Allen Lim, PhD: Fueling the World's Greatest Athletes

Dr. Allen Lim, the founder of Skratch labs, knows fueling strategies as well as anyone in the world. From the Tour de France cyclists (including Team Garmin and Radio Schack) to Olympic Champion Gwen Jorgensen, he is the go-to expert when it comes to optimal fueling. In this episode, he provides some great advice for serious athletes, but also goes into what each of us, regardless of our pursuits, can do to enhance our own performance!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Welcome to the

Speaker 2: 0:09

Latest episode of the catalyst, health and wellness coaching podcast. My name is Brad Cooper, and I'll be your host. And today's episode features Dr. Allen Lim. Many of you probably recognize that name. He's a sports psychologist, cycling coach, and the founder of an organization called scratch labs in his work with professional cyclists, he became known for creating something called a secret drink mix. And I remember this, it was all the, everybody was talking about like, what's the secret drink mix had less sugar, most sodium and a cleaner taste because it used real fruit. And this secret mix eventually became, what's now known as scratch labs and that's a product I've used myself in many events, including the race across America. It's a great product. We don't talk a lot about that specifically, but you'll hear in the wisdom that he shares, why that product has done so well, a little bit more about Dr. Lim. He was the director of sports science for Garmin and radio shack, cycling teams, and is the only American scientist who have worked and cooked for teams at the tour de France. And he talks a little bit about how that came to be. As we chat. Lynn has worked with dozens of top American cyclists to improve their performance nutrition. In addition to these roles, he also developed a method, a method for testing for biological markers of performance enhancing drugs that eventually led to cycling's biological passport that you've probably heard about. In addition, he's worked with chef Bizu, Thomas to author books, including the feed zone cookbook feed zone portables in the feed zone table. Just reminder that you can access additional resources, including a transcript of this episode@catalystcoachinginstitute.com. There is one critical item based on the date this is being released. And that is if you're planning on going to the health and wellness coaching retreat up in the Rocky mountains, this September, the deadline for early registration, which has a huge discount it's just about here. So take a look at that. If that's something you've looked at, you've thought about don't wait, because that'll save you quite a bit. Anything else please don't hesitate to reach out to us. You can reach us@resultsatcatalystcoachinginstitute.com. Again, the overall website with resources is catalyst coaching institute.com. And with that, let's move on to the latest episode of the cat

Speaker 1: 2:26

Health and wellness coaching podcast.

Speaker 3: 2:34

So Dr. Lim, our listeners know your bile from the introduction. Thanks so much for joining us so fascinating. In fact, I read the American flyers film 1985, one of my all time, favorite films kind of gets you started with the whole cycling thing. Were there other intriguing turning points in your career that they kind of brought you to this point in the journey? Well, thank you for me first off.

Speaker 4: 3:00

Um, that's a great question. You know, what, what inspires anyone wanting to do anything? And for sure, American fliers was a big part of that, but, um, you know, so was the boy Scouts of America. That's actually how I got into cycling. It was the cycling merit badge that got me really interested in taking, cycling from something that I just love to do from something that, you know, I just did as a form of transportation around the streets of Los Angeles to realizing that there was a lot more to it that this could be something that you did competitively as well. Um, so the boy Scouts was a big part of it. I was also really lucky in that I had some great mentors and some great coaches along the way. Uh, my first coach was a guy named Alan Bean. Uh, he was fantastic. He used to print out these little programs for us through the mantra of cycling club. And then when I got into college, I had this great coach named Dr. Wilbert sigh and Dr. Tsai, uh, was a former Olympian. He was an MD. Um, he was someone who took a really scientific approach and to have someone that was mentoring me, not just with respect to what to do as a cyclist, but how I could apply scientific knowledge to it, uh, was also a big turning point for me.

Speaker 3: 4:17

Tell us about your choice to go, to see you, to get your PhD. Our daughter just is finishing up their great school, but you have a lot of options in, especially in integrative physiology. Was there something specific that drew you outside of geography to that program?

