Latest / The Body Pod / Fueling for Training and Travel with Dr. Stacy Sims - Nutrition Tips for Athletes on the Go

Transcript

Fueling for Training and Travel with Dr. Stacy Sims - Nutrition Tips for Athletes on the Go · The Body Pod

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey everyone, This is Haley and I'm Lara, and welcome
0:03
Speaker 1: to the body Pod. Welcome back everyone to the body Pod.
0:12
Speaker 1: I am here in person with doctor Stacy Simms, and
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Speaker 1: today we're going to talk about fueling for the demands
0:19
Speaker 1: of training. So I have just done two bike rides
0:22
Speaker 1: with Stacy over the last forty eight hours and I
0:25
Speaker 1: had an interesting thing happened that I'm sure a lot
0:29
Speaker 1: of you have experienced, and I hadn't properly fueled for
0:34
Speaker 1: our first day. I was also coming off a big launch,
0:38
Speaker 1: not a lot of food the day before because I
0:39
Speaker 1: was traveling and super busy and not amazing sleep. So
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Speaker 1: I want to talk about how all of these things
0:47
Speaker 1: affect how our training sessions are going to go and
0:51
Speaker 1: what we can expect if we black in any of
0:53
Speaker 1: these areas.
0:54
Speaker 2: We know that when you're traveling, your body's under a
0:57
Speaker 2: lot of stress anyway, and you're timing, your refuge is off,
1:01
Speaker 2: and you're not eating as much, and your muscles are
1:05
Speaker 2: also getting depleted because you're moving around, you're walking, you're rushing,
1:09
Speaker 2: You're trying to get from your car through security to
1:12
Speaker 2: the airplane, from the airplane to the rental car. You
1:16
Speaker 2: know all of those things and not eating, you're still
1:18
Speaker 2: using energy. Plus you're getting a lot of more inflammatory
1:24
Speaker 2: responses from the stress, and you're going to get what
1:28
Speaker 2: we call dead legs, like your legs are just heavy
1:30
Speaker 2: from walking all the places with the heavy loads and stuff. Yes,
1:35
Speaker 2: so then the next day if you go try to
1:37
Speaker 2: go for a ride, it's like you've done a really
1:39
Speaker 2: heavy weight session and haven't recovered properly from it. That's
1:42
Speaker 2: how I felt. Yeah, so you're trying to climb a hill,
1:45
Speaker 2: can't do it. Your legs just don't respond, and it
1:48
Speaker 2: is because they've gone through this extreme stress and it is,
1:52
Speaker 2: like I said, like you've done a heavy weight session.
1:53
Speaker 2: And then when we add in the sleep and the
1:55
Speaker 2: sleep issues that come with the night before, not sleeping
1:58
Speaker 2: because you're afraid you're going to miss your alarm. And
2:00
Speaker 2: then if there's any time zone changes or poor sleep
2:04
Speaker 2: or not able to sleep the night before because you're
2:08
Speaker 2: in a new place. If we are sleep deprived, then
2:11
Speaker 2: it increases our stress response. We're more sympathetically driven. We
2:16
Speaker 2: also go through more carbohydrate, so our body is craving
2:19
Speaker 2: more glucas blood glucas because the brain is feeling like
2:22
Speaker 2: I'm really fatigued. I need more fuel. So all these
2:26
Speaker 2: things that we do we usually use for training are
2:28
Speaker 2: now going just to exist. So if you're going to
2:31
Speaker 2: do all the travel and you're eating, times are different,
2:35
Speaker 2: your sleep is disrupted, then you go to do a
2:39
Speaker 2: true training session, don't expect great things.
2:43
Speaker 1: So when you're traveling, is there a set like if
2:46
Speaker 1: you're going into a two hour time zone difference, does
2:51
Speaker 1: it take a data recover from that? Is there like
2:54
Speaker 1: a certain time that depending on where you travel and
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Speaker 1: the amount of time that you're the time zone that
3:00
Speaker 1: you're going to, does that affect how you would recover?
