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How Tracking Your Food Can Help You Improve Performance...and Health!

9/29/2021

Here’s something I see way too often in the athlete community: most endurance athletes UNDER eat!
You read that right, the people who should be taking in quality food to ensure their bodies are getting what is needed to perform optimally are missing the mark. Instead of experiencing PRs and strong races, these athletes are dealing with fatigue and poor performance.

But maybe they aren’t even realizing they are undereating! I don’t blame them. In today’s world, we are often bombarded with messages of “eat less” so even when we think we are eating more, we aren’t simply because of some preconceived notions of what a meal should look like.

That is why today I want to talk to you about tracking your food.

Yes, it can be tedious and time consuming but tracking your food can reveal A LOT about your eating habits and how they are contributing to your performance outcomes. Essentially, you can’t manage what you don’t measure so it’s time to make food tracking a priority!

THE PROS AND CONS

Before diving into the WHAT AND HOW, let’s quickly talk about some of the pro’s and con’s of tracking your food.

I believe the most beneficial aspect of tracking your food is that you gain an awareness of your habits. Once you know what and how much you're eating (and potentially how you feel before and after meals, if you log that!) you can take action. No more wondering why you hit a wall during that long training block or why you were ravenous on a rest day. Tracking gives you data, and data is a wonderful thing - especially for athletes!

Related to awareness is the idea that people tend to improve their behaviors when they are being watched, even if it’s by themselves! How many times have you written down what you ate only to find yourself making better choices purely because you want to log those better choices? It’s an interesting psychological effect, but it works!

I also love that tracking your food is simple and gives you something to look back on. No need to spend excessive amounts of money on a fancy test or tool. A free app or a cheap notebook will do. Then, when you’re training for an event in the future, you can look back and see what helped and what didn’t.

TRACKING ISN’T ALWAYS THE BEST IDEA

Now we all know that most good things still have some negative consequences to them, and tracking your food is one of them.

Eating can be an emotional behavior and so tracking food can sometimes make someone obsessive. This is especially true if they are trying to stay within certain calorie and macronutrient ranges. As you’ll see below, this is why I think short-term tracking is more than enough to provide you with the information needed to make positive changes.

Also, unfortunately, it can be time consuming and tedious to track every meal and snack you eat. There are apps that help and ways to make it easier and quicker but the reality is you still need to take time out of your day to make sure you are logging your food in order to obtain accurate results that you can work off of.

GETTING STARTED WITH TRACKING YOUR FOOD

Before you start counting every calorie, let’s make sure you have an accurate idea of how much you should be consuming each day. Start by completing this online calculator. Do one calculation for your highest activity day and then one calculation for your rest day. This will help you better understand what your energy (aka - calorie!) requirements are based on your activity levels.

Once you have your numbers in place, it’s time to start logging your meals. There are two apps that I recommend to anyone wishing to track:

My Fitness Pal
Cronometer

Both of them are great and provide tools that make tracking easy! For example, you can save meals and recipes, import recipes from websites, manually enter recipes you’ve created, and even scan food products to enter information.

MACRONUTRIENT RATIOS

In the past, tracking caloric intake was usually all people focused on but as we got smarter about training, we realized that we needed to place an emphasis on macronutrients, not just calories.

Different macronutrient ratios are required for different goals. Most athletes need about 1g of protein per pound of lean tissue. This equates to somewhere around 20-30% of your daily caloric needs.

When it comes to fat and carbohydrates, those can shift depending on your performance and body composition goals. For example, if you are a lean athlete working on short but fast training and races (think sprinting), you’ll want to keep your fat intake on the lower end with carbohydrate intake on the higher end.
Whereas, if you are an athlete who trains and competes in longer distances (anything over 2 hours), you’ll want to focus on a higher fat intake with a moderate to low carbohydrate intake. A typical range for carbohydrate intake is 10-50% and for fat it is 30-70%.

IIFYM: NOT ALWAYS THE BEST IDEA

With the popularity of tracking macronutrients growing, many in the health space advocate for IIFYM: if it fits your macros.

Essentially the idea here is that regardless of what you eat, if it fits your macros, it’s good to go. That way, people have more flexibility with the QUALITY or TYPE of food that they eat. So, if a bag of doritos still fits within your daily macronutrient and caloric requirements, they are good to go.

If you know anything about me, you know that IIFYM won’t fly with me. The quality of our food DOES matter. For some reason we have been taught that if we exercise or train, we can eat whatever we want.

Sure, our caloric needs are likely higher but that doesn’t mean we should be scarfing down junk to fill those needs. Fueling your body to optimal wellness and performance is more about eating NUTRIENT rich foods in the right amounts, at the right times.

