Emily: 0:00

Hey, so this week we have a great episode for you with Courtney. She's a registered dietician that specializes in exercise nutrition. And I know I definitely changed up a few things about my pre and post workout routine after listening to this. So if you have any questions or. You just want to know more about how to feel your body better, whether it's yoga or running or swimming, whatever kind of activity you do, then this episode is definitely for you. Enjoy. Welcome to wellness myths today, we have an awesome guest for you. Courtney, just her dietician living in Southern Oregon, who is currently working as a clinical dietician in long-term care facilities. She also works as a one-on-one nutrition and lifestyle coach through her online business fit and fabulous nutrition. As a nutrition coach and fitness enthusiast, Courtney focuses on helping her female clients feel their workouts through a whole foods approach that emphasizes the quality of foods more so than the quantity. She challenges women to ditch that toxic diet culture by helping them understand that fitness has no defined weight, shape or size. Courtney has future plans to complete a master's degree in integrative nutrition and grow her online business. In her free time. She loves doing CrossFit, hiking and cooking new recipes for her friends and family. Welcome Courtney.

Courtney: 1:38

Hey. Yeah, it's great to be here.

Emily: 1:41

I'm so happy to have you, especially because I had the privilege of being on your podcasts. I mean, that must've been almost like a year ago now.

Courtney: 1:49

Yeah, because it was right around when the pandemic got started. Cause that's the whole reason I started that podcast. So I literally cannot believe it's been that long. I can. It's just crazy time has just been flying by, but also going painfully slow at the same time.

Emily: 2:04

Yeah, I think everybody can identify with that. So we're here to talk to you about one of your specialties, which is exercise nutrition. just to kind of start it off, what kind of athletes should be engaging in nutrition to support exercise?

Courtney: 2:21

That is a great question. And I think it's kind of a misconception first and foremost, that you need to be a quote athlete in order to reap any nutritional benefits from, incorporating any type of nutritional recommendations or approaches to enhance your recovery or your fitness in general. So in my own personal opinion, You don't need to be an athlete. If you're just an average gym goer or a fitness enthusiast, you like to do yoga a couple times on the weekdays. You like to go swimming and your kitty pool on Sunday with margarita, you know, whatever, whatever counts. I think everybody can truly benefit from incorporating little tidbits. If you will, of nutrition recommendations to enhance. Their performance to get stronger, to help with recovery, to help with muscle protein synthesis. So you don't have to be, you know, a collegiate athlete and NFL player or anything like that. If you are moving your body and doing physical forms of activity that you enjoy you right there can benefit from nutrition a hundred percent.

Emily: 3:20

So you're basically saying that everyone can

Courtney: 3:22

anyone and everyone, baby.

Emily: 3:24

let's talk about before the workout, what are your thoughts about pre-workout? And I guess there's kind of two sides of this where it's like the pre-workout that is some kind of supplement or a powder that I know a lot of people take, and then there's also the food side of it. So I love if you could speak to both.

Courtney: 3:45

Yeah, for sure. So we'll, we'll kind of start, I guess, with, um, supplemental pre-workout, which is pretty common, pretty popular. The fitness nutrition supplement world is huge and it's continuing to expand. It's a multimillion dollar industry. So pre-workout in supplement form is. Pretty common. Most people use it as a, some type of energy boost, right? Usually it has a form of caffeine in there to rev up the engines. If you will. So, um, it's not necessary. A lot of it is kind of a, not that it's a pseudo effect because there is a legitimate effect from caffeine. But I think the biggest thing that people maybe aren't realizing if they do choose to take a pre-workout supplement is the quantity and the frequency that they're using, it has a huge impact. So because most of those pre-workouts have caffeine in them. People aren't factoring in the caffeine that they're getting throughout the day, whether it's. Coffee or energy drinks or little tiny things like chocolate. If you're a frequent coffee drinker like myself, I have to have it every single morning. I'm doing pre-workout for all of my workouts every single week, because, you know, I love going to CrossFit. I go maybe three to four times a week. If I was taking pre-workout with it with caffeine added into it, I really wouldn't be reaping very many effects from that because my body's has that upper tolerable limit anyway. I've had too much caffeine. My body's used to it. So all of that caffeine is really not doing any good because my body's so used to it that there becomes a threshold if you will. So personally, you know, I do have pre-workouts in my cabinet that I use from time to time, but I don't try to make it a frequent everyday thing because then my body can't reap the benefits of it. Anyway.

