Show notes
Welcome to the Purple Patch Podcast! Matt Dixon and Scott Tindal discuss the evolving landscape of nutrition in endurance sports, particularly in IRONMAN Triathlon. Scott, co-founder of Fuelin, talks about establishing a foundation of healthy eating habits, including 6-9 servings of vegetables per day, 2 pieces of fruit, and appropriate protein intake (1-2 grams per pound of body weight). Focus on sleep quality and aim for 7-9 hours of time in bed per night. Increase daily movement and non-exercise activity, not just relying on structured workouts. They also mention in the off-season to consider stress management techniques and finding the right balance of productive stress. Follow IRONMAN Master Coach Matt Dixon as he discusses the latest nutrition and fitness trends. If you have any questions about the Purple Patch program, feel free to reach out at info@purplepatchfitness.com Episode Timestamps: 00:00-2:43 Introduction 2:50-50:00 Meat and Potatoes Episode Timestamps: 00:00-02:46 2:50-End Purple Patch and Episode Resources Check out our world-class coaching and training options: BLACK FRIDAY SPECIAL OFFER Join our Purple Patch Tri Squad for just $75 (half off!) Here's how: - Visit purplepatchfitness.com/squad - Select a Monthly membership - Use the code BLACKFRIDAY24 at checkout for 50% off your first month of training Offer valid through November 30, 2024. Tri Squad: https://www.purplepatchfitness.com/squad 1:1 Coaching: https://www.purplepatchfitness.com/11-coached Run Squad: https://www.purplepatchfitness/com/run-squad Strength Squad: https://www.purplepatchfitness.com/strength-1 Live & On-Demand Bike Sessions: https://www.purplepatchfitness.com/bike Explore our training options in detail: https://bit.ly/3XBo1Pi Live in San Francisco? Explore the Purple Patch Performance Center: https://center.purplepatchfitness.com Everything you need to know about our methodology: https://www.purplepatchfitness.com/our-methodology Amplify your approach to nutrition with Purple Patch + Fuelin https://www.fuelin.com/purplepatch Get access to our free training resources, insight-packed newsletter and more at purplepatchfitness.com 00:00 I'm Matt Dixon, and welcome to the purple patch podcast. The mission of purple patch is to empower and educate every human being to reach their athletic potential. Through the lens of athletic potential, you reach your human potential. The purpose of this podcast is to help time starved people everywhere integrate sport into life. 00:29 Welcome to the purple patch podcast, as ever your host Matt Dixon, and today we are on part two of our coaches, conversations with Scott Tindal. Scott is the co founder of fueling, one of the preeminent influences in how athletes are fueling and hydrating their races across all endurance sports. And Scott is a pretty much a regular on the show now, and today, we're going to get back down to basics a little bit, because we're ending the year and we're all looking forward, looking to up level over the course of the coming year. And I thought would be fun to have Scott's perspective across three main areas. Number one, if you're an athlete seeking to up level your performance, what can you be doing right now to lay the foundation as it relates to eating and, as you'll find out sleeping as well. The second category I want to jump into is to gain Scott's advice and some simple application on what you should do if you are really focused on improving your body composition, some of the ABCs of that. And it turns out that you've got a lot of control on how to improve the area. And then finally, what is for Scott's perspective as it relates to longevity, making sure you're setting yourself up for the best quality of life for the years ahead. We straight outside of nutrition. There we talk about movement, sleep, stress reduction, and some key habits around both your eating and your daily hydration. It's fun packed. It's a coach's conversation, and it's really insightful. I think you're going to enjoy it. And so without further ado, I'm going to give you Scott dinner. But one small note as well, if you want to find out more about fueling, simply head to fueling.com/purple. 02:16 Patch, the team are always ready to reach out and help with any of your needs, you can also find all of the information on purple patch programming at purple patch fitness.com and if you want to have a direct connect to the team at fuel in or if you want to reach out to us directly and extend the conversation, simply ping us an email info@purplepatchfitness.com 02:36 We'll be delighted to set up a complimentary consultation. But without further ado, I give you. Scott Tindal, it is time for the meat and potatoes. 