53. Nutrition recommendations for masters cyclists. ASK a sports dietitian

I am a 57yr old female Cycling endurance athlete. I like to compete for overall and AG in 80-100mi sportive/fondo/ races. I am using a trainer and on the average put in 10-15hrs/week. I am interested to hear your macro recommendations when it comes to older but still competitive athletes. For example, some say that with aging athletes, %fat should be a bit higher than with younger athletes. What about Protein (super important for aging athletes) but how much is needed vs carbohydrates? I have a science background and listen to most all the new recommendations but I have found it all falls apart when you look at the needs for an aging yet still competitive female athlete!!

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Gemma Sampson
52. Have I always had a good relationship with food?

Have I always had a good relationship with food? This week on the podcast I am doing something a little different. One of my Fuelled team members asked a question about my relationship with food, how that has changed over the years as a dietitian and things I recommend you consider to improve yours.

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Gemma Sampson
51. Three steps to fuel during your training with confidence

When it comes to sports nutrition for cycling and triathlon, I like to view it in three distinct, but related components.

We have Everyday nutrition, Training nutrition and then our event or racing nutrition.

They have overlapping but distinct needs and challenges to address, which I teach my 1:1 clients privately in our 1:1 sessions as well as online using my Fuelled Framework.

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Gemma Sampson
49. Fuelling a Kona slot at Ironman NZ with triathlete Daniel Barry

What does it take to fuel a Kona slot when you are an Ironman triathlete? Today I have invited Dan Barry, a triathlete and previous client onto the podcast to share his experience learning how to optimise his everyday, training and race nutrition through 1:1 sports nutrition coaching. He recently won his Age Group, breaking 9 hours at Ironman New Zealand achieving his goal to race at Ironman World Championships in Kona later this year. Listen to hear what changed in his nutrition, how he fuelled his Ironman race, what surprised him about levellling up his nutrition and more.

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48. What motivates you? What is your why?

Have you ever thought about what motivates you? What drives you to do the things that you do or don’t want to do?

I’ve been sharing a lot lately about the topic of motivation and how it influences us, how it shifts how it changes throughout different phases of our life or even different seasons of the year.

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44. Your body isn’t Amazon prime. The results take more than 24 hours

If you could snap your fingers and change something about your nutrition within the next 24h, what would it be? What's your Amazon overnight order? How awesome would it be if we could press send and within two days (or next day even) our desired goals arrived? When it comes to our health and nutrition, often we seem to expect lasting changes and transformation in our bodies to arrive overnight like Amazon brings our deliveries. If only!

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MindsetGemma Sampson
43. Are you tracking this? Synrgy female specific cycling coaching

What would a man know about female cycling?! Female cyclists have a few more things to consider for their training and their nutrition than their male counterparts. And a man is never going to fully understand the changes that we are continually going through across our lifetime. However, that doesn't mean the conversation needs to female exclusive! Today I have invited Will Harper, the team behind the team of Synrgy Female cycling coaching to share where Synrgy came from, how they approach coaching their female cyclists

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Female cyclistGemma Sampson
42. You have permission to eat cookies and other “forbidden” foods

How many foods right now are on your 'not allowed to eat' list? Maybe it's cookies, chocolate, icecream. chips, cheese..... It might even be hot cross buns! Whatever the food that you've got on your 'forbidden list - I want to challenge you to think about what happens when you restrict those foods and I want to challenge you to a new approach where you give yourself permission.. stay with me!

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Cycling, MindsetGemma Sampson
38. You Might Be Hungry! Using the Hunger Fullness Scale.

There are a lot of labels attached to the word 'hungry'. Sometimes people think this can be considered a 'good' thing, for others it's a bad thing.

Especially when people are trying to lose weight I often see people feeling hungry all the time, fighting themselves and their hunger all the time because it's not time to eat or they don't think they are allowed to.

If you find yourself hungry ALL the time. Then it might be a useful activity to record your hunger and fullness levels across the week to see if you can find any patterns that may be causing this.

Hunger is normal, but if you are extremely hungry, trying to rely on willpower alone is a strategy doomed to fail.

This is where the hunger-fullness scale can come in handy.

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CyclingGemma Sampson
37. Using nutrition tracking as a tool not a rule

Rather than using nutrition tracking as punishment to guilt trip or shame you into action (which rarely works in the long time by the way), I like to use nutrition tracking intentionally as a tool to help you rewrite the way you eat on and off the bike.

The first step if you want improve your nutrition is get clear on what you are eating, when and why. Which is why I encourage all my clients when we first start working together or if they join my team and use my cycling nutrition framework is to do some nutrition tracking.

By getting clear on your baseline, it will raise your awareness of when and why you’re eating certain foods and help figure out the best place to make changes that suit you, your lifestyle and your training plan

Which is why nutrition tracking is there as a tool, not a rule.

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Mindset, CyclingGemma Sampson
36. Let go of your attachment to the outcome. Three life lessons from 2023

What life lessons have  you learned this year? Can you see ways in which you have grown and developed and changed?

I have recently been reading over some journals and diaries that I have kept over the past 10 years or so and it has been so encouraging to me to see the ways in which I have changed, grown and also seen visions and dreams of my life come into fruition.

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35. Swap the bonk for free speed. It's a game changer! With Josh Brandwene

Fuelling your cycling is a game changer if you want to avoid the bonk! Josh Bradwene is a cycling coach and cyclist who has made major cycling performance gains since learning my cycling nutrition framework and shaking up his nutrition approach. He used to bonk all the time and by fuelling proactively continues to experience some of his biggest improvements in power, speed & cycling performance.

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CyclingGemma Sampson