Starving for Success: The Eating Disorder Struggle

In this insightful and personal podcast episode, Ronnie candidly shares his struggle with an eating disorder in 2023, which had severe consequences on his mental health and athletic performance. With a focus on educating high-performing athletes, he highlights the detrimental effects of under-eating and offers practical advice on how to identify and address signs of being in a calorie deficit. He discusses how to properly fuel the body, balance macros, and emphasizes the importance of not obsessing over food and weight. This episode aims to provide valuable information to help athletes perform at their best while maintaining a healthy relationship with food.

00:00 Introduction and Disclaimer
00:37 Personal Journey with Eating Disorder
01:40 Episode Overview: Starving for Success
03:02 The 2023 Outdoor Season Struggles
06:58 The Obsession with Weight Loss
12:29 Signs of Under Eating
20:34 Recognizing Signs of Under-Eating
20:56 Combating Under-Eating Symptoms
21:28 Weight Management for Athletes
22:46 Calculating Your Energy Needs
27:09 Using Food Trackers Effectively
28:41 Macro Calculation for Muscle Gain
32:44 Recommended Protein Sources
34:29 Best Carbohydrates and Fats
36:16 Final Thoughts and Personal Insights

TDEE & Macro Calculations

Step 1

 BMR Equations: 

Men: BMR= (10×weight in kg) + (6.25×height in cm) − (5×age) + 5

Women: BMR= (10×weight in kg) + (6.25×height in cm) − (5×age) − 161

Ronnie (190lbs) : (10x86) + (6.25x177) - (5x31) +5 = 1816

Step 2 

Multiply BMR by Activity Factor:

• Sedentary (little or no exercise): × 1.2
• Lightly active (1-3 days per week): × 1.375
• Moderately active (3-5 days per week): × 1.55
• Very active (6-7 days per week): × 1.725
• Super active (twice daily intense training): × 1.9

Ronnie (190lbs) : 1816 x 1.55 = 2814 = TDEE

Step 3 (only if looking to lose weight) 

TDEE - 500

Ronnie (190lbs): 2814 - 500 = 2314 Total Calories I Would Consume to Lose Weight 

Calculating Macros: (For Muscle Gain)

Step 1: Calculate Protein Intake

Multiply your weight in lbs by 1.0

Ronnie (190lbs): 190 x 1.0 = 190g Protein

To find calories 190 x 4 = 760 Calories From Protein

Step 2: Calculate Fat Intake (25% of Diet Will Be Fats)

TDEE x .25 = Calories From Fat

Ronnie (190lbs): 2814 x .25 = 703.5 Calories From Fat

To find grams of Fat: 703.4/9 = 78g Fat

Step 3: Calculate Carbs

(TDEE) - (Calories from Fat +Calories from Protein) 

Ronnie (190lbs): 2814 - 1463 = 1351 Calories From Carbs

To find grams of Carbs: 1351/4 = 337g Carbs 

Transcript

0:00

The following podcast episode is for informational and educational purposes only. I am not a registered dietitian, nutritionist, or medical professional. The information shared in this episode is based on my personal experiences and opinions and should not be taken as professional dietary or medical advice. Every individual has unique dietary and health needs and any changes to nutrition, diet, or lifestyle should be made in consultation with a qualified healthcare professional. By listening to this episode, you acknowledge that I am not responsible for any decisions or outcomes related to the use of this information. Always seek professional guidance for personalized health advice.

