Episode 156
Ep. 156: Fueling for Success: Balancing Body Composition and Performance in Endurance Sports/Maia Watson
In this episode:
A rich dialogue unfurls in the Tri Doc podcast, where Jeff Sankoff and Juliet Hochman and Alex Larson tackle the intricate relationship between body composition, nutrition, and athletic performance. The episode serves as a platform to discuss how athletes can navigate the often treacherous waters of body image and performance expectations. Drawing from personal anecdotes and professional insights, Alex highlights the significant risks associated with under-fueling and the surprising lack of risks tied to over-fueling. This revelation is vital for athletes who may succumb to pressures for an 'ideal' physique, often leading to detrimental health outcomes such as RED-S, which can severely impact performance and well-being. Plus, a conversation with top age grouper and soon to be professional Maia Watson. She shares what it has been like to undertake her journey to the upper echelons of our sport in a short time.
Segments:
[09:22]- Medical Mailbag: Body Composition and performance
[46:49- Interview: Maia Watson
Links
TriDoc Coaching YouTube Channel
Alex Larson's upcoming podcast
Links referenced in this episode:
Transcript
What I would have told probably my younger self is less is not more, more is probably just enough.
Speaker A:Honestly, there's so many risks to under fueling, but essentially no risks to over fueling as an athlete.
Speaker A:And I also think just to be very mindful, no like intuitive eating, but while also being mindful of what your body actually needs.
Jeff Sankoff:Hello and welcome to the October 18.
Speaker C:2024 edition of the Tri Doc podcast.
Jeff Sankoff:I'm your host Jeff Sankoff, the Tridoc, an emergency physician, triathlon coach, and multiple Ironman finisher.
Jeff Sankoff:Coming to you as always from beautiful, sunny Denver, Colorado.
Jeff Sankoff: e just one week away from the: Jeff Sankoff:This year, 56 men will be lining up on the start line in the Big island and as always, it is a deep and talented field.
Jeff Sankoff: The: Jeff Sankoff:He of course, won the race in Nice last year and undoubtedly will be one of many of the key athletes to watch once again.
Jeff Sankoff: aw finished second in Kona in: Speaker C:He led the field in Nice off.
Jeff Sankoff:Of the bike and then held off some really strong runners on his to his victory.
Jeff Sankoff:Patrick Lang was one of those strong runners and will be mentioning him amongst some of the favorites who are coming back to challenge Laidlaw in Kona once again.
Speaker C:Laidlaw has had a kind of quiet.
Jeff Sankoff:2024, almost didn't even requalify, but did manage because of a quirk of some referee rulings to be able to get his slot and be back in Kona to defend his championship.
Jeff Sankoff: the form of Gustav Eden, the: Speaker C:Who'S really not been heard from very.
Jeff Sankoff: Much in both: Speaker C:He had been kind of preparing himself.
Jeff Sankoff:For the Olympics and that didn't really pan out.
Jeff Sankoff:He had some personal loss in the form of his mother passing away and because of that hasn't really been participating in many races.
Jeff Sankoff:However, one can only assume that if he is showing up to start hedgesthem, he is going to be in probably pretty good shape and probably going to be one of the ones that we have to consider as a favorite heading into this event.
Jeff Sankoff:Christian Blumenfeld, another former world champion.
Jeff Sankoff: He won the race in: Jeff Sankoff:George, Utah.
Jeff Sankoff: c gold medalist from Tokyo in: Jeff Sankoff: he also dedicated much of his: Speaker C:He did show up there to defend.
Jeff Sankoff:His medal, but ended up just off the podium.
Jeff Sankoff:But he demonstrated that despite making most of his focus short course racing, he returned to long course racing after the Olympics and distinguished himself quite well in both the half and full Ironman distances.
Jeff Sankoff:So once again, another Norwegian looking to be primed to go, and after teasing a consideration of moving to just dedicated pro cycling, he has confirmed that that's not going to happen.
Jeff Sankoff:He's going to be a triathlete for the immediate and probably long term future.
Jeff Sankoff:Patrick Longa I mentioned him as a threat to Sam Laidlaw on the run.
Jeff Sankoff: mpion, having won the race in: Jeff Sankoff:He has had some recent injuries over the past couple of seasons, but he's been really in top form this year and if he paces himself right coming off the bike, he is always a threat if he's within ten or 15 minutes of the lead coming off the transition.
Jeff Sankoff:Two Lionel Sanders is of course a perennial fan favorite and returns to Kona after not participating in Neath last year.
Jeff Sankoff:He brings with him his usual grit, determination and never give up attitude.
Jeff Sankoff: being a runner up in Kona in: Jeff Sankoff:However, he has made some pretty significant improvements to his swim and made him a very serious contender in both 70.3 and Ironman races against some of the top swimmers and bikers in the race.
Jeff Sankoff: So we have to wonder, is: Jeff Sankoff:But the list doesn't just stop there and is honestly too extensive for me to get into in this monologue.
Jeff Sankoff:Could Trevor Foley, for example, exert the kind of dominance the way he showed in Lake Placid?
Jeff Sankoff:What about Kona first timer Jackson laundry?
Jeff Sankoff:How about Matt Hansen, whose name is perennially mentioned but never seems to get that breakthrough in Kona that we hope that he is going to bring?
Jeff Sankoff:One thing is for sure, it's going to be an incredible event to watch, even if the broadcast is likely to be as uninspiring as always.
Jeff Sankoff:But it's definitely going to be one that I'll be looking forward to and will definitely be keeping an eye on throughout that day on October 26.
Jeff Sankoff:What do you think?
Jeff Sankoff:Are you excited for the race?
Jeff Sankoff:Do you have a pick for the podium?
Jeff Sankoff:I hope that you'll let me know.
Jeff Sankoff:Drop your comments in the private tri doc podcast Facebook group and see what others think as well.
Jeff Sankoff:If you aren't already a member, I hope that you will consider becoming one.
Jeff Sankoff:You can search for Tri Doc podcast on Facebook, answer these three easy questions, I'll gain you admittance and you can join the conversation there on the show.
Jeff Sankoff:Today, Juliet Hockman and I are going to answer a listener question about body composition and performance.
Jeff Sankoff:Now this is a pretty delicate subject, so we invited our friend and frequent contributor Alex Larson from Alex Larson nutrition to join us and and help us tease out the important points that athletes can take away from the evidence on this topic and that coaches like myself and Juliet can use to handle conversations with their athletes when this comes up.
Jeff Sankoff:And that discussion is going to be coming up in just a couple of minutes later, I am joined by up and coming age group triathlete and soon to be professional Maya Watson.
Jeff Sankoff: Maya has had a stellar: Jeff Sankoff:She talks to me about what it has been like finding that success and where she goes from here, and that's going to be coming up in just a little while.
Jeff Sankoff:Later, I also want to take a moment to make a quick announcement about a new enhancement for this podcast.
Jeff Sankoff:After several people have asked and kind of cajoled and prompted me to take this podcast to video, I am finally making the effort to do so and will be offering a video version of the podcast on my Tri Doc coaching YouTube channel.
Jeff Sankoff:So if hearing my voice is just not enough for you, if you prefer to see my mug along with that of Juliet and all of my guests that I speak with, you can finally do so.
Jeff Sankoff:Search for Tridoc coaching and this time it is two words.
Jeff Sankoff:Tri Doc is one, coaching is the second.
Jeff Sankoff:Look for that on YouTube and you can subscribe to the channel so that you can be informed when new episodes are released.
Jeff Sankoff:It's my goal that all future episodes of the podcast will be on there, but until I get the workflow completely dialed in, it might be a little bit uneven with at the start, so bear with me and as you usual, I definitely want your feedback.
Jeff Sankoff:Is this something that you want?
Jeff Sankoff:Is this something that you enjoy?
Jeff Sankoff:Is this something that, eh, you don't really need?
Jeff Sankoff:Whatever it is, I definitely want to hear from you, so I hope that you will take a look.
Jeff Sankoff:I will put a link to the YouTube channel in the show notes and of course that link will also be on my Instagram feed in the link tree, which can be found in my bio.
Jeff Sankoff:Again, my YouTube channel is Tridoc coaching.
Jeff Sankoff:It's two words, tridoc and coaching.
Jeff Sankoff:And now, before we get to the medical mailbag, as always, I want to take a moment to thank all of my Patreon supporters of this podcast who've decided that for about the price of a cup of coffee, they would sign up to support this program and in doing so, get access to bonus interviews and other segments that come out about every month or so.
Jeff Sankoff:The most recent of those bonus segments came out just last week and featured a detailed medical segment on some new research that shows that muscle efficiency in cycling is unaffected by aging.
