Episode 148: Kristin LaFontaine on RED-S, Diet Culture, & Nutrition Education For Runners

In this episode, we dive into RED-S and nutrition for runners, including the rundown on RED-S and how fueling properly can help prevent and/or address it. We also discuss Kristin's running background, as well as her business and how she helps educate runners on fueling to perform well and empower their bodies for sport. Kristin LaFontaine is a health educator, nutrition coach, mama to a 15 month old son, and former collegiate distance runner turned marathoner. When Kristin looks back at the years she spent competing in both cross country and track in high school and college, she realizes that her relationship with food wasn't always healthy. Food was something to be earned, something to be burned off. She was limiting intake of certain foods or food groups was a misguided attempt to improve performance and achieve a certain body type. She often wonders why/how she developed such a disordered, unhealthy relationship with food. She realizes now that part of it was real or imagined external pressure to look a certain way, but part of it was that she just didn’t know better. When she was a teenager, no one taught her about nutrition. No one taught her how to properly fuel her body. Frankly, she didn’t know what she was doing. That gap in nutrition education still exists and Kristin is determined to fill that gap. In 2018, she quit her corporate marketing job, went back to school, and earned her Master of Science in Nutrition Education degree from American University.  From there, the Nourished Performance Program was born. Nourished Performance is a 100% online, video based nutrition education program designed to give young female athletes access to basic sports nutrition information. She hopes this program will find its way into the hands of as many young athletes as possible so that they are empowered to take control of their health and performance and understand how to properly fuel their bodies for sport. As a now 30-something, 20-time marathoner including one year of running one marathon every month, Kristin has seen first hand how vital proper fueling is to success. Questions we cover with Kristin include: How did you get started in running/athletics? Journey into collegiate running - overall experience, burned out, under-fueled? 20-time marathoner -- including a whole year with a marathon each month! Tell us more about that! RED-S -- big topic of discussion. You write that “Food was something to be earned, something to be burned off. She was limiting intake of certain foods or food groups was a misguided attempt to improve performance and achieve a certain body type.” What do you think contributed to this? How do social media and societal norms play a role in fueling decisions, food restrictions… and how is "diet culture" particularly detrimental for runners? Nutrition education -- what is lacking in schools, what can be done? The role you play in nutrition education and working with athletes; “Education can make all the difference.” Learn more about Kristin and her business below: https://lafontainenutrition.com