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Your Diet Sucks X Uphill Athlete
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In this episode of the Uphill Athlete Podcast, host Alyssa Clark is joined by Kylee Van Horn and Zoë Rom, creators of the Your Diet Sucks podcast, to discuss the dangers of nutrition myths and fad diets in endurance sports. They explore why extreme athletes are particularly susceptible to restrictive eating patterns, the misconceptions surrounding low-carb and fasted training, and the potential risks these approaches pose to both performance and health. Kylee and Zoe emphasize the importance of balanced nutrition, critical thinking, and recognizing the emotional and social aspects of food choices. They also offer insights on how athletes can resist diet trends by questioning sources, focusing on fundamentals, and seeking expert guidance. The conversation challenges the allure of quick fixes and reinforces the value of sustainable, evidence-based fueling strategies.
If you'd like to listen to Your Diet Sucks, check it out on apple, spotify or your favorite podcast platform. You can learn more about Zoë and Kylee by visiting @youdietsucks, @carrot_flower_z or @flynutrition3 on instagram.
If you'd like to learn more about Uphill Athlete, visit Uphillathlete.com or write to us at coach@uphillathlete.com
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Transcript
Introduction of Guests
00:00:13
Speaker
everyone. Welcome to the Uphill Athlete Podcast. And I'm going to say the Uphill Athlete Podcast times the Your Diet Sucks podcast today because I am joined by two amazing athletes, business women, just all around.
00:00:31
Speaker
incredible people who started a podcast ah called your diet sucks. And they were kind enough to come on the Apple athlete podcast today to speak with us. So Kylie and Zoe, happy to have you on.
00:00:46
Speaker
Pumped to be here, Alyssa. Yeah, excited. Thanks for having us. Of course.
Origin of 'Your Diet Sucks' Podcast
00:00:52
Speaker
So I'd love to hear just a little bit about both of you and also ah just a bit about why you started the podcast and what it's about. um Yeah, so if you want to take it away first.
00:01:05
Speaker
Sure. So, you know, Kylie and I have been best friends for like five going on five years now. I actually met her while she was crewing her husband at a world record attempt a few years ago.
00:01:17
Speaker
I was like, this is the smartest person I have ever met. We need to be best friends. And we started doing a lot of runs together. And since she was a registered dietitian nutritionist, I was getting a lot of free nutrition coaching and advice, which was very helpful for me.
00:01:32
Speaker
But as you know both a journalist and an athlete in eating disorder recovery, my friendship with Kylie sort of revealed how many things... I had wrong about nutrition, how many mistakes I was making or how many misconceptions or misperceptions I had.
Exploring Diet Misconceptions
00:01:50
Speaker
And for me, like my curiosity is always peaked when I find out all the ways in which I am incorrect about things. Cause being wrong is the most exciting jumping off point to find a more interesting story and to figure out how to be right. And so you know, a lot of the subject matter of this podcast, if it's like weird, you know, fad diets or emerging science or cultural narratives are the kind of like juicy topics that Kylie and I like to talk about when we're on our runs or when we're, you know, bonding over over a glass of rosé. And I just thought like, wow, like we both have this amazing professional experience. We should combine it in a format for more
00:02:32
Speaker
people because she has this amazing, like the the nutritional background. And I, as a journalist, I'm essentially a professional question asker. And I thought that that would give us a pretty unique perspective to storytell from.
00:02:45
Speaker
I love that. I will just quickly add that i have not heard many people say that being wrong is the jumping off point of asking more questions and learning more. and i I just want highlight that because that is incredible. I wish a lot more people
Fad Diets Among Athletes
00:03:00
Speaker
had that perspective. So Oh, yeah. Thinking you're right is the worst thing you can be for a journalist, especially. Yeah. Yeah.
00:03:08
Speaker
Well, think, um yeah, that was one thing, too, that like every episode that we have, we always want to examine the topic from both sides to see, you know, what research exists on both ends of the spectrum and in between as well, and then help people navigate the that information and we might end up at the end of the episode saying like, well, you know, here's the nuance, but you kind of still, you know, here's, this is up to you to make that decision.
00:03:40
Speaker
But we're trying to present it in a way that's going allow people to, to make their own decision in an informed way versus like a, um, something that's biased and and they're just getting on the, on socials or something.
00:03:56
Speaker
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. tonight I've listened to um some of the episodes and I do really enjoy coming to the end and not feeling like I necessarily and being like corralled one way or other. It's just like, hi, no more.
00:04:12
Speaker
Awesome. Like I can make a more informed decision. So yeah, definitely doing your job there.
Athlete Susceptibility to Fads
00:04:18
Speaker
and So today asked the two of you to dive into the topic of fad diets.
00:04:27
Speaker
um I think and we see them very commonly um in running. i think I also uphill kind of comes from the perspective of, we'll say like general mountain athletes, incredibly common.