Jeff Sankoff:That was a pretty surprising finding and had some important implications for all of us as we train and race into our older age groups.
Jeff Sankoff:That bonus episode and others like it are available on a private feed that is available to all of my subscribers.
Jeff Sankoff:Plus, for north american subscribers who sign up at the $10 per month level of support, they receive a special thank you gift in the form of a Boko Tri doc podcast running hat shown right here on the video.
Speaker C:If you're watching in YouTube.
Speaker C:So visit my Patreon site today@patreon.com dot and become a supporter so that you.
Jeff Sankoff:Too can get access and maybe this cool gift as well.
Jeff Sankoff:As always, I thank you in advance just for considering.
Speaker C:It'S time again for the medical mailbag, that section of the program, when I'm joined by my friend and colleague, Juliet Hockman.
Speaker C:Juliet, how are you doing this morning?
Juliet Hockman:I am great.
Juliet Hockman:Just fresh in from a little run myself.
Juliet Hockman:Great way to start the morning.
Juliet Hockman:Thanks.
Juliet Hockman:Beautiful fall morning here in Oregon.
Juliet Hockman:How about you?
Speaker C:I am doing well.
Speaker C:I can't say it's beautiful.
Speaker C:The leaves have changed.
Speaker C:It's gorgeous.
Speaker C:This is a beautiful time of year.
Speaker C:It just always gets me a little sad because I know what's coming.
Juliet Hockman:I know it's dark.
Juliet Hockman:It's dark out there right now.
Speaker C:It's not as bad, however, for both of us as it's going to be for our guest who's joining us on the medical mailbag today, who is living in a much more dire winter esque, Alex Larson.
Speaker C:Alex, a friend of the podcast who's been a guest of ours several times is joining us because we have a question that's very pertinent to her.
Speaker C:Alex, welcome back to the Tri Dog podcast.
Alex Larson:Thanks for having me back, Alex.
Speaker C:Before we get started, I understand you're launching your own podcast in the near future.
Speaker C:You want to take a moment to just tell us about that?
Alex Larson:Yeah, it's called endurance eats.
Alex Larson: s, and it launches in January: Alex Larson:So working on recording some episodes, getting that ready to go, it'll be in seasons.
Alex Larson: So have a season one of like,: Alex Larson:I'll take a little break because you guys know I got three young kids at home, so I can't, like, guarantee I'm always going to have content all year round.
Alex Larson: ason two come out later on in: Juliet Hockman:Ooh, I am writing this down right now.
Juliet Hockman:Jeff knows I'm not very good with podcasts, but endurance eats.
Maya Watson:I got it.
Juliet Hockman: January: Alex Larson:Yes.
Alex Larson:The trailer is already out, so you can already subscribe and follow.
Alex Larson:So when it launches, you'll be able to catch the episodes.
Juliet Hockman:Awesome.
Speaker C:All right, I'll put a link to that in the show notes.
Speaker C:And we will, of course, announce that when Alex goes live with it in the new year.
Speaker C:But for now, we have a listener question to answer.
Speaker C:Juliet, what are we tackling today?
Speaker C:Why is Alex joining us?
Juliet Hockman:I know this is going to be an interesting topic.
Juliet Hockman:So this question comes from one of our listeners, Justin Rayfiel.
Juliet Hockman:Thank you so much, Justin.
Juliet Hockman:It's always better when we get questions from our listeners rather than trying to make them up ourselves.
Juliet Hockman:And he asks, is there an ideal body composition for athletes to consider striving for in order to optimize their performance?
Juliet Hockman:And then he goes on to ask, what is the accuracy of the different modalities by which body fat percentage is measured?
Juliet Hockman:So this is a topic that I know Jeff and I speak about a lot offline as coaches and how to help athletes with this question when it comes to us.
Juliet Hockman:So I'm excited about this discussion today.
Juliet Hockman:So where are we going to start, Jeff?
Speaker C:Yeah, it's a tough one, and that's why I wanted Alex here, because it is a tough one.
Speaker C:It's so fraught.
Speaker C:And I want to take a moment to thank my intern, Nina Tekashima, who did the research for this.
Speaker C:We had a really interesting conversation when she came back to me with what she found.
Speaker C:And we have to be really careful.
Speaker C:We have to tread carefully.
Speaker C:We know that nutrition in athletes is a fraught conversation.
Speaker C:That's why I wanted Alex here to help us out with it.
Speaker C:And we also know that there is this really fine line.
Speaker C:If you watched much of the Olympics this year, you spent any time watching track athletes, you no doubt saw that there was a very common body type.
Speaker C:And that body type among the sprinters tended to be very ripped, very muscular men and women.
Speaker C:And amongst the middle to long distance athletes, it tended to be incredibly lean people, not much muscle and certainly not much body fat.
Speaker C:And that was the common theme across any sport, of any elite athlete, was the absence of any kind of defining body fat.
Speaker C:And there is evidence that kind of supports this notion that reducing body fat does result in improvements in performance across different kinds of sports.
Speaker C: e is a paper that came out in: Speaker C:So interesting.
Speaker C:This is a group that actually worked to define reds and continues to do work on nutrition in sport, and continues to come up with recommendations.
Speaker C:And they reviewed the literature and actually showed that it's true, if you gain in lean mass, you will show an improvement in your ability to perform in just about all sports.
Speaker C:You will show, and this is immeasurable metrics such as peak average power output and cycling, sprint performance, work economy, improved jump skills, and even performance across team sports.
Speaker C:And there is a negative association with performance variables such as race time and average speed with increasing body fat percentage.
Speaker C:So these things are definitely linked.
Speaker C:Unfortunately, there is an abundance of literature that shows that amongst athletes who strive to work for these kinds of body composition goals, they get into trouble.
Speaker C:Hang on.
Speaker C:They get into trouble if they go too far.
Speaker C:But there is a ceiling, let's put it that way, running and body fat walking the tightrope of optimum performance is another paper that we found.
Speaker C:And in this paper, basically, in measuring body fat levels across different kinds of runners, it was found that men and women were running levels of body fat that are not seen in normal human beings.
Speaker C:Basically levels less than 10% in men, less than 15% in women.
Speaker C:And this was almost universally associated with significant calorie deficits.
Speaker C:And these calorie deficits were seen during the preparatory and competition phases, which is pretty amazing.
Speaker C:And we're going to bring Alex in here in just a short bit.
Speaker C:But Alex has spoken with us on this podcast numerous times about the importance of fueling for performance.
Speaker C:And I was just shocked that these elite athletes were running huge calorie deficits, trying to make up for their calorie deficits by eating low carbohydrates, low proteins and high fat content.
Speaker C:And despite this, running as much as 20% calorie, 20% to 30% calorie deficits in order to keep their lean body mass up and their body fat percentage down.
Speaker C:And what are the consequences of this?
Speaker C:We know about reds and the female athlete triad, which are both significant health issues.
Speaker C:But there is another health issue that was brought up, and that was the issue of immune function, because it has been seen that when men are running at a body fat level of less than 10% and women less than 15%, their immune function is adversely affected.
Speaker C:And they put themselves at risk for having issues related to recurrent illnesses related to either viral, bacterial, or even fungal infections.
Speaker C:So these are all important things that need to be taken in the.
Speaker C:Into consideration.
Speaker C:And there was also a ceiling in terms of if you dropped your body fat percentage too far, you actually had adverse performance.
Speaker C:And there was one group of athletes who seemed to do particularly well with normal levels of body fat, normal being for women, as much as 30%.
Speaker C:That was the ultra runners, people who were running really long distance.
Speaker C:We see.
Speaker C:And if you look at an ultra runner, you look at some of the women who are performing really well.
Speaker C:They look like normal women.
Speaker C:Yeah, a lot of the men look like normal men.
Speaker C:And that's not surprising.
Speaker C:When you are performing those long kinds of distance events.
Speaker C:Are you generally performing at a level, zone one, zone two, where you're actually metabolizing fat as opposed to carbohydrates?
Speaker C:So it's not that unusual that they would run more normal levels of body fat.
Speaker C:We're going to talk about one athlete who's gone through this journey and had some success, someone I know quite well.
Speaker C:But before we do that, Alex, I know that you.
Speaker C:You face this kind of conversation frequently, and it's.
Speaker C:I know that you get inundated because of your popularity on social media.
Speaker C:A lot of women see your.
Speaker C:A lot of women see the Olympics, they see what these athletes look like, and then they see your feed and.
Alex Larson:They come to you.
Alex Larson:Let me challenge that, though.
Alex Larson:I do feel like at this Olympics, we were embracing women of all types of bodies.
