Mindset Tip : Eat Like It's Your Job

Matt Cundill  00:01

This is the mental approach where we discuss mindfulness, mental performance and the tools available for coping in a high performance world. Here's Todd Arkell.

Todd Arkell  00:11

Today, my guest is Shannon Mendez. Shannon holds a master's degree in Nutritional Sciences, and is also a strength and conditioning coach and Director of Sports Nutrition at San Jose State University. Shannon also runs her own online business, basically talking about different programs she's developed, like the teenage athlete nutrition protocol we go through, what are great snacks for your athlete to have? What can they take with them? How should they fuel their bodies? What is the timing of the fueling? How can you help support them in their nutritional journey? What do you do if you have a hard gain or somebody who's trying to gain weight? You know, what are things you can do? Talks about different programs that she has around making eating simple. And you know how to figure out if you're getting enough obviously, you know caloric intake for your athletes. So I hope you stick around and listen. It was a was a very interesting and stimulating conversation, and such an important part of an athlete's journey. Enjoy the show. Shannon, welcome to the show.

01:18

Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thanks for

Todd Arkell  01:21

having me. Does it sound weird when people talk about you? You're like, did I do that? You know,

Speaker 1  01:26

yeah, it does. Actually, that's all true. But wow,

Todd Arkell  01:30

I know it's, it's sometimes you start going, Oh, that's a lot, man, I can't believe I did all that stuff. You know, it's kind of, it's kind of crazy. But the reason, the reason I wanted you to be on the show. Number one, I've kind of followed you online and really enjoyed your content, but I really want to dive into a lot of things around the mental side of nutrition, because I think about players, you know, they work on their skills, and there are some that work on, you know, mental performance, they journal, they meditate, they do all these different things. They're in the gym four or five days a week, and then they absolutely fall down when it comes on, what they're sticking in their mouth. And so what initially drew you to this field of sports nutrition? I mean, you were, you know, a yoga instructor, you've done a variety of different things, had a corporate life. And then, so what kind of drew you to sport nutrition?

Speaker 1  02:25

Yeah, so just a quick general background is I was an athlete growing up. I played multiple sports up and through high school, and then I played basketball at Sonoma State University, which is a d2 program, and so I did have the college athletics experience myself. Had no nutrition guidance when I was there, and I didn't really, you know, think about my nutrition much when I was an athlete. And after that, I got my bachelor's in business. And I am from Reno, Nevada, so I moved back to Reno for a few years and tried to figure out my life and what I wanted to do. And during that time, I became a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, and I started working as a personal trainer with clients. And then I thought, oh, I should use this business degree. So I got a job with I got a job with Lululemon Athletica, and I moved back to the Bay Area, and I moved to San Francisco, and I worked in several of their retail stores, working up through the management chain, and then eventually ended up in San Jose as the regional manager for the NorCal region, for Lululemon Athletica. And I loved the company. I loved the product. Still love the product. At the end of the day, I was like, you know, retail isn't for me. It's long hours. You never get your holidays. You're always working through holidays and whatnot. So ended up leaving that position, and that's when, throughout working for Lululemon, I really got into yoga, because they're primarily yoga based company originally, and got my yoga teacher credential started working at a gym in Santa Clara as a yoga teacher, but then also incorporating my my strength and conditioning background as well. So it was personal training group, training classes, yoga teaching, and at that point, I had a lot of clients that were mostly middle aged, people that were trying to lose weight, and they were working really hard in the gym, but they weren't seeing the results that they were looking for. And I was like, What's going on here? They're working so hard. And I had a light bulb moment, and I was like, oh, their nutrition. Ding, ding, ding, like. So I started going down the rabbit hole of. Nutrition like trying to figure out how I can help my clients better to get the results that they were looking for. And at that point, I met a gal at the gym that I was working at who's a registered dietitian. I didn't even really know what a registered dietitian was at that point, how it was different from a nutritionist or any type of other nutrition professional. And she was like, you know, if you really want to know everything about nutrition, you need to become a registered dietitian. And I was like, Oh, tell me more about that. So she, she told me she was a clinical dietitian at Stanford Hospital at that time. And she, you know, she walked me through the whole process of how to become a registered dietitian. And really, you know, it's kind of like being a medical doctor of the in the field of nutrition. It's, you have, it's very strenuous schooling. You have to do a 1200 hour dietetic internship, even just to be able to sit for the exam. So me, being me, I was like, oh, okay, I can do that. So I went back to school, got my, you know, it took me three years to to go back and do all of the coursework and and everything and become a, you know, I got, did my master's thesis, as you mentioned, and got my credential. And during that time I was my eyes were opened up to the world of sports nutrition. And because I didn't, you know, I again, I didn't even know what a registered dietitian was, and then I didn't even know that there was this position that I have now, which I'm so grateful for, that is, you know, a sports dietitian. So I learned all about that. I got my credential, and, you know, luckily enough for me, somebody was looking out for me, and they, you know, now I'm, I'm the sports dietitian at San Jose State where I did my, my master's thesis. As you mentioned, that's kind of my backstory,

Todd Arkell  07:02

you know, it, it always appears to me. I call it transferable skills, right? Things that you kind of, you learn along the way. And I'm talking to young kids a lot, and I, you know, I say like, there are things you will do, like you may go to school for something, and that might not be what you end up doing for the rest of your life. You're 17 years old, and you go, I'm going to be a geologist, or whatever it is that you kind of pick, and you go off to in the world, but you've figured out how to make deadlines and submit stuff. And you know, like, you kind of figure out a bunch of your life along the way, and then that becomes some skills and life skills that you can build upon. And, you know, I don't ever think that there's a resting place. I mean, hey, I went to school for communications. I was going to be in the radio field, and then I realized I was going to make $12,000 a year and work in some town that had 150 people. And I was like, I don't know if I want to do that. And then I kind of went on and did other things and, you know, and that's kind of like this full circle moment a year ago with me starting this podcast, was like, Oh, I can kind of be my own radio station or whatever and do my own thing, but it's just, but again, all of my life experience leading up to me being able to go, Oh, hey, I know how to work Some software. I know how to do this. I know how to do all these things. And, yeah, this, this won't be that hard. So, you know, I get it right. And I think it's, I think it's important for people listening that that I think that's awesome. It's a journey, right? We move along and and we evolve, and we find things that that make us more interested in, in our in our day to day lives. So can you, like in simple terms, how would you explain how nutrition fuels the brain for athletes,