Speaker 4: 4:32

You know, for me, there were, I think a few big draws. Um, some of them real, some of them ignorant, you know, first and foremost, in my mind, Boulder, Colorado was the epicenter of professional cycling. And that goes all the way back to thinking about the movie American fliers, right there, there are these great scenes of moral Bismarck from Boulder, Colorado in that movie. And so I knew that if I wanted to be a practitioner that I needed to go where the best cyclists were, and that was part of the legend and lore of CU Boulder. Um, you know, the other part of it was just looking at the work that the professors had done. Primarily Dr. William Burns at the university of Colorado. He was someone that, uh, I knew was a real great applied physiologist and had done work on the performance level. That was really interesting to me. I knew that his mentor was JT Kearney, who was the director of sport science at the U S Libre trading center. Right. And so there was this kind of network at Colorado that connected the Olympic training center that connected to Boulder, Colorado that I knew would benefit me outside of the classroom. Right. Um, it was also just a place that I wanted to live and, uh, that was planted in my head by a good friend of mine named Dr. Shannon Sylvan doll. Um, Shannon and I were undergrads at UC Davis and we both had an interest in high-performance. We were both mentored by Dr. Wig sigh. And when I was kind of questioning what I would do with my life, Shannon, you know, basically kind of at the seed in my head, he said, Hey, look out, what what's going to happen is I'm going to go to medical school. You go to graduate school at some point we'll reunite in Boulder, Colorado work for a tour de France cycling team. And I was like, Hey, that's a great idea. Um, you know, many, many years later after a helacious really hard day at the tour de France, I found myself totally be, you know, going back to this little tiny French hotel room where I was greeted by, you know, my roommate who was a change doctor, we high five and I said to a patient, and I guess we made it, you know, he ended up being the team doctor for the garment pro cycling team. And I was the teams, uh, coach and sport scientist. So Shannon's plan actually came to fruition, um, and the university of Colorado, uh, mentorship by, you know, Dr. Bill burns was a big part of that. Wow.

Speaker 3: 7:04

Wow. That is a great story. So you have worked literally, not even an exaggeration in this at all, some of the greatest athletes in the globe tour de France winners, Gwen Jorgensen. I saw she's, she's connected with you recently. I'm a huge fan of hers. What are some of the idiosyncrasies and patterns you've noticed along the way? Not, not with those two groups specifically, but just as you look at the horizon of athletes you've worked with in the, primarily the outliers, what are some of the things you've noticed that our listeners might say really, really are you serious?

Speaker 4: 7:38

You know, it's funny because I think of these athletes, obviously as extraordinary human beings, but the things that they do to take care of themselves and to, to perform are actually quite ordinary. You know, uh, for example, I've, I've spent a number of visits to, uh, to, you know, with Glen Jordan and, and husband, Pat, and every time I've stayed with them, one of the things that Gwen does in the morning when she first gets up to get ready for the day, is she vacuums, but it allows her to kind of just set the tempo, set the clock for the day. Right. Interesting. Kind of keep her stuff together so that she can have the most productive training day possible. Um, you know, all of these athletes, I think are much more human than, um, we often perceive because they are so talented, right. But that, that talent is, is, is maybe different from, uh, the fact that they still have to work hard, that they still have to challenge themselves, that they still have so much that they have to overcome. And in many ways, because they are performing at such a high level, they're always on a Razor's edge. So if anything, they're more like canaries in a coal mine than they are, you know, elite athletes, you know, they're the ones to drop when something isn't quite right. Right. And in that sense, they're actually maybe more vulnerable than regular folks. Um, so I find that pretty interesting as well. Um, outside of that, you know, I think that, um, they're just regular people with very special talents who have learned to harness that talent through extraordinarily hard work.

Speaker 3: 9:19

That's very interesting vacuuming. Maybe I need to start that maybe that helped my training a little bit, the, the mistakes. So obviously your specialty is pretty broad, but the fueling is, is really the core of it. What are common mistakes that both elite and kind of your sub elite athletes rate make on a regular basis in terms of that feeling piece?

