Her Discussions by Dr Faye - Sports Nutritionist: You’ve Been Lied To About Electrolytes | Mini Episode

Episode Date: June 25, 2026

Another Thursday, another mini episode!Every Thursday, we’re sharing the Buy or Bye Bye segment from one of your favourite Her Discussions episodes - a breakdown of what actually works for your health. This week, we're revisiting our episode with Siân Seccombe who is a sports nutritionist, endurance runner, and content creator focused on fueling strategies for athletes.In the full episode, we discuss:⚠️ 7 signs you’re under-fuelling your training (most runners miss this) 🧂 The only time you actually need electrolytes (and when you don’t 👀) ❌ Why fasted cardio is harmful for women 🥛 Foods to eat before & during a marathon for real energy 🏃‍♀️The 80% training rule that actually makes you fasterListen to the full podcast here:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2QOy4Gyc0LFRppvGShkTer?si=ZwZakkdfQgCV60MSVj9h5A YouTube: https://youtu.be/z41CRSSfhJw?si=bRmCkKYNcSUOjTOT Please don’t forget to subscribe - it really helps us grow the podcast.Resources & links mentioned:Siân’s Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/siansecc?igsh=dGQ0cnc3MmExM3Zo Can I ask you a BIG favour? 💙Please leave a review or rating. It helps us grow the podcast and bring you more amazing guests.Share this with someone who wants to protect their brain, boost focus, or live smarter, it might help them feel more energized and confident.Follow us on social media or join the broadcast channel to send us your questions for our guests:Podcast Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/herdiscussionspod/⁠⁠Broadcast channel: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/channel/AbY4liwxlLnewx4H/⁠⁠ 🛑 Disclaimers & legal:This podcast is for educational / informational purposes only and does not constitute medical, legal, or financial advice. All opinions are those of the speaker(s).

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free of charge. BetMGEMGEMP operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. We have got a section called Buy or Buy Buy. Now I am going to show you a product and you are going to tell me whether you would buy this product or whether you would say bye-bye to it. Perfect. So energy gels. Obsessed, yes, I have cupboards full. Nice.

So, so important when we are doing long endurance sport. Anything over, I say like tend to go an hour, hour and 15. we want to be taking on a source of quick, easily digestible carbohydrates. I know energy gels get like a really bad name and sometimes people really don't like them. You can replace this with a squares bar if your cycling might be fine. Sweets, you know, drinks, lucasade, sports drinks, but a form of carbohydrate because our bodies aren't used to our bodies aren't capable of keeping going and going going. So yes, to energy gels. I had a funny situation with when I was doing my London Marathon last year.

And one of my consultants that I worked for, she was an ultra-gurly. Nice. She was an ultra-goly. She was a quick runner. I say girly. She was a middle-aged woman. Do you know? And she said, Faye, if you don't like gels, I've got these sweets that I really like personally.

So she sent me the Amazon link and I bought these gels. And I went on my long run and I had like one of these sweets. So I was doing every five kilometres. Is that about every half an hour? Yeah. We're aiming to hit at least. 50 to 60 grams of carbohydrate per hour. So depending on what you're using,

whether it's gels or sweets, it's actually looking at the grams of carbs and going, okay, how do I then translate this into how many do I need and how often do I need them? So that's a really important point from Sean that I could have used this time last year because I had one.

I was doing it in my head. I was doing every half an hour. Yeah. So for long runs. Yeah. Yeah. So I popped a suite after half an hour, next half an hour,

and it was on my 32 kilometre run. like the longest run you do before your marathon, okay? And I was absolutely wrecked. Oh my God, it was, I mean, your 32K run is awful anyway, but I was so wrecked. Anyway, I went into work on Monday morning, and I said, those sweets, they were awful. And then she goes, how many did you have?

Yeah. And I said, I had one, and she said, you meant to have eight. Yeah, eight per half an hour. And I, I went, oh, that makes complete sense. Yeah. And that's one of the big mistakes. makes people use when they're using sweets instead of gels. So it's actually maybe going, maybe we combine them with the gels and do like one gel

and then, you know, seven or eight sweets. It's not just like one sweet. So things like strawberry laces, if you look on the back of the packet, to hit 50 grams of carbs with strawberry laces, it's basically the whole bag per hour. So it's going actually the translation. That's why gels are great because they're small, they're compact, they're easy to carry. Can you imagine doing a marathon with like six packets? of strawberry laces.

