184. Training Hard and Keeping Your Period, Fueling Techniques and MORE with Allison Yamamoto

In this episode I interview Allison Yamamoto, a nutrition and running coach, for the second time. We talk about her experience recovering her period and how she now helps clients fuel properly for success as athletes. We dive into proper fueling techniques, zooming out and looking at your lifestyle as a whole, key principles for hormone health and MORE! This is a motivating conversation.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

And that's also true in recovery, which is that because this worked for me does not mean or guarantee in any way that it'll work for somebody else. And I've seen this in my practice, which is why having an approach that meets you where you are is really, really, really important. This condition called relative energy deficiency in sport. And one presentation of that is like one symptom essentially is that your period goes missing. And that's actually one of the most severe indicators that you're experiencing this. And the root cause isn't about necessarily your hormones, it's about what your body is doing and the state that it's getting in order to essentially try to survive. And the reason that I like to zoom out on that lens is because when we talk about the root cause, it's a much broader issue beyond just your period, both for somebody whose period is missing. One of the things that was, I guess, the most maybe surprising to me at the time, um, that's a really underrated and important part of recovery is the timing that you have your food really, really does matter.

SPEAKER_03 1:10

Welcome to the Night Fit Podcast. I'm your host, Emily Knight. I'm a running and strength coach whose primary mission is to help runners reach their goals and maintain their strength without sacrificing their true health. On this podcast, we talk about all things health and fitness so that you can stay up to date on some of today's latest research. I host inspiring guests, drop solo episodes where I explore pertinent topics and get to the heart of many of our questions around what it means to chase our fitness goals and prioritize our wellness. So sit back and get ready for an awesome conversation. Hey everybody, and welcome back to the Nightfit Podcast. Super excited to have you guys here today. Today I have the honor of chatting with Allison again for the second time. She's a nutrition coach, run coach, and a retired D1 athlete. Allison's going to be talking with me today about hormone health, training, the importance of hormone health, and so much more. So, Allison, welcome back to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Yes, thank you so much for having me back. I'm really excited for this conversation.

SPEAKER_03 2:08

Of course. Of course. So I always like to start by having my guests introduce themselves, share a little bit personal, professional. And then I'm not sure if when I had you on the first time, we did fun facts, but that's something I have all my guests do now. And it's actually like the hardest part for people is to come up with the fun facts. But I'd love to have you just kind of intro yourself for us.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Yeah, fun facts are definitely a huge challenge for me. So I am excited to be put on the spot um and to see what happens. But I um I think your intro was amazing, but to add a little bit more color, I was a cheerleader in college and I was a runner essentially thereafter. So I graduated, I got really into running, and during that period of time, I ended up losing my period, which I know is something that we're increasingly talking about how prevalent that can be for female athletes. And then that went on for several years where I had really confusing information given to me, especially from providers. Like I was, I was really concerned about my menstrual health and my hormonal health because I was really at the time invested in my health, as I'm sure many of you can relate to. And so the paradox of feeling like I was sort of optimizing everything from my view, and then not getting a period felt like there was some something was off. And then getting the information from providers that, oh yeah, you know, you can just go on the pill, or actually, this is quite normal if you expect to be training for marathons, um, was the information that really confused me because it essentially just validated that I could pre-postpone this issue for a really, really long time. And then, of course, in during that journey, I ended up becoming extremely educated on this topic and on recovery methods and on why it actually matters and what the risks are. And because I was really motivated by my performance and by the fact that I loved to train, I started realizing like actually, I think this is a huge priority. And um, we can talk about this more, but it it was it was infringing my ability to enjoy movement fully, knowing that there was something off, and knowing that a lot of the information out there is that training really is not like do no none of it if you have um your period is gone due to FHA or um reds or you know, kind of the the energy deficiency type status. Uh, that's really what inspired me, as I had already been involved in Lawless Fitness Communities, to start to direct um my practice and the work that I was doing with female athletes towards this condition. And then I ended up collaborating with a bunch of different specialists, researchers, clinicians who really do focus on female athletes and on reds and like this kind of niche, and then developing a program that was the one that I essentially wish that I had that addressed a lot of the struggles that I had experienced while I was going through it.

SPEAKER_03 5:04

Yeah. Oh gosh, it's such a tough place to be. And thinking back on your own journey, I know it's kind of hard because it's probably been quite some time for you. And with me too, it's been some time, but even reflecting. But do you remember kind of what it was that got you motivated to heal? Because I know when you're living in that state, and like you said, the doctors kind of validated the place you were in. So you're like, okay, so I'll just keep doing this. What pushed you to be like, this can't be good for me? Was it a moment that happened, a training session, um, a conversation? What kind of pushed you?