Emily: 5:30

That makes sense. And do you know how much caffeine is usually in a pre-workout like a serving.

Courtney: 5:36

Oh, gosh. They're becoming extremely high, which is almost kind of terrifying. Like, let's see if I can quickly, you know, research a pretty popular brand because they're the problem with everyone's tolerance going up as well as supplement companies are noticing that. So they're making them a higher doses, which is kind of scary. Uh, so let's see, I'll just pull up a random one right here, so, Oh gosh, let's see. 400 milligrams of caffeine in an average dose. So.

Emily: 6:07

Whoa. Oh my God.

Courtney: 6:10

Yeah. I can see all my heart racing. Just thinking about it.

Vanessa: 6:13

so interesting that you bring that up because I've never thought of it like that. A lot of people really are like pounding coffee all morning and then. Maybe, you know, pounding some pre-workout before their workout in the evening. And that is, that's a lot of caffeine at the end of the day.

Courtney: 6:35

It's almost contraindicated because you're just going to continue to overload. And the whole point of taking a pre-workout of taking that caffeine stimulant is to increase vasodilation or provide yourself a little bit of boost, a little bit of cognitive, juice, if you will, to get things going. But if you've had caffeine all day or you've had it in your system all week, Taking one to two scoops of protein or pre-workout right before your workout, really isn't going to do any good. If you feel anything, it's likely, you know, a pseudo effect, like a placebo effect, if anything, but you're not truly reaping the benefits of it, which I think a lot of people don't even, I didn't think about it for the longest time when I was in college. I started getting into the fitness world and I had supplements filling up my counters. Like coffee is life, especially in undergrad, in nutrition, you're living off the stuff. Okay. So I was pounding coffee all the time, and then I would do workouts multiple times a day when I was bodybuilding back then. And I didn't even realize that I was just literally putting all these supplements in my mouth that weren't doing any good. And if anything, I was like, Making my threshold for caffeine ridiculously high. So then I needed more to even feel more of an effect. It's just this negative feedback loop that just keeps going in a circle.

Emily: 7:52

Yeah. Wow. I had no idea. I thought that pre-workout supplements had, I knew they had some caffeine, but I thought that there was some other kind of additive in them.

Courtney: 8:02

for some, yeah, for some, there are supplement companies are becoming more and more creative. And some of them use other stimulants. And then there are also some pre-workouts out there on the market that are non STEM. You might've heard that before where essentially. The energy that you're getting, isn't so much from an energy source, it's from something like a vasodilator. So it has nitric oxide in it to pump up your veins a little bit. And it doesn't really give you an energy boost, but it kinda opens up your blood vessels a little bit to CA oxygen flowing a little bit more better. You know, it gives you a pump quote, quote, unquote.

Emily: 8:39

Interesting. Okay. So if people are thinking, okay, the powder supplement type of pre-workout might not be for me. What about just whole food based?

Courtney: 8:50

Ooh.

Emily: 8:51

What would be the best

Courtney: 8:52

that is the name of the game for me in general, when it comes to nutrition for athletic performance, for fitness. I like to kind of remind my clients whenever I'm working with them, that there is a, there's a pyramid. If you will, that you want to focus on. And immediately people always want to go to supplements first. It's the easiest, you know, there's a marketing tactics for it everywhere. It seems so simple. You just take the supplement. Boom. You're good to go. Whole foods is top priority, man. So when it comes to whole food sources of energy for a pre-workout. It kind of depends on the timing of the meal or snack before you're working out. So how much time do you have the more time that you have before your planned workout? You're going to want to have something that's more satiating and slower digesting. So you want to have something obviously with carbohydrates in there, a primary source of energy for the brain and the cells, some protein in there, obviously as well, and a little bit of fat and fiber, just to kind of slow down the rate of digestion. If you don't have a lot of time, let's say your workouts in 30 minutes to an hour, right? You're feeling kind of sluggish. Doesn't really matter. If it's morning, noon afternoon, about 30 minutes to one hour prior, you want to get some form of good quality carbohydrates in there with minimal fat and protein. The reason why as you want that fast, quick energy readily available to the muscles, and you don't want it sitting in your digestive tract too long, or else you're not going to reap any of the benefits of that glycogen and the glucose. So pre-workout right before, you know, 10 to 20 grams of fast, simple digesting carbs are usually my recommendation for Maya, for my clients.

