Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / #HURDLEMOMENT: How Women's Nutritional Needs Differ From Men's With Dr. Stacy Sims

Transcript

#HURDLEMOMENT: How Women's Nutritional Needs Differ From Men's With Dr. Stacy Sims · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: My passion is to dig into the research, do research,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: try to figure out what's appropriate for women with regards
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: to exercise, nutrition, environmental concerns, using hot and cold for
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: performance or health. And it keeps me going.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: What's going on? Everybody?
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Emily A body here. You are listening to another installment
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: of Hurdle. Moment from Hurdle, a.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Wellness focused podcast.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: Reconnect with everyone from your favorite athletes to top experts
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: and industry CEOs about their highest highs, toughest moments, and
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: everything in between. We all go through hurdles in life,
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: and my goal through these discussions is to empower you
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: to better navigate yours and move with intention so that
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: you can stride towards your own big potential and of
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: course have some fun long the way.
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: Okay, I have a confession. My voice has been better.
• 1:06
  Speaker 4: I was doing, oh my gosh, my fair share of
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: cheering at last weekend's Chicago Marathon. But the show must
• 1:16
  Speaker 4: go on and I need to bring you my conversation
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: with doctor Stacy Simms. Now, if you recognize doctor Sims's name,
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: that's because she has been on the show before, talking
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: to us about how the menstrual cycle impacts training well.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: This week she is back to talk.
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: On nutritional differences between men and women. We are addressing
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: the impact that food has on performance and why women
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: should be thinking about nutrition differently than the guys. We
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: cover so much ground in this episode, talking about everything
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: from intermittent fasting and meal timing to the concept of
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: eye iron deficiencies.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: And why women over the age of thirty.
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: Five often tend to have them, Plus data differences between
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: men and women and the concept of underfueling, something that
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: is a main point of struggle for so many female athletes.
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: Stacy also comments on sports gels, drinks, bars, the idea
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: of carbloating and how that actually impacts the body, plus.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: So much more.
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: So many really great takeaways in here. This is a
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: combo you are definitely going to want to share with
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: some of your friends. Make sure you're following along with
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: Hurdle over on social It's at Hurdle podcast, you know
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: me over at Emily a Body And if you're not
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: subscribed yet to the weekly Hurdle, we would love to
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: land in your inbox with a lot of the same motivation,
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: inspiration and content that you love from the show every
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: single Friday. The link to subscribe. It's absolutely free, is
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: in the show notes. All right, I'll spare you more
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: of this angelic voice. With that, let's get to hurdling.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Today.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: I am welcoming back researcher, author, expert doctor Stacy Simms
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: to the podcast.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: How are you doing today? And I'm good? How are you?
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: I'm so good. I'm so happy to have you back here.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: I know that I have a lot of messages after
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: our first conversation, which I will link to in the
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: show notes, about the correlations between our cycles and performance,
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: and so I knew that I needed to get you
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: back on the.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Show to dispel some more of your wisdom to the hurdlers. Awesome, awesome, So.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: Today, before we jump in, why don't you give for
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: those that may be new to you, a little bit
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: of a refresher about what you're doing right now, what
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: you have going on, and why it is that you
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: love what you do.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: So, I guess the best way to put it is,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: I am very passionate about female athletes, knowing that anyone
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: who exercised on purpose is an athlete, and the fact
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: that there is so much inequality between the research and
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: the guidelines that my passion is to dig into the research,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: do research, try to figure out what's appropriate for women
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: with regards to exercise, nutrition, environmental concerns, using hot and
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: cold for performance or health. And it keeps me going
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: because you know, I'm a woman, you're a woman. I
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: have a daughter, she has friends, and it just keeps
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: going for sure.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: So today what you and I are going to home
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: in on is we are going to talk about the
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: impact of food and nutrition on performance. Now a little
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: bit different of a topic than the last time you
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: and I sat down together, but just as important, especially
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: because oftentimes we don't talk about the discrepancies or the
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: importances of addressing the difference between training as a woman
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: versus training as a man. So where do we even
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: begin on this topic.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: Well, one of the.
