264: Nutrition Strategies to Enhance Your Running Efficiency

In this episode of the Real Life Runners Podcast, we delve into the importance of proper fueling and nutrition to become a more efficient runner. Topics covered include daily nutrition, pre-run, mid-run, and post-run fueling strategies, and the impact of specific diets and fasting on performance. Emphasizing the need for high-quality whole foods and consistent eating habits, while also addressing common misconceptions and practical tips to optimize running performance through better nutrition.

02:09 Understanding Nutrition for Runners

04:14 Daily Nutrition and Consistency

07:55 Processed Foods and Protein Supplements

11:19 The Importance of Consistent Fueling

12:34 Intermittent Fasting and Runners

20:34 Understanding Hormonal Imbalances in Athletes

21:07 The Debate on Fasted Workouts

21:37 Importance of Fueling During Workouts

22:45 Training Strategies: Fueling for Performance

23:53 Hydration and Fueling Tips

25:54 Adapting Your Gut for Fueling

28:39 Post-Workout Nutrition Essentials

30:19 Balancing Macronutrients for Recovery

39:15 The Role of Daily Activity in Fitness

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Transcript

Angie: 0:00

This is the real life runners podcast episode number 364, how to be a more efficient runner part three, all about fueling and nutrition. What's up runners. So apparently we've started a series here about how to become a more efficient runner without even realizing what we were doing the first time around.

Kevin: 0:45

Yeah, no, we just went into it and now we're, now we're discussing fuel efficiency, which seems great.

Angie: 0:49

It is great. And, um, I'm actually really happy that we're doing this series because there is so much information out there and I'm going to get into some of that today. So be prepared. I might go on a couple little rants or might jump up on a soapbox a little bit during this episode because nutrition is one of those places where there is a lot of conflicting information out there. And we as runners, We are endurance athletes and we need to know how to sort through a lot of the information that's out there and understand what is relevant to us as runners and what is not relevant to us because what works for the general population is not usually the same information that we should be following as runners.

Kevin: 1:34

Yeah, I think that's a really good way of putting it. It's, uh, We don't need to jump into controversy and say things are right and things are wrong, but there are things that

Angie: 1:42

Why not? It's so much fun. Isn't that what social media does?

Kevin: 1:44

I know. The more

Angie: 1:45

polarizing, the better. Don't Isn't that how we get more listens? Yes. And more views?

Kevin: 1:50

Yes. Who cares if it's appropriate information? Let's just get as many listens as possible. Yeah. But, but the takeaway here is, The information that is relevant to us as endurance athletes, not necessarily this is good, this is bad, but this is irrelevant information because it will, it might work for the general population. It doesn't work for us as endurance athletes,

Angie: 2:09

right? So basically the, the point of today's episode is really to help you understand how to fuel your body, both with your daily nutrition and your nutrition surrounding your run. So both, um, pre run, mid run and post run nutrition. So that you can understand how to use fueling your food, your intake, whatever you're putting into your body to help you use less energy to run at the same pace, that's going to help make you a more efficient runner, AKA you are not working as hard and you are still running as fast or even faster. So when you're not working as hard, when you're not wasting energy, kind of like what we talked about on the previous two episodes, when you can conserve more energy by not wasting it, whether it's. through excess body movement. Like we talked about last week with running form. This time we're talking about how to fuel your body so that you're using the energy, uh, in a better way so that you can run longer and faster because that's what you want. You don't want to be wasting all this energy trying to run. Just to burn calories for the sake of burning calories. If you're listening to a running podcast, I'm guessing you care about your performance in some way. And you definitely care about how you feel if you're listening to our podcast, because you know, that's how we rock and roll around here is we want you to feel better. We want you to have more energy. We want you to be able to run for the rest of your life and being. Uh, knowledgeable and understanding how to fuel your body is going to help so much with that respect.

Kevin: 3:38

Right, and ultimately this, this efficient way of, of steady improvement of continuous improvement is Basically making sure that you are well fueled at all time your daily nutrition is the number one place to start This isn't like oh well exactly in the middle of the run. You need to take this exact fuel source By the way, we have a link. That's not where we're coming from This is every day day in and day out. You need to make sure that you were putting good Nutritious food into your body That's where you have to start with to be the most efficient to optimize yourself is daily nutrition,

Angie: 4:14

right? And just like with running consistency is the key here Okay, so just like in order to be a better runner you have to be consistent with your running workouts It's the same thing with your nutrition So if you are someone that is constantly jumping from different diet to different diet or different eating system To different paleo and next week. I'm keto and the thing the following, or maybe I do keto for a couple of weeks, and now I'm into intermittent fasting. Like there's all of these different things that people are going to throw at you in the nutrition world. And these shortcuts and diet hacks are ultimately completely inefficient because they're unsustainable. All of them, right? Like if the, I saw, I heard something, I forget. Where it was I wish that I came up with it But essentially if the way that you eat has a name, it's probably unsustainable

Kevin: 5:07

It's a really good way of putting it like the only time that I ever fast is when I'm sleeping Otherwise like food is not off limits for me. Like the if if I'm awake the pantry is available,

Angie: 5:18

right? well, and there are So, pluses and minuses to that and you are a different type of runner than me and some other people as well. So I do think that it can be helpful to have guidelines around how we eat and what we eat. Um, but to me that's not a diet.

