So, what’s the deal?  What is sodium bicarbonate? How does it work? And is it something you should be looking at?

There’s a new supplement on the market from one of the big supplement companies that markets heavily to triathletes – bicarbonate aka bicarb of soda, baking soda or sodium bicarbonate.

Athletes within the Triathlon Nutrition Academy get to dive deep into this during the program, but I thought it was important to provide you with a quick summary – so you can make an informed decision on whether it’s worth the investment.

So, what’s the deal?  What is it? How does it work? And is it something you should be looking at?

Sodium Bicarbonate

Sodium bicarbonate is produced by the body and it's an integral component of our body's primary pH buffering system.

Also known as bicarb soda or baking soda – a white powder you buy from supermarkets, used in baking to help food rise.

Why would you use sodium bicarb to improve exercise performance?

To help answer that question, w...

Vitamins play many important roles in the body.

There are 13 essential vitamins our body needs for normal, healthy functioning.

Our body cannot make these itself (or cannot make enough of them) so, for the most part, we need to get them through our diet.

When vitamins are missing from the diet, poor health and illness can occur.

Vitamin C deficiency = Scurvy

Vitamin D deficiency = rickets

Calcium deficiency = porous, weak bones & teeth

You may be surprised to know vitamins are usually only needed in small amounts. Too much of some can cause symptoms or toxicity.

The 13 vitamins are:                      

• A
• B1    
• B2    
• B3  
• B5
• B6
• B7
• B9
• B12
• C
• D
• E
• K.

Wondering what happened to the missing letters? They were named in order, but later discovered that some weren’t vitamins, others were related to the B complex of vitamins so they got renamed.

Water Soluble Vitamins

There are 9 water soluble vitamins - the eight B-vitamins and vitamin C.

How do you taper for triathlon? How do you taper for Ironman? And how do you optimise your triathlon taper?

I hear lots of mixed messages when it comes to tapering for a triathlon race. You put all this effort into training, not tapering properly can have a massive impact on how you perform on race day.

Pro Triathlete and TriDot Coach, Elizabeth James, recently joined me on the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast. She generously shared her knowledge and experience from both the athlete and coaching perspectives.

Tapering is this progressive decrease in training load.

And we got into the details of how to do that and what that means.

• What is an exercise taper?

• A gradual reduction in the training load

• Why do you need to taper? Why is it so important for exercise performance?

• The gradual reduction provides for the physiological adaptation, or rest and recovery, that allows us to be ready for race day
• Tapering allows the body to really replenish and regulate itself
...

While the swim is the shortest component of a triathlon, it can be the make or break of your race.

Whether you are a natural swimmer or feel like you’re swimming in a washing machine, we can all benefit from improving our technique.

Ex-national swimmer turned swim coach, Brenton Ford of Effortless Swimming, helps everyday athletes like you and me become faster, more efficient swimmers.

He recently joined me on the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast where he answered all the questions I know you’d want asked and gave his very practical tips around becoming a confident, faster, more efficient swimmer and improving your race time in the swim.

What are the biggest mistakes triathletes makes when it comes to swim technique (and how do we fix them)?

When assessing someone’s swimming technique I’ll follow a structured order: Body, head, kick, rotation, arms, extremities and timing.

Often one of the biggest mistakes triathletes makes when it comes to their swim technique is body posi...

Dairy has got such a bad rep. Put your hand up if you avoid dairy.

It’s common for me to hear of athletes who avoid dairy.

There may be a clinical reason why you don’t tolerate dairy – a milk protein intolerance for example, which typically is diagnosed when you’re a baby. But unless you have an intolerance to dairy, you shouldn’t avoid it - it’s actually a really nutritious food.

• Milk is a great source of protein, carbohydrate and there is no added sugar in milk - unless you’re drinking chocolate milk!
• Milk is also a great source of calcium and other micro nutrients

Problems occur when you avoid dairy and use substitute milk alternatives – they are heavily processed, often don’t contain much protein, have added sugar, and no calcium unless fortified. Basically, expensive water.

So ask the question – are you actually intolerant to dairy, or are you avoiding it for the wrong reasons?

You might actually be lactose intolerant – undiagnosed – don’t tolerate normal milk.