Speaker 1  08:51

glucose is the body's primary fuel source. It's a single molecule. And all carbohydrates that you eat, whether it be bread or rice or pasta or fruit snacks or a granola bar, all of that breaks down into your system, into these glucose molecules and the brain. Its primary fuel source is also glucose. So it's very important for everybody, in general, but especially athletes, to be eating a balanced diet, you know, not just carbohydrates, but a good amount of carbohydrates, to be able to have all those glucose molecules floating around in the system to for your body to utilize it, not during not only during exercise, but during class. You know, when you're sleeping, your brain is reformatting itself, and, you know, taking all of the information that it, that you've gathered that day, and storing it and whatnot and all of that. That energy takes glucose molecules. So hopefully that's the most basic, simple term.

Todd Arkell  10:08

Well, it's like, you know, in short, you got to eat. Guys. If you want to perform, you got to eat. So I, you know, one of the things I wanted to explore was that, just that mental side of, how do you, how do, when you're working with an adult athlete, how do you get them, kind of, on the, you know, trained to, okay, I got to do this. I got to do that. Because you'll, you'll see, like, you know, I see it my own son. I see it in other kids, you know, oh, you're going to the gym. Oh, well, you know, you should take a snack, because, you know, you'll probably be hungry right after, nah, I'm fine or whatever, and then, oh, I'm starved, and it's like, so there's obviously some science to building and maintaining your muscle. So how do you work with a client and kind of get them to really wrap their head around the things that they have to do to be successful? Because it's a lot of effort and energy to go to the gym five days a week and try to build your body, and you could be sabotaging it if you're not eating properly.

Speaker 1  11:11

The first thing I like to do is to get them to articulate what their end goal is, right? So it may be they want to jump five inches higher because, you know, they're a volleyball blocker, or they, you know, want to throw a pitch faster because they're a baseball pitcher. So once they can convey what their goal is, then I can, I don't want to say, use that against them, but I can use that information to then say, okay, in order to get to this goal that you want to achieve, here are the things that you need to do right. And the first thing might be, because my expertise is in nutrition, you need to fuel your body properly. If you want to gain muscle, you need to be in a calorie surplus. And in order to do that, you need to eat more food. And I work with them specifically to on food preferences. You know, my go to for breakfast is oatmeal and some peanut butter and a banana and some sort of protein as well. But if they aren't going to eat oatmeal, like it's a moot point. I always say, like, if they're like, Oh, my whole disgusting. So okay, let's discuss what you like to eat, and then we can fit that into the confines of your every your fueling plan. And I also like to explain to them that fueling is a skill. You know, everybody grows up eating because it's necessary for life, and everybody has a different ethnic upbringing, or, you know, different types of foods that they traditionally eat or that their parents make for them or whatnot. So I can't just say you're going to eat this, this, this, this and this throughout the day, because they're like, I've never had goulash before in my life, or I've never had this type of meal, and so it's just very foreign to them. So working with them on what they're already eating and then tweak it a little bit really has been helpful, because I think a lot of, especially athletes, think, Oh, I just have to eat chicken rice and broccoli all day, and that's super boring and unpalatable, and I don't want to do that. But that's not the case.

Todd Arkell  13:31

Yeah, no. And I see there's a lot of people, obviously, on the internet, you know, with all these, hey, I got this cool recipe or different things, which I think is always helpful, because if somebody goes, Oh, I like that stuff. I remember, like, my son, he's like, cottage cheese. Oh, cottage cheese. But then all of a sudden it was like, I love now. He loves cottage Oh, yeah. He loves having a moment it is, and he loves it to death, right? And I was like, I'm just laughing. I mean, I think I saw some, some gal make a recipe the other day, which was, like, cottage cheese and eggs, and I don't remember, whatever, and it then it made, like some sort of, like, spongy wrap thing, put some cinnamon on it, or whatever. And I was like, wife goes, Yeah, but that's like, 800 calories. You can't eat that he can, you get, right? So it's like, you know, I guess it's, it's, it's different for all of us, right? But I think it's, you know, finding, I think finding something that they want to eat that make, that makes total sense to me. But it's also, I think it's like, how do they do the kids you work with, do they do they wrap their head around fairly easily, like, Hey, eat. Like it's a job. Like you have to kind of schedule a lot of this stuff.

Speaker 1  14:41

Once I explain it to them, they understand it, whether they implement it. Is another story, but it's also it's a habit, right? So you have to practice it. Every day, and you have to set reminders for yourself, you know, to drink water or to have your snack or whatnot, or, you know, me following up with them, like, Hey, did you have your pre and post training snack today? Like, I, you know, what did you eat? So and so on and so forth, until it does become that habit for them, and it just needs to be practiced again and again and again until it becomes second nature, just like any other new skill that you're building.

Todd Arkell  15:27

So meal prep, overrated, underrated.

Speaker 1  15:32

Oh, underrated. Like you, I love meal prep, and it doesn't have to be Gourmet, and it doesn't have to be, you know, your whole meal completely done. You can prep different parts of the meal, so you can just bake a bunch of chicken breasts, or grill a bunch of chicken breasts. You can make a big old pot of rice and store it in the in the fridge. You can make potato. You can make all the different components and then have those components for when you need your meal and just break out a couple chicken breasts, have some potatoes, whatever vegetable you have or side dish, it's very you know, in my opinion, makes it much, much easier, especially on busy days when you're just running around like Your chicken with your head cut off, trying to get athletes to different practices, around work schedules, around school schedules, everything.

