Fuel to Perform Nutrition

Rarely eat on comp day? Or can’t stomach much on a competition day? 😣
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Are you being strategic with what you have and when you have it? 🏋🏽‍♀️
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I cannot emphasise enough, how much better you will perform if you do prioritise nutrition on these event days‼️
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Everyone tolerates different things, hence why it’s important to trial these things prior to the event.
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Some people may have trained their gut well and can tolerate a lot. Others, rely on liquids and really light foods to get them through. This is totally fine because like anything with nutrition, it’s totally dependent on the individual.
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Similar concept with the pre-training nutrition right, timing and composition of the foods are key to being successful ✅
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With anything that you are trying to work on, start small and slowly build. Same with training the gut to tolerate foods 👏🏼
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An example of a progressive gut training could look like this👇🏼
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1️⃣ Start with liquids
2️⃣ Have liquids and add a small amount of light carbs
3️⃣ Transition to only small, really light sources of carbs
4️⃣ If you’re tolerating more, you can add more volume to get more carbs
5️⃣ And continue increasing!
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If you need help, reach out to a Sports Dietitian to do so!
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In light of the CrossFit Games, here is an example carb loading plan! 🥯🏋🏽‍♀️
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Carb loading is not just for endurance athletes. Team sport athletes, and strength and conditioning athletes can also utilise this practice aiming to optimise muscle glycogen for the best performance possible and delayed fatigue 😴
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Typical carb loading will be about 8-12g of carbs per kg of body weight for over 24-36 hours. Where you might sit on this range is based on the following…
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➡️ The type of exercise being done
➡️ How lean an individual is
➡️ What they can tolerate
➡️ Experience with carb loading
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It can be really difficult to hit carbohydrate targets without a plan so it’s crucial you plan 📝
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It’s a perfect example of when more “processed foods” are necessary. Try do a carb load with minimally processed food and you and your gut will not be friends, I promise you!
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Reach out to a sports dietitian to help come up with a plan and to even trial carb loading so when you get to the real deal, you’re all over it.
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How many grams of carbs do you need before training or an event? 🥯🥨🥞
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Well, like everything in nutrition… it depends.
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Depends on the duration, intensity and goal of the session but also depends on your body weight.
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So how much?
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Typically, 0.5-1g per kg of body weight
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Where you go on that range depends on how far out from the session you eat, how your gut tolerates the food and then the intensity and duration of the session 🏊🏽‍♀️
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I’ve personally experienced the difference in energy when I went from 0.5g of carbs before training vs 1g of carbs. Way more energy!
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As anything when it comes to trying something new. It will take a little bit of trial and error but keep at it. Do remember too, it’s okay to go a little lower than this if you really struggle to eat for a morning session 🙌🏼
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Alternatively, connect with one of us to work through your pre-training/event nutrition!
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Real and raw incoming… 👀
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Just a few snaps of our last 2 months in the US…
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I thought going to university was hard. I thought moving states was hard. I thought having a baby was hard. But moving countries, with a young family…
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That’s a different type of hard…
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My idea coming over was to share our journey… I bought a thousand dollar camera to do so…
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Quite frankly, I did not have the mental, emotional or energetic capacity to do so…
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I think I’ve packed more suitcases than I ever have in my life being to a different country and 8 different cities in 2 months…
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We had a scary trip to the hospital that caused an immense amount of stress…
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I don’t think I’ve been in any type of routine since being here. I have cried on multiple occasions wanting to go home…
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However, it has been the most beautiful, exciting but also the most challenging adventure yet…
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Would I change it? Absolutely not…
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I love my job. I work with some of the most amazing people and has really ticked off all the reasons I wanted to make the move. We have also met some incredible people that despite knowing us for 2 months, have stepped in like family would in the really rough moments…
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Nonetheless, moving to a whole different country definitely has its challenges but with challenges comes some awesome moments and a lot growth…
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We have finally started to settle in (sorta 😂) and I cannot wait to actually start showing you what we get up to…
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Big love. T, D and Bub x

And the adventure of a lifetime has officially begun 🛩️🌎🌴🇺🇸☀️

big fan of the cereal for dinner on “those” days 😂 whose with me? 🙋🏼‍♀️

feel like you’re eating healthy foods but not seeing results? 🤷🏼‍♀️
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I see this frequently in practice where they are doing all the right things but they’re simply missing the mark when it comes to calorie budget ⚖️
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calorie awareness is fairly crucial if you’re wanting to drop body fat without having to track or follow a meal plan 📝🍎
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an example of this knowing the calorie density in foods and also knowing what your calorie budget is. say you go to the movies and your snack calorie budget is 300 calories.
