Latest / Eat More Carbs | A Period Recovery Podcast / 164. Sports Dietitian Reacts: Protein Maxing and Energy Availability

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164. Sports Dietitian Reacts: Protein Maxing and Energy Availability · Eat More Carbs | A Period Recovery Podcast

• 0:00
  Hey girlies, just a quick reminder before we dive into
• 0:02
  today's episode. The information shared on this
• 0:04
  podcast is intended to be general sports nutrition advice
• 0:07
  and education related to period recovery for female athletes.
• 0:10
  This is not specific to anyone individual and it may or may not
• 0:13
  apply to your situation. If you are looking for
• 0:15
  personalized guidance, be sure to apply to our period recovery
• 0:18
  nutrition coaching program. Our four month period recovery
• 0:20
  program is designed to help you sustainably get your period back
• 0:23
  and keep it. You can apply now to get started
• 0:25
  in our program and we'll leave the link for the program below.
• 0:27
  This is the Eat more Carbs podcast.
• 0:34
  Hello and welcome back. This is the More Carbs podcast.
• 0:37
  We are a team of dietitians and we talk every Thursday about
• 0:40
  sports nutrition for the girlies.
• 0:42
  My name is Jenna and I host this podcast.
• 0:44
  And my name is Riley. You're also see me on this
• 0:46
  podcast. I am the owner and founder of
• 0:48
  Steady State Performance Nutrition.
• 0:50
  We specialize in helping female athletes recover from low energy
• 0:53
  availability and together along with Lily Rhymer, we are team
• 0:55
  steady state. Before we get into today's
• 0:57
  episode, we are going to do our high and low, so sharing just a
• 1:00
  little bit about our week, the good and the parts we wish have
• 1:02
  gone a little bit differently. This is the first Thursday of
• 1:05
  the month, so happy May Riley. That should be my low because I
• 1:09
  cannot believe that it is May right now.
• 1:10
  Like we are going to start talking about 2027 very soon and
• 1:13
  I am not like fully into 2026. Isn't it crazy I feel like this
• 1:18
  year has like been so slow and so fast at the same time.
• 1:21
  Yes, I cannot agree more. It's wild.
• 1:23
  What's your high and low from the week?
• 1:25
  OK, my high and my low, they both have to do with running.
• 1:28
  We haven't talked about running for a while.
• 1:30
  I've started running with Charlie again in our stroller.
• 1:32
  This is my high because it's actually like, I don't know,
• 1:34
  it's really fun. Stroller running is really
• 1:36
  challenging. Like I am so sore after doing it
• 1:39
  because my arms because I have to like push a child in a
• 1:41
  stroller. She's like really into it.
• 1:44
  Like every time I put my running shoes on, she's like, I'm going
• 1:46
  to run with mommy and like she gets to have her running fuel
• 1:49
  like during the rent. I'm like, well, maybe she just
• 1:51
  wants to do that, but I let her like help me out with my
• 1:54
  feelings. So she'll give me like little
• 1:56
  snacks and things like that. When I'm running, it's like
• 1:57
  we're going longer distances, but it's just like really fun.
• 2:00
  I don't have to share that with her.
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  I love that. How far do you guys like
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  typically go? Like how long are you pushing a
• 2:06
  stroller for? I'm so curious.
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  She starts to get a little agitated if we go more than 6
• 2:11
  miles, so we'll usually do like four or five.
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  I will try to make it so like I do a majority of the run and
• 2:16
  then we end at the park and then I'll run home.
• 2:19
  I did 9 last week with her and she was like over it.
• 2:22
  So I do feel like 5 or 6. It's like a good distance.
• 2:25
  Also like me running for 9 miles with the stroller like my arms
• 2:28
  hurt so bad. I'm sure, I'm sure.
• 2:31
  I feel like even like running one mile with a stroller would
• 2:33
  be a challenge. Yeah, but it's OK because it's
• 2:36
  fun and it's like something that, you know, I get to share
• 2:39
  with her. Plus I also like it's a full
• 2:41
  body workout so extra credit there.
• 2:43
  I love it. What about your low?
• 2:45
  OK this is like TMI Jenna. I have 4 toenails total.
