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...

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...

Triathlons are a great way to challenge yourself and push your body to its limits. But if you’re looking to slim down for a triathlon, it’s important to understand the right approach to take. Here are some tips to help you slim down and get in shape for your next triathlon.

Create a Training Plan

Creating a training plan is essential for anyone looking to slim down for a triathlon. You’ll need to plan out your workouts, including the type of exercise you’ll do, the intensity, and the duration. This will help you stay on track and make sure you’re getting the most out of your workouts.

It’s also important to make sure you’re getting enough rest. Rest is essential for recovery, so make sure you’re taking at least one day off a week to rest and recover.

If you need help finding a good coach or training program to help you reach your goals, get in touch and we can provide some recommendations.

Focus on Nutrition

Nutrition is...

Before I take a break for the year, I want to leave you with five tips to help you survive the silly season.

I find that most people just completely switch off and let go of their healthy lifestyle and fitness goals as soon as December hits. We overindulge in delicious food and alcohol, are way more sedentary and just accept that a 2kg weight gain is inevitable. Knowing that we’ll hit the diet or detox hard come January.

I'm not here to tell you to be strict and not enjoy all of the delicacies. I really want you to enjoy this time. But I challenge you to change your attitude this year and implement my top five tips for surviving the festive season without having a massive blowout. 

1. Aim for Balance

• Find a comfortable middle ground where you can still go out and have a great time, but try and minimise the damage by going overboard
• Make healthy choices when you can and when you can't, don’t feel guilty for it. Focus on being mindful so you get maximum...

My Triathlon Nutrition Academy members always love when I share ideas that can save them money and time when it comes to their nutrition.

We are heading into an even more expensive time with Christmas so here are a few ideas, including several Apps, that might help you save some dollars as we hurtle towards the silly season.

APPS

1. Eat Club: eatclub.com.au

If you are blessed with the ability to go out at night (without the challenges that come with children that need to go to sleep!) check out Eat Club. Restaurants list last minute deals to fill empty tables.

2. Super Cook: www.supercook.com

One of my personal favourites as it eliminates food wastage altogether.

If you are that person that has a bunch of random things left in the fridge at the end of the week that you just don't know what to do with then this App is for you.

This App allows you to add any ingredients you have in your pantry or left over in your fridge and suggests what you can make (assuming you only...

When it comes to choosing the key training sessions that every triathlete needs to include in their program to maximise performance, TriDot coach and age group triathlete, John Mayfield, has some great insights.

KEY ESSENTIALS 

John has coached hundreds of athletes ranging from beginners all the way up to Kona qualifiers and elite professional triathletes. Here are his insights into the essential workouts every triathlete should be doing.

The Swim 

• Proper technique - you can’t out volume bad technique
• Perfect practice makes perfect
• Overcome bad habits - drill seasons with a coach to reinforce proper technique
• Improve pace through technique then improve efficiency
• Develop muscle memory then develop strength
• Dryland exercises especially when a pool is not available
• Build threshold, build stamina
• Small tweaks can lead to big gains

When it comes to improving your swim technique, there is no substitute for practice and repetition. That being said, focusing...

What is three-thirty-itis?

• Have you ever experienced a slump in energy after lunch? Where you feel tired and would love to take a nap?
• Or maybe you crave sweets here to give you a pick-me-up thanks to the sugar rush and just can't stop nibbling.
• Or maybe, you're the person who reaches for another coffee to get you through.

Chances are if any of these things sound familiar – your nutrition needs a shake up.

What causes three-thirty-itis?

When it comes to the afternoon slump, typically the cause is what you've done, or not done with your nutrition earlier in the day

How do you prevent three-thirty-itis in your triathlon diet?

Without knowing exactly what you eat, here are some general guidelines to get to the bottom of why you fade in the afternoons. Let's start with lunch and work backward to the start of the day.

Triathlon Nutrition - Lunch

• Is your lunch balanced? Does it contain all the macro and micronutrients you need to perform at your best?
• Is your plate...

 Hot Tip - Don't leave it too late

Often triathletes leave it way too late. They’re a last minute Larry and end up winging it. 

• They are not prepared
• They have not rehearsed – and that's my number 1 rule of race day!
• The result is often a horrible race. No energy on the run. You bonk or vomit. And you don’t race as well as expected/or as well as you're capable of 

Stop and think for a second – aren’t we doing all this training to piece it together into a decent race? And that doesn’t necessarily mean a win or get a spot to Kona – simply doing better than the last one, or having a good time or not bonking.

If you want to be successful on race day – whatever that looks like for you – start preparing early. The more time you have, the better. 

You don’t want to get to race week and go ‘oh shit’ – I’m out of sports drink powder. Or I should probably think about CHO...

If you're new to the sport or you’ve stepped away from triathlon training for any period of time, you may not realise how important managing your nutrition is for your return.

It's a big stress on your body to go from not doing anything to suddenly doing something again. So we need to be really mindful of our nutrition in this key window.

If you’ve stepped away from triathlon, perhaps because of:

• Sickness
• Injury
• You’ve just done a big key event – multiple weeks off
• Drama in your personal life that puts a handbrake on training
• Taking a break
• Holidays, OR
• You’re just starting out and you’re new to training

 you need to ensure your transition back into training is managed correctly.

My Top 5 Strategies for Managing your 'Return' to Training 

1. Match your Daily Fuelling to your Training Load

It's really important you quickly align your day to day nutrition to your change in training routine to...

Understandably, ex boxer, turned triathlete, Michael Welsh, who was a completely different athlete to Jason (who we spoke to last week), had a very different race nutrition plan.

Here is Part 2 of our podcast mini series where we lifted the curtain on athletes’ race nutrition plans for Sunny Coast 70.3.

Michael came to me because his old plan, from another dietitian, was super complicated, hard to remember and hard to get down! Only his third 70.3 but by making some changes he managed to smash his goal of going under 4 hr 30 mins.

This week I spoke to Michael where he compared what he used to do to what he does (now that he knows better) and the difference it's made to his performance. 

Michael also shared some of the fundamentals he took care of with his new plan. Namely: 

• His race nutrition plan
• How he practised his nutrition in lead up events
• His pre-race nutrition – his carbohydrate loading
• The bike and run fuel plan we designed to cater to his need...