You'd be chewing the whole way through. So yeah, it's actually going, it's more actually about the amount of carbohydrate you're getting. But we can do that in lots of different ways. And it's about what works for you as a runner. How many jelly babies do you know, roughly? I think it's a lot. You know, like squashums, like the two-coloured sweets?

Yes. That's like two-thirds of a packet an hour. Harry Bose is about half a bag an hour. It's not small amounts. Like mini-serine bars, it's three an hour. So if we're, yeah, if we're a place, We've got to up the amount. Got to be honest, I'm going to get your gel recommendations from you in a second.

But I really struggled with the gels. Yeah. So, but I found salt harness and I could really quickly shove them in my mouth. Yeah. The stickiness was sub-ideal. But I love salt harness. Yeah. Lots of people really like dates as well.

Yeah. The only thing you have to watch is the fibre. Okay. Because there's quite a lot of fiber in dried fruit. So it's going, maybe if you tried to do all five, or however long the marathon is going to take you, going to try and do all your hours on Sultanas, you're probably going to end up in the Portaloon not having a great time. But we could, you know, alternate that. So like we could go

sultanas, then we could go sweet, then we could go one gel. And it's like mixing between to go, okay, we don't want to overload our system, but also just practicing in your runs and seeing actually what you enjoy eating, what you could carry, what tastes good. And also at the end of the day, having as much as you possibly can is better than having a nothing, right? I would far rather someone had something than nothing. It honestly felt like I was hallucinating for the last 10 kilometers of the marathon, but I was telling my boyfriend basically every 10 minutes, maybe even like I was just chugging a gel because I was closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. But I just thought, you just need to get through this. Is there too much? Would

that have been too much? Well, so the kind of problem there is what we want to do with when we're taking on gels and things during running is remember that we're fueling forwards. Yeah. So we're not fueling to make up for what we've just done. Yeah. We're fueling to put energy in our tank for what we're about to do. So it's kind of like putting petrol in a car. You put the petrol in, then you drive. Yes. Not the other way around.

So in a marathon in any kind of endurance sport, it's really important to start fueling early. Because also the way that the blood sugar works with our brain, our guy kitchen stores. Our body would much rather early on in the race, our brain's going, we're so fine. We've got this.

It's fine. And that's actually one of the effects of the gels and the sugar, right? That it's telling our body it's safe. But in terms of like being able to overdo it, So when I'm saying like it's great if you hit 50 to 60 grams, we know that people can hit 120 grams an hour, like elite athletes. That's how much they take on. And honestly, you still wouldn't have been having anywhere near as much as 120 grams of carbs an hour.

So like you can't really, it's very difficult to overdo it. And actually, you know, where your body responds, you wouldn't be overdoing it. So it's just, yeah, like you say, whatever is going to get you through that last 10K? Absolutely do it. Yeah. It was really fight with my life. Gels, recommendations, do you have your top favourites? So there's quite a few different ones I use.

I actually use a mixture at the moment because a big thing is kind of taste fatigue and texture fatigue. So during a marathon, when you're having to take seven, eight gels, mixing between different brands can really help you get them down because you're not taking them the same one every time and the textures are weird. You also want to look at the grams of carbohydrates. So some have like 20 grams.

So then you're needing to take three an hour, whereas others have like 40 grams, which is great. But you've got to practice to know that your stomach can handle taking 40 grams in one go. Yeah. So it's actually going, right, do I like them liquid or chewy? So if you like them really liquid, high five are quite good or cis beta fuel. Whereas if you like them a bit thicker, Morton, precision fuel are good. And then that you can go, oh, well, should I switch it up with maybe I like something super sweet and really runny? So that's when the kind of like the maple syrup gels come in

and things like sap and the natural ones like hilltop honey. So it's actually just looking at all these brands available and just try them all out. And just literally go there is no right or wrong answer. It's what works for you as a runner and actually just go with them in that way. Nice. Yeah. Okay. Fab.