Todd Arkell  16:28

Yeah, we're a big fan of cooking like 15 chicken breasts on the barbecue and throwing it in the fridge. You know, that kind of thing goes in a salad, goes in a sandwich chopped up. Make your own. Yeah? Whatever. Right? 100% I know, I I agree, but I think a lot of people, they think about it as being like, oh, it's sometimes what we'll just do is we're cooking dinner and we cook more stuff, just because you're doing it. Then, you know, you have that time to do it, you might as well just cook extra stuff. Saves you some time a little bit later. So let's, let's pivot into some sciency stuff. Okay, kids earmuffs, because, you know, you don't want to hear about science, but, and you'll probably be excited when I ask about this, the microbiome. Can you explain, you know, gut brain access and how an athlete's diet might affect their microbiome, but how can that, you know, if they're fueling that properly, how can that enhance their mental toughness or even reduce anxiety based on what they eat.

Speaker 1  17:23

So, yes, the micro, micro biome is all of the good bacteria that is helping you out to digest and absorb and keep everything functioning in you know, all the food that you eat move through your system efficiently and effectively. And everybody's microbiome is different, and it really depends on where you live, who you live with, like just geography plays a big part of it. There's, you know, all sorts of millions and maybe even billions of different strains of bacteria that are in your in your microbiome, and it can change again. Like I said, if you move from California to Minnesota like your your microbiome is going to change, excuse me, and it's also based on what you eat and what you habitually eat. So this, that's where it comes in, is that if you are having dietary issues, gut issues, if you're having you know, you eat something and you, you know, you never quite feel right. Or every once in a while, you eat something and you're like, Oh, my stomach hurts often. It is really just maybe you have a intolerance, maybe you have a slight allergy to something that you've eaten, but your microbiome doesn't like it, and it can't break it down very well based on your genetics and all of that stuff. So it really does affect your mental it can affect your mental health. It can affect your brain in general, because everything is connected. The layman's terms is that if you are finding that either you're constantly having digestional upset or you've just always, never felt great after you've eaten, I would look at that because that's not normal. It's definitely, probably something that you're eating on a consistent basis, that maybe your year, that your body just doesn't like or can't deal with, or if it's occasionally. I would also look at that too, like, Oh, I just, you know, I had this pork sandwich and I didn't really feel good about it. Maybe you're, you know, intolerant to pork, and your body can't handle pork very well. So I think it's if, if you've had it your whole life, and you're just used to it again, that's something to look at to figure out what, what is causing that upset to everything. But at the end of the day. I, you know, things like probiotics and fermented foods and yogurts and what, like what, not all have those probiotic properties and help to feed the gut microbiome and also keep it healthy.

Todd Arkell  20:16

So that's a lot of science for you folks. I just if I didn't talk about microbiome, my wife, who's a holistic nutritionist, would have just killed me. You got to talk about the microbiome? Yeah, absolutely. Athletes, you know, may be dealing with, you know, mental fog or low energy and different things during different training periods. And you know, what kind of dietary strategies do you recommend for for them to combat that, usually,

Speaker 1  20:43

if it's fatigue, you know, slight fatigue, I wouldn't say extreme fatigue, that could be some sort of deficiency, like an iron deficiency, or something along those lines. But if you're, you know, tired at practice, and tired and tired and tired, usually it's under fueling. And I think a lot of young athletes don't understand how much fuel calories and just food in general, you really need to keep everything growing and developing and just performing optimally. Not only are you an athlete and you're probably exercising multiple hours a day, you're also growing and developing as a as a person, and that takes a lot of energy. So in addition to, you know, the energy that you're using for your sport, you have to consider the growth and development through those adolescent years. So my strategy usually is always three full meals a day, breakfast, lunch and dinner, balanced meals. You always want to have a good amount of carbohydrates. Probably half your plate should be carbohydrates. A quarter of your plate should be protein and a quarter of your plate should be color. And if you aren't getting a lot of fats in your diet, which most people are already getting a lot of fats in their diet, you want to add some healthy fats in there, like nut butters or nuts or avocados or whatnot. But so you have your three main meals, and then your pre and post training fuel is a non negotiable, so that's two additional snacks. I would say your pre training snack should be simple carbohydrates. Just stick with simple carbohydrates within an hour of your training. And those things are applesauce or granola bar or a rice krispie treat or some pretzels or fruit snacks. All those things give you some quick, simple carbohydrates to give you energy for your activity. And then post training should always be protein and carbohydrates as well. The easiest thing to get in for for a protein is a protein shake. That's what protein shakes were invented, because you need to it's best to have that protein right after to start the repair process of your muscles and but nobody wants to eat a piece of chicken right after they're done exercising, right? So the easiest thing is to just drink it. So that's hence the protein shake was invented so it can be quickly consumed. But then, I don't want you to forget about your carbohydrates as well, because a little bit more science here, your carbohydrates are stored in your liver and your muscles, as it's called glycogen. So just think of glycogen as little fuel tanks in your liver and your muscles. And as you exercise, your body starts to pull the glycogen, or the fuel out of your liver and your muscles. And about 90 minutes into your exercise, you're you're pretty much fully depleted of your glycogen. So if you aren't refueling after your exercise, meaning putting the carbohydrates back into your mouth to Then refuel your little mini fuel tanks, your glycogen. Then the next day, you're not going to feel good when you're exercising. Your legs are going to feel really heavy. You're not going to be able to you don't have any power. You're not going to be able to run as fast or jump as high, all of these things. Every single athlete that I've ever talked to has said, oh, yeah, I've, I've felt that the next day after a hard workout. I was like, yeah, it's because you didn't replenish your glycogen stores. So the carbohydrates after are really important too. And so that's why, you know, big pasta meals, the carb loading. All of that is, is a thing. It's because we need to replenish those glycogen stores. Gotcha.

