WHOOP Podcast - Understanding nutrition, eating disorders, and their impact on performance

Episode Date: February 17, 2021

This week’s episode is a deep dive on nutrition and how eating disorders can negatively affect your body and your performance. Allison Lynch, our Senior Marketing Manager of Running and Women’s Performance, details her powerful personal battle with anorexia and bulimia and shares how she overcame her eating disorders. Allison sits down with WHOOP VP of Performance Kristen Holmes to talk about her journey and just how important proper nutrition is for all athletes. They discuss the serious consequences of eating disorders (5:25), how many suffer in silence (6:43), anorexia and bulimia (7:47), the prevalence of eating disorders in track and field (11:55), addiction (16:02), the root cause of eating disorders (19:07), getting healthy (30:57), thinking about food positively (32:55), intuitive eating (36:19), increasing education on nutrition and well-being (45:43).Support the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

What's up, folks? Welcome back to the WOOP podcast. I'm your host, Will Amit, founder and CEO of WOOP, and we are on a mission to unlock human performance. If you've never heard of WOOP, or this is your first time listening, a reminder, you can use the code Will Amit to get 15% off a W-WP membership. That's W-I-L-L-H-M-E-D. The W-W-M membership includes hardware and software and analytics,

and it's going to help you get healthier and be a better person. Okay, this week's episode is a deep dive on nutrition and how disordered eating can negatively affect your body and your performance. Alison Lynch, our senior marketing manager of running and women's performance, sits down with WOOP VP of Performance Kristen Holmes to detail her powerful personal battle with anorexia and bulimia. Allison shares how she overcame her eating disorders, what she learned along the way, and explains just how critical good nutrition is for all athletes.

Kristen and Allison discuss how eating disorders are incredibly dangerous. They go into the numbers on eating disorders, the second deadliest mental illness only behind opioid addiction, why the psychology of an eating disorder is similar to substance abuse, just how resilient your body can be even when it's not getting the nutrient. it needs, what intuitive eating is, and why they're big believers that it primes your body for peak performance, and how anybody can look at food and nutrition in a more positive light. This is a really important discussion. I think you'll take a lot away from it. And without further ado, here are Kristen and Allison. Kristen Holmes here, Vice President of Performance Science.

Very excited today to have a chat with Allison Lynch. Alice and I actually came in around the same time, didn't we, Allison? Yeah, we did, like almost five years ago at this point. Really excited to have Allison. She is in charge of WOOP marketing communications and has recently transitioned a role as category manager for running and women's performance. Allison is also a competitive runner for Boston North Track and competes in events, including the 800 Mile and 5K.

She's been running in the club scene for almost eight years and has done pretty much every event from the 400 meter to the full marathon. So today we are going to tackle a discussion that is, I think, really important and I think particularly relevant that in a topic I think that's not covered probably as often as it needs to be. And I think as it relates to just kind of whoop, you know, we're a human performance company. We're trying to unlock the, you know, secrets your body is telling you. And I think we often talk about, you know, all the positive side benefits of performance, but we don't necessarily focus on some of the darker side of performance. And we really wanted to try to tackle eating disorders today and human performance.

I will say that neither Allison nor I are clinicians that said, we want to have just a discussion. We want to talk about Allison's personal journey. And she's going to have a, you know, in a second here, she's going to kind of tell you a bit about her story. but I'm really excited to be able to dig into this topic with Allison as it's, I think, really important and relevant really for anyone. I think there's probably not a human being on the planet who at some point hasn't struggled with body issues in some way, shape, or form. So I think this is a really interesting topic to be able to dig into and talk specifically about how, you know, eating impacts performance and disordered eating in particular impacts performance. So Allison,

And before we dig into just your personal story, let's just do like just a quick overview of what is an eating disorder. And this will give us just a better platform to be able to have this discussion. I mean, my goal in bringing this topic to light is, you know, education, awareness and being able to share with the greater whoop community, you know, to talk about like what are eating disorders? Because a lot of people, I don't think realize the severity of an eating disorder. The ANAD, which is the National Association of Anorexia nervosa and associated

eating disorders defines eating disorders as serious life-threatening mental illnesses that can affect anyone regardless of age, race, gender identity, sexual orientation, or background. So it really can affect anybody. It's a universal thing. It does primarily affect young women just because I think for a lot of different reasons, but it can affect anybody. And people experience severe disturbances in their eating behaviors and related thoughts and emotions. And the two most common eating disorders are anorexia and bulimia. Anorexia being, you know, it's an eating disorder and metabolic condition that results in excessive weight loss and extreme fitness caused by self-starvation. Whereas bulimia, people are caught in a cycle of eating large quantities of food,