SPEAKER_00 5:38

It's such a good question because I a lot of the athletes that come to me, there's a unfortunately, there's often a compelling event where there was an injury or a stress fracture or something that essentially took away their freedom and autonomy to make the decision around addressing this before something like that occurs. Um, especially with the knowledge that like a stress fracture, once you have one, it actually increases your likelihood of getting another one. But for me, um I can't really pinpoint one specific moment, but I do know that I had somebody who was a runner that I really, really admired, who had been my pseudo coach through my running journey. I was really, really determined in my marathon journey. I was training for my first marathon and I had gotten my heart set on wanting to like qualify for Boston because why not do that for your first marathon when you're running? Just completely delusional goals. Um, but that person was someone who once they had realized and I had spoken to them about the fact that my period was missing, was the first person to start actually sharing the research with me about this type of issue. And this was somebody who was very dedicated as a runner, who was very interested in what research was showing, interested in doing a lot of things that would optimize their training. And so I really, really respected their opinion. Not to mention they transformed my own running training to the point where I was able to do things that I didn't think I was able to do because I was taking their guidance. And so when this person essentially said to me, like, hey, I actually think that you should stop training and focus on your hormonal health, that was a big, big, big influence on me. Because prior to that, I was like, Oh, yeah, you don't know what the doctors are saying, maybe yes, maybe no. And I think there was like kind of this recklessness that you experience that you don't really perceive how reckless you're being in the moment of, well, there's uncertainty in terms of the risk. And so intellectually, I might understand what the challenge is, but the end of the day, I also feel like there might be a lot of positive feedback loops that are rewarding what I'm doing that make it really, really easy to not do something that would be extremely uncomfortable and against the grain in terms of so much of what I wanted to do, um, in things like breaking out of your routine, especially when you're someone who's disciplined, and especially when you're somebody who does feel a layer of safety from doing the things that you are doing day in and day out. And so any sort of change is going to be really scary. And I think that when it's in the absence of having some fairly tangible reason where you're like, okay, I actually understand the risk and I'm willing to take this leap into the uncertainty, it can feel really, really hard to have that motivation. But the other thing that I will mention is that um once that seed was really planted in me, of like, oh, actually, this is a big issue, there's risks involved. Oh, wait, my bone health could be impacted, like really starting to unpack my performance is being impacted, which studies are only increasingly showing the uh relationship between performance and hormonal health now as well. Um, that I started to have this experience that I can remember, which is that I would be running, or and at the time I was running a lot. So I'd be running and I'd kind of get this just little itching feeling of guilt that I was running. Like, should I really be doing this? Or paranoia? Like, I'd get a little pain and then be like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, it's definitely a stress fracture. And then I'd be like Googling, what are the symptoms? Could this be the thing? Which, which, what should I try out to do? Which I think is natural for any athlete. Like, we get this paranoia because then you kind of feel like you're you an injury is can be devastating and you feel like your control is being taken from you immediately. But as it relates to having my period gone and then learning information about what the risks were, then I was sort of in this place where, like, yeah, I mean, uh, am I really gonna defend this routine that I feel so stuck in? But then also start to realize that this voice in my head that's telling me that something is wrong and that something is unsustainable isn't it it's there. And it's actually making it so that the full bliss and happiness of the ignorance of being in that state is no longer a full bliss and ignorance. There's actually something nagging within all of that that's like, oh, but is this really, really, really what you think is the right thing for you? Is this really the no regrets move in five years or 10 years for you to look back and be like, oh yeah, but you got that extra week of training in that one time, not knowing is like today the day that you could be getting that stress fracture. And I think that that kind of mental shift for me was one where I was like, no, I think that the no regrets move is to try to focus on this hormonal health recovery aspect. And I think that I had wish I had gotten the messaging sooner that that would be a pathway to improving my performance. Whereas at the time it really, really did feel like a sacrifice. So when I made that decision, it felt like a really intimidating and weighty decision of like, I'm making this choice, choosing between my training and my hormonal health forever. And um, and I think it takes a lot of courage to get to that place and um kind of invest in a pathway that's going to have a lot of uncertainty. Um but now that we have a lot more information about how it can be supportive to performance, I think it's actually really, really exciting for female athletes because um you can view a lot of the changes and the sacrifices that you have to make as a lot more temporary and as a pathway to what is going to be supportive for your performance. And that is a really, really empowering message that I think um I wish I heard earlier in my journey as a female athlete.