00:04:40
Speaker
ah yeah the Yeah, the whole fasted training and low carb diet, all of that. So we kind of want to focus fad diets today. And I'll start off with why do see endurance athletes as being the most susceptible or very susceptible to fad diets?
00:05:03
Speaker
um I'll have Kylie speak to the more like scientific perspective, but from like the cultural and like narrative side of things. um We're an extreme bunch of people. We spend a lot of our time in extreme environments around other extreme people.
00:05:18
Speaker
And I think that that sort of like um that proclivity for extremity makes us additionally susceptible to being like, well, I already... recreationally run 100 miles and climb mountains for fun, like, why would that extremity not also extend to my diet? Like, we're doing a lot of, like, pretty intense training.
00:05:37
Speaker
And I think a lot of times, ah endurance sports and mountain sports particularly attract a certain type of pretty type A person, someone who's incredibly driven. And that drive can be a double-edged sword because that it, on one hand, is the thing that, you know, propels us to you know, long distance finishes, it propels us off mountains. But sometimes if we don't harness it in quite the right way, that proclivity for like um obsession that's not properly channeled can sometimes catapult us into less productive ways of expressing that desire to push the envelope, less productive ah ways of trying to be excellent. And I think it's just like that
00:06:18
Speaker
where ah like we're a self-select group of people who already do extraordinary things and are extraordinarily disciplined. And I think sort of like the shadow side of that can be like, well,
00:06:30
Speaker
why would that can also extend to sometimes restrictive diets or um the fact that like a lot of times mountain sports like become pretty insular communities. When someone who like, you know, you've been tied into like, like the the person that you trust who belays you does something and they say it works for them. They have a sample size of one and they say, well, keto worked for me.
00:06:53
Speaker
that can make you additionally susceptible to that. And it doesn't mean that their end of one experience is wrong, but you might be over indexing on how important that very small sample size is.
Balanced Nutrition vs. Fad Diets
00:07:05
Speaker
Yeah. And then, um,
00:07:07
Speaker
from the, i feel like my perspective from the performance side, like when I'm working with people, they, they think that like, in order to gain that extra small percentage, like the fad diet or the extreme thing is the way to go. And so they don't want to just be like, well, that you said balanced nutrition. Like, that's not like a good enough answer for me.
00:07:32
Speaker
um so yeah. you know, they they latch on to a like wanting to feel like they belong to some certain like community of like diet extreme and then be they want I see it a lot for like trying to gain a performance advantage or like that extra percent when in reality like the thinking there might be a bit backwards.
00:07:56
Speaker
from a coaching perspective, I could not agree mayor more. It's like, I always liken it as a lot of times people are looking at step 59 and we're still not doing one, two, and three well.
00:08:11
Speaker
So yeah, it's, could not agree more.
Risks and Misconceptions of Fad Diets
00:08:18
Speaker
So what are, and we've we've thrown out a couple, ah but what are some of these fad diets that we commonly see for athletes?
00:08:28
Speaker
I would say, i mean, well, we see the low carb, high fat a lot. I think particularly in mountain endurance sports. um We see when we're also talking about things like paleo or carnivore those types of diets that are pretty extreme would be, would say, fads. Yeah.
00:08:49
Speaker
I always caution people against investing in a diet that has good branding and name recognition because oftentimes the diets that work like balanced agnostic diets like the Mediterranean diet, like they don't have a cute little logo and a website where they can take your money. And I think that that is pretty revelatory about what the be all end all goal of a lot of these diets is.
00:09:12
Speaker
Like the primal blueprint or something by like Mark Sisson, like, you know, those kinds of things that you see by doctors that are like, you know, they're just trying to make like a little bit of extra money. Like those are the fad diets that are just like red flag right there.
00:09:27
Speaker
Yeah. I would even say that a hyper fixation on or an overemphasis on weight as being determinative for performance success is a fad. It's not validated in the research.
00:09:41
Speaker
And it sort of comes and goes depending on like where our cultural sort of like... Pulse check is around what bodies we currently find acceptable, desirable, and like worthy of value in our culture. you know like The sort of bodies that we lift up as being athletes now are different than those we were lifting up five years ago, 10 ago, 20 years ago.
00:10:00
Speaker
twenty years ago And I think that people treating their bodies, the very stuff of their existence as a passing fad is really, really detrimental, not just to performance, but to your overall wellbeing as well. And so I think that just like the focus on weight, it's a, it's a fad with staying power, but it is a fad.