which is called binging, and then trying to compensate for that by vomiting or taking laxatives or diuretics and exercising excessively, which is called purging. So these are two of the most common. These are two that I've experienced personally. And I guess just a little bit more about eating disorders, they're very common. They affect 9% of the population worldwide, which is crazy to think about. That includes a range of disordered eating and severity. You know, not everyone who has an eating disorder is on the verge of losing their life, but it's still equally as severe because it can always progress to something worse. So you do want to take it seriously no matter what. And according to the A&D, 26% of those suffering from an eating disorder actually attempt suicide, which is an

incredibly high rate. And that does make eating disorders among one of the deadliest mental illnesses out there, second only to opioid overdose. It's kind of scary to say that, but I do want to set the stage that this is a serious topic. And a lot of people think, that, like, eating disorders might just be, you know, a young girl who doesn't want to eat or is self-conscious about their body. No, you need to take this seriously. And if you do notice these behaviors in yourself or in someone else, you need to get help or you need to support that person so they can get the help they need. You should not let them go about their way and continue these behaviors because it can result in life-altering consequences. That's why it's so

important to talk about it because you probably know someone who's struggling with an eating disorder, even if they haven't said anything, even if you haven't noticed anything. A common misconception about eating disorders, too, is that you can physically notice it. It's like, oh, if someone's really, really skinny, they have an eating disorder. That's not true at all. There are people who look totally normal, who are severely suffering inside. And there are people who are also really, really skinny who are totally healthy. I mean, you can't just base it off the way someone looks. That goes back to why it's rooted in mental illness first before it becomes a physical disorder. So, you know, we're not going to be able to, there's all sorts of different types

of eating disorders. You know, we're not going to talk about all of them. We're going to focus specifically on the disorder that Allison struggled with. Allison, talk a little bit about your specific disorder and kind of what the what the original trigger was you know what kind of set you down this path of of disordered eating and kind of how did it how did it evolve over the over the course of the four or five years yeah for sure I mean I struggled with anorexia and bulimia it started out as anorexia I mean I'm not really sure where to start it's like such a long process I guess yeah like I said like I was a really active kid when I was younger like did soccer basketball, gymnastics, and then I started doing track and field and cross country in high school.

And, like, I was always, like, the skinny friend, like the skinny girl. Like, I'm tall, I'm lean. Like, people have always praised me for being thin, and it's always been kind of reinforced for me. And so, you know, at a young age, like, I associated thinness with, like, positive, like, that was a positive thing. And that was, like, a good thing. That's how I was validated.

So it became a large part of your identity? It did. It did. And I also grew up with a pretty religious background, too. Like I was raised in a conservative evangelical household. I'm not religious anymore, but there's a culture of shame towards women and their bodies and exposing their bodies. And so I kind of had like the perfect cocktail of an environment to allow this eating disorder to thrive. when I did start developing, like as a young woman, probably like my sophomore year, you know, I'm noticing developing breasts. I'm getting hips. I'm getting thighs. And by no means would anybody call me fat at all. It's just, you know, you go from this prepubescent stage where you're just, you're thin and like you don't put on any weight. You can eat literally

whatever you want. And then all of a sudden, you know, you do start putting on. some weight because that's that's natural it's normal and no one's there to really tell you that's normal like it wasn't part of the coaching program at school it wasn't something like my parents really talked about with me it was just like okay one day i wake up and i guess like i have breaths now and i had this really negative visceral reaction to it you just bring up a good point that that no one's really there to coach you through that moment you know where i can certainly relate to that i mean I was a maybe 5-3 as a, as a freshman. I ran track, you know, ran pretty fast mile times, you know, sub, I think I was, you know,

somewhere between 5, 520 and, you know, 530 consistently. And then all of a sudden, I guess, same. I hit puberty. And I grew four inches, gained a good 30 pounds, I think, you know, but I just my bias, I've completely changed. And there was no one really there to kind of coach me through that phenomenon. that was happening, you know, and you just, you don't know how to frame it. Like, there's no one there to help you frame it, you know. And, and I think that can be a source of a massive distress,

