Speaker 1: Well hello, they're healthy Ish listeners. Thank you for joining
Speaker 1: us today and welcome if this is your first time
Speaker 1: tuning in. This, of course, is the daily podcast from
Speaker 1: Body and Soul with me Felicity Harley. Today we are
Speaker 1: talking about common nutritional deficiencies and how they can affect well,
Speaker 1: not just your fitness performance, but your whole life. Joining
Speaker 1: me is advanced sports dietitian and athena sports nutrition consultant,
Speaker 1: Sally Walker. She has had over sixteen years experience in
Speaker 1: high performance sport, including going to Tokyo the Games in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty with the Australian team. If you do like
Speaker 1: what you hear today from Sally, make sure you're listening
Speaker 1: to extra Healthish, where we focus on one common nutrient
Speaker 1: that many many women and some men lack, and it
Speaker 1: is iron. If you want to hear more about iron
Speaker 1: and what to eat to boost your iron stores just
Speaker 1: listening to extra health Ish you can grab that wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. Sally, nice to have you Unhealthy today.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2: No problem now, I'm actually.
Speaker 1: Personally interested in this topic as well as I'm sure
Speaker 1: many of our listeners are nutrition and performance. How does
Speaker 1: poor nutrition affect our performance. Now you've worked with a
Speaker 1: lot of elite athletes, let's talk about the everyday athlete.
Speaker 2: Well, I think elite athletes and everyday athletes are still humans.
Speaker 2: They're still people. So there is a common connection between
Speaker 2: between everyone to be able to learn what the elite
Speaker 2: athletes are doing and to just sort of be inspired
Speaker 2: but also learn from that in if the body is
Speaker 2: healthy and if it's functioning well, then you can push
Speaker 2: it further. And if you're in a position where you
Speaker 2: can train well, then you can do more in training
Speaker 2: and create more adaptation and then get better results as
Speaker 2: a result of that. So laying your foundations right and
Speaker 2: getting things right, and for people to you know, treat
Speaker 2: themselves like a athletes and know what they want to
Speaker 2: get out of training rather than just having two things
Speaker 2: coexisting if I eat and I train, to actually use
Speaker 2: the two together to get more out of it. But
Speaker 2: not just for performance at the gym, it's performance in
Speaker 2: you know, the boardroom and just life and how they're
Speaker 2: showing up to actually have energy to burn rather than skimping, scramping.
Speaker 2: Sort of this reactionary response to performance and eating. So
Speaker 2: I think that's sort of the biggest shift in mindset
Speaker 2: is how do I get my body ready to perform?
Speaker 2: Rather than what have I just done? How do I
Speaker 2: fix that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what an interesting point because it has been
Speaker 1: for so many years. Oh I've just worked out, and
Speaker 1: now I need to eat banana or I need to
Speaker 1: do in a chocolate shake. But I think your point,
Speaker 1: like getting ourselves ready to perform in life, whether we're
Speaker 1: in motherhood or in the boardroom or like, it's just
Speaker 1: nutrition is such an important part and.
Speaker 2: A lot of people are sort of leading with the
Speaker 2: diet and trying to jam that into their life rather
Speaker 2: than go what am I trying to get out of this?
Speaker 2: And what are my barriers and challenges? And how can
Speaker 2: I construct a way of eating that will support that
Speaker 2: and get me to reach my outcomes? And you know, again,
Speaker 2: that's what we can learn from elite athletes is they
Speaker 2: have a clear focus and they construct their lives to
Speaker 2: be able to achieve that the difference between everyday athletes
Speaker 2: and elite athletes is that their focus might be a
Speaker 2: little bit different, but the framework that they use can
Speaker 2: still be replicated in any sort of situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, good point. What are some common nutrients that you
Speaker 1: see that women are deficient in that might affect well,
Speaker 1: not just their fitness performance, but their whole life performance.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean sometimes it's just energy in general too,
Speaker 2: and having the right nutrients. But I think something that's
Speaker 2: overlooked when we only look at what's on the plate
Speaker 2: and the nutrients and food that's there is the availability
Speaker 2: of the nutrients eating and the availability of energy from
Speaker 2: your food as the body needs it. And sometimes if
Speaker 2: they're if people and females are eating at the wrong
Speaker 2: times to not match their energy demands, that's when it
Speaker 2: can have the impact of sort of not enough nutrients
Speaker 2: or malnutrition or feeling the effects of poor diet habits,
Speaker 2: being tied and fatigued and sluggish, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: So I think in the first instance, yes, looking at
Speaker 2: what's on the plate, but then also when am I eating,
Speaker 2: how am I eating to match my activity, because it
Speaker 2: generally will be low carbohydrate availability, low protein intake to
Speaker 2: support activity, low iron even sort of smaller nutrients, and
Speaker 2: magnesium and calcium, those sorts of things just to make
Speaker 2: they're not going to be the only thing that's giving
Speaker 2: the body energy. But if everything's present at the right times,
Speaker 2: they can all work together to give you a good outcome.
Speaker 2: So if it is a bit haphazard on the intake
Speaker 2: and when you're actually receiving those nutrients, that's when it
Speaker 2: can result in poor dietary symptoms.