Trusting Instincts Over Diet Rules
00:10:20
Speaker
Yeah. I think that's a great point. I mean, i think a really a good marketing strategy for your podcast could be just like good healthy diet yeah sticker like don't know if it's sold that well but you know like everything is like oh vegan paleo whatever like they're literally the things on the package that will say that like you say part of a well balanced great staying healthy diet yeah except no one's gonna buy that is the thing yeah um Yeah, and I think, but also, like, I just, I tried to, on that note, like, I just finished my um endurance fueling book, Practical Fueling for Endurance Athletes. And i I made the, yeah, like the conscious decision to not focus on weight and body composition in the book, and really wanted to provide a resource for people that was science backed, but also like, easy to implement. And I think sometimes,
00:11:19
Speaker
people get so overwhelmed with information out there, like even like one-on-one clients that I'm working with, they're just so overwhelmed that they like latch onto this set of rules in this diet because it's like, oh, this is the way that I need to do things.
00:11:32
Speaker
And with a more, maybe what they think is nebulous, like a more balanced um approach, they they don't really understand exactly how to implement that in the right way. And so providing them with steps, action steps are things that they can focus on, like adding in or getting more of in, etc.
00:11:53
Speaker
and And here's how you break this down and approach it. it it I think that helps people, you know, they would just want something to be able to like like, like kind of easily put into place in a way. Yeah, absolutely. You know, that's, as you were saying that it makes me think so much of how we progress in training people, like a lot of times I actually see heart rate training as almost like like the bumpers or the training wheels to help you to understand this more in many ways, like fluctuating and nebulous range of RPE, which is where I tend to like to lead people. Cause I always, people who listen to the podcast know me to say that um I always joke, if you're on a mountain and Sasquatch runs up and grabs your watch and throws it off the cliff, like, what are you going to do
00:12:41
Speaker
you going to sit down be like, I can't, I don't know my heart rate. What am I going to do? i can't like climb this mountain anymore. um And I feel like that's probably very similar to how athletes feel of like, hey, I feel really drowned in having all this rage because i don't I haven't been taught how to just listen to my body.
00:13:00
Speaker
um So I guess how do you help um athletes to kind of let go things? that rigidity of those roles kind of like working more towards that from ah from a strict diet to like, hey, we can undo this.
00:13:18
Speaker
I know that's a huge question. So take it kind of as you will. I mean, I think, I think, um, here's the thing is like, there are certain things that we know are going to help endurance athletes perform nutrition or wise. So I think chatting with athletes about there's certain things in particular, I'm thinking about carbohydrates and like, I like to teach my athletes, like for a lot of my athletes, if they've just been told to eat enough, that like, doesn't help them.
00:13:47
Speaker
So they want more specifics on like, okay, what does that look like? Like, what does this amount of carb look like for different days of training? And so I teach them how to kind of get themselves to a minimum.
00:13:59
Speaker
And then we focus on hunger and fullness because here's the thing is like, ah There are flaws with even just focusing on hunger and fullness, especially when you're training a lot. So you know your leptin and ghrelin levels can be altered, which can make it difficult to discern, like should I be eating? Should i not be eating? So teaching people how to recognize like what does that hunger and fullness look like in the context of having some specificity, I think can actually be really empowering. And like once you get a sense of like, oh, okay, this is about...
00:14:31
Speaker
how much carb I need on a heavier day of training, and you kind of get yourself close there and know how to listen to the body if you need more, then that's kind of where, you know, i'm I'm trying to help people understand that concept, I guess.
00:14:45
Speaker
And I would also say that, you know, for folks like me who are maybe on that journey of getting to listen to, like learning how to listen better to their bodies, like it is really normal that it is hard. Like we live in a culture that like a lot of the messaging, particularly in the world of athletics and fitness,
00:15:04
Speaker
is trying to teach us to be skeptical of our bodies, is trying to sell us something so that we don't listen to our bodies and we listen to a device or we listen to a diet or we listen to an influencer or we listen to a guru or we listen to a training plan as opposed to learning how to preference our own existence and our own experience. And I think that like it it just it
Critique of Restrictive Diets
00:15:26
Speaker
makes a lot of sense that sometimes people struggle with it. And i just wanted to to validate that. But there are a lot of people who are benefiting from that struggle and I think always being skeptical of like why am I being told to not trust my hunger or like not in the case of like the leptin and ghrelin things like there are like yes training does modify your hunger but I'm speaking more in the terms of like when athletes are told to like oh drink water to suppress your appetite have caffeine to suppress your appetite or like you know
00:15:54
Speaker
Don't eat this or eat this only at certain times of days because like it'll you know change your metabolism in this way. And a lot of that messaging can just really get our wires crossed. And that yeah, I would just always urge people to come back to working with an expert like Kylie and also believing their own experience.
00:16:12
Speaker
Yeah, Kylie, I have sent your Instagram. I loved when you were doing like the plates and and that kind of like very visual representation. I have sent that to clients before and been like, hey, take a look at this, like just to give some kind of a basis. But I think one of the the pieces, and I think this ties into Zoe, what you touched on about personality traits is that so like what we do is hard.