Ronnie Baker 0:37

I talked about my journey and my struggle with the eating disorder that I had in 2023. It was really detrimental, not only to my mental health, but also it was detrimental to my racing and my running. I got to the point where after I had finished competing that year, I still was like debating on what I was going to eat every single day, even though in the off season, you're allowed to eat whatever you want. I was still like, Oh man, should I eat this? Because it's going to affect, my training And I got into this crazy spell mentally. And so when the season was finally over, My wife turned to me and said, Ronnie, you had an eating disorder. I laughed and I said, no, I didn't. but she didn't budge. She said, yes, yes you did. And then it hit me. She was right. I had all the signs. Constant hunger. Obsessive food tracking. Anxiety over every bite. The fear of ruining my progress. And my entire identity started revolving around food instead of racing. Even in the off season I couldn't stop thinking about it. That year I learned the hard way. Your weight doesn't run the race. You do. Yo, Defeat is optional family. What's going on? It's been a couple of weeks. I've been busy. I've been traveling, but I'm back and I'm really excited to be able to deliver this episode to you guys. You all saw the title of this episode, starving for success. The goal in this episode is I'm going to basically highlight the negative effects of under eating as a high performing athlete. And I'm going to give you some of the signs and side effects that you probably are in a calorie deficit. And obviously if you're trying to perform at a high level, you don't want to be in a calorie deficit. Um, If you didn't know that now, you know, And then I'll give you some practical tools to help you lose weight if you need to. Hint, you won't be losing weight during your season. And if you're listening to this episode, you probably have questions like, what is the optimal weight for me to compete at? Quite frankly, I don't know what that is, but it's going to be different for everybody I've competed at. 175, I competed at 185. I've run 9A to both of those. So, guys, um, that's all going to be determined on how your body feels and it's going to be an experiment, really, okay? Um, and so I'm going to tackle some of these questions, guys, give you some tips on how to increase your energy, um, eat the proper amount of food and avoid some of these pitfalls, um, that comes with food as an athlete. Okay. So let me dive into a story. Let me tell you guys a story. So it was 2023 outdoor season had arrived and I had raced plenty of times already. All right, so Picture this we're kind of midway into the season Probably ran two or three times But I knew honestly guys I knew something was off like I hadn't broken 10 seconds yet And for a sprinter at my level like it was a huge red flag we're like throwing red flags challenge on the play right because I Typically, I mean, if you look at my career, every time I'm gonna open up, I would open up at Mt. SAC, like, pretty much every year, and I would run 10 flat or 9. 9, and then after that, every race that I'd run after that would be under 10 seconds. If you look at 2018, you look at, um, 2021 every single time. So it was just like, it wasn't happening in 2023. And I was like, okay, something's got to be up. And it's like I was running, but I wasn't moving. It's kind of like I was running in place. I don't know if any of you guys have felt like that. Maybe even if you're not a track athlete, you felt like that. You're like, I'm going to do some sprints today. And you just feel like you're not going anywhere. And that's how I was, man. I was competing, but I was like, not competing. And so, then I got into the Paris Diamond League. Honestly, I got into the Paris Diamond League by the skin of my teeth. Um, basically, I barely got in. I was in lane 8. Um, and, yeah. I just kind of scraped in because I wasn't running well. And for those of you guys who don't know, the Diamond League is the pinnacle of professional sprinting, I would say. As far as the circuit is concerned. So, if you don't know Us Olympic athletes, we don't just train for four years and only compete at the Olympics. Like, we only compete one time in four years. That's not how track and field works. So what there is, there's a couple different races. across the span of the year, every year, okay? And it's called a circuit. And one of these circuits is called the Diamond League. And it's 15 meets across the world where the best of the best battle for points, prize money, and if everything lines up, a buy to the world championships. Meaning you get a free pass to compete at the biggest stage in the world championships, um, which happens every two years. So typically when there's not an Olympic year, we're running in a world championship year. This is one of them 2025. There's a world championships indoors and world championships outdoors. Okay. So it's a pretty big deal, this diamond leak, but before Paris. I was at UCLA and I was running what maybe was like the fifth race of the year and I think I placed fourth in that race. I felt okay, honestly, but just not great, not fast. The race just happened and I wasn't really in it. And if I'm being honest, I hadn't felt like myself in a really long time and the weight of self doubt now started to creep it. So let me take you a little bit further back. The year before, I sat out all of 2022 with a hamstring injury. The year before that, I placed fifth in the Olympics. Fifth. Two spots away from a medal. And after years of grinding to make a U. S. team, I finally did it. I felt like I was ready. And then it all crumbled. That loss really did something to me. I started questioning everything. Was I even talented enough to win on the big stage? Because for six years, I had been fighting to get to the top, I had beaten some of the best in the world, but every time the medals were on the line, I came up short. Any other year, this would have fueled me to go harder. Like, if this would have happened early in my career, maybe the first, second year of my career, I would have been like, Alright, let's, let's grind, let's get better. But This time I felt drained. Instead of pushing forward, I started to pick