Not fueling enough for your activity? This podcast episode covers what to do if you suspect you’re not eating enough. How do you go about shifting your daily food intake to better support your activity, whether you’re a weekend warrior or elite athlete?
Find out on Part 2 of this awesome series with Jamie Scott, where we discuss the best fueling practices for active people, the harmful side effects of fasting, and dive deep into the knowledge you need to know to fuel your body correctly and sufficiently.
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Key Takeaways
If You Want To Start Fueling For Your Activity Level:
- Work with a coach to understand the information overload and decipher what is right for your body
- Figure out the appropriate amount of grams per kilogram that your body needs due to your activity level
- Notice if you are feeling crappy, give yourself fuel, and see how your body reacts
- Bring your body back to balance by reintroducing food
Understanding the ‘Why’ Behind Fueling
Jamie Scott is a New Zealand Registered Nutritionist, holding post-graduate qualifications in both Nutrition Medicine and Sport & Exercise Medicine, as well as undergraduate degrees in both Nutrition Science and Physical Education, and a Level-1 Mountain Bike Skills coach (PMBIA).
Jamie loves helping people navigate the complexity and confusion surrounding everyday health and performance advice and helps them focus on the essential elements of nutrition to increase their capacity and energy for life.
Sorting Through the Information Overload
When you improve your energy processes, all of your body’s functionings start to improve with it. You can still be in a calorie deficit, but by introducing a bigger energy flux throughout your system, you can do more and get more nutrients out of your day.
By understanding the systems needed and keeping it simple, sequenced, and strategic, you can grasp the role of macronutrients and why it is important on a physiological level.
Jamie believes there is a lack of understanding of human biology in our modern world, and it’s only by assessing the information that is out there that you can truly comprehend what your body needs.
Eat more, Not Less
There is a lot of relevant and not-so-relevant information out there. This is why Jamie takes a practical approach in explaining the ‘whys’ behind fueling your body more and not less. Your body’s need for energy will eventually override your willpower. This is what causes binges and irregular appetites.
We come from a culture where women are told they shouldn’t eat very much, and this just isn’t true. By fueling your body properly and consistently, you will notice the difference in how you feel and how you perform. While it’s not an overnight magic pill, it will have a huge impact on your energy, ability, and overall health.
What was your favorite knowledge bomb that Jamie dropped on us today? Share your thoughts about fueling as an active person with me in the comments below.
In This Episode
- What to expect if you start to go out of your way to eat more food (1:55)
- How to let go of your fears around eating more (6:22)
- The importance of systems when implementing a nutrition plan (22:22)
- Why fasting could actually be doing your body more harm than good (31:57)
- Early signs to watch out for that signal you are not fueling your body properly (40:04)
Quotes
“You can repair muscle and bone tissue; you can keep your ovaries switched on and keep your menstrual cycle running, brain fog disappears, you are more emotionally stable. You get all the benefits out of each reward, and you are pushing more fuel through the system.” (4:02)
“Wrapped around all of that is ongoing support and assurance. And that is probably the biggest part of my ongoing coaching role, is just to kind of pat people on the back and let them know that it will be alright, and this is normal, keep going, stick with it and trust the process.” (12:52)
“I think sometimes a lot of people who work with a nutritionist or a nutrition coach think that they are just going to get a plan, effectively a schedule of here is the food I want you to eat and here is when I want you to eat it. And sure, that can be part of it, but if you don’t have the structures and the environment around you to prep those meals and eat those meals, it doesn’t matter what the schedule says.” (22:23)
“Anyone who is on social media and sees anyone promoting daytime fasting that starts from the time someone wakes up, that is a red flag for that person straight away.” (35:46)
“We can list all of these positives; we can talk about this until we are blue in the face, we can discuss all the historical and sociological sides of it. The problem is we focus on weight. That’s what you get drawn back to.” (46:21)
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Related Episodes
Ep 352: Energy Flux and Fueling for Athletes with Jamie Scott
Ep 350: Are You Eating Enough? Low Energy Availability in Sport
Ep S2E4: Meatsuit with Jamie Scott
Fueling Best Practices for Active People w/ Jamie Scott FULL TRANSCRIPT
Steph Gaudreau
Okay, what do you do if you have a sneaking suspicion or you know for sure that you are not fueling your physical activity? well enough, you’re feeling the effects. And you’re thinking, Okay, I have to get something done about this. How do you even start to make headway? What might you do first, and maybe after that, we’re going to be covering all that and more on this episode. The Listen To Your Body podcast is all about helping women who lift weights, get stronger, fuel themselves without counting every bite of food, perform better in and out of the gym, and take up space. I’m a strength coach, nutritional therapy practitioner, and certified intuitive eating counselor, Steph Gaudreau. This weekly show brings you discussion about building strength, without obsessing about food and exercise, lifting weights, food, psychology, and more. You’ll learn how to eat, train, recover, listen to your body, and step into your strength. Hit subscribe on your favorite podcast app. And let’s dive in.