you know, for a young woman. And I think especially, and I think sports can be helpful, but sports can also be harmful depending on the sport that you play. It seems like quite a disservice not to have something, you know, some sort of playbook in place to, to help young women transition, you know, through this moment and coaches, frankly, you know, some sort of insight to help them understand how to help a woman, because that's when women quit sports, right, is during this time period, right? And at Stacey Sims, you know, one of our research collaborators who's an expert in female physiology and has done tons of research. But she talks a lot about this dynamic, right, this transition from, you know, going from, you know, through puberty and how how women just

literally quit playing sports. And I think a lot of that time, to be able to maintain performance levels, you start to restrict your eating or you start to see, I can't perform like I used to, so I need to go back to that original body in order to get back to my performance levels that I had as opposed to adapting and changing. Maybe talk a little bit about that dynamic, Allison, because I'm sure that that played a huge part in kind of where you sat as you went from after puberty and kind of what your performance levels were like. I think especially in track and field eating disorders are really prevalent among young girls because like technically speaking, the lighter you are, the faster you can go. That's not, that's not like a black or

white statement. But, you know, in general, a lot of these elite athletes you see, they're pretty thin women. A lot of, you know, they're fit, they're lean, but thinness is definitely like praised a lot in track and field. So I thought that's what my body type had to look like. Like I had to be as skinny as possible in order to perform at my best in order to be faster. And obviously, like, that wasn't true at all. But this is what I had in my head. And this goes back to how eating disorders are like an actual mental illness. You start to develop these irrational beliefs in your head that, you know, your body is fat and that the less you eat, the healthier you are.

So it was around my sophomore or junior year that I basically made the decision like I'm going to lose all the weight that I've gained and I'm going to go back to how I was before puberty, basically. And I woke up every day and I like made that my goal. And I was probably surviving off of like, I don't know, maybe a thousand to 1,200 calories a day, which for an athlete who's, you know, maybe 16 years old, I probably should have been eating double that at least because I'm running every day. I'm still going to practice. I'm a straight A student. I'm holding all of this shit together at the same time, like destroying my body in the process. And so this is kind of how it all started. It was just like, it was just all in my head. It was just me. I didn't tell anybody else about this. I didn't tell my friends or family. I made this commitment to myself that I was going to lose weight. And that's how I was going to be a better runner. That was how I was going to get external validation from other people. And four months later, I had lost almost 30 pounds. I was about 98 pounds. I'm 5'8. So you can imagine what that looks like. And I was still running competitively. I actually ran quite well, which is crazy to think about. I ran like my PR and the thousand meter and the mile in high school. And I was surviving off of hardly anything. Like I basically would only eat before practice or like before a race because then I'd have enough energy to sustain me during that time. And it's amazing like actually how resilient your body is. But I think what is

so deadly about this disease is that you don't necessarily deteriorate immediately, right? It's what happens in the future, right? And that's what's, I think, so hard for individuals to realize, you know, if you haven't enjoyed, usually the last person to kind of recognize that you have something wrong with you, right? But in order to kind of seek help, there has to be some sort of event or moment that just stops you in your tracks that makes you seek help. And, you know, I think when you don't, when you're still performing, right? Like there's no real incentive for you to kind of get help. So what was kind of that moment that you were like, shit, I need to get help?

You know, because you're just, you're PRing. You're doing, you know, you're basically surviving, you know, to your point here. What was that moment that you're like, all right, I actually need to get some help? Yeah, it wasn't really until my coach and my parents essentially had like an intervention with me and confronted me about it because, I mean, you could see the dramatic weight loss. Like, you could see what I looked like. I looked like a skeleton. And it was pretty obvious to anybody that I had lost a ton of weight. So yeah, it was pretty much like an intervention. And my mom said that I needed to go see a doctor. I didn't want to see a doctor because, again, I think