In my opinion, it’s not “I exercise so I can eat” but rather “I eat so I can exercise”. Focus on high quality foods that provide nutrients to fuel your body so that you can reach your goals.

(And don’t worry, that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy something here and there! But keep it to a minimum so that your body gets what it needs to perform).

To get a better understanding of your nutrient intake, I highly recommend using Chronometer as it will track micronutrient AND macronutrient intake. This will ultimately give you a better idea of what nutrients may be lacking in your body so that you can work towards improving those numbers with real food and/or supplements.

DAILY GOALS VS. TRAINING/RACE GOALS

As athletes, we understand that our day-to-day intake varies greatly from our training and race nutrition. You may eat a generally low carb, moderate protein, moderate fat diet day-to-day, but your training/racing fuel is likely mostly carbohydrate.

For this reason, my suggestion for you, during training season, is to track the meals and snacks you eat before and after training sessions but skip entering your training foods. This allows you to focus on meeting your daily requirements without stressing over the rest.

Now, this does come with a caveat. As you become more comfortable with tracking your food, you COULD choose to do what I do (if any of this goes over your head, it’s okay to skip it!):

Get an understanding of what your approximate calories burned is for a training session (ex: on a four-hour ride I burn somewhere around 3200 calories)
Calculate what your caloric intake is during your training session (ex: on the same four-hour ride, I take in approximately 200 calories/hour for a total of 800 calories consumed)
Calculate the difference between calories consumed and calories burned (ex: 3200-800 = 2400)
That number now becomes the amount of calories you need to replace/consume the remainder of the day. You can use that number in your tracker using your usual macronutrient ratios.

I do this because it allows me to track my calories on high volume training days to better understand how much energy I burned and need to replace. However, since I can and do replace some of those calories with carbohydrates DURING training sessions, tracking that food throws off the numbers in my tracker.

Go ahead and give this a try once you’re more comfortable using a tracker!

WHAT DO I DO IF TRACKING IS TOO MUCH FOR ME?

Everything I’ve written about so far in this post can be applied to anyone - athlete or not. But, as I’ve mentioned above, tracking food can take up a lot of time and cause stress in certain individuals.

It’s not for everyone!

But rather than feel like you don’t have a tool to use, I’d recommend you use a journal instead. The difference is that you focus on what you're eating and not the quantity of calories or macronutrients.
Food journals are better for two different types of people:

Those that are micro managers and who love to stress about every little thing. It may sound a little backwards but the reality is, food tracking will be too time consuming for you. By utilizing a food journal, you can get a general idea of what you're eating, and even general quantities, without forcing you to record every single morsel or calorie.
Those that are experiencing symptoms like bloating, acid reflux, body aches, pains that come and go, headaches, etc. In this case, a food journal is a great tool to help you tune into your body and learn about which foods help you feel energized (and without symptoms), and which ones leave you feeling flat and unwell.

IN SUMMARY

If you’re an athlete who hasn’t been seeing improvement in performance or have been struggling with your training (especially if you’re feeling a lot of fatigue), it’s a possibility that you are undereating. And the only way to know for sure is if you start tracking your food.

Now let’s be clear, despite the time-consuming nature of tracking your food, you can get a whole lot of information from just tracking your food for one week. And the same goes for those opting for a food journal rather than a meal tracking app.

The majority of what we eat on a weekly basis stays generally the same so one week of information can help you get an idea of your daily habits and allow you to understand:

Your caloric intake
You macronutrient intake + ratios
The connection between your eating habits and your performance
The connection between how you feel and what you’re eating (**if you notate your signs and symptoms while tracking your food**)

If you haven’t tried tracking your food once, my send away message is this: try it for one week and see what you learn!

Of course the long term goal is to learn what types of foods and in what amounts help you fuel your performance and your health WITHOUT food tracking, but it's certainly a tool to help you get there!

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The Salty Athlete: A Guide to Sodium for the Endurance Athlete

9/3/2021

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Most diets concentrate on the macronutrients: carbohydrates, fats and proteins. And for good reason, these are important. However, water, and the micronutrients it carries throughout our body, are equally, if not more important! The human body can survive for weeks without food, but only days without water. Just like our survival, our ability to function optimally depends more on hydration than it does on food.

Water plays a crucial role in nearly every bodily function and dehydration is the #1 reason for fatigue. Although water is not nearly as fun of a topic as sugars, fats, or proteins, it cannot be overlooked when aiming to reach optimal health!