Steph Gaudreau
All right, my friend Welcome back, you made it to part two of this epic fueling episode with Jamie Scott, my wonderful friend from athletic co nutrition. Here’s the thing if you have not yet listened to part one of this episode yet, please go back and do that. First, it’s going to provide so much context. And you’re going to more clearly understand where we pick up in this part two of this episode. It’s really important so that you have the full picture. In part two here, we’re going to be covering some of the nitty-gritty. The answer to the question, well, if you aren’t eating enough, where do you start. And we’re also going to be covering topics that are really popular these days, such as fasting, and talking about why for athletes, or even people who are recreational exercisers who don’t compete, why this may not be your best idea. So stay tuned for all of that in this episode. Before we jump into that though, remember, if you want help for wading through some of this and you don’t want to do it on your own, then join the waitlist for strength nutrition unlocked, that is my group program. We cover lots of this stuff and go even deeper on the different elements that you need in order to get stronger build muscle, have enough energy perform better in and out of the gym and ultimately, really get the benefit from all this strength training and the effort that you’re putting in. So if you want to get on the waitlist for that, go ahead and hop over to StephGaudreau.com/link we will be opening another round of that this fall. All right, let’s go ahead we are diving into part two of this very juicy episode with Jamie Scott, we’re going to be going deeper on energy.
Jamie Scott
What’s going to happen if I go out of my way to eat more food? Well, I noticed in my experience, both personally but working with individuals is that all of those are their energy out processes start to climb so you can maintain your exercise, maybe you can do more of it and it doesn’t feel quite so hard. I know I can go out way longer on the bike now. Like I don’t just slam into a wall at 90 minutes ago, I’m done. I can go out for three, four hours at a time that piece of cake like because I’ve got the fuel on board, I’m more active, I’m more likely to go let’s walk down to the shops to pick up some groceries rather than take the car and say like walking from for us walking to and from the shops is a no probably a 30 minute round trip in terms of the walk may be a little bit longer. But there’s another couple of 100 calories in terms of energy expenditure from that non-exercise activity. The basal metabolic rate goes up the thermic effect of food goes up because now you’re eating kind of a lot more food a lot more frequently. So there’s now a high energy flux going through the system, which then allows more energy expenditure.
Jamie Scott
Again, like if we use some illustrative numbers if you eat 1500 calories. And sorry if you burn 1500 calories but only eat 1000 calories. There’s the magic 500 calorie difference that everyone’s kind of going for in order to change their body composition. But you can also eat two and a half 1000 calories but the 3000 calories and you’ve still got a 500 calorie difference. He’s still in calorie deficit technically, but you’re doing it with a bigger energy flux going through the system and able to do more and give more nutrients and as a part of that, so your body’s ability to keep all of those systems turned on. Without any sacrifice you can repair muscle and bone tissue, you can keep your ovaries switched on and keep your menstrual cycle running, brain fog disappears, you’re more emotionally stable, like all those sorts of, you get all the benefits of eating more, but you’re just pushing more fuel through the system. And I think people are really fearful of that they’re like, Oh, that sounds like a lot of food. And sure, if you’ve damaged your basal metabolic rates so much from 70 years of under fueling, you don’t just go from eating 1000 calories to eating two and a half 1000 calories your body’s just not going to know what’s hurt, but you can slowly step the system up and go Okay, I’m going to eat a little bit more similar, do a bit more, eat a little bit more do a bit more and you’ve slowly kind of wedged yourself up and find a bit of balance I think I’ve made a lot of people refer to that as reverse dieting these days it’s like new we’ve always got a chocolate frickin label on it and sell it or something but I think it’s one of those.
Steph Gaudreau
Yeah, I think you hit at the heart of the issue is that once there’s this awareness and I’m sure there’s a lot of people nodding their heads as you’re talking. We still have sense one of the things this is a side tangent and I’ll come back to my original thought but one of the things that we’ve both noticed with our clients is that people will say what I feel way less just on edge mentally and emotionally I noticed that for myself you know I’ve talked about I’ve shared with you some stuff from when I was racing endurance mountain bikes and just in a just not in a great space with that sort of stuff and how much more eating actually helps with that and I see that a lot with clients I know you do as well but one of the things I think people are listening to this is like yes makes so much sense totally get it Yes.
Steph Gaudreau
And then you suggest eating more food and it’s just an immediate like oh oh no you know this I’m afraid of all of the things that are potentially I’m using air quotes here bad that come along with that you know what if my body weight goes up what if I you know, I just can’t stop gaining weight you know all the we kind of go to the negative thoughts and and assumptions of what will happen and I think that’s a huge thing to try to overcome and I don’t know if education is going to help with that I don’t know if you know continuing to lay out like you said are reasonable slow stepwise over time you know what do you think for people who are listening to this and have that suspicion that yeah my my body my metabolism is down regulated and adapted down over time because I haven’t been giving it very much in the way of fuel and energy you know, what do you think is is the way to I guess slowly but surely get folks on board with that do you start with people with eating more protein eating more overall you know, what do you think?