SPEAKER_03 11:51

Yeah. Okay. Wow. So many nuggets there, so many nuggets. And um I appreciate you sharing that and all your candor around it. And I know how difficult it is when you're in that headspace to really break free from it and like rewire your brain. And I've had um Jules on this podcast, and she's a neuroscientist, and she talks about how when you wire your brain to think this way, you literally have to re-circuit it to believe differently. Um, and so kudos to you and kudos to the person who told you that. Like, hey, you might want to focus on your hormone health because that pushed you to make those decisions, huge decisions that changed your life and obviously led to your career and all those things. So it's amazing. And um, just so happy for you too that you have now the ability to train. And that's something we're gonna talk about is training and maintaining a healthy body, which I think is something that so many women don't think they can really do. Because once they're living, like you said, in this spot where you're training and you have that reward circuitry happening, it's really hard to think about well, what if I change everything? Will I still perform? And the truth is, like you said, we're finding you'll actually perform better. So I really appreciate you sharing all of that. And so before we kind of dive into how to train and take care of yourself, I'd love to kind of high-level explain for women listening why your period matters, right? Like we all hear about like, when's your period? Did you get your period? Things like that. And a lot of women just think it's bleeding. It's you're bleeding every month, but a lot of women don't have it and don't realize that there's something much more detrimental going on. So let's talk about hormones and kind of your perspective. I know you work with a lot of clients in this specifically for covering their periods, but why do hormones matter? Let's just start with that.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Yeah, and I almost want to zoom out even further on that because there's so many women that are on contraceptive, and the underlying um kind of root cause that we're talking about in this specific instance is this um is essentially this condition called relative energy deficiency in sport. Um, and one presentation of that is like one symptom essentially, is that your period goes missing. And that's actually one of the most severe indicators that you're experiencing this. And the root cause isn't about necessarily your hormones, it's about what your body is doing and the state that it's getting in order to essentially try to survive. And the reason that I like to zoom out on that lens is because when we talk about the root cause, it's a much broader issue beyond just your period, both for somebody whose period is missing. And that's why, you know, I ended up taking action, was because, like, oh, actually, this isn't just about my period, which was like not enough of a motivator for me because at the time I wasn't trying to get pregnant, which is what you know, a doctor had said, okay, well, you're not trying to get pregnant, so it's not a huge priority. But when we think of it as a systemic issue, then we think about how many different impacts that it has. And it we also think about how even if you are on some sort of contraceptive or you are taking, you know, birth control or you are you have an IOD, whatever it is, um, that could be influencing the regularity of your cycle, that this broader issue is still something that's worth keeping an eye on because a lot of the other physiological impacts could be happening. And that is also to say that the women who have a cycle, but it might be irregular, or they have a cycle, but they're not ovulating regularly. These are all signs that this root cause could be at play. That's unfortunately really, really, really common amongst female athletes. And we'll probably talk about this more when we talk about training and um and getting your cycle regularly, but it's one thing that um it we want to be considering what are the other and more subtle indicators that we might be falling into this, because the period is one of many. And the reason that this is a broader issue is kind of what I alluded to, which is that your body is essentially going to downregulate when it doesn't have enough energy to devote to all of the expenditure that you have, as well as keeping the lights on and all of your bodily processes. And if it doesn't feel like it has that energy, then what's gonna happen is your HBA access is gonna perceive stress and it starts to shut down your reproductive hormones. But it also is going to downregulate your metabolism. It's going to impact your ability to actually adapt to training sessions and therefore build lean muscle mass or perform really effectively in your training. And it also is impacting your cognition. That's why we might be experiencing things like um brain fog or heightened stress or poor mood regulation, like the whole systematic impact is one that your body is responding to, and one effect of that can come up in your hormones. But the fact that it is a systemic issue is what we see and why it's impacting things like your um your bone health or your bone turnover rate or other processes like your cardiovascular system and all these other functions that are going to be impacted by the root, root, root cause issue that um is much more prevalent, I think, than just the missing period symptom.

SPEAKER_03 17:11

Yeah, I really appreciate the way that you explain that. And I've had um several guests on the pod talk about red S like you did just now so well. Um, because really you're right, it's just one thing happening that's telling us there's something much deeper happening to your whole body. And it's um that's why I talk about it so much on my page too, is it's like you said, it's not just that you're not getting your period, it's that your body is literally like, hey, we're this is one thing we're not gonna do anymore because of this, and we're also not gonna protect your bones as much or send energy to your brain, like we're just trying to survive. And then obviously we see stuff with heart health too. There's women because estrogen is so protective of the brain and the heart. And so when we don't have estrogen, it's really just like a trickle-down effect, right? As you so well said. So, yeah, I really like the way that you address that. And um, I think a big thing a lot of women struggle with is they want to know how is it possible to train really hard and go for these big goals, run a marathon, PR, and maintain a healthy cycle. Like a lot of women just think it isn't possible or they're used to having a really long cycle or whatever it might be. So I'd love to hear from your experience how you, before we dive into like habits women can implement, how you got from not having your cycle, like you said, running a lot to now being able to train regularly and have a cycle regularly. What did you kind of do? And then we'll talk about what habits after that that you kind of continue to use with clients.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