Speaker 4: 9:40

You know, I think that in general, if there's a commonality between the elite and the non elite, it's, over-complicating the process, right? And sometimes you just have to take a step back and say, Hey, look, this is actually a lot simpler than we make it out to be. If you're hungry, you gotta eat. If you're thirsty, you need to drink. And if you're not, don't worry about it. Right. And so whatever side of the coin you're on in terms of under fueling or over fueling both can be issues and they can both be issues when we start to overthink it and not listen to our body. The performance in the field is so dependent upon so many different factors from your own individual genetics, from your own fitness, from the environment, environmental situations that it's, it's, it's very hard sometimes to have a full-proof plan. And so by getting in tune with yourself, by listening to yourself, by having a certain amount of flexibility in, you know, in, in that process, I think we all end up doing better, whether it's an elite performer or a non elite performer bottom line, is that you've gotta be able to trust yourself and hopefully accumulate enough experience so that your confidence confident with trusting yourself.

Speaker 3: 10:56

That's good advice. The genetics piece let's went down that path a little bit. We recently had Dr. Guests on our program and she talked about the genetics being pulled into some of the nutrition and, and other aspects. Are you using kind of the epigenetic testing, that type of thing in your work with athletes, or is that something you see developing from what I'm hearing is something that's almost ready, maybe two, three years from now, are you pulling that in, at this point with some of your individual coaching and feeling, uh, strategic planning?

Speaker 4: 11:29

I, I think that it's a bit early, I've definitely had conversations with a few geneticists and I've had conversations with companies like helix, um, who are doing a lot of work in that realm. Um, I think that it's still a little early. I think that, um, the problem with only looking at the genomic side, the equation is that you're not looking at what's being translated. You're not looking at the proteome right. And so there's the code there's, you know, what, what, what our body might have the genetic predisposition for what people often forget is that what is expressed is probably the most important thing. And what is expressed is ultimately a consequence of our environment and the training stimulus that we apply to our genome. And so the proteome or the printed protein and changes in the proteome might actually be more important. Right? Most importantly, you've got to be able to compare, you know, that, that, that instruction set with what is actually happening in health and performance is probably some relationship between the genome and the proteome, you know, the work that companies like SomaLogic are doing, where they now have blood tests that can identify more than 5,000 different proteins in the protium through blood urine are probably the future of the sport, along with what's going on with the genomic side of things.

Speaker 3: 12:54

Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I think we're gonna be hearing a lot more about that coming months and years that want to circle back with you on that as, as it gets, uh, developed a little bit more, are there lessons you've learned from the elite athletes, hydration and then nutrition piece, as well as fueling that would be benefited beneficial to your everyday person? You're not elite athlete your executive, those kinds of folks.

Speaker 4: 13:20

Yeah. I think that on the hydration side specifically, it's this notion that thirst is probably something that works very, very well to not only keep us hydrated, but to keep us protected. And I think that thirst for a long time has been kind of given, been given a bad rap, um, this idea that you've got to drink ahead of your thirst, right? Drinking ahead of your thirst for drinking beyond your thirst can be problematic because there's a reason why your first mechanism is there. And your first mechanism is there primarily to help maintain sodium balance in the blood. Right? So as we lose water, right, our blood sodium concentration increases, and that's what ends up triggering the thirst mechanism. Now, if we're to drink plain water, right? And we were to have lost only water than one liter of water loss would require one liter of plain water for us to satiate our thirst. But in the case of exercise, in the case of sweating, we're also losing salt. And so what happens is that if we're drinking plain water, our thirst would be satiated before we fully drank all the water that we lost because our thirst mechanism is trying to regulate a concentration, right? So we lose a liter of sweat, but we also lose some salt. So it doesn't take a liter of water to maintain a normal sodium balance. What's great about the third mechanism and that constant in that situation is that the thirst mechanism is helping to keep electrolyte balance. The bad thing is that the thirst mechanism does so by letting us dehydrate. And so from a performance standpoint, over a long period of time, we might actually become dehydrated. And our performance, our thermoregulation or cardiac output may actually suffer now where, you know, this becomes, um, okay, is if we replace the salt that we lose. Right? And so one of the things that I've learned from elite athletes is that if we have them drink to thirst, and we look at the differences between one elite athlete versus another, a lot of the weight loss can be, can be explained by differences in sodium loss. And so what I learned from the elite athletes was that if one person was losing more weight than another person during a workout, and they were both listening to their thirst, I knew that the person who was losing more body weight probably just needed more salt, right. And when we made those individual adjustments, um, the athletes were able to perform better state, better hydrated, but also most importantly, stay an electrolyte balance, which is also critical to performance. Does that make sense?