Alex Larson:There was a lot of coverage on, like, the power lifters or the shot putters, or just kiss throwers and the variety of body types, and how these are all elite athletes and they all come in different shapes and sizes.
Alex Larson:So I do feel like I saw, for me, I saw a little bit different story on the Olympics just from that aspect.
Alex Larson:But, yes, like, these are elite athletes.
Alex Larson:They have mastered their craft.
Alex Larson:They are very strong men and women.
Alex Larson:And I feel like there is definitely, if you look at the marathoners, they are going to be a much more longer, leaner body type versus, like, the sprinters that are going to have a more powerful, stockier stature.
Alex Larson:Same thing with swimmers.
Alex Larson:You look at your sprinters versus your more longer distance, you might see some varying levels there.
Alex Larson:You're going to have, like, different ideal body types, and that's okay.
Alex Larson:And, like, also keep in mind that no matter if you take everyone in the world, and we all ate exactly the same and we all trained exactly the same, we're still all going to look different.
Alex Larson:We're all going to have genetically different body types, and that's okay.
Alex Larson:So I think that's also a really good approach to looking at body composition as well.
Alex Larson:It's not just about the body fat percentage.
Alex Larson:I think we also have to look at the genetic makeup of people as well and what we're going to see in performance, too.
Alex Larson:There's a lot of factors other than just body comp.
Juliet Hockman:Yeah.
Juliet Hockman:And I'd like to also point out that when you're looking at something like the Olympics, those athletes, there's a huge genetic component.
Juliet Hockman:Those athletes, like the powerlifters, could not have been rowers.
Juliet Hockman:The rowers could not have been gymnasts.
Juliet Hockman:Genetics plays a lot into what you gravitate towards from an early age.
Juliet Hockman:You're gonna find success as an athlete at that point.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Alex Larson:I mean, Simone Biles is what, four foot eleven, right?
Alex Larson:Tiny, but just absolutely so incredibly powerful in what she's able to do.
Juliet Hockman:And I'm glad you brought gymnastics up as an example.
Juliet Hockman:I remember as a kid watching gymnasts, and there were these little tiny Pixie 14 and 15 year olds who hadn't even seen puberty yet.
Alex Larson:And now we feel like they're curvier this year.
Juliet Hockman:Oh, they're amazing.
Alex Larson:I love this change in just what we're seeing in.
Juliet Hockman:I know we are no longer looking at Nadia combination.
Juliet Hockman:Right.
Juliet Hockman:We're looking at Simon Biles, who is in her twenties, actually late twenties now.
Juliet Hockman:And all of those athletes appear to be in their twenties, older, stronger, just, oh, so much better than it was.
Juliet Hockman:And I think that's a lot to do with increased nutrition and less sort of premium put on how they looked watching these little girls throw themselves around the gym.
Juliet Hockman:So I was really encouraged by that, too.
Maya Watson:Yeah.
Alex Larson:Okay.
Alex Larson:I think we totally diverted there, Jeff.
Alex Larson:I don't remember what the original question was.
Speaker C:I mean, I'm happy to.
Speaker C:I'm happy to.
Speaker C:I'm not going to disagree.
Speaker C:I think that if we look across the track and field sports, you're right, there's.
Speaker C:If we look across weightlifting, we look across different sports, but if we bring it back to middle distance, if we bring it back to high jump pole vault, the men and women look the same.
Speaker C:They're very lean, they're very small, and there's literature to show that there's a reason for that.
Speaker C:So I bring it back to the question, which is athletes who see that, who then look at themselves in the mirror and think, oh, I need to look like that to be.
Speaker C:To do better.
Speaker C:How do you most get that question all the time?
Alex Larson:I do.
Alex Larson:Yeah.
Alex Larson:A good chunk of our efforts.
Speaker C:What do you do?
Alex Larson:Yes.
Alex Larson:So, formerly, I used to be like, let's just focus on fueling you better, fueling your performance, and see if it's, like, just a byproduct.
Alex Larson:That's where I originally was in my mindset around it.
Alex Larson:But over the past year and a half, I have had a shift, and in part because I get it.
Alex Larson:As a mom of three kids, now I'm on my own little body composition journey, no longer planning on ever getting pregnant again in my life, thank God.
Alex Larson:And I'm like, okay, now I'm, like, in this whole new phase where I'm like, I'm not gonna have this pregnancy break.
Alex Larson:I'm gonna have to take.
Alex Larson:I want to get back into a level of fitness.
Alex Larson:I have some, like, athletic goals for myself.
Alex Larson:Like, I want to return back to that.
Alex Larson:And so I'm on this body composition goal, and I can do that.
Alex Larson:Like, I want to honor that for other people as well who have that interest.
Alex Larson:However, if they come to me and they say, hey, Alex, I want to lose some weight, I'm going to ask some questions and make sure that we can, one do this in the healthiest way possible.
Alex Larson:Understanding.
Alex Larson:Okay.
Alex Larson:When you say you want to lose some weight or you want to get leaner, do you have some numbers in mind?
Alex Larson:Where are you at right now?
Alex Larson:What's your weight history been over your lifetime?
Alex Larson:Do you have a history of eating disorders?
Alex Larson:What's your current relationship with food?
Alex Larson:What's your current relationship with your body?
Alex Larson:What's your training like right now?
Alex Larson:What are what you have coming up for a race schedule?
Alex Larson:I'm going to ask a lot of questions so that I understand.
Alex Larson:Okay.
Alex Larson:Is this weight goal realistic for this person?
Alex Larson:Is our timeline realistic?
Alex Larson:Are they prepared to do this the right and healthy way in slow and steady body composition changes over time so that we can prevent low energy availability, we can prevent reds, we can prevent immune function being compromised.
Alex Larson:Because I find it's not necessarily just body fat percentage influence.
Alex Larson:I find low energy availability also can impact immune health.
Alex Larson:I want to keep people, like, being able to still function as a normal human being, go for their long run on Saturday and still have energy the rest of the day.
Alex Larson:I want them to prevent being injured.
Alex Larson:I want to do everything that I can for them to succeed, and most importantly, create an eating pattern for them that is sustainable.
Alex Larson:Like it's.
Alex Larson:This is not like a quick, fixed, restrictive diet kind of thing.
Alex Larson:This is something that we can create them to just eat better, feel better, and as just part of the process, they're seeing their body composition improve.
Speaker C:Yeah, I think the sustainability part is huge.
Speaker C:It should never be about losing weight for an event or just about losing weight so that you can perform for something.
Speaker C:I think it needs to be more of a long term process.
Speaker C:Like, when you say a timeline, what kind of timeline do you look at for a healthy weight loss?
Alex Larson:Yeah, so I've had some athletes that, like, will come to me in May, and they've got iron man Chattanooga at the end of September, and they're like, I want to lose 15 pounds by the time chet nugget comes.
Alex Larson:I'm like, I don't know if I can get you there.
Alex Larson:That sounds like some pretty rapid weight loss.
Alex Larson:I can't guarantee you those types of results, but we can maybe shoot for half of that.
Alex Larson:And then after your race, you can work in the off season on the rest of that.
Alex Larson:And that's what ended up happening with that particular athlete or other times.
Alex Larson:We have athletes who really do well in the program and they see 20 pounds weight loss in four or five months.
Alex Larson:We've got a couple that are graduating right now.
Alex Larson: have a cyclist that he's down: Alex Larson:Great.
Alex Larson:Like, we're so excited for them and very seamless process with them.
Alex Larson:No issues with low energy availability, like potential for reds.
Alex Larson:We have those situations where we see really great success, but on average, like one to two pounds is the typical recommended based off of research safe weight loss.
Alex Larson:Sometimes we'll see.
Juliet Hockman:Per month.
Juliet Hockman:Per week.
Alex Larson:Per week would be the fastest that we would want to see weight come down.
Alex Larson:Sometimes we'll see half a pound a week or, like, with women.
Alex Larson:This is what I find even with myself, is based off my cycle.
Alex Larson:Like, in that luteal phase, the weight loss will, like plateau, and then as soon as I get into my follicular phase, the weight will drop down two pounds, like within a couple days.
Speaker C:And water thing.
Alex Larson:Yeah, it's just a water fluctuation thing.
Alex Larson:And so you have to work with that too.
Alex Larson:With female athletes in their cycle as well.
Speaker C:Does it matter if the athlete is coming to significantly more overweight?
Speaker C:If an athlete has a higher body fat percentage, is more overweight, can you tolerate a larger weight loss early?
Alex Larson:What we might expect to see is maybe initially they see the weight come down a little bit quicker and then it'll steady out a little bit more consistently.
Alex Larson:I had one athlete who lost about 22, 23 pounds, and she wasn't even really weighing herself.
