Common Fueling & Hydration Mistakes (and how to fix them!) Ep 58

Every endurance athlete remembers the moment when things finally click. Your swim feels smoother, your pacing makes sense, your fueling works, and suddenly the sport feels not only easier, but more fun. And for many athletes, that moment happens at training camp. That's exactly why we created the Endurance Edge Triathlon Training Camp happening April 22nd through 26th at Lake Jocassee in South Carolina. For 4 incredible days, you'll train in a small group with expert coaches, sports nutrition support, and sports psychology guidance, all designed to help you train smarter, race stronger, and finally connect the dots in your performance. We swim in crystal clear mountain water, ride beautiful and challenging roads, run scenic trails, and spend the rest of the time recovering, learning, laughing, and eating some seriously amazing chef-prepared food.

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I'll see you there. Hello and welcome back to the Find Your Edge podcast. I am your host, Christina Fiumara Newport. I am excited you are here. And before we jump into today's topic, I wanted to remind you that our Fueling and Hydration Bootcamp closes registration tomorrow. That is Friday, August 9th. We definitely want you to be included in this most complete way to help you fuel and hydrate properly for your best performance for your next endurance event. As an athlete myself, exercise physiologist, and performance nutritionist, I have spent decades refining this process and helping hundreds of athletes just like you get the science, strategies, and secrets all packaged up into this little fueling and hydration boot camp. Check it out, theenduranceedge.com/fuelingbootcamp. Don't wait. Again, doors close this Friday, August 9th. All right, so let's jump into today's topic. These are some of the most common issues that I see with endurance athletes as to why they come to us for fueling, for metabolic testing, for nutrition, for sweat testing. Number 1 is flat out guessing. And I get it, we all have to start somewhere. We all need some sort of guidelines. So Googling things or going to your latest, your closest triathlon store or running store. But we're all kind of guessing a little bit, and unfortunately a lot of that guessing is not grounded in science. We're just kind of going off of what social media tells us is the latest and greatest flashy thing, or friends' advice as to what products have worked for them. And again, there's nothing wrong with that. We all need a starting point. But if we understand how the gut works properly during exercise, that is a crucial step to creating an effective fueling and hydration plan. Guessing. Not so great. Let's use some science and make sure that we're creating an effective and well-thought-out plan. Another thing that I see people doing wrong is what I like to call the kitchen sink approach. Some athletes, and, you know, I, again, I don't blame you. Some athletes use this sort of kitchen sink approach, throwing literally everything they possibly can at a problem. So this is common when I'll see either runners or triathletes or soccer players or tennis players where they're struggling with cramping, and typically it's in the heat because they're losing so much fluid. But you have to remember that fluid and electrolytes are tied together. We don't just lose one or the other, we sort of lose them both together. When things like this happen, then everyone is sort of thinking, oh my gosh, let's try pickle juice, let's try electrolytes, let's add in sports drinks, let's add in more gels. So there's really no clear strategy and they're just throwing everything they possibly can, which may or may not work. Um, sometimes it does, but then it's kind of like, well, what worked and what didn't? So being a little bit more strategic in the approach. And again, the biggest thing here that I commonly see is people don't know how many electrolytes they're actually losing. So then again, it goes back to the guessing. So the solution to this is, again, don't guess. Use science to guide you. We use our metabolic and sweat testing in order to create fueling and hydration plans. If you are not near us and cannot do metabolic sweat testing, that's okay. Jump into our Fueling and Hydration Bootcamp, which includes a home sweat testing kit so that you get that information. And then we guide you using, again, this process that we've used for hundreds of athletes, coaching you on how to get your own specific data so that you can better predict how you're going to do in a specific event. Next up is gut training. I'm sure some of you have heard this, but aligning your gut training with your physical training is absolutely critical. So your physical training, I am going to assume, follows some level of periodization in order to help you improve. Your gut training again should follow that same level of periodization and should align with your training. The gut is an organ too and needs to be trained just as much as your quads and hamstrings and heart and lungs. So aligning those two is really critical. What I'll often see people do is that they're calling me and they're saying, oh my gosh, my event is in a week. What should I eat or drink in the week leading up to