• 2:51
  I have like literally lost like most of my toenails.
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  This is worse than like when I played soccer.
• 2:57
  Oh my gosh does it hurt when you run.
• 3:00
  Like not really though. Like it doesn't hurt.
• 3:03
  They just a lot of them have fallen off and I do go get them
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  done and they like make them nice and there's like skin
• 3:09
  underneath the toenails. Again, this is like TMI.
• 3:11
  Everybody just turned off the podcast because they're carrying
• 3:12
  about my toes, but my toenails keep falling off and I don't
• 3:15
  know what to do about it. Do they paint the remaining 4
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  when you go get them done? Yes.
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  But they actually, they paint all of them like they make it
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  look really nice and like the big ones are still staying on
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  and it it looks good, but like they're just not there.
• 3:31
  I don't get blisters or anything though.
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  Like they literally I kind of sometimes I get a blister on her
• 3:35
  toe, but it's not like that bad. But I played soccer for how many
• 3:39
  years? 15 years?
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  And I've never had this situation.
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  Oh my gosh, Riley and her 4 toenails.
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  You know, but it's like summer and I need to have cute sandals
• 3:47
  and cute shoes and I have no toenails and I don't know what
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  to do with myself. So Team I, everybody.
• 3:52
  Right. Yeah, That's such a good point.
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  Like, I wouldn't want to wear flip flops with four toenails,
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  but like, you kind of have to in the summertime because, like,
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  what else are you going to put on your feet?
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  You're not going to put on a sneaker.
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  I know and it's fine, like once I get them done, but what's been
• 4:05
  happening is I'll go get them done and then one of them falls
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  off. So it's like very apparent that
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  I am missing said toenails. Just runner problems.
• 4:14
  Well, everybody, welcome to the podcast.
• 4:15
  You're thinking about my toenails.
• 4:18
  We're going to stop this discussion and we're going to
• 4:20
  talk about tennis weeks now. OK, I feel like I jinxed myself
• 4:24
  last week when I talked about not having seen any type of bug
• 4:27
  in Arizona 'cause I found a scorpion in my house.
• 4:32
  Oh my gosh, the scorpion is back.
• 4:35
  And it's like pretty big one, too.
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  Like it was not small. We had cooked, made dinner.
• 4:39
  We sat down to eat. And then we get up to like, put
• 4:42
  our dishes back in the kitchen. And Nolan turns out he's like,
• 4:45
  don't look over here. And I knew as soon as he said
• 4:47
  that what it was. And I was like, we had to walk
• 4:49
  through that area from the kitchen to like our table.
• 4:53
  And it was there. So I'm like, I know it wasn't
• 4:55
  there. So in the time it took us to
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  have dinner, this little friend of ours, our new roommate if you
• 5:00
  will, decided to show up. How does it get in?
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  Because it's too big to like crawl in the door and it's not
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  going to get in through the window.
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  Like it's not going to fly in. So supposedly they can make
• 5:11
  themselves as flat as a credit card so they can get under.
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  The door No. Yeah, because I was like, does
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  it get in through like air conditioning events?
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  Like how does this happen? And it was like the biggest way
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  that these can get in to houses is because they can flatten
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  themselves and make themselves so small that they can get in
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  and underneath doorways. So like even if you have like a
• 5:32
  really well sealed door, that's how they're likely getting in,
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  no? No, no, no, no, no.
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  I take it back. I take it back about my toes.
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  This is my low that a scorpion can literally find itself into a
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  credit card. I am unwell.
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  Isn't that disgusting? But you know, we haven't had
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  that many in our house in comparison to like what some
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  people tell me that they have. I feel very fortunate.
• 5:51
  So we're going to be OK. I have to turn my low first
• 5:54
  because my high, I feel like is I'm very excited about it.
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  As someone who is not on TikTok and gets all of my TikTok
• 6:00
  information second hand off of Instagram, I'm probably fairly
• 6:03
  late to this game. So if you're on TikTok, you're
• 6:05
  probably be like, yeah, Jenna, this has been around for like a
• 6:07
  while. Have you heard of the Whole
• 6:10
  Foods Family Meal? Oh yeah, give me the details.
• 6:13
  Give me a recap because I have heard of it.