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you can purchase your snacks accordingly to get the most out of that budget rather than buying 1 chocolate bar and that’s all 300 calories used up.
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becoming calorie aware is fairly simple but just might take a little bit of time.
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✅ use labels on foods
✅ compare different brands of foods
✅ compare different versions foods
✅ weigh foods to know your serve sizes
✅ use a tracking app to see calorie density
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it’s an extremely useful tool in the toolbox ⚒️
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Are you nailing your sandwich? 🥪🏋🏽‍♀️
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Most people look at me stumped when I talk about this but it makes sense right ⁉️
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I mean you have one slice of bread (before training)
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The contents of your sandwich (during training) 🥗
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The second slice of bread (post training) 🍞
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Pre-training you’re looking at 50-100% of body weight in carbohydrates. This will vary depending on gut tolerance, type of session and duration of session 🥞
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Intra-training will vary greatly. What you have again depends on individual tolerance as this one can sometimes be trickier to master! The type of sport will see you having different amounts of carbs. CrossFit athlete, typically 30-45g but an endurance athlete can go up to that 90-120g of carbohydrates 😮‍💨🥨
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Post training you’re looking at 80-120% of body weight in carbs. If you have double sessions and they’re both hard sessions, look at having 120% of body weight in carbs each hour, for 4 hours after your first session to replete muscle glycogen stores adequately!🥯🍞🥖
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Need ideas around how to manage this, click the link in my bio to start working together ⚡️⤵️
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Are you selling yourself short before a major sporting event? 😮
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Whether this be game day, comp day or race day, preparation 24 hours in advance is CRUCIAL! ⏰
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Obviously, depending on the sport, this may or may not apply to you!
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This allows you to consume enough carbohydrates prior to the event to maximise muscle glycogen stores to call upon during your event alongside your intra-event fuel ⛽️
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Studies show that a high carbohydrate 3-4 hours prior to the event will only increase glycogen stores around 11-15% (this obviously varies dependent on the individual) 🍞🥨🥯
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If you only focus on the meal the night before and the day of, you’re probably not be getting enough in 😭
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So… you’re probably selling yourself short.
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A bowl of pasta the night before will just not cut it ❌🍝
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The start time of an event can vary so your “24 hour prep” will also vary in terms of timings ⚡️
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Ensure your pre-event planning is individualised to you as there is just not one size fits all approach to this 🙌🏼
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My top go to high protein snacks⚡️
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An analogy I like to use, is your muscles are not a 9-5 business. They are open for business every 3-4 hours ⏰
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This means that if you’re wanting to optimise muscle protein synthesis (muscle growth, repair and recovery), it’s a good idea to get 4-6 protein rich meals in a day or get a protein source in every 3-4 hours. That’s what makes protein rich snacks great! You don’t need a whole meal to get a good source of protein in 💪🏼🍳
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A snack is not a muesli bar or a piece of fruit on their own. Add in 1-2 protein rich components, a carb source and colourful food, you have yourself a well balanced, protein rich snack 😊
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Protein is also a satiating nutrient. Meaning it will keep you full. Therefore, less chance of over eating or “picking” at foods because you’re not satisfied 😭
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Obviously depending on the individual, qualities of the food and protein amounts will differ.