Electrolites. I could get on a really high horse for electrolytes. No, do it because I have got passionate about electrolytes before. I am so against electrolytes and all the media hype. and all the brat, all of it. Like, it's the biggest scam ever. If any of the audience can find one single person who is, like, a reputable, scientific person who is pro-electrolites, send them my way because I would love them on the podcast

because I cannot find any, like, you know, I have my personal reasons. Explain your reasons for being anti-electrolites. So there is only one case where I suggest use of electrolytes. And that is if you are exercising and doing kind of ultra-indulose, So when we're exercising for over 90 minutes and we're taking on water, we do need some form of sodium because of the way that our body absorbs water. There's something called hyponetremia, which is basically where we get too diluted we want to avoid. You know, there is a case for sodium only in those cases. But if you are exercising for that long, you should also be taking on carbohydrate. And actually, most carbohydrate sources, a lot of them do have a form of sodium in them. So then actually, that's then negating the reason for like an additional electrolyte. But again, in super endurance, that's a different ballpark. We're not, that's not who all these electrolyte companies are marketing at.

Those people have got it covered. They know what they're doing. They work with sports nutritionists. Our day-to-day people who are being sold these very, very, very expensive packets of table salt, which are the cheapest thing to manufacture being sold of these things that are going to magically cure your brain fog, you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All this long list of things. And then people go, oh, I feel so much better for having my electric. lights in the morning. It's like, no, you just drank a glass of water. Yeah. That's what's actually

happening here. And these, some of these sachets have got a huge amount of sodium and salt in them, which you would never put on your food because God bless the government guidelines of we've been trying to get people to have less salt for years. And I honestly do think in five years time, we will have a massive blood pressure issue in people our age group who've taken loads of electrolytes when they're, they've done a 45 minute gym workout, stood at a desk all day, drunk two bottles because that's what they were told. And I just have so many issues with it. I did a TikTok where I said it's salt rebranded.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, we were told for the last decade's not put too much salt on our food, not eat too much salt. And now we've been, yeah, sold it in sachets. You made a really good point about who these products are marketed to. Yeah. They are marketed to the general public. Because when I made that TikTok, one of the comments was,

but for people with pots, it's really helpful. Yeah. For people with pots, it is a treatment for pots. We're not talking about that. We are talking about everyday Tom Dick and Harry being sold this. Yeah. And it is. It's the almost using this as like a targeting people's weaknesses of everyone wants to have less brain fog and feel more energized.

And honestly, I feel like some of these electrolyte boxes are basically being like, I'm going to make you a better person. Yeah. And it's like, no, this is not, you're not, it's not healthy just because someone says it's healthy. we have to look at the whole environment. And yeah, there's a lot of things about the electrolytes. There's been some marketing recently where my friends who doctors have sent it in our doctors group chat, very not going to name names on the brand,

but I'm sure everyone actually can guess the brand. It's a very big brand that has been launched recently, prominent brand. I just want people to know that when the marketing, it's been working. Yeah. It works. Exactly. And honestly,

the number of times I'll do a talk and I'll get all, like so many questions about electrolytes. Yeah. And it, five years ago, no one had heard of them. Yeah. So it's like, actually, this is clearly come, we need to be aware this is coming from a place that is not trying to help people, people be happy and healthy.

It's going, oh, this is a really cheap product. We can manufacture in bulk and make clothes money off. Yeah. So like, I would say after a long run or after, dare I say, and I'm not promoting alcohol consumption by saying this, but when myself and my boyfriend are hung over, we will do, and maybe it's placebo, maybe it's not, because yeah, your body is a bit more dehydrated,

we will do a pinch of salt with like a lemon in. Lovely. The morning and we will do that as like a lot less salt content than the electrolytes. Yeah. But a little bit of salty wool, so probably does help the water get into yourselves a little bit quicker. Yeah.

You know, a little bit of lemon juice and it kind of does a nice little bit of flavouring. Yeah. And that's such a good point though. It helps you rehydrate a little bit quicker. Yeah. And in those cases, that can be useful. And also, you will probably then naturally put less salt on your food because you've gone,

oh, well, I've actually, I've had some salt today. So I don't need to like, that's, you know, we're balancing it across the day. Whereas can you imagine it, like, you're pouring a huge amount of salt in your water bottle and then probably got salt in your food. There's so much salt there. Yeah. And then it's kind of all the kind of trace electrolytes that then the marketing pulls on. We're getting loads in our food. And it's like, yeah.