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  Speaker 1: Things that I like to really point out is that
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: we have sex differences from birth, so that we know
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: that when you identified as XX or x Y, there
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: are specific differences with the way that our body will
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: grow and behave as well as metabolism. So what I
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: mean by how we use carbohydrate versus fat versus protein,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: and then when we hit puberty with an epigenetic exposure
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: of estrogen progesterone, we have additional changes. So when we're
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: looking at what specifically is different everything like, we know
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: that everything is different. We know that when we look
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: at women without estrogen progester or anything like that, we
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: are more capable of being metabolically flexible. So that's you know,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: the buzzwords of being able to switch from fat to
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: carbohydrate because our bodies are attuned to that where we
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: have more proteins in the mitochondria of our muscle cells
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: to use more free fatty acids, so that switches the
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: body from using carbohydrate. And we also know that when
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: you have the exposure of estrogen progesterone, there's additional changes
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: where women really use a lot of blood glucose first,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: then they tap into a little bit of liver liver glycogen,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: and then they tap into free fatty acids, so don't
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: use as much muscle glycogen as men. So we see
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: all this research about how much carbohydrate you need per
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: hour or trying to do a trendy diet of low
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: carb high fat or trian ketogenic or something like that,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: it just doesn't work for women. So when we start
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: digging into the little bit of research that's there, and
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: then expanding upon it. We see this whole echelon of
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: things that can be harmful to women, but the fitness
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: media has pushed it as being the be all, end
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: all that women should be following.
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: Let's start there. So you touched on the things that
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: could be harmful. What does that concern?
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: So let's look, for example, like the really hot trend
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: of interminute fasting, right, and we know that a lot
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: of people will delay their breakfast and they'll do fasted
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: training and then they might not necessarily eat afterwards because
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: they're still in that fasted window. When we look at
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: what happens to a woman's body, we see that we
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: need more nutrition in and around training in order to
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: get adaptations. So when we do fasted training, we are
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: signaling to the hypothalamus that there's not enough nutrition coming
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: in for adaptation as well as general health. Because we
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: have two areas in the brain that's very sensitive to
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: nutrient density and nutrient uptake. It's the same areas that
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: signal our body to do our minstrual cycle, our intocrine health,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: as well as our appetite hormones. But when we look
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: at men, they only have one area, so they have
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: a threshold that's a lot less sensitive than women, so
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: they can get away with doing factuating and getting different
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: metabolic changes. But those metabolic changes already exist in.
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: Women, right, right, So when you talk about the quote
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: unquote fitness media perpetuating different trends and diets, this is
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: probably just one of the trends diets that you speak on.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: What else should we be concerned of?