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SAVE THIS FOR NEXT TIME ⚡️
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Next time you’ve forgotten to prep, prioritised time elsewhere or don’t have much food in the house… use these ideas for a quick and easy lunch (or even dinner) that requires absolutely no prep. Unless you consider a microwave prep 😂
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These tick all of the 4 key elements to a well balanced main meal ⬇️
✅ Protein
✅ Carbs
✅ Fat
✅ Colour
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You can also change portion size depending on what is required at the time. I don’t recommend being unprepared all the time but I know how it can be (especially now with ma lil dude in the picture) and it’s good to have options in your back pocket 😊
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So save this and use it for next time you need quick & of course, easy ideas! 📱
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Do you snack smart ⁉️🍎
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It’s important to know the different types of snack, why they are important, what their nutrient composition is and when to have them.
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This is to get the most out of health, general life and of course performance in training ⚡️
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‘Everyday snack’ ➡️ this snack contains a range of foods and should have some protein, fibre rich carbohydrate and some colour (fruit or veg). This snack is usually away from training or after training when you have a little while until a main meal.
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‘Performance snack’ ➡️ carbohydrates are really emphasized in this snack. This is essentially your pre-training snack. Depending on tolerance, you can also add in a moderate amount of protein, fat and fibre. Again depending on tolerance, this would be have 60-90 minutes before training.
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‘Primer snack’ ➡️ this snack doesn’t always need to be consumed. It’s just if you may have a long session and your last meal/snack was a little further out from training. You might opt to have this 30-45mins pre-game, pre-competition or even during your training (depending on length of the session).
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Save this for next time you have to consider which snack to have 😊👏🏼
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Did you know that up to 45% of female athletes and 19% of male athletes have disordered eating behaviours? 😮
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Unfortunately, societal expectations around the way athletes, or even your active general population, look are incredibly warped. There’s a significant amount of pressure to look a certain way or be a certain weight, shape or size. This results in people implementing behaviours with hope to meet that expectation. Unrealistic expectation ❌
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These behaviours can be extremely detrimental to the performance, health and wellbeing (mental included) of the ones participating in them 😭🥊
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Disordered eating can result in a chronic state of low energy availability. This is not all the time but if so, can turn into something a lot more serious. In our part 2 of this little series, it will go into the depth of what Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport looks like 🍽️
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This can be the outcome of chronic low energy availability🪫
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These are only a few signs of disordered eating and if you feel you resonate with any of these behaviours, we suggest working with either a psychologist or a dietitian (or both) so help you achieve food freedom! 🤍☀️
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you have my heart forever koko 🤍 being the cheer squad for burgers and barbells 🍔🏋🏽‍♀️
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📸 _movement

Have you ever taken note of your fibre intake⁉️
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A lot of people often forget about fibre and its importance.
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Especially if people track their food, hitting macros and calories is fantastic however, hitting your fibre and micronutrients is just as important 👏🏼
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Fibre is associated with good gut health that can directly reflect our immunity, our mental health, our skin health and of course our gut and how it responds to foods and so much more! ☺️
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Fibre RDI’s look like ⬇️
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Males = 30g
Females = 25g
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This is minimum intake. Therefore, going above these figures is no issue.
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If you’re not aware of your intake, realise you’re not hitting fibre targets then increase fibre significantly, you may notice an upset gut initially.
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Potentially some bloating may occur. However, rest assured this will regulate itself when your body gets used to the amount of fibre you’re now providing it with.
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There are 3 different types of fibre that have their own specific role physiologically. Therefore, getting a range of different fibre rich foods in daily is also just as important as hitting the recommended figure to hit ✅
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Despite the growth of women in sport, there still remains a gap in the sports and exercise scientific literature for female-specific recommendations 🏋🏽‍♀️
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Cowley et al. (2021) conducted an audit across 6 leading exercise and sports journals 📖
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They found a significant underrepresentation of women in sports and exercise science across the six journals audited 📚
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While some of the research conducted on men may be useful and transferrable to women, there are still anatomical, physiological and endocrinological differences between the sexes that may not be transferrable 🏊🏼‍♀️
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This leaves unknown gaps in female specific-sports and exercise science recommendations.