As endurance athletes, we understand the importance of staying hydrated. But have you ever considered your sodium intake (and reabsorption) as a key factor to your hydration status?

In this article, I dive into what it means to be truly hydrated, the importance of sodium for the endurance athletes, and how to understand your sodium needs and how to meet those requirements.

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE TRULY HYDRATED

Before diving into sodium for training and race day, let’s go back to the beginning so we can cover what it means to be truly hydrated.

With water being the largest component of the human body, you can imagine how important its role is in obtaining optimal health. Water creates our bodily fluids which aid in digestion, blood circulation, circulation of nutrients, absorption, and regulation of body temperature. When our body fluid levels become depleted, we run the risk of dehydration.

Dehydration occurs when you use or lose more fluid than you take in, and your body doesn't have enough water and other fluids to carry out its normal functions.

Dehydration will:

reduce the rate at which fluids are absorbed from the intestines which can lead to bloating and/or nausea
reduce our physical and mental performance
increases our heart rate and body temperature
increases the rate of our perceived effort during exercise
in extreme cases, can create a loss of coordination and impair our ability to make decisions.

Typically, for athletes, the cause for so much fluid loss is sweating.
When we sweat, we not only lose water but we lose electrolytes as well and that includes sodium. While we may think that more water is what we need, an overabundance of water during training and racing can lead to hyponatremia.

Hyponatremia is a condition that occurs when the level of sodium in your blood becomes abnormally low. The over consumption of water causes a dilution of blood sodium levels. Symptoms of hyponatremia include:

Headache
Disorientation
Fatigue
Coma
death (in rare cases)

If these symptoms sound familiar, you’ve likely experienced some level of hyponatremia.

At the end of the day, to be truly hydrated you have to make sure you’re taking in an appropriate amount of fluid AND sodium!

Sodium is considered an essential electrolyte mineral (essential meaning you must get it from your diet rather than relying on your body to produce it). Along with other electrolytes, sodium helps regulate the body’s fluid balance (which also contributes to your blood pressure levels, another important marker athletes need to pay attention to).

Sodium promotes carbohydrate and water uptake in the intestines and reduces the volume of urine post exercise. Both sweat and blood contain high concentrations of sodium. Therefore, if you under-consume sodium, your body has no choice but to shrink your circulating blood volume to compensate.

Same is true if you are a heavy sweater. You will lose higher amounts of sodium, and run the risk of your blood volume decreasing if it is not replaced. This will result in lightheadedness, sluggishness, and potentially unconsciousness.

THE SALTY REALITY FOR ENDURANCE ATHLETES

Most of us have been told to minimize sodium intake. Since sodium has been associated with high blood pressure and cardiovascular events, the FDA recommends less than 2300 milligrams per day. But even FDA admits that overconsumption of sodium is typically the result of the overconsumption of packaged and prepared foods.

However, as endurance athletes, our sodium needs are typically higher. As previously mentioned, due to the nature of our sport, we can experience a higher level of sodium loss due to sweating, which means we need to prioritize replacing lost sodium to ensure our body is getting the required amount.

Although I personally believe that ALL athletes should be monitoring their blood pressure, those of us who have a history of hypertension, stroke, or heart disease should be particularly vigilant about monitoring your blood pressure. By monitoring your blood pressure regularly, you can dial in the appropriate sodium intake for your body.

Athletes’ needs for sodium vary greatly from the general population but they also vary greatly across athletes. This is because our sodium levels are impacted by concentration (i.e., how much sodium is present within sweat) and volume (i.e., the total amount of sweat).

According to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), athletes can lose up to 5g of sweat in a single high intensity workout! That’s a lot of sweat, and a lot of electrolytes lost (more than 2x the amount the FDA recommends we consume in a single day!).

And this is why taking in salt is crucial during training and race day. My general rule for athletes is to get an idea of their sweat rate by doing an at home sweat rate test (more on that below). Then, rather than forcing water down, athletes should drink to thirst, while keeping in mind that you need to get in as close to as much of the fluids that you lose, alongside sodium.

The ACSM recommends that athletes take in fluids that include sodium with a concentration of 0.5-0.7g/L.

So how does one make sure they are meeting their sodium requirements? Let’s get into that...

MEETING YOUR SODIUM NEED

As I already mentioned above, hydration and sodium needs vary across athletes. So step number one is finding out approximately how much water and sodium YOU need, personally.

The best way to learn your sweat rate is to get a sweat rate test completed in a lab. You can check out Precision Hydration to learn more about testing centers near you. They also offer an online questionnaire to help you dial in your specific sodium and hydration needs.