Speaker 3: 16:13

Yes. I'm jotting notes down here. So essentially the thirst mechanism works. If we're going to summarize all of that into one comment, it works,

Speaker 4: 16:23

But the thirst mechanism works best when we replace what we lose. Right? So if you're losing both sides, if, if you're losing a thousand milligrams of sodium and your sweat per liter of sweat will then replace a thousand milligrams of sodium per liter. When you do that, then your first mechanism, you know, you get the best of both worlds. You get a mechanism that allows you to replace the water that you've lost while also maintaining electrolyte balance. Otherwise your first mechanism is primarily there to maintain your electrolyte balance, right? Which is a fair start with respect to hydration.

Speaker 3: 17:01

Do certain people become more sensitive or less sensitive to that thirst mechanism via practice and what they're doing in training, for example, someone who only uses water and training, and then on a race day, adopts, you know, pulls into the scratch product. For example, does that change it, does it need to be adjusted and adapted to and sensitized in training or not necessarily?

Speaker 4: 17:30

I don't know. I think that the answer is not necessarily our bodies are actually a lot smarter than we think that being said, the stress of competition, the stress of training and founds, our own perception of what is right and what is wrong. And what I do know is that you never want to do anything in racing that you don't do in training that you don't do to practice. And that over time, having the confidence in the experience that your body is not going to die on you and that your hydration, fueling strategies are, you know, good for you is super, super important because having that confidence either in training or in racing is super important and it takes time to gain that experience. It takes time to figure out, um, you know, how to trust yourself. And I think that's part of the athletic process, right? You're learning continuously how far you can push yourself and what you need to be able to do that without having any type of distress, whether it's GI distress, whether it's falling apart, because you are under fueled or under hydrated, whether it's actually, you know, um, having issues because you maybe overdid it. Interesting.

Speaker 3: 18:32

Very good. Very good. So let, let's turn the mirror around a little bit here. How about you were talking with health and wellness coaches or future health and wellness coaches. So for your life, are there, is there a, a primary area of health and wellness that you're currently focused on right now? Can you walk us through that journey and how that's working out for you on a personal level?

Speaker 4: 18:51

Yeah. You know, for me personally, I think that the biggest, uh, issue for me as a single dude, um, with, uh, a really, really hectic schedule is not isolating myself and remembering to spend time with others, to, um, eat food with others, for example. Right. I think that, uh, for a lot of men, especially as we age, we tend to isolate a lot of that. Isolation can have a lot of negative consequences. I also see this with elite athletes who, for example, feel that they have such a specific diet that they need to maintain, that they end up eating alone all the time. There's this really important factor called common salady, which is the act of eating together, which has been shown and innumerable psychosocial papers, uh, have an incredibly important bearing on our overall health and wellness that people who eat alone are significant at significantly higher risk for, you know, um, all types of diseases from cardiovascular disease to depression, to whatever else. Right. And so, you know, the simple, the simple reminder, at least in my own mind to, you know, uh, be more social to take time, to spend with others, to share my meals with other people, I think is one of the paramount things that I think about like my own wellness these days.

Speaker 3: 20:17

Beautiful, very well said. I love it. Uh, and, and the word you use, common sense.

