Dr. Laurent Bannock: Nutrition in Performance

In this episode of the Keiser Human Performance Podcast, Dr. Laurent Bannock shares his expertise in strength and conditioning, offering a practical look at how performance training continues to evolve.

Drawing from his experience working with athletes across different levels, Laurent discusses the shift toward more individualized, data-informed training—while still emphasizing the importance of fundamentals like movement quality, intent, and consistency. He also breaks down common misconceptions in the industry and highlights how coaches can better bridge the gap between science and real-world application.

This episode delivers actionable insights for coaches, practitioners, and athletes looking to refine their approach and build more effective, sustainable performance programs.

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Hi Dr. Laurent Bannock. Thank you so much for joining  me on the podcast today. How are we doing today?

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Good, Gabe. Thank you. Thank you for inviting  me. This is fun to be on the other side of the

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podcast for once, you know. Yeah. Well, it's  really exciting to have you here. And listen,

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if you want to take over at any point and, you  know, run the show, then I'm happy to, you know,

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defer to you. So, no problem. Yeah. No, I uh after  hundreds of episodes of podcasting, I can tell you

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it's an absolute pleasure to not actually be the  host. Nothing wrong with being the host gate, but

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uh yeah, for once. For once. Well, I understand  that you're going through quite the heat wave,

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maybe untraditional heat wave out there in the  UK. Is that right? Yeah. The Yeah, the the the

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the term heatwave and UK doesn't normally combine,  but we are having quite the time over here. And

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British people being British, we like to talk  about the weather all the time. And uh yeah,

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we're we're crazy. Uh we're going crazy with  the hot weather. But um you know we complain if

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it's cold, we complain if it's hot. So there you  go. So question for you being on the performance

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nutrition side. You have you mentioned you know  your kids are running around on a hot summer day

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like this. I imagine they're going to run in and  they want some ice cream or some popsicles. Now is

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that something they're getting or are they getting  a nice healthy alternative to that? So as a as a

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sports nutritionist and as an expert, a researcher  and so on, I like to go by the uh rule that you

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know that we a lot of us tend to subscribe  to, which is to do as I say but not as I do.

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Uh, no. They'd be they'd be getting their ice  cream for sure. Anyway, there'd be a riot and

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it's just not worth it. Uh, but but when we talk  about sports nutrition for athletes and elite

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performance and so on, we'll see that nothing is  off the table. It's just a question of of when

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and how often. And so, so it goes with my with my  kids who maybe have it more often than maybe they

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should, but not too much. You know, you got to  keep the little critters happy, you know. Yeah.

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Well, I'm excited to dive into that today. And  really to start us off with this conversation,

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I'd be curious, what drew you into this world of  performance nutrition? Like, how did you even get

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to this point? It's a very good question. And  because I've been doing this for decades now,

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my career in health and fitness, we shall say,  is nearing 30 years. I can't believe I'm saying

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that. It's frightening. I'm 52 and I got into  this in my early 20s. Um, I experimented with

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a few things before really dedicating myself to  health and fitness, but ultimately performance

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nutrition or sports nutrition became bit of an  obsession over the years. Um, but I didn't start

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as a sports nutritionist. So I actually started in  health and fitness uh as a personal trainer uh and

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strength conditioning coach and uh for quite a few  years actually uh for a good 10 years I worked in

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in that area in private sort of one-to-one stuff  back in the days when people didn't really have

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PTS particularly in the UK in in the US it was  in the big cities you know celebrities and so on

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were getting PT but in the UK you know we were we  were just catching on and I was lucky to be doing

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that in London and um and elsewhere. Had my own  gym. That didn't go so well after a few years of

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running my own gym. Uh a massive uh health and and  rackets club opened up opposite me and basically

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took all the parking and that killed my business.  So I quickly realized that running my own facility

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and having overheads and all those sorts of  things was possibly not where I wanted to go. But,

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you know, on reflection, that ended up being  a really good lesson to learn. And by that,

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I mean the concept of overheads. You know, a lot  of practitioners, you know, we we get obsessed

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whether you're a PT or a strength conditioning  coach or a nutritionist or whatever, we all get

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obsessed with with science and theory and and  the stuff that links to our job title, right?

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Um but being a practitioner and being successful  as a practitioner uh depending on how you define

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successful of course involves a lot more than  that things like implementation operation and

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all sorts of things. So I I was lucky I guess  I I mean I had a messy period of my early years

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shall we say where I'd experimented with a  lot of things as a PT. I mean, for a start

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that there was no jobs. Um, so it was very much  a self-employed gig, you know, so you got to get

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work and you would diversify. So I diversified  a lot and I got into alternative medicine. I got

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into all sorts of weird stuff. Did all sorts of  courses, certifications. Some were a little bogus,

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I think. Well, no, they were pretty bogus back  in the day. You know, everything was available

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and all PTs are subjected to this. health care  professionals. The more regulated there are, there

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tends to be stricter stuff in this regard. But  when you're in the health and fitness industry,

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there's there's a lot um and nowadays we see  that of course with influencers and coaches

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running their own courses and so on. So of course  we've got the the bigger names that we know beyond

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university. You got your degrees obviously, but  you've also got professional certifications and

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so on. So anyway, I'd explored a lot in that  area back in those days and having owned my own

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business and trying to make a a few bucks here  and there, you know, you you you you go through

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some interesting experiences, but ultimately what  became obvious at that point in my life was I'm

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not going to get anywhere unless I get results,  right? Results are what gets you the referrals.

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Results is what gets you repeat business from  your clients, your customers. Results is your

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reputation at the end of the day. So that became  my focus. And when I was a PT and an SNC coach

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in different environments, I often found because  my clients were wanting to work with me primarily

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for body composition change. That's really common  in the PT environment. You know, yes, people want

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to be healthier. People want stronger bones,  more robust cardiovascular systems and other

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challenges they might be dealing with. But I mean  almost always they want to look good um in their,

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you know, in their swimming outfits when on  holiday or they just for their own personal state

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of mind, their emotional situation beyond just  health and other, you know, factors like that.

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You don't get very far if you don't get results.  And clients are an interesting species as we all

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know whether they're, you know, midlifers, whether  they're parents, whether they're elite athletes,

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businessmen, they could be triathletes,  so they're highly focused on one angle,

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or they're really reluctant exercisers and they  just don't really want to be training. You have

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to find ways to get those results. So I think it's  an underestimated skill set of practitioners to be

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highly effective as a practitioner, as a as a PT,  as an SNC coach, getting results out of your your

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clients, you know, unless the unless your client's  going to live with you all day and you literally

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just live in the gym and you know, it's really  not that easy when you only see them once, twice,

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three times a week. And so it goes with athletes,  too, you know. So, there's a huge amount in there

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that I found I needed to diversify. And like  I say, some of those paths were a bit dodgy,

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I think, back, you know, alternative and so on.  But I I did what I did. I was curious and I've

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always been that way. But I reset and decided to  go on a path. But always found that nutrition was

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the big one. It was the, you know, the food, the  alcohol, the wine, the cookies, the the big meals,

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the eating out, the dinners and so on, which had  the biggest impacts on what their goals were.