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: So then we look at things like protein, right, and
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: we see all these recommendations for how you're protein for men,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: and then when we look at the general recommendation for
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: women and look at the research, the general recommendation for
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: women is based on research from sedentary, older men. So
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: when we start looking at some of the newer research
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: on the guidelines for protein intake for women who are
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: recreationally active or resistance training or doing heavy blocks of training,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: it's almost double what the general recommendation is. But trying
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: to push that through to get people to understand, they're like,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: but the RDA and the recommendation say I only need
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: point eight per pound. It's like no, no, When you
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: actually look at what you need as an active one
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: with muscle mass, you need like one point six or
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: maybe two. So we're looking at a lot of differences
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: within the guidelines versus what the research is now showing us.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: And when we see that women aren't taking in as
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: much protein, then we see, okay, well there's compromise and
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: lean mass development, nerve transmitter actions, nerve brain, a whole
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: bunch of things that need amino acids. And yet then
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: you have a pushback of oh, we don't have too
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: high protein diet because it be harmful to your kidneys
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: and your bones, when there's research to show that that's
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: not true unless you have a predisposed condition. So there's
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: this nuance where we look at some of the newer
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: researches coming out that's really robust and the translation into action,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: and it's still lagging behind.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: On the importance of in taking enough protein.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: I always love to give actionable tips when it comes
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: to not only addressing the science, but then what we
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: can do with it. So I know you mentioned maybe
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: something closer to one point six with that, what are
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: some perhaps protein sources that woman can be leaning into
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: outside of just like someone says protein, and a lot
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: of the times people their first gut reaction is okay, meat, right, meat, chicken, fish,
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: et cetera.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: But what else can we be leaning into.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm I've been plant based since I was fourteen,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: so many many years. So when we look at some
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: of the other non meat options, there's a plethora of things.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: You can look at dairy and eggs if you do that.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: We can also look at timfe, we can look at tofu,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: we can look at different beans and seeds and nuts.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Peas actually have a really high amount of protein per calorie.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: So it's not about Okay, I need to sit down
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: and have a palm sized portion of meat. It's about
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: looking and saying, oh, I can have some nuts and
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: some seeds and some beans and all sorts of different
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: things across to build up the amount of protein that's
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: in what I'm eating post exercise. Is a little bit
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: more difficult because a lot of people are like, oh,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: what do I have because I'm not that hungry. So
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: you can do as smoothie and if you're not doing
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: protein powders, that's okay. You can put in seeds and nuts,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: and you can do a little bit of yogurt. You
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: can look at using cauliflowers instead of frozen bananas because
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: it gives the same texture. So it's about being wide
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: in the variety of all the plants that you're eating
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: as well.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: And aside from protein, I know something else that when
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: we're talking about trendy things, something else that women may
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: be tempted to skimp out on a little bit are carbohydrates.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Let's talk a little bit about that.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: Is it's so so important that that we do not
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: skip out on our carbohydrates.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: I laugh when people are like, I just don't want
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: to do carbs like candy, carbs, they make me fat.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: It's like, no, no, when you start reintroducing carbs, yes,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: there might be some weight gain on the scale, but
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: that does not represent body fat. It represents the fact
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: that now your muscles have fuel, now your cells have fuel,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: because every time you store a grammar carbohydrate, you also
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: have three to four grams of water, which equates to
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: weight on the scale. But we're looking from a functionality
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: of carbohydrate. Remember, as I was saying that there are
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: two areas in the brain or in the hypothalamus for women,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: and these two areas are kisspeptin neurons, and they're super
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: super important because women have this thing called the minstrual cycle,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: and we have endocrine function that we need, and it's
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: very energetic and it's very hungry for calories and carbohydrate.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: So if we start dropping too far in carbohydrate and
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: existing primarily on keytones, or unfortunately a lot of women
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: just don't eat plane enough full stop, then we have
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: that down regulation of our kispeptin neurons, and we have
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: that only within four days of not eating enough. We're
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: definitely not eating carbohydrate. We start to have thyroid dysfunction,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: resting metabolic rates starts turning down, we start seeing changes
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: down the way of our bone turnover, so we start
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: getting regeneration slowed. It just slows everything right down, and
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: it also interferes with their appetite hormones. So then we
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: have a misstep between what it means to be hungry
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: and what it means to be full. So this is
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: where women are like, oh, well, I'm doing really well
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: on xyz diets, Like are we really doing well? Because
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: we don't know what your long term effect is. Are
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: you falling into low energy availability, what's going on with
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: your thyroid, what's going on with your resting metaballo, what's
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: going on with your bones? And a lot of times
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: people just don't look the long term. They're like, well,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: right now, I have lost weight, so that's great, but
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: when we look the longer term effects, it's not healthy
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: for women.
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: Exactly what you're saying here is so critical, right because
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: whatever diet you may be following, it's bigger than what
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: amount of weight you may be losing.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: How are you feeling on that diet.