Lastly, and an option I suggest even if you get tested in a lab, is to perform an at home sweat rate test.

How to calculate your sweat rate:
1. Empty your bladder. Weigh yourself before exercise or sauna with minimal clothes on.
2. Perform moderate exercise or sauna for a given number of minutes (15-60). Keep track of the ounces of water consumed during this time.
3. After exercise or sauna, towel off the sweat and re-weigh yourself with minimal clothes on. Your weight loss reflects your fluid loss. For example, if you weighed 150 lbs to start, then weighed 148 pounds after 60 minutes of exercise, then your net weight loss (and therefore fluid loss) is 2 pounds (or 32 ounces fluid) per hour. This should be replaced (both water and minerals) within 2-6 hours after finishing exercise/sauna. If you consumed any water during the test, make sure to add that back into your calculation.

Once you know your personal sweat rate, here are some things you can do to ensure you are meeting your sodium needs:

Workouts less than an hour: in this case, there is no need to worry about consuming anything special DURING the training session. Instead, focus on consuming nutrient dense foods or just add a generous amount of unrefined sea salt to your post workout meal.
Workouts that are more than an hour: in these situations, it would be smart to ingest sodium. I believe that keeping electrolytes, fuel, and hydration separate is ideal. This way, if (and when!) conditions change on race day (ex: hotter than expected, more humid than planned for), you can adjust one or more of these things without affecting the other.

For electrolyte replacement during these training sessions, I recommend you stick to salt tablets. They are highly measurable which makes dosing so much easier (vs. salt licks which makes dosing very challenging as every lick is different). If you prefer to add sodium and other electrolytes directly to your water instead, the two brands of electrolyte tablets/powders that I trust are Nuun and Ultima.

If an all-in-one fuel is easier for you, there are many over-the-counter beverages to consider when trying to replace your calories, water and electrolyte loss during exercise. My personal favorite is Skratch. I have used both Skratch Hydration Mix and Skratch Superfuel and recommend them both, depending on the race situation. As mentioned before, you need to keep in mind that by using an all-in-one fuel, hydration, electrolyte mix, you lose control over increasing or decreasing one of those elements based on your particular needs in training or on race day. To prepare for this, I still recommend carrying electrolytes, fuel and water separately, or at least have them available in your special needs bag in case you need more of one but not the others.

It has been suggested that an electrolyte sports drink with a 4-6% concentration (4-6g carbohydrate/100mL of water) is optimal for proper absorption.

A HOMEMADE ELECTROLYTE RECIPE TO TRY

Want to save some money and make an electrolyte sports drink at home?

Try this:

1/4 cup fresh lemon or lime juice (or a combo)
1/2 cup organic cane sugar
1/2 tsp unrefined sea salt
64 ounces filter water

Combine all the ingredients in a large pitcher and stir until the sugar and salt have dissolved. This homemade sports drink mix makes four 16 ounce servicing. It provides a total of 100g of carbohydrate (5.2g CHO/100mL) and 1,050mg sodium (56mg/100mL) OR 25g CHO and 262mg of sodium per serving. Aim to consume 16 ounces per hour.

No matter what, the best thin you can do with this information is use your training as practice so that once you make it to race day, you know exactly what you need (AND have extra supplies on hand in case the conditions are different than expected).

HOW TO KNOW IF YOU NEED MORE OR LESS ELECTROLYTES IN TRAINING OR ON RACE DAY

You might be wondering what signs to look for when it comes to staying properly hydrated. First off, always be sure to come into a hard session or race well hydrated. That doesn't mean with coffee. That means drinking AT LEAST 16 ounces of water with a pinch of sea salt before your session, especially if you train in the early mornings.

During training or racing, start sipping your water or electrolyte drink immediately and drink at a rate that is comfortable.

If you feel nauseous, you likely have over-done electrolytes or under-done your water intake. Either way, the electrolytes in your belly need to be dilutes. At this point, consuming more PLAIN water may help.

If you feel sloshing of water in your belly, you have likely over consumed water and not taken on enough electrolytes. Consuming more electrolytes may help as they can pull the water from your belly into the tissues. In this case, I'd highly recommend taking your electrolytes in pill form as to avoid adding more fluids into the belly.

If you feel like things are all of sudden getting really hard, this can also be a sign that sodium is low. Consider more electrolytes (and maybe more calories too!).

Cramping can be caused from many different factors, including overworked muscles. From a hydration perspective, cramping can be from too little electrolytes and/or too little water. In this case, I would advise you to take a salt capsule and open it into your mouth. The body, especially your taste buds, have an amazing way of telling you what your body needs. If the salt tastes good, I would start by taking more electrolytes. If the salt burns your mouth or tastes bad to you, then you likely don't need more electrolytes and should consume more plain water.

