Are You Eating Enough? Low Energy Availability in Sport

I am sure you have heard or seen the common rhetoric of 'eat less, move more' online. While this perspective may be well-meaning, it is frequently misused and can have some dangerous consequences. When you are training hard, wanting to improve your performance, and ultimately feel better, it takes the right amount of fuel to achieve those results.   Key Takeaways If You Want To Make Sure You Are Eating Enough, You Should: Start unlearning the dialogue that eating less and moving more will give you results Eat enough relative to your activity level, even if you are not an 'athlete' Use activities such as strength training to shift your mindset and improve your confidence   Proper Fuelling Is Not Just for the Olympics Recently the Tokyo Olympics have been in the spotlight as women athletes are reporting better performance due to increased food intake. This is not a coincidence, as these athletes need fuel to perform better. But, this is not just limited to the elite level of athletes that compete in the Olympics.  Anyone active needs to get enough energy through food to help them gain muscle, improve insulin resistance, create confidence, and ultimately feel and perform better.   Feel Like a Badass Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport, or RED-S, can have a huge impact on your endurance, strength, risk of injury, and much more. While the awareness around low energy availability is increasing, we need to keep having the conversation and shift our mindsets away from the 'smaller is better' mentality.  By approaching your strength training, and nutrition intake as a way to make you thrive, instead of just a laundry list of things to avoid, you can gain confidence and feel like the badass you know you are. Properly fueling yourself is the only way to improve your performance and start seeing the results you are looking for. Are you ready to experience the magic that comes from feeding yourself enough? Share your thoughts with me in the comments section of the episode page.   In This Episode How the Tokyo Olympics brought light to the connection between nutrition and performance (4:14) Why you should care about how you fuel yourself even if you are not an elite athlete (9:21) Issues that can arise if people are not eating enough food or are in RED-S territory (11:53) The many benefits of getting stronger and fueling to support your body (21:10) How strength training can help you gain confidence and feel like a badass (26:18)   Quotes "For women, there is such a pressure and prize placed on leanness and smallness and getting rid of that extra couple percentage of body fat and optimizing those things to the detriment of performance and honestly health." (6:45) "Here we are, it's 2021, and we have some women performing at the highest, highest levels. And even they are susceptible to a lot of the junk they have learned or the fact that they have not had a lot of guidance to what it really takes to fuel for something of that level."  (9:19) "Hey, you know what's going to happen if you eat more food? You are going to feel better, you're going to have more energy, you'll be able to train harder, recover better, and perform better!" (14:35) "Looking back in hindsight, I have learned so much about what it takes to really fuel to perform well and to be healthy." (19:36) "I want you to think about fueling to support your body as really allowing you to expand, to be able to do more, to be able to challenge yourself if that is what you love. And to do it in a way that is supporting your health at the same time." (21:23)   Featured on the Show Join the Group Strength Nutrition Program Here Sports Science Is Changing How Female Athletes Train. It Could Help You, Too Article Join the Private Coaching Waitlist Here Steph Gaudreau Website Check out the full show notes here! Follow Steph on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube | Pinterest I'd really love it if you would take 1 min and leave us a rating and review on iTunes! Podcast production & marketing support by the team at Counterweight Creative   Related Episodes LTYB 348: Improve Your Fitness Over 40 with Robin Legat LTYB 331: Strength Training & Your Relationship to Exercise