Emily: 10:32

Yeah. Or listeners kind of get an idea of what that would look like. What would be an example of a food that would fit that requirement?

Courtney: 10:41

some of my go tos, something easy. I'm I like to keep it simple. I like to do like a piece of toast with some fruit jam on there maybe, or a fresh piece of fruit. I like to carry bags of dry cereal around with me, sediment, toes, crutches, the OJI. Um,

Emily: 10:57

I love

Courtney: 10:57

Oh, it's so good. It's delicious. It's great. And it's got just the right amount of carbohydrates in there in about an average serving to get me through my, you know, let's say it's a 45 ish minute workout. Anything past that, if I'm doing a really long workout, let's say that's also going to change the amount of carbohydrates that I want to ingest as well. So it kind of becomes this like this game, if you will, of, okay. Well, how long am I planning on working out? And that will tell me how many carbohydrates I need. Cause during that workout, your body's going to continuously use as many energy sources as it has available. The problem is when glycogen and glucose, it runs out your body's going to start taking it from other sources. So you got to replenish those carbohydrates if you're going longer than about 60 minutes.

Emily: 11:47

No. I think that a lot of people too, would be surprised that you mentioned something like cinnamon toast crunch, because I think with kind of that lens of diet culture being put into fitness, it's like a lot of these people would be like, Oh my God, I can't believe that's what you eat right before you exercise.

Courtney: 12:06

Oh, yeah. And, and, you know, I like to remind people that the body is a very, very complex machine, but at the end of the day, it's going to do what it's designed to do, which is metabolize and absorb nutrition. At a certain point. It doesn't necessarily matter what specific brand or what specific label or food group you're getting the nutrition from. It's going to absorb as many nutrients from that food as it can for something like a workout. Yes. It has sugar in it. Yes. It has simple carbs. Yes. It's a processed food. My body's gonna still absorb and utilize the carbohydrates from that food. And still allow for me to have the energy. I need to do my workout. And then on top of that, it's also a little mental boost. Cinnamon toast crunch tastes delicious. I feel great when I eat it, I know that my stomach doesn't get upset when I eat it. So it's an all around win-win.

Emily: 12:57

absolutely. I think it's, it's funny. Sometimes I'll tell people, you know, your body doesn't like, you don't eat something and your body encounters that. And they're like, Oh, this was a processed food, or this was like a candy bar. I'm just going to throw everything away. That's just not what happens. Your body doesn't even know.

Courtney: 13:14

Yes, exactly. It's important to recognize that nutrition as a whole, you know, we, we, we say it all the time. It probably gets so annoying for other people, but every, it really is about a balance. So gentle nutrition can be incorporated in such a way where even as an athlete, you can still enjoy all every single food group, every single food that exists while still. Providing yourself with the nutrients you need to heal, to recover, to get stronger, to build muscle. It's not a, it's not a black or white or all in one mentality, if you will. And I think a lot of people get really stuck and rigid in that way of thinking. And that's where they feel really frustrated with themselves when they're trying to focus on how to eat, to perform and feel better.

Emily: 13:58

I think a lot of people think, okay, well, if I. Worked out at the gym. And, you know, I had my piece of fruit before and I was feeling really good, but then I come home and eat ice cream or chips, then the guilt kind of sets in or they feel like, Oh, Oh, well, it's as if that didn't even count when we know that's not true.

Courtney: 14:15

I'm so glad you said that too, because yeah. It's not like your body just forgets and it throws it out the window like, Oh, well you burned, you know, let's say 200 calories doing this exercise. That's, you know, that's just the pathophysiological thing that's happening, right? You're burning calories and then you're eating calories. That's all it is. People get so caught up in this idea that they need to burn off what they eat, which is really unfortunate. And you know, it, it shouldn't be that way of thinking, just focus on nutrition to fuel your body and recover and provide it with good quality energy so that you can keep doing what you love, which is, you know, whatever physical activity you're doing.

Emily: 14:54

That makes a lot more sense. And I feel like exercising would be a lot more pleasant if people apply that mindset. So the flip side, let's talk about post-workout now. Think it would be helpful if you kind of explain the supplements that are out there for post-workout and then the whole food approach again.