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: Also like consulting with an expert to see what this
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: shift and what you're putting into your body is doing
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: to your body. All of these things super important and
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: critical as a benchmark outside of just what's happening on
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: the scale. Now, what you were starting to get into here,
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: which is also a super important topic when it comes
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: to fueling and performance, is under fueling. Can you shed
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: some light on women and underfueling and the prevalence of that.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: So when we look at underfueling, we know that over
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: fifty of recreational female athletes are in what we call
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: low energy availability. And what happens with low energy availability
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: is again everything starts to slow down. And we can
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: see it as intentional through like dietary restriction or dietary
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: patterns that we follow, or unintentional. Unintentional is a sudden
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: uptick in training, or perhaps we get a little bit busy,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: we forget to eat. But basically, what happens when you
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: exercise and forget to eat or you don't fuel for
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: your training session, is your body's in a breakdown state
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: and it's like, hey, wait a second, I don't have
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: enough food coming in, so I better start pushing and
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: down regulating all of the systems that require a lot
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: of energy. So we see a lot of women are
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: what we call subclinical, so they're not eating quite enough.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: They might get up and have food before they train,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: but then they delay their food intake because they get busy,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: like they have to get the kids off, or they
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: have to rush to work, they stuck in traffic, and
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: so their body stays in this catabolic breakdown state. And
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: the first thing that goes is lean mass because lean
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: mass is very hungry.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: It requires a.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Lot of fuel and stuff to keep it going. Then
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: we see this downturn in your thyroid because that's the
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: main metabolic regulator per se. And then if we're looking, okay,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: well a woman is doing that, but then she's having
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: lunch and dinner, so she might be getting enough calories,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: but she's miss timing them. So when we look at
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: the longer perturbation of that, it's called relative energy deficiency
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: in sport, and this is a big syndrome where we
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: start to see every system of the body affected. So
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: we start seeing gut issues, cardiovascular issues, psychological issues, definitely
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: issues with bone and bone density, lean mass loss, increase
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: in fat mass, changes in our lipid profiles for a
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: higher risk factor for cardiovascular disease even if you're younger.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: We see a misstep in our glucose metabolism, so higher
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: resting blood glucose. We also see issues with immunity, so
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: people tend to have more upper respiratory track infections or
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: grab or end up getting sick with every illness that's
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: going around and have longer term effects on it. So
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: a lot of times women don't quite understand that they're
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: in this state because of all these different signs and
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: symptoms of being in it. They are like, oh, I
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: have GI distressed, I must have not eaten well, or
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: I've always had some kind of GI issue, and I'm
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: always super tired because I'm at that point where I'm
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: really stressed out. But if we just take a step
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: back and you're experiencing things like a lot of gi
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: distress or sleep, lots of mood swings. Let's take a
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: step back. Let's fuel for what we are doing, and
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: let's have food afterwards, and see how that goes over
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: the course of a few weeks, and see how that
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: might change one your ability to train. Because we now
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: have fuel, we can polarize our training, we get better adaptations,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: and our body is like, Okay, now we have fuel
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: coming in. I can finally get into less of that
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: sympathetic drive of tired but wired and get better sleep,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: which then feeds forward to better adaptation and better recovery.
• 18:26
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  Speaker 3: just going through our day to day and accepting the
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: fact that something feeling a little off is the normal.
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: But it doesn't have to be the normal if you're
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: observant about what's going on in your body. This makes
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: me think about when I did an Inside Tracker panel
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: and I learned through that panel that I had low
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: farridin and low iron. I was able to then once
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: I had that information, I kind of took a step
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: back and I was like, wow, this makes so much
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: sense because of X and Y and Z. Now, on
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: that note, I know that women having low iron, especially
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: as we get older mid thirties et cetera, mid thirties
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: and onward, that's pretty frequent. So what do we need
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: to know about that when it comes to our performance?
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: Why is monitoring that also super important?