02:50 It is the meat and potatoes. So here's a question for you. Are you an athlete that is looking ahead to next year and thinking, I want to take my performance to the next level? Or perhaps you're someone that really wants to improve your body composition, or, Further still, he's someone that wants to build a platform of daily energy where you want to set yourself up for a high quality of life for the years ahead, if you're any one of those people, or perhaps all three. And then this is the show for you, because I've welcomed back my guest. I would call him my master guest, because he's been on the show so much now. Scott Tindal from fuel in welcome Scotty. Matty, good to see you again. Last week, we had a nice chat about uh Kona and some broader perspectives on triathlon. Now we're going to expand our horizons a little bit, and I want to have some common advice as we start to enter into the end of the year, and most people are looking ahead. They're getting ready to commit to their New Year's resolutions and all of that stuff. But I want to get some general advice for you, and I'm going to go just very simply with three questions of, what should we focus on if you're an athlete, if you're looking for body composition changes, if you're looking for improving your longevity and daily quality of life and what you bring to your role, or anything that's important to you. Very, very simple stuff, really practical guidance and advice and and I will say, before we dive into this, we talked a lot in last week's show about fueling. We talked a lot about athletics, race fueling. Some observations around Kona. If you guys missed that show, I really recommend you go back. It was a treasure trove of perspective and and really interesting insights. Today, we're going to get a little bit more practical and and really rip the meat off the bone, as it were. And I want to start with talking about the athlete first and and let's 04:46 let most athletes at this phase of the year are in what we call off season, so it's a far away in the horizon that their race goals and their start lines are their training demands. 05:00 Levels are much lower. Specificity is actually probably lower. So far as not really training race specificity right now, they're doing a lot of foundational work. So as a nutritionist, what would be your recommendation for athletes thinking about charting their journey for higher performance. What should they be focusing on right now, in terms of eating, fueling, supporting training, demands, hydration, how should they an athlete think about it? Because most of them stop thinking about it. Yeah, I think it's a really good question. And actually probably for all three problems that you described at the start, my answer would probably be very similar, actually, but we can get into the nitty gritty of that. I mean, firstly, I think, reflect on what's happened in the season past, yeah, with either yourself or with your coach or with your team around you, and say, Well, where do we do well, where do we not go? Well, take the army Schwarzenegger approach. Cut, cut your pants off at the knees so you can see your calves at every opportunity and say, Well, this is my weakness. How am I going to develop that weakness to become a strength? And so, okay, you're that high perform, that athlete who wants high performance. Where was the high performance missing? Where are you going to direct your efforts to maybe you weren't strong enough. Okay, so what is the big picture of the macro cycle of the next 12 months look like? What's the overarching goal for that? And that's, you know, going to be a discussion. And then how does things, obviously, specifically, how does nutrition fit with that? If you need to build muscle because you're a bit weaker, then your calorie intake is going to be really important. You have to be in a caloric surplus. You have to be manipulating your protein and certainly your carbohydrates around your training to maximize the impact of that. So just want to pause that, because I think that's really important. If weakness, if general weakness, is an area to attack and you want to build strength. It's not just about going to the gym. It's not just about training. There is a nutritional component that are critical. You need to be in a surplus. I want to double underline that. So just just explain what this and then when you say manipulating protein, what do you mean by that practical? So, yeah, I mean and again, why? Even from a training perspective, I would counter that and say it's not just about lifting weights. It's it's lifting weights with a purpose, yes, with an intensity. It's with a focus. So, you know, if you want to have hypertrophy, there's a certain rep range, there's a certain set range, there's a certain rest period that you need to be focusing on. And everyone's so worried I'm going to get bulky, it's like, Oh, come on. Like, yeah, even if you did get a bit bulky, is that going to be the worst thing for you at the start of the off season, probably, you know, every triathlete or insurance athlete throughout the year is most likely, as you highlighted last week. You know, I've shrunk, 07:52 you will most likely either maintain your lean mass or probably potentially lose a little bit as the season goes Yeah. So don't be too paranoid about that. Look, in terms of structuring overall calorie intake is probably the most important thing, overall protein intake, in terms of across the 24 hours and the weeks and the months, is going to be super important. Same with carbohydrate intake, positioning it around your training. Yes, it's important. It's probably not the most important thing, not nearly as as important as with endurance training. That's pretty clear from what we're seeing the duration of the training sessions. Yeah, for most lifting sessions, you're not going to need to eat anything during this session, certainly taking in something before thinking about that, not going in faster. Again. It's not equivocal. 