Episode 233 - Why You're Still Struggling With Your Nutrition

 If your energy is up and down, your performance isn’t improving and your body composition isn’t shifting despite your best efforts, this episode is your wake-up call. Because the problem isn’t that you’re not trying hard enough, it’s that you’re focusing on the wrong things.

In this episode, I break down the real reasons triathletes struggle with nutrition, even when they feel like they’re doing “all the right things”. You’ll learn why chasing supplements and fine details is holding you back, how inconsistency is quietly sabotaging your progress, and why having no clear nutrition system leaves you second guessing everything.

I also unpack what actually matters for endurance performance, including building a solid fuelling foundation, creating a consistent approach across your week and stopping the cycle of winging it day to day.

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!

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

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Episode Transcription

Episode 233: Why You're Still Struggling With Your Nutrition

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] Do you feel like you are trying really hard with your nutrition?

[00:00:03] You're trying to eat well, you're training hard, you're trying to be mindful. ticking all the boxes with your training, but your energy levels are still just up and down.

[00:00:12] Some days you feel really good and other days you feel like you've just been smacked in the face by a truck. Despite your best efforts, your weight is not shifting and you just feel a bit stuck and frustrated.

[00:00:25] Don't stress if that feels like you. I know a lot of triathletes feel exactly the same way, and the problem is not a lack of effort on your behalf,

[00:00:34] it's just that you are focusing on the wrong things and you're going about it the wrong way As an Advanced Sports Dietitian with two decades of experience helping triathletes understand how to do nutrition for three sports, I've learned a thing or two about what works and what doesn't work when you're trying to do all the things for swim, bike, run, juggling family, juggling work, and juggling all of the curve balls that life throws at you.

[00:01:01] So let's break it down into what I think is actually missing.

[00:01:06] The first one is you're probably focusing on the wrong things. No offense, you are inconsistent, you don't have a nutrition system.

[00:01:14] And you are absolutely winging it instead of trying to measure it and manage it hands up. If that sounds like you, what I wanna do is help you with those things so that you can start seeing results from the work that you're already putting in and you're focusing your efforts on the things that matter.

[00:01:31] If you are sitting in that place where you do feel like you are doing a lot, we do a lot as triathletes, but you maybe not getting the results that you're expecting and you're absolutely not alone in feeling that way.

[00:01:44] This is probably the most common place that a lot of triathletes come to me from. Triathletes are high achieving people. We put in a lot of effort to pretty much everything that we do in life. Triathletes train pretty consistently. We care about our health. We absolutely care about our performance

[00:02:00] and our nutrition, and we are trying to make better choices, which is probably why you're listening to this podcast in the first place.

[00:02:06] But often triathletes aren't feeling great. We are feeling like the tired triathlete where we are always tired, always starving. We can't feel a hole, and we're not kind of getting to where we wanna be. We are not seeing the performance and body composition changes that we are striving for.

[00:02:22] And that noisy middle ground where you feel like you're doing all the right things on paper, but it's not translating is incredibly frustrating. I totally get it

[00:02:32] it feels like you should be further ahead than you actually are.

[00:02:36] What most people feel like at that point is, I just gotta train harder. I've gotta be more strict. I need to take this new supplement to get the performance edge.

[00:02:46] But that's generally not the issue.

[00:02:48] In most cases, it's not that you need to put in more effort, it's that you need a better approach. Because you absolutely cannot out-train a bad diet or override a nutrition strategy that isn't set up properly in the first place. And this is exactly what I see with triathletes that I work with inside the Triathlon Nutrition Academy. which is my online program where I teach triathletes how to fuel properly with an evidence-based, performance-focused approach. They start by doing a lot of things right, but often it's just not structured in a way that supports their training, their lifestyle, and their goals.

[00:03:26] One of the biggest mistakes I see triathletes in this position making.

[00:03:30] Is that you're putting a lot of time and effort and often funds into the small stuff. Things like the latest supplement that you saw on Facebook, what gel is the best? What sports drink brand is the one to use, what brand is better? And look, I get it, those things are interesting. They're shiny. You get a dopamine hit when you order them.

[00:03:52] They might feel like they matter,

[00:03:54] but they're not where your performance is actually coming from. Your performance is coming from the not very sexy, big rocks

[00:04:03] like, are you eating enough across the day to support your training? Or are you constantly trying to put yourself into a deficit because you are trying to drive somebody fat loss? Are you fuelling your key sessions properly? are you recovering enough so you can go again for your next training session?

[00:04:19] Because if those things aren't in place, it does not matter how good your gel is. It doesn't matter what supplements you're taking,

[00:04:28] you are missing the rock solid foundation. And what happens is athletes start trying to optimise before they've built that big base and that engine.

[00:04:38] So if you've been spending a lot of time thinking about all of those fine little details, Then there's a really good chance you are skipping over the things that are going to give you the biggest return. You're completely missing them and you're inconsistent,

[00:04:52] inconsistency is a big one.

[00:04:55] A lot of triathletes will have days where they are absolutely nailing their nutrition. They eat well, they fuel their session, they recover properly, everything feels like it's on track,

[00:05:05] and then the next day is a complete shit show. They skip meals, they under fuel. They're just grabbing whatever they can. There's no structure, there's no strategy, and your nutrition just becomes really reactive rather than being proactive.

[00:05:20] You go and eat out and you have no idea what to eat to fit back in with your goals, or you have this YOLO mentality you only live once and you go and order whatever the heck you can because it's just one meal, and who cares Weekends, you lose the structure of the work week if you're working and nutrition for so many people just goes straight out the window.