I had a problem. And I also just want to highlight how eating disorder is mirror the psychology of like substance abuse too. So, you know, people who struggle with substance abuse or things like alcoholism or opioid addictions, they're in denial. They don't think they have a problem, but they live and die for their addiction. They do everything they can to feed this addiction. And that's what I was doing. I woke up. I thought about my eating disorder. I thought about calories. I isolated myself from friends and family because I didn't want anybody to know about this and that's how I was able to lose so much weight in such a rapid amount of time because I had isolated myself from people. So like I said, it wasn't until I was pretty much forced to go

see a doctor. The doctor looked at me and basically said, if you continue down the path you're going on, you risk severe life altering consequences or you're going to die. She looked at me and then she said, you risk death and that's the path that you're on. And so that was probably at the point I realized, like, yeah, maybe I should take this seriously. But in my mind, I wasn't there yet. I kind of didn't believe this doctor. I was like, she's fucking crazy. Like, there's no way. Like, I'm doing great. I'm eating carrots and apples and I'm eating healthy. Like, who is she to tell me that, like, I'm going to risk all these severe consequences. And so, you know, what was I going to do after that? Well, she gave me two

choices. She said, you can do our outpatient treatment, which involves weekly weigh-ins and check-ins, you know, of your vitals and stuff. And, you know, I have to start seeing a therapist. And I would have had to gain like one to two pounds per week to be on track. Or she said, you can stay here. You don't, like, you can't go home. And you'll sit in a hospital. bed and do inpatient treatment and we'll feed you three meals a day and we'll watch you eat and if you don't want to eat we're going to feed you with a tube and so it was pretty you know pretty harsh that's they don't they don't sugarcoat it um because they can't like you're dealing with someone's you're dealing with life or death here and you're dealing with someone's health and

you know the doctor basically gave me those choices and i chose to do the outpatient treatment because I wanted to go back home and I didn't like the idea of being stuck in a hospital bed. Nobody would like that. And thus began my six-month journey back to gaining weight again in this constant battle. I can imagine those six months were not easy. And you were seeing a psychologist, I imagine, you know, during all of this. What was that process like? Yeah.

I guess the goal of seeing the therapist is like. trying to figure out what caused the eating disorder in the first place, because at the root of eating disorders, it's not really always about weight loss or being skinny. And I think that's a misconception. It's rooted in a lot deeper issues. And I think for me, that was just a lack of self-esteem and a lack of the ability to care for myself and love myself and accept myself for who I was. And it was rooted in a deep sense of anxiety and fear, too, that I feel like I carried around with me because I didn't really know how to cope with my body going through puberty. I didn't know how to cope with being like this anxious kind of awkward kid in high

school and getting older and stuff. And so that anxiety just kind of manifested into this eating disorder behavior because it became obsessive, compulsive, and it became like a framework for my life, you know. Yeah, that's a control, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, imagine like your, everything feels really chaotic, you know, when you're, I think just being a teenager is hard just generally, right?

There's like so much happening hormonally and, you know, your chemistry is changing. Like, it's, it's just, it's not an easy time, you know, and I think. To your point, like when you have, when you're relying on validation at such a young age, you know, as your kind of primary source of, you know, affirmation and identity, that that just becomes like a very shaky platform, you know, like that you, it's not something that you can grasp onto in a, in a meaningful way or it's not a good long term solution. I think to your point, like, you know, you start grasping for control in other ways, right? right. Gosh, that's not easy. So maybe just, you know, when you think back on those six months, when did you feel like you made a breakthrough? You know, when was that moment where you felt like, all right, I am, I am worthy. It's not about the number on the scale. It's not about what people necessarily think about me and or how they're looking at me. Like when was that

moment where you were like, you felt like some level of acceptance. It was tough. And I don't really think that I solved that in six months. I think my main motivation was I wanted to run again. And I wasn't going to be allowed to run until I gained a proper amount of weight back and I got my period again because I had lost my period during this time. And I said, okay, well, if that's what it's going to take to be able to run. I'll gain the weight back. I'll do what what these crazy doctors are telling me. And I'll do just enough, just enough so I can start running again. And you actually didn't believe that something was wrong still. No, no, no, no, because I'm 16 years old. I'm not thinking

about long-term consequences like loss of fertility, osteoporosis, loss of bone density. These things are like foreign concepts to me and we can't protect that far out of the future when yeah yeah you're so young and like so resilient like you said earlier like you think you can handle anything so but yeah i mean i did it because i did acknowledge that i had a problem i was like yeah you know i have lost a lot of weight i do feel like shit all the time and like man i am pretty hungry when i wake up so i acknowledged it to some degree and um i did work really hard to gain the weight again. I probably put on about a pound, pound and a half a week. So, you know, that was done through eating three meals a day, snacks, protein shakes. My mom would