3:03
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Because when we're looking at our circadian rhythm and
3:07
Speaker 2: our body, we know the general twenty four and a
3:09
Speaker 2: bit our circadian rhythm that women have and men's is
3:12
Speaker 2: a bit shorter, women's is a bit longer. It's not
3:15
Speaker 2: just a total body rhythm. All of our cells have
3:17
Speaker 2: its own circadian rhythm. So if we are looking at
3:20
Speaker 2: just a slight alteration of our sleep habits and our
3:23
Speaker 2: food habits, if there is, everything kind of in a tizzy.
3:26
Speaker 2: So if you're doing from west to east is worse
3:29
Speaker 2: than if you go east to west, because your day
3:31
Speaker 2: is shortening, your circadian rhythm is shortening, so all the
3:34
Speaker 2: cellular processes are kind of in a dysfunction, so it
3:38
Speaker 2: takes a bit of time for that to reset. As
3:40
Speaker 2: much as people don't realize, just even that two hour
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Speaker 2: difference can take five to six days to reset to
3:44
Speaker 2: feel good. If you're looking at extending the day, so
3:47
Speaker 2: you're going from east to west, it's way easier because
3:50
Speaker 2: your body can extend its circadian rhythm more so than
3:53
Speaker 2: it can shorten it. So if you're going west and
3:56
Speaker 2: you are like, yeah, okay, great, it's usually five pm
4:01
Speaker 2: my time, but it's really only three pm where I am,
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Speaker 2: that's okay. Your body's going to adjust to that a
4:07
Speaker 2: lot faster than if you're going east. So when we
4:10
Speaker 2: talk about training and training, I try to go into
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Speaker 2: a competition, Like a lot of athletes are like, oh,
4:15
Speaker 2: I have to go somewhere before I can fire for
4:17
Speaker 2: a competition. Usually they spend a week like people going
4:21
Speaker 2: to race Kona or something, and like, I'm going to
4:23
Speaker 2: go over a week in advance. It's not enough time,
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Speaker 2: not enough time for circadian rhythm and environmental reset. So
4:30
Speaker 2: when we're looking at just the kind of travel that
4:32
Speaker 2: we're doing domestically, and we're like, okay, well it's an
4:35
Speaker 2: hour reset or it's a two hour reset, depending on it.
4:38
Speaker 2: If like for me, going east is harder than when
4:41
Speaker 2: I go back to LA it's going to be way easier.
4:44
Speaker 2: And when we're looking at the load and the training load,
4:47
Speaker 2: we have to account for that daily stress score. And
4:50
Speaker 2: so this is where when you're traveling you have to
4:52
Speaker 2: intrinsically say how do I feel today? And if you're
4:55
Speaker 2: going out like we did yesterday for a group ride
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Speaker 2: and it's a hard time, you just have to be
5:01
Speaker 2: okay with the fact that you're not going to be
5:03
Speaker 2: firing on all your cylinders and say, yep, you know,
5:07
Speaker 2: I don't feel great and that's fine. I'm just going
5:08
Speaker 2: to do what I can do, knowing that it is
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Speaker 2: more about moving rather than trying to get an adaptive response.
5:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, so do you have any tips? I mean, you
5:18
Speaker 1: just came from the other side of the world, So
5:22
Speaker 1: what do you do in preparation for coming to the
5:25
Speaker 1: United States?