Alex Larson:She just knew that she was losing weight because her clothes were fitting differently and she was having to go down sizes and clothing.
Alex Larson:And then eventually she went to the doctor and actually got weighed in and she was like, oh, wow, I've actually lost, you know, 22 pounds.
Alex Larson:And for her, it was pretty steady.
Alex Larson:But she really revamped her diet within a couple months and built some nice consistency with that.
Alex Larson:That's the thing.
Alex Larson:You got to put in the work in order to see those results, too.
Alex Larson:You have to be in that mindset of, okay, yeah, I'm ready to make some changes with my nutrition.
Alex Larson:I'm ready to put in that commitment to myself.
Alex Larson:And we do tend to see a really nice transformation for the them.
Juliet Hockman:Yeah, eating healthy definitely takes a lot of work and a lot of preparation and a lot of logistics.
Alex Larson:It is, especially initially.
Alex Larson:The change initially can be very difficult.
Alex Larson:But what I, when they practice it over and over, over time, it gets easier, 100%.
Alex Larson:And then it doesn't feel like as much work, but you have to go through that zone of suck initially.
Alex Larson:Yeah, a lot of planning feels like you're putting a lot more thought and planning and work into it.
Alex Larson:But once it starts to feel routine, that's when the magic really happens.
Juliet Hockman:Yeah.
Juliet Hockman:100% do require that your athletes who have stated weight loss goals come to you with certain testing, like body fat percentages, what you're working with upfront so you can track the data as you move along.
Alex Larson:Some of them do come with that, some of them do not.
Alex Larson:I'm very open to what works for them.
Alex Larson:Cause sometimes I feel like we get too focused on the numbers and it can be really harmful to their mental health.
Alex Larson:Like, I have athletes who are, they're like, weighing themselves like multiple times a.
Alex Larson:I'm like, okay, this is not healthy.
Alex Larson:You are basing your mood on what the number says, and that's not fair to you.
Alex Larson:So we'll make some good food behaviors and you just feeling good and celebrating that before we actually focus on any numbers.
Alex Larson:So sometimes we'll have athletes that will have had a Dexa scan or an in body test, or they have a Garmin scale with that says all the stats in the body fat percentage.
Alex Larson:And so.
Alex Larson:So we see a wide variety, and I don't have a set rule of what we expect from them.
Speaker C:I want to get to those ways of measuring body fat, but I just had one more question, and that was, if the athlete is smart about how they're doing this, about how they're changing their body composition, does it always.
Speaker C:The way the literature suggests, does it always translate into performance improvements in your experience?
Alex Larson:I don't know if I'd say always because there's a lot of factors that go into performance, but general, yes.
Alex Larson:Most will see improvements in just the how, like how much easier the workout feels because they don't have to.
Alex Larson:And we try very hard to make sure that we preserve the muscle and strength, because when athletes come to me and they say, I want to lose weight, I'm like, okay, what you really mean is you want to lose the excess body fat and you want to maintain the muscle and strength.
Alex Larson:We don't want to see their power drop and watts on the bike or something like that.
Alex Larson:So, typically, yes, we will see performance improvements, but it also depends on, okay, how are they training?
Alex Larson:Sometimes their coaches are over training them, and we have to talk with them about, hey, we need you to take some rest days and recoveries.
Alex Larson:Every situation we see is unique.
Alex Larson:So I can't say always, but I would say most of the time, we see performance improvements, which you have.
Alex Larson:I know you, right.
Speaker C:So I'm going to bring my n of one.
Speaker C:I mentioned the athlete, and that was me.
Speaker C:I decided that I felt like I was racing against people who looked different than I did.
Speaker C:And it's not like I was overweight by any stretch.
Speaker C:But in a discussion with my coach, the point came up of one of the ways that I could potentially improve performance was to change my body composition.
Speaker C:And so I made the decision to work with Alex.
Speaker C:Actually, one of.
Speaker C:I like to call her Alex's minion.
Alex Larson:So I have a team, and I have Hannah and Mary on my team.
Alex Larson:And because, Jeff, you and I have a friendship, I felt it would be best for you to work with Mary on my team.
Speaker C:Right.
Alex Larson:That way, it just.
Alex Larson:It felt better for you to work with her.
Speaker C:Great.
Speaker C:I got to meet now.
Speaker C:So now I know Mary as well.
Speaker C:So it's been a very successful relationship in that I lost ten pounds of pretty much body fat, and my performance has definitely.
Speaker C:It's not like I'm significantly faster, but like you say, everything's easier.
Speaker C:And as I told my, my wife was like, well, I don't get it.
Speaker C:Like, why?
Speaker C:And I said, just imagine you have a backpack of books you're carrying that's ten pounds, and then you put that backpack down.
Speaker C:You know how much easier it is to go upstairs?
Speaker C:That's how I feel.
Speaker C:I feel like my running is that much easier because I'm carrying around ten pounds less and pills, obviously.
Alex Larson:Would you say, do you have a pace difference that you've noticed over the past few months since, like, August?
Speaker C:I will say that I raced.
Speaker C:I raced tri cities, which was ten pounds lighter than.
Speaker C:I raised a 70.3.
Speaker C:I raised that 110 pounds lighter than Oregon.
Speaker C:I guess the half marathon there was pretty similar.
Juliet Hockman:They're very similar.
Juliet Hockman:Yeah.
Juliet Hockman:So for people who don't, that's about a two month difference between 70.3 Oregon and 70.3 Washington.
Juliet Hockman:And the run courses are, I would say, identical.
Juliet Hockman:They're flat and fast.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So I run the same, but the bike course was significantly harder in tri cities.
Speaker C:So I would consider that having run better, because the Oregon bike course was not as difficult as the tri cities bike course, and I had similar bike splits.
Speaker C:I think I was a little bit faster in Oregon, not much.
Speaker C:And then I ran about the same time at both races.
Speaker C:And so I feel like my overall performance was better at tri cities because it was a much harder bike course.
Speaker C:And I did.
Speaker C:So I was able to hit those hills at tri cities much easily because I weighed less, and then I was able to run quite efficiently and quite effectively.
Speaker C:So overall, I feel like my performance did improve with a different body composition, and I'm looking forward to see how it goes in worlds in December, which was really my target race for doing this in the first place.
Speaker C:So that's.
Speaker C:And then after that, of course, it's the holiday season, and we'll see how sustainable it is.
Speaker A:I was going to say, I know.
Juliet Hockman:That, Jeff, you've always had this sort of periodicity, annual periodicity of your weight.
Juliet Hockman:Right.
Juliet Hockman:And at Christmas time, you find that extra challenge of the wine and the cheese and the crackers.
Speaker C:I've already started those conversations with Mary.
Alex Larson:That's like, Mary and I both love candy corn.
Alex Larson:I know that's like a love it or hate it, like, I know we love, like, carb loading our athletes with candy corn.
Speaker C:I want to make sure we cover something important in the remaining time that we have.
Speaker C:But just before we do that, I want to touch very quickly on the accuracy of the different ways of measuring body composition, because that was the second part of Justin's question.
Speaker C:So there are a variety of ways of doing this, and we found evidence in the literature that touched on all of these.
Speaker C:The oldest way of doing this was just measuring skin folds with calipers.
Speaker C:That is.
Speaker C:I don't even know if that's done anymore.
Speaker C:It probably is done in some places.
Speaker C:It's very low tech.
Speaker C:They basically measure the thickness of the skin folds, I think, in six or seven different places on the body.
Speaker C:And they have these calculations that help determine what body fat is.
Speaker C:Essentially.
Speaker C:It's completely unreliable.
Speaker C:It was the only way that they used to have to do it.
Alex Larson:Traumatizing to have done.
Juliet Hockman:Yeah, I remember we did that round for the Olympics.
Juliet Hockman:It was just like, oh, God.
Juliet Hockman:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:It's not.
Speaker C:It's not great.
Speaker C:Anyways.
Speaker C:Don't do it.
Speaker C:It's not worth it.
Speaker C:It's traumatizing, and it's not very accurate.
Speaker C:So don't do it.
Juliet Hockman:It's plus or -7% or something like that.
Juliet Hockman:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:Another way of doing it is something called a body pod, which I'm not familiar with, but basically it's.
Speaker C:It uses, like, air displacement and hydrostatic.
Speaker C:I don't even.
Speaker C:It's a prop.
Juliet Hockman:I've done it.
Speaker C:Proprietary technology.
Speaker C:Oh, so, yeah, bod pod.
Juliet Hockman:It's funny, you step into this spaceship looking like thing, and they do all of this stuff with air and water, and bang, you come out with a number.