MY PERSONAL ELECTROLYTE PLAN

While your plan may be different from mine, I thought sharing my approach would help you understand how to approach your own training and race day.

No matter how cold it is, I always take 1 Salt Stick Cap at the top of every hour during training or racing that is longer than 90 minutes. I have an alert set up on my watch to help me remember.

As the temperature and/or humidity rise, I consider more Salt Stick Caps. At Ironman Arizona in 2014, I took on 1 Salt Stick Cap every 15 minutes on the bike and every mile on the run. This resulted in 24 Salt Stick Caps on the bike and 25 Salt Stick Caps on the run, totaling 49 salt caps on race day (that’s 10,535 mg of sodium from the Salt Caps alone).

In hind-sight, this was a lot. I have done more testing since then and have found less sodium still does the trick and I chafe a lot less! But I never felt bad and finishing in 11:37 and in 17th place for my first ever Ironman wasn’t too shabby either.
The bottom line is I tested this amount over and over in training and I knew it worked for me.

TYING IT ALL TOGETHER

Staying hydrated is something that we all know, as athletes, is important. But now you should understand that true hydration is the result of maintaining an adequate level of electrolytes, mainly sodium.

With so much variability across athletes when it comes to sodium needs, performing a sweat rate test and constantly testing your personal sodium intake during training is the sure fire way to set you up for success on race day!

REFERENCES:

https://www.endurancesportsnutritionist.co.uk/sodium-guide-endurance-athlete/

Mountain SJ, Cheuvront SN, Lukaski HC. Sweat mineral element responses during 7 hours of exercise-heat stress. Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab. 2007. 17(6): 574-82

Buono MJ, Ball KD and Folkhorst FW. Sodium ion concentration vs sweat rate relationship in humans. J Appl Physiol. 2007. 103:990-4

https://www.fda.gov/food/nutrition-education-resources-materials/sodium-your-diet

https://journals.lww.com/acsmmsse/Fulltext/1996/10000/ACSM_Position_Stand__Exercise_and_Fluid.45.aspx

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22110105/

https://cjasn.asnjournals.org/content/2/1/151

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How Tracking Your Food Can Help You Improve Performance...and Health!

THE PROS AND CONS

TRACKING ISN’T ALWAYS THE BEST IDEA

GETTING STARTED WITH TRACKING YOUR FOOD

MACRONUTRIENT RATIOS

IIFYM: NOT ALWAYS THE BEST IDEA

DAILY GOALS VS. TRAINING/RACE GOALS

WHAT DO I DO IF TRACKING IS TOO MUCH FOR ME?

IN SUMMARY

The Salty Athlete: A Guide to Sodium for the Endurance Athlete

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE TRULY HYDRATED

THE SALTY REALITY FOR ENDURANCE ATHLETES

MEETING YOUR SODIUM NEED

A HOMEMADE ELECTROLYTE RECIPE TO TRY

MY PERSONAL ELECTROLYTE PLAN

TYING IT ALL TOGETHER

Author

Archives

Categories

Telephone

How Tracking Your Food Can Help You Improve Performance...and Health!

​THE PROS AND CONS

​TRACKING ISN’T ALWAYS THE BEST IDEA

​GETTING STARTED WITH TRACKING YOUR FOOD

MACRONUTRIENT RATIOS​

​IIFYM: NOT ALWAYS THE BEST IDEA

DAILY GOALS VS. TRAINING/RACE GOALS​

WHAT DO I DO IF TRACKING IS TOO MUCH FOR ME?​

​IN SUMMARY

The Salty Athlete: A Guide to Sodium for the Endurance Athlete

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE TRULY HYDRATED

THE SALTY REALITY FOR ENDURANCE ATHLETES

MEETING YOUR SODIUM NEED

A HOMEMADE ELECTROLYTE RECIPE TO TRY

MY PERSONAL ELECTROLYTE PLAN

TYING IT ALL TOGETHER

Author

Archives

Categories

Telephone

THE PROS AND CONS

TRACKING ISN’T ALWAYS THE BEST IDEA

GETTING STARTED WITH TRACKING YOUR FOOD

MACRONUTRIENT RATIOS

IIFYM: NOT ALWAYS THE BEST IDEA

DAILY GOALS VS. TRAINING/RACE GOALS

WHAT DO I DO IF TRACKING IS TOO MUCH FOR ME?

IN SUMMARY