Jamie Scott
I mean I like we talked before we kind of hit record about the energy partitioning so so again, like you and I don’t like working on kind of blank calories, I guess you can kind of go all food has calories sure, but not all of those calories have the same role destination in the body so we tend to partition protein-energy away from what we call non-protein-energy which effectively your fats carbs and alcohol needs to be included in there too. So one of the research kind of points in the direction that probably up the first appetite not only appetite, but our primary appetite is for fulfilling that protein-energy requirement. And there’s good reason for that, because structurally, muscle, bone tissue, eyelashes, the whole lot, toenails are all made out of amino acids, protein, digestive enzymes, hormones, you name it that so it’s like it is the big structural building block. You know if the protein was Lego were like you know, that’s the thing those are the big kind of blocks that we need to kind of chalk it. So you kind of fulfill that requirement. First, I think that can sometimes settle down some of the big fluctuations in terms of appetite and help kind of calm people down. And it just kind of allowed us to get a bit of a foothold once you’ve kind of level people out at an appropriate amount of protein which and that what we now deem an appropriate amount that’s been ratcheting up my entire career.
Jamie Scott
People can get bogged down in arguments with Dr. center around you know what enough and what the guidelines say and everything else but fundamentally at a physiological and biochemical level. said you know, since I did my training in the 90s, that numbers Just been been ramping up, then once you’ve kind of leveled the system out and I always talk about protein energy being the anchor point so once you’ve kind of leveled it out, it doesn’t tend to vary too much you kind of keep it relatively stable for the most part, a couple of kind of minor exemptions which we won’t dive down into right now but then you can kind of look at turn your attention to the non protein energy side of it and go Okay, what is an appropriate amount for the context of this individual and I tend to and this is on the back of again, we’re probably more physiology exercise physiology, sports nutrition has been going for a while now is focused less on calories, or percentages of total energy and just actually focus on the grams per kilogram of that macronutrient,don’t ask me what that is in pounds or ounces per pound, because I don’t do like nonmetric but you know, so you’ll figure out in the context of the individual that you have in front of them, what is an appropriate amount of carbohydrate in terms of grams per kg and start there and start kind of at a fairly minimal amount for people who have been under eating for a while, because again, if you kind of look at it, the total context and it’s hard to context is that you know, they should be eating six grams per kilogram of carbohydrate, but they’ve been struggling to kind of get to one and a half two, because they’ve been low carb keto or whatever they’ve been doing for a while you don’t get dumped them from that two to six because both physically that’s hard amount to eat, the body’s probably won’t cope with it like in terms of where’s the digestion at and what sort of damage that they’ve done.
Jamie Scott
But also after such a prolonged period of effectively upgrading and starving the bone is going to take a good portion of their energy and just partition it off to probably body fat storage initially anyway, which then and if you removed the emotional side of it, I know that yes, you’ll get a slight increase in body fat initially but as the body kind of gets comfortable and settles down, that will drop back down and level out people kind of come down to a good balance but I know to keep the confidence of the person that I’m working with if their body fat starts deteriorating really rapidly after working with me they’ll just turn around and go you just make me fatter by I’ve off to someone else’s promising not not to do that so like it you have to kind of do it in a slowly but surely tight fashion and just kind of effectively rebuild people but keep their keep their confidence keep that kind of support and reassurance up like it’s always like I use I think comes from Precision nutrition but it like a five S type model which is like keep some of those steps simple.
Jamie Scott
Keep it really segmental and also it’s like okay, what are some easy, easy things to do to kind of repair the energy intake, what sort of segments are we going to do, what’s the sequence that we’re going to run things and so like again, my sequences generally like repair kind of the protein-energy intake and then start to look at the nonprotein energy and take part of that too is not just specifically for the protein but the fact that the protein also contains a lot of the vitamins and minerals that we’re after. You know, if someone’s got a low iron status or low zinc status, you just have to do that through high-quality protein foods. You need to be very strategic and I would add it in kind of brackets around strategic stuff I’m sneaky in terms of like how you frame things and how you get people to do stuff and wrapped around all of that is just kind of ongoing support reassurance and that’s probably the biggest part of my ongoing coaching role is just kind of pat people on the back and go it’ll be alright this is normal keep going stick with it trust the process blah blah blah so…
Steph Gaudreau
Yeah, I love that I think that’s really helpful and I did the same thing you know I’m like let’s okay let’s assess where we are where we kind of want to go and make it you know, I think we talk casually talk toss around you know, protein and this and that. And then at this at the end of the day we also are I also I can’t speak for you but for what I do I also try to help people understand like, Well what does that mean when you put food on your plate? As you know, because we Yes, we need an awareness I think or a baseline understanding of these are what these macronutrients do this is what we’re roughly shooting for. And then at At the end of the day, people still have to go out find food, purchase food, cook food, and to help them understand when they put it on a plate, what does that look like?
Jamie Scott
Yeah, you know, totally. And it’s I always kind of walk a fine, fine line with us a little bit. I think one of the things that I’ve started to become more aware of is that there are different flavors of nutritionists out there. And it will often kind of depend on what their background is and where they came from. There are nutritionists that I know nutrition and dietitians are very much kind of the foodies slash, and I’ll kind of sometimes also referred to them as the food pornographers because they are just so into the food and the practical application. And they kind of grind in that regard. But sometimes they’re not great in terms of the depth of understanding as to why things are the way they are and what’s going on. And when people don’t say people, when clients don’t understand why they are doing certain things. If they start to falter or question, it’s very easy for them to kind of switch tracks because they like they don’t have a good grounding and like why is this strategy that we’re using? Why is this important? Why do I need to stick with it?