Courtney: 15:16

also a good question. And again, it kinda depends on. The type of physical activity that you're doing as well as how, how intense of an athlete are you? Are you, you know, a strong man? Are you a collegiate athlete? Are you working out extremely hard for 60 minutes to maybe three hours? Maybe you're doing a soccer practice or something like that? Or was it, you know, a 30, 45 minute wait session in your hotel gym, right. Either way, you're going to need to fuel your body with good quality nutrition. It's just going to depend a little bit more so on. What are your goals what's available for you? At this point, if, if you can think it, it exists as a supplement, which is crazy, they have supplement, post-workout drinks that are the same thing as like a pre-workout, but instead it's, it's literally just pure glucose. it's like Gatorade powder or like a sunny D, but it's put in a fancy supplement container and people think it's magic, you

Emily: 16:15

Right.

Courtney: 16:17

Oh, and it's extremely expensive. Like you don't need to buy this expensive. Post-workout simple sugar, orange drink, just have some Gatorade, have some cereal, have a rice crispy treat, whatever you like whenever it works for you and your needs is going to be the best bet. So with post-workout usually people always think about protein, right? Protein, protein, protein, got to get protein, got to get my gains. And that's true. If you're doing weight training, if you're doing any type of, you know, mobility movement, even yoga, right? Your muscles are working. You're going to need to give them fuel and recover, but people always kind of throw carbs out the window. Like they don't matter. And I always like to try to remind people that carbs are the star carbohydrates are the number one. Go-to when it comes to macronutrients for pre and post recovery. And this is why so. Not to get too science-y but what carbs are awesome for is they kind of initiate this protein muscle synthesis pathway called the mTOR pathway. And without sufficient carbohydrate intake, you can't really get that protein muscle synthesis started. So people always go overboard and focus way. So hot way too much on the protein component of things without thinking that it's best. When it's paired together with a carbohydrate, they're like two best friends, you got to have them together.

Emily: 17:38

Mm, interesting. So if you were to say, have a protein shake per post-workout would that be something, how would you balance that with the carbohydrate? Would you suggest

Courtney: 17:50

Yeah, for sure. So there's a couple of ways, same thing as before. Sometimes I like to have like a piece of fruit on hand just because it's so easy to carry around with me. I don't have to worry about storing it anywhere or keeping it in a fridge or anything like that. But, if I'm at home, I'll just. Add it in. So I'll do like an almond milk or I'll add in something like, honestly, I've even done like a chocolate syrup before mixed in with like almond milk into my PR. Oh, it's so good with my protein shake. So that way I'm still getting sufficient carbohydrates with that protein to help drive that muscle protein synthesis sometimes, you know, I'll do like a rice cake, just a little like mini sized one. Paired with my protein shake. If I'm doing a protein shake to begin with even then that's not even my number one, go-to, it's easy. It's simple. But even then, if I can, I'm going to try to shoot for some type of whole food form of protein. If I can.

Emily: 18:47

right. And our culture is definitely super obsessed with protein in general. As a plant-based dietician, I hear that so often of course, When people are confused about vegan, vegetarian diets, not having protein. Um, so I think, yeah, it's important. Like you're saying that it's not as though every single person needs all these protein shakes, especially if you're already getting adequate protein in your diet can totally just be too much.

Courtney: 19:16

It's the common thing that people see, they see bodybuilders walking around with their protein shakes. They're advertised everywhere in, in stores and on social media and they have all these awesome flavors, which is great. It's an awesome supplement. But again, the key word there is supplement it's meant to supplement your nutrition. You, I would not recommend to anyone to be getting. Most of their protein in a day from a protein shake. Yes. It's, you know, it's bioavailable, but at the end of the day, you really would be reaping more benefits from all these other different sources too. Um, uh, something I've noticed with a lot of my clients is a lot of protein powders. Cause a lot of GI upset for people. Have you

Emily: 19:58

there's, there's so much Stevia and sugar alcohols and these supplements I'm consistently looking and looking and looking for one, and it's really tough to find

Courtney: 20:10

There's, you know, there there's a pro and there's a con when it comes to a lot of supplements and that's definitely one of them, a lot of them do unfortunately contain, you know, sweeteners and things to make them taste good without adding too many extra calories. Cause of course, you know, supplement world is very worried about excessive calories. So in order to do that, they replace it with a lot of things that don't have calories, but unfortunately can of kind of cause some issues. So, um, if you are one that has a sensitive stomach, I wouldn't necessarily recommend going full, you know, full blown on all the supplements. Cause you might find that it might even worse than your symptoms a little bit.