We can leave. We can say. Yeah. a wave to the electrolytes as they sail off into the sunset. What's the most important thing about buy-or-by-bye as a section? What makes me extremely passionate about it is remembering that we are living in a cost of living crisis, people have finite resources. If you say yes to electrolytes, is that coming out of your budget to buy leafy greens,

to buy whole foods? And I think when we do buy-or-by-bye-bye, we recognise that by saying yes to something, you are saying no to something else because we unfortunately don't live with infinite funds. Yeah. So when we say bye-bye to electrolytes, we don't, we say bye-bye to people wasting their money. Absolutely. I'm so here for that. Yeah. Fasted cardio. Makes me cry. Please don't. Please, please, please, please, please, please don't do faster cardio. I'm dying to hear your opinion on this. Yeah. I heard a podcast recently where it was a woman talking about how fasted cardio is not a good thing. However, what she had found was that it was meant that women who were busier were saying,

oh, I can't exercise because I haven't eaten and then they just weren't exercising anyway. And it twigged with me because I was like, oh, when I did realize that exercising without eating was bad, I did just stop exercising because I couldn't fit it into my schedule. So fasted cardio. Yeah. A, why is it bad? Yeah. B, can you help me solve my dilemma, please? I have so many solutions. Yay. It's my job. Yeah. Yeah. So faster cardio, especially for women, is really, really not helpful for our overall health. So firstly has a massive effect on our hormones.

So when we wake up, our cortisol naturally rises. It's a good thing. We want that. But we don't want it to keep going up and up and up and up and up. And actually, by doing faster cardio, your body doesn't know if it's running away from a lion or you know, you're doing this by choice. Like your body doesn't know. It just puts your body in a stress state. And actually doing that rinse and repeating, especially if you're then opening a laptop straight away,

you're rushing to work, you've just got emails firing at you. You are so stressed, your body, again, it doesn't know what the reality is going on. It just knows there's stress there. And that's where we see that over the long term, it can have a real impact on your hormones, on reproductive hormones, on bone health,

also on energy availability. So firstly when you're doing faster cardio, you're missing an eating window. So you're already on the back foot of how much energy your body needs in a day. Because I can guarantee it's a lot more than you think it is. And there's also evidence that energy availability within a day. So we call it within day, LEA. So how much energy has gone in versus how much has gone out.

In women across a day having massive dips in energy availability, even if you eat enough in total, can actually have an effect on your hormones and how they work. Yeah. Can we just pause right here right now? And I, this is my poor boyfriend gets up. Oh, poor fiancé. Poor fiancé gets rinsed on this podcast because my fiancee is a gym boy.

Yeah. He was part of the era of calories in, calories out, gym, bro science. Fine. Love that for him. Whatever. He's an intelligent boy. Yeah. But we have this argument all the time, all the time.

And I tell him, Dylan, calories in, calories out. It is not the be all and end all. There is so much more complexities. And we have had the intermittent fasting trend where it doesn't matter how much you eat when you eat it, as long as you're in a calorie deficit. That is the only thing, whatever. As long as you're eating, how many calories you're eating in 24 hours is the most important thing. Sean is saying, for women especially, carry on, sorry, I just have to interject. Because it is and it's this whole, like, we've been sold all this science for so long of like, you hear one.

person say, oh, the science shows this. Yeah. Yeah, in 27 highly trailed men. Like, this is not the population that we're looking at. And they're not the people who suffer from this. Because I guarantee, if you put a woman on a fasted cardio program where you're making her intermittently fast, in three months time, I will look at her blood work and be like, oh, heck, we've got a big problem here. Because it's does, our hormones don't work the same as men. Like, they've got 24 hours. We've got 28 days. And actually, our hormones are a lot more complex and a lot more sensitive to energy availability. Because if you think, right, we've evolved through eras where if there was not enough food around and we were in a highly stressed state,

