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A Slice of Humble Pie with P2
🥧 A podcast where we curiously explore nutrition, fitness, mindset, sports, wellness, & beyond. ☕️Host @parastoobadie
A Slice of Humble Pie with P2
Navigating Weight Class Sports and Chronic Conditions
Exploring the intersection of chronic disease and weight class sports, this episode delves deep into the nutritional strategies athletes can adopt to maintain performance while managing health conditions.
Our guest, Choong Kwan, Clinical Sports Nutritionist, shares valuable insights on the importance of individualized nutrition, communication with coaches, and fostering resilience amidst challenges.
• Understanding the complexities of weight class sports
• The impact of weigh-in times on athlete strategy
• Managing chronic conditions like diabetes, IBS, and PCOS
• The emotional challenges of chronic illness in competition
• Success stories and cautionary tales from the field
• The necessity of personalized nutrition and training plans
• Encouragement to break free from negative labels and embrace individuality
To connect with Choong, check out the links below:
Instagram
Podcast - Time to Grow Up Dad
Nutrition Coaching for Parents
Website: https://parastoobadie.com/podcast/
Email: asliceofhumblepiewithp2@gmail.com
Instagram: @asliceofhumblepiewithp2
Welcome back to A Slice of Humble Pie. I'm your host, Pitu. I'm a nutrition and fitness professional, a lover of pie and a curious human on planet Earth. In today's episode, we're exploring chronic disease and weight class sports. Now our guest for today is out of Auckland, New Zealand. So welcome to the podcast, Chowong Kwan. Now, Chowong is both an athlete and a practitioner. He actually has experience in powerlifting, as well as Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and he is a clinical sports nutritionist with Bachelor of Science in Food Science and Nutrition from the University of Auckland, as well as various certifications in sports nutrition. I really appreciate his holistic nature and you know having conversation from both personal and professional experience, so it's a great chat and I cannot wait to share it with you. So let's get right into it. As we know, weight class sports, there's a lot of pressure and they demand some really good nutrition strategies. How do you approach the challenges of helping athletes with chronic conditions while staying competitive in weight class sports?
Speaker 2:and I do apologize if my accent is really weird. I've been. I've been told that it's a mixture of like australian, kiwi, malaysian, so it's all over the show. It's all over the show, but but it's fabulous, we love it.
Speaker 1:Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2:But I think with weight class sports, particularly for athletes with chronic diseases, I think it's very important to establish like so let's go broad, broader picture here. For for argument's sake for most of the listeners potentially, there comes a point in time where when you go to a weight class sport, there's always the conversation about cutting weight, making weight. I think that's usually how a lot of athletes get a bit of a fear around okay, weight class sports, that means I have to be at a certain weight at a certain date. But a lot of people don't also consider the fact that when we just talk about weight class sports as a bit of a broader term, there's also different weigh-in times for different different sports. So, for example, in powerlifting, yes, it is a weight class sport, but you can get up to 24-hour weigh-ins. Or in the IPF regulation it's a two-hour weigh-in. For some sports, like jiu-jitsu for example, you have a two-hour weigh-in and that's in quotations, depending on how long the actual event goes. And in some cases it's a 24-hour weigh-in and in some cases you could weigh in the day before compete in a certain weight class and not need to weigh in again for the second day event tomorrow, which means that as long as you cruise through the first day, you refeed, you beat everyone on technicalities and stuff like be really technical, on the second day you could pretty much be at at a hundred percent even before weight cutting.
Speaker 2:So I think when it comes to weight class sports, a lot of people need to kind of acknowledge that the first thing to kind of look at is all right, there's a weight class, but what are the time limits of needing to actually make weight? Another one would also be something in contrast with, let's say, jujitsu versus MMA or Thai kickboxing and Muay Thai. Is that in MMA and Muay Thai not sure about Muay Thai, but definitely in MMA you get a call-out right Like six weeks, cool, go in the camp. Here we go right. But for jujitsu, particularly the more uh, weekend warrior situation, the hobbyist situation, you could basically compete every week if you really wanted to. There's literally a competition every week, every month, and it's still a weight class sport in itself. So that also poses a bit of a challenge.
Speaker 2:So I think the first thing we probably need to establish is, from a weight class sport situation is what sport probably is important, but also how long does it take, or are you allowed to make weight? How is the refeed post weigh-ins? And then, more importantly, how frequently are you competing? Because with people or athletes with sort of chronic conditions, as you are aware, multiple weight cuts is even for people who don't of chronic conditions. As you are aware, multiple weight cuts is even for people who don't have chronic conditions. It takes a toll on the body. So add on to that people with chronic conditions, it's going to be rough. Basically, that's what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 1:Fair enough. You're very correct about Muay Thai. It also depends where you are. Like in Thailand, someone might call you and be like, hey, you want to fight tomorrow and so you have to be prepared for that. Make weight 10 pounds, let's go, gotta make weight. But I think we'll. We'll circle back to the weight cut part in a moment, because that is a big, big aspect of force.
Speaker 1:But what you just raised, I think is really important for us to pause and highlight, is that, yeah, what's sport? Because it is. It is a big umbrella and people say that sometimes, but it is important to recognize, like the one sport and what your starting point is. I, I did rugby for many years and then the bodybuilding world before I switched to muay thai, and so, you know, in training you see people doing bodybuilding splits and bodybuilding workouts and then I'm always like, well, that's not, this is different. Also, from a nutrition perspective, different, you know. So it's like you have to get a little bit more what your intention is, I guess what your goal is what your sport is, and then I love that.