00:16:36
Speaker
it It is very challenging. You know, you have to really quite deeply at the end of a hundred miler or or fifty k you know, climbing Everest. And so I think oftentimes we really associate that having to be tough and hard, I think also with our diets um as well. And so I'm curious how you kind of like,
00:17:02
Speaker
nudge athletes towards your diet doesn't have to be like your diet doesn't have to suck quite literally like to prove that you're tough enough to go do the hard thing
00:17:15
Speaker
i Something I would say is I don't think toughness is always inherently valuable, right? Like I could ram my head against a wall for 10 hours, which would be a very tough thing to do.
00:17:26
Speaker
But the outcome of that is totally decoupled from any of my actual values. And I think that our culture sort of, again, gets its signals crossed. And we forget how to celebrate the outcome or we forget how to celebrate perseverance in the process.
00:17:40
Speaker
And instead we just celebrate inherently like the, eat the thing that that we think is easy to see, which is the toughness. So, you know, you don't like, not everything needs to be banging your head against a wall for 10 hours. And just because it's harder,
00:17:53
Speaker
Doesn't mean it's better, you know, and I think that a lot of times again endurance sports, we do kind of like to do things the hard way, you know, not sure what that says about us, but it is true. And so I think that that makes it incumbent upon us to be additionally cynical of like any sort of thought process that's like this is hard so it inherently must be.
00:18:12
Speaker
better. good You could, you know, the hardest training hardest is not going to be the most beneficial for you. You know, like I could go out and do Killian Jornet's training, but the outcome is not going to be the same.
00:18:24
Speaker
And, you know, whatever mental toughness I have in that process doesn't guarantee the results that I actually care about.
00:18:34
Speaker
And I also challenge athletes sometimes to think about where you have this idea of like less is better or more restrictive practices, but like, have you tried the opposite approach or have you like shifted that mindset to like, well, what if I
Misunderstandings of Low-Carb and Fasted Training
00:18:50
Speaker
do more? Like what would happen there? What if I tried to,
00:18:54
Speaker
add magnesium in my diet or something like that. I've never actually done that. So like getting curious about experimenting with things rather than being like, well, you know, it's, it's tougher to do it this way. So it's better. That's just something else I like to add to people's like thought processes when I'm chatting with them.
00:19:17
Speaker
i love that. Along, well, kind going back to the specific diets, and I'll just pick out low-carb, high-fat, and fasted training. i don't know if you'd exactly call fasted training a diet, but...
00:19:35
Speaker
It kind of falls, I would guess, like, i would say like under patterns of behavior are two that we get all the time um for a mountain athletes. What are, would you say like the perceived benefits of these diets?
00:19:52
Speaker
As far as like the fasted training goes? Is that what saying? Yeah, like, what what do you see when athletes come to you and they say, like, hey, I've been doing this, like, what are the hope for gains from oh like taking that on?
00:20:08
Speaker
Yeah, the biggest thing that I see is, like, ah they think that their fat oxidation rates are going to improve, and so the that that...
00:20:19
Speaker
overall can then help them with endurance that's like the the biggest like argument for doing that but like the alternative is like i feel like the the messaging of oh well if you didn't do that actually like maybe you would prevent bone stress injuries or hormonal issues especially with you know the more research that's coming out I mean, we need a lot more, but like for female athletes, you know, it's like, also, are we paying attention to those sorts of differences between people?
00:20:54
Speaker
um even for my male athletes that are like injury prone, like, they don't recognize that like, Oh, this faster training could have actually like contributed to my bone stress injuries that I've been getting. But I think it's kind of to your point, like it's promoted as like, Oh, you can, this is better for you as a, as your toughness. If you don't eat beforehand, or it's going to help you lose weight if you don't eat beforehand and,
00:21:24
Speaker
Even when they've done comparison studies between people that fast for exercise and those that don't fast, there's not a difference in and weight loss or body count change. So um it's just, yeah I think there's just a lot of misconception out there, but I do i am hopeful that the the message is shifting actually in that and that's in the fasting realm of things.
00:21:46
Speaker
but
00:21:49
Speaker
Yeah, I'm hopeful too. I mean, that's, I will say that we... had a time period where we did promote that back when there was thought that it it could be helpful with fat a fat adaptations. we do not We've gone very much the opposite direction and have really worked on, which is another reason we're kind of like really trying to hammer this point home this is not great.
00:22:14
Speaker
um So I'm appreciative of you two Also, yeah backing that effort. um The great news is that doing aerobic-based training will make you more effective at fat oxidation, and that one's for free, folks.
00:22:29
Speaker
You can still eat carbs and get more effective at burning fat. Well, it's kind of like the... the statement we were making at the beginning, like, is the perceived benefit of someone doing that, is it actually going to make that big sort percentage of difference?