that meant there was a famine and our bodies were at war, there was something bad going on. Having a baby would be the last most problematic thing ever. And our bodies are obsessed with survival. They are super smart. They've got loads of things. They leave as they can pull. Things they can turn off. And if your body's sensing that it's, Everything's really stressful. There's loads of danger around. There's not enough food. It's going to go, right. So baby's problematic. That's where we then start seeing the effect on female hormones. And fasted cardio, we know is one of the things that massively impacts this. And I often get people men, shock, challenging me. You're going to, well, there's no science. Yeah, ethically, how am I going to, I'm not going to study this ethically, like, make loads of women fast cardio and then, like, not be able to have children. But we know working with people who are recovering from this, as soon as we stop fasted cardio, actually for some people, that can trigger their hormone cycle to come back straight away. And we know definitely that within day, low energy availability, so that kind of peaks and trough of energy. If you think you kind of have your bucket, right, if you pour out

everything from your bucket, you've got nothing, your body's then got ages. If it's waiting for you to eat and put energy back in before it can actually do anything, it's just having to sit there going, oh God, like, what's going on? What's going to happen next? I don't know. I don't understand. I'm stressed. And then at that point, your body's not functioning optimally. Like, you're going to feel brainful. You're going to feel tired. You're going to feel confused. Your blood sugar is going to be all over the place.

And that's not fixed by electrolytes, guys. No, it's absolutely not. Like, that's fundamentally fixed by carbohydrate. So it's actually going, faster cardio, you're not doing yourself any favors. So we just don't. Let's just not do that, guys. Like, let's really avoid it. But like you say, it doesn't have to be really complex.

And I don't want, I'm not saying that you have to eat a full breakfast before you go to the gym in the morning or Pilates or whatever. Whatever your exercise of choices, it's fine. Even if it's just before you go for a walk, even if you have a date to start off with, if you're not used to having anything, just try a date or half a banana. Just some orange juice. A 300 mils of orange juice has 30 grams of carbs in. That's fantastic. That's a great amount of carbs. It could be one crumpet.

it could be something really easy. It could be a squares bar. It's actually just starting small and doing anything is better than nothing. And yeah, when you look at your routine in the morning, often we find actually you probably can fit something, yeah, you will be able to fit something in. Even if it's like you wake up

and there is a squares bar sat next to you on your bed. It's already there. You know, all you've got to do is you're putting your leggings on and the squares bar goes in your mouth. Like actually, things like that, so we're looking for fast digesting carbohydrate. So we don't want protein. We don't want high fat and we don't need high fibre.

So it's just going, okay, I know that I need something that's going to digest quickly and give me some energy. This is my range of options. They don't have to be full meals. Can you tell me the truth on this? Because I feel that when I was growing up, we were told, don't eat too close to exercise. However, you know, 10 years later, I am running a marathon eating some harry bows. Yeah.

Like if I had a glass of orange juice and then it's 15 minutes walk for me to get to the gym, then is that okay? So it's all about our bodies being individual. Okay. And actually, everybody is different. And you can also train your gut. So gut training is a huge part of marathon training. It's a huge part of sport training.

And it also being able to eat before exercise is, again, something you can train yourself to do. And we very much know that this is a thing and like gut tolerance around exercise is something we can train. So it's going, okay, where am I now? And where do I want to get to? And how am I going to get there slowly? So I used to not be able to eat very close to running, whereas now I can literally eat a bagel and peanut butter and a banana and then be running an intense session 45 minutes later.

But I used to have to leave that two hours. So it's firstly looking at the intensity of your exercise. So the lower intensity, the closer to it you'll be able to eat and your stomach will be able to handle it. And then if it is a more intense session, you might need to leave a little bit longer. But what you can do is you can start going, okay, so that felt. I had a squares bar and I left it 45 minutes. That felt fine. Okay, maybe next time I try 40 minutes and see how that feels. And you can like work up and close that gap down. So it's all just about seeing where you are now, testing that out. And then if it doesn't work, you just nodge it back a bit. Or if you try something doesn't sit right, try something else. Like the banana didn't work. Try the orange juice. That didn't work. Try the dates. Like it's all use using yourself as a little experiment of one. Like it's kind of fun in that way. Nice. Okay. So for the girlies listening, who they want to try it out, and for me, me also, would my orange juice 15 to 20 minutes before a mid-intensity workout, would that be a good starting point? And then if it doesn't work, do you think that's a good starting point to try? Yeah, yeah, definitely. Or a squares bar. It's kind of the same comparative. Because some people, if you're jumping up and down, the orange juice can feel a bit sloshy. You know, I used to get that when I used to play net, but I used to get like water bottle belly, I used to call it. Like, you feel a sloshy. around. But if you were doing, say, a reform of Pilates class where actually you're not jumping,