like have eating parties for me, which is funny. Like she would like invite my friends over and like make cake and brownies and you'd get pizza and just try to normalize like eating with friends and eating the like scary junk foods that I had avoided for so long because like when you have an eating disorder you have a mental list of like safe foods and unsafe foods and pretty much any food with like fat or or sugar or junk was like unsafe and not that you should be eating a lot of that but yeah you know it's okay to indulge every once no while so yeah i guess once i once i did finally get back to a healthy weight and i had my period did return you know i think i think i just started realizing like, wow, I've been eating so much. And I thought I was going to like blow up

like a whale, but I put back on maybe 18, 20-ish pounds. I still hadn't gained the full amount back, but I had gained enough to have a healthy BMI. And I did end up getting a bone density scan a few years later. And they did confirm that I had osteopenia in my, my wrist, my lower back, and I think my hip, but. Yeah. So, I mean, that's like a. step before this. Jeez. Yeah. I think that was really, really shocking to me because, well, I guess I have to backtrack a little bit here. My senior year of high school, when I was allowed to run again, and I had gained enough weight, I actually had a really good year that cross-country season. I was our league champion. I went to an invitational,

the Brown Invitational when I got third, which is one of like the most competitive invitational meets in Massachusetts. So I actually had a great season and I was really happy with myself. And I was like, wow, like, I guess like eating all this food is this helping me. But then my indoor season, I broke two bones in my feet. I got two metatarsal stress fractures. And I was only running like 30 miles a week, which is not nearly enough to. to break your, to break bones, you know? And that's, of course, like me, you had an eating disorder for a while. And your body was trying to catch up in terms of nutrition and bone health.

Yeah. And that was devastating to me because I was getting recruiting letters from college. And I was back on track in terms of my performance and feeling healthy. And these two stress fractures completely derailed my senior year. And I really had to take a look at myself then. say like, wow, like I, I really destroyed my body a year or two ago. And it's going to keep destroying my running career and my life if I keep doing that. And it took a long time for those stress fractures to heal. Normally it's like a six to 12 week process, but it took me like twice

that amount because I just like, my body just like couldn't do it. I still wasn't back to normal. So it just kind of derailed my whole senior year And I ended up not going to a competitive school in college for running Because I just kind of had to put it on the backside And I was still struggling and battling with this eating disorder thing. So yeah, I really regret that because I didn't end up having the collegiate career I wanted. But after college, I actually got a lot more competitive And the running definitely got better after that.

But yeah, it was still a battle. not going to lie. You got through that six-month period. You did just enough to get cleared to play. And then you have the, you know, basically you get sidelined with these, with these two injuries and you're out for a pretty long period of time. You have to dial back your career and kind of your aspirations there. What was college like? You know, how did you, you know, were you continuing to see a therapist? Like, you know, how did you manage in that environment? Because that's also, I think, a pretty strong trigger, right? When you're in a new environment, new friends, you know, new types of foods. Like, you know, I think, you know, just

from, you know, kind of spending a lot of time as a collegiate coach, like I, I kind of seen this dynamic close up, you know, where it's, it's a tough environment socially, right? Like, there's a lot of pressures academically. And, you know, you're trying to figure out how to fit in. I think, too, there's this effortless perfection thing that is, you know, kind of part of the college culture as well that I think is obviously really detrimental for for young women to navigate. So kind of what was your experience? And can you relate to any of that? Yeah. I mean, you're so right, Kristen. College can be a really challenging transition for so many young adults and especially those of us who haven't really developed those life skills yet and like

ability to to take care of ourselves on our own. So you can imagine for someone with an eating disorder, that's especially challenging because you're in this brand new place. There aren't really any rules anymore. You can kind of eat whatever and whenever. And you also have the ability to hide your eating disorder from friends and family because no one's really watching you eat your meals anymore. So, you know, in college, I definitely on paper, I was at a healthy weight. I was getting my period.

But it was at that time that I developed bulimia. and bulimia was a way for me. I could still maintain my weight and kind of maintain that outward, healthy appearance, so to speak. But inside, I was still struggling a lot. You know, the bulimia cycle is binging a lot of food and then purging. So, you know, physically throwing up and over-exercising, which in my case, I did both. And, you know, it's one of the most self-deprecating things to force yourself to throw up and purge and feel like you have zero control over. your food intake. And, you know, even if you're not losing weight when you're bulimic,