00:22:46
Speaker
ah Likely not ah some for for the majority of people that are like asking questions about this. So that's the other thing to think about too, is like our,
00:22:57
Speaker
Is the risk really worth any like potential benefit that this could ter provide for most people? I would say no. And it's actually going to be a lot riskier for them to not deal with something.
00:23:08
Speaker
Um, and then the other thing that I see is just like, people are like, well, I can't do this because my stomach, it bugs my stomach or I don't have time. And so like, yeah.
00:23:20
Speaker
having people understand like what is the purpose of like having fuel beforehand and what are some alternative ways to think about this you know I just think people hear something they latch on to it and then they're like well I have to do it this way and then I also like I don't have time to do it the other way and so that's I feel like part of our goal as a podcast is to help people with that and then my goal as as a sports dietitian to help people like figure out the how as well after we kind of like set set the record straight yeah Yeah, no, I love that. keep Keep doing the work that we need in this world.
Fad Diets' Impact on Mental Health
00:23:56
Speaker
So what are some of the risks that you see, you know, from these diets? No, I mean, I think... and think ah one that is missed out on a lot is like the mental health side of things. Um, so there's been but mental and physical downsides to these diets.
00:24:17
Speaker
And, um, for a lot of people, again, it like becomes their full identity. They, for, tea for many people, it becomes a form of control, um, that they like can't break out of, um, and can't be, it's very rigid. So they like can't break out of that. And, um,
00:24:35
Speaker
can lead people down like a path towards an eating disorder or even like a more extreme, just like disordered eating. um So it has like physical, social, mental health and downsides. And then physically, like that increase, oftentimes there's with a lot of the extremes we're missing out on something because they're like restricting and cutting something out So like if we're cutting out a complete food group or like really limiting carbs or something, are we missing out on like beneficial fiber for our microbiome? What about our micronutrients? Like um all of the, like when we're doing low carb, it can increase bone resorption factors, which can ah increase your risk for stress fractures. So there's like all of these things that can happen or are missing out or we might be missing out on. And then
00:25:27
Speaker
for many athletes, like they might not realize it until a little ways down
Physical Risks of Fad Diets
00:25:31
Speaker
the road. Like, you know, some people are like oh, I feel great. Like one or two months into this whole thing that they're doing.
00:25:38
Speaker
But then you ask them six months, 12 months later, and it's like, ooh, okay, maybe I didn't, maybe I didn't realize that these are some of the downsides to this. And, and it's too late because I to put on stress injury or something, or my thyroid ended up like,
00:25:54
Speaker
going to crap or my gut like I can't stop pulling over on the side of the trail because I have to go to the bathroom because my gut's not functioning so um I would say like for some of these things it's just like you don't even see the full effects until long later down the road
00:26:12
Speaker
Love that. Zoe, do you want to add anything onto that? or Yeah, I think, I mean, the thing that I would emphasize is that a lot of times people choose these diets as like a way of like, I like i need a different, like to form an identity, to form a community, to have that sense of control. And those are all very normal human desires, but using your diet as an, like,
00:26:37
Speaker
manipulating your diet to achieve that feeling is like you're you're sacrificing so much of your athletic and adventure potential at the altar of like feeling a little more in control and potentially not attending to a mental health issue that if attended to could lead to performance breakthroughs in a healthier relationship with food and so like the desire to adhere to these workouts are are totally based on like really valid human needs like we love and I know it sounds counterintuitive but people actually love being told what to do like stricter religions end up being more popular and like than more relaxed ones people are counterintuitively really driven to fairly rigid ways of thinking and being because it makes being a person so much easier and mean for a lot of people training can satisfy a little bit of that need but for other folks
00:27:27
Speaker
diet starts to satisfy that. And there are huge downsides to allowing that to be your primary outlet for identity formation and community building. Yeah, I think that's huge.
Broader Implications of Dietary Choices
00:27:40
Speaker
Like, I love that both of you have really touched on the mental piece because I feel like we're, i feel like it is becoming very apparent that bone stress injuries, you know, that there's a lot of physical um taxing, but it's the mental piece and just missing out on food is such a part of our culture. It's so sad not to be able to engage in that.
00:28:04
Speaker
Totally. And I think that that's one of the big, like, think like we always want to push people to like sort sort of widen the lens on how they view health. And like, if you're so obsessed with eating healthy that you can't go out to eat with friends, you can't have a meal with your family or with your kids or with a significant other, if you can't, you know, get a meal at the airport without panicking and like having a big emotional reaction,
00:28:29
Speaker
I don't know that that's that healthy. And so I always want people like Kylie said, to think about their social wellbeing, their mental health and wellbeing as well. And we don't just eat to make our bodies like better athletic bodies.