Juliet Hockman:Anyway, it was interesting.
Speaker C:It's fast, it's easy, it's very nice.
Speaker C:There are some downsides to it.
Speaker C:It's not particularly accurate.
Speaker C:It can be claustrophobic for some people, and it doesn't give you much in the way of regional body composition.
Speaker C:It just gives you a total number.
Speaker C:So it's not bad in terms of its accuracy.
Speaker C:It's just.
Speaker C:It's not great.
Speaker C:And it does have some downsides.
Speaker C:The scales that you mentioned, Alex, a little earlier, the Garmin scale, I have one of them as well.
Speaker C:I have the withing scale.
Speaker C:They use bioimpedance.
Speaker C:Basically, you put your feet on either side of the scale.
Speaker C:There's a very small current that's passed through your body, and then a calculation is made to determine the resistance to that current in order to determine how much water, how much fat, and the problem is those scales, depending on how much lean mass you have, they can be wildly inaccurate.
Speaker C:Now, some of the scales have a way to change the calculation.
Speaker C:If you are at an athlete, they don't determine what that, they don't define what that is.
Speaker C:But basically, supposedly, if your lean mass is higher than a certain amount, you should make sure that your scale is calculating you as an athlete.
Speaker C:But the problem is, how do you know what your lean mass is if you're using the scale to determine that?
Speaker C:So the long and the short of it is, I was using my withing scale and it was calculating these wild body fat percentages, and then I turned it onto the athlete mode when I found out it had it, and suddenly I was getting numbers that made a lot more sense.
Speaker C:So they can be.
Speaker C:They're still not crazy accurate, but they're useful for tracking because the inaccuracy tends to be the same over time.
Alex Larson:Consistent.
Jeff Sankoff:Yeah.
Speaker C:Consistently inaccurate.
Speaker C:So if you want to track, the scales are useful for tracking, but the actual number you're getting is probably limited value.
Speaker C:And then finally, the DeXa scan is the most accurate way.
Speaker C:It is something like 98, 99% accurate.
Speaker C:So it is a very accurate means.
Speaker C:The downside is it uses radiation, low power x rays, in order to determine what's going on.
Speaker C:It is also less accurate if you have very low body fat percentage because it has a harder time discriminating the body fat from lean mass.
Speaker C:But for most people, anywhere between ten to 10% and up, or I think it's 12% and up body fat, then you will get very accurate numbers from a Dexa scan.
Speaker C:It's probably not something you want to be doing repeatedly because they cost a lot, because there is still.
Speaker C:Even though it's low, it's.
Speaker C:There is still radiation.
Speaker C:The Dexa scan was something that used to be done for bone mineralization.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:It was a bone density thing.
Speaker C:And now, as always happens in a capitalistic healthcare system, they figured out another thing to make money off of it.
Speaker C:And so it's.
Speaker C:It's being used for body fat.
Speaker C:It's marketed pretty aggressively for that.
Speaker C:And I would tell people there's.
Speaker C:Unless this is something you're like, like Alex says, weighing yourself twice a day.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Do you really need to have a Dexa scan every five weeks or so?
Speaker C:Probably not.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:I do want to move to.
Speaker C:I wanted to spend the rest of the time we have available to answer two really important questions for coaches.
Speaker C:Juliet and I both work with a lot of athletes, and we have athletes who come to us not infrequently, and ask the question, should I lose weight?
Speaker C:So that is a fraught conversation to have as a coach, especially if you're not trained like you are.
Speaker C:Alex, as a nutritionist, I feel like as a physician, I actually have some knowledge in this area and some expertise that I can help my athletes with.
Speaker C:But I have been very wary of engaging in this conversation with my female athletes.
Speaker C:I'm much more open to discussing it with my male athletes.
Speaker C:And I wonder if that's not the correct approach, because I've had some female athletes come to me who I know the answer to the question is yes.
Speaker C:Not just for performance, but also for health reasons.
Speaker C:It would be beneficial to lose some weight, and I could probably help you to a certain degree, but I'm wary to have the conversation.
Speaker C:So what's your advice to coaches, both men like me, women like Juliet, who have athletes who come to them with that conversation so that they can best help their athletes and avoid the pitfalls that you have alluded to already?
Speaker C:Yeah, right.
Alex Larson:I've had some athletes come to us and they say, hey, my coach really wants me on race day to be x number of pounds.
Alex Larson:That's what they really want me to be on, on race day.
Alex Larson:And I'm like, where did that number even come from?
Alex Larson:It's.
Alex Larson:They literally just pulled it out of their butt.
Alex Larson:I'm like, that just makes me really frustrated that they're doing that, especially because we had to explain to them, in order for you to be that number on race day, we would have to have you be like five, six pounds below that, because when we carb load you, you're going to see some water retention.
Speaker C:And so I think the three of us will agree that it is wholly inappropriate for.
Alex Larson:So inappropriate.
Speaker C:And if you're an athlete, so that's my athlete list.
Speaker C:If you're an athlete listening to this and you have a coach who's stipulating a race weight, you need to reevaluate that.
Speaker C:You need to have a conversation with your coach.
Juliet Hockman:And by the way, this is across.
Juliet Hockman:This is from high school right up through through age grouping.
Juliet Hockman:No coach should be giving you a number that is not professional.
Alex Larson:Yeah.
Speaker C:I want to also say, in my experience with my coach, when we talked about weight, the conversation was couched as you, Jeff, are a 57 year old man.
Speaker C:I'm pretty comfortable having this conversation with you because I know you're not going to have an eating disorder kind of response to my having this conversation with you.
Speaker C:And the conversation was, was, I don't need you to lose weight.
Speaker C:The conversation was, have you ever considered changing the way you eat in order to change your body composition?
Speaker C:Which I think is a reasonable way for a coach to approach that conversation with an athlete.
Speaker C:But my interest in the, in this specific and asking you this, Alex, is, what do we, as coaches do when an athlete comes to us?
Alex Larson:Yeah, I would say, do you, are you, do you want to lose some weight?
Alex Larson:Where are your thoughts on it?
Alex Larson:I would put it back on them and see where they're at, because if it's on their mind, if it's something they're interested in, then I would refer them out to a sports dietitian to work on that.
Alex Larson:There are some sports dietitians that aren't even really touching body composition.
Alex Larson:And I think that's unfortunate because I feel like it's our job to help these athletes navigate this while they're training, to do it in the healthiest way possible.
Juliet Hockman:No, I appreciate that response, because I certainly, I've seen sports dietitians, certainly, who don't touch the body composition piece and are focused completely on fueling performance.
Juliet Hockman:And that's great.
Juliet Hockman:But as Jeff says, there are some athletes out there who could probably perform better if they shed a little bit of weight.
Alex Larson:And also, I don't work with athletes that have eating disorders.
Alex Larson:Like, if they have an active eating disorder, I refer them out to a sports scientist that is experienced in that area.
Alex Larson:I don't.
Alex Larson:Also, I don't work with youth athletes.
Alex Larson:So now, part of my application, I ask, are you 18 years or older?
Alex Larson:Because if they check, no, then I'm like, you're getting sent off to a dietitian that does work with you.
Alex Larson:I have a very specific type of athlete that we like to work with.
Alex Larson:And if you're not the right fit for me, then it's just like this gut feeling.
Alex Larson:It doesn't feel like something that we can be, like, the best fit for.
Alex Larson:So I will usually refer out to other dietitians, but if you're an adult, you're looking to improve performance, you're struggling with things, maybe energy levels, or maybe you're training more than ever and you're feeling like you're eating well, but you're seeing the scale go up.
Alex Larson:That's the time to come and have us help you navigate that and create an eating pattern that's very sustainable for you, that's personalized to your unique lifestyle so that you can feel your best, train well, stay healthy, and feel strong and lean.
Juliet Hockman:I think I've had a lot of.
Juliet Hockman:I've had so many different experiences with.
Alex Larson:This as a coach.
Juliet Hockman:I have, athletes come to me, and part of their triathlon journey or their endurance journey is about losing the weight.
Juliet Hockman:Like they.
Alex Larson:Yeah, that's why they got into it.
Juliet Hockman:Yeah, that's why they got into it.
Juliet Hockman:They started to run, or then now they're riding on biking and swimming.
Juliet Hockman:And I respect that.
Juliet Hockman:I mean, good for them.
Juliet Hockman:Like, they're really trying to do something about this and make themselves healthier adults.
Juliet Hockman:And then I also have had athletes on absolutely the other end of the spectrum, where I've been the one to identify through just watching and listening and all that disordered eating and had to have that conversation with them about, we need to talk about this.
Juliet Hockman:Right.
Juliet Hockman:We need to.