Jamie Scott
How long is it going to take, so some of the foodie nutritionists are very good in terms of the practical side of it, but they’re not necessarily good in terms of the physiological understanding by K, I came into nutrition through that kind of physiology portal? So I know that that’s my strength. I also know that I would like for the most part, I just tend to eat food so don’t get too hung up on the emotional side of food, it’s you know, like I really enjoy the food I really enjoy cooking I enjoy trying different things but I also can understand that sometimes food is just fuel and so I don’t overthink it too much. This can also that can be a weakness of my practice a little bit you kind of hit the holy grail because I like I know you’re a foodie but you’re also you’ve also got really strong science background so you kind of like you hit the sweet spot with it. So it’s so in terms of the kind of turning it into practical information like yeah, you absolutely need to do that but all the way through you need to give people that understanding and wisdom of why like why is this important this is how your body works. And I think there’s so much of that is now lost, people don’t really care too much like how the body works anymore there’s a weakened understanding of human biology I think it’s not as strong as perhaps what it was a couple of generations ago for again, for a variety of reasons we probably don’t have time to dive down into so I that’s kind of part and parcel of my practice is that I really take a strong educational approach which does not just give people more information people are loaded up with so much information too much information.
Jamie Scott
I’m I try and go Okay, here’s the relevant information, here’s the irrelevant information. Let’s look for patterns and practices and skills and habits and wisdom and trial and error and all of that sort of stuff rather than go like but here’s a ton of info when someone else might say the opposite. You know, yeah, and you know, as well as I do that for every time that we might go well you know, animal source foods are really important. There’s another person going oh no, you don’t need to eat that. So people are overloaded with information and yeah, they need that understanding of the steps and the whys and the wherefores and they do need that kind of really practical approach and go this is what it looks like in terms of food, here’s how to do it is the amounts Um, I think role modeling is super powerful, but like positively and negatively as well. So I always try as much as I can be kind of role model amounts of food and that’s not necessarily showing what I eat because it’s very easy for a woman to kind of look at my plate and go Yeah, but you’re a guy and you’re super active so I don’t need to eat that amount. I’m like okay, well, here’s the small female on our refers to a partner Anastasia is like, here’s what she eats. She’s tiny and doesn’t do a massive amount of exercise which does bet but like not, not kind of elite athlete levels. And he is what she eats so that that role modeling becomes very, very important. So that people aren’t just sort of seeing fluffy salads.
Steph Gaudreau
Yeah, nothing wrong with salad. But what are you putting on it? I mean, I did an Instagram real not too long ago and it got a lot of…I was really surprised to get a lot of traction. Because look, I mean, sometimes you do want to sell it or you’re craving that, that badge or whatever it is great, but what else are you putting on it? And looking for ways to beef it up so to say.
Jamie Scott
Totally. And I think no, I’m not hating on salads and vegetables. Like I’m a big fan of those and promote them quite a bit. But like, it’s interesting when you go through the literature around some of this low energy available availability stuff. And there’s a couple of nice papers for both males and females when they show that there’s a positive association between low energy availability and both meal frequency and low energy density foods. So what that so when you kind of translate that out of the science speak, because what it’s saying is that for people who eat little and often who are having like little salads here and little bits and pieces there, they’re kind of real high-frequency grazing of this high fiber, low energy density foods. Yeah, which I kind of like your, your salads and the vegetables, that is just not putting enough energy into the system. And so, you know, individuals can go, oh, but I eat like six meals a day, it’s like, No, you don’t eat six meals a day, you eat six times a day, and you eat low energy-dense foods, when you do have that, because there’s just not enough calories, carbs, proteins, whatever, however, you’re going to measure it, there’s not enough energy sitting in those.
Jamie Scott
And that’s leading to this low energy, energy density state. So the flip side of that was that higher in a higher energy availability was associated with like less frequent, larger meals. And so that’s the modeling that I try and show is it like, you know, I have when I, when I have a big meal, or when Anastasia has a big meal, like, it’s a big meal, like it’s a, it’s the main meal, your breakfast shouldn’t look like a snack, your lunch and look like a snack, I really try and push the notion of front-loading some of their energy. And what that means is that people will typically either on purpose or subconsciously end up kind of undereating from the time that they get up. But they try and play catch up because the FBI started to run away on them by the time they get home. So they get home and they’re like, well, they got the fridge in the pantry and everything else. And so the energy that they need to try and catch up on this shoveling it in a very short period of time where they go to bed. And they still can’t make up for the energy deficit that they’ve been running in the system. So we’re like, Okay, well, let’s, let’s see if we can take some of their energy, some of those foods that you eat in the evening and lead push them forward earlier into the, into the day. So yeah, so there’s, there’s, I guess there’s, there’s a lot of different steps, there’s the actual mechanics of the nutrition side of things, there’s the emotional support.