Todd Arkell  24:47

So it's, it seems also a big, a big hit these days. Are uncrustables, overrated or underrated?

Speaker 1  24:54

They are, you know, I'm like mid I'm like, 50. Amid Yes, I think there was a study from or at least some information from the NFL, and it was

Todd Arkell  25:07

the Enid obscene amount insane Yes, yeah, the

Speaker 1  25:12

insane amount of uncrustables that are consumed by NFL players. I would rather you know you have a PB and J on whole grain bread, like, make it yourself, instead of, like a frozen,

Todd Arkell  25:26

packaged Franken food. I call it, but yes, whatever. Yeah, yeah. And

Speaker 1  25:31

it's, I think they're like 320 calories, and it's mostly peanut butter, right? It's like a big block of peanut butter with a tiny little bit of jelly and a tiny little bit of jam. But

Todd Arkell  25:41

we have some in my house that my son uses every once in a while for a snack. But I laugh because I felt like I should try one, but I haven't got around to trying one, but I was worried that I might find it delicious, and then that would be a problem too,

Speaker 1  25:56

but then don't try one, is my recommendation. They are pretty delicious, I have to say. But, you know, it is something that we give. We give our athletes their uncrustables. Again, I try to encourage them to make their own PB and J But if it's, you know, halftime at football, we give them uncrustables. We give them bananas. We give them applesauce, all that stuff. You don't

Todd Arkell  26:17

have a bunch of volunteers to come in and make 55 peanut butter and jam sandwiches for the O line, yeah. I think there is, yeah. I mean a balance between that. I mean, I watched some video, and the guy was, okay, you want to gain weight every snack of the day. Have an uncrustable and a glass of chocolate milk, and you'll gain 12 pounds in four months. I go, Well, yeah, that's what they call dirty. Did you watch, did you see the same video? You bet? Yes, I did. I go, Hey, we should try that out. Not me. Instead of I said you should try that out. You like, you like chocolate milk, you like uncrustables. Did you read the comments of that? No, I haven't. It's probably pretty good. You

Speaker 1  26:53

should go back and read papers. It's an extreme both ways. But of course, you have the, oh, that's highly processed. I can't believe you're recommending that to my I

Todd Arkell  27:01

got it. I got a guy who's worked with, like, Olympic athletes, professional athletes, and he talks about having, like, a bowl of Frosted Flakes and a glass of grape juice right after you lift it, like he goes. It's a dirty bulk, but it works, right? So you got these different menta, the old school and the new school kind of ideas, like, really, like, Welch is great, yeah, big glass of that. I'm like, Okay, it's kind of delicious, but I know what you're saying. You kind of talked about what people should be eating, I guess. And, you know, and I think the goal is to have snacks. What do you think about, you know, there's a lot of conversations too. You're trying to gain weight all these other things, like having some sort of protein shake before you go to bed or whatever, like something with high caloric sort of shake is, do you recommend that kind of thing? Does that? Is that helpful? If they're trying to gain weight?

Speaker 1  27:52

It is helpful? Yeah, I I have, I've come across several very hard gainers. And there's a difference between somebody, a kid that's a picky eater that just doesn't eat as much as they should, and they, you know, it's just really not desirable for them. But then there's the kid that's, like, really trying and really, you know, I'm just have, you know, stick thin, you know, these kids. So I do recommend, you know, protein shake, or even like a gain a mass gainer shake, to those types of athletes that are just really having a really tough time. The only caveat to that is that if it gives you digestional upset, or some people get, you know, acid reflux if they eat too close to bed, usually that happens a little bit later in life, so I don't really see that with a lot of the adolescent athletes, but there's people out there that say, Oh, you shouldn't eat within four hours of bed or whatnot. Like that's, you know, it's fine, especially for adolescents that are trying to gain weight, like this is a tactic that we can absolutely use and utilize for them.

Todd Arkell  29:09

Yeah, that's good, yeah. I mean, and I think mass gainers, like, I've looked at a bunch of them. There are some out there that are pretty clean. They use some natural products and stuff. There's some that are pretty garbage. So I always say, check the ingredients with everything, because, as I joked earlier, Frank and food, there's so much filler and random stuff. I guess, having a holistic nutritionist in the house, she explains a lot of the look at that you can't eat that that's like, terrible, yeah, I'm like, Oh, really eating it my whole life. No wonder I look like this.

Matt Cundill  29:40

Now. More the mental approach with Todd Arkell,

Todd Arkell  29:44

kids are on the go. You know, a lot of times with some of these sports too, like baseball, soccer, softball, you know, those types of things. They might go to events where they're playing two games in a day, that type of stuff. What are some kind of on the go? Low nutritional snacks that they can take with them, throw in their bag that aren't going to go bad when it's hot out, or those kinds of things. What are some things that you're like? I know I heard you said applesauce, but that might be nasty sitting in 100 degree day. What are some things they can eat, you know, take with them and just kind of, hey, I'm not feeling great. I'm going to eat this now and kind of keep fueling

Speaker 1  30:22

before I answer that. Funny. You say that because we do have a little snack bin that we take down to the football practices, and it usually sits out there for at least an hour before they get to their snack period. And one of the one of the snacks that in there is the applesauce pouches, and they never get touched because they're warm, so it's kind of gross. So I would agree with you about the applesauce bars are good, and there are ways, you know, some parents out there like, oh, there's a lot of fillers and processed and high sugar and this and that, make your own. If you have time to make your own granola bar that you know you can make your own and know exactly what's in it. There are a lot of recipes you can find anywhere, but I know a lot of people don't have time for that, so I would do you know like a Lara bar is going to be probably cleaner than something like a soft and chewy from from Costco. There's, you know, there's ways that you can find a cleaner version, but to answer your question that you actually asked, so any type of granola bar is a great way to to pack fruit, apples, oranges, bananas are usually very good and packable again, if they're going to be sitting in the heat, you know, maybe not so much, but ideally, there's some sort of shade or even a cooler that you could bring with you for and then, like crackers, pretzels, goldfish, all of those are good, snackable items like Wheat Thin is a great cracker. Fruit snacks are another one that I often use