Kevin: 5:36

No, it's less of a diet and more of like have some structure to what what's in front of you But not like strict rules more like bumper bowling of you've got some cushions on the side,

Angie: 5:46

right? Then that's why I say like the kind of the boundaries and the guidelines, right? It's not like this food is good and this food is bad like I can eat this I can't eat this but it's also understanding When I eat this, I perform better. When I eat this, I feel better. When I eat this over here, I get stomach issues and my body doesn't feel as good, right? Like, when I eat at this time of day, it helps me. When I eat too late, I don't sleep as well. Like, these are the kinds of things that we need to understand to help fuel our body better. For what we want to do and in order for us to feel better.

Kevin: 6:19

Yeah, no, I mean the, the situation that you're, you're dealing with, like, is it heading up to a workout pretty soon? Did you just come off of a workout? This depends on what kind of fuel of fuel you're putting into your body because you want to make sure that you're feeling good the entire time, like just because something is quote unquote good or bad does not mean that it's appropriate right before you're ready to head out for a workout. Like that might not be the best time to do it. Even if it's like the most ideal food on, on whatever diet plan.

Angie: 6:45

Right. So the first thing that we want you to understand is this as runners, especially if you are a runner that is looking to improve your performance, high quality, whole foods need to make up the majority of your daily nutrition. All right. High quality, whole foods. What the heck does that mean? That means colorful vegetables and fruits. Those have a lot of vitamins, a lot of minerals that our body needs. We need, um, lean proteins, like Chicken, turkey, fish, if you like, if you eat red meat, you know, red meat is okay for some people. It's not great for other people because it can increase inflammation. So this is one of those times where it really is going to benefit you to understand how to listen to your body. And we talk a lot about effort based training and all sorts of things, but all of it comes down to being able to listen to the signs that your body is giving you. And so you really want to be fueling yourself with high quality protein. whole grains, things that come out of the ground, like, and less things that come in packages is really a good way to start.

Kevin: 7:49

Yeah, the louder the wrapper is that you have to unwrap to get to your food, it's possible the more processing has gone through.

Angie: 7:55

Right, and we're not saying all processed foods are bad. We're not telling you that you need to avoid all processed foods because If we're being honest, all food is processed in some way. And like, even if you grow your own food in the backyard, technically, when you pick it and you wash it, that is a form of processing, washing the dirt off of your own homegrown vegetable. Obviously that's an extreme example. Um, but the, the. The more your food looks like what it originally looked like when it was grown in the ground, the better off you are.

Kevin: 8:25

That's a good way of putting it. The closer it looks to what it should look like. Yeah, no, that makes sense. And

Angie: 8:31

again, processed food, that doesn't mean it's bad, right? There's a lot of really good processed food options that we eat as runners and as athletes. And when we get into the mid, Uh, mid run nutrition. We're gonna be talking about some of those, um, things in general, but there are, there are benefits to those things to write protein powders, those kinds of things. Those are very processed, but they can also be very beneficial when used properly as a supplement to the diet that is already Thank you. Rich in a lot of whole foods.

Kevin: 9:03

Yes. Just because something's highly processed doesn't mean that you should eliminate it off your diet, but it shouldn't be the core of your diet. Like, you know, a protein shake for breakfast and another protein shake for lunch. That's a lot of processed stuff coming into you when you could just consider some actual like grains and fruit and vegetables and things that look like what they're actually supposed to look like.

Angie: 9:23

Yeah. But I will tell you point blank. I. I have a protein shake, I would say most days of the week because sometimes it's just easier, right? And I, and I choose a protein, I choose my protein supplements very carefully and I try to minimize, um, the crap that are, that is in a lot of the, Options out there. I choose ones that don't have the artificial flavors and the artificial sweeteners and all of that stuff, but I will be honest with you sometime like I do use protein drinks as a part of a regular part of my eating because there are sometimes it's just way easier and I can get a lot of bang for my buck nutritionally with a protein shake.

Kevin: 10:04

That's the other thing is sometimes the protein powders give you a whole lot of protein without a whole lot of hassle. Like it is one of the components of my breakfast. Cause it goes into my oatmeal.

Angie: 10:13

Yeah. Sometimes I just don't want to eat right. Like, let's be honest, like, and I don't know if anybody else feels that way, but like sometimes the thought of eating and like chewing just seems like too much energy for me.