Speaker 4: 20:22

Common salary. Yeah. Calm with Mensa table at eight, the act of common, salady the act of eating with one another

Speaker 3: 20:30

Interesting, very interesting, good stuff. All right. So thinking about kind of circling back on a, on a previous question, but broadening it, some of the more interesting elite athletes you've worked with thinking how you work with person a differently than person B and you, and you keep names out of the discussion here, but as they're feeling guide, as they're feeling coach how'd, you work differently with a, than you did B

Speaker 4: 20:55

You know, I think a lot of it comes down to taste, right. Uh, it's not just about carbohydrate, fat and protein. It's also about what people like to eat. And I really do feel that there has to be joy in what you eat, whether you're out there training your butt off or in the middle of a competition or sitting at the dinner table. Right. Um, it's very, very difficult to remove that, that sense of joy that we get from food from, uh, the chemical substrate that makes it up. Right. Um, and so for me, from one individual to another, it's a lot about kind of, you know, asking them what they enjoy eating. And I've worked with athletes from all different types of cultures, and there's definitely a cultural influence here being mindful of those cultural differences is super important. Um, you know, being mindful of, of, of what people just like, I think can't be discounted that being said, you know, different athletes have different goals with respect to what they need. They have different goals with respect to the weight they're trying to make for competition. And I think that maybe one of the big differences is in that, you know, management of caloric restriction, right. That management of how do we get to race, weight and not detonate someone and do it in a way that is really sane and, uh, you know, not extreme, um, regardless of the athlete, I think that trying to moderate things and not adopt extremist ideas or philosophies is super, super important.

Speaker 3: 22:32

You go about doing that because the extreme is almost inherent in your, your profession or the people that you're working with with their profession. If you're not at the extreme, because we're not talking about the top 1%, we're talking about the top 0.00, zero 1%. So how do you go about that process of not being extreme when you're dealing with someone who lives in the extreme has to live in extreme?

Speaker 4: 22:55

Yeah. I think that here's the deal first and foremost, while it may appear that these athletes are living in extreme and by all accounts relative to the rest of humanity, they are at an extreme. The thing that I always tell professional athletes is that if you want to get paid to do this, and you want to have a long career, then you need to learn how to win on an average day, not on a best day. And there's this misnomer that these athletes are peaking to the point where all of a sudden they're squeezing out the very, very best of themselves on a given day. But the reality is, is a professional athlete might be competing, you know, 20 to 100 times in a year, right. And only to be competitive in that environment is to be good enough that an average performance, if done right, might actually net you a win, right. And the only way to get there is time, right? So there is this huge element of patience that is involved and keeping the big picture in mind and giving yourself as long of a runway as possible secondary to that. It's this idea that all you're really trying to do is not necessarily be better than another person, but be better than yourself each day. Right. And this idea of very small incremental self-improvement I think is what ultimately gets you to, what, what might look like a seemingly extreme performance.

Speaker 3: 24:33

So what you just said is, is very similar to what the coaches are communicating to the folks they're working with on, on a broader scale. How do you any tips about how you approach that with the person who says, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd actually, am I get it? I get it, but I gotta be better. Any words of wisdom that you can share with us in terms of, of that individual that says yeah, yeah, yeah. For everyone else. That's great. That's great advice. Yeah. Yeah. But I got to do it this way.

Speaker 4: 25:02

Well, I think that first and foremost better is not perfection and there is a perfectionist mentality and a lot of people and a lot of athletes that can be self-defeating. Right. And so if you think about better as progress, not necessarily perfection, it takes some of that pressure off. Right. And it allows you to set these short-term goals that allow you to Pat yourself on the back occasionally, but also slap yourself in the face if you don't make the goals. Right. Um, and there's always going to be that ebb and flow of success and failure. Anytime you're trying to become a better person, right. No matter what the task is, and you learn to be hard on yourself, but you learn to also be forgiving of yourself. And it's living with that contradiction that I think is really essential to making any type of progress. There's this great quote by F Scott Fitzgerald, when he says the test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in one's mind and still retain the ability to function. And I think that so much of this process and this tug of war between a good mentor and coach and a client, or between yourself and your own goals is this tug of war between, you know, holding two opposing ideas in your head and still functioning. Right.