Todd Arkell  32:09

any pro. Do you think proteins are good or just stick mostly with carbs and in some high energy stuff like a beef jerky or pepperoni sticks or whatever? I don't

Speaker 1  32:19

know. Yeah, for sure. You know, the chomp sticks, or any type of beef jerky is also great. Love her

Todd Arkell  32:26

chopsticks. The chops are really good. Yeah, they're not cheap, but they're very delicious, right?

Speaker 1  32:32

Yeah. Have you tried the brand? I think it's called fatty, or big fatty or something. I haven't seen it a little bit of a thicker, basically chomp stick. Try, if you can find it, try it something fatty. But they're those are really good too.

Todd Arkell  32:46

There you go, guys, you got to sponsor the show chomp and fatties. You got to sponsor the show exactly.

Speaker 1  32:53

And then protein bars as well. The reason I don't want to encourage protein too much, because if you're doing multiple events in a day, the primary thing we want you to focus on is getting the energy providing foods into you. And the energy providing foods are always going to be your carbohydrates. The job of protein is to build and repair tissues. It's not to give you energy. Primarily, if you're in a huge glucose deficit in your body, your body will, because it's a defense mechanism, start to break down your muscle tissue, which we don't want to then turn into usable energy, right? So we always want to provided that those carbohydrates so it has the glucose available to use for energy, instead of starting to break down that muscle tissue. So after the event, go ham on on the protein. If you have a big window between games, say you have a 9am baseball game and then you don't have a game again until 2pm definitely you're gonna be having some protein in between those games. But if it's if it's quick, like a 9am game, and then you end at 11 and you start at 12 again, with the next game, I would just stick with primarily carbohydrates, because you need a lot of carbohydrates, and you don't want to fill up on the chomps and the and the protein bar, yeah, on the protein bars, and not have room for the carbs. So Gotcha. Focus on the carbs.

Todd Arkell  34:24

Gotcha. So let's say we got an athlete. You talked about hard gainers, different things. Do you do? You use food tracking apps at all for them when you're kind of starting to work with them, so you can kind of get a sense of what they're actually eating. Because I think people don't realize kind of, you know, oh, did I have that Big Mac? I don't know. Oh, yeah, I had a Big Mac today, or whatever it is, right? Like, so if you utilize them, what are ones that you think are good, that people could actually, you know, that are usable? Because I think sometimes it can be really hard and you don't. Want it to be onerous, right? Like, for them to kind of track their foods,

Speaker 1  35:03

yeah, and it is quite labor. Some laborious I don't know which, which word is correct in

Todd Arkell  35:11

this pain in the butt, exactly.

Speaker 1  35:16

And, you know, I've worked with athletes, adolescent athletes, long enough to know that most of them are not going to do that. They're not going to take the time to track in the app, they will take a picture. So there is an app that I've recently discovered called Eat to win. Eat number two win and they and it's designed for athletes. Other apps that I've used, like my fitness pal or lose it, those are more designed for weight loss. They do the same thing in terms of tracking calories and whatnot. But this eat to Win app in particular, I like it because it has different features that come and kind of gamify it for for athletes and whatnot, the one thing that they don't have, really is a good way to calculate your total calories and macros off of the picture. So what I've done with athletes is say, Okay, you're going to use this app, you're going to take the picture, I, as the dietitian, get see all of the pictures that they've taken, and then I can give feedback based on that. But it doesn't say, like, it does a good job of saying, Oh, you had a Big Mac and fries and a soda, and distinguishing what exactly is on the plate, but it doesn't say, Oh, this is 1000 calorie meal with 50 grams of fat, 30 grams of carbohydrate. Yeah.

Todd Arkell  36:51

I mean, I started using an app for myself because I'm like, okay, like, you know what? You know, I'd like to lose a few lbs. I'm reasonably active. I could be more, but I'm like, Okay, so I'm not really eating badly. So what the heck is that? So my wife says, All right, let's calculate the macros, and have you start figuring out, what are you eating, right? Because maybe that's the issue. Like, oh, you know, like you walked by and you threw three cookies in your mouth. They accidentally. I don't know. I have no idea. So it's kind of interesting, but it is a pain. But the one I'm using, the one thing I like about it is you actually have a barcode, and you can scan the barcode of what's on the thing, and it gives you, hey, here's what the servings. And so it kind of knows the macro is pretty good. Where the challenge is, is, my wife, she used it for a while because she was kind of testing different things, and she said the challenge is, is, when you eat out, there's more oil in the meal than you think there is. And so for those listening, you know, eating out is not as hell, you know, even though you get the steak, you know, last night I went out, I had a, you know, small flank steak with a few potatoes and some rapini or whatever, you know. But again, yeah, you better add a tablespoon of oil to that, because it's probably got at least that much there, right? So it's kind of understanding that, but yeah, I think, you know, I do think there's value, and I like to hear that there's stuff out there where you can make it simpler, because it's hard for kids are like, yeah, their phone's always with them, but they can do things like that that make it easier. I think just even for a short period of time, it's got to be beneficial, like even a couple weeks, just to say, hey, you know what, you aren't eating enough, or you need to modify a little bit, or whatever, right? So it's good to know. Good to know, all right? My hypothesis was, was reasonably Correct.