Speaker 1:You said you know it's a little rough for everybody, even before we dive a little deeper into people with chronic conditions. My, I guess, objective is to reduce that rough for as general like. Sometimes we make it rougher because we're not thinking of but we, before we started recording, we both made a joke about like water loading to the 10 liters, you know to our own demise?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's like, must you, is that actually necessary or do you think you're making it more complicated than it needs to be? So, before we even get into chronic conversation, it's like, okay, are we meeting ourselves where we're at? Have we picked the proper sport? Is there some strategy? Or are we just trying where we're at? Have we picked the proper sport? Is there some strategy? Or are we just trying to see how hard we can make it for ourselves, which hopefully not, because, yeah, as you mentioned, it can get rough there.
Speaker 1:Well, we'll talk about that a bit later. Maybe our own, uh, horse, horse experiences. Let's talk about just performance and what class sports so like we're not even in competition but just training, training and performing when you have a chronic condition, like, how do we navigate it? Or have you navigated with some athletes? And by chronic, let's break that down even more. Like, what do we mean? What chronic diseases?
Speaker 2:yeah. So it's interesting because if we potentially just sort of do like a quick google search on you, you know what chronic diseases are out there, what you know. There's a plethora of things, right, and so I think that the word of chronic disease is like literally anything right.
Speaker 1:Cancer stroke.
Speaker 2:That's technically chronic disease arthritis. Actually, on my own personal podcast not performance related at all but I actually spoke to a friend who has rheumatoid arthritis. It's a chronic disease but she is currently doing a phd in that, but she's also a world-class master athlete in powerlifting, just as a bit of an example. Hey, like if you have a chronic disease you could still very much be a high level athlete, just to put it out there. But let's maybe all right, let's maybe break it down into three. I've actually brought down, uh, three particular instances that I think are a little bit more common potentially when it comes to chronic disease, just so that we can maybe, uh, just narrow it down, because we could basically sit here for weeks and not even get through it A hundred percent.
Speaker 1:That's the I'm like yeah, let's narrow it down, let's narrow it down.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think for females, pcos is probably going to be one. There's a bit of a, as one I have worked with and still work with some. I mean I guess you could call fatty liver, I guess you could say that as chronic disease, but really that's kind of a you did that to yourself but somewhat some might argue ibs, that's probably going to be another one, a very, very common, I think. You know gut, gut health and all that stuff right, and then let's chuck in an autoimmune in there, let's go type 1 diabetes, just just, just, just because, right, just because.
Speaker 2:So back to your initial question how does one with chronic disease managed performance in india sport, let's say off season, or, in your case, maybe in the fight camp or whatever it might be?
Speaker 2:I think ultimately it's going to be something that is going to lead to whether the individual is in some type of energy availability or ea for. And if you're eating extremely little foods it doesn't matter what types of foods, just in general, just like food you're going to get to a point where you're in LEA, or more colloquially known under eating, more colloquially known as under eating, and a very classic scenario of this for females is something like loss of period, especially if you're not on any type of hormonal regulation for periods or cycles and stuff. Very common Fatigue, just can't perform. Loss of libido and probably one that, whilst on the topic of performance, might not necessarily be very relevant. I think we talked about this with your past in bodybuilding the lack of, or the difficulty of, trying to lose body fat despite starving yourself and you're thinking well, calories in calories out, right, yeah true true, true, true, very, very true, very true.
Speaker 2:But. But at some point your body adapts to the point where you're like, look, you're in, you're in lea, like your body's not gonna want to lose fat, like it's just gonna hold on to it for dear life, because any more than that you're just gonna die straight up, right. So when it comes to performance, regardless of whether you have chronic disease or not, I think it is important to establish whether you're actually eating enough to feel for your sessions, like as a general rule of thumb. Yeah, I mean, that's probably a given.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of athletes tend to have this idea of, like you know I think you talked about the whole bodybuilding thing it's like that's a sport in itself, right? So eating in the deficit and getting to such low body fat, it's a percentage. To them, that is the definition of performance. Because what dictates that you win a bodybuilding comp or what dictates that you win a physique comp, is how shredded you look on stage, not how much you lift, not how hard you hit, not how far you run, and certainly you know in a strongman case uh, not how strong you are, right. But outside of physique sport context, all the other sports. It's kind of like like this is because this is my, my personal gripe with kind of performance sport. Don't overthink about your body fat. You're gonna have to perform. You know like you're gonna carry a little bit more body fat.
Speaker 1:If you want to look real shredded, go do bodybuilding straight up I 100 agree, and I think that's we gotta pause and talk about that for a second, because one thing, as you know, have both of us being in the fitness industry and doing multiple sports, you know I think we've improved as a collective to have this conversation more, but there's still, you know, that imagery of what fit looks like. And then we have to I'm like, well, again, what's what's? What are you talking about someone? Someone's like I'm gonna look fit. I'm like well and what. This looks different because the context matters like every other way.
Speaker 1:Context matters absolutely and, like all of us, practitioners say that, and then you know, people like I'm fit, I'm like. We have very different descriptions or definitions of what we're both trying to say, because you have an image in your head that doesn't match the performance that you are asking for. And so you could very well be a high level, extremely competitive jujitsu, mma, muay Thai, powerlifter, and none of those have you looking shredded or, quote unquote, like the stereotypical fitness image, right? So the context matters, the sport matters and the objective to like be like, hey, the leaner I am, I might be better. That's not necessarily true. That doesn't. That doesn't equate to power, that doesn't equate to strength or speed or whatever the other performance markers are not that they can't coexist, like sometimes that happens, like you have aesthetical.
Speaker 1:Sure they can overlap with performance, but if we're talking about what we're talking about, I really appreciate that you set that as like a baseline context yeah, yeah, yeah enough perform now that we've kind of set the scene, I think when.