Speaker 3: 26:24

Excellent. Excellent. All right. So I want to talk specifically about runners. We have a lot of runners that listen in. I know cycling is your focus, but obviously your work with Gwen is, is a very run central right now. It seems like runners struggle even more with GI issues than cyclists and triathletes. If have runners listening, they're relatively serious. Any advice you can give to the person who says Dr.[inaudible], I have tried everything. I've changed it. My food I've switched up drinks. I've changed the timing of when I eat pre-race and during the race and all those kinds of things, but they're still getting GI issues when they're most of the time they don't. But every once in a while, when they're doing a all out temple run or they're in a race situation of an hour plus, and it's consistently causing some kind of cramping, any generic I've, I've given you so little here to work with, but anything based on that, that you would say, well, they're probably missing this, or they need to look at that.

Speaker 4: 27:26

Yeah, well, you know, here's the deal. Um, my mission in life is to make sure that nobody pays out of their boat hole when they're on a run or out in the bicycle. And it's kind of a joke amongst elite endurance athletes, this whole notion of GI distress, because it is actually a real performance detriment or bottleneck. Right? One of the things I've learned from Glenn with on the running side versus on the cycling side is that the intensity of running, especially in something like a marathon or something that is under two hours in length is so intense that you almost don't even have time to properly eat or drink or chew. And it's not like a bicycle where you're not jostling and you can actually load up your stomach with food that slowly digests, right. And can give you, you know, fuel, uh, in a more paced out fashion. Um, so a couple of things with respect to running specifically, first and foremost, if you do have a very intense, very hard one coming out, you gotta start fueling not the morning before, not the day before, but the week before muscle glycogen, which is really, really important to fueling a very intense workout is something that, um, needs at least a couple of days of increased carbohydrate intake to fully maximize. And I think a lot of runners, um, you know, who are especially trying to make, make weight or maintain weight, don't realize that you've got a significantly increased carbohydrate load before an important event in order to have the proper fuel on board to do the event that you're not necessarily going to be able to do this by feeding yourself during an event. Right. Um, that also goes for pre hydrating. And so, you know, with Gwen, we started adopting the strategy of her slowly increasing her carbohydrate intake up to 10 days before an event, right. And the few days before the event increasing her sodium and our water intake, so that she ends up onboarding more fuel. What has a pap running is that her waste rate is actually maybe two to three pounds more than what she thinks it might normally be. Right. And so having to make adjustments there is also important. So first realize that you gotta be loaded, right? And you gotta be fueled ahead of time. Um, number two, I think that it's really important for people to, to, to, um, realize that it can have some food on board, right. Um, that having a stomach that has something that isn't upsetting you, something simple like rice or oatmeal, which is sitting in your stomach that slowly digests out, uh, coming into what event is can, can actually be really, really key to keeping you fueled without having GI distress. And so, for example, with Quinn or other winners I've worked with, we might actually have them eat some solid food, right on the start line, right. Something that isn't really benign, something that doesn't, uh, you know, spike their sugar level, but something that sits in the stomach that can fuel them throughout. Um, we're currently in the process of working with different liquid carbohydrates that are much more complex Instructure that digest much more slowly than say, you know, your common long-chain maltodextrin that can also help stabilize their blood sugar without causing GI distress. One of the worst things that you can do probably is to have a very high carbohydrate solution that you consume a lot of at once that while it has a low osmotic pressure, um, outside of the body, as soon as digestive enzymes hit it, it explodes and now kind of, um, you know, puts a huge pressure on your, on your small intestine at once. And so if you're going to consume a liquid carbohydrate and you're not consuming something that has a very, very slow known digestion rate, you got to pace that, that, that intake of carbohydrate, um, you know, for that reason, you know, in a lot of events, I tend to find that a lower carbohydrate solution actually works better, especially in liquid form because you're probably working so hard that the sweat load is also very high. And so by drinking something that is little less sweet, but, you know, has an adequate amount of sodium in it. You end up making up those calories by drinking more and also then properly hydrating. So that's a weather dependent issue as well, to summarize one, make sure you're pre-filling and pre hydrating the week before, make sure that when you are fueling and hydrating during the run that you do it in small bits, not in big gushes.