because you're still, you're still eating and you're still, you're not throwing it all up. But it really presents a lot of different issues, like upsetting your gut and your microbiome, you know, having a serious imbalance of electrolytes in your system. So you can get dizzy. You can get lightheaded. So, yeah, this persisted for, for a few years in college. Sometimes I would go a couple months without having any issues and then a week I would be triggered from from stress or from you know breaking up with a boyfriend or whatever and these things would would trigger these eating disorder behaviors in me so unfortunately I still wasn't treating my body with the care and respect that it needed in college and running unfortunately couldn't be a priority for me at that

time I did run some cross-country seasons I still was somewhat competitive but yeah I just running, running was not a priority. My body couldn't handle the amount of stress loads from running and training. And I really did put it on the shelf for a bit. I didn't really get the help I really, really needed until after I graduated. And I didn't make a serious commitment to myself to get better until like maybe I was like 21. And it's been really good since then. But what was the forcing function to actually get, to commit to the help?

You know, because I think up to that point, you had probably in college, you realized, okay, yeah, I probably have some sort of problem. You know, you weren't as in denial as maybe, you know, high school. But what was the real forcing function to actually commit to getting the real kind of help that you needed in order to change the trajectory of your life at that point? It really was all a personal choice. I think I was sick of living in my own. prison. And when I did start treating myself better, both physically and mentally, I mean, I just noticed the changes. It was just apparent in how I presented myself, in my performance, in like my cognitive performance, too, like whether that was at work or it kind of was just like my

own organic decision to get healthier and to decide, like, I don't want to live this way anymore. Like, I'm so sick of battling myself all the time and viewing myself as, like, inherently, like, dysfunctional. Yeah. And I ended up joining a running club after college called Greater Boston Track Club. And it was an incredibly supportive community and team. And some of my best friends are still from Greater Boston Track Club. And I actually started getting, like, super competitive. Like, I did marathons.

I did half marathons, I really picked up that bug again to start running and being competitive. And I think that's really what drove me to get rid of this once and for all and keep it out of my life because I was like, I love winning. I love running fast. I love beating people. And so like that competitive mindset is going to like carry me through. And yeah, I've kind of held on to that ever since and it's only gotten better from there. It's pretty incredible that you've, found a way to get on get to the other side and you know your body is holding up really well you know what are some of the you know kind of strategies that you deploy daily just to kind of keep you on track that we're probably would be helpful for anyone not just folks who struggle with you know who

maybe have in the past had had you know an eating disorder but you know what are what are some of the types of how do you think about food now like what's your framework um you know that kind of keeps you on a on a on a healthy path yeah it's been a really important incredible journey learning about my body and learning how to treat it well. You know, as I mentioned before, it was really a personal decision for me to cut this eating disorder out of my life once and for all and come to a place of self-acceptance. And that really has to come from within. For anybody who's struggling with an eating disorder or with body image, that shift in mindset can't come from anybody else telling you like, oh, you look great, you look good, don't worry about it.

it has to come from within. And when you get to a place where you're sick of doing the same thing every day and you want to be the best version of yourself and be able to take care of yourself for yourself and for other people, that's when a massive shift happens in your identity and your success in life. And for me, in that case, you know, my performance is an athlete. And so some of the strategies that have worked for me, I've been seeing a therapist for almost 10 years now.

And we're big on the concept of self-talk. So that's about fostering self-awareness and talking back to intrusive thoughts and behaviors. You know, it's cognitive behavioral therapy. So for example, when an irrational thought comes in my head like, oh, you know, birthday cake is going to make you fat, I talk back to that. And I say, no, of course, that's not true. That's a silly thought. Birthday cake is a treat that I deserve to have in my birthday.

And I'm going to enjoy it with my friends and family. it's really about self-awareness and when these thoughts come in you speak back to them so you have authority over them another strategy is that like i physically talk to my food i know that sounds weird but i guess in my mind you know i'll say things to food like oh this delicious bowl of sauteed spinach with olive oil and sea salt this is going to deliver key nutrients to my body that i need or you know this big piece of salmon that i'm eating is giving me protein to rebuild my muscle and help me become a better athlete. So it's about framing food in a really positive light

and literally teaching your brain and your body to associate food with these positive things and the very things that sustain you. Another strategy that I employ is really not trying to have too many restrictions around what I'm eating. So I don't count calories. I don't count, you know, grams of fat or grams of protein. I just, you know, I focus on balance and moderation with food.