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So I spent more time trying to influence their  lifestyle, their nutrition, their habits, and that

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became my real big focus. So I retrained and you  know earlier earlyish on into that part portion

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of my career actually, I had an opportunity  to go to the States. went to the states,

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ended up doing my masters in exercise science  and health promotion at California University

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of Pennsylvania. Then I've changed names to Pen  West I think and that was my first sort of proper

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you know dive into proper education state side  and then um I ended up doing other qualifications

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and other things but I always found myself coming  back to nutrition but I didn't gravitate so much

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to people you know like the the sort of morbidly  obese type clients. I always really enjoyed the

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ones that were really ambitious about their  body composition, about their performance. So,

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I I worked in lots of different areas, but  ultimately I kept coming back to the performance

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side and found myself pretty much working with  two types of clients. And it will either be

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what we call recreational athletes. It's the, you  know, the gym bros, the people looking for really

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quite serious body composition changes from  amateur bodybuilders to triathletes, you know,

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all those sorts of things. And then you know once  you're in that world and you get half decent at

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what you do your reputation gets out there and I  started working with elite athletes. Anyway I did

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that for quite a long time states side came back  to the UK and did the same thing. But throughout

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that period I just got more and more into um sport  and exercise nutrition at the same time upskilling

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myself and so on so forth. But this is back early  on. You know sport science is a relatively young

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discipline. Strength conditioning is a young  discipline. Sports nutrition is a really young

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discipline. Um, and we're still playing catch-up,  I feel, with um, other allied areas, you know,

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whether it's obviously medicine's been around  a long time, nursing practice and so on. And by

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catchup, I mean it's the it's it's less about the  theory and more about the practice bit. You know,

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to circle back on what I was saying, it's about  getting results. Getting results is a lot more

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than just having knowledge about metabolism,  knowledge about exercise physiology. You've

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got to be able to understand how to interpret  evidence, science, research. You got to understand

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your clients. And there's a there's a lot in there  which we can get on to uh get into deeper later on

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in our conversation. But like I said, ultimately  it just kept coming back to for me at least I

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found nutrition was the biggest lever I could pull  uh effectively to help my clients get the results

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that they wanted and that just kept getting me  more and more obsessed with with nutrition and

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and performance nutrition in general. Okay.  Awesome. So, as a strength conditioning coach

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or a personal trainer, you mentioned that you  started to think about operations, right? It's

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much more than just the education piece. A lot of  it is operations. You have to also run a business,

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right? It's not just, hey, you know what to do and  when to do it, but you have to now put this into

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practice and actually run the business. So, as  you started to pivot into nutrition, did you see

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this opportunity to have um a better performing  operational, you know, uh system in place, feeling

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that you could reach more people and also not  have to be on the floor for 10 to 11 hours a day

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in order to run your business? Yeah, absolutely.  I think if what you have is a job with somebody

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else, you're working in a facility, right? You  don't always appreciate what it takes to get

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clients in front of you, get clients to part with  money, right, and to stay. It's a big deal. And

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the bigger businesses obviously have a big machine  behind them. They've got marketing, they've got

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all sorts of stuff going on. But if you're a in a  small group coaching environment, small group PT,

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small, you know, you're a single operator, you got  to do it all yourself and that's intimidating. And

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nowadays, I think that's the bigger likelihood  you're going to find yourself in. You know,

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there's less and less opportunities to find work  um as an employee or at least it's going to be

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very transient that role. you know, you might have  a a job in a gym or a health and fitness facility

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or what in the UK we call a leisure center or  whatever or even in a sports team, you know, I

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mean, from from one season to the next, you know,  you're highly likely to find yourself looking for

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work. It's a really difficult scenario. Um,  which is why you've got to be able to learn

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how to diversify your skill set as as a coach and  as a a practitioner and be your your own employer,

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your own marketing machine, networking, all these  sorts of things are critical. Uh, and they all

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they all form the successful practitioner, the  elite practitioner, shall we say. And by elite,

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by the way, I just mean literally what that term  means is is better better than most, right? You're

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better better than most at getting results. You're  better at most. I used the phrase reputation

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earlier. If if you don't have the reputation for  getting results, then people aren't going to look

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for you. They're not going to recommend you.  And so, you want to be the best of the best,

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don't you? In whatever environment, it's something  that's in your best interest. And of course that

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will influence not just your ability to train  and coach people. It's like how do you package

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yourself? How do you market yourself? What  do people see and that influences things like

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buying gape? I don't know in your experience be  interesting for you to say but when you're working

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with somebody like for example if you're dressed  badly if you look like a hot mess if you're always

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on your phone if you're just you're you're giving  nutrition handouts that are just hands scribbled

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notes on a bit of paper. I mean, it's going to be  kind of difficult to get buy in. It's not going to

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be that convincing that you're good. Right now,  obviously, you learn these things over time,

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but obviously you learn from other people like  listeners to this podcast. You learn it from your

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teachers, your mentors. It's not the sort of thing  though that they tend to teach in our educational

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program sadly. And that's a problem because people  then realize they need to upskill in some of these

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areas. And of course, they go go and find this  information from all sorts of crazy places,

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you know. Yeah. So I'm curious. So Laurent, the  nutritionist, now started on this journey, right?

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And you still may have been involved with fitness,  health, exercise, of course, but now you mentioned

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that you were working with ambitious people. You  had these two pillars. You had these recreational

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athletes um that were super motivated gym bros,  but then you also had these elite athletes. So

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take us through those early years of now working  in performance nutrition and how that profession

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and those experiences started to evolve with time.  Well, I mean, so going from a more private sort of

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practice, you're working onetoone with athletes,  uh, sorry, with clients, right? These are people

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who are paying you. They're it's a very intimate  relationship you have with these people. You know,

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you get to know them. You spend quite a lot of  time with them. Often, you know, like I'd go to

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their homes. I'd go check out their kitchens. I  was also training them and or I would go and be

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there with their trainer or some of them would  have personal chefs if they were wealthy. I mean

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there's all sorts of scenarios there, right? But  you've got a different environment than being in a

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um professional team situation. Firstly,  the athlete in a team isn't paying you. So

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right there you've got a bit of a problem because  there's a different level of buyin. Now they might

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know that they've been told to work with you. They  might know that they're expected to work with you,

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but that doesn't mean that they're invested in the  idea of working with you. So, all those things I

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talked about go up even higher levels. You know,  your reputation, if you're new, if you're a newbie

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to the team, you've just qualified. You know,  you got to you got to work hard to get that those

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things that are going to get you some respect out  of the athletes. And it can be quite intimidating.