Speaker 1  38:41

You're right in the fact that people either underestimate, like kids usually underestimate, but adults usually overestimate, like, what they're what they're consuming. So Right? You know, I know, because I'm been in the nutrition world forever, that a banana is about 100 calories, but if I asked one of my kids, like, how many calories do you think are in a minute? No clue, right? So you go throughout your day eating whatever you're eating, no clue how many calories you are in taking, and also no clue how many calories you need, right, right? So as an athlete, you may need between, you know, depending, you know, if you're a football lineman, you know, five, 6000 calories a day, and they're, you know, maybe their coach wants them to gain weight even still. So they need to know how many calories are in the things that they're eating, so they can, you know, get to that calorie number. Or if you know, you're a gymnast, and you need 2000 calories a day because you're a petite person, and you, you know, you've never tracked it. Maybe you're eating 1200 maybe you're eating 2500 you never know. So it is very, very, very valuable to do it for at least a week, couple weeks. Just to see not only what total you're taking in, but each individual thing that you eat. Like, oh, I didn't realize that cookie was 250 calories, and I only get 2000 a day. So that's like a good chunk of my calories for the day.

Todd Arkell  40:15

Let's dunk on crumble cookie right now. Sorry, crumble cookie, but one cookies like a Big Mac meal. I'm like, Oh, my God, it's like Insanity. It is. It is, yeah, and every you know my my teenagers are like, Oh, we're going to crumble. Stop, stop.

Speaker 1  40:34

Because it's like, do you know about the pazuki? Oh, wait, you're in Canada. So are you? There's a, there's a restaurant around here called BJs, and they have these, it's a cookie with ice cream on top, and it's delicious, but it's probably 1000 calorie dessert. But on Tuesdays, it's like $5 or something for for anybody, right? So, oh, I just hear about this. Oh, we're going to pizuki Tuesday. We're going. I was like, Oh,

Todd Arkell  41:06

that's funny. Yeah, I, you know, I used to laugh my wife, which I remember when she was, she was pregnant with one of our kids, and she's like, Oh, can we go for a treat? And I go, it's not a treat if it's every day. I laughed. It was the one. It was the beef and Baskin Robbins diet she was on, and I gained like, 20 pounds because she forced me to eat ice not that you really have to force me to eat ice cream often, but I was literally having to have an ice cream cone every day to support her in her journey. And I'm like, Oh, my God, what we do for our spouse? I know it's crazy. So, I mean, one of the things I think that's interesting too, is we talked about, hey, you can go find a recipe here. You can go do that. And I think it's, I think there's two fold things that are that, I think problematic for for families, especially, you know, you're busy, you might have multiple kids playing sports. You know, all these different things, is like, Okay, how do I make this? Or how do I do that? Or what's a, you know, I just kind of give me a meal plan and a shopping list, and I maybe I can do that. Or also, like, how do you engage your kids in the whole process so that they're involved? And, you know, I was kind of reading, you've got a, we'll call it a simple meal planning system. Tell, tell the listeners a little bit about kind of that, and in kind of what, what goes into that, and how it might make their lives a little bit more manageable on a day to day basis.

Speaker 1  42:36

Yeah. So I well, I'll just backpedal for one second. When I first started my online business, I decided to do to offer a 12 week program to athletes. And it, you know, it was basically everything you need to know about sports nutrition in this 12 weeks. And I would do weekly calls with them. And this, I had this whole video modules for every single one, and it honestly wasn't very successful. And what I what I think it is, is that 12 weeks is very intimidating, right? Sports families, for sports people, like, for young people, they're like, I can't commit to 12 weeks of doing this, you know, every day and whatnot. So I started, you know, listening to feedback from, you know, people that I'm working with, and just in general, and I've just decided to kind of pivot into mini courses, smaller, more digestible little snack style education. So I have, you know, I have a couple courses, but my most recent course is called simple meal planning for sports families in 30 minutes or less. And it's just a, you know, it's a four module, little course that teaches you a system. I call it my three by three system. So basically, pick three breakfasts, three lunches and three dinners that you're going to focus on for that week, and you just rotate through those, those three. And I find it, you know, because sports families have so much going on, and it's just this constant, like, okay, what are we going to eat? What are we going to eat? What's for dinner, what's for dinner. It really reduces that decisional fatigue of, you know, what are we going to eat? So it's like, okay, Monday, we're going to have a bagel with some cream cheese and some scrambled eggs and a little bit of cheese on it. That's your breakfast, you know. Tuesday, we're going to have oatmeal with some peanut butter and yogurt and some granola. That's your your breakfast. And then the next day you have, you know, a third option, and then you do the same for lunch, you do the same for dinner. And it really, really makes it much easier on the families. And as we discussed earlier, you know. Making 12 chicken breasts one day on the grill, and you have those in your refrigerator, and you have some rice and you have some leftover broccoli, and that's your dinner. It doesn't have to be super complicated, and I do think that often sports families think they're failing if they're not making a gourmet, a gourmet meal for their family or their or their kids every day. And that's just not the case. It can be very simple.

Todd Arkell  45:30

I can, I can tell you, I think a lot of people have discovered the air fryer, and that's, you know, been a big hack. But I got to tell you, rice cooker. Rice Cooker. Get it right, like rice is made. Boom, done. It's easy. And you can do stews, and you can do whatever it's like. So for those listening, that's, it's a total we have a very large rice cooker, and, you know, a lot gets made up. And then you throw it in, and hey, you know what you can you can throw it in a frying pan with a little bit of soya sauce and make it like a fried rice with, you know, some onions, and throw your chicken in. Done. Super we get all the things all the time. Kids open the fridge and go, Ah, this is an ingredient house, as opposed to, it's just ready made stuff. But, yeah, I think you can easily do that. I do agree with you, like, you know, just as long as it's just a little bit of planning ahead of time, you can, you can kind of get, get that for you. I want to pivot a little bit about hydration and different things. So, I mean, obviously there's a lot of things out there, like element or liquid IV, those types of things for electrolytes. I mean, I think you can do it yourself with some some handy dandy salts and different things you can throw in there. But you know what I really want to push on a little bit is energy drinks. Okay, so kids drinking energy drinks before the game, positive or negative. Big thumbs down. Big thumb two thumbs down for those that are watching the video. Explain. Explain, because you know what? I know, we tell kids all the time, oh yeah, you shouldn't do this and but explain, what's you know, kind of what's wrong about having energy drinks when they're training and doing all these other things.