Kevin: 10:24

You've said this before, and it is rare that that thought has ever occurred to me of sometimes I just don't want to eat. And then I ran an ultra marathon.

Angie: 10:31

Well, this is the funny thing, right? Oh, cause you did feel that way.

Kevin: 10:34

I, the last thing I wanted to do right now is chew. And you're like, well, we've got to get some food into you. I'm like, okay, but it can't involve chewing. What do we got?

Angie: 10:41

Exactly. When it's funny, because I used to say that I run so that I can eat whatever I want because I love eating. And like, I've just, I don't know, the last couple of years, it's just been not as exciting to me and I still have to eat. We still have to fuel our bodies. But, um, sometimes a protein shake is a great way to go. So we're not saying avoid all processed food, but I also don't just eat those things. I also still try to incorporate a lot of other whole foods into my diet every day.

Kevin: 11:09

All right. Another thing that I want to cover before you possibly jump to a soap box is,

Angie: 11:13

you know, you're giving me like the steps to my soap box by starting to say this. I

Kevin: 11:18

know

Angie: 11:18

it's fine.

Kevin: 11:20

All days need fueling. Whether you are working out on that day or resting on that day, all of the days need fueling. You need to avoid, like, there's some people that are like, well, if I'm working out, then I'm going to make sure that I get in plenty of calories, but on days that I'm not working out, I'm going to reduce my calorie intake because I didn't work out as hard, so I just don't need those calories. And that's not how it works. on recovery days. You need to make sure that you're taking in plenty of fuel so that you can actually get the benefit from the training that you did before. You need to avoid the calorie restriction on down day because that's the day that you're really most optimally building back what you just broke down the day before. And there are so many people that their their calorie intake looks like a roller coaster that kind of balances out with They're exercise load and that's not really a good idea. It should just kind of be a more steady calorie intake. Maybe if you then do like a really long or really hard workout, maybe you boost on that day, but it shouldn't drop below baseline. Maybe it should elevate and then get to baseline is I think at most.

Angie: 12:22

Yeah, so definitely avoiding calorie restriction. And when we start talking about calorie restriction, that naturally leads into this idea of fasting or intermittent fasting. So I want to. Um, really help you all understand that as runners fasting is not a good idea for you. That is my opinion. There is, I have research that I can cite. There's been more research done in this area. Um, a lot of it is being done on men. Some of it is being done on women, but to make a long story short and to kind of sum up some of the more recent research that I've been reading. Fasting for runners is not a good idea, okay? The reason that fasting became so popular over the past, what would you say, 5 to 8 years, 5 to 10 years? Fasting has become a big topic in the whole human performance and biohacking, uh, industry, and I will say industry very deliberately there because it's a, you know, It's a money making industry, right? Like, this is what people want you to do. Like, what is the newest trend out there that they can get you to try? And people will argue with me and say, Oh, well, but if you fast, that's not making anybody money. But actually, it is. And we're not going to jump into all of that right now. But, the whole reason that fasting got popular is because there were some studies done that showed that This whole around this whole idea of autophagy. So what the heck is autophagy autophagy is cell death. And so Basically what the experts out there were saying is that when you fast you basically Kickstart and increase your body's ability to kill off cells that are Sick or diseased in the body. So it's essentially like this big reset where your body goes Goes in and just like finds all of these cells that are not performing optimally, optimally and kills them all off in this process called autophagy. Now, what I want you to understand is your body does this anyway. You don't have to fast in order for your body to do this. Do this process. This process happens. There's actually a, another cool word. So autophagy is a, is a fun word that you can look up and use at cocktail parties. Another really fun word that you can use is apoptosis. Apoptosis is program cell death. Like this is what happens, like some of our. Cells in our body basically have like little timers on them. Like they're, they're not, the cells in our body are not designed to live forever. This is why cancer is a bad thing because basically with cancer, cancer cells just keep living and they don't die. Our, all of the cells in our body are supposed to die and then get replaced with new and fresh cells. And when they don't die, they lead to that overgrowth and that can lead to cancer and tumor. population.

Kevin: 15:11

Yeah, essentially the, if I remember it correct from the few years that I taught bio and this is bringing it down to like a freshman high school bio level, cancer cells get a tweak in their DNA that essentially shuts off apoptosis. So they never realize that they're old and not working correctly and they never go into like cell death phase. They just keep getting bigger and bigger and that's what leads to tumors.