Speaker 1: Because it does get very haphazard. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: so many of us are so time poor, and you're
Speaker 1: often you're eating on the run or you're trying to
Speaker 1: hustle children out the door and you're like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I've need a breakfast yet, and I'll just grab this
Speaker 1: and that. It's but flipping your mindset, going okay, what
Speaker 1: nutrients do I need to fuel what I'm doing today
Speaker 1: is perhaps a better way look at it.
Speaker 2: And it's realistic. How do I make this work for
Speaker 2: my life? So being realistic and going, you know what,
Speaker 2: I don't have time in the morning. I'm just on
Speaker 2: the run. So I'm going to make it smoothie up
Speaker 2: the night before so in the morning when I don't
Speaker 2: have time, I can grab it and I know I've
Speaker 2: put in sort of some protein powder so I've got
Speaker 2: enough protein, some oats so I've got a fiber, some fruit,
Speaker 2: I've got some nutrients and antioxidants there, and you sort
Speaker 2: of how do I make it work within my boundaries
Speaker 2: rather than go, oh god, I should be having this
Speaker 2: amazing breakfast takes me thirty min and then just making
Speaker 2: yourself feel bad and like if everyone's already time putt
Speaker 2: built on top of all the things that you need
Speaker 2: to think about with diet, just bring it to life
Speaker 2: and say, well, how can from what I know that
Speaker 2: I do need energy like carbohydrate, protein, some fibers, some
Speaker 2: calciums of mine, what ingredients will provide them for me?
Speaker 2: I actually just slot them into my day at different times,
Speaker 2: which we seem simple just to rattle off like that,
Speaker 2: but that's when sort of an accredited sports diet tishan
Speaker 2: can help piece together what those barriers might look like
Speaker 2: and had to problem solve that and the practical side,
Speaker 2: people think it's just nutrients, but really it's the application
Speaker 2: to life to bring it to life, to actually get
Speaker 2: those nutrients in more so than oh God, I've got
Speaker 2: to get my twenty grams this or thirty five milligrams
Speaker 2: of something else, of not how people eat. You don't
Speaker 2: eat numbers, you eat food. So to focus on what
Speaker 2: you can see, to have a variety of color and
Speaker 2: new textures, and types of foods. That way is also
Speaker 2: sort of maybe an easier way to think about the
Speaker 2: types of things that we need to eat.
Speaker 1: How do you approach a day of eating, like what's
Speaker 1: your I mean, you've probably got a downpat now, But.
Speaker 2: Well, that's why I'm not sort of antidetian sometimes. But
Speaker 2: the thing that makes me reflect on it and that
Speaker 2: I connect with it to share with my clients is
Speaker 2: that problem solving mindset. What's coming up for me today?
Speaker 2: How do I make it work. I've got, you know,
Speaker 2: a full day of meetings or a full day of
Speaker 2: clients that I'm seeing our so I might have to
Speaker 2: have a day of sort of smaller snacks so that
Speaker 2: my energy is consistent through my day. So again it's
Speaker 2: putting me first in my demand, putting food over the
Speaker 2: top of that, rather than go, oh god, I've got
Speaker 2: to have this balance meal at twelve o'clock and that's
Speaker 2: when I get my nutrients in. It's really sort of
Speaker 2: laying it out and gosh, I don't have any time
Speaker 2: to get any lunch today, So I'll pick up a
Speaker 2: yogurt and a piece of fruit, and now I've got
Speaker 2: some snacks on my way to work. Like it's constantly
Speaker 2: problem solving how to make it work with what's presented
Speaker 2: and what the environment is in front of me. So
Speaker 2: that's sort of the concept I try to teach with people,
Speaker 2: rather than well I eat this, so you should eat this,
Speaker 2: because no one should be doing that. Ultimately, everyone's different
Speaker 2: in what they want to eat, but to sort of
Speaker 2: consider frameworks that can be applied to be able to
Speaker 2: bring it to life. Because healthy foods are black people
Speaker 2: know they to eat vegetables and fruit, and I'm pretty
Speaker 2: sure most people would know sort of what it should be,
Speaker 2: but should is the key word there. So making it
Speaker 2: a choice to say well, this is what I can
Speaker 2: be doing rather than what I'm should doing, and having
Speaker 2: ways to be able to say well, this is what
Speaker 2: it is and feeling comfortable with that rather than just
Speaker 2: a day of constant comparison to what others are doing,
Speaker 2: what should be doing, and just slip over your diet
Speaker 2: to say, well, this is what my day is presenting
Speaker 2: to me today. It's not great, it's not ideal, but
Speaker 2: this is the best I can do in this situation,
Speaker 2: and life will move on from that. The healthy stuff
Speaker 2: the same. The thing that changes the most isn't the
Speaker 2: diets out there, it's lifestyle, routine, habits, everything around people's
Speaker 2: life which is changing more. And it's the reapplication, which
Speaker 2: is when diets fall down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Sally, great advice. Thank you for coming on healthy Ish.
Speaker 1: Some great advice from Sally. I hope you enjoyed this chat.
Speaker 1: If you did, jump on rate and review, or of
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Speaker 1: still healthy Ish