• 6:15
  I have seen it. It's like a family of four meal
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  for like 20 bucks or something like that.
• 6:19
  Yeah, it's $35. You get like a protein source,
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  which can be like salmon, chicken, meatloaf, Turkey
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  burgers, whatever they have there.
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  And they typically give you between like 4 to 5 like pieces
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  of protein. And then you get two sides and
• 6:33
  you can pick like a carbohydrate side and a color side.
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  So it's like very easy to build like a balanced performance
• 6:39
  plate with protein, carbs and color.
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  This past weekend, we had a lot happening and going on.
• 6:45
  So I didn't have the time to like meal prep that I usually
• 6:47
  do. And if you've been following on
• 6:49
  social media, you know that like I meal prep my meals, my lunches
• 6:52
  specifically for the week on the weekend.
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  So that way it's really easy for me to just heat something up at
• 6:56
  lunchtime, eat it and go, I didn't have time for that.
• 6:58
  So Nolan was like, why don't we try that?
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  Like we've heard about it, we've seen it, like why don't we just
• 7:02
  try that? So we did and we did like salmon
• 7:04
  for our protein, we did green beans for our color and then we
• 7:07
  did like a couscous situation for our carbohydrate.
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  It is so nice, it's good. But then on top of that, like it
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  saved my life from like a meal prep perspective because it was
• 7:18
  just so easy, like so easy for me to just divvy out the
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  portions between Nolan and myself, send his with him to
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  work. I heat mine up here at the house
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  and it's just it's like such a time saver.
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  So if you're in a situation like that or even if you want to have
• 7:32
  like a dinner prepped for a small family of four, it's a
• 7:34
  great deal. Do you have to order ahead of
• 7:36
  time or like do you go into the deli and just tell them what you
• 7:38
  want? Yeah, it's like in the hot bar
• 7:40
  area, you just walk up to the counter and you're like, I'd
• 7:43
  like to do a family meal. And they're like, great, what do
• 7:44
  you want for your protein? Two sides and you can pick
• 7:46
  whatever you want. I think the only thing you can't
• 7:48
  do is you can't like mix and match protein styles in there
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  and you can only get one source of protein.
• 7:53
  I might do that like tonight for dinner.
• 7:55
  I don't know. I just always don't have enough
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  time. But I love this.
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  If you're in a pinch situation or you just don't have time to
• 8:01
  cook something like it's a great way to get something that like
• 8:04
  option because you get to pick multiple things and it's good.
• 8:08
  I love this. Thank you for sharing this.
• 8:10
  You're like low and you're high or like my low and my high like
• 8:14
  I they've just been so good. Thank you.
• 8:16
  Thank you for your. Service.
• 8:17
  You're welcome. Anyway, that's my high and low.
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  Today we were joined by Lily to talk about some things that we
• 8:22
  saw this week. I love these episodes because we
• 8:24
  all just kind of get to talk. We are doing a what drives us
• 8:27
  bananas for the month of May, which is crazy that we are
• 8:30
  already in the month of May. I'm super excited to talk to
• 8:33
  you, Riley and Lily today about things that we all saw recently
• 8:36
  that drove us bananas. Go first, I'm on 1 today.
• 8:40
  Please take it away. Not that not to interrupt your
• 8:42
  plan. I know you always have a plan,
• 8:43
  but I just have to let it out because I'm just so over it.
• 8:46
  And I'm just everybody's coming for me.
• 8:48
  So I'm coming for everybody else in this episode.
• 8:50
  I love. It let's go.
• 8:51
  There's more than one way to get your period back.
• 8:53
  And I'm so tired of defending us.
• 8:56
  Retweet. I just, I know we talked about
• 8:58
  this on our last episode, but like I am so annoyed.
• 9:02
  Like I'm so annoyed because people think that there's only
• 9:06
  one way to get your period back. It is doing such a disservice to
• 9:10
  so many women because they think that there's only one way to do
• 9:14
  something and healthcare and nutrition in this space, there
• 9:18
  is more than one way to do something.
• 9:21
  Yes, with HA, with hypothalamic amenorrhea, with low energy
• 9:24
  availability, you have to increase your energy
• 9:27
  availability. There is no question about that.