myself apart. Maybe I need to give more effort here. Maybe my block start is the problem. Maybe my training isn't right. Maybe my diet is the issue. And that last thought, that one got me. The obsession with weight. I looked at my numbers. In Tokyo, I weighed 175 pounds when I ran 983. And this point, I was hovering around 182. This is at this UCLA meet. In 2023, I was hovering around 182, fluctuating probably between 182, 184. Um, so I was like, that had to be it, right? The extra weight, that's what was slowing me down. So I figured, hey, I've got six weeks before USA's, and I made a decision. I'm going to drop this weight and I'm going to drop it fast because I feel like if I can drop this weight, I'll be back to my race weight. I'll be back to running 93 like I did in 2021. Everything will be cool. So I hired a nutrition coach and I started to cut those calories, right? I ate the exact same meals every single day. And they were small meals. I'm gonna tell you that, right? So for breakfast, I had this tiny serving of oatmeal. I think it was like half a cup of oatmeal. And like, A cup of egg whites. That was my breakfast. For lunch I had like six ounces of chicken or fish and a cup of rice and some vegetables. My snack was like a protein shake and water. My dinner was like six ounces of salmon and like this big salad. The salad was actually pretty good, okay? But there was like barely any salad dressing on it. And then at the end of the night I have a shake before bed and I got to mix that one with milk. It's probably the best part of my day. And that was it. And you know what? It worked. I dropped down to 175 pounds. I was lean. I looked fast. But I felt horrible. I was starving for success. I was hungry all the time. I was going to practice hungry. I was leaving practice hungry. I was walking around, basically snapping at people, constantly irritated. Because if you know anything about cutting carbohydrates and cutting your calories, you're gonna be a pissed individual. Okay? my body was just breaking down. Because I felt like I was In this space where I wasn't running fast. I was like, okay, maybe I need to push heavier weights So I started to push heavier weights in the gym trying to get stronger. The problem is guys I had no fuel I was running on empty And the worst part is that my mind became obsessed over the food I was eating. This got to the point, guys, where I had a list. A literal list of every restaurant I wanted to eat at after the season. It's almost like I've never been to jail, but I can only imagine when you're eating the same things over and over and over for years, you just probably think and fathom on What you're gonna do when you get out, right? Where are the places you're gonna go? What is the food you're gonna eat? And I felt like I was in a prison. I felt like I was making this list, like I would never see Krispy Kreme again. You know what I'm saying? And so I would spend hours, guys, it got bad. I would spend hours watching YouTube food challenges, like it got to the point where the algorithm In YouTube. Cause you know that YouTube is run by an algorithm. They were literally feeding me, no pun intended, literally feeding me videos of people like try to consume the whole Chick fil A menu, which became entertainment for me because I was so hungry. Um, it was, it was kind of wild. And it's funny now, but when I was in that space, looking back on it, obviously it was very detrimental to my, not only my physical health, but also my mental health. And, yeah, I just felt like I was counting my days to freedom as far as whatever, eating whatever I could. But I knew that, hey look, like, I felt like this was the key, and so I would do whatever it takes, right, to be great. And sometimes that's a good thing, and sometimes that's a bad thing, and obviously in this case, it was a bad thing. And you know what, all of that effort got me. It got me a time of 1048. It got me put out of the first round of the world championship trials in 2023. And it was the slowest I had run in years. It's almost like I started to do this. I started to look better. I started to get to the weight I wanted and I was going backwards and that will really mess you up. And so when the season was finally over, I was sitting on my couch still obsessing over food. My wife turned to me and said, Ronnie, you had an eating disorder. I laughed and I said, no, I didn't. but she didn't budge. She said, yes, yes you did. And then it hit me. She was right. I had all the signs. Constant hunger. Obsessive food tracking. Anxiety over every bite. The fear of ruining my progress. And my entire identity started revolving around food instead of racing. Even in the off season I couldn't stop thinking about it. That year I learned the hard way. Your weight doesn't run the race. You do. So now when people ask me, how is my diet? do you have to stick to a really strict regimen? You know what I tell them? I've been on both sides of it. And when I did that, I only ran slower. So now I eat whatever I want. Like I did before. I say all of that to say that most athletes are under eating one. Because they feel like they need to lose weight in order to improve their performance or two because they simply don't even know that they're under Eating or three they feel guilty for eating what they would deem quote unquote junk food So the big question is how do you know if you're fueling properly? And what are the signs that you can key in on that would alert you that maybe You're not eating enough or fueling your body properly To perform at a high level, not only in practice, but when it comes to game day. Okay, so here are just three signs that I noticed in myself, um, that I wasn't aware of in the beginning, that I want to make you guys aware of. So, sign number one, and this is typically noticeable right away, is I dealt with a few times in my career, kind of unknowingly, but I talked about at the beginning of this episode, I was exhausted all the time. Every day after workouts, it's almost like I had to take a nap. Or I would, kid you not guys, be drowsy sometimes on my ride home from practice. And if you're getting the proper amount of sleep, which is between, uh, seven to eight hours, and you're still always tired or feeling like you need caffeine