Jamie Scott
There’s, you know like I talked about kind of structures, systems, and schedules, I think a lot of people who work with a nutritionist, nutrition coach, they think that they’re going to get just a plan, like, they’re just going to get effectively a schedule of, here’s the food that I want you to eat, and here’s the time that I want you to eat, it’s like, sure, that can be part of it. But if you don’t have this, the structures and by structures mean like the environment around you, to allow you to print those meals to sit down and eat those meals, then it doesn’t matter what the schedule says, it’s like if your schedule says to do this at 12 o’clock, and 12 o’clock is just not at the time that you can sit down and do anything, and ain’t gonna happen. There are also the systems that you’re required to do that. And those are the processes and practices and, and habits to allow you to do that to do the thing. So I know that that’s, again, that’s kind of work that you do is there’s kind of some of that structural stuff, which is focusing on some of the emotional stuff, the support structures, the baggage that we bring forward from the past social environments, which are the biggest, the big, the single biggest thing that we face as, as humans around food are our social environment. So there’s a lot Yes, a lot of work kind of gets done around that to allow people to actually get to the point where they can eat better food, more food, and address some issues that they’ve got. But that ain’t an overnight fix. And so people who think that they’re going to come to yourself or me or others and just kind of get a plan and it’ll be fixed in a week’s time. No, ain’t gonna happen.
Steph Gaudreau
No, I really hang out at least three to six months easily. You know, I love what you said about partitioning things earlier in the day, I have found time and time and countless times that with folks who especially struggle with the sort of 4 pm, munchie, get home feeling like I need to start eating immediately, I’m really hungry, or we’ll have dinner and then continue going back to the refrigerator after that, but seemingly never satiated. A high sugar seeking in the evening, that sort of stuff. I mean, it is without fail. When we look at the first meal, sometimes the second meal as well, just depending on workday and schedules and stuff, like you said, that when we start to bulk out that that first meal a little bit, and again, starting small, but that has such a knock-on effect later in the day to prevent that ravenous hunger cannot be satiated pantry diving. And it’s stuff that, you know, in my community, people then judge themselves for really harshly in terms of I have no willpower. I’m such a failure, why does this keep happening to me? And the sort of mental-emotional strain that comes with that?
Jamie Scott
Yeah, I see it all the time. Or like a people would tell me that they’re, you know, beating themselves up, because they came home at about four or five o’clock in the evening, after a day of not really eating anything, you know, they’ve basically demolished an entire block of cheese. And I’m like, you know what, I do the fucking same, the first I was hungry, like, I got any special kind of willpower. If I’m hungry, I haven’t eaten all day, and I pull the pantry open, I will Hoover absolutely everything in there. And it just simply comes down to like, there’s a limited amount of willpower to resist that stuff. And when your body is craving the energy to keep it going. This way, it will it’ll override your willpower. Like relatively easily, there’s really like a kind of coming back to some of the low energy stuff that’s floating around. Now, there’s a really nice graphic that kind of goes with a concept. And that’s, instead of just again, talking about low energy availability as like, what what’s the balance at the end of, say, a 24 hour period, what becomes more apparent is that you can have someone who has an energy balance at the end of the say, a 24 hour period, but they’re an energy deficit for a long period of time during the day.
Jamie Scott
And that’s what we’re talking about. So someone who has starved themselves all day. And let’s say, you know, again, we’ll pick some round numbers, they’ve only 500 calories or something across the day, and then they come home and gorge themselves on 1500 calories that are really short space of time. So they’ve eaten 2000 calories, and maybe that burn 2000 calories. So again, they got over there in energy balance, but they’ve spent 12 plus hours an energy deficit before they reach that energy balance. So the concept that we’re now starting to get to with this is to go What is the within-day energy deficit that someone who’s running and there’s a feeling that our bodies can cope with maybe a three to 400 calorie deficit. And again, like, you know, there’s not a lot of nuance in the partitioning of that, like, what is the balance between carbs and protein on that, there’ll be probably the next step. But you know, you can maybe buffer three 400 calories at most. But when you start running that deficit, that three 400 plus calorie deficit across the day, then the body is reacting moment by moment, it’s not waiting until the end of the day, and then doing a quick add up on the spreadsheet figuring out like, what it needs to take offline, to maintain that overall balance. And so when you graph that out and go, arbitrarily, let’s go for ease. Let’s say the day starts at midnight on a particular day, you’re in bed, but you’re kept like you’re still burning calories while you’re sleeping.
Jamie Scott
So you just say you wake up in the morning, and from the time that from that midnight through to the time that you wake up in the morning, you’re now I say 500 calories in deficit because that’s what you’ve burnt, then you haven’t been putting any more fuel onto the system overnight. So you’re in that 500 calorie deficit is slightly more than what the body wants. But you go and have bought a slice of toast or something for breakfast if you’re lucky, or you have no breakfast. So you only put in a minimal amount of calories, they say you put in 100 calories in the morning. So now you’re still 400 calories in deficit. But now you’re up and about being more active, you’re on your commute, you’re doing whatever so now you start to expend more energy, so already being in deficit, that deficit is growing until the next time that you eat. But if you’re only eating another 100 calories, 150 calories, you never really bring the body back up to balance, it keeps running this deficit. And that deficit will be maintained across the day, it will fluctuate a little bit, the amount of the deficit might shrink, if you have a meal, and it will grow back out.
Jamie Scott
And if you do some exercise during that day, then that deficit will really blow out quite a bit. So now potentially, you’re out to 1000 calorie deficit if you go and do a 500 calorie workout somewhere in there, and then you get home and it’s eight o’clock at night and you’re running 1000 calorie deficit. And you’ve got this giant storage device sitting in your kitchen that’s full of food and a giant pantry that’s full of food. And those hunger signals are ramping and ramping and ramping What the hell are you gonna do you know that’s not a failure of willpower that’s not a failure of you as a person that’s physiology that’s biology that’s your body going stick some fucking food in me now.