00:28:41
Speaker
Food serves multiple amazing purposes. And I think that's what makes all of this so tricky and complicated and juicy is it doesn't just fuel us up mountains, but it's also what can make us like better parents and partners and people. And sometimes that we can neglect those aspects of how to fuel and how to show up more present in our lives to like, to the detriment of that part of our lives, because we get so focused on the athletic part when often sort of fueling in a way that balances both sides of that thing in a way that is balanced and does take into account different aspects of health will typically lead to better performance breakthroughs anyway.
00:29:21
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's, 100% true. yeah It's nice to just be honest. Yes, validating that. Yes, let's keep trying our best and yeah taking those steps.
00:29:33
Speaker
So how you...
Resisting Fad Diets and Misinformation
00:29:37
Speaker
you how do we help athletes resist these diets? I mean, two, I feel like are and many ways at the forefront of this by starting the podcast, by being coach, writer, dietitian, but yeah, kind of like, what are some of these steps that we can get people on ah healthier track earlier?
00:29:59
Speaker
Listen to the podcast. No, no, I think, yeah yeah i no i think um In reality, though, it's like being able, to the tough part is like being able to recognize when something is a fad, right? Or like an extreme. And so that's what we're trying to do with the podcast is help people navigate that world a little bit.
00:30:24
Speaker
better, especially when they're bombarded with things on social media that, um you know, might sound too good to be true. Like that is an indicator is like when when extreme ah words are used, when um ah usually say when things are like completely cut out or really restrictive, that's another like indicator that maybe you know, this might be a fad that's happening right now. Or, um you know, we do encourage our audience and and people to look up um maybe if they're where where the scientific research is behind like posts they might see or like, if a pro athlete is talking about something like whether that's actually a valid thing,
00:31:09
Speaker
But we do recognize that that isn't what everyone's going to do. And it can be hard to navigate on your own. So again, that's kind of why one of the reasons why we are doing the podcast is to help people navigate them, navigate the world ah with them.
00:31:26
Speaker
And we always really try to avoid being prescriptive. We don't tell people what to do or how to think. We try to give them frameworks and sets of tools to think more critically for themselves.
00:31:38
Speaker
And to that end, I would say anyone who is... potentially telling you how to think and is like trying to discourage critical thinking and who is trying to be overly prescriptive, particularly if they are just some guy on Instagram with abs and that's like the, you know, be all in all of his accreditation.
00:31:58
Speaker
Be skeptical of that. And like, I know that sounds ridiculous, but the way our brains work, we are, a lot of us are more likely to believe the guy on Instagram with abs than, you know, the boring scientific paper that has a methodology section that's 12 pages long.
00:32:12
Speaker
And I think that just, you know, being, being aware of how our human brains work, making peace with that, giving ourselves grace and sort of understanding that anytime something seems like, like sticky in the way of like, Oh, like,
00:32:25
Speaker
That's so tempting. Like, I really want that to be true and paying attention to the things you want to be true, because oftentimes those are unfortunately not the things that end up being true. Yeah. Do you or have you found that the nutrition realm well we'll stick to like endurance sports for right now is moving in ah hopefully like more positive direction or are you finding there's still a lot of misinformation and just kind of traps basically out there i think we're always i think we're the fads are always happening like i think
00:33:08
Speaker
A lot of people are again, searching for that identity or that performance advantage and. while I want be hopeful about things, I think it's natural for people to want to look for that magic thing or like pill or diet or thing that could get them a potential benefit. And so that's why I think it is, that's why we're equipping people with the ability to kind of be able to research this on their own or make a decision on their own so that they don't
00:33:40
Speaker
hopefully can make one that's going to ah not lead them down a ah dark rabbit hole. I think, unfortunately, human nature is probably not gonna change dramatically in the near future.
00:33:52
Speaker
And we're always gonna be drawn to the bright, shiny object. We're always gonna be drawn to what is novel and what promises us the thing we want most. And unfortunately, the thing that is changing is technology, particularly in terms of social media and the attention economy, because those modalities are really able to sort of like hijack and dial up to 11 how our brains work.
00:34:14
Speaker
And they really overemphasize what is novel and what might like lack evidence. They really over, like the media that are thriving most, think like Substack, podcasts, um like the the newsletter, social media space. Like those are all in of one sample sizes. And a lot of the information people are consuming more and more isn't of one. It's less like triangulated, like stuff from various sources and experts, less citation of sources, much more like I did a cold plunge and I lost 12 pounds.
00:34:44
Speaker
So should you buy my $300 coaching program at the Lincoln bio. And I think unfortunately, a lot of these technologies in the attention economy have sort of hijacked our totally normal, healthy human impulses for their own ends. And unfortunately the attention economy and the types of media that are really thriving right now are somewhat at odds with really good scientific communication, which is slow, kind of boring, isn't very prescriptive, leaves you with a lot more questions than answers. And that's not what people crave. People crave like defendant like something that's definite. They don't crave nuance. They don't crave complicated ways of thinking things that
00:35:24
Speaker
you know, take you to more questions than answers. They crave the guy on Instagram with the six pack who, you know, says that like cold plunging will cure your depression and make you lose weight and PR your marathon.
