPEAKER_00

Like a bird.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, like a bird. Like 2,500 calories is like nothing. Like it, it's it's nothing. So, you know, having objective data to sometimes show them, hey, this is like what you need to be eating, or this is how you're burning through your energy during your training sessions can be really helpful, which is one of the reasons that I lean into metabolic testing and VO2 testing. Uh, also, like I have so much testimony from my athletes who like we've incorporated just some more calories, some more carbohydrates, and within a period of a week or two, they're cutting minutes off their five mile times or they're hitting PRs, right? Um, sometimes sharing that testimony makes a huge, huge difference in somebody's be like, okay, like I'm willing to try it. And again, also like if I can just convince them to work in a little bit of nutrition pre-workout, usually what happens is that very next workout, when they've done that, they're like, holy crap, I felt amazing. They're like, I wasn't even sore afterwards. My recovery was like great. Like I was still feeling like I was awake at two o'clock in the afternoon. And I'm like, no shit. You know, I'm like, yeah, of course. Right. Sometimes that immediate gratification from that pre-workout nutrition is all the testimony that they need is to experience it for themselves, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's that uh that mirror analogy again. I I love the one thing that I like to do is uh like a week or two, depending on the person, just tracking, kind of seeing where they're at. And we start looking at those numbers, and and a lot of the times I don't even have to say anything where it's like, okay, if you have uh 120 grams of fat and you know 150 or or 200 grams of carbs, it's like, okay, like what do we think is is happening here, right? Um, so with I I guess with that said, with like the performance-oriented side, where would you kind of, and obviously there's a lot of nuance here, totally understand. Um, but when it comes to like fat intake, because I I see that a big as a big not problem, because obviously it's important, but overeating that. So, where do you kind of start on on that side?

SPEAKER_03

Uh we don't, I will be honest, and fat intake is sometimes not even part of the initial conversation. And that's typically because if somebody is hitting their protein intake, they're not gonna have a problem hitting their fat intake. Now, if we evaluate somebody's diet and we find that a significant amount of their calories is coming from fat and maybe we're in a weight loss phase, right? Then that's a conversation that we have to have. Uh, but we are really good at dial in the proteins and the carbs. Uh, and that typically by itself will usually help someone hit their fat intake. Now, I have a couple of athletes who uh are focused in a little bit more on higher fat intake because we're just doing some work with their metabolic, you know, like insulin resistance and like blood sugar levels and stuff like that, and we maybe some other things going on, uh, where we'll we'll have a higher fat intake, and so then that's something that we'll look a little bit closer at. But typically we're not even having huge conversations around their fat intake, other than maybe to say, hey, like maybe we need to incorporate some more plant-based fats as well, uh, just for brain health, omega-3s, that kind of thing. Um, but but to be perfectly honest, we're not even having that conversation unless it's very obvious again, as you mentioned, that their fat intake is just is just through the roof. Um, but usually that's a symptom of probably too much overprocessed food uh to begin with.

SPEAKER_00

100%. And in relation to that, where's your is your protein just at a gram 0.7 times body weight or usually around there?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, for most people, like a gram per pound of goal body weight is typically where we will start at. Uh, you really can't go wrong there. And you know, there are some individuals, uh, you know, if their weight is drastically too high, we might adjust their body weight a little bit. Um, but a gram per pound in protein. Um, I do use ratios a lot when we do uh carbohydrate to protein ratios, but that's really just to give somebody like a visual representation. Uh, we do also do specific uh grams, and then they can kind of work within either one of those guidelines, whatever is most comfortable for them and easiest to understand. Uh, in somebody who's more weight loss focused, we'll probably shoot for that lower end of carbohydrate intake, where we're gonna be uh sort of like a one-to-one ratio on proteins to carbs. But if we're that low on carbohydrate intake, then our training volume is usually lower versus somebody who's like a four to one ratio on proteins to carbs, and we're probably peaking for something. Um, and then our fat intake, we'll usually keep that around uh maybe uh 0.7 to like one-ish uh of grams per kilogram of body weight uh just for like general guideline purposes.