Speaker 3: 32:15

So a couple of things with the pre pre-loading. I mean, the classic carb loading type thing seemed to have been pushed slightly to the wayside. You're saying, you know what, there's a reason that was valued 10, 15 years ago. Let's start to bring that back a little bit. Are there specific? And again, I'm sure this is independent, it's variable based on the individual, but are there certain things where you say our recommendation is a little more rice with each meal? Our recommendation is a little more of, of this or that to easily add in those, those carbohydrates during that seven to 10 days?

Speaker 4: 32:52

Well, a couple of things I do think that, yeah, you might be eating a little more than what you actually need in that week coming into an event. You also have to realize that eating extra carbohydrate is going to come with additional waterways. That's also to help with total body water. And so maybe another way to frame this is that if you're doing it right, and you're tapering in for a key event or a key training day, you might find yourself gaining anywhere from three to four pounds in that week, leading up to the event. Most of that is going to be in waterways, right? And that waterway is associated with an increase in glycogen. The other thing to know is that I think the reason why maybe the car bloating has been pushed aside is because a lot of the movement and running has been towards ultra endurance runs, right? And longer trail runs, but for intense events, for events that require you going all out for the timeframe that carbohydrates it's going to be really, really essential. And I think it's also going to be essential for the ultra Durance events, even if you're still trying to fat adapt.

Speaker 3: 34:01

Very good. Very good. So let's pull scratching for a moment for the runner. Would you, and I know one of the concepts of scratches is we're increasing the sodium. We're giving it that little fresher taste from the natural foods that are utilized for that, the fruits, et cetera, but for the runner, would you suggest a little bit less concentration than you would for the cyclist or the triathlete, or is it as is pretty similar across those three centers?

Speaker 4: 34:27

I think as is, it's pretty similar across those three sports, um, scratches are already less sweet. It already has a higher sodium concentration. Uh, we only use freeze dried fruit or fruit, uh, dehydrated fruit juices, so that you don't get that flavor fatigue. You got to taste that washes away, uh, in a very clean manner. I think what the runner, one thing that they can experiment with and with maybe all athletes is they can experiment with, uh, making it more concentrated or less concentrated according to their own personal needs. The ethos ultimately at scratch with our products is to make these products. So simply that it's hard to make a mistake with it, right? Which means that you could probably double the concentration of scratch if you needed the calories and still not have any GI distress, right. Or you can lower the concentration and still be getting a decent amount of sodium. That being said, you know, we think of our drink mix as a primary form of hydration. And we tend to divorce that from queuing. When we think about fueling, we're thinking about things like our energy shoes, which have a pectin base, which allow them to sit in the stomach for a little longer and slowly trickle fueling so that there isn't a kind of a rush of carbohydrate hitting the small intestine at once, which might overwhelm the small intestine and create GI distress. Um, that being said, we are also in the middle of prototyping, a number of different high carbohydrates solutions. A lot of this developed initially for Gwen and now for the ETF education first pro cycling team, we've been having some good success there. So, uh, stay tuned because they're there, I think will be some interesting additions to the scratch line in time.

Speaker 3: 36:15

Very cool. You heard it here first folks. Um, so kind of, kind of wrap it together and again, so thankful for your time. This is great advice, really interesting insights as we broaden it out again to the health and wellness coaches in the way that they're working across a wide range of individuals with different goals and backgrounds, and very different than the many of the folks we've been talking about here, any general advice, words of wisdom, things that might help them as they approach these, these wide range of individuals. Yeah.