00:35:35
Speaker
Wow. That would truly be
Media Influence on Nutrition
00:35:37
Speaker
magical. I hate cold plunging. wish, right? I want that to be true. Yeah.
00:35:43
Speaker
I can't stand them. I am curious because I mean, that's actually something that we think about at uphill because in a way like mountain sports have obviously been around for a really long time, but it is such a small demographic of people.
00:36:02
Speaker
Do you think that part of the susceptibility of athletes is perhaps because a lot of it is out of one? um like I think we have a lot more information, maybe marathon down um for running, but when you start getting into perhaps like the murkier territory of big mountains, of longer ultras, we just kind of don't have as much of...
00:36:29
Speaker
um Like, Hey, this is kind of the gold standard. Right. and right Like yeah there's not a lot of studies on like, yeahre like we've like AB b tested all these different ways to train for a 250 mile race. And we did a randomized controlled trial and here's what came out as being the most beneficial. Like there is not that much science on mountain athletes, on endurance athletes, particularly operating at the extremes. And I think you're totally spot on that a lot of times that does leave like There aren't, this isn't one of those cases where it's like with a lot of nutrition information, like we kind of know what this like science does have some answers and they're unfortunately very boring and hard to sell, but we are genuinely operating at the extremes of mountain athletics and endurance sports.
00:37:12
Speaker
I think a lot of times those gaps that would typically be filled in with like more um like traditional systems like science, like medicine, tried and true coaching methodologies um end up getting filled in sometimes by people that do mean really well with their sort of end of one experience. And a lot of times it gets filled in with grifters who are trying to sell you something and are taking advantage of that knowledge gap.
00:37:40
Speaker
So I think people have to be equally cognizant of both, whether someone's well-intentioned or poorly intentioned, being like the sample size is always, always, always really important to keep your eye critically trained on. And that doesn't mean you don't listen to people, but I think it just means you really have to always take that evidence with a huge grain of salt.
Limitations of Elite Athletes as Models
00:38:00
Speaker
And if you're a scientist listening, hey, we're here, do science on us.
00:38:04
Speaker
I would love a biopsy. Yeah, same. I have done some pretty ah silly things, we'll say, my life. And i i would totally have done like pretty much, maybe not any, but a lot of this, like if they had wanted to do science on me, like totally would have been down.
00:38:25
Speaker
yeah i Yeah, I'm also curious because I think we have a tendency to take a either the loudest person or the room or ah kind of the the most visible and use that experience as like the end of one.
00:38:50
Speaker
um i i was i like am grappling this because I'm a little bit tempted to say like we often use elites as kind of like this guiding ah force for the rest of us, but I do feel like elites tend to be very calculated.
00:39:06
Speaker
i think this is a little bit less in the mountaineering world just because there's really not as much information as there is in the running world, but I'm curious how you kind of see...
00:39:19
Speaker
That relationship and like how much can someone who's kind of at the the cutting edge of the sport, how much can more of the everyday athlete take from their example, from their knowledge and apply it ah to their own work?
00:39:34
Speaker
Is that a dangerous situation? path they go down or like yeah how do you take that I would definitely proceed with caution because just because someone is good at running and is an expert of their own body does not make them an expert of your running and your body I mean you You know, if so, Elliot Kipchoge would be also the greatest coach of all time, in addition to being the greatest runner.
00:39:57
Speaker
Experience is not a one-to-one for expertise in this way. And I think also when we look at elites, like this is a self-self, like that might in fact be a very poor sample size to look at because how one-to-one is that? Like I, you know, i do not...
00:40:15
Speaker
have like the lifestyle of a professional athlete where I can just train then convalesce all day and drink my recovery smoothie while I'm attended to by, you know, various masseurs and, you know, whatever i imagine the professional runners do And I think that a lot of times we have to always like filter that information through the prism of like, what additional resources does this person have?
00:40:38
Speaker
Did they also win the genetic lottery? um Does this person have kids? Do they have unlimited grocery resources? Like what other factors might explain the efficacy of whatever given intervention you're thinking of? Because just being elite, like it's not just a like, okay, this fast person said that they drank tart cherry juice and that's what got them a marathon PR.
00:41:00
Speaker
There's a lot of variables there that you have no idea about. So I think being really so skeptical and just being cognizant that that doesn't mean don't do it, but it means like be really aware that you are not a direct one-to-one and that's not because of ability.