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: So the really interesting thing about iron is this is
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: something else that we look at sex differences, right, and
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: we see that there's a higher incident of iron deficiency
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: or anemia or low ferreton in women, especially endurance athletes.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: And they're like, oh, well, it's because it's the length
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: of the training that you're doing and the fact that
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: you bleed every month, and we take a step back.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: It's not necessarily those two factors. It's a factor of
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: when we train. We end up with a higher amount
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: of inflammation post exercise, and this lasts for three to
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: five hours until your body comes back down to baseline,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: and during that timeframe we can't really absorb iron. And
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: when we look at kind of metabolic patterns and the
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: way women eat is one we don't eat enough foods
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: with iron in it, and then two, we end up
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: eating within that three to five hour window and we
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: don't absorb the iron from our food. So then when
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: we look at supplementation and people are like, oh, you're
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: on the low end of normal, just take an iron supplement,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: people don't supplement properly because when we look at the
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: menstrual cycle, if you start supplementing on the first day
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: of your bleed and you supplement every other day leading
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: up to ovulation, you're going to actually absorb that iron.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: And the reason for that is the enzyme that inhibits
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: your body's ability to absorb iron, hesiedin, which is up
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: after exercise, is actually really low because your body's in
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: the bleed phase, so your body is able to really
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: absorb iron well in that low horm phase. But after ovulation,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: your body has a pro inflammatory response, so your body
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: has greater systemic inflammation and greater amount of resting hepsidon,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: so you can't really absorb iron that well. So if
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: you're going to supplement and do it well, it's every
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: other day, starting the first day of bleed up to ovulation.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: And this allows women to get out of that low
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: end of normal and actually absorb it and use it.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: And so when you're seeing women who are you know,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: low and ferret in and their doctors are like, yeah,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: we're not going to do anything because you're still on
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: the low end of normal. That's still too low for
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: you because most of the recommendations are still based on
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: sedentary women. And if you're an active woman, then you
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: need to be like, wait, no, I feel tired and
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: flat and I'm not quite sure I'm on the low
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: end of normal.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: This is not right.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: So you can take it upon yourself to supplement every
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: other day and see how that brings things up over
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: the course of three to four months, and then really
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: value for an infusion. Boost the iron levels immediately through
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: an infusion, and then keep track of what's going on.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll never forget. I went for a run with
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: a friend maybe a year or two ago, and she,
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: without a doubt, is overly Let's just say she's faster
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: than me and I remember we were jogging along and
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: she was really struggling and we couldn't make sense of it.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: Later that day, she coincidentally had a doctor's appointment. She's
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: a history of low iron. They tested her levels and
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: it was like literally in the pits, and she got
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: an infusion on the spot. So it's so interesting what
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: happens when we take some time to do that inventory
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: and then also prioritize getting in to talk to someone
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: about what's happening within our bodies. Now you know what
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: I'm going to ask you. We talked about protein supplements
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: or protein sources. What should we be looking to when
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: it comes to good sources of iron?
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: So of course your hem iron, right, We have your
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: red meats, but then we can look at a lot
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: of dark, leafy green veggies. So if we cook them,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: then they're much better absorbed, especially if you're cooking them
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: with a vitamin C source or with olive oil or
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: flex oil, because it helps you absorb a lot of
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: the things, both fat soluble vitamins as well as iron.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: And you can look at all sorts of fortified foods too,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: so if you're looking at cereals and breads, those are good.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: We can look at different mushrooms as well, so you
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: get vitamin D with some iron because you want vitamin
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: D to help with the absorption of iron.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: Another buzzword there are buzzword I guess another buzzy buzzy
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: topic there, vitamin D. I'm every day myself putting vitamin
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: D supplement into my coffee. I also try to regularly
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: get outside and make sure that I'm getting it naturally.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: But it can also be that can be another challenging
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: one for women, especially.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and especially in this time and frame where people
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: are like use lots of sunscreen and the fact that
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: we are often pushed inside right for all of our
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: jobs and we tend to go to the gym. We
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: don't get outside a lot. And vitamin D is so
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: important again for the iron absorption because it also helps
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: downregulate inflammation and have seen and so then your body's
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: able to absorb more stuff. And it is pretty important
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: because when you start looking at all the things that
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: vitamin D does, it's like the plethora of all the
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: positive changes you want in your body requires some vitamin D.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Give us an example of what some of those positive
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: changes are.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: For the most part, we look at muscle mass and
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: recovery as well as bonomeneral density. So if you're looking
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: at how vitamin D interacts with some of the mechanisms
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: for muscle protein synthesis, then we realize that yes, there
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: are cofactors within the vitamin D that allow that process
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: to happen and signal it. Well, we look at bone
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: mineral density. We know that we need vitamin D to
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: help regulate some of our immune cells that actually promote
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: bone mineral density a cruel and bone turnover.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: Right right.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: Okay, So before we start to wind down here, what
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: I do want to make sure that we address as well.