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I remember some horrendous experience even though  I was really experienced in the private sector.

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And I was at the time in my I was of an age  where I wasn't a kid. Um and I was working in

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um football as in soccer teams and and rugby  teams and sort of like a a pack mentality.

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They they you know they can ri you a lot as  in make jokes and you know you got to have a

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very thick skin and you know there are some social  skills that you need to get into that environment.

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That could be that could be that could be  interesting. And you know, you learn things like

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just cuz you're sitting there with your laptop and  a clipboard in the cafeteria or the training room,

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it doesn't mean they're going to come up and  talk to you. So, you have to learn different

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ways of navigating those environments and how to  get yourself in front of an athlete and have them

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share and buy into you because like I said, if  they're not paying you, if they haven't, you know,

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done their research, found you online, booked in  and have an appointment and so on, you know, those

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are many levels of of um of of buying decisions if  you like that they make whereas with the athletes

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is very different. So I I did find it difficult  and I I remember my first team presentation was uh

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so I this was a rugby team. I I was sitting there.  They all came in and um there was 20 guys massive

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like your American football players like just I'm  not I'm you know 6 foot 200 lb sort of thing but

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these guys are monsters you know. So anyway  you get past that initial shock of gez these

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guys are big and you got a whole room of massive  athletes. Um, so what did I do? I did a PowerPoint

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presentation, took them through uh all the theory  I thought that they should know about, you know,

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sports nutrition, hierarchy of evidence, uh, you  know, the importance of carbohydrates and how that

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influences adaptations uh, to training and protein  needs and leucine thresholds and all that stuff.

00:17:49.600 --> 00:17:56.560
So, they saw me doing that. What did I see? I saw  a bunch of uh players on their phones looking out

00:17:56.560 --> 00:18:03.040
the window, all that sort of stuff. And um yeah,  and then um I was a bit naive, so I didn't realize

00:18:03.040 --> 00:18:07.200
I wasn't quite getting the engagement, you know,  but I went and sat down with them. I did at least

00:18:07.200 --> 00:18:14.240
do this in the cafeteria and they were like,  "Boy, that's the worst pres. That is the worst

00:18:14.240 --> 00:18:19.600
presentation. Like, I don't think I anything  you said, you know." Uh, so what I learned from

00:18:19.600 --> 00:18:26.880
that though was I did at least get feedback. I did  listen and I did understand that that that was the

00:18:26.880 --> 00:18:32.000
first and only time I'm ever going to give that  kind of presentation. So I then just sort of got

00:18:32.000 --> 00:18:38.400
in. I took the jokes. I took the uh the criticism  from them all and uh started asking them, okay,

00:18:38.400 --> 00:18:42.800
well what you know how how do you want me to talk  to you? Because no one had taught me this stuff,

00:18:42.800 --> 00:18:49.680
you know, right? No one, right? Um, so, so  asking, but getting myself out there and going,

00:18:49.680 --> 00:18:54.160
do you know what? I'm going to pick myself up  from this mess I'm in. Uh, and I'm going to at

00:18:54.160 --> 00:18:59.360
least go into this scenario and get some feedback.  So, instantly, the first thing you learn is is you

00:18:59.360 --> 00:19:04.640
need to start learning about the people you're  going to work with. Listen to them. Listen to

00:19:04.640 --> 00:19:10.080
what they want to hear because they will tell  you. They will tell you. And they've had team

00:19:10.080 --> 00:19:16.640
nutritionists or dieticians or whatever before.  Often you'll learn why they why they didn't keep

00:19:16.640 --> 00:19:21.760
those practitioners, right? And that can be pretty  scary. They will give you all sorts of interesting

00:19:21.760 --> 00:19:26.320
feedback about what they did and didn't like  about that person and why they didn't, you know,

00:19:26.320 --> 00:19:29.600
respect them and so on, which is, you know, you  think, oh my god, I've got to, you know, I've got

00:19:29.600 --> 00:19:37.280
to deal with this. But what you're learning to do  is to communicate and engage and talk to people.

00:19:37.280 --> 00:19:44.320
So from that point I then started to operate on  that basis of listening first you know working

00:19:44.320 --> 00:19:50.080
out how to communicate and then after a bit of  trial and error shall we say you start to learn

00:19:50.080 --> 00:19:55.840
how to communicate. It's like any relationship  whether it's regular people your buddies you

00:19:55.840 --> 00:20:00.240
know uh in a in a classroom environment  when you first do your presentations or

00:20:00.240 --> 00:20:04.480
whatnot you you know I think everyone kind  of knows what I'm talking about here. Yeah,

00:20:04.480 --> 00:20:09.680
I mean a few things that you said really resonated  with me. Number one, as a young practitioner,

00:20:09.680 --> 00:20:13.040
as a strength condition coach getting into the  team environment, you're so excited to finally

00:20:13.040 --> 00:20:17.120
have the opportunity to share everything that  you've learned to prepare for this moment. So, I'm

00:20:17.120 --> 00:20:21.120
kind of laughing alongside you when you're telling  this story because I've been in that situation,

00:20:21.120 --> 00:20:26.480
not giving a PowerPoint, but going through all  this information and overexlaining because I'm so

00:20:26.480 --> 00:20:31.360
excited to share it. Meanwhile, the players, it's  great, Gabe. Good job. Like, thank you. Okay, what

00:20:31.360 --> 00:20:37.040
are we doing today? Like, you know, and important  guy. It's really important because Go on. Sorry.

00:20:37.040 --> 00:20:42.160
Yeah. And and I think I went through that over  time. I started meeting people, new players, new

00:20:42.160 --> 00:20:48.640
teams with questions, right? Hey, let me just ask  before I even start. Let me just figure out what's

00:20:48.640 --> 00:20:52.640
been going on here. Let me talk to the people who  have been here before. Let me talk to the people

00:20:52.640 --> 00:20:57.520
who have been here for a long time, for a short  time, and start to understand the dynamic before I

00:20:57.520 --> 00:21:02.160
maybe try to insert anything that I want to bring  into this program. Well, I think what happens is

00:21:02.160 --> 00:21:06.720
in most cases, we've all got years of education  behind us, right? And we love this stuff. We're

00:21:06.720 --> 00:21:11.840
a interesting breed in the health and fitness  industry. We're all pretty obsessed by the whole

00:21:11.840 --> 00:21:17.520
thing. So, of course, you you know, you land there  and you're likeun, you know, everyone's sitting

00:21:17.520 --> 00:21:22.160
there and you just open your mouth and out just  spews all the stuff that you're interested in,

00:21:22.160 --> 00:21:28.160
right? And of course, what you don't realize is  they're not interested in what you're interested

00:21:28.160 --> 00:21:32.160
in. At least not at the level, you know? So  this is like just just shut up and tell me

00:21:32.160 --> 00:21:36.800
what to do. I don't care about all the science.  And that's important because you then realize

00:21:36.800 --> 00:21:43.600
that that you as in the coach, the practitioner,  you do need to understand the science, but you

00:21:43.600 --> 00:21:50.880
also need to understand how to translate that  information into what is meaningful, impactful,

00:21:50.880 --> 00:21:56.960
and my favorite word currently, relevant for  them to know. And that requires quite a lot of

00:21:56.960 --> 00:22:02.000
thinking. And that's something that my team and I  spend a lot of time working on in our own research

00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:07.840
and our own educational activities is is how do  we how do we actually address this stuff because

00:22:07.840 --> 00:22:12.800
that there's a big gap. There's a translational  gap which is one issue but there's just a massive

00:22:12.800 --> 00:22:17.840
gap between science and practice for reasons  that we've already started to delve into.