SPEAKER_00

That's really cool. So with this person, say your goal or your objective would be to eventually ramp up those calories. Um where do you stand with you know minimally processed foods or just getting calories in? Um obviously we you know, I I would imagine that you are not, you know, very keen of if it fits your macros, just eat whatever the hell you want. Um, but it's like, okay, if you are getting in 3,000 calories or 2800 or something, sometimes there's going to have to be some you know minimally processed foods that go along with the chicken, broccoli, and rice. Um, so where do you kind of stand with that mentality of okay, we need calories, they're very important. Can we skirt that a little bit and try X, Y, and Z type thought process?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. So, like in an ideal situation, food first, whole food first is always ideal, right? I don't think anybody's gonna argue that, but we have to look at the reality of what most of our athletes are facing on a daily basis, and they're not always gonna have access to that. I have um a couple of uh firefighters that I work with where they live in essentially what is a food desert, right? Um, and so sometimes getting really like whole, fresh foods can be really difficult. They have to drive a couple of hours just to go to a real grocery store sometimes. Um so there is sometimes where we have to rely on more processed food than what we have available, you know, to us. Um, so whole food first is ideal, yes, 100%. And then, you know, we can use uh some minimally processed food and supplementation to supplement that. I don't think we should be afraid of processed food because sometimes processed food is what's gonna get us through the job. You know, sometimes I have athletes who are eating candy on the trails or they're keeping candy in their go bags, or we do, you know, they're eating rice krispies and and cereal before they train because that's what agrees with their stomach. That's what's gonna give them the fast sugar that they need to continue doing the job, and that can be okay. When we're having our sit-down meals, if we can get that whole food in, I think that's fantastic. I do have some athletes who are uh having a difficult time with maybe getting in enough calories throughout the day and they're attempting to gain weight or maintain a healthy weight because they tend to lose weight too easily. Uh, sometimes there are occasions where the only thing that they do have available is maybe the drive-thru, and and that can be okay, but we shouldn't be relying on that for our daily nutrition intake, uh, especially if we have other options available to us. I think sometimes people also don't realize that there are other options available to you, there are other strategies that you can use. We don't have to always default to overprocessed food. And helping an athlete think through those strategies is really important, I think, as a coach.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think it's huge. Like, even I always try to tell people like, if you're going out to eat or certain things like that, I I promise you there is a least bad option available for you. And that's it's like we I think common sense will prevail here where if you if you go out to eat, like in my opinion, depending on your specific targets, you don't have to bring chicken, broccoli, and rice. And I don't want to keep, you know, shitting on chicken broccoli and rice I eat all the time. Um, but like we don't need to, you know, bring that out. We can say, okay, what is the least bad option? Now we just respond the next meal. Um, do you have that kind of same thought process?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, absolutely. You're always you're all you can always start over at any point during the day, right? So maybe you had a really shitty meal at two o'clock in the morning. It's happened to all of us, right? Guess what? When you wake up in the morning, it's a new day, right? Just because one thing didn't go your way doesn't mean that you throw the entire day out the window, be like, you know, that's it. Oh, okay. So you had a donut at the station. Okay. Maybe just make sure you have enough protein at your next meal, right? Maybe make sure you don't make an excuse to miss your training session the next day, right? You don't have to earn your calories, but you also don't have to give up if something doesn't go your way.

SPEAKER_00

For sure. Yeah, I say it all the time, especially around um, and I know you see it as well, the the holiday season where it's like there's specific holidays in that season. It does not have to be the entire season that you're just going absolutely crazy and then waiting for you know January 1st to lock in. It's like there's four days or five days, however many holidays there are. It's like, okay, if you eat, you know, with your family or those specific meals, then you respond after. I promise you, like you're not going to look back on your deathbed and be like, oh, I'm so mad that I ate, you know, this my family's favorite recipe or whatever that may be.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, look, and I know that people are bringing food to the station like all the time and bringing gifts, and I think that's fantastic. I think that we approach it wrong, right? I, you know, I have some of the best lifts of my life during Thanksgiving, right? I will throw down some food and then I will go in the gym the next day and I'll put up a PR, right? So to me, October, November, December, season of games, baby. Like you should be thinking about performance, right? Like, I'm not a fan of thinking about weight loss or calorie deficits or restriction during that time. Does that mean it's a free-for-all? No, absolutely not. But I think people need to give themselves a little bit more grace during that period of time. And like, even if you're somebody who's overweight, right? Like you can enjoy, like you said, that time with your family and the food that's available, right? If you're getting extra calories in, maybe we should think about how we can put extra calories out. Again, we're not earning our food, but like that's a really great time to periodize a heavy training cycle into your program because those calories are going to be available. So let's use the fuck out of them, right? And then if you want to think about January, is that time where now we've set the stage, where we've built some muscle, we've, you know, got some good calories in, we're supporting hormone balance. You know, the season of chaos is over because that's a really stressful time too. Then in January or February, if we want to drop into a deficit phase for the next 10 to 12 weeks, then we can do that. And then we kind of just continue to periodize out from there. But I think people think about the holidays like just wrong, right? I'm thinking about how much can I deadlift this year?