to, like, keep you going through the day, then I would venture to say you're probably not eating enough before your workouts or you're not replenishing what you're losing after your workouts. Okay. That's sign number one. It's, it's a really easy sign. If you're tired all the time, this is sign number one So sign number two is you're simply losing weight and you're not trying to. So if you're on a scale and your weight keeps going down week after week after week, then it's safe to say you're probably not eating enough to maintain your weight, right? Pretty simple. Um, you're burning more calories than you're putting in. so if you're losing weight, you're not trying to lose weight. That means that you're probably under eating, which means, you know, you're probably going to feel tired. A little bit. And your numbers probably in the weight room are not going to increase. They're probably going to go down. You're probably going to feel like it's a really hard time to lift the same weight that you did last week or two weeks before, et cetera. Okay. So that's sign number two, uh, is you're losing weight and you're not trying to. Lastly, the third sign, and honestly guys, this is not an exhaustive list, meaning that there's a lots of different signs that could key into this, but these are just some of the ones that I noticed. in my own personal journey, right? Okay. The third one is if you're having interrupted sleep and this is the one that's kind of sneaky, right? you may just be waking up in the middle of the night to like use the bathroom and you're thinking that, Hey, like I'm just hydrating well, so I'm having to pee more and that could be the case. But there were times where I was waking up. three to four times a night to use the restroom, which means that my sleep was all out of whack. If you're waking up every hour, hour and a half, that means that you're not getting into REM sleep, which means you're not recovering properly, your body's not repairing itself. And so this is obviously detrimental because I talked about this in one of my other podcasts, The biggest recovery tool that you have is sleep alone. There's nothing that you're going to do to replace sleep. There's no ice baths, Norma Tech boots, Mark Pro. There's no stimulation in the world that's going to be better than you getting a quality. So if you're waking up like I was over and over and over again, then there's probably something that's going on in your body. And I can tell you exactly what it is because it took me so long to figure this out. So the crazy thing is during the 2023 season when I was losing weight, all the things that I just talked about were happening to me. I was extremely sleepy the majority of the time. I don't have to use caffeine, whether that's coffee, energy drinks, just to stay afloat. I would get drowsy in my car, which is obviously extremely dangerous if you're trying to drive. Um, but ultimately I didn't think anything of it. I was like, maybe I'm just tired, need to take a nap, whatever. I was so focused on getting back to the top. I was so focused on running fast that I, compromised my health and I did it to be successful. And I feel like there's probably a lot of people out there that will do anything it takes. But there comes a level of learning and hopefully you guys can learn through this podcast that that's not always the best option. Okay. And I'm here to tell you that it's not the best option. Your health is the most important thing, right? There's more important things in track and field. I said that there is. So just take that into account when you're, when you're going to be the best, right? Um, so let's address each one of these signs. The first one is not having enough energy and that's pretty obvious. If you don't have enough calories, your body is going to be basically running on empty and you guys have probably already heard, you know, that basically what you put in is what you get out. your body is like a car, right? So if you have a, an engine that takes unleaded gas and you put diesel in it, it's going to mess up the engine. It's the same way here, right? You've got to put enough and you've got to put the right stuff in. I would say that. But the low energy doesn't really explain the constant waking in the middle of the night. And so we addressed the first one, right? I feel like if you're tired all the time, it's probably just because you're not eating enough. if you're getting a solid seven to eight, eight and a half, nine hours of sleep. If you're doing that and you're constantly tired, then that means you're probably not eating enough food. Simple. Eat more food. Okay. Number one sign solved. Let's move on to the other sign, which is constantly waking up in the middle of the night. Um, Basically what happens, this is what happens in your body, If you're not eating enough, what your body is doing is it's signaling to your brain that you're hungry. And it, it's saying, Hey, I don't have enough energy to sustain myself through the night. Meaning you could be experiencing low blood sugar levels, which would disrupt your sleep. So if your blood sugar drops too low, it's going to signal your body to wake up because that it's saying like, Hey. this is not good for blood sugar drops too low when you're asleep. it can be very detrimental to your health. So it's saying, Hey, wake up, we need to eat. We need to increase our blood sugar level. So if you find yourself having to use the restroom multiple times at night, if you're talking about being in a calorie deficit and under eating, you may be not, you may be getting enough water. However, I'm going to break this down a little bit scientifically, okay? your muscles and liver. And each gram of glycogen holds about 3 grams of water. your body taps into glycogen stores for energy. So, when you're in a calorie deficit, especially if you're cutting carbohydrates, these are your rices and potatoes and your granola bars and your Gatorade, all that stuff, if you're cutting that out of your diet, Whenever your body is tapping into those glycogen stores, it's releasing the water and this extra water needs to be excreted, right? Which leads to you having more frequent peas during the night. Okay. and so at night, because your body continues to break down glycogen while you