[Rebecca Dent]

Rebecca Dent on July 2, 2019 at 1:25 am · in reply to: Nutritional supplements for musculoskeletal injuries #24356

Hi Bruno,

Thanks for the feedback and for the call out.

In answer to your question there are indeed some nutritional supplements that have been proven to support/aid recovery from injuries involving tendon/ligament/general recovery these include;

Omega 3
Gelatine
Collagen
Curcumin
Tart cherry juice

Gelatine and collagen can both be helpful, but they exert similar effects so you don’t need to take both. Research has shown gelatine (an animal product made by boiling down the bones, connective tissue and tendons of animals and an ingredient often used in cooking as a setting agent) can help promote bone growth, increase collagen production, thickened cartilage and potentially decrease joint pain. Gelatine contains similar amino acids found in collagen.

I would suggest to take one or the other (gelatine or collagen) and allow approx. 8-10 weeks for them to take effect. Some supplements work acutely (start acting within a short space of time e.g. hours/days) but other works chronically (take longer to exert a change e.g. weeks/months).

Omega 3 fish oils may also be beneficial and again similar to collagen / gelatine require approx. 6-8weeks to have any benefit.

I would certainly get your vitamin D3 levels checked, keep up good hydration (helps improve blood flow to the sight of injury and clear away waste products from the injured site). Limit / avoid alcohol (shown to slow recovery from injury).

And as you are doing, supplements should be seen as an addition to any diet not an instead of, optimising dietary intake as you have noted is also key. I would improve your protein intake in the form of good quality food sources, such as meat, fish, dairy, tofu, quorn (as per your preference) and combine plant sources such as rice & lentils, beans & quinoa to optimise protein intake of plant foods. It may be worth a protein supplement such as whey, casein or pea (with added leucine in the pea protein) to ensure you are achieving daily requirements via good quality sources specific for muscle recovery / repair given you are 46yrs of age. I have mentioned BCAA in another forum question and at present the research does not support their use if you are already getting sufficient protein from food sources.

Foods high in anti-oxidants include green leafy veg, berries and all bright coloured fruit and veg but green leaf and berries have been shown to be superior. Also vitamin C rich foods are important for injury repair.

Curcumin is another nutritional supplement that has anti-inflammatory effects that may be beneficial but again it is important you purchase this in the correct form, take it at the right time and stay on this for at least 3months and remain on it for the longer term benefits.

I hope this answers your question?

If you would like more detail on dosage and supplements specific to you I would be happy to discuss this via a 30 min phone consult.
https://uphillathlete.com/coaching/ (bottom of the page to sign up).

Thanks

Rebecca

[Rebecca Dent]

Rebecca Dent on March 6, 2019 at 2:06 am · in reply to: Matt Fitzgerald "The Endurance Diet" #17566

Hi Sannk06,

With reference to your question regarding if nutrition guidance is different for middle aged menopausal women, generally speaking one of the main focus should be as we age is to ensure we carry out resistance based exercise to optimise body composition (supporting muscle mass gains and maintenance), increase protein intakes to meet your needs whilst also controlling for energy intake. If weight loss is your goal it is possible to lose body fat as we pass through the menopause, it just perhaps requires a little more focus on total energy intake and dietary composition. Due to hormonal changes with age there is a greater tendency to store body fat, especially around the waist.

[Rebecca Dent]

Rebecca Dent on March 6, 2019 at 1:50 am · in reply to: Matt Fitzgerald "The Endurance Diet" #17565

Hi be,

I am the dietitian for uphill athlete. The book you refer to by Matt Fitzgerald sounds like it has some sensible guidance and perhaps starting points for you. As Scott has highlighted dietary advice is individual but there are some general principles that everyone should follow and can follow regardless of dietary preference that will support both training, performance and health. These basics principles tend to be getting enough protein daily, eating sufficient protein at each meal from good quality protein choices, plenty of vegetables and fruit (particularly your green leafy veg and berries), including healthful fats (your poly and mono unsaturated fats and the right choice of saturated fats), starting each training session hydrated. We can then include carbohydrates as suits and required for the specific training session/sport/individual/training status/dietary goals etc.

Each different sport and disciplines within this sport will bring their own nutritional requirements. We are starting to see more research being carried out on elite ultra distance athletes but it is still a growing body of evidence and again as Scott highlighted we have seen many diets work. With these shorter distance running events, there is a significant body of evidence that supports an increase intake of carbohydrate at the right times for optimal performance. The Kenyan runners carry out a lot of their training sessions fasted but their staple intake is still carbohydrate.

There is never one straight forward answer to a nutrition question as lots of variables come into play to consider and also nutrition guidance needs to be provided within context for that individual, which is why it can often be so confusing. I would perhaps suggest start with the general nutrition guidance you have found helpful from Matt Fitzgeralds book then look at your own nutrition needs around your specific training sessions and goals.