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_03

You know? So I think that's a good way to look at it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's really cool. I love the idea of periodized nutrition that also is kind of coinciding with the strength training. I think that's a lot of times a big missing piece where it's like, okay, I'm going to absolutely slash my runtime. And it's like, well, what is your nutrition doing? Like, are you fueling that, that, that demand? Um, I think that's a huge missing piece for a lot of folks where everything, like we talked about systems, like everything needs to respect and reflect one another. Sleep, nutrition, like the the the basics of performance. Um, and I think that's a that's a big missing piece for sure.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I get athletes that come to me all the time. They're still using the like the same macros they use like two, three, four, five years ago. And I'm like, dude, what are you doing?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, what are we right?

SPEAKER_03

And and that's the hardest sports, nutrition. And that's why I also um spent a good part of my education doing exercise science, right? So my master's is in exercise science, not in nutrition. And then I have certifications uh as a tactical strength and conditioning coach and then also as a USA triathlon coach, right? And I I have almost as many or more certifications in strength and conditioning and uh exercise science than I do in nutrition. Because I think that's an important piece. Like you are gonna really struggle to program performance nutrition if you don't understand exercise physiology, right? Because your sports nutrition plan has to overlay your cyclic training program. Don't use the same macros in a strength phase as you're gonna use in a power phase. You you can't be running a caloric deficit in a hypertrophy phase. Like it's just not gonna happen. Like when your training is supposed to be peaking, your calories should be peaking as well. And that's a huge gap, uh, not only in sports nutrition. But also just within the tactical population is we don't think about that. And I think I'm gonna get on my soapbox here for a second. I think another huge gap in tactical performance is off seasons. Like you need an off-season to your programming to reset your metabolism and your central nervous system, right? And people are like, what the hell are you talking about? And I'm like, you don't get an off-season from your job, but if you're redlining 12 months out of the year, that's a problem, dude. Yeah, like you need at least like either several short periods of true offloading throughout the year, or you need to make sure that they're incorporated uh appropriately and more frequently throughout your year. I'm a huge fan of like maybe you just need to spend like eight weeks like offloading volume and and eating and sleeping and taking a mental reset. And I know that's really hard for our guys, but um like dude, like you gotta do it. Like you I have seen so many athletes reach true overreaching and over-training syndrome and they're in full denial. And I'm like, I like you you need to listen to what I'm saying, right? Like you need an off-season.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, if you have if it's been years since you've taken even it sounds crazy, even a weekend or a week off, that's probably exactly what you need. Because a lot of people are like so scared of like, well, I'm gonna fall behind, and different things like that. And then all of a sudden they get this awakening where like, whoa, I feel great.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, amazing.

SPEAKER_00

It's the same thing that I like you were alluding to with a lot of my clients. Like, we I have to drop the volume, like I have to drop the volume and intensity that they're used to, and they are scared at first. It's like, well, yeah, like what if I do like I'm only doing four days per week or five days per week? And I'm like, just just trust it. And then you know, a couple of weeks, it's like, whoa, I feel better, my numbers are going up, but I still don't feel like I'm doing enough work. And I'm just like, oh my god, we're we're never gonna get through.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and and like the feelings around that are totally valid, right? Because we've just that's just how we operate, not only as a society, but just like the mentality that makes you great at your job also makes you really shitty at taking care of yourself and being able to like turn the volume down on some of that anxiety uh in neuroses that you have around your training. Yes, I said neuroses. Um, and so taking that off season to reset, I think is is so critical. Um I think that that is also just like a symptom of like some deeper issues, like premeditating, like stress. I probably don't want to get into that, but yes, um I I think that convincing someone to like take a step back can be really, really difficult. But uh I think it's important to remind them like, hey, when you're underfueling, overtraining, it's not just your physical performance that suffers, it's gonna be your hormones that suffer, right? Um I had an athlete that we cut his training volume by 50% and his testosterone jumped 300 points. Uh and it took me months to convince him. So we have to remember that even if training is quote unquote a good stressor, your stress cut can only get so full. And it doesn't matter if it's a good stressor or a bad stressor, you have to control it, and that's gonna have a huge impact on your mental health, your hormonal health, your ability to perform. So sometimes just repetitive conversations with the athlete around that are really important.