sleep, it means that you need carbohydrates. To hydrate, essentially. So if you're drinking a lot of water and you feel like your mouth is still dry, you don't feel hydrated, I can guarantee you that you probably don't have enough carbohydrates in your system to hold on to that water. Okay? You need the carbohydrates so that you can literally hydrate well. So they go hand in hand. you need carbohydrates to hold on to the water that you're drinking. But not only that, the glycogen is vital for performance. So glycogen guys, it's stored in your muscles and stay with me, right? I took anatomy in school. So glycogen fuels the ATP energy system. And long story short is that energy system, it powers all your high burst intensity exercises. So stuff like jumping, heavy squats, sprinting 60 to a hundred meters. So guess what guys? Carbohydrates and glycogen are super important. Not only for powering your muscles, literally doing everything that you do as a track and field athlete, but also for recovery. And so that you can hydrate properly, okay? So they all go hand in hand. So knowing all this, what are we going to do to combat these hunger pains? What are we going to do to fight these hunger pains, feel properly and make sure we're getting the most out of training and recovery. just to recap, we've talked about three signs, right? Being tired all the time, losing weight where you're not trying to. And the third one. Which is frequent urination, which I experienced, bro, I was not getting quality sleep for so long. I would wake up so sore because I lifted and ran and then I slept like trash and I would wake up sore and then go practice again and wake up sore again and go practice again. And it was hard. Okay. So that frequent urination and then we talked about some of the signs, obviously combating those signs. If you're tired probably means and you're getting a solid seven, eight hours of sleep. It probably means you're under eating. Uh, same thing with number two. If you're losing weight, that means you just need to eat more food. And the last thing is, when you're going to eat foods, especially if you're struggling with paying at night and you're struggling with staying hydrated, it's probably because you don't have any carbohydrates, Okay, so how much you're eating directly impacts all of those things we just talked about. So here are the things we're going to do, right? Rule number one for athletes, unless you're a wrestler or a bodybuilder, you're not going to commit to losing weight during the season. Um, this is going to be something that you're going to do in the off season because doing that is going to hinder your performance. It's going to decrease your energy and it's going to increase your risk for injury, So unless you're in a bodybuilding competition and your job is to look pretty, then you're not going to want to try to lose weight during the season. there's no such thing as losing weight and gaining muscle at the same time. Let me repeat that for you guys. There's no such thing as losing weight and gaining muscle at the same time. Okay? You may lose weight and gain muscle definition, But muscle definition and muscle strength are two separate things, okay? And unless, again, your competition is looking pretty. Then gaining muscle definition is not the goal because when I was 175 pounds in 2023, when I was cutting my calories and doing all this crazy dieting, guess what? I looked good. I was ripped, cut, shredded, I was a lean one 75, but I wasn't strong. And in track and field, Your goal is not muscle definition, it's power output, it's speed, it's strength. So if you want to lose weight, you need to do it in the off season. So, how do we lose weight in the off season properly? First, you need to calculate your total daily energy expenditure. And we're going to refer to this as T D E E, right? Total daily energy expenditure. And to do this, you'll need to calculate your BMR. this stands for basal metabolic rate. And so, there's two different equations. I'm going to go over them. There's one for men and there's one for women. For men Your BMR is going to be equal to stay with me. this is like middle school. algebra, PEMDAS, right? Parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division. addition, subtraction. Hey, I still remember that. Okay. So this is an equation. I will actually put all of these equations and an example on how I calculate my own BMR TDE, all the macros, calories and things I'm going to go through. I'm going to put that in the description, the show notes of this episode. So make sure you check that out. But the men's BMR equation is. In parentheses, 10 times your weight in kilograms. If you don't know how to find your weight in kilograms, all you do is you take your weight in pounds and you divide it by 2. Right? So you got that in parentheses. You're going to add that to another bracket of parentheses, which is 6. 25 times your height in centimeters. If you want to know how to find your height in centimeters, just Google. And then, you're gonna take that minus another bracket, 5 times your age plus 5. Okay, that's for men. so for women, BMR is equal to 10 times your weight in kilograms. Plus 6. 25 times your height in centimeters, minus 5 times your age, minus 161. this is an equation that is going to give you a rough estimate, guys. Like, this is not gonna be 100 percent accurate, uh, but it will give you a rough estimate on technically how many calories you're gonna burn, in a day. Right energy expenditure. So what you're going to do is you're going to take that number and then you're going to multiply it by a certain number depending on how active you are and there is an activity tracker, which I'm going to put in the show notes as well, but it has a different number for how active you are. Some people are sedentary. Some people just walk and we work out one or two times a week for us. This number is going to be 1. 55. Um, I go in the moderate. Okay. Like activity level, which is three to five days a week. Most of you guys are working out three to five days a week, right? So you would multiply that number from the equation by 1. 5 so that's going to give you roughly how many calories you're burning on a daily basis as you're working out. So for me, that would look like this.