[00:05:39] It's all over the place. Food choices are not ideal. The thing to understand is your body doesn't adapt to one really good way of eating, or a Monday to Friday of really good eating, and then the weekend's just free for all. It adapts to what you do consistently. So if your nutrition is up and down all the time, [00:06:00] your energy is gonna be up and down all the time.

[00:06:02] Your recovery is going to be inconsistent. And obviously your performance is gonna reflect that,

[00:06:07] and that is where a lot of triathletes do get stuck because they feel like they're doing lots of things and maybe they're doing a really good job Monday to Friday, they're not doing it consistently enough to see that change.

[00:06:20] The third problem I see, and this is probably the biggest one,

[00:06:24] is that most triathletes have a system for their training and lots of areas of their life, but they don't have a system for their nutrition. They pick up bits and pieces from all sorts of places, a bit from a podcast, something from their coach, something from a training buddy. Something they've read online from some random blog, and a lot of, it's not necessarily wrong, but it's not connected together for them.

[00:06:48] It may not fit in with their lifestyle, their fit, physiology, their goals. And there's no progression, there's no plan for, how should your nutrition evolve as your training changes?

[00:06:59] So what ends up happening is it all feels very reactive and very much piecemeal.

[00:07:04] You are just trying to get through the session or the day or get to the end of the week and you'll get it all sorted rather than actually building something that supports your training long term That is where it does start to feel hard because you're constantly having to think about it.

[00:07:22] What should I eat today? Am I doing this right? Should I be eating more? Should I be eating less? Like it is so much mental load, but when you have a system, you're not reinventing the wheel every single day and every single week you've got a structure to follow. You've got a clear plan and things will start to feel simpler and easier and less stressful and a whole lot more consistent.

[00:07:47] The last piece I see all the time. If you're struggling, and I feel like I'm a bit of a broken record saying this, is that honestly, most triathletes are winging it when it comes to nutrition. I'm gonna get that printed on a hat. You try things, but you don't really know if they're working because you're listening to all this stuff and you're implementing some of it, but you're not sure if it's right.

[00:08:10] And you might feel okay one day, but you might feel a bit flat the next. Maybe you have a good session, maybe you don't, but there's no clear way to assess and troubleshoot what's actually going on, so you are left second guessing still,

[00:08:24] it's hard to know if you are eating enough. Are you eating too much? Is it the right approach for you based on your physiology? Should I change something? Should I just keep going? Oh my God, the uncertainty is just exhausting.

[00:08:37] Because it means you never feel confident in what you're doing. You're always questioning, you're always left wondering, and I know that you're a high achiever, so you wanna do everything right, and if you zoom it right out, if you're focusing on the wrong things and you're inconsistent and you don't have a system and you're winging it, instead of measuring it and tracking it and troubleshooting and finessing, It makes complete sense why you feel stuck and why you are struggling with nutrition. it's not necessarily you, it's your approach. No offense, What's actually missing for most triathletes is not just one small thing and we can fix it and you know, bob's your uncle and it's smooth sailing from there.

[00:09:17] It is often multifactorial and it's the structure surrounding all of it as well, because proper fuelling for triathlon isn't just about eating healthy. It's not translating how you eat to just go to the gym or just to run and hope for the best. Endurance fuelling is a whole new ball game that most people have no idea how to do because it's not anything we've ever been taught before and it's completely different way of eating compared to the general population or somebody that just does one sport instead of overachieving and trying to do three.

[00:09:49] It is about having a clear carbohydrate strategy for your physiology and your training and your goals. It's knowing how to fuel across your week no matter what that looks like now and when it changes in the future. It is absolutely having a solid recovery nutrition plan in place every single day. It is meeting your protein needs and getting the distribution of that right across the day so we can time that to maximise the benefits And understanding how all of that needs to change and evolve as things evolve. And when you don't have that structure, you don't have the good knowledge and understanding, it's really hard to get consistent results in this sport. So if you've been listening and you're thinking, Taryn, you just described exactly how I feel. Are you stalking me? You weirdo. Ask yourself, what's the one thing from this episode that stood out most to you? Is it maybe that you're focusing on the wrong things, you've got the pointy end of the pyramid upside down, and we need to flip it and focus on the big rock, not so sexy foundations.

[00:10:54] Is it that you are so inconsistent you're never gonna get anywhere? Is it that you really don't have a system for your nutrition, or is it that you are just winging it?

[00:11:03] Like the Ironman athlete that I met recently who didn't have a race nutrition plan. Oh my gosh, come on. So instead of trying to fix everything at once, which I know we're prone to do, like all or none, Let's just pick one thing, keep it really simple, and focus on improving that this week.

[00:11:21] Write it on your fridge. Write it on your mirror where you brush your teeth. Put it on a sticky note on your computer at work, because that is where real progress comes from. It's not doing everything perfectly from day one, But it's about doing the right things consistently, day in, day out.

[00:11:39] And if you're at that point where you are tired of second guessing, and you're done with that Do you want a clear, structured way to get your nutrition working for you? That is exactly what we focus on inside the Triathlon Nutrition Academy. If you'd like to join our next cohort, you can register your interest dietitianapproved.com/academy.

[00:11:58] But take that one step this week. You don't need an overhaul overnight. Slow down. Build some consistency and you'll be surprised how quickly things can start to shift. And once things start to click, everything else becomes a whole lot easier.

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!