• 9:29
  But there's more than one way to do that.
• 9:31
  And so many women are being held back or being bullied into doing
• 9:36
  all in or to basically changing their entire lives that it's not
• 9:42
  becoming sustainable. They're miserable, they're
• 9:44
  depressed. They might get their period
• 9:46
  back, but they're not keeping it.
• 9:47
  And I think that is a big, the thing that people are not
• 9:49
  talking about is it's about getting your period and keeping
• 9:53
  it. And if you're not building
• 9:54
  sustainable habits or learning the right way to do things, you
• 9:58
  can be somewhere on your journey or you can go all in or you can
• 10:01
  stop training. And then once you start training
• 10:03
  again, your period is going to go away.
• 10:06
  And I I'm over it. I love that you brought this up
• 10:09
  and I think that something a lot of people don't think about that
• 10:13
  are really advocating and almost shaming people who don't go all
• 10:16
  in is the other side of that. Like, yes, you have people who
• 10:20
  might listen to you and might be like, OK, you're right, I need
• 10:23
  to do all in, which isn't true. We've talked about that so many
• 10:25
  times on this podcast. But then you also have the other
• 10:28
  side of people who can't stop training and so they put off
• 10:31
  period recovery, which how is that helping anyone?
• 10:35
  If your goal is for someone to get their period back and you're
• 10:37
  shaming them, but they are not at a place that they can stop
• 10:40
  training, how is that helping anyone?
• 10:43
  It's not. It's making them feel shameful
• 10:45
  and them putting off their period recovery journey when
• 10:48
  it's important for everyone. We never shame somebody for
• 10:52
  saying that they're going to get a second opinion from a
• 10:54
  different doctor. If you are working through
• 10:56
  something, that's why you go get a second opinion to see if there
• 10:59
  is another option that maybe you would prefer or maybe would work
• 11:02
  better for your lifestyle. And we never shame anybody for
• 11:04
  doing that. So why are we shaming women who
• 11:06
  say, I think that I want to try this a different way or maybe
• 11:09
  there is another way or another option to do this that would
• 11:12
  work better for me, my lifestyle, my goals.
• 11:14
  Why is that any different? Why is why have we said that
• 11:17
  there is one way? It's it's my way or the highway.
• 11:19
  And if you're doing anything else or if you're even
• 11:22
  suggesting that there's another way to do it, then like
• 11:24
  immediate red flag. Like that's not how we approach
• 11:26
  anything. And we're not saying that the
• 11:29
  all in approach is bad. And I think that is also
• 11:31
  something that people might have taken.
• 11:34
  And I'm sorry if we explained that incorrectly, but we started
• 11:38
  the period recovery program because we were talking about
• 11:41
  Women's Health and we were talking about periods and not a
• 11:44
  lot of people were doing that in the athletic space.
• 11:46
  And so we started seeing a lot of female athletes, athletes who
• 11:48
  didn't have their period, and we found out that we're really good
• 11:52
  at helping people get their period back while continuing to
• 11:54
  train. And so that's why we specialized
• 11:56
  and built the period recovery program.
• 11:58
  When we started that, I didn't even know what All in was like.
• 12:02
  I didn't know that because that's not necessarily like
• 12:05
  something that's talked about in athletics because it's a
• 12:09
  singular approach. Like it's not something that is
• 12:12
  seen in the medicine. And a lot of the like,
• 12:14
  physicians that we collaborate with on HA Recovery are working,
• 12:18
  working on helping athletes overcome low energy availability
• 12:21
  and like get back into sport or continue training during their
• 12:25
  journey. I think my eyes have just been
• 12:27
  so open to this, like all in community.
• 12:30
  And again, like when we started a period recovery program, we
• 12:33
  didn't even know that was a thing because it's somebody's
• 12:36
  approach that they have made-up, yes.
• 12:39
  It's something that they maybe personally saw success with or
• 12:42
  something that they helped other people with have success with.
• 12:45
  And it clearly there is success with that like that has been
• 12:48
  shown. And that's also not to say that
• 12:49
  like we don't have athletes that come to us and they might be in
• 12:53
  a offseason or they might be in a period of time in which maybe
• 12:56
  they're medically red shirted or perhaps they're injured.