Absolutely. Yeah. And I'm happy to share. And I always like to start whenever I go into my story in more detail with just the caveat of increasingly we are seeing, especially in the research is demonstrating, but also in practice, we're seeing that each woman there is nuance in terms of what your own hypothalamus and what your system is going to respond to. And so, just in the same way as if you were to go and follow some influencer online and do exactly what they do in terms of their gym routine, their workout routine, you eat exactly as them, that doesn't mean that you'll have the same body as they will. In the same way that if you were to train exactly like someone and eat exactly like them, that wouldn't mean you're gonna get the same marathon time that they got. And I think that that comparison can be really intuitive for athletes because they've we've probably experienced it. Like, yeah, like if I were to train exactly like that person, I would really like to also get that same PR. And there are other factors at play that don't actually result in that outcome. And that's also true in recovery, which is that because this worked for me does not mean or guarantee in any way that it'll work for somebody else. And I've seen this in my practice, which is why having an approach that meets you where you are is really, really, really important. And I think that a lot of the times, especially when we're sort of like DIYing our recovery, it can be really, really tempting to try to latch on to, okay, well, I'm gonna do exactly what this person does, and then I want that exact same outcome because it gives us this feeling of certainty. It gives us this feeling of guarantee. And um, I would I think that it can be also a trap because it can make us feel like, okay, but this person did this thing, this person did this thing, and maybe I'm pick and choosing from what I feel like is gonna be the easiest for me to implement across all these different people. And almost create a feeling of her frustration when you try that and it doesn't produce the same outcomes. And so I know that it doesn't feel super fair in the same way that like some people are just, you know, gifted and they can run and like not train as hard and like get an amazing time. There is some level of what could feel and experience as being like really unfair about not being able to follow someone's journey to a T and get the exact same result. So I just like to kind of put out that disclaimer before I share my own story. Um, but I can also dive in. So um I let's see, I the first I essentially made two really immediate changes when I decided to prioritize this. Um, one was uh nutritional, which I think is probably not surprising. And then the second one was um I made changes to my training and we can get more specific about what that looked like. And um and I think that the other thing that was maybe incidental, but also played a role was that at the same time, um, the way that things were set up in my life was such that I had been in a really, really high stress situation. I had recently like moved to a new place and I'd felt really unfamiliar and my job had felt really stressful. And I'd gotten into a state where it was like, oh, actually, I'm now around people that I love more. More frequently, and the culture feels a little bit less hustle right now, and my job felt like I was in a little bit more of a settled place. And so that was another variable that I didn't do intentionally, but I think also played a role. But in terms of nutrition, um, I think a lot of the specific changes were things that Emily, you do an amazing job at talking about on this pod really often. Um, one of the things that was, I guess, the most maybe surprising to me at the time, um, that's a really underrated and important part of recovery is the timing that you have your food really, really does matter. And um, and I think that that was a change that I had never really strategized intentionally before. Um, especially I think that as an endurance athlete, but athletes in general were really shifted into this perspective perspective and this reward pattern of like, if you can put up with it, like you're good. Like that's what is expected of you. You should push through that. And one of the examples of that for me was it was pretty easy given my routine. I'm a morning person. I like to wake up and go work out in the morning. And I had like a pretty demanding job. So I did hide a little bit of time scarcity in terms of when that could happen and how much time I could quote unquote dilly-dally around before I got out the door to do a workout to then start my day. And so little things like that, where it's like, why would I put a snack in before that? That was not intuitive to me, especially because at this time, this whole craze around intermittent fasting was going off. So that's I think that's less true in this area to some extent, but it's an example of a really little change that it was just like, oh, I never thought that that would have a really big impact because it's not like I felt like I was dying in my workout, and I ultimately would go and then get food afterwards sometime either during or before work. And I think that I underestimated how much little decisions, or I guess simple decisions, they may not have been easy, but seemingly simple decisions like that would stack up. And one of those prominently being that thinking about the regularity and the timing of what I was eating was something that I did, that I did shift that I think that we often get lost in the weeds when we talk about hitting a specific calorie target as like a recovery protocol. It can sometimes miss the nuance of, okay, when we're thinking about energy deficiency and therefore in energy availability, we do really want to be thinking about the timing of when we're having stuff, especially for female athletes. Um, and then in terms of training, I myself um never went, you know, the conventional quote unquote all in and like didn't uh kind of give up on all training altogether. Um I did, however, make very strategic shifts in terms of what I was doing in terms of my training. And um, given the output that I was doing before, I scaled it back significantly from what I had been doing. Um and that was something that was beneficial, especially I think what we underweight is how helpful that strategy can be in terms of making it easier to restore energy availability. And so, like if you're training and you're maintaining the output level, and you know, we'll go into this when we talk about training hard, but um going from underfueling to which like I guess in in my case was I I could not imagine that have being enough for if I were just kind of like hanging out all day. Right. Um, and so in hindsight, it's like, oh wow, I didn't think I was underfueling that bad, but in reality it it was significant given the training output I was putting it under. And making a shift to your training can actually make the process a little bit easier in terms of navigating the nutritional changes that if I were to have gone from zero to like, oh, here's what you would actually need to support your training level that you're trying to do, I think that would have felt like a pretty steep curve on day one. And so that's something that in hindsight I can see the wisdom of that. And I think at the time it was more so a little bit of trial and error, a lot of me trying to read about this and figure out this the implications, you know, based on the reading and the research that I was doing. Um, and I I think that we at this point, at least for sure, I know that I have more information now than I even did then, that um in terms of like recovery and navigating that process, that I definitely certainly would have wished that I had had. But I got really partly lucky and also partly um, I guess like there was some intention going into the process and like maybe obsessiveness in terms of how much I was interested in this this process, um, that I'm sure other people can relate to, that uh that went into my my early recovery journey.