[Rebecca Dent]

Rebecca Dent on February 25, 2019 at 10:55 am · in reply to: BCAA supplement, worth it, or just hype? #16992

Hi Sandrock06,

Im the dietician who’s teamed up with uphill athlete. In answer to your question there is no scientific evidence to support the use of BCAA post work out. Ive provided a link to a paper below that discusses the evidence; https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12970-017-0184-9.

What research has found, is that you can get all of the required amino acids/protein for building muscle and repair from protein rich foods in your diet (as you highlighted). It is about making sure you are eating the daily total intake of protein in your diet and eating sufficient protein in each of meals, spread out through out the day i.e. 3-5 meals (approx. 3-4hrs apart) containing approx. 20-30g of protein (this simply translates into breakfast, lunch, evening meal, post work out/and or pre bed). The research is now showing this is more important than the post work out ‘window of opportunity’. I do advize BCAA potentially for on the mountain if total energy intake / protein requirements are not going to be met but not always, however if you were to take them avoid the powder as BCAA powder does not taste very nice so opt for tablets instead. If you are looking for a protein supplement to help top up your protein intake as a convenient method or easy way to meet your daily protein requirements then I would firstly suggest a box standard stand alone whey protein. This can be purchased in expensively from reputable companies such as myprotein or optimum nutrition.

I hope that has answered your question?

Rebecca

[Rebecca Dent]

Rebecca Dent on December 6, 2018 at 5:56 am · in reply to: Carb intake based upon intensity #15139

Hi Curriespencer,

I’m the Dietitian for Uphill athlete and will try to give you an answer to your questions. What you will discover is, that when it comes to nutrition there is never a straight forward answer. I would tend to agree with Scott above, advise needs to be tailored to the individual and you will need to practice using the guidance to find what works best for you, your goals for body composition, training adaptations and the main event/s you are training for.

Firstly here are a couple of science papers to get your teeth stuck into;

‘Fuel for the work required’ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5889771/
Carbohydrate requirements during sport

‘Carbohydrate intake for training and competition’ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21660838

‘Toward a Common Understanding of Diet–Exercise Strategies to Manipulate Fuel Availability for Training and Competition Preparation in Endurance Sport’ https://journals.humankinetics.com/doi/abs/10.1123/ijsnem.2018-0289

‘Carbohydrate availability and exercise training adaptation: Too much of a good thing?’
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24942068

What you have proposed is 3 different nutrition goals you are trying to achieve which will all impact nutrition intake/requirements; *body weight loss, fat adaptation and understanding your own carbohydrate needs to support training adaptations (*weight loss is not the same as fat adaptation).

Looking at your data you have presented, you are utilising approx. 98g of carbohydrate per hour. When it comes to standard guidelines re carbohydrate intake per hour, the recommendations are 30g-90g per hour. You can absorb 1g of glucose per min but with glucose/fructose combined you can absorb approx. 1.26g/min because glucose and fructose have two separate absorption pathways. However it is not a direct translation of what you have used during training to what is required to ingest per hour. As your endurance training continues, what you would hope to see in your figures is a reduction in carbohydrate utilisation during an endurance session and an increase in fat usage (this is fat adaptation).

To enhance fat adaptation endurance training per se will aid this, but also carrying out zone 1 & zone 2 sessions fasted will optimise fat adaptation. You will find a great article on how to introduce fasted sessions on the uphill athlete website, I would advize reading these before you set out to do any fasted sessions. For high intensity sessions, zones 3 & 4 it is best to consume carbohydrate during these sessions because of the intensity you are training, depending on the intensity and duration on these sessions will influence carbohydrate requirements per hour. Zones 1 & 2 sessions not carried out fasted I would aim to introduce carbohydrate intake around 60-90mins into the session and start with 30g carbohydrate per hour, experiment with the recommended values and see how you get on.

To answer your question on Highly Branched Dextrin, it is a form of maltodextrin. The research on this shows that it has been shown to prolong blood glucose levels, it may reduce perceived rate of exertion during endurance training, it is faster absorbed by the gut and can also be better tolerated by those who may experience GI upset during training/event.

I hope this has answered your questions?

[Rebecca Dent]

Rebecca Dent on April 19, 2018 at 5:12 am · in reply to: How to change your diet while training? #9431

Hi Hafjell,

You are welcome, I am pleased you have found it helpful.

