Episode 262 - The Triathlon Nutrition Academy in Under 10 Minutes

If you have heard about the Triathlon Nutrition Academy and wondered what it actually is, this is your answer in under 10 minutes.

You already have a training system. You have a coach or a program, a week of sessions you love to turn green and the discipline to follow it. What most triathletes don't have is a nutrition system that is just as organised, and that is exactly what you walk out of TNA with. I take you through how my 9-month program works, the 4 things that change when your nutrition is dialled in and who it is genuinely for (and who it is not for).

WHAT YOU WILL TAKE AWAY

• How TNA is built so you actually put it into practice, rather than buying something and never using it
• Why being able to function like an adult after a long ride is one of my KPIs
• How Stephen went from nearly quitting triathlon over cramps to taking 64 minutes off his 70.3 time, and why magnesium was never the fix
• How the program fits into 1 to 2 hours a week, whatever your time zone and however full your life is
• What changes when you become the expert on you, from every gel to every supplement ad in your feed
• What Kelly Estes, 4 years in, says happens by the end
• Who TNA is for, from your very first season to your 30th, and who should not join right now

Links:

Check how well you’re doing when it comes to your nutrition with our 50 Step Checklist to Triathlon Nutrition Mastery

Start working on your nutrition now with my Triathlon Nutrition Kickstart course 

It’s for you if you’re a triathlete and you feel like you’ve got your training under control and you’re ready to layer in your nutrition. It's your warmup on the path to becoming a SUPERCHARGED triathlete – woohoo!

Connect with me: 

To learn more about the Triathlon Nutrition Academy, head HERE | dietitianapproved.com/academy

See behind-the-scenes action on Instagram: @dietitian.approved

Follow along on Facebook: @DietitianApproved

Join our FREE Dietitian Approved Crew Facebook group

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Episode Transcription

Episode 262: The Triathlon Nutrition Academy in Under 10 Minutes

Welcome to the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast. The show designed to serve you up evidence-based sports nutrition advice from the experts. Hi, I'm your host Taryn, Accredited Practicing Dietitian, Advanced Sports Dietitian and founder of Dietitian Approved. Listen as I break down the latest evidence to give you practical, easy-to-digest strategies to train hard, recover faster and perform at your best. You have so much potential, and I want to help you unlock that with the power of nutrition. Let's get into it.

[00:00:00] Taryn: If you've heard about the Triathlon Nutrition Academy program and wondered what it actually is, this is your answer in less than 10 minutes. The Triathlon Nutrition Academy program, or TNA, is my nine-month program where I teach triathletes how to fuel for their own training and racing. It runs in small cohorts, and it's the only way to work with me on your nutrition.

[00:00:19] You already have a training system. You've got a coach or a training program, and sessions that you love to tick off and make them go green, and you are brilliant at following that. But what most triathletes don't have is a nutrition system that is just as organised, and that is what you walk out of TNA with.

[00:00:37] There are 36 masterclasses inside, and each week, you learn one key element of your nutrition that is specifically for triathlon. It is not generic sports nutrition. You understand it, you put it into practice in your own training, and we make it easy, less stressful and habitual, so you never really have to think about it again.

[00:00:58] And I built the program this way specifically so that you don't get overwhelmed, because I'd rather you actually do it and take action and learn something to help you than never actually use it. And you're not doing it alone, because I'm with you every step of the way. We have 24 live Power Hour sessions with me, an Advanced Sports Dietitian with two decades of experience working with triathletes.

[00:01:21] I'm in your corner helping you tweak things, helping you fix things and get it all dialled in for your unique training program, your race calendar, your physiology and your lifestyle. This is not AI. It is not an algorithm. I am a real human. I have the ability to think critically and draw on my experience as a triathlete myself and a professional with tertiary-level education.

[00:01:44] And because I know what life is like as a triathlete, having been one, I've built the tools for you to make eating for three sports super easy, because knowing what to do is only half of it. You still got to actually do it. You get my Triathlete's Kitchen resource, which is over 250 recipes built specifically for triathletes.

[00:02:05] So whatever option you pick out of there, it is already hitting the right targets that I'd set for you as your sports dietitian, and most of them can be on the table in under 30 minutes without dirtying every single pot and pan that you own. There is also an entire year of weekly menu plans that helps you with what to eat for dinner, the shopping list to get everything you need and the recipe to follow.

[00:02:28] So all you have to do is chuck that into your online cart, click and collect, and I've just handed you back at least two hours of planning and grocery shopping every week. And when it comes to the more complicated things like carb loading, working out your hydration based on your sweat tests or building your race nutrition plan for every single distance, I've built tools that do all of the heavy lifting for you.

[00:02:52] You're not going to need to dig out your scientific calculator. I have done all that for you so that your energy can get put into training instead.

[00:03:00] Here are four things that change when your nutrition is dialled in. Number one, your training gets better, and you can still function afterwards. Your sessions are going to be higher quality. You're going to recover faster between them, and you might actually hit the numbers that your program has set. No more face-planting on the couch and napping after your long rides. One of my KPIs is that you can still function like an adult after your hard, long training, and I reckon I've saved a few marriages in that process.