SPEAKER_00

For sure. Yeah, I always try to bring, because I know how competitive we all are. I always try to bring like an outside uh competitive perspective of like, what's the last book that you read? Or like completely switching it. When's the last time that you focused on mobility? Like, let's focus on some mobility days, and then they realize that maybe they suck at mobility or they can't remember the last book they read, whatever that may be. And it's like, okay, like let's take some of that competitive drive and put it um on you nutrition, on prepping your meals. Like, did you get that done two days per week or three days per week? Um, I found that to be like a good, a good little pivot.

SPEAKER_03

I ask people, I'm like, do you have hobbies? Yeah, yeah, like working out doesn't count. Like, what do you do outside of your job that recharges you, right? What is it that you do to get a mental break? How do you get that oxytocin in your life? And when I ask people that question, it's like crickets.

SPEAKER_00

That's a great one. Yeah. I I actually I had that qu I asked that question to a firefighter. Um, and he he was just everything was work, work, training, strongman, whatever that may be.

SPEAKER_03

And I'm so many jobs. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I'm like, what I was like, I'm gonna ask you a question, man. This is gonna come out of the blue, but like, what are your hobbies? And he's just like you said, um I don't know. I'll have to get back to you. And I'm like, okay, well, that's your assignment. Like, what what's the like what do you enjoy doing? Um, and he got some good things. We we implemented that in his performance plan where it's like, hey, you're gonna do X, Y, and Z, or this weekend you're gonna go out with friends, or whatever that may be. Um, very, very important and big missing piece, and in my opinion.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, for sure. It's like if you've ever met a firefighter, you should just ask them what their side hustle is and why it's construction.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, true. Always uh always working like crazy. Um, but let's get into camp number two here. Um, so the overfatigued chronic dieter, maybe this person needs to make weight, make the tape, like all these different types of things. Um, what would you recommend for this person with like realistic targets or managing expectations if they want to keep their performance?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, so I think there's like a couple of like things within this category that I come across. And uh I think the first one is like you do have that person who is like a chronic low energy availability where they're just constantly in a deficit, sometimes unintentionally. And they're like, I don't understand why I'm losing weight, I feel like I'm not really eating. But the reality is is even if they're not really eating a ton, they're probably also not training to the intensity that they think they are training or consistently enough. Because at the end of the day, like thermodynamics is a real thing. So if you were really in an energy deficit, like you theoretically should be losing weight. And so what I typically see happen is there are they're not really uh counting or tracking appropriately how many calories a day that they're actually taking in. And this is backed up by the research, right? Is most people are under-reporting what they eat and over-reporting how much physical activity they actually get. But the other side of that too is that if they are truly not managing their energy intake, then they probably are also just not moving spontaneously throughout the day. So even if we take like exercise out of the equation, we also know that if you're low in calories, your spontaneous movement throughout the day is also minimized. So you're not fidgeting as much, you're not getting up and moving around as much, you're probably spending a lot more time sitting because you just feel tired all the time, right? And so if you really want to optimize your metabolism for weight loss, the first thing we have to do is get you feeling good. And sometimes that means you're not gonna lose weight initially. And I know sometimes we can be in a hurry to lose weight, and sometimes we have to be in a hurry to lose weight, but the reality is that sometimes the desire to lose weight and losing weight, like we have to program it differently. So that face first phase of your program might just be closer to maintenance calories, where we get you feeling really good before we drop you into a structured deficit, right? Because you can't you can't really take calories away from somebody who's not really eating enough calories or not appropriately managing their energy in the right way to begin with. Hopefully, I said that correctly. Um, I think on the other side of it, I see individuals where they are wanting to lose weight. This is this is a really common one, is where they're not eating enough throughout the day, and then they're eating a ton in the evening, and then in order to make up for it, they feel like they have to fast or they'll eat significantly less the next day. But over the course of a week, it comes out sort of in the wash, right? So we end up being closer to maintenance anyway, and so there's no weight loss happening. Um, and so for anybody in a situation where they're chronically dieting, I think the first goal is can we just get you feeling like a person? Uh, can we get your energy levels where they need to be? Can we get you training consistently? Because if you're struggling to lose weight, uh, but there's a lack of consistency in either your training or your nutrition, I think getting you consistently training is gonna be the first, the first step. So I think we have to think about that first before we go into a deficit.