Speaker 2:So, now that we've gotten that part, and maybe we've lost 70 of your listeners because, let's be honest, chronic disease doesn't happen to everyone so now the 30 are here, they're like all right, you've got me. Uh, now I'm gonna listen to you talk about chronic disease, because the other 70 clearly don't experience the stuff that I experience. And you said that, okay, I have to eat enough for my sport. Tick, but I have these things. What do I do? You can't just say eat enough, because for someone who's type 1 diabetic, telling them to eat a chocolate bar while it makes sense on paper is really going to tank their performance depending on their sport, kind of forcing them to be relying on insulin jabs. And they're like, oh my god, like I'm just so feeling shit like after. Imagine like you're sparring for four rounds. You're type 1 diabetic. You're like driving to the gym. It's like, oh fuck, I need to eat chocolate bar, all right, ready to go four rounds in shit, I'm done, I'm done, I'm done, I can't. I've got nothing left because you know you're type one diabetic, you can't produce insulin. You have to get your energy from somewhere, right? So this is kind of the nitty-gritty stuff where I feel like, and so so, to frame it this way one of my mentors, his name is dr cliff harvey. Essentially he is one of the at least I would like to think but so he claims one of the pioneers, uh, heavily in the keto research space. Um, however, he personally isn't actually on keto himself, despite being someone who actually researches keto, right, so that's obviously an interest in him.
Speaker 2:And one thing is one thing that we always talk about is that, when it comes to sport and when it comes to clinical nutrition, there always seems to be a very almost not not true, but it seems to be a very distinct difference. You're either clinically, clinically, you have a problem, maybe type 1 or ibs or pcos, or you're an athlete. There isn't really like an in-between, it's like, hey, if you're in between, tough shit. It's like you're either you've got a clinical issue or you perform, and then this is where the divide happens with, like I'm a sports nutritionist, it's perform, perform, perform, perform. You know, like, let's check your thyroid, let's check all this, all right, all these performance markers, good, good, good, good, good, all right.
Speaker 2:And then, on the other end, it's like clinical setting it's oh my god, low carb, for example, like, potentially like if you're type 1 diabetes, if you can't use glucose, obviously you have to jab it for literally safety sake. Why not try a a lower carbohydrate diet, because then potentially you might not actually feel the spikes and crashes now, not to say you can't do a high carb diet right. That's slightly different to type 2 diabetes, which is almost a metabolic disorder in itself. But with type 1 it's like, let's say, if you're not an athlete, you could totally get away with like a lower carb diet. And we actually see this quite a lot in the health and fitness space, where people push low carb diets and people find a lot of success in low carb diets. But then there comes the other end, the athlete sports nutrition.
Speaker 2:It's like no no, you know like, once your heart rate goes up to zone four, zone five, it's all carbs. It's like, yeah, yeah, absolutely true, not disregarding that, that. And then you get this like divide. So for someone who potentially has chronic disease I think to my earlier point definitely you need to make sure you're eating enough. Then possibly the next step you want to consider is all right, like what foods really cause this issue for you, generally speaking, from a nutrition standpoint. In many cases and well, I say many cases, I'll use the three, like type one, uh, ibs and pcos like there's going to be some types of foods that just make you feel like crap and some foods that don't make you feel like crap right. And then then you start to figure out okay, now I've been given a macro split by my coach or whatever it might be. Now I've got to figure out what foods within this macro split works to my condition. So let's say someone has PCOS, for example, right, and generally for someone who has PCOS or female who has PCOS it's not uncommon, at least in America, because I do have some clients in America the doctors are pretty trigger sensitive with metformin. They're like all right, metformin, you know, here's metformin, right, it'll help, cool, no issue with that at all. I think the medical system is good. But then it becomes a case of like okay, having PCOS potentially means I might be maybe insulin resistant. That's like one of the effects that comes with having PCOS. So then be maybe insulin resistant. That's like one of the effects that comes with having pcos.
Speaker 2:So then, if you're thinking about how can I feel for my performance, the first thing is, as we talked about what, what sport am I? How much carbohydrates do I really need to use? Am I a power lifter who does three to five reps and you know my work? My work per set is like 50 seconds tops. Or am I someone who to p2's case like a muay thai, and you know my work? My work set is three by five minute rounds. There is no one minute. Three by five minute rounds.
Speaker 2:Then we start to kind of uh, figure out like what's the appropriate amount of carbohydrates that you would need for your sport? It's not that you need to go push all low carb, push all high carb, particularly people with chronic diseases. That becomes a a more fine tuning within the macro split of how much carbohydrates do you actually need for your sport, and then you start to play that fine lines and again everyone's different. So don't go listening to this and go oh shit, pcos, time to go low-carb. It's like absolutely not Work with your nutritionist, your RDs, your doctors to figure that out.
Speaker 2:But all I'm saying is that you have to be a little bit more cautious about like it's not just iifym or high carb, low carb for someone who's chronic disease, it's more so what foods, what macro splits work generally for me, and when I say splits I mean like higher carb, lower carb. Do I need more fiber for ibs? You know, because that's probably one of the big things right, like generally, if you increase your fiber, you increase your water. A lot of these sort of gut like ibs discomforts start to decrease. Then it's like it starts becoming a bit of a fine line there for sure. So that's the big picture, I think, for performance for someone who has chronic disease, like really considering slightly more factors than just you know if it fits your macros from a nutrition perspective I really appreciate that you just took a moment to talk about that divide again like part of the.
Speaker 1:I think we both subscribe to the narrative that, well, I have like a human first athlete, second is my portal and so that's kind of my perspective.