that would be a root, because you're not sloshing around, that makes sense. So that's another good thing to think about, okay, like, what movements am I doing? How do I feel? Do I want something solid or liquid? I'm going from there. But yeah, starting, I generally say, half a banana, half an hour out is a good place. The orange juice generally people can tolerate closer to the exercise. So yeah, it's just starting with those and then see how you go. Nice. And we've had a couple of nutritionists on and they've been telling us, you know, fiber, whole foods, all this nutrition advice. So for the listeners who are listening, I feel like I'd be doing a disservice if I don't bring this up. Because I think that's the worst thing about health.

Some health advice is often you get so much contradictory advice. Where do these quick digestible carbs fit into an overall healthy diet when we're told don't have ultra-processed foods? Try whole grains as much as possible. try high fiber. Yeah. So when we're kind of looking at active populations and we're looking at performance nutrition, we're looking at a different use case to the general pop.

So when we have an active population, all these guidelines in terms of have X amount of energy a day, blah, blah, blah. They actually don't apply to a general population. But what does still apply is we want a balanced diet, we want fiber, we want protein, we want all this range of food. but it's all about timing. And I always say that there's no such thing as a bad food. There's no such thing as a bad food.

There's just different food we want at different times. So actually, remembering that when we're exercising, our body processes glucose, it responds to insulin very differently to how it would be with us sat here right now. So like, am I going to smash a gel right now and sit here? Like, probably not. It's not great. But if I'm about to go and do a run, it's having a gel really great. Yeah, it's absolutely fabulous.

And it's also going, okay, a steak with, you know, loads of spinach and potatoes as a balanced meal. Fantastic. Do I want that before my run? No, absolutely not. So it's going, okay, in this situation, we have different foods at different times. So our fibre, our whole grains, our protein, we save for after exercise. And then before exercise is where we're looking at these fast digesting carbs. So we're going for the white bagels, the honey, the jam, banana, things like that.

and then we're not having protein and high fibre beforehand because that's just really not going to help us because it's firstly not giving us the energy we need. It's going to make that window between eating and exercising even longer because the whole idea of adding fibre and fat is that we make a meal digest slower and it keeps us satiated for a long time. That's not what we want before we run. So it's just looking at, okay, what is the goal right now? so therefore what nutritional choice is going to help me reach it.

I'm sure a lot of the audience will be able to resonate with this where I just found myself in this paralysis state when there's seemingly health advice that feels difficult to navigate, which is the main reason why the podcast exists. But on one hand, there was, you know, fasted cardio is bad. Yeah. Well, now I know I did have time, but I felt like, oh, but then I don't know what to eat. because I've been told that actually we need all this time

and actually I've been told that we need to eat whole foods and fibre and all that ended up happening was I didn't do anything. And like you've made a really important point that ultra-processed non-whole food and then doing a run is so much more healthy than not doing the run at all because exercise is so beneficial for every, you know, every single health outcome that exists. Absolutely. And I always say, also, the worst diet for a runner is fundamentally one that doesn't have enough energy in it. But that is fundamentally the base of our nutritional pyramid is that we are having enough. And actually, if you're training for a marathon, how on earth are you going to get the amount of energy and nutrition you need without having fast digesting carbohydrates? Like they are genuinely a nutritional tool that we need to use to be as healthy as we can possibly be when we're asking our.

body to do something like train for endurance sport or things like that. And it is, it's kind of going, okay, so if I'm zooming out on my diet, we're not focusing on one particular moment, because we're also not matching output to input, so bodies aren't calculators, zooming out with that helicopter view. Overall, do I have a diet that is balanced and healthy? And not healthy in like the green juice way, healthy in the way of, is it enough? Is it enough energy for my body? am I getting, am I hitting all of my macronutrients? Like, have I got sufficient carbs? Have I got some protein?

As a side note, no one will be deficient in protein. That's also a marketing ploy. Fiber, are we, have we got a huge rainbow on our plates? Because actually, the more colours you can get on your plate, the more antioxidants, the more vitamins. That's all going to support your recovery. It's going to support your body. And then have you got healthy fats in there?