25:20

I'd like to add this. If you are calculating this for the off season, that 1. 55 is going to look a little different because you might not be working out three to five times a week. So if you're more sedentary, you would choose that number. And if you're kind of like lightly active, you would choose that number because you don't want to say that you're working out three to five times a week. If you're in your off season and you're chilling, right, it's going to fluctuate and be different. So that's just so you can get the right calculation for off season calories. Okay. Moving on.

Ronnie Baker 25:49

Total Daily Energy Expenditure, TDEE says, okay, this is how many calories you're going to burn during every day, right? And then that is how many calories you're going to eat. So now if you wanted to lose weight to create a deficit of 0. 5 to one pound per week, which is healthy. I would recommend a calorie deficit of 300 to 500 calories, meaning you would take your total daily energy expenditure number we calculated and you would subtract 500 from it. And if you start to lose the weight too fast, then what you're going to do is you're going to dial back that number from 500 to maybe 200. And if you're stuck at a certain weight and you're like, I need to lose more and I can't, then what you're gonna do is you're gonna just increase that number by a hundred. So you'd go from 500 to 600, see if that helps. If you lose some weight, then great, stay there. If not, you would continue to increase that number. Um, but this is a slow process, which is why we don't do it during season. We do it in the off season. If you start to have really bad energy crashes, then you need to increase your calories and your carbohydrates. Okay, so that's basic one on one how to lose weight in the off season if you need to lose weight. Because I know that weight, as far as, especially in sprinting is a big deal. but if you need to, that's what you would do. Alright, tip number two. The second best thing you can do is grab yourself a food tracker. Now, I would NOT recommend tracking your food all the time. It's just not healthy for you. But doing it for a week or two can give you a more accurate depiction of how many grams of protein carbs and fat You're actually consuming on daily basis as well as your total calorie intake it's a great way to just check in Make sure you're hitting your goals when it comes to nutrition for instance if I'm feeling more sore for multiple days or weeks I'll track my food for a few days just to take a look at my protein intake and see if I need to increase it I could be thinking I'm getting enough protein or thinking I'm eating enough carbohydrates, but then I track my food and I'm way lower than what I think I am. there are hundreds of apps out there, but if you're looking for a good one, my fitness pal is great. there's also that I've used before called macro factor. Both have free trial periods and are relatively cheap. if you get it do the trial and run out of the trial you just want to go month to month in all honesty. You wouldn't need to do this year round, like I said, but you can just pop in there when you need to pay for the subscription. It's like five bucks for the month, track for four weeks, see where you are, and then basically you can get rid of the subscription. That's what I recommend, especially, um, if you're wanting to really dial in on losing weight properly or, um, maybe even gaining more muscle mass, which getting more muscle mass is going to be you eating more food, right? So, it's a great way to track your food. It's a great way to track your calories. Make sure you're hitting that T D E E that we talked about that you calculated. so the, basically, tip number three is that We're going to look at macro calculation. So macros are short for macronutrients, which includes the big three. protein, carbohydrates, and fats. So the first thing you want to do is you want to determine your macro ratios. So for muscle gain, the rule of thumb is always more protein. Okay, always more protein. We're going to talk about putting on muscle because that's what we want to do. More muscle typically means better strength. so typically we're going to do anywhere from 0. 7 to 1. 0 grams per body weight. So basically if you want to calculate your protein, you just take one of those numbers, 0. 7 being on the low end, 0 being on the high end, you would multiply any of those numbers in between that range by Your weight in pounds and boom, that's how many grams of protein you're going to eat. All right. So to calculate the calories from your protein, You're going to eat 190 grams of protein. This is my, uh, this is actually my weight right now. Okay. So I'm 190 pounds. This is the biggest I've ever been. 190 pounds. And I multiplied, that by four. Because for every gram of protein, there's four calories. Every gram of protein is four calories. So you multiply 190 by 4, it's gonna give you 760. So 760 calories of my total calories for the day are gonna be in protein. And 190 grams of all my grams of food that I'm going to eat are going to be in protein. So now we're going to calculate the fats. So typically for fats, you want to have 25, that be 25 percent of your diet be fats. for women, I would not recommend going less than 15%, um, and honestly really for men neither. I would stick anywhere from the 20 to 25 percent range, especially if you're a man, if you're a collegiate athlete, you're running, you're lifting. There's just a lot of things that fats do in your body as far as your cells and helping your cells function properly. So you do not want to cut fats out of your diet. Um, you got to have them in there. So typically it's 25%. So to calculate that, we would take our total daily energy expenditure, which we calculated earlier. We'd multiply it by 0. 