Speaker 1:I'm like, can we stop the label? Sometimes, as helpful as they are to give us some jump off point or to give information to the context, it's also created more of that division. So when you're saying clinical setting versus sports nutrition, very true, and they overlap A person's a person and if they are to your point of a competitive, you can be an elite competitive athlete and also have pcos and also have type 1 diabetes and also yeah, etc but it, yeah, there isn't too much I guess in the mainstream narrative of like the and part, it's this or that it's very it's not great, it's very black and white, and exactly what you mentioned is to individualize it a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yes, some stuff matters. We're talking about your caloric intake and your energy expenditure. Basic applies to everybody, sure, your macros. But then to your point is like if you have different health issues, you get a little bit more individualized but it doesn't mean that you're doomed.
Speaker 1:You're talking about the physical of it. So let's talk about the mental and emotional a little bit. That is, you know. So if you have that person you were talking about with the diabetes or the PCOS, there are some pressures or some stressors. Or maybe, if you do find yourself in that predicament of being stuck in that black and white without the gray, how do you navigate that mentally and emotionally? What is there existing right now to give us some support?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's a really good question. Yeah, yeah, and I think, going back to your point, to going back to your point, which was actually going back to my point, with the divide of of clinical and sport, I think that's kind of where a lot of the emotional mental turmoil comes, particularly for athletes who might potentially have a chronic disease, because, again, how social media portrays this is that, and I'm no, I'm not going to put it, throw anyone on the bus, because I'm just generally a firm believer of more. I think most people within the fitness space put out content for the sake of trying to be educational. Let's just leave it there. Yes, there's some people who are like, straight up, just retarded, like dr gandry, but that's aside the point. Um, so I think that's actually probably the first place where people start to get this mental battle, particularly if they are someone who has a chronic disease but they're an athlete, because someone within the quote-unquote holistic health space says this but this nutritionist who works with the NFL team says this Where's the person who says that you can have both? And there's not a lot of people who talk about it and, funnily enough, that's actually one of the things that I like to work with.
Speaker 2:Ironically and that's kind of also why I say I'm a registered clinical and sports nutritionist and with your sort of philosophy with human first, athlete second is that you need both. You have to have both. It's like in fight sports, in MMA slight tangent, but when people get multiple concussions they're always told to rest, not because you're going to perform poorly in the next one, you're down the track. Once you retire, you're going to lose your shit literally. But then some coaches would be like, no, you got to keep going. And some athletes will keep going because it's like too much of an athlete mindset, and then someone from the other camp. But I digress. So back to the emotional side. So I think that's possibly one of the big things that I personally have found that social media has a very clear divide and people who kind of fall in the middle kind of get shafted. A little bit, kind of like how people say, the middle class income owners are the ones that get shafted, the rich get rich, the poor get poorer, the middle are the ones that get shafted. So kind of in a very, very similar fashion.
Speaker 2:There, for sure, and probably the biggest one is confusion, just just straight confusion in the end of the day, like, not all athletes no disrespect have degrees. They might be educated but they might not actually have the relevant knowledge of nutrition to sort of understand what's the ins and outs. They're there to perform. Some athletes like myself are weekend warriors we go out, we send it and then we've got a normal well, I say normal, we've got a job right.
Speaker 2:So there's a lack of knowledge there potentially, which then adds even more confusion and you start going like fuck, what am I supposed to do? And then they start spiraling down a really bad hole and then they try to perform to their best abilities and then they almost get to a point where they start to label their chronic disease as a um, as a crutch for their poor performance. Damn it, I've got the IBS flare-up. I can't train, you know. Yes, that's true. Why is it flaring up? Right, like, ah, I'm eating well and stuff.
Speaker 2:You know, maybe there's some confusion there. So, right, they get to the point where they start to label like oh, I've, you know and I think this extends a little bit more to the health industry Like, oh, I've got PCOS for women, I can't lose weight. Oh, I'm perimenopausal, I can't drop body fat anymore, I'm going through this cycle. For men, it's like, oh, my testosterone is too low. I'm at that age, I guess I'll just have to wait it out. It's like, do you, though? I mean, it's a bit of a big label to put on yourself, and it's kind of almost using it as an excuse, not necessarily just acknowledging that, yep, I have a problem, let's just work around it, kind of thing. I think that's where a lot of people yeah, into that trap.
Speaker 1:The label progresses beyond a label to an identity yeah, yeah, yeah, a label to an identity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I think it's corny. It's corny, it's like I'm on ig. It's type one diabetic. I don't need to. Yeah, sure, okay, but do I really need to care if you are or not? Like you know, just, you're a human, just like everyone else, like no one's gonna treat you?
Speaker 1:I hope no one treats you differently, right?
Speaker 1:I hope no one does no, no, and like to the to what you were saying is it just ends up being another piece of that context, like what we're talking about, but it's not an absolute and I don't know how much of it we have as a, as practitioners collectively not me or you specifically, but like practitioner world have enabled some of this where we are so adamant to try and get those answers, to figure out the why that we're like aha, I have this label, but then we've kind of like it's a devilish story because we've created, kind of perpetuated some of that problem even further. And and I I happy, I'm happy that you brought up the, the ibs, for example. Well, sometimes something happens like crones, sometimes you have yeah, crones yeah you know it's horrible.
Speaker 1:You have flare-ups that just hits you out of nowhere. But my little tangent is to talk about the fear-mongering and being dismissive let's see how do you get back? You know what's that saying get back on the horse. It's like, are you gonna just either sit here and then feel all sad and victimized or okay? Well, this is the reality. How do I navigate my variables? What do I do to move forward Instead of that fixed mindset? I think from a practitioner perspective, from a client perspective, it's like oh, oh, I can't because of blank.