SPEAKER_00

100%. So with that, that person, would you um, I know you said get them likely to maintenance. Um, but say, for an example, you have somebody that's chronically dieting, like you said, they've been at these macros for years and it's like 1800 or something like very, very low, and they're glued to that number. They don't want to get quote unquote fat and put on weight. Um, so would you try to slowly accumulate more calories throughout the day, again, progressively overload them? Or would you just say, like, hey, well, we need to, we're not gonna lose weight necessarily. Um, let's just keep keep going and let's be more performance oriented.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, we'll gradually, and everybody's a little bit different, but a lot of times we'll gradually increase calories while we monitor their weight to help them feel a little bit more comfortable around that. Um, and we might start with protein calories first, right? Um, and that's perfectly okay. If they're not hitting their protein intake, we sometimes can work towards that or even overfeed protein a little bit because if we're not eating enough, it's very unlikely that we're gonna store any additional fat from protein intake. I mean, that's just not typically a thing if we're if we're not in a chronic surplus of calories. So most people are also more comfortable increasing their protein intake first because they have like a fear around carbohydrate intake and weight gain, um, which you know is a whole other situation, but gradually increasing those calories, sometimes coming first from protein intake, can help someone feel a little bit better about it. We manage expectations, like hey, like just anytime you have more calories coming in, it it doesn't really matter what is coming in from, you're gonna gain a little bit of water weight. So just expect that. Um and and so we'll just start with you know what they're comfortable with. And as they start to get some of that reward in training and energy and better sleep, then they typically will become more comfortable with increasing uh their calories more over time. Um I you know, somebody has to lose weight quickly, you know, that's a situation that I I don't like, right? So, you know, the earlier we can get with somebody before they have to really like do some drastic measures is is ideal.

SPEAKER_00

Not two weeks out, you're saying?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, not two weeks out.

SPEAKER_00

Not two weeks out. I've seen some of that, I've gotten some of those messages where it's like, hey, I have to I have the tape coming up. Um, what should I do? And I'm like, well, that is an absolutely loaded question. Um I haven't gotten that question. I wouldn't I would say take the L and do it properly. That's just my opinion, but um, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, absolutely. I've gotten that message like the night before, and I'm like, it just is what it is, dog. Like, I like I'm gonna pray for you. Um, you know, because the reality is assuming this is the first time that you've maybe not passed your your waist measurement or your tape measurement, you do have, you know, six to twelve months to make some progress. So I think you're right. Sometimes you gotta take the L and then you have to reevaluate and get some help, right? And do it the right way so that you don't ever have to think about it again.

SPEAKER_00

For sure. Yeah. So doing it the right way as you ramp up calories with this person or this example, what is going on with the metabolism throughout that process? Like if you start increasing your calories, you're starting to feel better. Um, what what's going on from a weight loss or fat loss perspective in the future?