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As the sports and exercise scientific literature currently stands, it is difficult to understand whether the male-specific research can be applied to females appropriately 🙋🏼‍♂️➡️🙋🏼‍♀️
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Another study by Martínez-Rosales et al. (2021) found female authors are underrepresented in sports science research, with the average percentage of female authorship across the 14 audited journals being 16.8% (7.6% to 22.3% across journals).
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However, the percentage of female first authorship did increase by 0.5% per annum between 2000 to 2020, showing a rise in female sports researchers 🤓
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This is promising as females tend to be more inclined to be more inclusive of female-specific recommendations 🍌
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In saying that, there are some great men in sports and exercise science supporting female-specific research 🚴🏾‍♀️
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By creating awareness about this gap in the scientific literature, this can help attract more female-specific research to inform sports recommendations for women 🏆
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If this is something you would also like to create awareness about, please share this post 📲
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Primary study reference: doi.org/10.1123/wspaj.2021-0028
Representation of women in sports science research reference: doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2021.04.010
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Are you taking creatine yet ⁉️
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If not, it’s definitely something you should consider 💪🏼
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What is creatine?
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Creatine is a compound naturally found in muscle cells. It can also be ingested through foods, primarily from meat & fish 🥩🐟🍗
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We’re unable to get enough creatine from food alone to completely saturated the muscle or better yet, maximize our storage capacity therefore, a creatine supplement is needed to create this effect 💪🏼
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Creatine provides energy to support short, high intensity exercise. Therefore, higher creatine stores, better power output and speed performance 🏋🏽‍♀️
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The storage capacity in the muscle is limited and with a rate of energy production from creatine being very high. It supports a 8-10 second exercise bout 😮‍💨
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Creatine is one of the most highly evidence supported supplement on the market and it’s relatively cheap too. So a great, cost-effective performance enhancer! 🚴
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Save this one for the bank! ✅
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I am currently obsessed with poke/buddha/power bowls - whatever you prefer to call them 😂
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They are super easy and effective from a nutritional perspective 🌈
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They can be altered dependent on training 🏋🏽‍♀️
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They are simple to prepare for ☑️
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They include all the key elements to a well rounded meal 🔑
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Prepare the individual ingredients then add what you feel fit at the time, depending on what you feel like and what training was like or is going to be like.
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They are perfect for people that ⬇️
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‼️ Don’t like ‘meal’ prepping & would rather ‘food’ prep
‼️ People that are time poor
‼️ People that don’t like eating the exact same thing daily
‼️ People that struggle with thinking about different meals
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Get into these bowls STAT people 😊🙏🏼
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Why do we put so much emphasis on a number? ⚖️
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It can be hard but it can be such a life changing move when you aim to remove such emphasis and emotional attachment to the number on the scales 🔥
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This is me not saying that weight loss or gain can’t be a goal. By all means, keep them as your goal.
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I’m more so saying that, let’s stop making that number the be all, end all.
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I say to my clients frequently, no one is walking past you and thinking “oh she looks about 90kg or she looks about 60kg”…
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No one else knows or cares about your weight on the scales, so why do you care so much?
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Especially if seeing a number leads to emotional changes or outcomes 😣
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There are other metrics to focus on that can show progress, whether that be other data such DEXA’s, skin folds, photo differences, the way clothes fit, energy levels, immune function, athletic performance, larger weights or faster times and measurements 📉
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And when we start to fuel adequately, weight can go up but body fat can go down👇🏼
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Why? Here are a few examples…
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➡️ Glycogen repletion
➡️ Water weight
➡️ Higher sodium intake
➡️ Training harder therefore, gaining muscle
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Loads of reasons why you might put “scale” weight on… does not mean that this weight is coming from anything in particular.
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If you don’t have a healthy relationship with the scales, my personal and professional opinion is to not even jump on them!
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Nailing your nutrition around training 🔨
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I often speak about the fuelling and refuelling timeline. When to eat and what to eat around training. It is also a very common question I get. How long should I eat before training? Should I be getting something in within 30 minutes?