Speaker 2:That's very fixed and can't really move forward if you're that rigid with it, because then you're not really open to other alternatives or trying something new or exploring why it didn't work yeah I mean like I wouldn't say all, but I would say like a big chunk of the population, particularly if you fall within the category of someone who has the physical abilities to be an athlete or semi-pro athlete or weekend warrior. Chances are unless if you literally lost half of your body due to a car accident like you would probably be physically able to keep doing what you're doing and I think a lot of people not that it's good or bad, let their emotions sort of take over the kind of like I was actually listening to a separate podcast that came out a couple weeks ago chris williamson and tony robinson interesting, very interesting.
Speaker 2:Obviously. Tony robbins, for those who don't know big again, um, go get it. Kind of guy you know. Whether you like him or not, he obviously makes, makes people, makes people get their shit together. But one of the things he was saying, like, and it resonated so so, so, so well, where focus goes, energy flows, where energy flows, whatever you're focusing on, grows. That, that's to quote tony. Right, there's obviously not mine, I would like to say it was mine, but it's tony's.
Speaker 2:And he to that point, like, if you have a chronic disease, you know that you've got a chronic disease. Right, you're not gonna disregard it as, oh, I've got cancer, no, I don't. It's like no, you know you've got cancer. All right, excellent, let's not beat around the bush. But if you're gonna channel all of your spiritual energy into it, yeah, you know. Like, if your doctor tells you you're not gonna live long, just go out and tick your bucket list, you know like, don't, don't dread it.
Speaker 2:And so I think, in this case, for athletes who have chronic disease, yeah, you've got chronic disease, yeah, it sucks. Yeah, of course it sucks, it hurts, it's shit. But if you're just going to put all your mental energy into it, you're just going to perpetuate the problem, whether it manifests itself in a physical form or just mentally at some point. You you're just going to check out. Your training is just going to go to shit because you're just so like, your energy is not in training, your energy is all thinking about this thing, this thing, this thing, and you'll never be able to show up. So yeah, slight tangent there with the mental stuff I.
Speaker 1:I really appreciate it and everyone at this point is used to me quoting episode 11 of my podcast, brianna tennessee, who is a can champion Paralympian and that's literally what happened. She was a multi-sport athlete high level rugby player, a boxer and AAA hockey who got in a car accident, became a wheelchair bound and then had to relearn everything. But the reason you know her story was so incredibly powerful was to your point, is it never? She did the opposite, had that champ mindset to like go with another sport and now become a Canadian champ, go to the Olympics twice and be the very first silver medal in Canada for her sport. And then it's like the definition of not letting something bring you down right. Instead of that, oh, I have diabetes. It's like no, she literally had to relearn how to be a person and redo every part of what she knew and sometimes it's like I I listen to that episode every time I'm falling on one of those, my little victim mentalities.
Speaker 1:It's just like our own words just slap me in the face.
Speaker 2:I'm like get up I'm done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what are?
Speaker 2:you done feeling sorry for myself. Time to go yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Oh, you walked into the. Oh, you hurt your toe. Oh, no, like, get up, get up, get the fuck up. I think it's beautiful that you said that and I appreciate that tangent because it's true, like you know, on the one side you're acknowledging it, we're not dismissing it, and that toxic positivity of like, yes, I do have xyz, whatever chronic disease, because you need it for contacts, you needed how it, how to navigate it, you need it to have strategies, you need it to know how to talk to your nutritionist or your coach or whoever. But also, it's not your be all and end all. It's only an aspect of who you are as a person. It doesn't define your performance.
Speaker 1:It doesn't define your being. You could go out and live an incredible life despite of a diagnosis, whether it's physical, chronic disease or even, you know, a mental. We were talking about mental. I think it's important to address that right now that you're you're not a mental health disease, you're not a diagnosed mental illness like you may have depression, but you're not defined by it. You can still live a quality life with yeah, self-belief is a powerful tool it really is.
Speaker 1:It really is. So actually that's a good. I'm glad that you said that. So let's talk about tools then. So we've we've talked a little bit about strategies, of considerations for white classes, we've talked a little bit about the context for specific sucronics. So what other tools do we have to help navigate?
Speaker 2:perhaps our self-belief, or training, adaptation, or what would be some some suggestions you have from a clinical nutrition perspective I think one of the biggest ones is and it's it's going to sound a little bit corny, but I think listen to your body is a really good one as a tool, if you even call it a tool. I used to be one of those ones who go like, all right, I don't care, you know you have to do it. It's like my body hurts. I'm like, yeah, it's supposed to hurt, but like I've kind of come to a realization that generally, most people have enough of an ability to kind of know where their limits are. Yes, they need to get pushed. That's how you become a really good athlete. But if someone's telling you they're hurting and they can't even do an ab crunch, and you're like, no, today it's like, can you really suck it up? Because like you're not gonna be able to move right. So I think, like as a tool, listening to your body, and then second one, I think it's ultimately openly communicating how you feel to, to, to your, to your coach. Because, like I would like to think, like most people who potentially listen to this podcast have worked or is potentially looking for a coach to help them to some degree. Or maybe you're just listening to this podcast because you stumbled upon it, but if you ever do look for, if you ever do need help, I think it's important to understand as a tool. You're going to get the most out of help if you just communicate, just just just say things, because that's kind of the job of the coach on the other end to kind of all right, this is what's happening, you know, like this is blah, blah, blah. So those are like the tool, the two tools that I'll say, that are probably like a eerie fury, let's call it that now more obviously more usable tools, right, because people don't like the mental shit, right, people want the good stuff, people want the tangible stuff. Examinecom is usually a really good place to go to just for some general understanding. Obviously it's not a diagnosis, but it is a good place to get a quick summary of certain things, supplements and stuff like that. Then obviously you kind of take that information and say, hey, dear coach or dear doctor, I've seen this online from examine or you know what do you think? Right? So I think, as a tool, I think examinecom can be very, very useful there.