the event? It's like, no, no, no, no, no. Rewind, friends. You need to be training your gut both on a daily basis and with whatever specific product or products you have chosen leading up to your event for a minimum of 8 to 12 weeks prior to your event. Another easy fix to this is make sure you have a coach. AI doesn't know what your gut is doing or how many times you've pooped or gotten nauseous on a certain event, but those are types of things that you can discuss with your coach, with your nutritionist, and making sure that you're executing this strategy again, at least 12, 8 to 12 weeks prior to your event. I'm telling you, all of this is in our Fueling and Hydration Bootcamp. All right, so next up is carbohydrate choices. So I know a lot of athletes will think of, oh, I'm getting X amount of calories per hour. Well, not all calories and not all carbohydrates are created equal when it comes to using them during exercise. So the types of carbohydrates matter when it comes to fat, fiber, and protein. All of those things are going to slow or delay gastric emptying. That's why it's a good thing if you're somebody who may be trying to lose weight, for example, you wanna be eating those things on a daily basis to increase satiety during exercise. It's the opposite. We actually want that gastric emptying to be consistently happening in order for those carbohydrates to be delivered to the small intestines and thereby sent out to working muscles. We do have some carbohydrate absorption in the mouth, so that's a good thing, especially if you're, you know, holding something in your cheek. Or there have been some research on mouth rinsing, which is— the jury's a little bit out on that. But one way or the other, it is important that you have the right type of carbohydrates. Typically they're going to be faster acting rather than the slower acting. There's also been some interesting research that we're gonna talk about in our Fueling and Hydration Bootcamp related to Uh, certain types of carbohydrates and even hydrogels. If you are struggling with this, we can help take out some of that doubt or confusion because I tell you what, I kind of feel bad for you guys. There are so many different types of products, everything from the stuff that's on the grocery store shelves to what you actually fuel and hydrate with. And you know, shiny object syndrome is a real thing too. And again, I feel bad for you guys. So there are so many different products on the market. We have compiled a very large list of those types of products and sort of highlighted them. These are the ones that you want to kind of stay away from, and this— these are the ones that are going to help you dial in your strategy much more specifically. Now, at the end of the day, whatever product or products you choose, you have to be able to logistically get them into your body and you actually have to like them. So if you try a certain flavor and you just don't like it, you're not gonna be motivated to drink it. Totally defeats the purpose of that product, even if it has the right type of carbohydrates and seemingly on the label is magical. If it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you. So we help you differentiate between all of those different products, narrow it down to the ones that you should select based on your electrolyte losses and whatever event that you are doing. This is also something that comes into play that we don't necessarily take as much weight, but we are so unique, you guys. I'm telling you what, when this type of research is being conducted on athletes for fueling purposes, there are so many different variables that they have to take into account. There's almost no way that they could get this perfect research done just right because again, we are so unique, whether it be our gender or the way our guts work, our lifestyles, the list goes on and on and on. This is why you still have to select those different types of product. You still have to test it out. So you still have to do some of the work. It's not like something is magically just gonna, you know, fly off the shelves. You still have to do some of the work. But in our Fueling and Hydration Bootcamp, We help you narrow it down very significantly. This is one of my favorite ones, you guys. Your strategy should be different based on the distance, the intensity, and the race conditions of whatever you are doing, whether it be training or racing. So your strategy that you have perhaps for a sprint or Olympic distance race or a 10K or a half marathon is likely going to be a little bit different for marathon, half marathon, Ironman, ultra marathon, because, and we see this again in our metabolic testing, but you don't have to be in the lab in order to do this, in our exercise physiology lab, in order to understand this, is that the higher the intensity, the more that you are oxidizing of the carbohydrates that you ingest, and the more that you are using your glycogen. Stores or those onboard carbohydrates. The slower you go, then we sort of dip into some of those fat stores, which are for our purposes practically limitless. But all of that to say is that your strategies should be tailored to your specific event and whatever the altitude and the dew point is gonna be, uh, on that day. So factoring things