00:22:18.400 --> 00:22:23.520
So you discussed being ingrained in the team  environment and I'm really excited to talk about

00:22:23.520 --> 00:22:27.200
that a little bit later in our conversation  and what you know more about what that was

00:22:27.200 --> 00:22:34.000
like. However, the other thing you had mentioned  was translating knowledge into practice. So my

00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:39.680
question for you was what inspired you to create  the Institute of Performance Nutrition? Right. I

00:22:39.680 --> 00:22:46.000
understand this was founded around 2011. So really  in the field of performance nutrition, it seems

00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:51.600
like that translation into practice was one of the  things that was missing. So was that really the

00:22:51.600 --> 00:22:58.320
impetus for creating the IOPM? Absolutely. Yeah.  I mean basically I'd come back from the states and

00:22:58.320 --> 00:23:04.080
um I had my masters in exercise science and  health promotion. I had a masters in nutrition

00:23:04.080 --> 00:23:10.480
and lots of experience working onetoone in a more  recreational setting. But as I started to work

00:23:10.480 --> 00:23:17.440
with more and more elite athletes, I was working  with professional boxers, UFC fighters, a lot of

00:23:17.440 --> 00:23:23.280
soccer players privately, various rugby teams. I  mean, all sorts of stuff. The military did a lot

00:23:23.280 --> 00:23:27.520
of work with the military, special forces, stuff  like that. But what I was finding was just, well,

00:23:27.520 --> 00:23:33.440
hang on, a lot of the stuff that was in the  textbook wasn't really relevant to all these

00:23:33.440 --> 00:23:38.960
different contexts that I'm working in. And I'm  like, man, I completely understand how important

00:23:38.960 --> 00:23:44.160
results are in these scenarios, but frankly, what  I've just read in this book isn't really helping

00:23:44.160 --> 00:23:50.400
me, you know, like what do I do? So, um, I've  always been good at asking other people, hey, how

00:23:50.400 --> 00:23:56.000
would you do this? You know, and that was actually  one reason why I started my podcast was it was an

00:23:56.000 --> 00:24:02.320
opportunity to have a chat with somebody who is  an expert on a topic. So, it' be like, well, hey,

00:24:02.320 --> 00:24:08.960
um, I need to understand more about protein needs,  right? So, I'm going to get Stu Phillips on or I

00:24:08.960 --> 00:24:14.080
need to understand more about nutrition, you  know, iron metabolism in athletes. So, okay,

00:24:14.080 --> 00:24:18.160
I'm going to talk to Pete Peeling, Professor  Pete Peeling in Australia, or I mean, I could,

00:24:18.160 --> 00:24:22.880
you know, I don't want to list millions of names  on the podcast. So, that alone was eye opening,

00:24:22.880 --> 00:24:27.600
right? And I was like, hang on, but what these  people are saying is not the generalized stuff

00:24:27.600 --> 00:24:32.880
that was in the textbook. So I was in London and  I was like, you know what? I'm just going to pull

00:24:32.880 --> 00:24:38.000
together some se seminars and we started doing  sort of seminars. I'd get my my mates working

00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:45.840
in teams and I'd I'd invite experts to come and  deliver little weekend lecture sessions and that's

00:24:45.840 --> 00:24:52.800
kind of how that started at the time. also because  in the states I had got involved with the ISS,

00:24:52.800 --> 00:24:57.200
the International Society of Sports Nutrition back  in those days and we started running some courses

00:24:57.200 --> 00:25:05.680
for them as well. And ultimately what happened was  the sort of regular CPD lecture weekends started

00:25:05.680 --> 00:25:11.200
to morph into something more serious and the  little the little sort of day trainings the one

00:25:11.200 --> 00:25:18.400
day sort of seminar events uh at weekends started  to morph into a training program that developed

00:25:18.400 --> 00:25:24.640
over a period of time that became more and more  formal and basically is when I was stateside at

00:25:24.640 --> 00:25:30.320
an ISSN conference actually I was uh sitting at a  bar with Brad Sherfield, Professor Brad Sherfield,

00:25:30.320 --> 00:25:34.080
who I'm sure all your listeners will know.  And I was telling him about all this stuff

00:25:34.080 --> 00:25:38.800
and it was him that told me I was like, I'm  not quite sure what to do. And he said, well,

00:25:38.800 --> 00:25:43.280
why don't you start your own institute? And it's  one of those conversations you have over wine, but

00:25:43.280 --> 00:25:49.360
I did it. So I turn when I interviewed Brad on one  of my podcasts, I said, Brad, you basically you it

00:25:49.360 --> 00:25:55.680
was your idea. It was your idea, but I went with  it. Um and it it had various iterations and it

00:25:55.680 --> 00:26:01.600
wasn't really until I was doing my own doctorate  at Middle Sex University in London that it became

00:26:01.600 --> 00:26:07.280
much more serious where my own doctoral research  which was in bridging the gap between science and

00:26:07.280 --> 00:26:13.280
practice and this is over 10 years ago now and  really what happened there is that my doctoral

00:26:13.280 --> 00:26:20.560
research ended up becoming the blueprint for  what is now the IOPN and the those talk sort of

00:26:20.560 --> 00:26:28.800
seminar sessions are Now a uh what we now run is a  series of professional and post-graduate training

00:26:28.800 --> 00:26:34.320
programs. We've just launched our new master  of science degree which is done in partnership

00:26:34.320 --> 00:26:39.520
with the University of Portsmouth here in the  UK. It's our program but we work with them to

00:26:39.520 --> 00:26:45.200
have it validated as a degree. Very proud of our  journey and where we've come. It's not just me,

00:26:45.200 --> 00:26:52.480
it's my team. Most of my team are former students  of mine. So I'm quite loyal to my my students,

00:26:52.480 --> 00:26:59.280
former MSE students when I ran the MSSE at Middle  Sex University in London and former IOPM students.