00:41:15
Speaker
It's a lot of times because of resources and genetics and a lot of other things that are outside of your control. And I actually think that sometimes knowing how, many things in training aren't in our control, sometimes causes people to overly fixate on these little interventions that sort of reinforce a small sense of control. Like, well, you know, I have like two kids at home and I'm, you know, I work every weekend and all of that feels pretty out of my control, but I can go buy this ketone supplement. And that makes me feel like I'm re like putting myself back in the driver's seat of my training in this small way that I can't always do because of my specific life circumstances. Yeah.
00:41:54
Speaker
I mean, I also would add, like, I think it, I'm glad that you said Zoe, like, yes, maybe you could like try some of these things yourself, but also, you know, what um I would ask people like for, I'm always asking people first, like, do you have the basic style in?
00:42:14
Speaker
And then like, is this something like, that is going to, yes, like work into your lifestyle? Is this something that could interact with your medication? Is this something that like everyone has different um ah physiology and also like different potential health issues, et cetera. And so I think,
00:42:36
Speaker
Just like looking at a ketone supplement and being like, oh, yeah, I'm going to just go take that um because so-and-so takes it. i just yeah That's not taking into account your own personal circumstances as well.
00:42:51
Speaker
But I'm not discouraging people from like not getting curious about things either. Yeah. yeah And I think that the really interesting thing, too, as you're growing as an athlete, you know learning is Like what worked? I feel like that's where people get stuck a lot. Is they're like, oh, I took that key to an IQ one time and it like made me feel great.
00:43:14
Speaker
It's like, well, actually you probably just got a good night of sleep and like ate enough and drank enough water, but they then they're stuck. I'm like, oh yeah, now I always have to take it. It's like, There's a lot of factors.
00:43:25
Speaker
Exactly. And it's so hard to set. Like, that's one of the reasons that there isn't a ton of science here is because getting quality data would be really hard. Like, how do you do a randomized control trial on a lot of these interventions? And I think that that, like, should just give us all an additional prod to approach with with humility and ah and a bit of skepticism.
00:43:51
Speaker
Yeah, no, absolutely. and Well, yeah, anything else you two would like to touch on? um Again, thank you so much. I feel like i just got to ask questions of like, hoping for these wonderful answers and I got all of it. So psyched to have both of you on. But yeah, anything else you'd like to touch on?
00:44:13
Speaker
Mostly just that, you know, i like also so like I'm an athlete myself and I strongly identify with that desire to try to play at the margins and to try to take advantage of like anything that I can. But just like you said, more often than not, it just comes back to making sure you have the fundamentals dialed.
00:44:32
Speaker
And whenever I do find in myself when I like that, I want to make a change or I want to try an intervention. I want to buy some bright new shiny object or try some, new way of eating or being, i always want to ask myself, is this meeting more of an emotional need than a physical need? And what is like the, what ah what am I actually trying to do with this? And is it trying to meet a need of like not feeling like I'm enough, not feeling like I'm in control?
00:44:56
Speaker
And oftentimes the answer to that question can give me an additional lens to sort of look at whatever intervention I'm thinking of through that can be helpful and make me make a more rational
Emotional Motivations and Rational Decisions
00:45:08
Speaker
decision. And on our podcast, we do a lot of science and a lot of research. And we also always try to bring in like the historical and emotional context, because I know we all like to think that we're purely rational beings and we make all of our decisions based on the best emerging science and whatever our spreadsheet tells us to do and whatever our coach and training plan and training peak says. But more often than not, we're actually making a lot of these decisions from a surprisingly emotional place. And I don't think that's always bad insofar that we're aware of it and we're harnessing it and it's not harnessing us.
00:45:43
Speaker
love it. No, love that. That was great. Sorry. I would say like additionally, um who like asking people who they're getting their advice from.
00:45:55
Speaker
because you know, if you ask yourself that question first and then asking yourself, like what potential motives does this person have? Like the point about Zoe saying that, like, is this like an elite athlete that has a different circumstance than you?
00:46:14
Speaker
Um, and looking towards like more expert type people in the field versus like an Instagram influencer. So being able to discern like, where am I getting this message from?
00:46:29
Speaker
Should I explore this further? If so, can I also explore it further from an expert's perspective if it's not coming from an expert? That would be another just like little tip.
00:46:42
Speaker
Oh, that's great.
Where to Find More
00:46:43
Speaker
So where can people find the podcast? Where can they get in touch with you? um Yeah. Wherever you're listening to this podcast, you will find us also, unless this is on YouTube, in which case we are audio only.
00:46:57
Speaker
Thank God. um But we're also on Instagram at your diet sucks pod. Awesome. Yeah, we are trying to move in the direction of YouTube. So we'll see. scares me.
00:47:10
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. We'll get it there one day. Awesome. Well, thank you both so much for being on and thank you for listening to the Uphill Athlete podcast. It's not just one, but a community.
00:47:22
Speaker
We are Uphill Athlete.