SPEAKER_03

So typically, if you have more calories coming in, again, your spontaneous movement is going to increase if you're not in a deficit anymore. So you're gonna be doing a lot more moving around. Um, the body does a really good job of conserving energy in the presence of low energy. So if we can increase those calories to an appropriate amount, I would say that the body feels safer being able to put more energy out as well. You're also gonna be able to put more energy out during your training sessions. Uh the body's basal metabolic rate, it doesn't change a whole lot for most people. There are definitely some exceptions because the thyroid, which is kind of that like thermostatic up and down, like in bodybuilders when they're doing their severe cuts and very low calorie diets coming into peak week, like there is research out there that shows that their thyroid hormone levels do change during that time. Uh, and that can happen in chronic dieters. So when we are slowly increasing that calorie intake, there can be an effect at a endocrine level where we're seeing those thyroid hormones improve, we're seeing that as testosterone hormones improve, and so recovery is going to improve, energy levels are gonna improve, right? Now, that doesn't mean that if you, you know, you're kind of in that situation, that doesn't mean that your thyroid is broken or that your metabolism is broken or something like that. It's kind of along those lines of what I said earlier. You have to send that signaling to the body, you have to do the things that your body needs in order for your metabolism to run efficiently. There's very few situations where like most people are gonna experience a clinical thyroid uh dysregulation or metabolic dysregulation to the point where they need some type of medication or something like that, right? Um, I think it's just sometimes we get overrun with influencers trying to sell us products. And so there's like a lot of fear around uh that gets built around something like that. But as the body is bringing more energy in, you should see your body's ability to put more energy out.

SPEAKER_00

I love that. Yeah, it's not the you hear this, so I'm sure you hear this all the time, the the broken metabolism. Like, well, what's your movement look like? What does your training look like? What do your energy levels look like? What does your nutrition look like, right? Like there's small little things that that we can incorporate to uh fix that quote unquote broken broken metabolism.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, and that's another reason that I lean into the metabolic testing, right? And we test metabolic rates is because I can see how efficiently you're burning fat at rest, which is preferred. I can see uh, you know, how much carb versus fat you're burning at any given time period during rest. Um, we can see what your basal metabolic rate is through oxygen consumption, right? We're kind of doing a proxy. Um, I think showing people those numbers too has made a big difference in some of those individuals who have a fear around increasing their calories when they're eating, you know, 1200 calories a day and I show them their basal metabolic rate and it's 1700 plus their physical activity, plus what they're doing in the gym. And, you know, and then I can say this is probably why you feel terrible. Um, you know, so you think that's another reason that I lean into the metabolic testing.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. So speaking of testing, uh, I'm actually very happy. I got some blood work done this morning, so I'm very excited about that. I think every single tactical athlete should be doing that, um, even if they had it have to come out of pocket. But with some of the testing or blood work or different panels, those types of things, how important do you think that is for tactical athletes to kind of be aware of or do?

SPEAKER_03

Non-negotiable.

SPEAKER_00

Oof, I love it.

SPEAKER_03

Non-negotiable. And it doesn't matter what your age is, like you should have baseline testing and you should have at least annual testing on lipids, on blood sugar and insulin, uh, on your sex hormones, like that should be a non-negotiable.

SPEAKER_00

So, with that said, with the like the sex hormone or TRT, all like the different peptides, all these different types of things going on. Um, how does that impact like what kind of moves can you make from getting your your blood done? Like, how does that inform some of these decisions that the some of these productive decisions that you can make with supplementation, with all that other stuff?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, it allows for some personalization and some specificity around what's actually happening with your body, right? And so uh weight loss is a good example. So if somebody's struggling to lose weight, um, or you know, we want to evaluate somebody's nutrition or what are like the things in the nutrition that we need to prioritize to get them the most bang for their buck. Knowing, okay, what does their lipid panel look like, their triglycerides look like, their insulin look like, right? There's like some really specific nutrition interventions we can do around those numbers. You know, if we're looking at someone's sex hormone panel, their testosterone to estradiol ratios, their uh cortisol levels potentially even against their testosterone levels. We're looking at, you know, FSH, LH, right? So that's signaling from the brain to the testes. Like we can kind of understand uh what's really happening, if it's a nutrition lifestyle-related issue with the hormones, or if there is some like primary issues going on, like neurological signaling issues going on that really needs medical attention, right? When I get a hold of my athletes and we do the lab testing, a lot of times what we're seeing is lifestyle-related issues that are driving down hormone levels, right? Or that are driving up triglyceride levels, right? Those are all lifestyle issues. And so we can attack those one by one and then we can track that progress over time before we go the route of hormone therapy, right? Especially in younger guys, like we if you can wait for as long as possible to incorporate any type of hormone therapy or any type of you know supplemental things that you could take for as long as possible, it's only going to benefit you, right? I'm a big fan of hormone replacement therapy. Um, however, there's an appropriate way and an appropriate time to use it. And so I think having that blood work can really help you make an informed decision about when that time is or if that time even needs to happen for you. And if we're addressing things early, then it means those are problems that we're heading off at the past that we don't have to deal with later on. Diabetes, heart disease, all of those lifestyle diseases start 10 to 15 years before you get a diagnosis, right? And so before your blood sugar is showing up whacked on your lab test, and your doctor's finally like, oh, I guess we should put you on metformin, right? Your insulin is going to be out of range, probably 10 years before that. But guess what your doctor doesn't test ever? Your insulin levels until you become a diabetic. And then they might look at them, right?