5:26
Speaker 2: Being in New Zealand? Do you have like a specific
5:29
Speaker 2: protocol that you use? No, I don't. I should, but
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Speaker 2: I don't. I'm very specific on what I do right
5:39
Speaker 2: before I get on the plane and what I do
5:41
Speaker 2: when I get off the plane, But in the days
5:43
Speaker 2: leading up to it, I don't because I'm not training
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Speaker 2: for something. I'm training for life. So from my perspective
5:50
Speaker 2: is when I get on the plane, I don't have
5:52
Speaker 2: their dinner because then by the time I get on
5:56
Speaker 2: the plane to fly here from New Zealand, it's like
5:59
Speaker 2: nine pm, and then the dinner is in serf tail
6:01
Speaker 2: ten pm. It's way too late. So I try to
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Speaker 2: make sure that I eat all the real food and
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Speaker 2: normal food that I normally have before I get on
6:08
Speaker 2: the plane, and then I try to go to sleep
6:11
Speaker 2: as soon as I can according to what my time
6:13
Speaker 2: is on my clock and my own bi rhythm, knowing
6:16
Speaker 2: that when I land in LA it's going to be
6:18
Speaker 2: a five hour difference where it's five am for me
6:21
Speaker 2: and it's already ten am there, so I have to
6:24
Speaker 2: really adjust for that. And then when I get there,
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Speaker 2: I check into the hotel and I get out and
6:29
Speaker 2: I walk as much as possible, and then if I
6:31
Speaker 2: have extra energy, then I might go to the gym
6:34
Speaker 2: and use really lightweights through movement just to move to
6:37
Speaker 2: get things going, and then the next day I'll do
6:40
Speaker 2: the same thing. It's not anything that's really specific for training.
6:44
Speaker 2: On my way back, I know that I'm going to
6:47
Speaker 2: land really early in the morning and then I'm going
6:49
Speaker 2: to have to stay up the entire day. So it's
6:52
Speaker 2: what do I do the day I'm getting on the
6:54
Speaker 2: plane to make sure that I accommodate for that poor
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Speaker 2: sleep leading into boom boots on ground at six am
7:01
Speaker 2: and having to get another plane then to get home
7:03
Speaker 2: and then get into reality. So it's like, let's try
7:07
Speaker 2: to get as much sleep as possible. So this is
7:09
Speaker 2: where adaptations come into play, because trying to reset and
7:13
Speaker 2: accommodate for the time zone difference is too much. If
7:16
Speaker 2: I was an athlete and I was going from New
7:19
Speaker 2: Zealand to the States specifically for an event, it would
7:22
Speaker 2: be a different story. Or I would look and say, Okay,
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Speaker 2: I need to be firing at seven am in LA.
7:28
Speaker 2: What time is that in New Zealand. Oh gosh, it's
7:30
Speaker 2: in the middle of the night. Okay, how do I
7:32
Speaker 2: do that? Then you phase shift, You try to phase shift,
7:35
Speaker 2: or you get up earlier each day so that you're
7:37
Speaker 2: slowly phase shifting, trying to accommodate that circadian rhythm before
7:42
Speaker 2: you go, starting at least ten days before you go.
7:44
Speaker 2: But that's being very specific when your body has to
7:47
Speaker 2: be on to perform. And so there are different things
7:50
Speaker 2: when we're thinking about with travel. Okay, so we know
7:53
Speaker 2: that sleep disrupts our energy. The next day, our potential
7:56
Speaker 2: workout all of that. So for all of the one
8:00
Speaker 2: out there that do not.
8:02
Speaker 1: Sleep well, especially when traveling, you gave me a sleep
8:05
Speaker 1: cocktail last night.
8:06
Speaker 2: That was fabulous, So can you talk about that. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: So I have been I've had a hand in adaptagen
8:12
Speaker 2: since the early well i'll say late two thousand's, early
8:17
Speaker 2: twenty ten ish when I was working with a complimentary
8:21
Speaker 2: alternative medicine research scientist that came over from Columbia to
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Speaker 2: Stanford and she was looking at adaptogens for postmenopausal im
8:29
Speaker 2: perimenopausal women. So I've kind of had my hand in
8:31
Speaker 2: that and that at the same time I was traveling
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Speaker 2: heavily with other work that I was doing, was going
8:36
Speaker 2: from California to Europe and have landed on adaptogens that
8:39
Speaker 2: really do help with circadian rhythm and sleep. So we
8:43
Speaker 2: know that rodiola helps with stress. So when I use rodiola.