60-70% ...

The question being asked today is “Is a low carbohydrate, high fat diet the future of endurance sport?” 

And to answer that I asked one of the sports nutrition greats, Professor Louise Burke OAM, to weigh in.

Louise Burke is an Australian Sports Dietitian with 40 years of experience. She worked at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) for thirty years, first as Head of Sports Nutrition and then as Chief of Nutrition Strategy and I was very fortunate to work under her during my fellowship at the AIS.

She has contributed over 350 papers in peer reviewed journals & book chapters and was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in 2009 for her contribution to sports nutrition. 

She is the Chair of Sports Nutrition in the Mary MacKillop Institute of Health Research at Australian Catholic University in Melbourne and leads their Supernova Project - high level research that produces quality answers to some of the critical questions in sports nutrition. Working with and studying enduranc...

Want to stay abreast of the trends in sports nutrition? 

Here are the 6 sports nutrition trends I’m seeing and my sports dietitian assessment of each.

TREND 1 - Blood Glucose Monitoring

You will have seen the pros wearing Blood Glucose Monitors in Kona last year. What are they? How do they work? And do you, as an age grouper triathlete need to monitor your blood glucose to improve your performance?

Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) devices typically consist of a small pager-like monitoring device that receives a signal from a sensor inserted into the subcutaneous layer. With their 1 - 5 minute measurement interval, they allow blood glucose concentration (BG) dynamics to be captured.

These devices are primarily designed for the use in type 1 and type 2 diabetic individuals to aid Blood Glucose regulation and are well studied in this cohort.

In particular, there is ongoing research to improve carbohydrate delivery and oxidation, resulting in less accumulation of carbohydrate i...

What is the supercharged zone? The supercharged zone is that sweet spot where training and nutrition intersect.

So many athletes smash themselves at training with no regard for how they're fuelling or recovering.

But we only adapt (i.e. get fitter and faster) from the sessions we recover from.

Indicators you haven’t unlocked your Supercharged Zone

• You struggle to get off the couch after big weekend sessions
• You crave sweet in the afternoons to get through the afternoon slump
• You fade towards the back end of tough sessions. Bonk long rides, fear of getting dropped
• By Friday you're exhausted and don't know how you're going to get through a big weekend of training
• You're tired and fatigued all the time but you're not sure how to fix it

If you resonate with any of these, chances are your nutrition is not right.

How to unlock your Supercharged Zone

1. You need to train
2. You need to eat to support that training

Key pillars to your success. In essence it’s simple ...

Ever wondered what you can achieve in just 12 short months to improve your overall health and performance?

Introducing our first Triathlon Nutrition Academy Alumni!

• Jill Gaudio
• Luis Franco Marin, and
• Jason Currie.

All have just finished 12 months of working on their triathlon nutrition. Here's what they achieved having gone through the Academy program:

JILL GAUDIO

As a result of understanding fuelling for swim, bike and run, Jill improved her 5km run time by 8 minutes, her 10km run time by 7 minutes and is cycling 6km/hour faster on the bike compared to 12 months ago. She’s fuelling and recovering better and as a result has gained muscle mass and decreased fat mass - the ultimate body composition outcomes for a triathlete looking to lean up, without affecting training performance. 

LUIS FRANCO MARIN

Luis has struggled to maintain his weight for 10 years and kept getting lots of niggly injuries. Every time he increases his training volume, he drops weight, an...

Let me set the scene. You’ve over-indulged over Christmas and New Year and, just at what seems like the perfect time, you see an ad for the latest detox program, a strict calorie diet, meal replacement shakes, or your local gym sends out a 6-week New Year’s challenge!  STOP!!! Put those blinkers on and focus on what is really important.

The New Year period often brings about lots of goal setting for the year i.e. all the ways you’re going to improve your life and become the new and improved you! Diets, exercise, healthy eating, working on projects you’ve been putting off, study, work! We’ve all been there. We’ve all made that list and found out not very long afterwards that it has fallen away the roadside and it doesn’t come to fruition as we'd hoped. That ‘quick fix’ fail (the rebound) then makes you feel worse about yourself!

I want to help you create sustainable change - without having to do anything drastic – making small changes, daily. Time and consistency are what are neede...