Juliet Hockman:Really.
Juliet Hockman:Yeah, I'm not a.
Juliet Hockman:I can't help you with this, but you need to go and talk to somebody about this.
Juliet Hockman:Right.
Juliet Hockman:And then the third bucket, it is people who come to me who have been working through disordered eating for a long time, for years, and just managing that in an open conversation with them in terms of training and fueling, etcetera.
Juliet Hockman:And I do feel like sometimes I'm, oh, I could use a little help here.
Juliet Hockman:And I think the other piece, which I'm so happy you referred to as coaches, we can't see what they're eating morning, noon, at night.
Juliet Hockman:Right.
Juliet Hockman:And so we can give general advice or general thoughts, but to have someone who like you or people similar to you, who are really helping them track everything and creating healthy habits, that's much more than we can do.
Juliet Hockman:And so while it is an added expense, and some athletes can't always manage that all the way through their triathlon journey, I do feel, and I know that Jeff feels the same way.
Juliet Hockman:It's a great learning experience as an athlete to retain a dietitian for a block of time to learn how to do this, because a lot of times, I think even very smart, educated, bright adults are like, oh, it's different to.
Alex Larson:Fuel yourself as an athlete than it is just like an everyday person.
Alex Larson:You do have heightened needs.
Alex Larson:You do have to navigate timing of things to really optimize for performance, prevent GI issues.
Alex Larson:There's lots of different things that we have to navigate.
Alex Larson:And for us, I think of us as an investment, a short term investment with, like, long term gains.
Alex Larson:Right?
Alex Larson:Like, you're in this program for four, six, eight months somewhere in there.
Alex Larson:But our goal is always to get you to the point where you can do this on your own.
Alex Larson:Beyond our program, it's not a like, lifelong thing that you're in.
Alex Larson:Like, working with us if you're still with us in two years.
Alex Larson:Like, we suck at our job and we honestly, we don't want to work with you for that long.
Alex Larson:Like, we love you guys, but our goal is to provide you with the skills and tools and clarity and how to fuel for your lifestyle so you can have that with you for however long you want to do triathlon.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:That's awesome.
Speaker C:When you think about what people spend on tech and on gear and this is like an investment in yourself.
Speaker C:Yeah, some one.
Alex Larson:Instead of buying a new bike, let's first get your nutrition underway so then you can really just be.
Alex Larson:Be an absolute beast on that beast.
Juliet Hockman:That's right.
Alex Larson:Yeah.
Speaker C:Well, I want to thank you both for a very interesting conversation on a fraught topic.
Speaker C:And I want to take a moment to thank Justin again for submitting the question.
Speaker C:And if you have a question that you'd like for us to answer on the podcast, I hope that you'll send it in.
Speaker C:You can reach me by email at tri docloud.com.
Speaker C:or you could submit your question, as many have as I believe Justin submitted this one on the Tridoc podcast private Facebook group, which you can find on that platform by searching for Tri doc podcast answers the three easy questions.
Speaker C:If you're not already a member, we'll grant you admittance and you can join the conversation there.
Speaker C:Submit your questions if you have any comments about this particular segment, I hope that you will submit your comments there so that Alex, Juliet and I can answer them and see them and open up a conversation there about your thoughts on diet.
Alex Larson:Alex, are you in the Facebook group?
Alex Larson:And I was like, no, I'm not.
Alex Larson:So now I am.
Speaker C:She is.
Speaker C:Thank you both for being here.
Speaker C:And Juliette, I will see you again in a couple weeks for the next medical mailbag.
Speaker C:Alex.
Speaker C:I will have the link to Alex Larson nutrition, as well as to the trailer to her podcast in the show notes.
Speaker C:Thank you so much for being here again, Alex.
Speaker C:It's always a pleasure.
Alex Larson:Thank you.
Juliet Hockman:Thank you.
Speaker C:My guest on the podcast today is Maya Watson.
Speaker C:Maya is an aspiring professional triathlete who lives in Victoria, British Columbia.
Speaker C:She has burst onto the scene of the 70.3 circuit with overall wins at Victoria and Oregon this year, and she's looking to make her professional debut at a race in the near future.
Speaker C:Although she first needs to deal with some injury issues.
Speaker C:Currently she is working for Vinfast, the one of the major sponsors of Ironman, and she does so as an executive assistant to the corporate national sales team.
Speaker C:And in her former life, she ran cross country and track at McGill University, my very own alma mater that is found in Montreal, Quebec.
Speaker C:But for now, she is joining me from Victoria.
Speaker C:Maya, welcome to the Tri Doc podcast.
Speaker A:Hi.
Speaker A:Thank you for having me.
Speaker C:It's a pleasure.
Speaker C:Maya, you really have come on to the triathlon scene with a plum.
Speaker C:I got a a chance to race against you last October, where I want all the listeners to know I beat her by 2 seconds and it'll never happen again, but I'm going to forever keep that on my Palmyras that I beat Maya by 2 seconds.
Speaker C:It's a very exciting moment for me.
Speaker C:But Maya, you weren't always a triathlete.
Speaker C:This is a very kind of recent thing for you.
Speaker C:How did you get to multi sport?
Speaker A:I dabbled in it when I was about five, six years old because I came from a family of multi sport.
Speaker A:I remember doing the kids triathlons just here in Victoria, BC.
Speaker A:And growing up, I tried all the different sports, but I kept doing swim club on the side, and I always loved to run.
Speaker A:I was super competitive in all the local cross country meets by just starting it from a young age, I think I always had the skills in my back pocket, but I actually stopped triathlon probably when I was 13 because I didn't want to do swim club anymore and just continued to play soccer through high school and did a little bit of track and field.
Speaker A:And then I went to McGill University and I decided to walk onto the cross country team, or try to walk on, I should say, and just made the cut, honestly.
Speaker A:But I'm really grateful they did.
Speaker A:And I had an amazing four years running for the McGill track and cross country team and just focusing on single sport.
Speaker A:But where the triathlon comes into play is, as most young runners experience, they get injuries.
Speaker A:So I would text my dad, who's a coach, and say, what do I do now?
Speaker A:And he would write me a spin bike program, or he would tell me to go swim in the pool for 1, essentially.
Speaker A:And then every summer I would go home from university and he would put me on a triathlon program to get me all healthy, to go to school again in the fall and race cross country, where I would just get injured again.
Speaker C:It's really, it's a common theme.
Speaker C:I had a chance to talk to Tamara Jewett, who ran track at University of Toronto and was very successful, except that she continuously was getting injured.
Speaker C:Now, for her, a big part of her injuries were related to just nutrition and this seems to be a problem for a lot of female athletes.
Speaker C:They are pressured either by coaches or just internal.
Speaker C:Internal forces to think that they need to lose weight to be faster, that they don't eat well, and it leads to a lot of injuries.
Speaker C:Did you have that as part of the issue?
Speaker C:Do you think that led to injury or was it just running as injury prone?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:My very first year of school, I had a big jump in volume from high school, and that in conjunction with honestly being a first year student and not knowing how to manage my schedule, I was probably going out to party a little too much and not sleeping enough.
Speaker A:But in conjunction, we also didn't really have any awareness of nutrition when I came into university, and there was no one telling me what red s is in sports.
Speaker A:So I actually ended up in reds in my second year of university, pretty much just from lack of awareness of how to properly feel my body.
Speaker A:So that was a pretty tough awakening.
Speaker A:I remember burning out near the end of my.
Speaker A:The end of the year of my second track season.
Speaker A:Sorry, a bit of a war jumble there and just not really knowing what was going on.
Speaker A:I definitely.
Speaker A:In all honesty, I did struggle with some body image issues.
Speaker A:I gained some weight from the res food, and so I think there was a bit of a storm going on.
Speaker A:I probably started to think a little bit more about what I was eating, and then there was a bit of a lack of education on what it is.
Speaker A:So I probably did fall into the trap of less is more, the less is more mindset.
Speaker A:Whether that related to my injuries, I don't know.
Speaker A:Probably a bit.
Speaker A:I was in reds for only a short period of time before I had a bit of an awakening call one of the Uvic coaches.
Speaker A:So I came home during COVID to run, and I ran.
Speaker A:I trained with the Uvic team, that's University of Victoria, and the head coach there, she interviewed me, essentially, and was like, what is your BMI like?
Speaker A:Very straightforward.
Speaker A:And she was like, you are underweight.
Speaker A:I think you're in reds.
Speaker A:Like, here's a nutritionist, let's get you healthy.
Speaker A:And from there on, I just went up maybe a bit of a different story to Tamara Jewitt.
Speaker A:I maybe just made a lot of.
Speaker A:I just was dumb about it all, but also there was a lack of education around it.