• 12:58
  And so their training does look a lot different.
• 13:01
  In those cases, Those athletes tend to end up working with us a
• 13:03
  lot longer because once they get their period back, they know
• 13:06
  that they're going to need to continue to make changes once
• 13:08
  they return to sport and then need to change their fueling
• 13:11
  again. Again, that's like totally
• 13:13
  different approach from someone who comes to us and says, hey, I
• 13:16
  can't medically red shirt this year.
• 13:18
  I have to continue to compete in my sport if I want to keep my
• 13:21
  scholarship. And I am never going to look at
• 13:23
  that person and say there is no option for you to attempt to
• 13:26
  recover your cycle or improve your health right now because of
• 13:30
  your situation where you want to keep your scholarships.
• 13:32
  That way you can continue at university.
• 13:34
  I. Also think it reinforces the
• 13:36
  belief that you can only start making these changes and it's
• 13:40
  only good to go all in once your period is gone.
• 13:43
  Whereas we deal with athletes, of course we have our period
• 13:46
  recovery program, but low energy availability can happen in
• 13:49
  anyone. It can happen way before your
• 13:51
  period is gone. So just because we are training
• 13:54
  athletes to fuel like an athlete, I don't understand why
• 13:57
  that's a bad thing because it's going to last them a whole lot
• 14:00
  longer than doing A1 size fits all approach for every single
• 14:04
  person. I think that's honestly really
• 14:05
  hard for some people to hear because especially like with our
• 14:08
  society, we've really like simplified nutrition or we tried
• 14:12
  to make, you know, X + Y = Z, and that's just not how the
• 14:16
  human body works. That's why something like All In
• 14:19
  sounds really nice to a lot of people because it is like you
• 14:21
  eat 2500 calories, you stop training and get your period
• 14:24
  back in six weeks. And AJ recovery is a lot more
• 14:27
  nuanced than that. And again, I am not trying to
• 14:30
  say anything bad about All In. It has worked for some
• 14:33
  individuals. Some people love that approach.
• 14:36
  Some people needed to hear that. But it is just so individualized
• 14:40
  and so different for so many people.
• 14:43
  And that's what we're always talking about like on this
• 14:45
  podcast. And that's what the work that
• 14:47
  we're doing within our programs. Lily was driving you bananas
• 14:49
  this week. OK so last time I or last what
• 14:53
  drives us bananas talked a little bit about my Reddit
• 14:55
  excursions. I'm back to TikTok for this
• 14:58
  month. So we are getting into summer.
• 15:01
  Yay. It's May and with that comes a
• 15:04
  lot of body image issues. We're wearing less and less
• 15:08
  clothing as we transition into the warmer months.
• 15:12
  And I had seen a TikTok and it was someone saying like that
• 15:17
  they'd rather cry in a bikini than a cover up in regards to
• 15:21
  like them not feeling like their relationship with food.
• 15:25
  They see restriction as a solution to be in a smaller
• 15:29
  body, that they would rather be unhappy in a smaller body than
• 15:34
  be OK in a cover up where they feel like they have to cover up
• 15:37
  their bodies. Which in itself is just a whole
• 15:41
  thing that we're reinforcing for millions potentially of people
• 15:45
  to see on the Internet and be like, yeah, that's normal.
• 15:48
  That's. I think it's incredibly sad that
• 15:50
  the thought process there was that if you are not incredibly
• 15:54
  thin, which we've seen a lot and we've talked a lot about skinny
• 15:57
  talk, the trend right now that if you don't appear that way
• 16:01
  that you need to cover yourself up.
• 16:04
  So don't love that it's OK to be miserable and like being skinny
• 16:10
  is worth it air quotes because I just I feel like I work with so
• 16:15
  many athletes that are so miserable even though they have
• 16:19
  their quote UN quote dream body or they have ABS or they look
• 16:22
  like an athlete, but they are so just not happy even though they
• 16:28
  got the body that they're supposed to be happy in.
• 16:31
  I think you bring up a really good point there.