SPEAKER_03 27:02

Yeah, I think that's really well said, Yuling. Um, I'd like to kind of dive into that a little bit because I think when people hear that, they're like, that's that's all fine and dandy, but what does that mean? And um, when you mentioned that you would eat a snack before now, if you're thinking about an endurance session, right? So let's say someone's a runner listening, um, what is in your a nutrition coach, so what is kind of your protocol with what you should have before your run, what you should have after. Um, and is it always applicable? Are there cases where if a woman has a really short run, a three-mile run, or you know, that's relative, um, does she need to always eat before? Like what is your kind of take on that? And how do you work with people to apply that to their lives? And then I think as we talk about this conversation now, just for the sake of everything going forward, let's assume this person is serious about their sport. So there's someone who likes to train hard, they want to get better, they want to progress in their training. Um, let's use that kind of as our example. And then as we talk about these things. So the fueling first and foremost, I'd love to hear your take on kind of what your approach is with that when you give advice on it.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

Yeah, okay. I loved the clarification you added because I think it really is going to depend on your goals. And a lot of the times the reasons that I hear that somebody is deciding not to work, uh, not to have a, you know, something to snack on before they're going out and training is um typically one of two reasons. One would be um that they have a belief that by doing that, it will lead to more fat loss. And the second one being, I don't have time and I'm not hungry. And so I kind of want to address each of those because I think that this is what is relevant in the conversation of do I, do I not? And um, and I think that also to your point in terms of your profile, if you're training at a high level and we're assuming you are getting your cycle, um, then and what the protocols that might work for you, if you're getting, if you know that you're in a place of really solid energy availability, um, is gonna be different than if you're not. So if you're not in a place of solid energy availability, which also might kind of influence what you're doing in terms of your training. But to go back to the um, so in terms of studies and what studies are showing, it's it's there's not really evidence to suggest that by not eating that pre-workout snack, you overall are going to get the result outcome of your body composition having a reduced fat percentage. And the reason that that matters is a couple of things, or the like some of the mechanisms at play are sort of a couple things. And one of my my favorite ones is that when you get that pre-workout snack in, now whether you're hungry for it or not, um, what that can be really beneficial for is how hard you are training and how well you are adapting to the training session that you're doing. And that is really, really important. And I think that we often underweight the importance of that in broader conversation. So we think about training programming and how we're periodizing we're training, or when we're thinking about having a snack before our training, um, we often get kind of lost in the weeds in terms of like, okay, but if I'm doing a high intensity session, what is really the goal, or really any session, high intensity, low intensity, what is the goal of this session? And if I'm training at a really, really high level, then when I'm going into a session that's harder and I want to have maximum training adaptations, like I want to improve my performance, that is gonna require me to have to be able to show up to that performance, that that session and perform really effectively. And so if we were to trend that over time to the point where I am not fatigued and weak, and my body literally has to downshift which like metabolic process we're using because I don't have enough like glycogen stores available to actually be able to go into some of these higher intensity, especially when we're talking about cardio, um, like higher intensity states, then it's going to over time, it's gonna impact, okay, well, what paces am I hitting? It's gonna impact what am I capable of when it comes to my training and therefore how much am I actually building and adapting? How much lean muscle mass was actually able to be um like restored and generated from some of these sessions that I'm doing? And when we think about it that way, then we do want to set our bodies up for success. And so one is like, how well are we performing? And the other is like, how well are we adapting? And of course, when we think about adaptation, muscle is a very expensive physiological system to keep in place. And if we are not allowing our muscle and giving our muscle what it needs and giving our bodies in general what it needs to be able to recover appropriately and adapt to training sessions, then that is also going to be a risk. So I think about it in terms of those factors. And if somebody's thinking about this and their objection is like, well, I don't have time, or I just don't have a hunger cue in the morning, um, then one of the things I usually like to um, maybe for like some encouragement or mention is that our bodies really are gonna adapt to what you're giving it. And so, in the same way that you're training for whatever it is that you're training for, and you are giving your body repeated sessions and practice under stress and under load in order to be able to build towards some of those outcomes, you can also train your body to actually accept and expect to have fuel before you go out for a training session. And um, and I know that sometimes that can come with some digestive discomfort, which I have the utmost empathy towards because that's so real. It's definitely something that can happen. And so I would strongly recommend if it's not something that you're doing and you want to get started, just to start with something small. Like it doesn't have to be um a significant thing. I know for me, like when I'm having my pre-workout, I am uh like minutes before I'm gonna go go out the door. I do not have that much time in the morning. So I can't, I don't have the luxury to take something in, wait an hour and a half or whatever it is, and then like digest and then really process and then go out. Um, and so I've really, you know, sometimes it does require some experimentation. And maybe what you start with is like you have some orange juice. You have uh one of the goose that you know you can tolerate on during a run. So you can have that beforehand. Like start with just anything that you feel like um like psychologically feels comfortable that you would be open to. Um, I do recommend that it's gonna be something more carby and low fiber to start. And eventually we can start building towards and experimenting with all right, how do we play around with something else and something that um maybe we add a little bit more to this, or maybe we supplement with something else, or we switch up things here and there, and we can always adapt and experiment. Um, but I think the first barrier to break is just like let's just get over the hump of like, can we do something?

SPEAKER_03 34:19

Right.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

Um, and when we think about performance, those are those are some of the things I like to keep in mind.

SPEAKER_03 34:23

Yeah, no, that's great. And specifically, I know, do you listen to Dr. Stacy Sims at all?

SPEAKER_00 34:29

Yes, I love her. She's yeah, absolutely brilliant.