Speaker 2:And I think another tool is going back to the eerie free one again somewhat is tracking. I think, like tracking, not just how well you're training, so hrv, blah, blah, blah if you are in camp, potentially getting someone to track your macros help you do all that but also just like journaling. You know, like track how you feel. Some days you just feel iffy, some days you feel good. You know people, people have people take a stab at, like the gym bros who track every single thing, but and then. But it's like it's good data, you know it's, it's tangible data. But if you kind of think about it in a sense, journaling is technically tracking technically. If you keep of think about it in a sense, journaling is technically tracking Technically If you keep a running journal of what you're thinking of every single day. Technically, that is tracking. It's just a different form of tracking because it's not mathematics, it's not a blood work, it's not a diagnosis, but it's still tracking for your head.
Speaker 2:And one of the very good practices for people who have written journals is go back and reread them and you'd be like shit, like I did that. Okay, you know, don't know what I was thinking there. You know it's kind of the same thing with training right, oh man, my training blocks really bad. And you go back it's like what was working is like, oh, that was working, let's do that. It's kind of the same thing with journaling. So what was I thinking back then? I was doing really, really well. All of a sudden I'm in a rut. It's like, oh, that then I was doing really really well. All of a sudden I'm in a rut. It's like, oh, that was what I was doing. I stopped doing it. Maybe I should probably start doing that again. So I think journaling is probably a good thing to consider as well as a tool. There's so many, but those are just kind of on top of my head, I think as an athlete, I would say as an athlete, as an athlete.
Speaker 1:I mean, those are all excellent suggestions and to build on them a bit more. You won't know what to change if you are not aware of right.
Speaker 2:I always say awareness is the first step, and then two things as well, is that?
Speaker 1:things change. Hey, I'm a parent now. My schedule is different, right? So if you're looking at an old block and you're like I used to spend three hours at the gym and have four minutes of rest between my, well perhaps that's why you could lift the weight.
Speaker 1:You did Right. But like, hey, my life looks different. So is that a fair bar that I'm holding myself to Because the variables have changed? Like I mean, mean, that's an extreme, obvious example. But like that changes right if you're. That's why we have the rps. If your sleep changes, your baseline changes, where you are in your cycle, where you are, you jet, lagged, whatever different things change your baseline. So if you're aware of the moving variables, then you keep track of quantitatively and qualitatively as a person all right.
Speaker 2:So with like food as well, with chronic disease, right, probably one of the big things is like food sensitivity and food intolerances. So if you walk to your nutritionist and say, hey, I've got this thing like um, ibs and stuff, usually my my first question to a lot of people who say that they've got issues all right, what are we eating? Like, let's just get a bit of an idea. All right, like let's maybe do more of this, less of this. But I don't just want you to do them, I want you to kind of show me what you're doing, right, like, so, take photos of your food and send it to me. Just so I acknowledge that I'm not saying you're lying. All I'm saying is I want to see it with my own two eyes. Right, or maybe you're macro tracking or whatever.
Speaker 2:And for athletes with chronic disease, there's probably a very big one, because if we're talking from, like, a food standpoint, right, those are going to be the things they're going to be making or breaking, because one day you could be really good. You have a, you know, a bag of doritos. For most people it's not going to matter too much, but maybe you're very, very sensitive. You wake up tomorrow you're shitting yourself literally in the toilet. It's like, well, guess what was different.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely, and the well, yeah, the very first thing is a journaling. Like you know, as anyone that works with nutrition, what is your starting point? You have to have a snapshot of what someone's doing. And to the food sensitivity part two, that's not in my scope. I don't do the clinical nutrition, but what I've known across from all the practitioners I've spoken with and like have had some clients go through you know food intolerances and stuff is what has always been. You know that we can all agree on across the board is the journaling and doing like a elimination diet, because you might you know it's kind of the food sensitivity tests are a bit controversial.
Speaker 1:Some believe in it, some don't. Some talk about like skewed data because perhaps you've been exposed to it, like sure, whatever. But what we can all agree on is if you're doing an elimination diet and you're actually seeing how it influences your body and you're tracking it, we can all, like you can see that in real time. And because things shift too as well with the food sensitivity, again it can go. We can start that conversation about geography, like I could have gluten in in canada or in europe and not in the us. That's a other conversation. That perhaps is more about agriculture but to to our point.
Speaker 2:It's like if you're having that awareness.
Speaker 1:Okay, I said a trigger, Go ahead. How about it?
Speaker 2:Good. So there's some anecdotal evidence and I think some papers would suggest this too. Whilst again, don't quote me, I haven't been brushed up on it much lately. I think the most common one and you probably have heard of this, maybe not, but for Australians, new Zealanders, it's a thing they call it Bali belly or something like that where basically we travel Bali, we come back with like shitting the bed and it's like we ate in the hotel. Everything was clean. It's like why is that? Is it not clean? It's like not really. And the people from America is like, oh good, canada. And then they go to like india, for example. They just eat in hotels boiled water, everything they go back it's like, oh my god, like my guts are just destroyed. It's like could it really be a cleanliness thing?