I'm not, I'm not big on restrictions, like I said. I think unless you're working with a nutritionist or a doctor and you're following a guided meal plan, you know, you may have to follow certain rules and that's totally okay and that's fine. But for somebody who is otherwise healthy and does not need to lose weight, it's very easy to quickly fall in the trap of disorder eating when you start placing restrictions on yourself, whether that's, you know, the total calories you have in the day or, you know, the amount of desserts you're allowed to have per week. I just find that usually backfires.

So at this point in my life, I'm very open with, you know, what I'm consuming and not being obsessive about counting all those things. I kind of just eat what my body tells me it wants. I'm really, I know you're into this as well. I'm really into intuitive eating. So sometimes my body craves lots of vegetables. Sometimes it just needs a bunch of carbs or it needs like some orange juice after a run because I'm depleted of all that sugar. I just lost all those carbs. So that's kind of like my lifestyle now is that like intuitive eating. Talk a little bit more about that connection because I think that's really powerful.

And I guess for me, you know, the last four or five years, that's kind of been how I try to think personally, about food is, you know, I try to eat as much nutrient dense food as possible. I, you know, I try to eat, you know, when the sun is up and I try to avoid eating when the sun is down. You know, so I have just very simple principles that I abide to, but I really do try to like just listen to my body and be really mindful when I am eating, but really listen to what my, what my body needs and just make sure that I have a lot of those types of foods accessible in my fridge. And I know there's a real privilege that comes with that, right, like being able to kind of stock your fridge with all sorts of healthy good foods that are generally pretty

expensive. But talk a little bit about, you know, how does one develop that type of awareness where you can actually use that awareness of how you're, of what your body needs to actually drive your fueling behavior? I think that's, it's an important. It's kind of a skill, you know. It is. It is a skill. That's a tough question because I feel like everybody's so different. So like my personal cues might be different from someone else but it's being able to balance fat protein carbs every meal that I eat I make sure that I have each of those things and I it's almost like my body is just like it's anticipating that so not only are you doing intuitive eating but you're kind of teaching your body like what it should want and what it does need it's definitely a

self-awareness thing, but it's also teaching your body what's good for you. Like I can say, yeah, I love pizza. It's delicious. Like I could eat pizza three times a day. But personally, I know that that's not like what my body needs. It does need nutrient dense foods. It needs it needs nuts. It needs leafy greens. It needs quinoa, salmon. I've taught myself to like these foods. I've taught myself to crave them. So yeah, it's this nice, relationship with your body where you're learning from your body, but your body's also learning from you in your brain. Yeah. And that becomes satisfying, right? Like when you, when you are, you know, you're fueling your body with things that it needs that they're going to keep you

healthy, especially when you've been on the side where your body's breaking down, right? When you're, when you're not giving it what, what it, what it needs to perform, you know, so I think there's, there's a lot of, it's really rewarding, you know, when you can, when you can feel your body in a, in a way that allows you to get your your PR when you're 30, right, Allison? You want to talk a little bit about your PR? And then I'd love to talk a bit about just, you know, whoop and how it picks up on physiological changes, right, when we're not fueling our body enough or, or, you know, we're fueling our body too much, you know, and kind of how that impacts the data and what

you've seen. Yeah, I mean, I just turned 30 and I've hit PRs in my 400 meter, 800 meter, and 5K all within the last year so what's your 400 meter time uh 60.2 i'm not under 60 yet but i'm not even a 400 runner i'm more of a miler 5k but and you're you're such a beautiful like it's really just a thing of poetry like watching you run like truly it's like gorgeous runner yeah that's really sweet yeah i mean i have lofty goals like i want to run 16 minutes in the 5k i want to run under five minutes. I'm two seconds away from running under five minutes in the mile. So it'll get there. But I feel I'm, I feel like I'm 30 and I'm still young in my opinion. Like I'm

100% are. Yeah. But yeah, Woop has been an incredible tool to use as I, you know, as I get older and as I still am trying to hit these PRs. And it has been a tool I've used to monitor the impact of my nutrition. I did struggle a little bit in my late 20s, with anemia and, like, thyroid issues, not necessarily because of these eating disorder type behaviors. I think I was just running a lot more and maybe not giving my body all the nutrients it needed. So it would, and it can be pretty sneaky, right? Like, we don't always know, like, when you're competing at a really high level, like you just, you're like, oh, magnesium zinc copper, I need these things. How do I get them? Like, they're not in a lot of the foods that we eat