00:26:59.280 --> 00:27:03.520
We've rebranded over time from various names,  but that's where we are now as the Institute

00:27:03.520 --> 00:27:09.600
of Performance Nutrition, but everything we do,  Gabe, is focused on this concept of applying the

00:27:09.600 --> 00:27:15.680
science into practice. And we're very unique in  how we approach this. Um, but that was really the

00:27:15.680 --> 00:27:20.480
impetus. I mean, you know, it's over a decade  of time to narrow down to a couple of minutes

00:27:20.480 --> 00:27:26.160
conversation, but that's what happened. It's like  a snowball that just kept going and grew into this

00:27:26.160 --> 00:27:31.280
thing that we are now. And we now got students  in 60 countries. Like I say, we've got various

00:27:31.280 --> 00:27:36.080
professional programs that we run, including our  new master's degree. You mentioned that the IOPN,

00:27:36.080 --> 00:27:40.640
the way you do things by connecting the bridge  between science and practice is unique. Well,

00:27:40.640 --> 00:27:45.840
what makes it unique? Yeah, we're we're unique  because we we've had an opportunity to develop

00:27:45.840 --> 00:27:51.040
everything we do from the ground up. We started  from scratch. So most academic programs follow

00:27:51.040 --> 00:27:56.080
a fairly traditional format in sports science,  strength conditioning and so on, there will be

00:27:56.080 --> 00:28:01.120
similar formats to how they run. I should say  strength conditioning is much more practice

00:28:01.120 --> 00:28:06.640
focused, right? Whereas typically if you're  just going to do an exercise science degree,

00:28:06.640 --> 00:28:10.240
it's less practice focused. It's more about  the science or the physiology. You know,

00:28:10.240 --> 00:28:14.960
you might be doing in the lab some fitness tests  and so on, but you're not really taught how to

00:28:14.960 --> 00:28:18.800
work with people. Whereas, at least in strength  conditioning, you are taught a lot more about how

00:28:18.800 --> 00:28:24.080
to coach people. That's not something that really  exists in the sports nutrition environment. The

00:28:24.080 --> 00:28:28.000
dieticians will say, well, we're taught how to  do that. And of course, they are. Dieticians is a

00:28:28.000 --> 00:28:32.880
very specific area, but dieticians aren't trained  in performance nutrition. They will upskill. We

00:28:32.880 --> 00:28:39.120
have lots of dieticians in the state uh doing our  course in Europe and internationally. Of course in

00:28:39.120 --> 00:28:45.520
the states you've got certified sports dieticians,  highly trained dieticians in sports dietetics,

00:28:45.520 --> 00:28:51.280
but you know sports nutrition, performance  nutrition falls into many scopes of practice

00:28:51.280 --> 00:28:54.800
all the way down to PT, strength conditioning  coaches. We all have different levels of

00:28:54.800 --> 00:29:02.480
involvement and what we can do within that area.  But again, most educational programs are much more

00:29:02.480 --> 00:29:08.160
theory focused than they are in terms of applying  the science into practice. So our program is very

00:29:08.160 --> 00:29:16.720
much about contextualizing the knowledge, how to  go through the whole process of sourcing evidence,

00:29:16.720 --> 00:29:23.520
filtering that evidence and then applying that  evidence to inform your practice all the way

00:29:23.520 --> 00:29:30.240
through to communication strategies and techniques  and so on to help deliver sort of confident

00:29:30.240 --> 00:29:35.360
competent practitioners is kind of our approach.  There just isn't anyone else doing that. There are

00:29:35.360 --> 00:29:40.400
many great graduate programs out there in sports  nutrition. I'm not saying they're not. However,

00:29:40.400 --> 00:29:45.040
ours is very unique. Right. Even looking at some  of your social media, which anyone listening can

00:29:45.040 --> 00:29:51.200
follow on Instagram at the IOPN on Instagram, I  could see some of the posts that were created,

00:29:51.200 --> 00:29:56.400
right? Case study challenge. It seems like  there are these very real world examples

00:29:56.400 --> 00:30:00.880
that you're trying to generate conversation  around. We love a case study, but you know,

00:30:00.880 --> 00:30:06.640
that's the thing. That's what you deal with.  You don't deal with generalized stuff. You know,

00:30:06.640 --> 00:30:13.360
one thing that's important about working with  athletes, even in a team setting, ultimately

00:30:13.360 --> 00:30:18.800
it's still N of one. You're still working with  individuals. And we've got to stop this, you know,

00:30:18.800 --> 00:30:25.120
applying generalized information just to anyone.  you know, they're the the even even, you know,

00:30:25.120 --> 00:30:31.120
if you look at your sort of the broad section  of your client base or within a team, they're

00:30:31.120 --> 00:30:36.880
still individuals and they, you know, they're ver  they will all vary in in many different ways from

00:30:36.880 --> 00:30:44.640
needs, preferences, ethnicity, metabolism, likes,  dislikes, economical issues, wants, desires,

00:30:44.640 --> 00:30:49.600
you know, responders, non-responders, although  that's an interesting conversation in itself. But

00:30:49.600 --> 00:30:54.720
all this stuff is at the core of evidence-based  practices. You've got to bear in mind all of

00:30:54.720 --> 00:31:01.600
these individualized contexts that an a person  will have. If you look at science research is is

00:31:01.600 --> 00:31:07.520
you know scientists publish published averages if  you like publish means that's absolutely fine but

00:31:07.520 --> 00:31:13.600
you need to learn how to read and interpret that  science to try and tease out how meaningful this

00:31:13.600 --> 00:31:20.080
information is to your athlete. So, for example,  if a research study was done on a bunch of college

00:31:20.080 --> 00:31:27.040
students, you know, how applicable is is are those  findings to an Olympic athlete or to, you know,

00:31:27.040 --> 00:31:33.760
a 250 pound linebacker or whatever when, you know,  your research was done on an on a on a, you know,

00:31:33.760 --> 00:31:41.440
a 65 kg college student. Yeah. How relevant is  this stuff? So, it's really complicated. There

00:31:41.440 --> 00:31:45.920
are so many ways I want to go with this. So, I'm  just gonna try to chew it off bite by bite here,

00:31:45.920 --> 00:31:50.400
which is good. Like, I have so many ideas. So,  okay, I kind of just want to hop into real world

00:31:50.400 --> 00:31:55.280
examples because I that caught my eye on your  social media and we're kind of in this discussion

00:31:55.280 --> 00:32:01.760
right now of individualization. So, um, all right.  I'm an 18-year-old, you know, football, soccer

00:32:01.760 --> 00:32:10.160
phenom with a ton of talent, but no real sense  of what like performance or nutrition performance

00:32:10.160 --> 00:32:16.160
even is. I don't hydrate much. Like where do you  even start with your approach? I meet you. You're

00:32:16.160 --> 00:32:19.840
working for the team. You and I are having our  first conversation. Like obviously you're trying

00:32:19.840 --> 00:32:23.440
to get to know me, my background, things like  this. Maybe trying to tease out challenges or

00:32:23.440 --> 00:32:29.680
like roadblocks of my life. But tell me about how  you just approached that. Well, so whether this

00:32:29.680 --> 00:32:37.200
is your 18-year-old, you know, football athlete,  college superstar, whatever, or whether it's, you

00:32:37.200 --> 00:32:44.480
know, your soccer mom, right? often it's the same  issue. The first thing is is once you discover

00:32:44.480 --> 00:32:49.280
what they're doing, typically you'll discover  they're doing everything except for the basics,

00:32:49.280 --> 00:32:55.600
right? So, you know, you've got sort of a a top  down strategy or a bottom up sort of strategy. And

00:32:55.600 --> 00:33:00.080
everyone's focus is things like, well, you know,  they they can tell you what supplements they take.