like heat and humidity and factoring in things like duration. Our brand new fueling and hydration calculator that we have just developed and that we are launching for this fueling and hydration boot camp is exactly figuring those pieces out so that you can be as best prepared for your event based on your specific data, your electrolyte losses, your carbohydrate needs, things that you have practiced with, so you can put all that together and have your personal fueling and hydration needs for whatever event it is that you're doing. And again, being able to adjust those strategies based on the intensity and based on the weather conditions. So that's probably one of the hardest ones to account for kind of on your own. And I get it. I get that some, what works for you in one distance, you wanna keep it that way and you wanna hit repeat on that. It's just so much easier for our brains to not have to make additional decisions, which is again why we created this calculator. So you just type it all in and it spits it out and says, this is what you need. All right, so another issue that we see with athletes is gastrointestinal or GI issues. Oftentimes we see that health issues are uncovered in this process, which may warrant additional follow-up from a healthcare provider. I'll give you a couple of examples. We've seen athletes with celiac disease. Crohn's disease, fructose malabsorption, small intestinal bowel overgrowth, or SIBO for short, among other things. So those things need to be addressed in addition to be able to adjust your fueling and hydration strategy so that you get the right carbohydrates in particular, depending on what your gut is doing, so that we can adjust for these various gut issues. We also see some sensitivities come up or just excess amounts of certain sugars that just don't agree with certain bodies. Uh, for example, um, maltodextrin certainly in the literature has been pointed to as an inflammatory sugar in certainly in large quantities. Typically that is related to daily consumption because it's in a lot of junk food and packaged and processed foods. But if you are consuming large quantities of maltodextrin, it may not agree with you. And how would you know? So that's one of those things that we see as GI issues as limiters. The last one I wanna make sure to address, because this can be extremely dangerous, and this goes back to, you know, certain carbohydrate choices or certain product choices, is overusing electrolytes or using the wrong types of electrolytes. Let me give you some examples. We have seen people who come in for our sweat testing and they have complained of having issues at various events. Typically this is marathon or longer. With having either hyperkalemia or hypokalemia. You may have heard of hyponatremia, which is related to your sodium being too low. And in all of these cases, I have heard stories specifically of people being hospitalized. So again, this is super dangerous and we wanna make sure that we're not overdrinking just water, which could lead to hyponatremia. Which is a low concentration of sodium, and it's far more dangerous than dehydration. But when I see people overusing certain products that have high levels of potassium in them, or they're just supplementing with salt and they don't have any other electrolytes in the mix, then they could have things like hyperkalemia or hypokalemia, which is an imbalance of potassium. And could be fatal. So we wanna make sure that we're choosing products that don't have more potassium than it does sodium. This is really common with any product that has coconut water in it. Um, not to say that coconut water is necessarily a bad product, but you can overuse it for extended periods of time in an endurance event, and it can throw off that balance, that very, um, sensitive balance of sodium and potassium and could be potentially fatal. So again, this is where our sweat testing comes in and is super helpful to dial that in specifically for you, to uncover potentially some of those GI issues, to help you adjust for strategies for distance and intensity, to help you select the right carbohydrate choices, to guide you on your gut training in conjunction with your physical training, and to avoid guessing or the old kitchen sink approach. So if you really wanna know your own electrolyte losses, you and fuel and hydrate according to your unique needs and learn the science behind fueling and hydration, be sure to check out our Fueling and Hydration Bootcamp, theenduranceedge.com/fuelingbootcamp. Registration is only open until tomorrow, y'all. I hope you get on board. You're gonna be working directly with me via live Zoom calls. There's a bunch of bonuses that go along with it. It's gonna be awesome. So thank you again for listening. Happy fueling, and I will catch you next time. Thanks for listening to the Find Your Edge podcast. If you like what you heard, don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode. And if you're interested in learning more about our endurance coaching, sports and wellness nutrition, metabolic and sweat testing, triathlon training team, or our triathlon training library, be sure to check us out at theenduranceedge.com. And don't forget to follow us on social media at The Endurance Edge. Thanks again, and we'll catch you next time.