08:42 It doesn't mean you, everyone, will benefit from eating something going into training. However, the research supports, and certainly there's a correlation, if you do eat before a strength session, and this is certainly our philosophy at fuel in, eat something before, don't go in fasted. More likely you'll push more weight and you'll do more repetitions. What does that equate to? Probably better results 09:06 afterwards, making sure you're not you know, done to admit and fasting in and around strength training, if you want to again, increase strength and power and size, because if you neglect your body of fuel, protein, fat and carbohydrates, and obviously, total, that's total calories, then you won't get the results you need. So I think having a plan around a plan, you've got your training plan, you should have a nutrition plan. And I think again, I say this time and time again, I always laugh, off season, pre season, whatever you want to call it, oh, I don't need, I don't need nutrition plan. Are you going to eat? Isn't it easier to not have to think about the way in which you're eating and just follow a plan, much like you would with a training plan? Surely, that's just an easy way. We've got a. 10:00 Lot going on in our lives. Reduce the, you know, the guesswork, eliminate the decision paralysis, just get on with it. What's the one thing I'll say? And I was talking to Jonathan co founder about this, and it's, or I always go back to it. It's like, everyone wants this sexy approach to, like everything, and it's like, eat, well, eat with purpose. Train, well, train with purpose. Sleep, well, sleep with purpose. Like habit development, yeah, it's just not that cool, yeah, and it takes effort. You've got to be consistent with it to get the results. But when we see athletes do all those three things really well, you know, what happens? Great results. They improve. Yeah, it's, it's true. I want to broaden your horizon a little bit outside of, we went down the rabbit hole of of, you know, strength and building muscle. About a year ago, we had a conversation you had you said something really interesting for the athlete right now. You just talked about, there's so much stuff to be thinking about 11:09 in the middle of the season when an athlete is training for a race in the midst, by the way, because most of our listeners are time starved amateurs of life carrying on. They have this looming deadline. Training is at its highest intensity. You know, they have almost no time, and they're trying to crack the code of race fueling. We now remove that training a little bit less, a little less specificity on the training, at least so far as the race specificity, it's a great time. A year ago, you talked about, this is the time that you want to build the great platform of really high quality eating. Can you explain that concept a little bit like in off season, you want to get your daily eating dialed in when your caloric demands are a little bit lower. So just, just break that down, because I thought that was a real sort of unlock for many of our athletes last year. Ah, I see, yeah. I think in a lot of athletes don't eat well, well, a lot of people don't eat well. I think you've only got to look at the state of the world at the moment, whether it be the USA, Australia, or the UK or globally. So I think you know, what does that mean? I think again, bring it back into simple terms, yeah, aiming six to seven, six, probably six to nine serves of vegetables a day that no one's a vegetable. No one's doing it, no one's doing it. Look, I struggle to it's practically very challenging. Yeah, certainly can get to six lunch and dinner. Yep, can certainly just bulk out the plate with six, you know, six serves of veggies breakfast, if it is a cooked breakfast, throwing in extra a couple of handfuls of, you know, the spinach. Yeah, couple of handfuls of spinach, spring greens and whatnot. So that certainly increases fiber intake. Everyone talks about gut health. How do you improve gut health? It's not through probiotics. Even the research around probiotics is pretty scared these days in terms of showing clear evidence of effect. What seems to be showing effect is prebiotics. Prebiotics being fiber, certainly insoluble, soluble fiber, which the gut microbiome feeds on. That's what it thrives on. Where do you get fiber from you get it from vegetables. Even the research on fiber, like inulin, found in all these products, is a little bit iffy. So powdered, sort of fiber sources maybe don't do even though they say fiber, maybe they're not doing exactly what real fiber does, real real food. Yeah, like, that's the solution. Eat. Don't take a powder. E…
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