• 16:32
  And I think I think about this even myself, because there was a
• 16:35
  point in time in which like dining, outgoing out to
• 16:38
  restaurants that caused a lot of like maybe anxious feelings and
• 16:41
  thoughts for me. And now that's something that I
• 16:43
  really enjoy doing with family, with friends is like going and
• 16:45
  trying new food. And sometimes I sit there and
• 16:47
  I'm like, I am so thankful that like, I have the opportunity to
• 16:51
  do this because like, I would be missing out on it if I was still
• 16:54
  so hyper fixated on how this one meal was going to impact my body
• 16:58
  and what it looked like. And like I could be missing out
• 17:01
  on that entire portion of my life, which was like meals with
• 17:04
  friends and making new friends in a new place that I've moved
• 17:07
  because I've moved a whole bunch.
• 17:08
  But like, that is so sad that someone is trying to convince
• 17:10
  you that, like the way that you look would be more important
• 17:13
  than making those connections. I think at the end of the day,
• 17:15
  it's really sad because when we look back on our lives, if we're
• 17:18
  not going to remember the size of our body that it was in the
• 17:21
  summer of 2026, but we're going to remember the memories that we
• 17:24
  made. How fun 4th of July was, the hot
• 17:26
  dogs that you and your cousin grilled together, whatever.
• 17:29
  It was so sad that we're going to allow our bodies to be the
• 17:34
  thing that dictates whether or not we get to experience certain
• 17:36
  things. And it also just goes to the
• 17:39
  culture of social media and the fact that I see that and I'm
• 17:42
  like, whoa, like, wrote it down immediately for what drives me
• 17:46
  bananas. But so many people see these
• 17:49
  videos, like, it's all over. You see people commenting, like
• 17:52
  commenting to stay on skinny Talk and like all this stuff.
• 17:56
  And it's so sad that it's been so normalized because women are
• 17:59
  missing out on what their life really could be without worrying
• 18:03
  about food all the time. Was actually like reflecting on
• 18:06
  this a couple weeks ago. I might have told one of y'all
• 18:09
  about this, but I think it's so crazy because part of our
• 18:12
  onboarding process is like we have athletes do like a three
• 18:15
  day food log. And sometimes I I'm like, I
• 18:19
  don't remember what I had for breakfast.
• 18:21
  Like if I had to do a three day food log right now, like I don't
• 18:23
  know if I would remember. Sometimes like Rob, who's my
• 18:26
  husband will be like, what do you want to eat?
• 18:28
  And I'm like, I don't really care.
• 18:29
  Like I don't care. And I think, you know, 10 years
• 18:33
  ago I was very similar to what Jenna had shared where like food
• 18:36
  was on the top of my mind. Like I fixated on it.
• 18:39
  I made so many decisions around it with healing my relationship
• 18:42
  with food. Like I don't think like I enjoy
• 18:45
  it. I love going out to eat but like
• 18:47
  it's just like a thing that I do now and I'm not like hyper
• 18:50
  fixated on it. I just it's so wild to me
• 18:52
  because so much of my brain space was wasted on worrying
• 18:56
  about. Food, that is such a good way to
• 18:58
  say that so much of like your mental energy, your brain space
• 19:01
  was wasted on thinking about food all the time.
• 19:04
  I think, Lily, to your point too, about like people
• 19:06
  commenting and saying like commenting to say on skinny talk
• 19:09
  and things like that. Something that I have seen a lot
• 19:11
  recently is like the comments section of those videos of girls
• 19:16
  who have reached a potentially very dangerous level of thinness
• 19:20
  is like it's a lot of praise and it's a lot of other women
• 19:24
  looking at it as a form of motivation.
• 19:26
  Yeah, I agree that there's a lot of praise in those comment
• 19:29
  sections. I also have seen a rise in
• 19:32
  shaming for that, like a you need help type thing, which I
• 19:38
  don't think is a productive, which is kind of a whole nother
• 19:41
  conversation, but publicly shaming someone when they're
• 19:44
  unhealthily skinny is not a productive way to go about that
• 19:49
  either. So I think that we're seeing a
• 19:51
  rise of both sides of the spectrum.
• 19:53
  I was talking to somebody about this the other day too, that I
• 19:57
  actually feel really bad for the people who are like our
• 20:00
  influencers on Skinny Talk because their entire personality
• 20:04
  is being skinny. Like how much pressure is that?