Speaker 4: 36:49

Think about things to think about are the things that you can't control, right? And for any individual at any level, there are fundamentally three things that are in our controller or a handful of things. One, our nutrition, that's something that we control. That's something that we can make better. And it's not about trying to change your life overnight. It's about making incremental progress every single day, right. Or we can control our sleep. That's a huge one. And I think a lot of people have a lot of machismo about, about their sleep and, you know, this thought that they can get away with less sleep. I don't think that that's the case. I think that the more that you can sleep, the better you'll perform. And if you lose the work from say someone like Dr. Sherry ma she's shown that there's almost no situation where increasing sleep, doesn't improve athletic performance. And her work certainly shows that if there's one variable that can improve anyone's performance at any level, more than any single factor, it's getting more sleep. Um, then of course you have your training, right? That's something that is under your control and that you can manage according to your time and your schedule and realizing that, you know, for example, as an executive, you know, one of the tenants of, I think leadership is knowing how to take care of yourself so that you can keep take care of others. And if you don't have your own sense of physical capacity, figure it out or metered out, then you're on the fast track for burning out or becoming ill. And you can't be an effective leader if you're sick. Right. Um, so keeping in mind, all these factors for your own physical capacity is, is actually very, very important. And then finally, I think that there's a big issue, especially around, uh, anyone who wants to perform at a very high level, whether you're an executive or you're, you know, a student or you're an athlete of your own mental wellbeing. And this notion that we can't do this alone, that we need each other, we need our, we need that, that, that tribe, we need that, uh, emotional human social support to be our best. And we can't just count the impact that other people have in our lives.

Speaker 2: 38:59

Fantastic. Thank you again for joining us. I thought we were going to be talking all about fueling and we hit a lot of good stuff there, but wisdom across the board. So thanks for the time. Really enjoyed it. And I know folks are going to

Speaker 4: 39:11

Appreciate this one. Well, thank you for having me

Speaker 1: 39:21

[inaudible]

Speaker 2: 39:22

I love most about podcasts is it allows you to go an extra layer or two deeper than you normally would. If you see somebody in a TV or radio interview, it's just the bullet points. It's just the things that they've been saying over and over in these brief kind of hit and run discussions. The podcast doesn't force that you've got the time to take it deeper. And that's the fun part. And I hope you have a sense that today, as he took us deeper and even him sharing his own personal wellness struggles and the things he's working on of, of making sure he's taking the time in the midst of his crazy schedule to eat with other people that had that time together, not just the food, but what that food represents on a, on a broader perspective, great stuff, Dr. Lim, thank you so much for, for taking the time. I mentioned at the very beginning, the catalyst, health and wellness coaching retreat, that's taking place in Estes park, Colorado, this September, and that the registration deadline, the early registration deadline is coming up. If that is something you think you might be interested in Lee's don't wait. We set a very low price for the early registration. So if you've been pondering it, if it's on your radar screen, take a look at it. Catalyst coaching institute.com under the retreat section, and you can see all the details. If you've got questions, reach out to us. Anything else, coaching related, you got questions. Give us a buzz. If you want to talk through this whole national board exam, what does that mean? And how does that work? Should you do it? Does it help your career? Or if you're a clinician, a physical therapist, a nurse, a counselor, and you're wondering, how does this coaching thing fit into your potential career pursuits or avenues you want to go reach out to us? Email is results@catalystcoachinginstitute.com. We're happy to set up some time to talk it through. Just ask, happy to do so. If you've got ideas of guests, you'd like to have us look into inviting onto the podcast, love to hear them. I've got a full list of people that we've been reaching out to. We've got a lineup teed up for the next several months, but if you've got somebody you think would be interesting to this audience, let us know. I mean, a lot of the best ideas come from you, our audience. So thanks for sending those as always thank you to those of you. Who've subscribed who have shared this. We're not marketing this thing, but it continues to grow. And that's a tribute to you. So thank you for taking the time to give those five stars to, to share it with friends, that kind of thing. It really is making a difference with that until next time, remember we're working toward better. We talk a lot about best self, but it was interesting. Dr. Lim even mentioned this as he was talking, the key is better. The key is pursuing better. That's not scary. That's not intimidating. That's something we can all do. Let's encourage our clients, our family members, our friends, and remember for ourselves that the goal isn't perfection, it's better. And that's something we can all pursue with that. Make it a great rest of your day. And I'll speak with you soon on the next episode of the catalyst, health and wellness coaching package.

Speaker 1: 42:33

[inaudible].