8:47
Speaker 2: It helps just bring everything down to out of that
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Speaker 2: pure sympathetic drive into being able to moderate and get
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Speaker 2: into a pair sympathetic relaxation. And then Elthianin's fantastic for
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Speaker 2: increasing the awful wave activity of the brain, which is
9:01
Speaker 2: the parasympathetic and same with epiginin. And so last night
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Speaker 2: was rudiola, elthenine and epiginin and that's my jet lag
9:09
Speaker 2: reset too. So I take that half an hour before
9:12
Speaker 2: bed anywhere, and it increases that parasympathetic drive and allows
9:16
Speaker 2: me to sleep and get into a good sleep architecture.
9:19
Speaker 2: The first few nights there's going to be more light
9:21
Speaker 2: sleep than a deep sleep, but then over the course
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Speaker 2: of a few nights, I get into a good sleep pattern.
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Speaker 1: Okay, so if we're training for life and we have
9:30
Speaker 1: you know, we get somewhere and we're just doing like
9:34
Speaker 1: we were doing a casual bike ride or something that
9:37
Speaker 1: might be a little bit more taxing, how do we
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Speaker 1: fuel for that training session if it's or any training
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Speaker 1: session that's over sixty minutes that's more endurance based.
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Speaker 2: This is interesting because you have to look at when
9:51
Speaker 2: you landed and what your normal eating habits are because
9:54
Speaker 2: if you're like trying to stay attention to the time
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Speaker 2: on the clock, You're like, I'm going to have breakfast
9:58
Speaker 2: when I wake up, and then we're going to go
10:00
Speaker 2: for a ride at nine. Let's say nine o'clock is
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Speaker 2: usually your lunchtime, and you start the ride really hungry,
10:05
Speaker 2: and you know that you have to compensate earlier and
10:08
Speaker 2: have some more food before and make sure that you
10:10
Speaker 2: have plenty of food to get you through the ride.
10:13
Speaker 2: So that's often taking more than you think you need.
10:15
Speaker 2: So we look at around two hundred and fifty calories
10:19
Speaker 2: an hour and the minimum from food, making sure you're
10:22
Speaker 2: staying hydrated, and then when you get off, making sure
10:25
Speaker 2: that you are getting that protein within thirty to forty minutes.
10:29
Speaker 2: Because again, your undercurrent of your circadian rhythm is different
10:33
Speaker 2: than the time on the clock, so your hunger queues
10:35
Speaker 2: are going to be different, your timing of your food
10:37
Speaker 2: is going to be different, so you have to work
10:39
Speaker 2: with those changes as well as fueling for what you're doing.
10:42
Speaker 2: So these are things that people don't think about. They're like, oh, yeah, okay,
10:46
Speaker 2: it's eight am, I'm going to have a bit of food,
10:48
Speaker 2: get on or go out for my run or my ride,
10:51
Speaker 2: and that's the time on the clock, but in real time,
10:53
Speaker 2: their body is saying, hey, wait a second, it's twelve o'clock,
10:56
Speaker 2: it's lunchtime. You miss breakfast. So it's a little bit
10:59
Speaker 2: of a nuance, but you have to be willing to
11:02
Speaker 2: eat more or eat in preparation for the training, as
11:05
Speaker 2: well as paying attention to your hunger cues.
11:08
Speaker 1: Okay, and it's different for something two to three hour
11:12
Speaker 1: ride opposed to fueling for the demand of just like
11:16
Speaker 1: maybe an hour strength training session.
11:18
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah. So if we're looking at an our strength
11:21
Speaker 2: training session, and again you're going to start that on
11:24
Speaker 2: a time period where your body's normally eating a meal,
11:27
Speaker 2: then you definitely need to make sure that you are
11:29
Speaker 2: having a good hit approaching before and then during the session.