Vanessa: 20:49

I feel like our society is kind of like whole food sources don't seem good enough. It has to be like some fancy product that's marketed to them. And you know, some kind of way someone has to be promoting it, some celebrity or something like that. It's like whole food. It's the best.

Courtney: 21:08

Yep. Let it literally is. And it's so much cheaper. The amount of money that I could have saved in college. Not if I hadn't have spent it on supplements, I probably would be driving a Porsche. That's not the case. So I was naive, but you know, we have to, we have to learn some way.

Vanessa: 21:27

All right. 11 you learn. Um, so something else we wanted to ask you about is, so we've been hearing a lot about fasted cardio lately as a way to burn more fat. Can you tell us more about what fasted cardio means and kind of the science behind that?

Courtney: 21:46

yeah, for sure. This is an area that I have researched extensively because I see it everywhere. And there's so much controversy. It seems like. But the, the sciences is pretty bang. Clear in regards to the effects of fasted cardio on fat loss specifically. So fast cardio, really, all it is is you're in a fasted state, usually more than 10 to 12 hours. So usually it's at night time, you wake up first thing in the morning, you ingest nothing, maybe like a couple sips of water, but nothing. No pre-workout no, no nothing. And you go do your cardio, whether it's moderate intensity or crazy hit workout or whatever it is. That's what you're doing. And the theory behind that is when you break down metabolism and you break down aerobic respiration, when your body runs out of glycogen, which is being pumped out of your liver and your muscle cells, when you're fasted, ultimately your body's going to need some other form of fuel, right? So it's going to use fatty acids. It's going to use protein, but because. Glycogen stores are depleted and your body needs to find something else to use. It can use fatty acids, but the problem is that breakdown of fatty acids really is pretty slow. So when people are doing fasted cardio, and they're thinking that they're burning so much fat. By the time those fatty acids really get broken down for energy. Your workouts usually done because it It takes about an hour. So then the triglycerides that are floating around in your blood, they literally just get repurposed back into your body. So you, you essentially did all that work for nothing. And you were probably really hangry and tired the whole time.

Vanessa: 23:28

Yeah, that sounds absolutely miserable.

Courtney: 23:31

used to do it for a long time back again, when I was naive and I had no idea what I was doing. And I thought that it was the thing to do, and it would help me get leaner for my bodybuilding competitions. And I I've never felt more terrible in my entire life. I felt awful. I would try to lift weights fasted. I will. Oh my gosh. I never, again, I will never make that mistake ever again.

Emily: 23:54

I think that people are just so kind of desperate and see exercises this solution, or, you know, source where they can control the body. And so I'm sure that's where that comes from.

Courtney: 24:07

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And you know, it it's, if anything, you're doing yourself more harm because. Fasted cardio can have a catabolic effect on your muscle tissue. So if you're working out for more than 60 minutes with nothing in your system, there's a lot of research that has been done that shows that your low, you can lose up to 10% of your muscle tissue because it's being synthesized and utilized for energy because your body has nothing to go off of. So if anything, you're losing your gains while you're doing it. So it just doesn't make sense.

Vanessa: 24:43

Yeah, besides, just being hangry and miserable, you're probably actually causing harm. And it just seems like a huge. Stress bike too, especially to be like getting up fresh out of bed. Like you said, not eating anything and maybe a sip of water, something like that. I mean, I explain to people a lot stress in the way of like biologically stress, your body doesn't. Necessarily understand if you're being chased by a bear or if you're just like really angry sitting in traffic. So I feel like fasted cardio would feel very similar to being chased by a bear.

Courtney: 25:23

Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing. It's kind of like what we talked about earlier, you know, the body is machine is a machine and it's great at what it does, but it, it has no cognitive function in terms of recognizing the difference. So that cascade of hormones is going to happen. Anyway, cortisol is going to go up. Your insulin is going to start being released. Your body's going to go into panic mode. You're going to become inflamed. You're going to be irritable. You're going to have brain fog. Those. Those things all sound terrible. And you're trying to exercise, which is a healthy thing for you. If you do it correctly, um, it releases endorphins. It, it brings stress down. So if anything, you're just, um, going right back to square one. It's just that negative feedback loop. Again, you're exercising to de-stress, but then you're causing metabolic stress on your body. And then you just go around and around in a circle.