Speaker C:Yeah, that's really interesting.
Speaker C:So the move to UVic.
Speaker C:So the coach at McGill manner woman men.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And I think it's just all too common that male coaches are not attuned enough to helping their female athletes avoid this problem.
Speaker C:I think there's so much, and that's not necessarily to disparage your coach, but rather just to say that male coaches, especially working with female athletes, are under so much scrutiny and under so much, there's so many lines that can be so easily crossed and get them into trouble.
Speaker C:And so I think that male coaches have become really scared of getting too invested with their female athletes and asking questions that could be construed as the wrong way.
Speaker C:And then you have a female coach who isn't burdened by any of that and feels immediately, hey, I'm just going to get cut right through the.
Speaker C:Cut to the chase as a coach myself, but as a physician, I don't feel encumbered, because in my regular job, I have to ask these questions all the time, and so it's easier.
Speaker C:I'm more comfortable asking those kinds of questions of my female athletes.
Speaker C:I don't work with any young female athletes like yourself, but if I did, I would always make menstrual history a huge component of training with them and making sure that we're getting adequate nutrition to keep a good menstrual calendar and things like that.
Speaker C:So I think it's really interesting that you point out that moving temporarily from a male coach to a female coach, she immediately saw the problem, immediately helped you fix it and raise awareness.
Speaker C:What would be.
Speaker A:Sorry.
Speaker A:I was gonna say, I was also willing.
Speaker A:I was ready.
Speaker A:I wanted to be healthy.
Speaker A:I just didn't really know what was going on.
Speaker C:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:No, that's huge.
Speaker C:Right?
Speaker A:Between people.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:And Tamara has been very honest about the fact that she had eating disorder, and she.
Speaker C:I think she started with disordered eating, and it went into a full fledged eating disorder.
Speaker C:And if you have an eating disorder, then the kind of approach your coach employed is not going to work.
Speaker C:But with you, obviously, you were the right person for it to work with.
Speaker C:So what would be your advice to other women who are in endurance sport, young women, and what would you say to someone like that, that you want to be sure they don't run into these problems?
Speaker A:Oh, that's a good question.
Speaker A:What I would have told probably my younger self is less is not more.
Speaker A:More is probably just enough.
Speaker A:Honestly, there's so many risks to under fuel, but essentially no risks to over fueling as an athlete.
Speaker A:And I also think just to be very mindful, not like intuitive eating, but while also being mindful of what your body actually needs.
Speaker A:And that's the approach I take.
Speaker A:Like, I listen to my cravings and what, yeah, like what I feel like, but I'm also.
Speaker A:If I just finished a four hour bike session and I'm not hungry, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna.
Speaker A:I'm gonna make myself eat something that's easy to eat.
Speaker A:So it's a balanced approach, and I think when you find that balanced approach, you find a lot of peace with fueling.
Speaker C:I like that.
Speaker C:I like that sort of thought process.
Speaker C:What would you advise coaches, especially male coaches, who are working with female athletes?
Speaker C:What sort of kernel of advice would you give them to either look out for or to help them feel more comfortable approaching their women athletes and be able to guide them?
Speaker A:I think being able to have conversations with the female athletes, but in a safe space, you never want to expose a single female athlete in front of other female athletes.
Speaker A:So I think if you have that conversation in a safe space, the woman might be able to be a little bit more vulnerable through what with what they're feeling or experiencing.
Speaker C:Yeah, it's so fraught.
Speaker A:That's how I would have reacted.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker C:Yeah, it's so fraught.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:It's such a fraught conversation because there are so many things to think about and how to approach it in a way that everybody's going to take it the right way, and I have it be a positive sort of conversation.
Speaker C:It's an ongoing challenge, I'm sure, for women in sport and for coaches all around.
Speaker A:Yeah, there's a lot more awareness now coming out.
Speaker A:We're not where we need to be.
Speaker A:But what I've seen a lot of shift in just the last five years.
Speaker C:You mentioned a little bit earlier your dad.
Speaker C:I think I want to spend a little bit of time just getting a sense of his impact on your early sporting success and your current success.
Speaker C:So for anybody who hasn't made the connection, Maya's dad is Lance Watson.
Speaker C:Lance Watson is, of course, the Olympic coach of Matt Sharp and Simon Whitfield, the gold medalist, the twice medalist, actually, from the Canadian Olympic team.
Speaker C:And he is also the owner and my boss at life sport coaching.
Speaker C:But how amazing is that to grow up with such an accomplished individual as your dad?
Speaker C:How did he inform your progress through endurance sport, and how is he informing your progress through triathlon?
Speaker A:So, growing up, my dad just wanted me to try all the different sports, and I really respect that.
Speaker A:He never told me from a young age that I need to be a triathlete.
Speaker A:Of course, he hinted that I would be a really good triathlete, but so I tried it.
Speaker A:I dabbled in it.
Speaker A:Like I said earlier, but my dad didn't really start playing a key part in my triathlete development until university.
Speaker A:Like I mentioned, when the.
Speaker A:I feel like the tables turned a little bit.
Speaker A:Instead of him putting me in sport, I was saying, hey, dad, can you please help me out with my training plan, with my injuries?
Speaker A:I just want to get healthy.
Speaker A: lon in, I think it was, like,: Speaker A:And he helped me.
Speaker A:He'll get me there.
Speaker A:And it was.
Speaker A:It was really special.
Speaker A:And he even came out and watched.
Speaker A:It was in Montreal.
Speaker A:It was the sprint world champs.
Speaker A: I think that was: Juliet Hockman:Yeah.
Speaker A:But, yeah, he came out and he supported me, and it was just amazing.
Speaker A:And that's when I really made the switch into multi sport, and that's when he really started actually being my coach.
Speaker A:And a lot of people always ask me, it's probably my most commonly received question is, what's it like having your dad as your coach?
Speaker A:And in my case, it's awesome.
Speaker A:He knows me, like, better than anyone else, to be honest.
Speaker A:And he's seen.
Speaker A:Been around me since I was literally born.
Speaker A:He's seen me at my lows.
Speaker A:He's seen me at my highs.
Speaker A:But why I think it really works is he really takes a holistic approach to coaching, or at least to my coaching.
Speaker A:And the way he schedules my year is very much so I can have balance in my year.
Speaker A:He encourages me to go on vacations.
Speaker A:He encourages me to have some fun.
Speaker A:But he also is my biggest supporter when it comes to training and racing.
Speaker A:And I always get really excited to text him after I nail a training session because he's the one who wrote it, right?
Speaker A:Yeah, it's awesome.
Speaker C:That's cool.
Speaker C:I had a conversation recently with Mark Cullen, who you said you had met previously, and one of the things I asked him was what it was like coaching his wife and whether or not that engenders any kind of conflict around the dinner table.
Speaker C:And are there ever times when, you know, coach Lance needs to call athlete Maya and say, hey, Maya, you slacked off in that workout.
Speaker C:I need you to pick it up a little bit.
Speaker C:And how does athlete Maya respond to coach Lance in those situations?
Speaker C:Coach Lance, who happens to be dad.
Speaker A:Coach dad.
Speaker A:That's what I call him.
Speaker A:I'll say, hey, coach dad.
Speaker A:I actually cannot remember the last.
Speaker A:And we had conflict around training, maybe when I was 14 years old and didn't want to go to swim club.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's really changed.
Speaker A:If anything, he is reeling me in a little bit.
Speaker A:I want to do more and he's, no, don't do that extra kilometer.
Speaker A:You don't need another swim this week.
Speaker A:That's the extent of it.
Speaker C:Yeah, that's great.
Speaker C:That's the kind of coaching relationship I think we should all aspire to.
Speaker A:I feel really lucky.
Speaker C:At this point in your career, what do you consider your strengths and what do you consider your weaknesses?
Speaker A:My strengths, as of recently has been biking.
Speaker A:I've put in a lot of work in the bike the last year, in part because of issues with injuries and running.
Speaker A:I've seen a really big jump in my power output across races.
Speaker A:I think when it comes to sports positives and weaknesses, my swim needs a lot of work.
Speaker A:Still to get to the professional level.
Speaker A:Level, I'm chipping away at it and I'm able to jump in with local swim groups here and it's been helping a ton.
Speaker A:Also, a weakness is definitely.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Like, my body hasn't adjusted to the volume training required to be a successful 70.3 athlete.
Speaker A:So I've been dealing with a lot of probably, like, biomechanical issues and little injuries here and there and I'm actually down with t band syndrome right now, so it's been pretty frustrating.
Speaker A:But, yeah, I'm lucky to have good people in my corner to help me stay positive, like my dad and my friends.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:What have been some of the kind of bigger stepping stones that have helped you get to where you are?