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: We talked about underfueling. Before I myself gearing up for
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: a marathon. I know that it is important to make
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: sure that I am taking care of my body in
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: the weeks and days leading up, but also during the
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: event itself. What should women know when it comes to
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: fueling for performance? And are there any myths that we
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: need to dispel when it comes to that process.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: There are two big things, especially you're talking about marathon draining, right,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: So we look at hydration and we look at carbohydrate
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: needs per hour. So when we look at hydration, it's
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: an interesting mechanism because when we look at woman and
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: a man who are doing the same distance and they
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: are the same fitness level and they have the relatively
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: same body composition, a man will finish at an endurance
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: race with high blood sodium to maybe normal blood sodium.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Women will finish normal blood sodium to low blood sodium.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: And if you are drinking a typical sports drink, there's
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: not enough sodium in that to really help you with
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: fluid absorption, so you end up with more slashing around
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: in your gut, and then your body takes water from
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: other places to put it in there in order to
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: absorb it, and with that you have a sodium exchange,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: so it can really perpetuate women to have GI distress
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: in a little bit of a tendency for hyponatremia because
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: often people will drink a sports drenth and switch to
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: plain water because they're like, oh, I can't do that
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: sports drink anymore. So in the aid station, they're just
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: drinking plain water. And we know that women also hold
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: on to more heat and have a harder time per
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: workload dispelling that heat because of body composition changes. So
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: for hydration, we look at a sip sip sip approach.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: We're not going I need to drink X amount per hour.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: It's just sip regularly with something with sodium in it.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: So we look at one and a half percent solution.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: So that's two to three grams of carbohydrate per eight ounces,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: and you also need at least one hundred and sixty
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: milligrams of sodium per eight ounces, and that's going to
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: help you actually absorb that fluid and use it and
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: it's not going to sit in the gut. We look
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: at carbohydrate intake and we see a lot of people
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: are like throwing back gels and they're like, oh, I
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: need ninety grams of carbohydrate per hour. That ninety grams
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: of carbohydrate comes from a research that was done on
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: thirteen elite trained male triathletes. And then when we look
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: at sex differences, women have a slower gastric emptying rate
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: than men, and stuff tends to sit in the intestines
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: a little bit longer. And then when you take something
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: like a gel, it's concentrated carbohydrate that gets out of
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: the stomach slower, sits in the gut for a longer
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: period of time, and it causes pressure response and so
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: the body again pulls water from other places to dilute
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: that in order to absorb it, which gives you that
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: gi to stress and slash. So we look at carbohydrate intake,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: women are sitting around thirty to forty grams per hour,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: depending on where they are in minstrual cycle. We tend
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: to go higher in the high hormone phase and you
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: can get aways a little bit less in the low
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: hormone phase. And it's about topping up blood sugar because
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: again women are clearing blood sugar a lot faster and
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: tapping into free fatty acid. So it's not about trying
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: to conserve muscle glycogen. It's about actually just keeping that
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: blood sugar elevated, so thirty grams and that's spread across
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: the hour, and that's enough to keep that blood sugar
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: elevated in order to maintain past not through a gel,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: but maybe some chees you can use, some glucose tablets,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: You could use diluted coke, but definitely not gels because
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: it's just two constant.