Vanessa: 26:14

Yeah, you're really not doing yourself any favors. So I know we talked a little bit about pre and post-workout already, but we wanted to talk about another product with you and that's branch chain, amino acids. How do you feel about those? Do you like them? Do you use them, do they really increase performance?

Courtney: 26:33

I have not used branch chain amino acids in probably. It's probably been about three or four years now. And the reason why I don't use them at as anymore is because the, you know, the extensive literature that I've done and that I've read in regards to this specific supplement, all points to it being not necessary. If you're getting enough, adequate protein in your diet already. Same thing with like protein shakes, if you're meeting your protein needs and you're kind of spreading it out throughout the day, branch chain, amino acids, really aren't going to do much better for you in terms of protein muscle synthesis, because they actually work better with their other amino acids. So when they're in there, Single forum like that they're actually competing for different pathways to be metabolized and used. So if anything is kind of almost contraindicated to take all these extra amino acids, if you're eating sufficient amounts of protein anyway, so. Those branch chain amino acids. For anyone who cares, who knows, I don't know, they're losing veiling and ISO leucine. So we have all those other essential amino acids as well that we need, our body needs them. It can't make them, we have to get them through diet, but you know, same thing. If you're getting enough protein sources from meat, dairy legumes, nuts, seeds, whatever it is, you should be fine. Even if you're a bodybuilder that's. Weight training every single day. You probably don't really need branch chain amino acids, unless you're in a pretty severe caloric deficit for bodybuilding purposes, or maybe, you know, protein is just not your thing. It's hard for you to meet your needs maybe, or a new vegetarian or vegan that isn't sure isn't aware of all the wonderful sources of plant-based protein. Maybe you would benefit from it, but in terms of it really being beneficial for something like. Like increased muscle growth. There's not enough research to support it. There's some research that suggests that it can reduce muscle soreness by like five to 10%. But you could also just focus on incorporating more anti-inflammatory foods into your diet. And that'll also help with muscle soreness. So.

Vanessa: 28:51

Right. I was going to say maybe taken up some salt bath instead.

Courtney: 28:55

I would take, I would. And that, you know what? That's way cheaper. I will gladly buy the $5 bag of lavender, Epsom salt at Walmart over the $30 tub of branched chain, amino acids. Any day.

Vanessa: 29:08

And how much more enjoyable.

Courtney: 29:10

Yeah. And I actually liked that. You, you, you said the word enjoyable, cause you reminded me of something kind of, kind of interesting as well as at the end of the day, if you enjoy drinking your BCAs and it helps you increase your water intake. Sure. Cool. If you want to invest the money into your flavored BCAs and it doesn't cause you any GI upset. Cool, awesome. You know, it's your life. You can do it. You get your paychecks every day. Maybe you don't, I don't know. Maybe you're an influencer and you get into whatever, but at the end of the day, if you like your branch chain amino acids, and you feel like a genuinely makes a difference for you by all means, go for it. You know, I'm not going to sit here and say, you can't do this. That's dumb, but at the same time, you know, I'm going to provide educational resources and science and information to back up. What. I think is reasonable and realistic for the average person.

Vanessa: 30:12

Yeah. I mean, it seems like you're saying it for most people. It's maybe just a waste of money and not something you're going to enjoy very much.

Courtney: 30:20

Oh yeah. I, I, like I said, I personally stopped taking it like four years ago. And if anything, the. The, the rate of my protein muscle synthesis has increased because I'm focusing more on whole foods and my training and my recovery and my stretching and all the other things that people often overlook first. So, you know, my muscles are as big as they've ever been, and I'm not, I'm not taking BCAs. I don't even know the last, I think I drink a protein shake. Maybe, maybe like once a week. Maybe I'll just like turn, you know, if I'm feeling like a protein shake, ice cream or in quick, you know, short on time, something like that, but it's not my go-to, it's not my preference.

Vanessa: 31:02

Yeah. I just thought of this question because it just kind of popped into my brain. So something with post-workout. So I remember in high school, this, you guys like this. Thought just like flashed into my head. I remember in high school, people always talking about drinking chocolate milk after workouts. What do you think about

Courtney: 31:23

Yeah, so. So I actually, uh, this, this is so controversial, but again, it's all based on a matter of not opinion, but. Take with it, what you will, the thought behind it. And the reason why it works for a lot of people is because it's it's same thing. It's pairing good quality. Bio-available protein with simple carbohydrates. For some people though, like if they're lactose intolerant or they're vegan or vegetarian. Yeah. You know, they could have a chocolate soy beverage or something like that. If it's still got some good quality, protein and carbs, usually I like to recommend to my clients to have like a two to one ratio of carbs to protein, if it's got it. Cool. Awesome. If it's a true mood and that's what gets you going? Yeah, it can work. Your body will still absorb and take the nutrients from it. It'll use the protein to help with protein synthesis. It'll replenish your glycogen stores. It'll do all the good stuff that your body needs, but at the end of the day, it it's very individualized and comes down to what you want to do.