Jamie Scott
Yeah, like I need to eat because if you don’t then you run that that on that rolling deficit that moment by moment hour by hour deficit carries over into the next day and the next day to the point where you know this way the patent about fewer knives and there’s that maybe someone could willpower their way through three-four days but then let the light face first and do everything they can lay their hands on day four or five weekend I was the weekend that so the classic one I always say that when working in the gyms was that Monday was always like the start of it was going to be the start of the rest of my life. Monday is a new day here we go. So that’d be like working like a madman like working out like a crazy person in the gym burning as many calories as they possibly can not eating anything. So yeah, Monday the feeling virtuous Tuesday the feeling virtuous winds they’re starting to feel hard. Thursday like the wheels are starting to look shaky Friday rolls around it’s like fuck it’s Friday and so they’re like they’re on a bender from Friday afternoon through to Sunday when Sunday they get the attack of the girls and they’re like I can’t do this I feel so horrible. I failed. I’m going to start again on Monday rinse and repeat. Yeah.
Steph Gaudreau
Yeah, I appreciate what you’re talking about about the energy deficit you know, throughout the day and I think that’s really important. I mean, I’ve been such a vocal person talking about this in and out because sometimes I just cannot handle this shit feedback that I get from everybody who wants to tell me that fasting is the literal best thing that’s ever happened to them and the thing is, is that exactly what you just talked about, like for some people maybe if you’re really sedentary or whatever it happens to be you can handle that I just find and this is a story that’s been told to me dozens and dozens and dozens of times by mostly women because that’s mostly who I work with that we’re fasting right through the night because that’s what we do we wake up we are only allowed to drink water or black coffee so there goes you know any chance of eating anything in the morning barely making it through to to the midday and feeling like absolute hot trash and then finally getting the chance to eat something you know maybe do a workout then go home and eat and now you spent the entire day.
Steph Gaudreau
There’s also a thing that happens with a lot of my clients were just the idea if they try to partition all of their energy to say the late afternoon or midday to afternoon evening is that the quantities of food that they then need to consume try to even be isocaloric is so much higher and that is like a mental-emotional mindfuck for some people because it’s you know we’re coming from a culture where women shouldn’t eat very much and we should just be polite and dainty and ladylike and that is a factor that plays into the struggle to actually consume enough calories to even try to get back to baseline. So you know the fasting thing if you’re intensely exercising or if you’re a recreational exerciser I mean I don’t know I just think you have to be so careful with that kind of stuff. And if you’re feeling shitty, please notice that and do something about it and start to give yourself some fuel throughout the morning at least.
Jamie Scott
Anyone who promotes fasting that as a like you fast from the time that you get up through to midday or 2 pm or whatever the arbitrary time is that these Muppets come up with, like, it does my frickin head in because none of that matches the research. But the research firmly shows that when there is an advantage from fasting, it is what we call like…
Steph Gaudreau
late day
Jamie Scott
Yeah, late-day fasting. Yeah, like the energy restriction. So it’s basically what it is, is that you fast from early evening or late afternoon, early evening, if you’ve got that luxury a lot, not a lot of people do. But let’s say like you can get your last meal at 6 pm or something if you can fast from 6 pm through to 6 am. The next day, these are 12 hours faster. Yeah, you know, like and so you’re only really having to run the system providing like you’ve had a relatively good meal at 6 pm, you’re running the awake system for a few hours from 6 pm through to 12, sort of 10 or 11 pm at night when you go to bed. But then the body’s fasting while you’re sleeping, and you wake up and then you fuel the body for the work that’s required. Now you’re now awake, you’re in it, your body’s coming online you are, the rate at which you’re using energy in the body is going through the roof. So that’s when you put the fuel, like, again, kind of coming back to the analogy of your phone, it would be like, you know, run, you run your phone flat right out into the point that you start to use it for the day.
Jamie Scott
And then try and kind of cautiously manage what very little energy is left, enter and then plug it in at a time that you kind of don’t need it like it’s, it’s just, it’s backward, it’s totally backward. And so it should be like you know, for your listeners, like anyone who is on social media and sees anyone promoting daytime fasting that starts from the time that someone wakes up, like that’s a red flag for that person straight away. Like if they’re promoting what can be a legitimate tool if they’re promoting a legitimate tool but do not understand how to use it properly. Because they have not taken the time to read the research and how it actually works and the context in which it should work and who it works for. If they’re just kind of blanket saying everyone should be drinking water and coffee from the time that they get up like that. That’s a that’s an immediate unfollow. That’s a big red flag for that individual because I don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.
Steph Gaudreau
Yeah, it I mean, I will say to when I was in my early CrossFit days, I was like, oh, there’s this thing called intermittent fasting supposedly, like so good for you, right? And I just remember the only adjective I can come up with for and this is when I was training five times a week for competitive level CrossFit. Okay, the only adjective I can think of, to describe the way I felt was hunted. Yeah, I just felt completely a wreck I don’t know how I was able to even do my job because I literally would count the minutes down until the bell would ring for lunch because I was teaching at the time. And I look back on those days and I was also very low carb at the time and I just think I am so grateful for my body because somehow I escaped some of that relatively unscathed but at the same time when I looked back I had a chronic back injury that still wasn’t healing you know, I was really struggling to keep my energy up throughout the day.