25, that 25%, and then we divide that number by nine because for fat, For every 1 gram of fat, there's 9 calories. So for me, if I did that, obviously the calculations are going to be in the show notes here, it's going to be roughly 78 grams of fat. we would just use the leftover calories for our carbs. So you would add the calories from the fats and the protein together, right? 760 plus 706. 5. For me, that's going to be 1466. And then you would take your total daily energy expenditure, 2826, which was mine, and subtract it from 1466. 5. And that's going to leave you with 1359. 5, lots of numbers guys, which is the calories in the carbs you'll eat. For me, that would be the calories in carbohydrates that I would eat and then to find the grams of carbs, I would divide that by four. That's going to equal 340 grams. Um, so that's how you would calculate your macros. Basically breaking down how much protein you need, carbohydrates you need, and fats you need. Um, and that is specifically, those numbers are really specifically for muscle gain. Right. Muscle gain. Rule of thumb as far as protein, and the protein is probably the most important one of them all. Especially as an athlete in general. Whether you're, just training for a collegiate competition. Training for a professional competition. Training for, the next, marathon or weightlifting competition you're doing, anything, CrossFit competition, whatever it is, proteins, number one, right? You've got to have anywhere from 0. 7 to 1. 0. And if you're really training at a high level, I would lean more to 1. 0, grams per body weight every single day. So you just take your weight, multiply by one. There you go. That's how many grams of protein you need. And then calculate that back with the fats and then get your carbohydrates. So, just go into some foods real quick before we wrap this up. key proteins. I love beef. I love bison. you can get bison at Costco. I've been buying bison more often. it's just a little bit leaner than beef, but beef works too, right? So beef, bison, salmon's a really good one because it has omega 3s. You've got chicken, which I've been steering away from chicken. all of the food that I eat, I typically go organic. So you want to make sure that it's grass fed and not corn fed. But I've been kind of steering away from chicken. It's just kind of like, oh, to me lately. So I've been really keen on the beef and really keen on salmon. But chicken is another protein that you can use. Eggs are a great source of protein. Egg whites are also a great source of protein. So obviously, if you're talking about eating your body weight in grams of protein, you're going to need lots of options. And so those are great ones. You have all the nuts, like almonds, cashews, the spectrum of nuts that you can eat have protein in them. so those are really good protein sources that I typically consume on a daily basis outside of the nuts because I'm allergic. But the eggs, the egg whites, all the meat, those are ones. And obviously if you need a supplement, which you definitely, if you're eating that much protein, you're going to need to supplement boom, get you a protein shake. I recommend thorns products actually have a link. In the description where you can get 10 percent off all your orders. So I would recommend that it's NSF safe for sport, which means whenever you take it, it's going to be clean. You're going to be competing clean. There's no banned substances in it. It is free and clear. It's the one I've used for basically my entire career and even in college. So if you're looking for products that are clean, healthy, great. Thorne's got the best ones in the world, in my opinion. So there's the protein. So some of the best carbohydrates and some of the ones that I eat on a regular basis are going to be your rice. Um, I eat rice pretty much every single day. Um, you've got your potatoes, whether that be sweet potatoes or red`potatoes, russet potatoes. Any of those will work. Honey is a great carbohydrate because it's a natural sweetener. Instead of you using like artificial sweeteners, um, honey is a great one. other carbohydrates would be any fruit. So your bananas, your pears, your plums, your strawberries, your blackberries, your raspberries, any fruit that you can think of. Great source of carbohydrates. Um, for a sweet snack for me typically is fruit, but I like to get into the dried mangoes. Those are really good, like pre practice carbohydrate. Applesauce is a good pre practice carbohydrate. And you want to put your carbohydrates around your workout. Meaning You want to have the most carbohydrates before your workout and after your workout, before your workout and after your workout. That's where you're going to get the fuel you need to be able to push hard in practice. And the same thing is with competition. Carbohydrates before competition, carbohydrates after competition. You still have carbohydrates at breakfast and dinner, but around, you know, around your competition and your practices, you're going to have more. Okay. And then, your fats, your good fats are going to be avocados, man. Great. Great source of fat. Avocados, any oil with a high smoke point. So I use ghee. Ghee is pretty expensive. If