• 20:07
  That is your entire personality. I think about like, I don't know
• 20:11
  if you guys can see this, but like I have some cards like on
• 20:14
  my bookcase from like birthdays or things like that and every
• 20:17
  single one of those. Cards like talks about
• 20:20
  carbohydrates. I was like, eat more carbs.
• 20:22
  And like I was thinking like, how sad would it be if like
• 20:24
  people wrote my card like stay skinny, like because that was my
• 20:28
  personality. But then like, it's just
• 20:30
  reinforcing that like there's value in being skinny.
• 20:33
  And then these people are basically trapped, especially if
• 20:35
  they're making money or if this is their job, being in an
• 20:38
  extremely small body and like being in starvation.
• 20:41
  Yes, to the point where for some people, it might even be like
• 20:43
  part of their livelihood if they have gained traction on social
• 20:46
  media for their appearance and they feel not only does it come
• 20:51
  with the pressure for what it looks like to their following or
• 20:55
  to the social media consumer, but it's perhaps tied to their
• 20:59
  income. And that could be for multiple
• 21:01
  reasons, like really, really kind of a a tough spot to be in.
• 21:04
  And then kind of back to your point, Lily, about like maybe
• 21:06
  even the shame around it. Like we have no idea what that
• 21:08
  person is going through from like a mental side of things,
• 21:12
  what they could be working through.
• 21:13
  But if then their livelihood is tied to it as well and they're
• 21:17
  receiving it like that's so like, I, you know, I, I agree
• 21:20
  with you, Riley. Like, I feel bad for these
• 21:21
  people, like that's, that is such a hard place to be in,
• 21:24
  especially because we don't know the extent of which of what's
• 21:26
  going on truthfully for them. I feel like TikTok always brings
• 21:29
  the vibes down every time I forget TikTok to what drives you
• 21:32
  bananas. It's always so bad.
• 21:34
  But that just shows what everyone else is consuming
• 21:37
  online. It isn't normal.
• 21:39
  It's not. Don't know what's going on for
• 21:40
  you? I have seen similarly to Lily,
• 21:42
  so much conversation around like slimming down for summer or
• 21:46
  leaning up and like things like that.
• 21:48
  And the advice that's being given more often than not is to
• 21:51
  increase your protein. And we have talked about this so
• 21:54
  often about how protein has a lovely little health Halo around
• 21:58
  it. Don't get me wrong, protein is
• 22:00
  still part of our essential nutrients.
• 22:02
  It is still an important part of our well balanced intake when
• 22:05
  we're looking at our fueling. But it does not mean that it
• 22:08
  should be the only the soul and the focus for every person.
• 22:13
  And I have seen especially since like hearing those things in the
• 22:17
  continued push for protein products that are now
• 22:20
  incorporating protein in them that have absolutely no reason
• 22:23
  to incorporate protein. My favorite perhaps being most
• 22:27
  recently a $12.00 jar of pasta sauce that contained 80 grams of
• 22:33
  protein. And the first thing that I did
• 22:35
  because I was like, is this whey protein?
• 22:37
  How are we doing this? You turn that can around and
• 22:40
  it's a proprietary blend of protein combination listed on
• 22:45
  their label as proprietary blend for that, that in that pasta
• 22:49
  sauce. And it kind of like played on
• 22:52
  several things that I was thinking about because we see
• 22:54
  all of these Wellness influencers who are pushing
• 22:57
  protein, but then at the same time saying, if you can't
• 22:59
  pronounce this on the food label, it's not healthy, don't
• 23:01
  eat it. All of these things.
• 23:02
  And then I'm thinking, OK, but we're going to read this and I
• 23:04
  can read proprietary blend, but like, I don't know what's in
• 23:07
  their proprietary blend. Like that could be a number of
• 23:10
  things. Truthfully, it drove me bananas
• 23:13
  because like I was there with a family member and they were
• 23:15
  like, is this a good thing that I should maybe get to help get
• 23:18
  in more protein? And I was like, no, this is a
• 23:20
  $12.00 jar of pasta sauce. Like you would be better off
• 23:22
  getting this jar of pasta sauce, which is great and affordable
• 23:26
  and tastes delicious and mixing it together with some ground
• 23:29
  beef or ground chicken or something like that.