Speaker 2:And people were arguing about it, and one of the speculations was actually because, um, from a geographical sense that you talked about, is that different countries potentially possess different gut microbiomes. And one thing that's actually quite interesting um, I actually asked my dad who, um, he, he used to be a pharmacist and not anymore. I asked him about his, his take on probiotics, and one of the things he sort of mentioned was like the the probiotics that he gets in new zealand. It's completely different to we grew up I grew up in malaysia to to malaysia. So like the actual strain itself, like you get the probiotic malaysian probiotic in new zealand, the ingredients, strains is completely different. So to your point, with geographical differences sometimes it could actually be a very fascinating thing where it's just a difference in gut microbiome and when you go back home home your body just can't cope and potentially one of the speak to your doctor solutions is try a probiotic back home. It does wonders, it really does, especially if you've got like real bad guts and stuff.
Speaker 1:Try a probiotic and you actually come out the other end a lot better and or also the opposite could happen, because if you end up getting the wrong strain, you might introduce a bacteria. That's like, oh crap. Now I made a situation which is the the interesting part about god. Bacteria is like I was talking about this on another episode is that it's still in its infancy and, like for me, I'm not very comfortable, like that's what we said and that's why, when people ask me, I'm like, oh, I don't like what, but what do you mean?
Speaker 1:like I can, I can legally and ethically share a couple of general suggestions of like here.
Speaker 2:Try this probiotic, but if it's specific.
Speaker 1:Back to the chronic disease issue. There's some stuff that maybe one bacteria does the opposite. If you have something? Yeah. So again, disclaimer guys, this is a general podcast but, yeah that, that's so fascinating to me yeah, it got so much involved and then like how much of that influences chronic diseases, how much of that you brought up concussions earlier, like that's a warm hole I love going down.
Speaker 1:it's just how much concussions can influence gut health in the future because of they're interconnected with the nervous system and sometimes sometimes someone gets IBS that didn't have it and they think it was a food issue, but actually has to do with the post-concussion syndrome because it was that part's very interesting Cause it's like it could. Maybe it wasn't the food at all, Maybe very much was your nerve, like your actual system, which. I know we're both our faces. For those that are like we're both just making faces like another wormhole.
Speaker 2:Another wormhole.
Speaker 1:One thing you said that I think was really essential and I want to highlight it is hey, you as athletes need to talk and to say things, but also coaches need to hear you and not dismiss it Especially when it comes to the quote unquote listening to your body, like a role of a coach is to push and also know their athlete. So it's like are you pushing someone? Like, are you challenging someone or pushing someone to their detriment?
Speaker 1:those are not always the same yeah, yeah, 100 okay, all right, we could talk about many things you said there for another three years. We can put a pin in that circle back put a pin in future conversations circle back to.
Speaker 1:We'll circle back to got help so let's go back to got help. So, uh, I do want to chat a little bit more personal on our takeaways, to kind of uh, yes, finish, our episode is having. So we are both athletes and practitioners in the space simultaneously. Um, have you, do you have an example of like where someone was perhaps made it harder for themselves to make weight or to perform because of certain chronic conditions? Or how do they navigate it if they had this condition and they already worked with you and had the strategy? So like, give me a horrible story and give me a success story oh, so horrible story.
Speaker 2:And at that time I was still well I would say I was still fairly well I was still finding my foot footing, doing like massive weight cuts. So I think we'll start with horror stories and then we'll start one horror story because, jesus, if this goes out, I'm losing all my clients. No, I'm just coaching guys, stay, stay, stay from capitalism. Um, captain, some rules, no, don't kill me. So horror stories. So I think one of the horror stories was like on paper, this is one of those things where, or this is where, like the fuck signs, we gotta go, kind of thing, you know. So it's like we needed, we needed to make weight. It was national championships and from a. To be fair, we already already pre-warned this particular person not to do this, but she decided to do it anyway and I'm like hey, that's your choice, I will work with what I've got right. So the context here is quite important. No, he, she, remain anonymous.
Speaker 2:This particular athlete came to me and wanted to drop a weight class for her sport. And, okay, cool, fairly straightforward, fairly straightforward, right, like your weight class above. You're not overly, you know, horrible. Just came back from a big holiday, put on a couple kgs. All right, make sense, we can, we could totally do that. We map it out, all right, sweet, sweet, sweet. That's how, oh my god, the cuts is going good, we don't even need to do a weight cut. And you've made weight.
Speaker 2:And then, all of a sudden, her training coach was like fuck it, we're going one more down. I'm like whoa, whoa, hang on a minute, buddy. But hey, two to one, right democracy. So they say so. I'm like all right, two people want it, one person say no, eight democracy wins. Okay, here's what's going to happen. They're like yep, yep, yep, all right, all right, we'll do it. So, basically, the wake, uh, implemented all the strategies that you potentially would know of with a weight cut, a standard weight cut, so like water cutting, gut cutting, blah, blah, blah. 12, 12 hours out from weigh-ins two hour win, by the way.
Speaker 2:So weigh-in two hours, oh, no so not even a 24 hour weigh-in. So this is where, like, oh no, my initial point. Get back to my initial point. Like very important to understand what the weigh-in process is like. Like don't, don't think like I just need to cut. No, absolutely not. Like the post weigh-ins is as crucial, if not more important, than the actual cut itself. So to our weigh-in I think we sat at, like jesus, like four kilos above, and this is like a two-hour weigh-in, right. So you're kind of like, oh fuck. So like, all right time to die. I guess sauna made weight, got it done.
Speaker 2:But that's like a horror story, because it's one of those things where, in hindsight, I probably should have pushed back. But I'm also a man of democracy. I'm like all right, like just understand. Like this is what's going to happen. Like if you're down, you're down, I'll, I'm down, but just understand. Like all the repercussions are on you, like that I'm not taking any responsibility. My responsibility was to get you down a weight class, you know. Like this is.