SPEAKER_03 34:32

Yeah, so I heard her in a podcast and she mentioned like, I think it was 10 to 15 grams of protein and like 30 grams of carbs is kind of the, especially if you're doing something more cardio-based, the carbs are more important, but if you're strength based, the protein is that kind of a good rule of thumb for people to think about, or what is your take on that? And then let's say, because I don't think Dr. Stacey Sims addresses necessarily an endurance athlete. So someone who goes out and let's say they have an eight-mile run in the morning. Um, what's kind of your take on how women can think about how many carbs they need to eat before they go out and run? Is there something simple they can apply? Um, and then also just addressing that protein comment from um her, I think is something that can be helpful as well.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

Yeah. Yeah. So um I she she's incredible and I love how she lifts women up. And I know that she's worked with a lot of um endurance athletes. She herself, I'm pretty sure, has done some like Iron Men. So she has experience with endurance training. Um, and I think that what's amazing about what she's providing is she's giving women permission to do something for the sake of um like kind of permission that this is something that does make you more performant. It makes you better as an athlete. And I think that that is key. And when it comes down to like the nuts and bolts of it, like ideally, yes, we are getting in something fairly substantial. I know that like some of the recommendations that are for pre-workout snacks might be like, let's do a PVJ, let's do like we're doing like combinations because there can be really benefit, there can be huge benefits of like getting combinations, combinations of different sources of carbohydrate. And that's also something that can be really beneficial during your workout if we're really thinking about optimizing. Um and getting a little bit of protein. So, like if we were to complete a protein, then we get with a PB and J, we get the nut butter, we get the bread. So we're already completing the protein and we're also maybe adding in some like really fast-acting honey or some jam or whatever it is. Um, I think that in practice life can be really, really, really challenging. Sure. And so I know that sometimes like the specificity in terms of like, okay, well, this needs to be the thing and it needs to be this many things, like grams and this many. I think that there's a lot when it comes to the wild in terms of like what what is gonna work? What is gonna work within your life? What is gonna work within what you have available? What does your digestive system react to? And I think that that also can hopefully help lower the bar in terms of what good looks like.

SPEAKER_01 37:21

Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

And a lot of the times for athletes, it does require some experimentation. Like we know what we're going for, we know what good look would look like. But in practice, some people are gonna want a lot more than what I just described, and some people um like may not even need that much. And so I think it really is gonna depend. But the more that we can give ourselves permission and that we're more that we're tracking like what are the outcomes of success that we're thinking about? Is the outcome for success, did I survive that workout and not completely die? That might be different than like, did I feel like I had energy? Was I sleeping really, really well? Was my mood feeling pretty stabilized throughout the day? Like, how can we broaden the feedback loops that we're thinking about in terms of whether or not an intervention that we're doing is effective? And when we think about it that way, I think it gives us kind of a little bit more permission to tinker around with like, okay, well, I have a crazy busy schedule and like, you know, I've really, really tried this whole like perfect ratio protein carb thing, and it just for some reason it's not sticking. I'm doing it repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly again. Um, it gives that person a little bit more permission to be like, okay, well, maybe we're finding something that works for you, and that's okay. I think as long as you're hearing the principles, right? That's what really matters. And um, and the exact implementation of that, we can always figure out what's gonna work and adapt to your training, your life. You know, as you said, like what kind of session is it? Is it high intensity? Is it low intensity? Is it cardio? Is it endurance? Is it strength? Like, what are what are we doing? And and that can give us a little bit more in terms of what we might tinker with in our own lives.

SPEAKER_03 39:03

Yeah, I love that. And I think um, I really like how you addressed it and kind of took the question I asked and kind of spun it a little bit to say, um, let's not get caught in the weeds here because it doesn't help people. It might just overwhelm them to think I have to have this many carbs and this much protein to maintain my hormones, which might not be the case, is kind of what I'm taking away. Is it's like figure out something that works for you, that feels good, that digests well. And like you said, the biggest thing is the principles, right? And I like that. Um, I feel like that should just carry through because I feel like people too, when they think of, let's say, period recovery, they're like 2,500 calories and they use that as a magic number. It's the principles that matter more than the calorie number. So it's are you eating frequently? Are you eating the right things? Do you think about your diet holistically? Um, it's always the principles. So I think you addressed that very well. Um, okay, so diving kind of into the training specifically, and you've mentioned it, it depends on the session, it depends on um how long the session is, particularly, is if we're thinking about intra-training fueling. Um, so I'd like to talk kind of about how that varies per session. So if someone has a really hard run versus an easy run, how does fueling or what a person does around the session kind of change so that they can optimize their hormones? Does it change? Um, are you able to speak to that a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 40:26

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's so, um, and this is maybe another principle from Stacey Sims, who I greatly admire, which is that um the the low energy availability problem, the the whole framework around energy deficiency in female athletes is so prevalent that one of the most important things that we're thinking about when we're thinking about training, from and of course I am biased because of the populations that I tend to work with, it was like what we're doing holistically, like what we're doing throughout the entire week matters so much. And I think that this kind of leads to this point, and again, maybe I'm twisting, I don't mean to twist your question. No, keep going.