Steph Gaudreau
I happen to love training so I think I just you know, kind of by sheer force of will wouldn’t make myself you know, get to the gym and get my training sessions in. And I’m very upholder like that you know oh, I said I’m good at this time. But looking back at it I see this so many times I see it over and over again with clients with people in the community that just send me messages you know, my coach or whoever else that was told me I should be doing intermittent fasting, a low carb, lifting several times a week on top of doing some intense you know, vigorous party avascular exercise or CrossFit or whatever it happens to belong endurance training. And I’m just you know, I look with a lot of empathy. I have a lot of empathy for that because I was there but I also feel like how can this still be going on and yet here we are, and we’re having these conversations and then people come to work with folks like me and you and I wish it wasn’t, we didn’t have to, you know, I wish like we almost didn’t have to do it. But it’s just such it’s such a huge problem still.
Jamie Scott
I dabbled with it for a while. I like my food too much. So anything that involves anything around the restriction on generally useless I tried vegetarianism for a while couldn’t do it. It wasn’t enough food so when I tried it the feeling that I got was one of the constantly wired and I know like having had that experience when I now have people report to me that they feel awake or they feel like they’ve got energy when they first try it and I’m like yeah, that’s those the stress hormones, there’s cortisol and adrenaline, trying to prop the energy of the system up. So that’s that is one of that kind of short term compensations Yeah, where your body’s going okay, I haven’t got enough fuel to run the system. I am going to have to mobilize some fuel by mobilizing fuel that involves yet like you will burn a tiny little bit more body fat in the background.
Jamie Scott
But a good portion of that fuel will come from breaking down protein and turning that to glucose because a lot of those systems rely on glucose so that’s why you’re using cortisol and adrenaline to drive some of those processes and so yeah, like you just kind of get this feeling of being constantly wired and like you I would Yeah, I generally try and foster the lunchtime when I was doing it be just be clock watching Yeah. And then like it just can’t stay on stay on top of it workouts become harder and I think in terms of that perceived exertion and I think initially it’s easy to kind of go oh I’m I’m training and like you know my heart rates are up and you know, I’m really really pushing it and so because the perceived exertion is so much higher you think you’re training harder but if you actually kind of go What is a if you’ve got a power meter on a bike, what is your power output for that level of exertion or what are you lifting when you’re doing CrossFit WOD compared to everyone else is filled up it’s like you’re working harder for less output and so you can kind of see start to see those some of those early signs that that’s not good for you in the in the body and I know like you know, initially like I’m always whether it’s fasting or low carb, if I cut the calories one way or another, I’ll get this a really initial sharp dive in my body composition maybe it’s just like some of it’s just the waterway and so you can kind of go oh shit like I’ve been fasting three days and I’ve got ABS fantastic like this is this is working but the rebound out of that is harsh and like I know it’s it’s kind of probably impacted my body composition over the years now I flipped that whereas like you know, I’ve gone from eating low, probably low to 1000s or something in terms of my total energy intake.
Jamie Scott
So I’ll have I’ve pretty consistently on 3000 calories a day and I’m leaning out anything enough energy to fill me up and eating big breakfasts and stuff like that so yeah, I think I think too like there’s a certain appeal to the way fasting is presented to because again if we go back to the start of our conversation where we’re talking about people having their lives jammed up so Thai people like the idea of like, well I can just bounce out of bread bounce out of bed in the morning have a cup of coffee and I’m like I’m good to go like Yeah, because I’m fasting so it really fits that business and that busy person’s lifestyle we like now I don’t need to worry about breakfast This is fantastic and I can just buy food later on or whatever. So there is that appeal and kind of repairing some of that and trying to get people back into good kind of early morning eating habits can be a little bit kind of tricky or challenging post that because when you’ve removed that need to start your day with a big breakfast people fill it with something else.
Jamie Scott
Yeah, it’s like Oh great, I don’t need to cook breakfast I can just get up and drink coffee and scroll social media. And that becomes the daily habit in your daily practice and you’re like no, now we kind of need you to take that old practice away and replace it with something else, which is challenging, it’s a change, but also too because of the compensations that the body has made to fasting. You now no longer cope with a lot of food in the morning. So your appetite gets blunted circadian rhythms our digestive enzymes are nonexistent. So now you’re kind of going okay well wanting to eat some food or but I’m not really that hungry. I know you’re not hungry, but you need to eat some food. I tried eating food and it just sits on my stomach and I don’t I don’t really feel that good. Yeah, I know, but you’re just gonna have to keep reintroducing food. And I know when people do stick with it like it takes the territory. Right so this suddenly like oh, I can eat in the morning again cool. What is food is on its way.
Steph Gaudreau
Yeah yeah, absolutely. And yeah it’s just like well cosine all of that that that is one of the biggest things that I work with a lot of my clients on and even in the group program you know that I have it’s we’re kind of looking at well how do we help you do this based on your own you know there are different factors right your work schedule your your your preferences and things like that for some people we start to slowly work earlier and earlier and earlier with the first meal. Other people are like, you know what, I’m going to just start kind of going for it. And I’m going to start with a small portion of whatever food it sounds palatable at the time and, and so it really just depends on the person, but I just have not yet and I know like this isn’t a research study, but I haven’t yet run into a situation with anyone where over the long haul this was a worse decision for them in terms of how they feel their energy levels, their ability to you know, get up and do a workout to focus at work. I mean, even taking exercise out of it to have the focus and the sort of feeling of being mentally and emotionally a bit more even-keeled. And you know, just all the things that know that come with it.