Angie: 15:37

Right. And so this is just a naturally occurring process in our body. And this is one of the big things that people talk about as a benefit of fasting, specifically intermittent fasting, specifically decreasing your eating window. So for those of you that might not be familiar, intermittent fasting means that you decrease the, your eating window. So you only eat for a certain number of hours per day and then you spend more time not eating. And there's different windows that you can play with, like 12 hours on, 12 hours off is. kind of the normal one because we sleep, right? So like we naturally as humans are set up to intermittent fast. Um, that's why eating at night can be so detrimental because our body is normally programmed to not eat during the nighttime, right? Like if you go back evolution to, you know, before, um, electricity, yeah, before electricity and all that, when we went to bed, So we woke up and went to bed with the sun, this was just like the natural way of life. And so with our society and all of the technology and enhancements that we have, like we're staying up later, we're going to bed later, we're waking up earlier, and our body cycles are thrown off. So people are like, oh, if we go back to intermittent fasting, then this is going to help everything.

Kevin: 16:53

I mean, it makes sense because the evolution of technology is way less than the evolution of humans. So, well, let's eat the way that we were, we evolved to eat. So if we cycle ourselves with daylight, it logically makes sense. And that's, that's how it seems like a great idea.

Angie: 17:10

And it is when you, when you're looking at it for, from that kind of ratio, right? Like if you. Are eating for 12 hours and then you take 12 hours off. I would say that that's pretty much what is, should be normal. It's fairly normal in kind of a human lifespan, right? The issue is when it starts to keep getting decreased and decreased. And there's a lot, a lot of people out there that do like 16, four fasting, where you only eat for four hours a day. And then you fast for the other 16 hours to give your body that time to, to autophagize the rest of the cells. Your

Kevin: 17:43

day was a little short there.

Angie: 17:44

What? 16 4? Oh, that's only 20 hours. So, 16 8. There

Kevin: 17:47

you go.

Angie: 17:48

But, like, people that do, like, 4 and 20, like, there are people that do, like, shorter windows. Yes, they keep getting

Kevin: 17:53

it. I know. Yeah. Every time I check the weather, like, the one ad that pops up on me shows a picture of four unbelievably chiseled cartoon characters, and it's the appropriate window for me to fast so that I can get absolutely shredded, I believe is actually what it says in the ad. Yeah. Yeah. My fasting window to get shredded,

Angie: 18:10

right? But the thing is, we as runners are not normal humans, okay? You are not the normal population. And so there were some studies done that basically showed that there was no additional benefit for runners, especially women to do intermittent fasting on top of the workouts that we already do. Because essentially we as active people, if we're out there, if we're working out, we are leading to less. Like autophagy is happening at a more accelerated rate than the normal population because we're using up our energy stores. Cells are dying. We replace them. We build new muscle cells like this is what's happening in our body. This is why we train. We're literally trying to kind of kill off the weaker cells and, Make more of the stronger, healthier cells to build muscle and build bone and do all these things that are going to help lead to improved speed and endurance.

Kevin: 19:04

Right, so trying to fast during this or before this or after this workout is completely unnecessary and more likely much more detrimental.

Angie: 19:12

It is detrimental and that's what some of the more recent studies that are coming out now are basically saying. Is not only does this not give you any additional benefit. It also can hinder your performance and lead to other problems. It can put you at a greater risk of injury. It can decrease your performance. It can give you, you know, less energy, obviously, because you're not fueling your body. Right? So there are actual negative, um, repercussions and consequences from fasting or intermittent fasting for us as runners,

Kevin: 19:43

especially as you start getting longer range studies is like something that might work over the course of a week. And then ultimately I'm calling that a health hack of something that might show marginal improvements over the course of a week is not sustainable, which means you're just going to go back to where you were as they get the studies that go longer. And heaven forbid, we actually include women inside of some of these nutritional studies. You're getting totally different results. It's because fasted workouts for women is even drastically more consequential than for men.

Angie: 20:12

Right. Because of our hormone profiles, right? And because of what happens, um, like with cortisol levels and other hormones in the body, like when we're not fueling our body, there are, um. Major consequences. I will go ahead and just say major consequences because especially the more and more that we do it, right? Because then these consequences kind of get compounded over time, right? And our hormones get completely messed up. Um, we, we started having like relative energy deficiency in sport, also known as red S that's becoming a lot more prominent with women, especially older women, because we are, people are, you know, They're trying these diet fads essentially to try to decrease their fat levels, right? They're trying to mess with their body composition and fuel, um, or not fuel, but, and try to, um, increase their performance at the same time. And it just messes with all sorts of things in the body. And that kind of gets us into the next section we wanted to talk about, which is fueling for workouts. Because I think that fasted workouts is also a, an area of debate for a lot of people. Um, and again, the TLDR, too long, didn't read, or in this case, TLDL, too long, didn't listen version of this is you need to fuel yourself for your workouts. You need to eat before your workouts. Fueling. Are working out fueled is much better for your body than working out fasted. There's a lot of people that believe that Running or working out in a fasted state helps to burn more fat. It's not true Okay, there's more studies coming out that are showing that that is actually not the case And that there is there again decreases in performance and decreases in your lean muscle mass and When you work out in a fasted state because your body needs fuel So if you're going out, especially if you're doing a longer workout or a harder workout Especially if you're doing any sort of strength training or speed work Your body needs fuel and if it doesn't if you don't give it fuel by eating Your body's gonna take fuel from wherever it can in your body And most of the time it's not fat because fat is the hardest thing to metabolize and it takes the longest So it starts pulling from muscle and it starts breaking down your muscle to try to get fuel from for you to keep running and working out the way that you're doing. I