In answer to your questions:

1) Consume approx.30mins before bed.
2) Caesin protein shake (simply purchase a stand alone casein protein powder, myprotein is a reputable company, inexpensive and good quality. Casein is a slow release protein (a derivative of milk, similarly as is whey and both just like milk powders/food ingredients so certainly no detriments to health). Cheese would be an ok source because it will contain casein but research has shown that 30g of casein per se support muscle recovery overnight. Also if you chose to consume 30g of protein from cheese you would need to eat 120g of cheese and it would provide nearly approx. 480calories (if using cheddar cheese). For a 30g scoop of casein powder this only provides 117calories.
3) All kinds of nuts fine, yes by all means variety is key. Nut butters are great e.g. peanut/almond/cashew. Make sure the nut butter is a good quality one so no added sugar/palm oil/oils. The ingredients list on the nut butter should simply be nuts (and perhaps a little salt).

Thanks

Rebecca

[Rebecca Dent]

Rebecca Dent on April 18, 2018 at 2:32 am · in reply to: How to change your diet while training? #9420

Hi @debourgknecht1

I am the Dietitian for Uphill Athlete. I just wanted to try and answer your question and provide a bit more structure. I would try to keep this whole process of dietary change as straight forward and simple as you can.

From your initial post it sounds like you were simply just over eating on calories. When we are in a calorie surplus we can gain weight regardless of dietary composition. It is fantastic you have been trying to adjust your diet intake to match the energy demands of your training.

As others have highlighted we are all individual due to e.g. age, fitness level, training volume and load, sport, main event goal and these will all have an influence on diet composition.

When I start to work with any uphill athlete client when I provide custom nutrition plans I will reduce carbohydrate intake if I feel carb intake is higher than necessary to support adaptations to endurance training. I would reduce carb intake to around 150-200g / day that is approx. 2-3g/kg/bw of carbohydrate per day. Or more simply you can reduce your intake of carbohydrate on a day to day basis and just include carbohydrate in the one – two meals before a high intensity/strength/climbing session and in the meal following this session. I would also encourage carb intake in the meal/snack after a fasted session / long day on the hill. Some good tips to reduce carbohydrate is increase vegetable intake and swap portions of carbohydrate for lower carb starchy vegetables such as carrots/beets/parsnip/squash/pumpkin. This will still allow you to have a nice portion of food on your plate whilst reducing both energy and carbohydrate intake.

What is also important is to make sure you include a source of protein at every meal, post training and pre bed (as I think some one has also highlighted). Aim for approx. 25g of protein at each meal (1 x chicken breast, salmon steak, 40z steak etc) in recovery and 30g pre bed. Protein is the most satiating of macronutrients and this will not only help with muscle recovery but also help keep you feeling full and satisfied when we reduce any foods in our diet.

Eating fat will enhance fat oxidation but it is not a necessity to eat a high fat diet to improve performance, ultimately you need to do the endurance training to gain the physiological adaptations that will enable your body to burn more fat as a fuel source and obviously get better. Naturally when you reduce carbohydrate, to maintain weight you will increase fat intake. Increasing fat intake is absolutely fine but even eating lots of fat, if you are in an energy surplus this will cause weight gain (as you have discovered). You do not necessarily need to go all out on the low carb high fat diet to achieve your training and fitness goals, particularly if you are a climber I would certainly recommend including carbs around your climbing training and climbing performance.

Your plate at each meal should compose of:

– 1/2 full of vegetables (go for the green ones more so too e.g. spinach, kale, cabbage)
– 25g of protein
– A serving of healthy fats e.g. nuts/seeds/avocado/oily fish/olive oil/olives (you will also get some fat from your protein containing foods).
– A small portion of nutritious carbohydrate around high intensity exercise e.g. brown rice/sweet potato/quinoa/oats (portion size will depend on energy demands/type of next training session but go with approx. one fist size amount). You can replace for lower carb options e.g. veggies/beets/parsnip/squash at other meals.

Making these dietary changes you should also naturally start to feel a desirable adjustment in your body weight/body composition. If there is a goal weight you would like to achieve that is realistic for your climbing goal, then a safe weight loss strategy can be employed to get you to that race weight. As someone again has highlighted it is quite difficult to maintain race weight all of the time, therefore it is good to start to get used to your training weight/off season weight/racing weight variations. Our body weight adjusts naturally through out the year and it is understanding what and how brings about this change.

In terms of your recent body weight gain, It is unlikely you have gained this much muscle mass in 2weeks (if this is since your initial post). I agree with Scott above that due to the increase in carbs it may be additional weight from water (for every 1g of carbohydrate you store in your muscles you also store approx. 1g of water). You do also in fact need some fat in your diet so cutting it out completely is not perhaps the most ideal approach. However making drastic improved changes in your diet quality will certainly have had a positive impact on how you feel. I would need to take a look at your current diet intake and training plan to determine what is really going on and what are your specific dietary needs with out trying to guess.

I hope this has been helpful.

Rebecca