SPEAKER_03 41:08

I love the way you you do it.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

It's great. I mean to answer them, but um, I think that one of the things that's really interesting around and challenging and challenging for me as well, and challenging, I think, for a lot of female athletes, is that we really normalize this idea of being on the knife's edge, whatever that is. Where the knife's edge could be like, okay, well, you know, I'm doing enough that like I'm getting by, but I don't have a period, and that could be the knife's edge. But the knife's edge could also be like, oh, I got my period back. Okay, I'm I'm this is I'm freezing everything here. I'm gonna continue to just eat this exact amount and I'm not gonna change it because this is like the minimum that I would have to do to try to get a period and maintain it. And I think that there are a couple things that are really interesting about this. And one of them is like the recent studies are really demonstrating that like one period does not guarantee that your hormones have actually restored to our more optimized ranges that we expect to see from a recovery standpoint, and that actually, you know, if we wait for only one cycle of to get our period back and then we might start making changes, or like we kind of consider one cycle the like quote unquote recovery marker, that over 50% of the women in this particular study actually ended up losing their cycle again or like experiencing instabilities in their cycle. And so what that means is that we really need to change the bar in terms of what our nutritional status is gonna look like, and in terms of what good looks like in terms of our hormone health. And I think you alluded to this really well before, which is like it's not just a bleed, it's we're tracking the reason that we care about this is because of the mechanisms at play. We think about the mechanisms at play. If we stay on that like razor's edge of like, I'm gonna do the minimum I could possibly do to try to get a cycle and train, then yeah, when we ramp our training, this cycle's probably gonna not stay with us. Right. And or if we feel like, okay, but I still don't really have permission to do certain things, like maybe, okay, well, on the rest day, because I'm not working out as much. I'm just like gonna really scale back here and then only give myself permission to like really focus on my nutrition on my workout days. Those are the type of behavioral patterns that reinforce this general state within our body that it's like, okay, well, we're kind of like flirting with the edge of having energy availability but kind of getting dipping into the energy deficiency territory. And that can be a really, really challenging place for female athletes where it's frustrating that, like, okay, my cycle is gone again and then it kind of reinforces the idea of like okay I have to choose I have to choose constantly and um I think this is where a lot of that shift involves shifting our mentality of like I'm the the period getting one period back or just getting one cycle and trying to just stick it out there like what is the minimum amount I could do to still get a cycle is like a way of thinking that can reinforce that knife's edge versus really trying to think about it kind of going back to the principles like how can I be more supportive of my training and my body and and that might mean that on the rest days I'm still thinking about myself as an athlete and still thinking about how this is part of the training block. I mean part of the reason I'm probably taking this rest day is so that I can go into the next session that I have feeling really fresh. And part of doing that is I'm going to invest in my nutrition maybe especially on the rest days and pay attention to what the hunger signaling looks like because if I'm constantly like getting into this like very, very, very high hunger cue, high appetite state on my rest days, it could be signaling that I am not having enough on the days that I'm doing higher volumes of training. And rather than trying to repress that and think like, oh my gosh, it feels like something's off or something's wrong because like I didn't even work out today. So why would I be so hungry to really break some of those narratives. And I think that that can be one of the most valuable parts of going through recovery from energy deficiency is how do we understand ourselves on that level and understand the patterns that are sabotaging us, yes, in maybe our hormone health or in our recovery or in our periods or whatnot. But those are the same skills that can take us into being able to train when we're trying to really, really, really go into harder training blocks and really support our performance to be able to not stay on that knife's edge and dip around and play around with things that are going to ultimately sabotage our own performance in our training when we take on heavier loads.

SPEAKER_03 46:08

Yeah I love that I I think you spoke to it very well because I do think most of the women listening to this who struggle with hormone health, they do like to live kind of on that on the line, right? They like tow the line and I think it's it's very dangerous. And I'm curious too I know we talked about kind of thinking about all the principles around how you live and how you train um but for people listening what sessions is there a length is there an intensity what sessions require intra fueling from your perspective and when would you advise someone maybe a client hey you should probably have a snack during this next session.