Kevin: 22:29

mean, it seems like an efficient thought process that the body's doing. It's like, well, if I need to fuel the muscle and it's easier to break down muscle than fat, I'm going to break down the muscle. And also there's less muscle for me to fuel. Like, it seems like a logical move, but it's not a good, healthy, long term approach. One of the terms that was around for a while was Train low race high the whole idea of train without putting a lot of fuel into your body And so then when it came to race day and you fueled on race day It'd be like turbo fuel because suddenly like you had enough energy on board But the the study that I heard was like yes, except for the fact that training low ultimately put you in a much lower starting position. So even once you got yourself to like racing and putting calories on board, you were essentially back to like baseline of where you started. Like this is something that continues to compound week after week after week. As you continue to try to train without enough fuel into your body, you're not actually making the progress. Whereas if you train appropriately fueled, You can actually have better workouts week after week after week and those workouts bring you to a higher place So it's not train low race high. It's train high race high fuel Always put enough food into your body

Angie: 23:48

exactly and especially with intense or longer sessions, right? So if you're doing a long run, if you're doing speed workout, if you're lifting weights, you need fuel and you need hydration. And there's a lot of people out there that said, well, you don't really need to fuel your runs unless you're going over an hour over. Actually, it used to be 90 minutes and it used to be, you don't need any fuel until you're crossing over the 90 minute mark, but more and more people are seeing that the more they fuel and the sooner they fuel, the performance goes up and you feel a heck of a lot better in the process.

Kevin: 24:23

Well, it's possible that you don't necessarily need to fuel until you're over an hour. You're going to benefit from putting fuel into your body if you're like, Oh, but it's only like a 30 minute run. Okay. Maybe it's, it's. Inconvenient to carry fuel with you have something before you head out like that kind of counts as in my opinion Fueling during the workout like if

Angie: 24:45

you feel real real close to the workout

Kevin: 24:47

like right before like as you're getting ready to start like You you take in probably some like some liquid calories something to that effect some sort of Energy drink something like that. You could take that in and then And then go off on a shorter workout, you're going to feel better. And if you feel better, it's going to be a better workout. The more good workouts you stack, they don't need to be phenomenal, but the more good workouts you stack, the better shape you're going to get into, the greater your improvement.

Angie: 25:10

Yeah. So the old recommendation, as far as how much fuel you should be taking in per hour, it used to be 30 to 60 grams of carbohydrates per hour. Now it's gone up to to 60 to 90 plus grams of carbohydrate per hour, depending on what you're doing.

Kevin: 25:24

Right. And most people can get to 60 grams per hour without huge GI issues. Like your body just can take this in some people. If you're not used to taking in any fuel, it might take a little adaptation, but I think if you're going for longer workouts, harder workouts, the low end should be Around that 60 grams per hour of carbohydrates, right?

Angie: 25:46

And this is where we'll get a lot of pushback from people because and this is one of the reasons that I've heard so Many times from my running friends and from our clients. They say well, I can't eat anything before my run I run fasted because I can't eat anything before my run because it messes up my stomach And what we want you guys to understand is that your gut, your stomach needs to be trained just the same as the rest of your body does. So you can't go from not fueling yourself to now consuming 60 grams of carbohydrates right before or during your run and expect to have no issues. You might you might get lucky and not have any issues, but if you are someone that has had gut issues in the past, the likelihood of that happening is very, very low. So you need to start low and work your way up to these numbers, right? So us telling you, you should be consuming 60 grams of carbohydrate per hour. You might not be there yet, right? Like you might need to start off with 10 grams, 15 grams, 20 grams, and then slowly work your way up so that your your stomach is Gets used to processing food while you're working out the when, as it gets used to the smaller amounts, it's then going to become better and become more efficient at converting that fuel into usable energy for you so that you can start to increase the amount of fuel that your body is able to take in.

Kevin: 27:06

Right, and this doesn't mean that you have to, at one point in time, somewhere during that hour, take in 60 grams of carbs. That's a huge amount of fuel to suddenly hit your body in one shot. And that might cause stomach distress. You can sip on some like, if you're taking in liquid calories, you can just continuously sip on a water bottle that's got calories in it, and gradually take in those 60 calories spread out over the course of an entire hour. That's fine. Like some people are like, if you, if you go to gels, people are like, Oh, well I've got to down the entire gel. No, you don't. You can take half the gel and then roll the top of it. It's probably not actually going to make that big of a mess. They're, they're all kind of this like foily material. You can roll it over and take half a gel and half a gel is not going to do much to you, especially if you take it in with some water, they're coming up with some of the newer gels that are much more liquidy and less, I don't know, viscous. I think is the word I'm going for. Word.