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Speaker 2: You might have a hydration bottle that has some essential
11:37
Speaker 2: amino acids in it as well, because that's going to
11:40
Speaker 2: help with the fueling of the strength training where people
11:42
Speaker 2: are like essential amino acids, they're not really used as
11:45
Speaker 2: a fuel, but when you're breaking muscle down or you're
11:47
Speaker 2: in that time period where you should have eaten a
11:50
Speaker 2: meal and you have it and your body's like I'm hungry,
11:52
Speaker 2: then it's going to supply an additional amount of amino acids
11:56
Speaker 2: that can be circulated to help with the fueling of
11:58
Speaker 2: the strength training and also help signal to the brain
12:01
Speaker 2: that there is some fuel on board. And then you
12:04
Speaker 2: definitely want to eat right after your session, which is
12:06
Speaker 2: different from if you're going out for a run or
12:08
Speaker 2: a ride or swim or some other endurance of it
12:11
Speaker 2: where you have to bring the food with you to
12:13
Speaker 2: make sure that you stay on top of both hunger
12:15
Speaker 2: and fueling for the training session at hand.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, So with cortisol, we know that that spikes or
12:22
Speaker 1: maybe not everyone does while we're exercising. Is that for
12:27
Speaker 1: the message out there that that is bad for perry
12:31
Speaker 1: and post metapuzzal women.
12:32
Speaker 2: What's your thoughts on that. I like to use the
12:36
Speaker 2: analogy of your heart Right as soon as you stand
12:38
Speaker 2: up and you start exercising, your heart rate goes up
12:41
Speaker 2: and it stays elevated during exercise, and it might stay
12:43
Speaker 2: elevated a little bit after exercise and then comes back down.
12:46
Speaker 2: And if you keep doing that, then when it comes
12:49
Speaker 2: back down, the baseline is going to be lower than
12:51
Speaker 2: when before you started getting fit. Cortisol is very similar.
12:55
Speaker 2: We have fluctuations of cortisol throughout the entire day. It's
12:58
Speaker 2: not a status quo, it's not a baseline, and it's
13:00
Speaker 2: really low. We need cortisol for lots of different responses
13:03
Speaker 2: during the day. We know that it peaks a half
13:05
Speaker 2: an hour after wake up. It has a very low
13:09
Speaker 2: point about four pm. And during the day depends on
13:11
Speaker 2: what kind of stress you encounter. Are you driving and
13:13
Speaker 2: all of a sudden you have to slam on the
13:14
Speaker 2: brakes because there's a red light. That's a stress response.
13:16
Speaker 2: There's a cortisol flux that goes up, or the phone
13:19
Speaker 2: rings and your deep concentration, and it's a sudden shock
13:23
Speaker 2: to the system. That's another cortisol spike. So when we're exercising,
13:27
Speaker 2: we have to have cordsol being released because that's part
13:31
Speaker 2: of the control of the fueling mechanism of breaking things
13:34
Speaker 2: down to allow our body to have the adequate fuel
13:37
Speaker 2: for muscle contraction. The conversation about cortsol that is not
13:42
Speaker 2: being had, especially for peri and postmenopauseal women, is how
13:45
Speaker 2: do we instigate a post exercise hormonal response to then
13:50
Speaker 2: facilitate recovery and pair sympathetic activity, and that's the nuance
13:55
Speaker 2: that is not being discussed when we talk about high
13:57
Speaker 2: intensity interval training in the perimenopausal woman, where if we
14:00
Speaker 2: look at doing true high intensity interval training where we're
14:04
Speaker 2: eighty percent or more of our capabilities or our max
14:09
Speaker 2: and we have very polarized training in that and it's
14:13
Speaker 2: not a really long session, then we get growth hormone
14:17
Speaker 2: and testosterone production post exercise, which then signals to drop
14:21
Speaker 2: cortisol and keep it low and over adaptive responses makes
14:27
Speaker 2: it go lower than what the initial baseline was, kind
14:30
Speaker 2: of like the heart rate analogy as talking about. But
14:34
Speaker 2: if we're looking at doing a high intensity interval session
14:37
Speaker 2: at the gym, which is more we're talking about our
14:41
Speaker 2: spin classes, our boot camps, that kind of stuff, which
14:43
Speaker 2: is not true high intensity, then we don't get that
14:46
Speaker 2: post exercise response. So cortisol stays elevated until you eat
14:50
Speaker 2: and then comes down, but we don't get that at
14:52
Speaker 2: adaptive response. So there's a nuance within it when we're
14:55
Speaker 2: talking about it for pery and postmenopausal women that if
14:59
Speaker 2: we're doing the right kind of training, then we're going
15:01
Speaker 2: to get the right post exercise response. It's going to
15:04
Speaker 2: feed forward to better pair of sympathetic responses and a
15:08
Speaker 2: lower baseline corresol. Does it mean zero? If we didn't
15:11
Speaker 2: have cortisol, we would not be alive. We needed It's
15:15
Speaker 2: very much a functional hormone or steroid. Sorry, and it's necessary.