Speaker 1  47:24

It's a little misleading, anyways, to call it an energy drink, because it doesn't actually provide you energy it has a lot of caffeine. Which caffeine has no calories to it, right? So what caffeine does? It stimulates your your sympathetic nervous system, and it gives you, like a little boost of adrenaline, right? And that's what makes you feel like you have more energy. But it's not actually providing that glucose that I talked about earlier to actually give you energy. So what happens is you drink the energy drink, and you feel that little boost of adrenaline, and you're, you know, you kind of spike up a little bit, and you come up, and then all of a sudden, you come crashing down, whereas, if you were to have, you know, proper pre training fuel, with Your your applesauce and your food snacks, then your energy is going to come up and it's going to stabilize a little bit before it comes back down. So not only you know, it does that for you, and I've seen that with so many of our athletes, is they'll have their energy drink before you know their soccer game, and then halftime comes and they're exhausted, and then they play like poop the second half, like they don't, you know, they don't have a good performance. And, you know, again, they're typically not fueling properly, and they're just relying on those, on those little bits of energy drinks and whatnot. But the other thing is that often they have a lot of extra stuff in them that you don't necessarily need, like, all that long ingredient list of stuff in an energy drink is like, you know what? A, what is that? What's it doing to your body and B, is it even legal for? I mean, I work in NCAA, in an NCAA sanctioned school. So is it, you know, legal for our athletes to be taking and sometimes it's not right. So if you're getting drug tested eventually, some at some

Todd Arkell  49:33

point, and you have high levels of taurine or whatever, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1  49:38

And so you really are playing with your eligibility when you're when you're drinking some of these, these drinks and whatnot. So I would just caution to be really careful in the NCAA, caffeine is technically a banned substance in your bloodstream at a certain content, and it would be the equivalent of pounding five cups. Of coffee, which usually people don't do that, but I have had athletes that, you know, will have an energy drink, and then they'll have a cup of coffee and an espresso shot, and they're just constantly pumping themselves with caffeine, right to stay up. And that does pose a problem eventually, if you if you do have a drug test,

Todd Arkell  50:18

well I think would you say it's probably somebody's better to just have an iced coffee or something like that, if they want to have a little kick, and then add in your carby snacks, your apple sauce and stuff like that, and kind of give you the same effect.

Speaker 1  50:32

Yes, yes. I mean, if you're gonna have caffeine, I would recommend a natural source such as coffee. Tea is also another one. But, yeah, these energy drinks are, it's, it's kind of gone out of hand. In my opinion. There's so many different

Todd Arkell  50:46

ones. I think it goes. I think it goes in a lot of ways. I think this pivots to sleep as well, right? So I think if you're not getting enough sleep, you feel a little sluggish, you get this brain fog. And so, you know, eating properly with the right amount of sleep, I think can, can really, kind of take care of some of that stuff so you're not, you know, exhausted, yeah, 100%

Speaker 1  51:12

and adolescents need more sleep than even adults because of that growth and development that they're going through. Can

Todd Arkell  51:20

proper eating help fuel sleep, because you get kids, oh, I can't go to I mean, like, we could have a whole I had another episode too about phones, and we could say, hey, get rid of the phone before bed, because that would kind of help turn off your brain. But from an eating perspective, are there things that you know you could be eating later at night that might kind of calm the sympathetic system and just kind of allow you to sleep more or sleep better. Yeah.

Speaker 1  51:47

So there are, have you? Have you heard about the cherry drew cherry juice trend? Yeah, a little bit, yeah, yeah. So there are so cherries have naturally have melatonin in them, and so when you concentrate it into a juice or or a squeeze, or something like that, then it does give you a little bit of a benefit, from a sleep perspective, to bring down your your nervous system, bring up your parasympathetic nervous system, to help You go to sleep and regulates your circadian rhythm as well. Cherry Juice is a good one. You can take, you know, melatonin supplements if you are having an issue. But magnesium is also a good one to help as well. But I think typically, I don't see a lot of athletes that have typically, I have seen some but that have a hard time falling asleep unless they're pounding energy drinks throughout the day, and they, you know, they have a like, crappy and in their system, like, I can't fall asleep, but because they're so active, usually, you know, if your head hits the pillow, you should be able to fall asleep immediately.

Todd Arkell  53:00

No, I hear you well. And here's another one that you tell me whether I'm right or wrong in my assessment. But, you know, I see this, let's say students, we're getting to the time where students are starting to go back to school. We're coming to the fall, right? The kids have been away for the summer, been, you know, kind of out of school for the summer. And you have the I've stayed up till one in the morning, whatever, hanging out with friends, playing video games, watching TV, whatever it is. And then you're sleeping till noon or one o'clock, and then you're getting up and you're eating maybe by two, and then you're eating again, you know, you're having your dinner or whatever, but you're missing a third of your meals if you're training. So am I on, on the nose with that? Are they better to just wake up at nine, eat and go back to bed like tell me, what do you think?