Angie: 28:00

Yeah.

Kevin: 28:01

They're, they're easier to take in because it's almost like drinking something and it sits much smoother on the stomach because it hits you much more like liquid and allows the body to absorb easier than some of these other gels. Some of them said, well, you have to take this with water. Ultimately, you were just making a liquid gel in your stomach. Some of these, the new stuff out there is a much more liquid based gel that you don't have to even consume with water because it already has it built in. It's like a little heavier because it has the water built in, but. Easier to take in and if you can get more calories into you you will feel better and you're going to have better workouts

Angie: 28:37

And you'll become a more efficient runner. Okay. So now let's move on to topic number three, which is post workout Okay, what do you need to take in after your workout to maximize the effectiveness of your workout? This is what we really want you to understand because if you go out and you do a hard intense workout Say you're going out on a 12 mile long run, or you go out and you do 12 quarter repeats of speed workout, or you go out and you do eight hill repeats, whatever it might be, you go out and you stress your body, what you put into your body after that workout matters, because if you do not refuel, Your body after a workout, it's essentially like you're wasting all of the hard work that you just put in because during your hard workouts, you break your body down when you start to rest and recover. When you are done with that workout, your body starts to rebuild stronger than it was before. If you give it the right building blocks, you can't just expect your body to rebuild if you don't provide it with the necessary building blocks. And one of the most important things for you to refuel with after. A hard workout is protein and then also carbohydrates. So this is where we get into trouble. If you are someone that is restricting your carbohydrate intake, you're like, Oh, I'm just going to avoid carbs. No, your body needs them after a workout because you need to replenish those glycogen stores. That is your body's preferred Source of fuel when you are out running. Okay. So we need to replenish the body's glycogen stores with carbohydrates. And we also need to provide our body with proteins so that our muscles can start to rebuild from the damage that we just did during our workouts.

Kevin: 30:15

Yeah. You need both these things. And so many people are like, all right, I will. focus on making sure that I get plenty of protein in after I run and they ignore the carbs because they're like, well, I'm done with the workout, so I don't need the glucose on board because I'm not currently working out like that's true, but you drain your glucose stores and you're going to need to replenish those. And if you're just putting. Protein on board this is like trying to build a wall and being like well I'm gonna make this giant brick wall, and you're only giving it bricks, but you're not providing mortar You need all of your macronutrients to actually build a strong wall just being like all right I'm done with the workout only protein at this point in time is not giving you all of the material to rebuild Fully and completely and certainly not efficiently

Angie: 30:56

Right. And we, as women, it's even more important because we actually have a shorter refueling window than men do because of the way that our hormones work. So we, as women need to, in order to optimize the effects of our training. Now, obviously if you don't get it in, in this window, because you don't It's not going to, you know, you're, you're going to survive obviously, but the optimal time for you to eat is within 30 minutes of your workout. And there's plenty of people that I've talked to again, that have said, I don't, I can't eat that close to my workout. Like I'd feel like if I eat that, Um, soon after my workout, I get nauseous again, train your gut, right? Like you don't have to jump in with these full numbers that I'm about to give you. You can start by just consuming some of it, but you want to try to consume 25 to 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of a harder workout, especially if you just did a strength training workout, especially if you're lifting, especially if you're lifting heavy, like I hope you are, if you are a woman over 40, you want to refuel with 25 to 30 grams of protein. 30 minutes of ending your workout, you also want to add the carbs in there. Like this is actually the optimal time for you to be taking in more carbohydrates, especially if you're a woman in perimenopause or postmenopause, because our body is much more effective at processing carbohydrates right after our workout. So if you can get in food, a meal, Chocolate milk is one of those, um, ideal ratioed, um, drinks and has made a comeback within the members of our academy. Everybody's talking about drinking chocolate milk after their warm, hot summer runs. Um, but yes, because, you know, Chocolate milk gives you that, um, three to one ratio of carbohydrates to protein and, um, is really good at helping to refuel your body. I

Kevin: 32:51

mean, one of the things that people struggle with trying to take in that much protein, that much food after a run is if it's hot, your body gets an elevated core temperature and that literally shuts down your desire to eat. Right. Like you're just not as hungry. So the last thing that you want to do with this elevated body temperature is take in any food. People are just like, ah, I just need some water. And taking in more water is not enough to, to bring you back. This is where it's sort of like, well, is it good food or bad food? You need whatever it is that you can take in. This might be your time where you said a protein shake is a good option. That's nice and cold. Like you can make the, you can shake it up over ice and get it nice and cold. So now it's hydrating. It's cooling. And there's some of these flavors out here that are just downright delicious. So that might be something that you can get in. Is it, is it more processed than other things that you could have? Like, yeah, sure. You could scramble up some eggs for breakfast, but if that's beyond where your head is, protein shake might be an option, optimal move right here.