Because actually having nutrition before you exercise doesn't negate or excurs. any of those things, we're just having them at a different point in our day and a different point in our diet. And I think for a lot of girlies who have grown up with diet culture, that can be the addition mindset. When we've been constantly told by society to restrict, can be really difficult to welcome into our lives. And I can't wait to talk about that a little bit more a little bit later on. Oh, well, we've touched on this, but protein shakes. Protein shakes, I don't hate them. Can there be nuance to them?

Absolutely. Nuances. I love nuances, not enough nuance. Because the thing with protein shakes is they can be a useful nutritional tool, but it's understanding the context of where they are useful. So if someone's saying to me, oh, I'm about to go an exercise, I'm having a protein shake before I go. I'm going to go, oh, don't do that.

But that's not actually helping you. it's a waste of the protein. It's going to sit horribly in your tummy. It's not going to feel very nice. And actually it's not giving you energy. You'd be far better off having something else. Yeah. Whereas after your run, if someone goes,

I'm having a protein shape, I'd be like, cool, but what are you having with it? Because actually, it's not just, protein is not the be all and end all. And actually, protein is only useful in the face of carbohydrate. So actually, you have to be having the carbohydrate as well for your body to, A, do anything with the protein. And refueling our tanks after exercise.

is just as important as the protein. And whatever form that takes, it's fine because sometimes, you know, we're on the go. Like, we can't always eat perfectly. And there's no such thing as a perfect diet. So protein shakes, you know, if we need things to be easy and you don't have another option for any form of protein, cool. But it's just looking at it going, okay, in totality with what else we're having, are they enough? Because, yeah, the lean protein shakes will avoid those unless you're having a banana with them. So, yeah.

Nice. Combination. Pre-workout powder. Pre-workout powder scares me. Well, the tingles. Yeah, the tingles are so weird. Yeah, so that's from BCAAs. There's kind of, the evidence on BCAAs, honestly, for the way a lot of us are exercising

is probably not going to really, you know, help us. I think a lot of people need to be aware that pre-workout powder has a huge amount of caffeine and stimulants in them. So it's not actually giving you energy. it is just a stimulant. So it's not an alternative to having a source of carbohydrate. It's just if you really want to feel pumped up.

I mean, if I'm about to do a hard session, I'd much rather have a coffee because I enjoy it. And I'm getting some caffeine there. I've got some stimulant. But I'm also having my bagel, my banana, my jam, my honey. And the BCAAs, yeah, I've had the tingles from it one too many times.

Oh, horrible. Can't make it stop. I feel like they had a real moment on Instagram like the original fitness influencer, like the BCAA pad of the yeah you're shaking in the gym yeah yeah pass okay

carb loading love bye bye bye as in I want it all and I will be carb loading it's a big part of endurance sport that can actually you know when we've put so much effort into months and months of training

doing something that's going to help us out in the two to three days before a marathon or one to two days before a half marathon fantastic It's also, though, remembering that we do not have to do it in a way that we do not feel comfortable with. And, you know, the literature would suggest 10 to 12 grams per kilogram of body weight of carbohydrate. But my massive caveat to that is that most of us are probably not eating anywhere near that amount of carbohydrate. So if you went from where you are, if that was much less, and tried to hit that amount of carbohydrate,

you would feel horrible. Like, you would feel really rubbish in your race. You wouldn't enjoy it. And also, I'm not a fan of counting, measuring, weighing food. I don't think it's necessary. And I don't think it's helpful for most people. So when we're talking about carb loading, what I always talk about is kind of the proportions on our plate.

So say you'd normally have half your plate full of pasta. Just tick that up to two thirds. We just increase the proportion of carbs. And then we just shrink down the other bits. So we have a bit less protein, a bit less fibre. And then we still have some healthy fats. So we're not excluding anything, but we're just changing the proportions of our plate. And then we're making sure that our snacks are nice and carby.

So a morning snack, an afternoon snack, a pre-bed snack. Also drinking carbs. There's really good. So smoothies, fruit juice, sports drinks, things like that. But yeah, it's really useful, but we just do it in a way that works for us. I think when I was doing my marathon, like, I love carbs. I love carbs. And honestly, carb loading was my favorite part of marathon training.