SPEAKER_00 46:46

Yeah. Yeah so um I would say that I typically like to use the heuristic of there's sort of like two different variables there's time and then there's intensity and both of those are going to be instances where our bodies are going to perceive a heightened level of stress from that session. So when we think about longer time we would probably want to get some fuel in and when we think about higher intensity as it relates to that then we also want to be more conservative about making sure that we have the energy stores and the nutritional status available to be able to support that higher intensity training. And so general heuristics that I usually like to use are if it's going to be like 45 to 60 minutes or longer, we're proactively going to fuel that session and that might shift if the intensity is way higher. And I think that it's also going to shift between if we're doing cardio or resistance training but that's kind of like a blanket guideline that I like to use. The main thing that I would encourage folks to do is to start fueling within the session if you know it's going to be slightly longer, if you know it's going to be slightly more intense before you feel like you need it. Because once you feel like you need it, then you've already signaled to yourself that your your body's essentially already running on fumes. It's already trying to do what it's doing on an empty tank and going to try to catch up. And that's where you can get that sensation of like bonking that a lot of runners are like hitting the wall that a lot of runners are are really unfortunately kind of familiar with. But the other thing that's going to play into that is going to be how you're like your fitness. And so for that that kind of the fitness is going to impact how efficiently we're essentially going through that session and how efficiently our bodies are operating. And so I would also encourage people to even like kind of you kind of have to use a disciplined aspect here where a lot of times I think endurance athletes especially can normalize this the idea of like oh well maybe this length of a run doesn't seem like that long to me because I'm also going for runs that are double that or triple that on a regular basis. And sometimes that can be a really dangerous slippery slope. That's why I always say very, very use proactivity sometimes your body isn't going to signal a hunger cue and I put that in air quotes it's not going to signal a hunger a hunger cue in the way that you expect. And so if you are expecting to go on to a longer session maybe you just create the ritual and I didn't do I do this in my own training where it's like if I hit a certain amount of time I'm just going to take something in and I always keep something in my pocket in in my pocket so I have it when it's ready. Because I don't want to get to the point where I'm feeling that fatigue and that's what's signaling me to take something in. And so think about how long the session's going to be have something if you if you know conservatively have something. So take enough that you feel like will last that whole session and especially if you're doing those longer endurance training sessions start before the first 60 minutes is up and then continue to do it regularly. And I think the other thing that's really interesting is like a you know how much folks are having when they're having something um and when we think about I mean I mean I this kind of goes back to the concept of like um you know mix mixing your carbohydrate sources ideally um because essentially there's only your body can only use so much of each type of carbohydrate source at any given point in time um which is why that can be beneficial. But um essentially like when we think about how much you're having a lot of the times a mistake that I can see people making is just having like the bare minimum amount that you could be having at that point in time. And at least for runners and I will say this for as a runner and I this is maybe there's more flexibility with cyclists. This is just based on my own personal experience running versus cycling is that like when I'm running and I'm trying to get something in I do not want that to be a frequent thing that I'm doing right personally. Like I don't want to have to do that every like five minutes. Like that would be impacting my actual running. And so part of strategizing your fueling can also be strategizing that you're getting enough in such that that's the only thing that you have to do for the next 30 to 45 minutes before you'd have to do that again. And if we're only getting in like a tiny little amount because we don't feel like we need it yet because we're you know whatever we're capable of making it that far without it then ultimately it could change like the frequency that you kind of should be having it in order to be able to get enough carbohydrate that you would need to be able to keep your body operating at the system that it should be operating at in order to maintain your running and you're essentially like whatever session that it is you're doing. The reason I say that there could be more flexibility with um cycling is because I think that sometimes when I'm cycling it's a little bit easier for me to just like get something in and then continue to do it. But that also could be my own bias because like I am a runner and so maybe I'm running and I'm taking that I'm doing it at a higher intensity or something. But um that's just also something that I would keep in mind and something I see all really really often with female athletes.

SPEAKER_03 52:21

Yeah. Okay. Awesome. I love the way you address that and I think um I like that you said too before you think you need it because I think a lot of times people do get to a place where they're like oh shoot like I do not feel good. I feel like that burning sensation I feel worn out. I'm out of breath all those things and that's just not good.

SPEAKER_00 52:40

Or your legs are heavy.

SPEAKER_03 52:41

Yes legs are heavy all those things. And Alison I know we've talked a ton about fueling and we're out of time here but I'd love just because some like closing wisdom even if it's still about fueling or whatever you want it to be about um when it comes to training hard and maintaining um your hormone health so what's kind of your closing piece of advice if you had to pick just something to share what would you say?

SPEAKER_00 53:07

I think the reiteration of the framework that or the framing that your hormonal health can be really supportive and essentially performance enhancing. And so when we think about your journey and wherever you are whether your period is missing or whether you just got it back or whether you're on the contraceptive or you've had multiple cycles but they're irregular wherever you are that investing in your hormonal health or I guess like thinking about investing in your energy availability is ultimately performance enhancing. And studies are showing that controlling for other factors women that were in low energy availability versus those that were not that low energy availability is predictive of poor performance or even predictive of increased injury or sickness that takes you out of training.

SPEAKER_02 54:04

Right.

SPEAKER_00 54:05

And so by being able to invest on some of those foundational principles really thinking about how that is performance enhancing and that the journey that you take to invest in that even if that requires scaling your training in a way that is different than what would be ideal for you right now, we're thinking about this in a longer play and um and I think that it's not a trade-off. We're not having to choose between being an athlete and having a cycle we are thinking about how having a cycle is a really beneficial indicator of how well we are performing and adapting in our training.

SPEAKER_03 54:46

Amazing Allison thank you this was awesome. I loved hearing more about your story again and then also just getting your advice on training hard and maintaining your fertility slash hormone health because I know this topic is I do think blowing up a lot. I think people are finally talking about it more and realizing that kind of like you talked about in the beginning that training fast it doesn't really burn fat. It doesn't really do much good and it's um we're also not as doctor to bring it back to Dr. Stacey Sam's we're not I think she says little men or small men or whatever it is. We're different and we require different things. And yeah no I just really appreciate your time and it was really fun to chat.

SPEAKER_00 55:26

Yeah thank you so much for having me again. I really enjoyed this conversation