15:20
Speaker 2: But when we start really getting under high stress and
15:25
Speaker 2: our baseline level starts eking up, then this is where
15:29
Speaker 2: we have to look at what we're doing to help
15:31
Speaker 2: counter that.
15:33
Speaker 1: Yes, and that would be part of like a recovery
15:37
Speaker 1: system yep. Yeah, some more trying to take eliminate unnecessary
15:44
Speaker 1: stress if possible.
15:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, and in our life it's really difficult to do that.
15:49
Speaker 2: So you can look at doing things like Kuberman's non
15:52
Speaker 2: sleep deep breast, which is also yoga nidra, where you're
15:55
Speaker 2: looking at how can you really tap into increasing parasympathetic responses.
16:00
Speaker 2: So if you're looking at how do we get into
16:02
Speaker 2: a meditative state for ten minutes, it's going to extend
16:06
Speaker 2: that pair of sympathetic response longer, and it's giving you
16:10
Speaker 2: the ability that if you get into a high stress
16:12
Speaker 2: situation that you can take a pause and count to
16:15
Speaker 2: six and bring your breath, work and stuff back to control.
16:19
Speaker 2: So again you're able to eliminate a significant cortisol response.
16:23
Speaker 2: You're still going to have a quartsol response, but moderating
16:25
Speaker 2: how strong of a response it is to each stressful situation.
16:31
Speaker 1: Okay, And for recovery, when we're traveling, even if you're
16:36
Speaker 1: getting you go to a time zone that's only an
16:40
Speaker 1: hour difference and you get enough sleep, does the body
16:44
Speaker 1: still recover different or is it an individual case by case?
16:49
Speaker 2: It's more individual. It's just really making sure that you
16:53
Speaker 2: are getting good sleep. So if it means that you
16:56
Speaker 2: need to go to bed earlier, because that's keeping you
16:58
Speaker 2: on track. Our bodies are very habitual. It likes to
17:03
Speaker 2: go to sleep within the same time and wake up
17:05
Speaker 2: around the same time. So if you're an hour out,
17:08
Speaker 2: then that's fine. Say you know, I got to go
17:10
Speaker 2: to bed. Now you know it's ten V in my
17:13
Speaker 2: time and it's only nine pm here, Sorry, I'm going
17:16
Speaker 2: to bed. It's because then your body falls into that
17:19
Speaker 2: rhythm and you're not having a significant disruption in that
17:22
Speaker 2: circadian rhythm. The other things are like traveling and wearing
17:27
Speaker 2: your compression tights on the plane, even if even if
17:29
Speaker 2: it's an our flight or an hour and a half flight,
17:32
Speaker 2: it just really does help mitigate a lot of the
17:35
Speaker 2: dead leg and negative responses that happen when you're doing
17:39
Speaker 2: long travel days.
17:41
Speaker 1: Oh fantastic. All right, well we're going to wrap this up.
17:44
Speaker 1: So that was super informative about traveling, how we take
17:50
Speaker 1: into recovery sleep, and what performance can look like while
17:54
Speaker 1: you're traveling, and how that would affect your exercise sessions.
17:57
Speaker 1: So thank you so much, doctor Sims for joining us,
18:00
Speaker 1: and we'll talk to you soon. Thanks, thanks for listening.
18:05
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18:12
Speaker 1: Until next time,