Oh my God, absolutely loved it. And then I, someone told me I was cobloading too much and I was personally offended. I think there was at one point I had four bagels. Fine. I regularly have four bagels in a day. Yes. Fine. Because they went, oh, I think I saw a video that maybe suggested that I didn't need to be doing it that much.

And that made me very sad because I was thoroughly enjoying it. And honestly, the fact that you're enjoying it is what I care about the most. Nice. It really is because actually, if anyone is making comments on your food whilst you are marathon training, we'll say bye-bye to them. Good. People should not be commenting on your food. Whatever you are eating is up to you.

And we are doing this to make our bodies as happy and healthy. And we are the ones who have to do the marathon and know how it feels. Yeah. Because I've done a marathon without carb loading before and it's not fun. Nice. So it's actually going, you know what? You can have a way better day if you do some carb loading. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Slay. I frequently had two dinners every night on the lead-ups, and it was brilliant. It was absolutely phenomenal. I was like, another dinner? Yeah, why not? It was fab! Oh my God, I miss it. Now I want to do another marathon. It was the most fun ever. Running on coffee. No, it's not breakfast. It's not breakfast. So as we're saying kind of with the pre-workout, caffeine is a stimulant.

not actually energy. So you're not actually getting the energy your muscles need from a coffee. If we're pairing it with, say you're putting a load of maple syrup in that coffee, fabulous, fine. That's a way to, you know, get around that. Yeah, maple syrup and coffee's delicious. Or are we having a banana with it or some banana bread or a bagel or a crumpet? I love banana bread. Yeah, and crampets.

Cremps are great. I've honestly just fantasising about my week of card loading. The way I smashed through the crumpets was just, I, I, I missed crumpets. Because I haven't had crumpets in school. I think I got like two, the big warped in crumpets as well. Sorry. No.

Yeah, crampet before running. Also pancakes. You don't have pancakes. Like the pre-cooked pancakes you can buy. Yeah. Those are fantastic. Anyway. But yeah, running on coffee makes me sad.

And as we were saying, like, there's a lot around coffee. We see a lot online and there's a lot of stuff on social media about like, oh, coffee on an empty stomach's bad. It's all personal, right? but if you're not having a source of carbohydrate with your coffee and then you're going out for a run, it's basically faster cardio. Yeah. Okay. Chocolate milk.

I'm obsessed. I love it. I drink it all the time and it's my favourite. Nice. Yeah. It's one of those things like you're saying like, where do we not need to be spending money? And it's on expensive post-workout shakes. So chocolate milk has a perfect ratio of protein and carbohydrate.

So when I was saying earlier that those lean protein shakes and how we want a source of carbs with them, just swap them out for some chocolate milk because actually it's got, so we go for a three to one ratio of carbohydrate to protein. So it's actually more carbs than protein we want. And in that first kind of 20 to 30 minutes after an exercise session, so normally like moderate to intense exercise, our muscles are super receptive to nutrition. So if you give them some carbohydrates and protein, they will get right started on that recovery. So actually, when we're then wanting to, know, go again tomorrow or also feel better later in the day, having that bottle of chocolate milk to tied us over from ending our session to when we then follow it up with a full balanced meal

can be really, really useful. I used to feel wiped out after my long runs on the weekend. Like just that was my day written off, you know? And it doesn't have to be. It really doesn't have to be. So having anything, even when it's like, I know sometimes when we finish a long run or an intense session, we feel a bit icky. Like, you feel a bit nauseous.

You feel like, oh, the last thing I want to do is eat. But I promise if you might. managed to get something in, you will feel remarkably better for the rest of the day. And also that kind of like three, four o'clock, you won't have such a bad, like, often people crash then. This can really stop that. But it is also following it up with a meal, kind of a few hours later. But again, this can kind of be a bit of a gateway to remind your body like, no, no, I do actually want, I want more than just, you know, a little bit of chocolate milk. But I mean, milk is fantastic. Because it's also, it's got those electrolytes we're talking about. It's in your milk. It's

going to help with hydration. There's water content in there. So it's actually a real, yeah, I'm going to call it a superfood. Nice. Thank you for listening. If you would like to hear the full episode with even more jam-packed knowledge, then just click the link in. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what-if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca.ca. description.