Angie: 33:51

Right. So, If you don't fuel your body after your workout, your body stays in what's known as a catabolic state. Basically, there are two ways of, um, being that our body can be in. We can be in a catabolic state, which is a state of where our body is breaking down, or we can be in an anabolic state, which is building back up. And so when we don't fuel our body after a workout, Our body stays in that catabolic state, which slows our recovery process. It slows our metabolism and it increases fat storage. Because again, there's all these hormones floating around in the body. One of which is cortisol because we've just stressed our body. So this is increasing our body's fat storage instead of. You, um, refueling that's actually giving our body what it needs and then taking a lot of that free floating fuel that's still in glucose that's still in the bloodstream and putting it back into our glycogen stores, right? We want it back in our glycogen stores. We don't want it in our fat stores. When we fuel after a workout that puts our body in that anabolic state where we start to rebuild muscle. We start to refuel our. Replenish our glycogen stores, rebuild the glycogen stores. And this is exactly what we want, right? We want our body in that anabolic, that building state versus that catabolic breaking down state.

Kevin: 35:09

And taking in food is what actually does this thing. It's the shift that allows your body to say like, all right, we can move into. Like we're, we're no longer in the middle of a workout. I don't have to make sure that all of the glucose is in my bloodstream. If you don't teach your body, I'm done working out. It just keeps the glucose flowing through your bloodstream, which is, is not the most ideal way to go through the day.

Angie: 35:30

Right. We don't want those elevated blood sugar levels when we're not working out. We do, when we are working out, yes, we want more. like more sugar in our blood because we need to get that sugar out to our working muscles and to our heart, to our muscles, like all the places that we need that needs fuel for us to keep running or keep working out or doing whatever we're doing. That's one of the things that we need. We need that free floating glucose, but when we're done, we don't need a bunch of blood sugar. Sugar in our bloodstream. We need that sugar to go back into our storage areas, which is our, our muscles and our liver. That's where we store glucose in the form of glycogen. And when we don't refuel our body, our body doesn't really know, Oh, okay. It's time to go back into that storage state. And instead there's still all this free floating glucose. And then our body's like, Oh, there's all this sugar. Cortisol levels are up. Insulin levels are, you know, like, so it just throws off all of these hormones like cortisol, insulin. And it leads to constantly elevated stress hormones. It actually lowers our, uh, the concentration of growth hormones in our body. And obviously we want growth hormones to help us build muscle and get stronger. And it also leads to systemic inflammation. All right. And there's so much we're probably have to do another episode on just systemic inflammation and like the good and the bad of inflammation. As people hear the word inflammation and are like, Oh no, that's bad. Inflammation is a good thing for us as athletes, because inflammation is like the cleanup crew that gets sent into the different areas of our body after we've stressed the body. But we need things Inflammation to turn off, right? So there's a difference in, in what kind of inflammation it is. Systemic inflammation is that chronic form of inflammation that we don't want that we, we want to turn off as soon as possible.

Kevin: 37:14

Okay. So when we're talking here about post workout fueling, This is most important after particularly long or intense workouts, like the workouts that you're probably actually fueling during. It's good after all workouts, but you always want to make sure that you were getting in fuel, but that like that window that you're giving that 30 minute window of optimal protein intake is really following more strenuous workouts, especially strength based workouts where you're breaking the body down more. If you're having more of like an easy day, a recovery day, kind of gentle. Gentle run a gentle cross train something where you're not as taxed the post workout Food is really just going back to your daily nutritional needs like this is just a matter of all right I did a workout. It wasn't over the top. So I just kind of have to continue to eat like a normal day But making sure that you are still getting in enough calories that you're not like, all right Well, that was an easy day So I really want to restrict the cut the calories that I'm taking for the rest of it because it wasn't that hard I get no point should restriction ever be You a possibility. Like restricting is ultimately going to lead to long term issues. So always making sure to fuel. It's just that when you're pushing extra hard, that, that protein in the post run fuel is even more important.

Angie: 38:34

Yeah. And I think that this is where it gets really confusing because what you just said is that restricting should never be an option essentially, which that message is very confusing because for so long we've been told calories in calories out. And if you want to lose weight, which a lot of people do, you need to be in a calorie deficit, right? You, we need to be restricting what we're eating, but. I would challenge that because I would say. There's a lot of ways that we can put ourselves into a calorie deficit that don't involve restricting calories and restricting, or I shouldn't say restricting calories, but restricting what we eat that doesn't affect how we refuel our body. And a really big one would be just other daily activity, right? Like if you're someone that. Runs and then you sit all day long at a desk and you don't get a lot of extra movement Increasing just extra daily movement like walking around your house going out for a relaxed walk after dinner There are studies that have shown that like a 10 minute walk after a meal Can do wonders for your blood sugar levels and in your hormone regulation It's like these little things that can really make a big difference but And it doesn't include restricting your fuel for like, and around your workouts.