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This is just a general guideline but when it comes to when and what to eat for the individual, it is very dependent on them, their tolerances, preferences and history 😊
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Remember the gut is a muscle, it CAN be trained to tolerate more and tolerate different.
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Main focus:
✅ Quality meal in the hours leading up to training (3-4 hours)
✅ High carbohydrate snack an hour (ish) before
✅ The type of carbohydrates
✅ And of course, getting the right amount of carbs
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Then comes post session. No, you don’t need to down that protein shake within 30 minutes of finishing 😣
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If you can get a good quality meal with 20-40g of protein and quality carbohydrates within a few hours, you will still get the same recovery benefit 💪🏼
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Keep an eye out for a soon to come post around your gut and how to “train” it 👀
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Are you deciding whether to track your food or not? 📱🍎
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I get asked this regularly…
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“Tara, should I track my food if I want to x, y, z?”…
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And just like most things involving nutrition, it depends. If my clients decide to track their food, I really take into account and check in around their micronutrient intake and quality of food too 🤷🏼‍♀️
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Will it cause you stress or anxiety? Don’t.
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Will it actually really help you achieve your goals whilst allowing lots of flexibility? Maybe it’s for you.
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Will you start to obsess if you miss numbers? Then don’t.
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Will it help you understand energy densities of different foods? Then by all means.
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I believe that tracking food can be an exceptionally awesome education tool and provide quick and easy calorie awareness, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t come with negative alongside that 😕
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You can also become calorie aware through looking at different labels and comparing, you don’t have to rely on tracking to accomplish that 🏷
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In saying this, I personally love tracking when I have a particular goal in mind because it allows me to have heaps of flexibility outside making sure I am hitting not only the quantity, but quality of my day 😊🌈
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If you decide to do it and find it’s becoming too obsessive and taking over majority of your daily thoughts, just stop ✋
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So if you are considering tracking or want to know whether tracking is something for you, think about the pro’s and cons.
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When did we as a culture start to see food and nutrition only as a means to lose or gain weight and nothing else? 😭🤷🏼‍♀️
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Food is SO much more than that.
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There are two sides to the coin here 🪙
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People thinking that they should only really “eat healthy” when there is a weight goal in mind and don’t see all the other benefits of eating high quality foods.
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OR
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People are fearful to eat lower quality foods (soul foods) that bring enjoyment because they have a weight goal in mind and there is just no balance.
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Losing and gaining weight is such a small part of food and nutrition and not saying there is anything wrong with having a weight goal in mind however, people can often lose sight of all the other parts to food. Connecting and respecting our body's needs in relation to nourishment, hunger, fullness and desire are self-care principles. We need a flexible approach to eating as opposed to following rigid food rules and restrictive diets but also seeing that high quality food has so many more roles to play in our health than a weight ⚖️
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Rome wasn’t built in a day. Even small changes to dietary habits are beneficial and overtime make a huge difference to our relationship with food and our overall health and wellbeing ☺️
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How can you time your carbohydrate intake to benefit your performance? If you do it right, you can see significant performance benefits 🍞
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Simple carbohydrates are the ones to choose closer to your training time, roughly 30 minutes out. Usually to give you a top up of energy. They are quicker to digest and less likely to cause any gut discomfort that could lead to disturbance in performance 😭
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Choosing these away from training is not the best idea because you will see a huge peak in energy (better known as a sugar high) then you will crash and burn... they do say, what goes up, usually comes down just as quick📈
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Complex carbohydrates are your carbohydrates found in fruits, vegetables, wholegrains, beans, legumes and wholegrain cereals such as oats. These carbohydrates provide you with a long lasting energy source as they are slower to digest, so you don't crash and burn. These are the carbohydrates to consume 3-4 hours prior to training 🥔🌽
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These are your higher quality carbohydrates that take precedence over your simple carbs outside of training windows for their vitamin, mineral and fibre benefits 🙌🏼
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Be mindful that if you haven't got adequate muscle glycogen stores already, from meals that have lacked carbohydrates throughout the day, a simple carbohydrate meal before training will not compensate for this ❌
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