Emily: 32:29

I actually, it's so funny that you bring this up and ask them because I was talking to a girlfriend who was a collegiate athlete and she said they would like bring them to these fridges at the end of their cross-country practice. And just be like, okay, down all this chocolate milk, like y'all have to eat this, like right this second.

Courtney: 32:48

I feel like with all the people that have like GI sensitivities and like lactose intolerance, like. That, that that's not perfect for everybody. Like there needs to be a more individualized approach with stuff like that. But I don't know, you know, there there's been some research that kind of looked at comparing like chocolate milk as a pro post-workout recovery. With like water, regular milk, like a glucose beverage, kind of like a Gatorade or something like that. And they found that it was moderately beneficial in terms of recovery, but carbs and protein doesn't matter where you get them from.

Vanessa: 33:22

So I feel like you gave tons of great tips throughout this. Can you give us like a summary, your top tips, um, kind of a Roundup for us today.

Courtney: 33:35

Yeah, for sure. So it doesn't have to be complicated. I like to let my clients know that there's an acronym that I like to focus on, which is kiss. Keep it stupidly simple. At the end of the day, you don't need to be wasting all of your hard earned money on all these crazy supplements. When you haven't even really started focusing on a balanced plate or hydration or things like that. So focus on whole foods. First, if you're not used to getting a lot of vegetables in your diet or whole grains, start there, see where you can incorporate some extra broccoli in your macaroni and cheese. See where you can start finding alternate sources of protein to sneak into your meals. See if there is other forums or strategies where you can up your hydration, intake, people overlook hydration in the fitness world so badly, and they don't realize how important it is for lubricating your joints for keeping your electrolytes balanced for helping you stay cool. You know, water is like the number one thing that we need and people are literally just kinda like, nah, whatever. So, yeah, well,

Emily: 34:42

That's so true.

Courtney: 34:43

It's so true. Even me, I'll be like, I'll be like, yeah. Ice coffees of fluid. So it's hydrating.

Emily: 34:50

Definitely.

Courtney: 34:51

It's true. Right. I'm just kidding. Don't do that. If you're going to drink ice coffee, just have some water afterwards. Do what, do what I do. But yeah, you'll keep it simple focus on those nutrient dense foods. Eat the rainbow, eat lots of colors at the end of the day, you know? Focusing on those simple, easy things are going to benefit you. Whether you're a collegiate athlete or you're just a casual gym goer and a fitness enthusiast, you don't have to be a certain level of athletic or fit to start incorporating really quality, you know, good gentle nutrition into your diet. It's going to impact you for the positive, no matter what.

Emily: 35:31

I love how you say that those are great tips.

Courtney: 35:34

Well, thank you so much for having me.

Emily: 35:36

Yeah, Courtney. We're so glad you could take the time to be on our podcast today. If people are looking for where to find you, and we'll definitely link your info in our show notes, but where can they go?

Courtney: 35:50

Sure. So, you know, I do have a private Facebook group, um, fit and fabulous nutrition. It might help if you search for my name first, I know there's a few others out there. My Instagram handle is at fit dot and. Dot fabulous nutrition, so fit and fabulous nutrition. There's two dots in there. I've got tons of resources. As far as recipes, nutrition, tips, little, little tidbits, if you will, and just overall, you know, quality information and support and enthusiasm when it comes to being fit and fabulous at any size.

Emily: 36:26

yeah. Courtney has you covered with all of these awesome related digestible graphics about new research?

Courtney: 36:34

Thank you.

Emily: 36:36

Okay, thank you so much, Courtney.

Track 1: 36:40

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of wellness Smiths. If you like what you hear, we would love for you to write us a review. It really helps tune in next week for a special new kind of episode where we'll cover a really trendy diet. That's all I will say for now. You'll have to just wait and see what our topic ends up being, but I think everyone will really enjoy it. See you next time.