Speaker 2:I basically voted no for this and I was like that's on you. If you want it, we can do it. Is it going to be fun? Absolutely not. So that's like one of those horror stories where, like, looking back now, I probably would have like be a lot more firm and like, look this person, truth be told as well, reflecting back, whilst not diagnosed, definitely from a and I hate to say this because it's almost like I'm judging people by their appearance, but really it's not, because you can make up some things based on appearance, like hair loss or lip color and cracked lips, like you can wake up a couple of things from observations. Right, this person probably has some metabolic issues. Let's just put it that way. Let's just put it that way from a, purely from an appearance standpoint.
Speaker 2:You're like all right, like you're not diagnosed, but I think like there's something going on here, you know, like you don't, it don't seem to flash. I probably would have done things very differently with this particular individual. So that's what I'll say right now. On the fun side, obviously we want to talk about fun stuff. Um, where are we going with this? So I think a very common one, particularly with females, would be ibs and pcos, like they're generally quite like interchangeable, particularly athletes.
Speaker 2:So this particular person, for example, sake, is a female, uh, does have diagnosed pcos and ibs, and one of the things that I tend to say is um, if you, if you show signs and symptoms of like some type of chronic disease, even though if you've never been formally diagnosed, I think it's just important to acknowledge, like your standard weight making, weight weight loss journey, to get to a weight class, is not going to be the same as someone who might be of same weight to you but don't possess these things.
Speaker 2:It's just how your body works, right. So the success story, I suppose, or the happy ending, was like the good news was that she gave me a very long lead up time, which means that there was a lot of room to work on certain things before we actually plan out a weight cut phase, and essentially the plan was to rapid weight cut, making weight for comp. Ultimately, we didn't even need that issue and they actually made weight, not needing to actually weight cut at all, so the plan was to rapid weight cut it and ultimately the guts felt better and stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, her guts felt better, less bloating, less pain, less inflammation. Your like joints just feel a little bit more lubricated. You're like, yeah, like you know, that's a success story. Now, granted, I'm not going to say like this is going to happen to everyone. What I'm saying, though, is that, unless if you're paid to do your sport, don't always think weight cutting is always necessary, is it? Is it something you should experience? Yeah, you probably should. Let's be honest, I'm not gonna shit, I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna defend it. I think you should try at least weight cutting once, just to experience what it feels like, and then you know you can. You can decide for yourself, like, whether it's something you want to do. I think it's important, but if you do have chronic disease, I think it's just important to understand, like, hey, your process doing it is probably going to be quite different compared to your average person, so to speak.
Speaker 1:Fair, and I love your success story because it highlights a few things right. It's again not just about the making weight, but the whole. I would argue why we all do this. It's like to feel healthier, to feel better in your body, to be able to perform and be able to do it another day, to have that sustainable approach, because then you are at a good baseline that you could do it again whereas if you just only did it to make weight.
Speaker 1:You're not going to be able to do it again right away, especially if it was like a really aggressive cut. It's like you're looking at yeah, yeah, yeah all of those pros that you had won't necessarily have been experienced like you may have had journey weight on paper, but not the other, you just feel.
Speaker 1:You just feel rubbish you just said yeah, yeah. And then it begs the question of what? What does that goal mean to you like, why, if you're, if you're achieving it, but you feel like garbage the whole time? Was that worth it versus maybe? If you shifted the timeline on your goal, or maybe you just had a different goal to begin with, but you felt amazing. So, like what, what matters more to you, what's the priority?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:I love that. Well, thank you so much for sharing, and I love the tangents. I have far more questions, as I always do. I'm like I'm, like Dallas. We talked for an hour but I have seven more questions. One last thing. One last thing Do you have any golden nuggets you want to leave our listeners with?
Speaker 2:That caught me off guard. Let me think, just so that I don't leave you with.
Speaker 2:Well, you did say golden nuggets, you technically you gave me a plural there, so I'll give you two then, because you gave me do it nuggets with an s do it so I think I think the first one is ironically, as a clinical and sports nutritionist nutrition is probably going to be, funnily enough, the 10 that will really raise your game as a weekend warrior athlete, so to speak. It's really the 10. So, train hard, don't think like nutrition is like the gold line. But once you kind of get to a point where you're like I don't know, like training is good and everything is good, but there's no fear, right, that's where like it really makes a big difference. So I think you know, don't, don't like. Nutrition is great, clearly, because I do it, but don't expect it to give you like a three, four hundred percent performance increase. Right, it will help, for sure, but you have to train your ass off, you know. Like don't, don't think like just eating good food and training sub optimally. You're going to be absolutely not. I think that's just a recipe for disaster.
Speaker 1:The second golden nugget, I think, and some of us sorry, interrupt before and some of us genetics and just like being freaks of nature where you could, you know have been athletes that quote unquote, eat really poorly isn't?
Speaker 2:isn't that the whole execute?
Speaker 1:but d1 athlete diet for a sec so it's just like, hey, some of us genetics. And then, yeah, I just want to interact. So your second point of golden nugget yeah.
Speaker 2:So I guess because of the topic of chronic disease and stuff, um, all right, we kind of already talked about it, but I guess, as as a golden nugget, I'll leave it at, and as a golden nugget it's like it sucks obviously to know that you have potential, that you have a chronic disease, but don't let it be the all-consuming identity of your life. There's going to be things that you can work around. It for sure you know, work with people who understand it, talk to people who have it. Just acknowledge it that it is part of you, but it's not wholeheartedly you, if that even makes sense, like it's a part of you but it's. It doesn't define you. That's what I'll say thank you.
Speaker 1:No, that was great golden nuggets and a lot of really interesting points and I appreciate all of so. Thank you for being on and sharing your wisdom with us. Chong, I really appreciate you.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you Enjoyed it.