00:33:00.080 --> 00:33:05.200
They can tell you that they've stopped eating  carbohydrates. They can tell you that, you know,

00:33:05.200 --> 00:33:09.360
they're doing this, they're doing that. But when  it comes down to it, you ask them really basic

00:33:09.360 --> 00:33:13.840
questions, you know, like are you focusing on and  it's not very sexy. I have to say this is like

00:33:13.840 --> 00:33:19.360
one of the challenges that the nutritionist will  have is is you've got to just go hang on. Hey,

00:33:19.360 --> 00:33:23.440
yeah, yeah, okay. Right, that's all great, but  are you mastering the basics? And what even are

00:33:23.440 --> 00:33:28.800
the basics before you start getting all fancy and  complicated? particularly with your 18-year-old,

00:33:28.800 --> 00:33:33.440
you know, he's like, "Oh, man. I'm smashing  the protein shakes and, you know, I'm doing my

00:33:33.440 --> 00:33:38.800
benches and my deadlifts and like I'm making sure  that I have my post-workout recovery, you know,

00:33:38.800 --> 00:33:44.800
1 second after the, you know, the weights return  back to the stack, and I'm on my my creatine,

00:33:44.800 --> 00:33:48.960
I'm on my beta alanine, I'm on this, I'm on that."  And they're like, "Well, how many vegetables did

00:33:48.960 --> 00:33:57.040
you eat?" Uh, carrots. Is that a vegetable? know  do you you know you once you start delving into

00:33:57.040 --> 00:34:04.160
what they do you realize that it's what they don't  do that it's the bigger more challenging issue. So

00:34:04.160 --> 00:34:12.160
if you think about foundations like a foundations  of a building, foundations of pretty much any any

00:34:12.160 --> 00:34:16.640
kind of concept you want to get into, there's  going to be a set of foundations. For nutrition,

00:34:16.640 --> 00:34:20.800
it's going to be things like, are you eating  roughly the right amount of food in a given

00:34:20.800 --> 00:34:28.080
day? Not so easy to answer in a podcast because  it's very individualized, but you start to look

00:34:28.080 --> 00:34:33.440
and see, you know, are they getting enough  food? Is it spread across two, three, four

00:34:33.440 --> 00:34:39.360
meals a day? Are they getting enough fruits and  vegetables? Is there enough colors in there? Is

00:34:39.360 --> 00:34:45.520
there enough fiber? Is the nutrient quality of the  food good? Or are they eating a lot of processed

00:34:45.520 --> 00:34:54.000
refined foods commonly a problem? You know, it  all tends to be fast foods. They're eating maybe

00:34:54.000 --> 00:34:59.200
they're smashing the protein, but the protein  is not from good sources. So you start to find

00:34:59.200 --> 00:35:06.720
all sorts of stuff out. So you have to you have to  correct those issues first because as you start to

00:35:06.720 --> 00:35:13.120
work your way up this hierarchy of of need right  in terms of nutrition at the very basis of this is

00:35:13.120 --> 00:35:19.600
is enough energy roughly the right distribution of  macros proteins fats carbohydrates the quality of

00:35:19.600 --> 00:35:26.080
those proteins fats and carbohydrates spread over  enough meals doesn't matter so much yet in this

00:35:26.080 --> 00:35:30.880
conversation about timing or anything are they  just getting it roughly right in any given Okay,

00:35:30.880 --> 00:35:36.480
normally the answer is no. So, you've got to focus  on that because they're all the other way around.

00:35:36.480 --> 00:35:41.280
They're all about, like I say, their supplements  and they're taking loads of supplements and

00:35:41.280 --> 00:35:46.640
uh you know, uh their focus is is very much  about the stuff that is what's on social

00:35:46.640 --> 00:35:51.840
media and and so on so forth. So, that's  the first thing you have to focus on. So,

00:35:51.840 --> 00:35:56.640
how much time do you allow for change for  somebody, right? I this isn't an overnight thing,

00:35:56.640 --> 00:36:01.680
right? Like I'm a I'm a young 18-year-old athlete  who's eating fast food. Laurent, you see me

00:36:01.680 --> 00:36:05.600
walking in with McDonald's breakfast sandwich  the next day into the facility. And I mean,

00:36:05.600 --> 00:36:11.840
is this about creating small wins and knowing  that this is going to take time? Um, and then

00:36:11.840 --> 00:36:19.200
als Right. Right. Yeah. The the reason I'm jumping  in with yes is because again an early lesson I had

00:36:19.200 --> 00:36:30.000
to learn is one of the quickest ways to shut down  the buy in the belief the willingness of your your

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:35.040
client your athlete to engage with you is if you  just walk in there as the food police and you're

00:36:35.040 --> 00:36:40.000
like you shouldn't be eating this, you shouldn't  eat that. This is bad. That's horrible. Firstly,

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:45.040
no one really likes to be criticized, right? The  other thing is is is you're just coming in with a

00:36:45.040 --> 00:36:51.200
whole load of negatives and just generally that  doesn't work. So, like I said, I use the phrase

00:36:51.200 --> 00:36:55.040
the biggest lever to pull, but you've just got  to look at what they're doing. The first thing is

00:36:55.040 --> 00:37:01.120
just listen. What are you doing? Interesting.  They might already be benching, you know,

00:37:01.120 --> 00:37:05.920
huge weight. They might already be the fastest  athlete on the pitch. You got to bear in mind some

00:37:05.920 --> 00:37:11.840
of the realities of where this athlete already is.  But either which way, you're looking at everything

00:37:11.840 --> 00:37:17.120
that they do, and then you're looking at all the  things that you could manipulate and change. Some

00:37:17.120 --> 00:37:24.320
of which are worth changing and manipulating. Some  of which are not worth changing if they're really

00:37:24.320 --> 00:37:30.400
married to that practice, which we can talk about  in a minute. Um, but either which way, you need to

00:37:30.400 --> 00:37:34.160
just chip away at things. And the first thing  you're going to have to do is work out, well,

00:37:34.160 --> 00:37:37.280
what what's the most important area? What's going  to have the biggest bang for the buck? you know,

00:37:37.280 --> 00:37:43.840
what's the biggest lever I can pull? And often  that is actually just getting the basics right.

