Redefining the "Athlete": From Teenage Performance to Menopausal Health

In this episode of Below Her Surface, Lily sits down with her former lecturer, sports nutritionist, and naturopath, Kia Sutherland. With decades of experience working with everyone from elite world athletes to teenagers and women navigating perimenopause, Kia brings a wealth of clinical insight into what it truly takes to support a female body under physical stress. This conversation moves beyond the "quick fix" to explore the intersection of metabolic health, hormones, and high-performance nutrition. Kia and Lily unpack the common traps women fall into - such as chronic under-fuelling (REDs) and the psychological toll of rigid dieting - and offer a refreshing, science-backed approach to eating for both performance and longevity. In this episode, Lily and Kia explore: In this episode, Lily and Kia explore: *The Reality of REDs (Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport) - Why "overtraining" is often just under-fuelling and how to recover a lost cycle without stopping exercise. *Endurance Nutrition & Troubleshooting - Navigating the "extra 1%" of performance, from sweat rate testing to managing gastrointestinal distress during a marathon. *Cyclical Dieting vs. Cyclical Training - Why it’s beneficial to loosen nutritional restrictions in the week before your period while maintaining a consistent strength protocol. *The Perimenopause Shift - How declining oestrogen and progesterone impact sleep, stress management, and insulin sensitivity. *The Protein Hyper-Focus - Why most women are under-eating protein and how to use it to support glycemic control and muscle maintenance. *Alcohol & Metabolic Health in your 40s - The physiological reasons why alcohol becomes harder to process during the menopausal transition. *Muscle Mass as Longevity - Why holding muscle is the number one predictor of living a long, healthy life and why strength training is vital for bone density. *Individual Body Types & Beauty Standards - Moving away from "one size fits all" body fat percentages and embracing the genetics you were born with. This episode is a masterclass in female physiology, providing a grounded guide for any woman wanting to feel "badass" in her training while respecting the complex biological signals of her body.