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: Right, right, So I think that anyone listening to this
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: right now who may be completely like reevaluating everything they've
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: ever known about in during some sort of an endurance event,
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: certainly do what feels right for you and your body, right,
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: So that is what the training period is. For The
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: training period is for you to maybe listen to a
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: podcast like this, think hmm, this is really interesting, and
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: play around with some different types of fueling for you.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: Do not, under any.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: Circumstance listen to this podcast this weekend, go run a
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: marathon and completely change everything you have ever done because
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: doctor Stacy Simms said it would work this way. No,
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: it doesn't work like that. No, it doesn't take it
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: with an understanding that. Okay, now that I know this,
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: I have the opportunity to experiment with it going forward.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Right, one hundred percent glad you brought that up. I
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: remember being in the Ironman ConA World expo, and you
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: know at sport nutrition things, and these people will come
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: up and they'd want to buy the latest thing to
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: use in the race next day. I'm like, I'm not
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: selling it to you. No no, no, no, no no no no.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: You don't change anything. What you do in training is
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: you have key workouts and you mess around with the
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: fueling and see how you feel. We do depleted stuff right,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: So like, if you're trying to figure out how your
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: body responds to a hit of sugar during a run, well,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: then at the back half of you run, this is
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: where you start playing with gluepose tablets or you start
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: playing with blocks. But you don't go out on the
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: day of a race, or even two weeks before a
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: race and decide to change things up.
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: Now, anything you're listening to right now, if you happen
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: to also be training for an endurance event, think about
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: implementing it in your next training cycle.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: Exact exactly, exactly, so many, so many, so many.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: Excellent takeaways in this conversation Before I let you go,
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: is there anything else that you really feel strongly that
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: we should highlight when it comes to.
• 31:59
  Speaker 5: Fueling for performance, Yes, don't carbo load. That's the other
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: method that you can possibly put in more carbohydrate into
• 32:08
  Speaker 5: your muscle, but there's no performance benefit. So we see
• 32:11
  Speaker 5: like pasta dinners and we see this huge amount of
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: carbohydrate intake a few days before. It doesn't work for women.
• 32:18
  Speaker 5: The best trick not really trick, but it's just increase
• 32:22
  Speaker 5: your total amount of carbohydrate you're eating and a couple
• 32:25
  Speaker 5: of weeks before you have an event, so you go
• 32:27
  Speaker 5: from your forty five or fifty percent to fifty five
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: up to seventy percent, especially as you get closer to
• 32:33
  Speaker 5: the race.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: Is that where your body.
• 32:35
  Speaker 6: Actually accumulates it stores it increases the way that your
• 32:39
  Speaker 6: blood glucose responds, And that's the way that women should
• 32:43
  Speaker 6: be increasing amount of carbohydrate with the eye to note
• 32:46
  Speaker 6: that we don't use as much during exercise as men do.
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: So it's really just kind of re examining the way
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: you look at that term and how you implement it
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: for your body. A massive obscene pasta dinner every night
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: for a week isn't going to change or help you.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: Like a slow increase in overall carbohydrate intake as your
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: training progresses exactly, exactly, exactly exactly. Wow, so much goodness
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: in here again, Doctor Stacy Sims. Thank you so much
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: for the hurdlers that are listening right now that may
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: not follow you just yet, give us your info so
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: they can keep up.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: So the big way to keep up with everything that's
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: going on is our website, doctor Stacysims dot com. And
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: then you can look at our social same thing, doctor
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Stacy Simms on instant Facebook, because we've got a lot
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: of cool things coming on.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: So yeah, keep up, keep up.
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: I'm over at Emily Body and at Hurdle Podcast Another
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: Hurdle conquered.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: Catch you guys next time.