00:37:43.840 --> 00:37:48.400
Um, and not worrying about, okay, they might be  taking supplements they don't need, but largely

00:37:48.400 --> 00:37:54.720
the supplements, they're probably not harmful  unless they're a professional athlete and they're

00:37:54.720 --> 00:37:59.520
not tested for banned substances and various other  things. They're unlikely to contain substances

00:37:59.520 --> 00:38:04.560
that are going to be massively detrimental to  their athlete. However, it's probably a waste

00:38:04.560 --> 00:38:10.640
of money and or a distraction from all the other  things that they should do. But yeah, going in

00:38:10.640 --> 00:38:16.000
saying, "Stop this, stop that, stop this," can  have very negative psychological effects on your

00:38:16.000 --> 00:38:22.560
athlete. And they tend to not listen to you at  that point. They tend to move on. Uh, and another

00:38:22.560 --> 00:38:27.600
thing I should while I'm thinking about it is if  you're going to, let's say, and this is common,

00:38:27.600 --> 00:38:33.520
let's say your athlete is following some rather  questionable practices that they've learned

00:38:33.520 --> 00:38:39.760
about on social media, which is really common,  right? Their heroes are not you. Their heroes

00:38:39.760 --> 00:38:46.080
are people on social media. I used to have this  problem all the time. like my my particularly my

00:38:46.080 --> 00:38:49.280
Premier League football players, Premier League  soccer players, and we're talking, you know,

00:38:49.280 --> 00:38:55.440
they're all multi-millionaires, they're extremely  famous, extremely good at what they do, and you're

00:38:55.440 --> 00:39:00.080
the team nutritionist. You're not their superhero,  right? But they are listening to people. Uh

00:39:00.080 --> 00:39:05.760
whether it's their, you know, their girlfriend's  trainer or their best buddy is, you know,

00:39:05.760 --> 00:39:11.920
Ronaldo or somebody. So Ronaldo's got some pretty  crazy nutrition things that he's into, but he's an

00:39:11.920 --> 00:39:16.880
like epic football player. You know, if it works  for him, it must work for somebody else. Or so

00:39:16.880 --> 00:39:24.880
it could be uh stop eating carbs, uh or I'm taking  this pill or this potion or I'm vegan or whatever.

00:39:24.880 --> 00:39:32.960
They'll it's a trend. It's a fad maybe, but um you  just got to be careful with what you tell them not

00:39:32.960 --> 00:39:38.240
to do because if it's something they believe in,  you're messing with their belief system and that's

00:39:38.240 --> 00:39:42.960
a pretty serious problem, too. So, what advice do  you have for giving like positive reinforcements,

00:39:42.960 --> 00:39:48.160
right? talked about maybe avoiding this negative  feedback immediately, but I feel like at the same

00:39:48.160 --> 00:39:53.760
time in the position that you're in, sometimes  it can almost be like like it's not genuine cuz

00:39:53.760 --> 00:39:57.040
they know that you're the nutritionist, you know,  and that's what you're there for. So, how do you

00:39:57.040 --> 00:40:02.880
really create like a positive reinforcement that  feels very genuine? No. And this is a so this is

00:40:02.880 --> 00:40:08.240
this may not sound exciting to the listeners,  right? But this is a this is a serious problem

00:40:08.240 --> 00:40:14.160
you can run into, right? It it doesn't matter  what piece of paper you've got framed, you know,

00:40:14.160 --> 00:40:19.200
on the wall. The athletes don't care about this  stuff. There's going to be something about you

00:40:19.200 --> 00:40:28.240
and the way that you communicate information that  is either going to turn them on or off. Okay. Now,

00:40:28.240 --> 00:40:32.720
you you used the phrase earlier, which is, is this  an instant thing or is it something that's going

00:40:32.720 --> 00:40:39.200
to take a bit of time? I found what worked for  me was not getting into sports nutrition advice

00:40:39.200 --> 00:40:44.720
recommendations as soon as I got into the team.  The first thing I would do is build relationships.

00:40:44.720 --> 00:40:50.640
I'd build not just relationships with the  athletes. That can be difficult to begin with.

00:40:50.640 --> 00:40:57.200
I would find one or two athletes that I felt were  the influencers on the team. the people that maybe

00:40:57.200 --> 00:41:03.920
if I get closer to them and work with them, maybe  I can have them help me spread the message. It's a

00:41:03.920 --> 00:41:09.680
lot easier to get close to one or two players than  it is to get in with the entire team. You know, go

00:41:09.680 --> 00:41:15.040
back to my presentation. It it ain't going to work  if you're trying to influence a whole team, but

00:41:15.040 --> 00:41:20.880
you can on a one-to-one basis. You know, there are  many opportunities that you will have to spark up

00:41:20.880 --> 00:41:25.920
conversations. And I would have I've got a little  black book and in that black book I would make

00:41:25.920 --> 00:41:31.440
notes um a player's nickname, the the name of his  wife, girlfriend, his kids, his favorite sports

00:41:31.440 --> 00:41:39.200
team, just stuff, things that are opportunity they  provide you with. It's like a key to the door to

00:41:39.200 --> 00:41:44.560
that opportunity to engage with them. And you go,  how's your, you know, your brother wasn't well

00:41:44.560 --> 00:41:48.320
last week. You know, it's like, what's that got to  do with sports nutrition? has got everything to do

00:41:48.320 --> 00:41:54.560
with it because you're a human trying to interact  with another human. If you can't be a human,

00:41:54.560 --> 00:41:58.720
you're not going to be able to take it to the next  level and have them actually follow any advice

00:41:58.720 --> 00:42:02.880
you've got because they don't like you. They  don't want to know you. You know, these barriers,

00:42:02.880 --> 00:42:07.040
you might have to get them in the corridor,  sit next to them on the on the coach, you know,

00:42:07.040 --> 00:42:12.000
on the plane, wherever. You've just got to work  at developing these relationships. So, that's

00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:18.000
one thing. The other thing is being an SNC coach.  This was an advantage I had. I think because I had

00:42:18.000 --> 00:42:25.360
already been an SNC coach, I knew how to talk to  other SNC coaches. But that was very important was

00:42:25.360 --> 00:42:30.960
develop those relationships um with what's called  your community of practice. So your community of

00:42:30.960 --> 00:42:38.800
practice is your other coaches, team doctor, the  chefs, uh the kitmen, everyone, right? Everyone.