Kevin: 39:51

Yes. The ever popular sedentary runner that runs before work runs for everything breaks, wakes up before dawn, gets in. 45 to 60 minutes of workout and then Essentially gets in maybe a thousand more steps over the entire rest of the day because they're remarkably sedentary That's not really a healthy lifestyle. You're like, oh, well, I'm getting in all this exercise like yeah, but you're not getting in general movement throughout the day and Continuous movement throughout the day doesn't be crazy because You know, we have jobs sometimes that we don't have the ability to move all over the place, but adding in just a little bit throughout the day does make huge differences. Yeah,

Angie: 40:26

and it can be something small. You can, you know, if you're someone that's like, well, I work at a desk job. What am I supposed to do? What if you just stood stand up and sit down 10 times every hour? Right? Like or every half an hour, it doesn't take that much time. It might take you a minute to do that, but that can make a really big difference, especially when added up over the course of the day, the course of the week, the month, the year, just that little bit of extra activity level, you know, getting up and going to the bathroom, um, more or just walking down the hall and saying hello to a coworker, whatever it might be, just adding in a little bit of extra movement. And I know that it can be hard. Like, I fall into this trap too, right? So I'm, I don't want you guys to think that, like, we're up here on a soapbox, like, pointing down saying, You should be doing this! And look at us, we're perfect all the time. Absolutely not. Like, there are times that I sit at my desk for hours and don't, and I lose track of time, because I'm immersed in something. And, uh, You know, this is one of the ways, or um, one of the things that can be helpful here is setting a timer, right, for every 45 minutes or every hour, whatever it might be, and that's just a reminder to get up and just move a little bit, right, like get up, stand up, sit down 10 times, take a walk, you know, from wherever you are down the hall, like, it depends on, you know, are you working from home, are you in an office, whatever it is. Um, go walk outside, get a little bit of fresh air, come back in. It can be a five minute break that can really, um, make a really big difference in, in how you feel, your energy levels and, you know, the way that your body, um, performs.

Kevin: 41:53

Yeah. I mean, you can think about it. If you've ever been on a long plane ride, you don't feel good when you're stuck in your chair for a long time. And if you've ever been on a plane ride with Angie, you'll notice that one of the things that you can do. Cool. Cool. If you just absolutely take no judgment from the people around you is just get out of your chair and right in the middle aisle of the plane lunge. And it's going to be fine.

Angie: 42:13

I only did that once.

Kevin: 42:14

I know. And I filmed the whole thing. It was so funny. It was hysterical. Uh, I believe that was the first time that our child decided that she might not be our child. That's not, that's not my mom. I'm not, I'm not part of this family. Do

Angie: 42:28

not know that crazy woman right there, but yeah. Um, so. All this to say, guys, fuel your body, okay, to be a more efficient runner, to improve your performance, whether that means that you want to get faster or you want to be able to run longer, you need to eat food that is good for you, that you need to eat enough food that is going to fuel your body for your activity level, for what you want your body to do, you need to take in the appropriate amount of fuel, um, and that needs to be, um, high quality most of the time, sometimes eat whatever you want. And, uh, it's not as complicated as you think it is, but if you are confused, if you are someone that is like, I, okay, I hear what you're saying, but how do I actually put that into practice? How do I actually apply this information to my running so that I can. You know, get the benefits that I want to get reach out to us. Okay. This is what we do inside of our group coaching program. Every single week with our athletes, we have weekly live coaching calls. You can come on and ask questions specific to you, right. And figure out how this applies to you. And if you can't make our weekly zoom calls, you can, um, get in touch. Email support for us. We're here for all of our athletes. We love, um, coaching all of our, our runners inside the Academy. So if you want some help figuring out how to apply this information, reach out to us. Okay. Send me an email, uh, connect with us over on Instagram at real life runners. And, um, we would be happy to help you out with this. And if you found this, this helpful. Um, leave us a review on Apple podcast, if you haven't, so that you can help, um, for us to share the running love and help other runners to feel better and perform better in their lives. Anything else you want to add?

Kevin: 44:11

I just, I want to know what cocktail party you're going to that apoptosis is getting tossed around all the time.

Angie: 44:16

Ooh, apoptosis. I love it. Um, and as always guys, thanks for spending this time with us. This has been the real life runners podcast episode number 364. Tell us about the cocktail party that you used apoptosis in. Now get out there and run your life.