you can't afford the ghee, there's avocado oil. olive oil is great as well. Those are the, the fats that I use. And then obviously you can get fats from like cheese and any cheeses really. And then also some, you can get some of those from nuts as well. so those are typical staples in my. Everyday life. Okay, so just to recap, guys, some of the signs that you're under eating. I talked about my journey and my struggle with the eating disorder that I had in 2023. It was really detrimental, not only to my mental health, but also it was detrimental to my racing and my running. I got to the point where I had finished competing that year, I still was like debating on what I was going to eat every single day, even though in the off season, you're allowed to eat whatever you want. I was still like, Oh man, should I eat this? Because it's going to affect, my training And I got into this crazy spell mentally. And so I'm just trying to help you guys. Especially when it comes around food because I would basically doing anything that I could to be able to get better and to run faster. And I would tell you that cutting your food source is like the worst thing that you can possibly do. Uh, so don't do that. Eat enough food. And if you're not eating enough right now and you feel like your strength levels are low or you feel like you're not recovering well, it's probably because you're not eating enough. So if you're tired, remember. Increase your food. If you're losing weight and you're not trying to, that means you're probably not eating enough. If you're peeing a lot, that probably means you're low on carbohydrates. Especially if you're hydrating well and you still feel thirsty all the time. You probably need to increase your carbohydrate intake. because carbohydrates are what allows you to hold on to the water. So rule number one, we talked about that. You're not going to lose weight during the season. You're going to do it in the off season. I gave you guys all the equations to calculate your total daily energy expenditure using a BMR calculation. Um, that's going to give you the total amount of calories that you're. So typically burning on a day to day basis and then when you want to lose weight, you would just subtract 500 calories from that and that's what you would eat in your calorie intake per day. Um, the next big thing is getting a food tracker so you guys can track how many calories you're actually eating. the food trackers are awesome because you can scan these foods and tell it exactly how much you're eating. It'll tell you exactly how many calories you've eaten that day. And then lastly is you want to look at your macronutrients and determine. how much protein I need to eat, how many carbohydrates do I need to eat, how much fat do I need to eat on a daily basis? And those will help you dial in your nutrition and take your game to the next level. What I would tell you and I would caution you is not to get too obsessive with this. one of the big things I did when I was in 2023, struggling with that is that I got so obsessive with it. Like I was so particular about every single thing and For the most part, it could have been great for me, but mentally, for me, I'm an overthinker, and so I overthought it. I thought that if I didn't eat this exact amount, then my performance was going to be hindered, and that's exactly what happened, because I was in my head. Okay? So that's why I don't recommend tracking your food throughout the entire year. I just want to give you guys some insight on what I went through in 2023 and how you guys can avoid it and how you can do it better than I did. I know a lot of you guys probably out there struggle with this same mindset. You think if I can just lose a little more weight and get a little leaner, be a little more strict, maybe I'll be better. But I will tell you this, if you're constantly starving, constantly exhausted, constantly Obsessed with what you can or cannot eat. You're not getting better. You're getting weaker. And if you don't control it, it will control you. This is a conversation we don't have enough in our sport, but we need to. too many athletes are wrecking their bodies trying to chase a number on the scale, or a fast time on the track, thinking it's their key to success. Trust me, I've been there, and I promise you, that's not the answer. So guys, take this information, use it well, make sure that you eat. just eat until you're full and you're satisfied. That's what I've been doing. I've been running pretty fast ever since I started doing that again. Like I said, I'm the fastest I've been in four years and I'm the heaviest and fattest I've been in four years. Okay. So I just want you guys to take that with you. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. I hope it was informational for you. If you have any questions, make sure you reach out to me via Instagram. I can help walk you through this, also make sure you check out the show notes. And go through these equations, calculate it for you so you can have more insight and information on how to do this. And, also, if you're looking for those supplements, right, all the supplements that I use, There's a code in the show notes where you can get 10 percent off any supplement that Thorne offers It's the only company that I really rock with so you guys can now rock with them, too All right, I will see you guys next week and I'll catch you in the next episode Also, look out for me in the world championships. I'll be in China in two weeks. See ya. Peace