SPEAKER_00

It was a problem.

SPEAKER_03

It was a problem 10 years ago, right? And we could have done something about it, but now it's 15 years later, and now you have type two diabetes, right?

SPEAKER_01

For sure.

SPEAKER_03

So, you know, we could have looked at your triglyceride trends over time. This is another situation I see all the time. It's like you get your blood work done, the doctor looks at it, he's like, You're fine, you're fine, right? So year after year, you're fine, you're fine, you're fine, you're fine. But what we don't see is, unless you have a good doctor, that your trend has been up and up and up and up and up and up for the last 10 years. So we've been on the road to disaster for the last 10 years, but nobody fucking told us that we were about to drive off a cliff, right? So I think it doesn't matter what your age is, I think you need to have annual blood work done to be preventative and to be proactive. And then if there's things that are coming up, it prevents us from having to be reactionary.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I love that too, because the thing that pisses me off is if you take it in your own hands, and and obviously with professional help is always advised, but if you start getting your blood work and actually start learning, you will also see there's a big, big, big difference between normal ranges and performance ranges with certain things. So Even like no disrespect to doctors, but they'll see like, oh, this person is green, they're good to go. Um, but if you want to actually perform, like you, you need to kind of ramp things up or focus on certain things. Um, so I've always found that, you know, very uh appalling where it's like, okay, well, you're you're good to go in my eyes, or based on the averages of society. So uh we you don't need anything from us. And and that's something that drives me absolutely insane. So even if you're feeling good, I still would would recommend it. Like you just said, it's like, okay, even if you're feeling good, we should still you know set some some benchmarks or see some benchmarks.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, absolutely. I think the really good example of this is vitamin D levels, right? Uh, so everybody's all about vitamin D levels. What is considered sufficient within the medical community is 30. What I like to see my athletes at is 75. Right. Because at 75 is when we start to see the benefits as an anti-inflammatory. Uh, we start to see associations with mild depressive symptoms and anxiety. And 30 is enough to be considered sufficient. It's definitely not enough to be optimal, right? You need to be at 75.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. It's the same thing with like testosterone numbers. It will be considered quote unquote normal, maybe. I I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, isn't it based on averages or based on kind of like where the the population's going? How is how are the the normal ranges determined? Do you know that?

SPEAKER_03

It's average. Okay. Yeah. It's not optimal. It's average. It's average. Yeah. It's average of the people, it's average of what of healthy people who go get their blood work done.

SPEAKER_00

Interesting.

SPEAKER_03

It's not, it's not optimal. It's just mid-ranges, essentially, is what it is.

SPEAKER_00

So don't don't be average people. Don't be average.

SPEAKER_03

Testosterone is a really good example. Like what you're seeing that 300 to 1,000, uh, that a lot of hospitals use as their ranges is the average of adult males from the age of 18 to 80. Right? Interesting.

SPEAKER_00

So yeah, I mean it's no good.

SPEAKER_03

Right. So like if you're 75 and your testosterone levels are 300, that's okay, fine. You know, you're 75, right? If you're 30 and your testosterone is 300, that's a problem.

SPEAKER_00

So interesting. So are there any, and then last question here, or maybe second to last, are there any before people start looking into all these supplements or different things like that? Are there any prerequisites that you'd like to see before you even look at those things from a performance perspective, whether it's nutrition, body comp, lifestyle, those different types of things?

SPEAKER_03

Uh before supplements or before labs?