Jamie Scott
One of the big frustrations I have around that is that you can do that kind of classic, how do you look feel and perform kind of chicken with, with individuals, once you’ve kind of taken them down this pathway of increasing their energy intake, and they’ll go like, I feel so much better, I don’t have so much fatigue are not ravenous at four o’clock in the afternoon. I’ve got energy, blah, blah, blah. My performance are lifting weights, I’m going faster. People are always a little bit iffy about how you know reporting it on how they look. But if you kind of push them on, it’s like, have we fattened you up doing it off? No, not really no. So they’ll go tech, tech, tech, tech, tech, all of these really positives, and they’ll go, but I’m two kg heavier. So it’s such a process of frustration that we’re still, you know, like, we just keep coming back to that same point, you know, over and over again, you can like list all these positives, we can talk about this until we kind of blue in the face, we can discuss all the historical side of it, the sociological side of problems, we’re focused on way. And that’s where you get drawn back to as people will just go here, but I’m heavier.
Steph Gaudreau
Yeah, I know that that’s where you know, like the self-compassion. Or the compassion comes in. Right? You know, remembering, at least for me, you remember when that was, that was the thing that I was so worried about, right? I was so concerned about that. And remember that it’s a, it’s an unlearning process just as much as it is a learning process. And yeah, that’s, that’s the part about being a coach that’s challenging, even, you know, rewarding when a client has the realization that, you know, they’re feeling better in so many ways. And you know, what, like, the scale becomes less important. You know, so well, it’s, it’s been an epic show, I definitely, if you’re returning back to this, I have divided it up because I cannot I just cannot stop the train of amazingness. And all of the knowledge bombs that were dropped here today.
Jamie Scott
I’ve spoken to someone this long for a very long time.
Steph Gaudreau
We could keep going. We haven’t even talked about strength training. So I would love to have you back on at some point. Yep. So I’m going to delve maybe a bit deeper into endurance, the endurance world, and the strength worlds, and I think it would be amazing so we’ll have you back for people that are listening now and they’re ready to work with a coach they want to get on board with what you’re doing, where can they find you on social media and your website and how can they work with you?
Jamie Scott
Okay, so this is gonna get a little bit confusing because I’m halfway through a rebrand but the website is https://p3athletica.co.nz/
Steph Gaudreau
Z for people that don’t know what is Zed.
Jamie Scott
True. Like I speak a foreign language. And I’m on social media. I’m really only on Instagram, it is my main platform. And that will be @Athletica.nutrition. Perfect, I think. Yeah, I think I’m sure there’ll be links in the show notes because that’s what we do.
Steph Gaudreau
Absolutely there will be links and show notes and we will make sure that everybody can find you on your website and on social. And if they’re looking for a coach who has Honestly, I was gonna say been around the block, that’s not what the term is. The right term has seen a lot and has continued to, you know, you’ve continued to, to learn new things you’ve continued to update your life, everything that you do in terms of what’s current what’s evidence-based, I know that that’s really important. And for anyone that’s looking for, you know, any help and assistance with their nutrition. You’re the bomb, you know what you’re talking about. Yeah, I actually do get a fair amount of people that asked for, you know, specifically for male coaches or nutritionists for their male partners. So if, if even you’re listening to this, and you’re a woman, which that’s most of my listeners, but your husband, boyfriend, brother, friend, whoever it is, is looking for someone of the male description, then definitely send them to Jamie as well and get you hooked up. Get ya right. Get ya true. Thanks so much. We will talk very soon I know it.
Steph Gaudreau
Yes. Part Two, how incredibly juicy was that? I could just talk to Jamie all day. I know I’m gonna have him back on the show, because not only is he a personal friend, he’s a colleague that I really admire. And he has so much knowledge and expertise. I know that I speak for him when I say that we really tried to make this episode. The second half, something that’s applicable for you, and also give us give you the perspective that we have as coaches, when we work with our one on one clients, what are some of the things that we’re tackling if working with us one on one isn’t in the cards for you currently, but you need to do something about this reduced energy state or low energy state that you’re in, then we tried to give you some practical tips to at least start thinking about your own nutrition, and really where the theory meets the kitchen if you will.
Steph Gaudreau
Remember, you can get the show notes for this episode on my website, StephGaudreau.com including a full transcript, and of course, all the links that you can use to follow along with Jamie and work with him if that’s something that you want to do. Remember to do two things, push the subscribe button on your podcast app, it means a lot, it helps to send a signal to the apps that hey, I really like this show. So if you can help support in that way, it means a ton. And secondly, share these episodes out on Instagram stories. If you’ve learned something if it just made a light bulb go off in your head if you found it valuable. That’s another way that you can support. This podcast and especially these two episodes is to share the Word and amplify the message. And of course, please tag both athletic nutrition and me so that we can check it out and then share that back out into the world. Thanks for joining me this week, and we’ll talk real soon. Until then, stay strong.