[00:03:29] Number two, your race day stops becoming a lottery. You go into every race with a plan that you've built and tested in training, and you 100% trust it. Cramping, vomiting, gut problems, blowing up on the run stop being just part of the deal. One of my athletes, Steve Duquette, he came to triathlon from cycling, and he was nearly about to quit the sport altogether because of debilitating muscle cramps.

[00:03:56] And of course, his training buddies told him to just have some magnesium. He didn't need magnesium. We fixed the root cause of his problem, and then he took 64 minutes off his 70.3 time, and he's just raced a very hilly and hot course at Nice World Champs, not a cramp in sight. Jason raced the exact same course at Sunny Coast 70.3 on the same bike exactly one year apart, and the only difference was that he had a race nutrition plan that he built in TNA with me.

[00:04:25] And one year later, he went 51 minutes faster. Now, you cannot argue that that's just one year of training. You can't improve that much on training alone. Number three, it fits the life you've already got. The Academy is going to take a one to two hour investment in time each week, and you can multitask. You can educate yourself on nutrition while you're on the wind trainer, going for a long run, on the commute or while you're waiting for an Uber.

[00:04:53] Everything is recorded, so time zones don't matter. I have athletes in the program in the UK and Europe who are asleep for our Power Hour sessions, and they still get as much out of it because I will still answer their questions and review their plans live, and they catch back up on the recordings. I'm going to help you get time back in your week because food, nutrition, groceries and meal planning is no longer a chore that takes hours.

[00:05:19] One of our athletes, Jade, is a busy mum of three. She works a four-day work week and is training for Ironman, and one of her biggest worries is how on earth is she going to fit that all in? She made it work, and if she can do it, you can. And number four, you become the expert on you. You stop second-guessing every gel. You stop adding to cart every supplement ad that you see in your feed, or adding all these little hot tips from the latest podcast because you want the competitive advantage. You stop wasting money on stuff you don't need and stuff that doesn't even work. It is specific to you without being done for you.

[00:05:59] You bring your race plan, your meal plan, your blood results, and you get an Advanced Sports Dietitian's eyes on it fast. We run in small cohorts of 10 to 30 athletes, so it's not you and 3,000 strangers on a webinar. We have small groups, and you learn from each other, plus you'll make lifelong triathlon friends.

[00:06:19] If you are a vegetarian or a vegan or a coeliac or have anything medical going on, it gets handled properly because I'm an Accredited Practising Dietitian with qualifications to apply medical nutrition therapy to an individual. A lot of athletes when they join the program are really surprised at how much it sets them up for their health for life, not just your next triathlon race.

[00:06:42] Kelly Estes has been working with me for four years in the TNA program and our alumni program, and here's what he says happens by the end.

Kelly: What will end up happening if you go through Triathlon Nutrition Academy is you'll become so self-aware of stuff that when you read labels or you hear somebody else talking about what you should do, you're going to be able to call BS in a heartbeat, because you're going to know really what you need to be doing. You're going to have the confidence to know that you're doing the right thing.

Taryn: And it's yours for every season and every distance after that, whatever changes in your training, your body or even the weather. It is for you if you want to understand how to fuel yourself rather than be handed a plan you don't understand and you're at the mercy of, or you're sick of counting calories and having to track all of your food in an app and you're still not really understanding what's going on.

[00:07:32] You race sprint all the way through to Ironman, plus multi-sport, multi-day events like Ultraman and even adventure racing. It's for you if it's your very first triathlon season and you haven't even raced yet, or it's your 30th season and you've done 18 Ironmans already. There are athletes inside the TNA program from their early 20s all the way up to their mid-70s.

[00:07:54] It is not for you though if you want a quick fix, you want to be told exactly what to eat at every second of every day and you don't really care about understanding. It's also not for you if you genuinely can't find one to two hours a week right now to upskill yourself. If that's you, don't add more stress to your life.

[00:08:12] It's not worth it. I'd rather you get something out of this than waste your money on something you don't do. So that is the Triathlon Nutrition Academy in under 10 minutes. We spend nine months together building a nutrition system that is as dialled in as your training program, and you will get results from the very first week.

[00:08:32] Athletes tell me they're surprised by how quickly they notice a change. I will be in your corner the entire time because it's my job to make nutrition your secret weapon. If you want to see everything that's included, head to dietitianapproved.com/academy. I can't wait to work with you and help you smash the fourth leg of triathlon, nutrition.

Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast. I would love to hear from you. If you have any questions or want to share with me what you've learned, email me at [email protected]. You can also spread the word by leaving me a review and taking a screenshot of you listening to the show. Don't forget to tag me on social media, @dietitian.approved, so I can give you a shout out, too. If you want to learn more about what we do, head to dietitianapproved.com. And if you want to learn more about the Triathlon Nutrition Academy program, head to dietitianapproved.com/academy. Thanks for joining me and I look forward to helping you smashed in the fourth leg - nutrition!