Speaker C:Everybody needs.
Speaker C:Obviously your dad's been a huge one.
Speaker C:Has there been anything else that's given you the push that helped you find the success?
Speaker A:Yeah, first of all, success in running that started at McGill.
Speaker A:I had a great coach named Luke Moran.
Speaker A:He's actually also triathlon coach, but he wasn't doing my triathlon coaching and he was an awesome mentor first years of school.
Speaker A:Kyla Rowlandson, coach in Quebec in Montreal, has been an amazing female coach supporter for me.
Speaker A:I was sad to leave her when I left Montreal and then recently I was put onto the that triathlon life development team and that has opened up a whole community of people for me that have been super supportive and Paul and Eric have been great mentors.
Speaker C:That's great.
Speaker C:And what are your aspirations for the future?
Speaker C:I know that you're champing at the bit to turn pro.
Speaker C:What are your kind of hopes and dreams for the short and medium term?
Speaker A:So short term hopes and dreams are to be able to just be healthy again and train it's been pretty tough right now, not being able to get on my bike at all or anything.
Speaker A:Medium term, definitely to switch to professional racing.
Speaker A:I feel excited and I feel ready to do that now.
Speaker A:I feel like I proved to myself in my Oregon performance that I'm ready to compete against those women.
Speaker A:So that's a really exciting prospect for me to train towards.
Speaker C:And do you think 70.3 is your sweet spot?
Speaker C:Is there any aspirations to race shorter or even longer?
Speaker A:I love shorter races.
Speaker A:I actually think I'm pretty talented at the standard distance.
Speaker A:Probably draft illegal.
Speaker A:Not draft legal.
Speaker A:Can't swim well enough for that.
Speaker A:But there's just less opportunities for that.
Speaker A:But I think it'd be fun to do St.
Speaker A:Anthony's.
Speaker A:Is it next year?
Speaker A:Also?
Speaker A:My body recovers better from that distance, at least at this age.
Speaker C:So, no.
Speaker C:No aspirations for the Olympics?
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:I gotta be realistic here.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:And then longer.
Speaker C:Would you ever consider an ironman?
Speaker A:Like, it's a.
Speaker A:It's a seed that's been planted in my brain and I'm super inspired by those athletes who can do an iron man.
Speaker A:And I would absolutely love to do one, one day.
Speaker A:My body needs to be able to handle even just 70.3 training at this point.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Yeah, maybe ask me again in five years.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:No.
Speaker C:Do you have any.
Speaker C:You mentioned Paula, but are there any other people in the pro ranks?
Speaker C:Obviously through your dad, you've probably got access to people.
Speaker C:Is there anybody that you have been speaking to or reaching out to as someone to, I don't know, plan your entry into the pro ranks?
Speaker C:I'm just.
Speaker C:When I think about turning pro, it's obviously something that I have, would never in a million years have been able to do.
Speaker C:And it's not something that's in my future, but I just imagine it's daunting going from a top age grouper to now.
Speaker C:It's a whole new world.
Speaker C:Have you reached out to anybody?
Speaker C:Are you talking to anyone who's trying to help you to navigate this?
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean, I have spoken a bit to Brent McMahon, who my dad coached, literally, Brent's entire career, and he's been super reassuring and helpful.
Speaker A:I've talked to Matt Sharp a little bit, too.
Speaker A:Just super positive guy.
Speaker A:A few of the athletes on the TTL development team are lovely.
Speaker A:A few of them, actually.
Speaker A:One woman just started her first year pro this year, so I've been picking.
Speaker A:I picked her brain a little bit on.
Speaker A:On it.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's daunting, but I'm excited and I'm okay with getting my ass kicked.
Speaker A:I think it's all part of the process.
Speaker C:Do you see this as a lot of people go pro knowing that they're just going to spend their career getting their ass kicked, but I don't see that in you.
Speaker C:I see you as somebody who aspires to be at the top.
Speaker C:So do you see this as at least a kind of short to moderate term like career?
Speaker C:Is this something you're going to invest in full time at some point, or do you think this will just be as long as it's fun?
Speaker C:I'm going to keep doing it.
Speaker A:I think with both of those mindsets, I'm not going to do triathlon unless it's fun.
Speaker A:That actually is probably my number one goal.
Speaker A:I'm like, this needs to be fun.
Speaker A:But I also am a pretty competitive driver person and I want to see where I can take it.
Speaker A:So I think the more success I have, which I hopefully will have, the more maybe life decisions I'll make to support the triathlon lifestyle.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I'm just seeing where he goes one step at a time right now.
Speaker C:And we've talked a lot about your dad, but I think we'd be remiss if we didn't mention the fact that your mom is also.
Speaker C:She was an elite runner.
Speaker C:Am I right in saying she ran for Canada in international competitions?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:She was the top runner in Canada for a decade.
Speaker C:Probably only a decade, and somehow I didn't know this.
Speaker A:So I don't have her genetics.
Speaker C:You've got.
Speaker C:You're coming from some pretty good genetics.
Speaker C:What's happened?
Speaker C:Like, how has she informed your training?
Speaker C:How has she informed your career?
Speaker A:Oh, my gosh.
Speaker A:My mom is like the most chill, easygoing woman ever, which maybe is counterintuitive to what you hear about a lot of professional female runners, but from.
Speaker A:From a young age, she's always just been ridiculously supportive of whatever I want to do.
Speaker A:I was a musical theater kid all through high school, and she was like, this is amazing.
Speaker A:Keep doing this.
Speaker A:She's been amazing.
Speaker A:Pivoting back to triathlon.
Speaker A:She's amazing with the psychological help with my injury right now, just being able to talk to her, she is so supportive and just.
Speaker A:She could completely empathize, right?
Speaker A:Because she's been through it all herself.
Speaker A:So she's.
Speaker A:Yeah, she's an amazing on the mental side, my dad probably does.
Speaker A:He has more of the coaching, the training structure, but my mom is like my built in therapist, honestly.
Speaker C:That's great.
Speaker C:That's good to have that so accessible.
Speaker C:I think most of us would be thrilled to have to be.
Speaker C:Most of us pay for that kind of stuff and you've just got it right in the house, so that's pretty nice.
Speaker A:I'm so grateful for it though.
Speaker A:I do not take it for granted.
Speaker A:Yeah, I feel really lucky.
Speaker C:So if all goes according to plantain plan, St.
Speaker C:Anthony's would be on your calendar potentially.
Speaker C:Do you have anything else planned or you're just gonna see how it goes?
Speaker A:If I do get another race in this year, it'll probably be at Indian Wells.
Speaker A:If I'm healthy.
Speaker A:Like the plan right now is just to get healthy and then choose a race.
Speaker A:In my back of my mind I'm like Indian Wells that's a few months away.
Speaker A: to do my pro debut at as well: Speaker A:I have no idea yet except for St.
Speaker A:Antis.
Speaker C:Awesome.
Speaker C:You got time.
Speaker C:You're all of 24 years old, so we can look forward to watching you for quite a while.
Speaker C:Maya, I can't thank you enough for being here.
Speaker C:It's been a lovely conversation.
Speaker C:I am very excited to see you in person.
Speaker C:I don't know when that will be, but hopefully sooner rather than later.
Speaker C:Maya Watson is an aspiring professional triathlete.
Speaker C:She has age group overall women's age group wins at Victoria and Oregon this year and we are all looking forward to seeing her back on course.
Speaker C:Hopefully I didn't do wells this December.
Speaker C:Maya, thanks again for being here on the Tri Doc podcast.
Speaker A:Thanks for having me.
Speaker A:It was so much fun.
Maya Watson:My name is Stephanie van Beber and I am a proud patreon supporter of the Tri doc podcast.
Maya Watson:The tri doc podcast is produced and edited by Jeff Sankoff along with his amazing interns Cosette Rhodes and Nina Takishima.
Maya Watson:You can find the show notes for everything discussed on the show today, as well as archives of previous episodes at www.tridocpodcast.com.
Maya Watson:do you have questions about any of the issues discussed on this episode or do you have a question for consideration to be answered on a future episode?
Maya Watson:Send Jeff an email@trycloud.com.
Maya Watson:dot if youre interested in coaching services, you really should please visit tridocoaching.com or lifesportcoaching.com where you can find a lot of information about Jeff and the services that he provides.
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Maya Watson:tridoc podcast the music heard at the beginning and the end of the show is radio by empty hours, and it's used with permission.
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Maya Watson:The tri doc podcast will be back again soon with another medical question and answer and another interview with someone in the world of multisport.
Maya Watson:Until then, train hard, train healthy.