SPEAKER_00

Uh before lab, or I guess both, actually.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. So whenever I take on a new client, we always do the assessment piece first. And that includes labs, that includes metabolic testing if they're available for that. And that includes also just like a full intake of their nutrition training lifestyle habits as well, right? So once you're working with me, the assessment piece has to come first. And that's going to be all of those things. So I want labs before we even meet for the first time to start putting your program together. Um, and then there's a reassessment window as well, too. So we are periodically reassessing all of those things to monitor progress, but also make sure that as your life changes, those things are continuing to run smoothly. So it's the assessment and the reassessment process that's a huge part of our program. But all of that should be done in the beginning because we want to put together specific interventions for you, specific strategies for you based off of those things. We don't want to have to like do the lab testing later after you've already started your programming and then have to double back and like rethink our strategy. So if we can do that in the beginning, the more data we have on where you're at is like really, it's great. We need that, right? So um we want to do that early within the programming and do that full assessment. And that's that's typically how I operate. Do that full assessment, and then we're again periodizing or planning out the next three to six months of your life based on your goals, your training, your nutrition, your supplementation, what phase of your program we're gonna be in, right? So once we have that data, we can say, okay, we're gonna spend the first eight weeks with habit uh training, we're gonna spend it with metabolic efficiency, we're gonna spend it just creating uh the systems that you need. And during this time period, we're not even gonna be thinking about weight loss, or we're not even gonna be thinking about super high volume training. I just need you to get your life together for the first eight weeks, right? And so that's like your habituation phase as part of the periodization process. And then, okay, then what are we gonna do? We're gonna drop into like a building phase, like a performance phase based on your goals. Like maybe we're gonna do some base building, maybe we're doing speed work for five to eight weeks, you know, and we really want to like dial in performance, which I think is essential before you start thinking about calorie deficits, right? Uh, it's much easier to lose weight if you're fit than to lose weight and try to get fit at the same time. And then at some point we may phase out a deficit period, right? So again, systems, periodization, right? Everything else is extra on top of that.

SPEAKER_00

That is awesome. Yep, it's all it's all periodized. Let's get a let's get a big picture strategy going. Um, the the last question I hear I have here that I want to end on. Um, so overall, if you could pick one thing that would offer tactical athletes the most ROI with nutrition, what would that be and why?

SPEAKER_03

The most ROI with nutrition is going to be if you're a very active person, your pre-workout nutrition has to be dialed in. It didn't like that's the non-negotiable. Um if you're somebody who's just starting with getting your nutrition in order and you are more, you know, just like weight loss focused, energy focused, longevity focused versus performance, then your timing needs to be correct. Timing meaning I'm eating regular meals through the day, or I have regular checkpoints where I'm getting some sustenance in and I'm building those systems around my nutrition. Right. Um, I have a backup plan to my ideal plan, right? So then it's it's really just about habits when we talk about longevity and weight loss and with high performance, it really comes down to I think your your pre-workout nutrition.

SPEAKER_00

I love it. That's a perfect starting point. Um cool, very, very good stuff. I love it. I appreciate it. Um, where can people find you?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, so the easiest place to find me is on Instagram at tactical.dietitian. Uh, I love connecting with people on there. One of the reasons that I love the work that I do is because I love people. Um, so you're welcome to drop into my DMs at any time. Uh, of course, you can always find me at tacticaldietician.com. I have a lot of free resources there. We have an app that you can download for free and get all of my content in one place, our YouTube videos, our newsletters. Uh, you can meet other people within the community. It's all 100% free. So if you want to connect with me that way, ask questions. We have a private forum in there. Uh, that's a really good opportunity. Uh, I do want to plug, we are hosting a tactical uh dietitian performance conference in September. And this is gonna be 100% virtual on the app. If you want to grab a seat for that, we're gonna be really focused on endurance performance. And so there's gonna be three other dietitians talking about lab work, talking about how to fuel for racing, how to fuel on race day. Uh, we are also gonna have uh some coaches on there talking about mindset and about training. We have a little bit of a high rocks talk going on. Uh so I think if people want to get involved in that, just hit me up on Instagram or head over to the website.

SPEAKER_00

That's awesome. I'll be checking that out. It sounds sounds freaking awesome.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, we'll save you a seat, man. It'll be great.

SPEAKER_00

Awesome. Well, I appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, this was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed this conversation. This is probably definitely my top three uh guest visits, I would say. So I really appreciate the invite.

SPEAKER_00

Awesome.