• 23:31
  And then putting that over your pasta and pairing that with a
• 23:35
  side salad. There is a better way to get in
• 23:38
  protein that would be a lot more cost efficient and not as the
• 23:42
  main focus as your meal. And 80 grams of protein in a jar
• 23:46
  of pasta sauce. Like I don't know about y'all.
• 23:48
  It's a good amount of tomato sauce if I'm cooking with tomato
• 23:50
  sauce. Imagine mixing it with my egg
• 23:53
  life pasta from our last What Drives Us Bananas episode.
• 23:56
  And, you know, people will. Yeah.
• 23:58
  The people that buy the egg life pasta.
• 24:00
  Yeah, yeah. We're going to see more and more
• 24:03
  of it, though. It's not going away.
• 24:04
  Like even a lot of like the mainstream snack products, like
• 24:07
  if I see a Doritos protein or another Pop Tarts protein, like
• 24:12
  yeah. Why did we have to change Pop
• 24:14
  Tart? If it is, If it's not broke,
• 24:15
  don't fix it. You know, like there was nothing
• 24:18
  wrong. Yeah, with Pop Tarts.
• 24:20
  So recommending pop tarts is like a quick easy source of
• 24:22
  carbohydrates pre training and now I can't do that because you
• 24:26
  put a bunch of protein and crap in them like.
• 24:28
  Don't drives me bananas. There's always on a drives me
• 24:30
  bananas a food product that we run into that we're like, are
• 24:32
  you kidding me? This actually exists.
• 24:35
  Yeah. But the marketing is so good.
• 24:36
  The marketing is so. Good.
• 24:37
  Oh good, Protein's PR team right now having a hell of a.
• 24:40
  Protein. Literally.
• 24:42
  So those are the things that are driving me bananas this week is
• 24:44
  just the push for protein continues.
• 24:47
  And we talked about this I think in a bananas episodes ago like
• 24:50
  the the push for the 200 gram protein per day diet and whether
• 24:53
  or not that's something that we should be following or not.
• 24:55
  If you are listening to this and chances are high if you're
• 24:58
  listening to this, you are working through period recovery,
• 25:00
  you have worked through period recovery or you're interested in
• 25:02
  helping someone work through period recovery.
• 25:04
  That's not it. That's not the recommend, that's
• 25:06
  this is probably not for you, not a product.
• 25:07
  For you know what, do you know why protein has such a healthy
• 25:09
  little? People are doing it so they can
• 25:11
  lose weight like it's all around weight loss.
• 25:14
  Eat more protein. It's going to help you build
• 25:16
  lean body mass so that you can increase your metabolism or it's
• 25:19
  going to increase satiety. Like it's all about weight loss.
• 25:22
  Even though we might not be saying it, the focus on a high
• 25:25
  protein diet is for weight loss. It's not for health, it's not
• 25:28
  for athletic performance. It is for.
• 25:30
  Weight loss. And just like so many of these
• 25:32
  episodes that we talk about, it all comes back to the why.
• 25:34
  Why is that your choice? Is it because you genuinely
• 25:36
  enjoy it? Or is it because there is
• 25:38
  something else deep down that is driving you to make that choice?
• 25:41
  Which who would enjoy 80 gram of protein pasta sauce?
• 25:45
  Not me, not me. With your egg.
• 25:47
  Pasta on that gross note, there were things that you saw on the
• 25:51
  shelf in the supermarket on the world of social media that drove
• 25:54
  you absolutely bananas. We would love to hear about it.
• 25:56
  Please leave it in the comments of this podcast.
• 25:58
  If you do have questions for Riley, Lily or myself, you can
• 26:01
  always reach out to us. You can find Riley on Instagram
• 26:03
  at Riley dot Beatty dot nutrition.
• 26:05
  You can find Lily at Lily dot rhymer dot nutrition and you can
• 26:09
  find me at Jenna dot Fisher dot nutrition.
• 26:11
  Thank you so much for being a listener of the Mark Harps
• 26:13
  podcast. Please make sure you rate,
• 26:15
  subscribe and review. And as always, remember to eat
• 26:17
  more carbs.