traditionally. So you can just, you know, without any, you know, direct intention, like you can You can definitely miss out on a lot of these like minerals that are really necessary when you're, when you're putting your body through that type of, you know, volume and intensity. Yeah, and loop did pick up on it. It was up to me to, like, interpret what that meant, but. I think I remember this moment. Yeah, I definitely remember you going to get tested and because we were jamming on your data, like talking about it. And, yeah, this is not right, you know, because all your behaviors were so in line, you know, and you were so conscious of putting. the right fuel in your body and managing kind of strain and recovery, but you're kind of

chronically, you know, had low hearty variability. Low HRV, elevated resting heart rate, sometimes up to like eight beats per day. Normally it's like 41, 42, and it was like 50. So that was abnormal to me. Sleep, I remember your disturbances were really high as well. Like you had super fragmented sleep. Yep, fragmented sleep because, I mean, you probably know more about this, but just like if you're not getting the nutrients you need

or even if you're slightly malnourished and you do tend to have more fragmented sleep and you can't get into those deep sleep stages. Yeah, you're not absorbing the nutrients in the way that you could or should or, yeah, it's a kind of a vicious cycle. Yeah. Yeah, so Allison, just having been kind of in this culture

and being around athletics and performance and, you know, what are ways that we can kind of change the conversation about, you know, eating and nutrition for younger female athletes? it's like are there are there things that we can things we shouldn't say you know things that you know just based on your experience you know how can we how can we change this paradigm i think there needs to be a fundamental shift in the media we consume i know as a young girl i was obsessed with reading like health and fitness magazines and because you go to like the drugstore and you see your

favorite celebrity or your favorite singer on the cover of of a magazine and you know they market these fitness and health magazines to like 12 and 13 year old girls but the advice that they give you in there is about losing weight getting rid of those love handles like cutting out calories and that's advice you give to like a sedentary person who is slightly overweight like you don't give that to a young girl who's growing yeah so our media that we consume needs to change and the way we we talk to girls as well you know like I said when I was younger my identity was often and being skinny, and I was always told that, you know, I was pretty and thin, and my appearance was something that I grasped onto in terms of how I received validation.

So, you know, these are seemingly harmless comments, but there's so much more to being a young woman than your appearance. So we really need to speak to young girls in a different way, in a way that reinforces their identity in other things, whether that's, you know, their schoolwork or their life skills or, you know, who they are as a person and not necessarily their appearance. We need to define what healthy means and what that looks like. And it really has nothing to do with how fat or thin or what your body looks like. A healthy young woman is somebody who loves herself and who treats her body with respect. And those are the things that we need to empower in young girls.

And I'd also like to see a shift in the curriculum in high school and collegiate athletics that focuses a lot more on nutrition. And there's checks and balances with athletes to make sure they're getting their period or if they are struggling with body image, they have the chance to speak to a mentor. They trust. 20% of collegiate coaches are women. So it is a male-dominated industry. And I think there's a lot of young women who don't really know who to go to if they are struggling with an eating disorder or body image or, you know, they feel really alone and isolated. They don't even talk to their peers about it. So we need to normalize talking about these things in athletics. And we also need to normalize talking about things like pregnancy

and fertility, even at a young age because, you know, like I said earlier, when you're young and you have an eating disorder, you're not thinking about those longer term consequences. And if you do want to have a family someday, how that might affect, you know, those things. And we want to set up our bodies for success. We don't want to tear them down from the moment we're, like, allowed to have any sort of autonomy with our bodies. So I'd really like to see a reinforced curriculum, you know, pretty much all through our high school and collegiate careers that really helps set women up for success. Allison, just want to really thank you for sharing your story in such kind of an open and honest way. I know it's not always easy to, you know, share personal stories of this nature,

but I think it's just a really important topic. And I love that we've been able to use this, this platform to be able to just talk about a subject that, you know, is just not talked about enough, you know, in terms of eating disorders and performance. Like I think that this is a really important topic and really happy that we were able to tackle some of these, you know, lesser known insights, I think, in such an honest, transparent way. So thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Thanks so much for speaking with me on this and giving me a platform and an opportunity to be able to share. I really appreciate it. Of course. Thank you to Allison for sharing that powerful story and Kristen doing a great job as always. A reminder you can use the code Will Amit to get

15% off a WOOP membership. That's at Woop.com. Check us out on social at Woop at Will Ahmed. And stay healthy, folks. Stay in the green. Thank you.