Speaker 1  53:53

Yes, 100% Yeah. Yes, I do. Have, yeah, I've talked with athletes all the time that, yes, that is the case, you know, during the summer. But then when they do go back to school, say they have a 9am class, and they wake up at 845 in their pajama pants, brush their teeth real quick and roll over to class, and they don't eat their breakfast. And I'm like, No, that's not gonna fly like you need to get up and have a proper breakfast. And it, again, it doesn't have to be complicated. Throw a bagel in the toaster, slap some cream cheese on there, and have a protein shake. And that could, could be your breakfast. You know, if you know, if you're really tight on time, or a couple of those pre packaged hard boiled eggs that you can get from Costco. I again, I think they think like, oh, I have to get up and make all this big ALARA breakfast. No, it just just, you got to get the the calories and the and the proper macronutrients in,

Todd Arkell  54:52

throw those bagels in the toaster. Go brush your teeth, run a comb through your hair, come down, throw on some goat cheese or cream cheese. And I recommend. Uh, everything bagel seasoning from Lowry is actually very delicious. You just sprinkle that on touch sticks to the cream cheese, gives a little flavor. Off you go. You know, I'm, I'm throwing out tips as well as as as we go. So what could you, you know, is there anything like, I guess, if you just had to say something to families and athletes right now, like, how they should kind of approach this, as far as a neutral like, what kind of advice you know, sort of just one key thing, I guess, that would make a difference to them.

Speaker 1  55:35

I would say, have your athlete eat five to six times a day period. And it should be, like I said, earlier, breakfast, lunch and dinner, two snacks, pre and post training, and then maybe additional, an additional snack of carbs and protein. And I think it could, it does probably sound overwhelming, wow, where they have to eat five to six times a day. But if you get in that habit of doing that and and grocery shopping for that end goal, and I did give quite a few food items, I think throughout this that you can get a decent idea of what you need to be grocery shopping for. But I think that is kind of the main takeaway that I try to get athletes and parents to understand, is that to fuel your to be fueled properly, you need to be eating consistently throughout the day and making sure that you're getting all of your calories in but also at the right timing.

Todd Arkell  56:43

Oh, you know, that's one that dawned on me, honey, these new honey gels, yeah, the packages of honey, good,

Speaker 1  56:49

yeah, absolutely. Those are great for pre training, even during, you know, a halftime snack would be a great time too.

Todd Arkell  56:57

Gotcha, yeah? No, I just kind of Donna. I go, yeah. I have like, a million ads. You click on one ad, and now there's like five. I did. I didn't know so many companies made individual honey snacks, you know, like, or whatever. You know, we covered a lot. Covered a lot of ground, but, yeah, eat enough. Maybe track your stuff. Get a lot of sleep. Make sure you're eating stuff at the right times. Kind of timing it before you're before your before your training and otherwise, is there any other kind of tricks or whatever you're trying to give your athletes so they can help build long term habits to support both their physical and mental performance,

Speaker 1  57:40

learn to cook. And it doesn't have to be, you know, the parent teaching the kid. It can be a YouTube video, you know, if you're, if you're an adolescent athlete and you want to build long term habits and be be healthy the rest of your life. You need to eat primarily at home, because A, it's cheaper, it's way cheaper, and B, you know what's going in your food. You mentioned earlier about the oil that they put into into food at restaurants. Restaurants are in business, and they want you to come back and spend money at their restaurant. So the food needs to be delicious, right? You're not going to go back. So the things that make food delicious are sugar, salt and fat. So they put extra of those, MSG, yeah, and MSG, and they put extra of all of those things into your food when in the back, when they're cooking it, and so you're consuming all of that. So, you know, sure, our population is 75% overweight or obese, and we wonder why. It's because we don't cook at home anymore. You know, we eat out all the time, and all of those restaurants are putting all of the extra stuff to make the food delicious. So I'm not saying you can't cook delicious food at home, but you do know what's going into it. And you know, it's not a whole, you know, whole stick of butter and, you know, cup of sugar.

Todd Arkell  59:13

Yeah, if you've ever been to a Ruth's Chris, I think what they do is they put, like, a quarter, quarter pound of butter in the pan and flash cook that no wonder that steak tastes amazing. Chef's kiss, for sure. So here's, well, here, and here's a quick story. My son was, son was recently, they were, his baseball team was away for like, three weeks in Texas. And one of the hotel, you know, some of the hotels have kitchenette, some of them whatever they might have a microwave, and they were at one hotel. Didn't really have much. Had a fridge whatever, but mini fridge whatever. And so one of the kids bought like, a electric griddle in his room, and he takes a picture and shows us, Hey, I made a late night snack. He's like, 11 o'clock, six eggs and five pieces of bacon he fried up in the room. So. I guess my point is to your point about learn how to cook. You can, you can make it happen if you, if you really are interested, better than door dashing some jack in the box at 11 o'clock at night, as opposed to that, right? So, yeah, that shows up cold. Yes, yes, yes, no good. And you're gonna pound a 32 ounce soda before you go to bed, and that would, that would be my argument, too. And I think about, you know, even just everything going out, everything is soda, soda, soda. And, you know, I know it's the same here in Canada as is in America. I find, though, in America, like a small soda is, like, ginormous, you know, and every you know. And there's now this new craze of all the dirty sodas. So that's a whole nother another thing to get the kids addicted to all that sugary stuff. And I have to tell you, though I had some, and it was pretty good, but I had one, and I go, Okay, I'm glad we don't have one of these here in Canada yet. But, you know, those those guys crumble, they started making dirty sodas in Canada, I think, to fend off all the companies that are going to start to want to come up here as well and do that trend. But, you know, I I really appreciate the stuff that, the stuff that you've shared. I hope that, you know, I hope, if you're a kid listening. You got a few tips if you're a parent listening, I hope you listened with intent, because it doesn't have to be that hard. Like I said, six eggs and four or five strips of bacon. That's not really that hard, you know, get them, get them cooking it early. So anyways, thank you for your time, Shannon, and look forward to in the show notes will be all your information, where people can find you and look you up if they have questions. And I do appreciate your time. Thanks for joining. Thank

1:01:47

you so much. Appreciate it.

Matt Cundill  1:01:49

Thanks for listening, for more, including resources and more about the show. Go to the mental approach.com

Speaker 2  1:01:57

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