00:42:38.800 --> 00:42:45.920
Everyone is on everyone is either on your side or  against you basically. So being the nutritionist,

00:42:45.920 --> 00:42:50.720
you're probably the least embedded member of the  team or at least that's been my experience. It's

00:42:50.720 --> 00:42:56.400
very there are now many full-time practitioners  and so on, but ultimately you're not as part of

00:42:56.400 --> 00:43:02.320
the in crowd typically as the SNC coaches are.  Um get in with them and they will understand the

00:43:02.320 --> 00:43:08.640
athletes. They'll know some of the stuff. Now, of  course, you might find the SNC coaches are also

00:43:08.640 --> 00:43:13.920
singing from the wrong hymn sheet. SNC coaches  will have their own ideas about what's right

00:43:13.920 --> 00:43:17.520
and wrong from nutrition and so on. So, you've  also got to make sure that you're all saying

00:43:17.520 --> 00:43:24.560
the same thing. You all have the same belief  and you can gently help people to understand

00:43:24.560 --> 00:43:31.200
um your perspective and help you know provide some  evidence as to why you feel you know people should

00:43:31.200 --> 00:43:36.800
do things. Um and you know ultimately in fact  there was um at Middle Sex University we got

00:43:36.800 --> 00:43:43.280
a a very well-known SMC professor Anthony Turner.  You you guys might know who he is. He's constantly

00:43:43.280 --> 00:43:50.160
publishing in the NSCA journals. And um I remember  him in a class I was listening to. He made a point

00:43:50.160 --> 00:43:55.360
of saying you you you got to justify your role  on the team. Uh you got to justify your role to

00:43:55.360 --> 00:43:59.840
the athletes. You've got to justify your role to  your colleagues and obviously to your bosses and

00:43:59.840 --> 00:44:05.120
you know your chain of command so to speak and  also to yourself. So there's these little things

00:44:05.120 --> 00:44:11.440
that you can do but it will initially come down  to just having conversations listening. It's like

00:44:11.440 --> 00:44:17.360
they say you've got two eyes, two ears, one mouth.  Watch, listen. Do a little less talking and a lot

00:44:17.360 --> 00:44:23.840
more observing. Observation is hugely important  to the next step of learning what to do and how

00:44:23.840 --> 00:44:28.720
to do something. Oh, that's great. Thank you for  that. And what I'm thinking here is how do you

00:44:28.720 --> 00:44:36.480
find the balance between evidence-based practices  and what an individual says or feels is working

00:44:36.480 --> 00:44:40.880
really well for them. I imagine you're but I've  always done this Laurent. I've always done this

00:44:40.880 --> 00:44:44.480
and it's really worked well for me. Where's  the balance for you? Even though if you know

00:44:44.480 --> 00:44:50.480
this may not be the best method. So Gabe, that's  why I was saying, well, let me just go firstly,

00:44:50.480 --> 00:44:57.440
although I use the word evidence-based practice a  lot, as a practitioner, I prefer to take it to the

00:44:57.440 --> 00:45:03.680
next level where it's evidence informed practice.  So I'm using evidence to inform my practice,

00:45:03.680 --> 00:45:11.200
my advice, my recommendations. And I like to take  that to the athlete, the client who will have

00:45:11.200 --> 00:45:17.200
ideas, beliefs, as we've already discussed. And  those ideas and beliefs might well be and often

00:45:17.200 --> 00:45:24.640
are based on amongst other things the fact that  they feel it's already working for them. Right?

00:45:24.640 --> 00:45:29.600
That's a really difficult position to shift if  they're like, "But it already works. I'm already

00:45:29.600 --> 00:45:34.080
doing well on this, so why should I change my  path?" So that's why I say you got to listen

00:45:34.080 --> 00:45:40.480
first. Don't just smash their perspective. you  know, you're you're uh you're you you know, you're

00:45:40.480 --> 00:45:45.040
you're you're on to a loser if you're going to  have a go at their belief system, right? However,

00:45:45.040 --> 00:45:49.840
you can sit there and go, "Right, okay, I hear  you. This is all great. However, there is another

00:45:49.840 --> 00:45:56.400
perspective here and what you're doing is working  for you, but I believe that there's a better way."

00:45:56.400 --> 00:46:00.400
Okay? I'm not saying what you're doing isn't  working, but there is an even better way. Now,

00:46:00.400 --> 00:46:06.560
aren't you interested in that? if I if I could  help you do something even better than what you're

00:46:06.560 --> 00:46:09.680
doing, would you be interested in talking about  that? And and they always are. They're always

00:46:09.680 --> 00:46:14.880
like, "Okay, I'll give it a listen." And it might  take a few conversations. That doesn't mean you

00:46:14.880 --> 00:46:20.240
start holding up peer-reviewed publications to  the athlete. And I don't have a magic bullet

00:46:20.240 --> 00:46:25.760
because it is very individualized how you learn  to communicate with each and every individual.

00:46:25.760 --> 00:46:33.520
But it's a conversation that starts somewhere and  it is not likely to be resolved in one engagement

00:46:33.520 --> 00:46:38.960
with your athlete. It's going to take a little bit  of time. And again, the more they believe in you

00:46:38.960 --> 00:46:45.120
and the more confidence they have in you, then  the more likely they are to move into slightly

00:46:45.120 --> 00:46:52.800
more uncomfortable places because they trust you.  If they know that you have their best, you know,

00:46:52.800 --> 00:46:58.080
their best, you know, whatever it is, you you you  are you are 100% interested in what's right for

00:46:58.080 --> 00:47:03.360
them and you genuinely want to help them be the  best that they can and you genuinely have put a

00:47:03.360 --> 00:47:08.880
lot of time and effort into determining what's  right for them, you'll often find that they'll

00:47:08.880 --> 00:47:14.720
give you a shot. Yeah. I love Yeah. I love I  love the term you use, right? The switch from

00:47:14.720 --> 00:47:21.040
evidence-based to evidence informed. Yeah. which  is great because it doesn't have to be so rigid,

00:47:21.040 --> 00:47:25.600
but we can use this evidence to help inform  and make these decisions, make these processes

00:47:25.600 --> 00:47:30.320
we already accustomed to even better, which I  really like. Now, continuing the conversation

00:47:30.320 --> 00:47:35.120
with working with athletes, I'm curious about  your perspective on working with athletes and

00:47:35.120 --> 00:47:39.440
the challenges that come with athletes from  different countries and cultures who might be

00:47:39.440 --> 00:47:45.440
really accustomed to different types of foods.  Yeah. and coming to a new environment and all

00:47:45.440 --> 00:47:52.640
of a sudden saying the food that I always knew and  and love is no longer here. So I I wasn't naive to

00:47:52.640 --> 00:47:59.600
this issue in as far as I was raised my father was  British of Scottish origin. My mother was French,

00:47:59.600 --> 00:48:05.040
right? I was raised in a British French household.  I was already accustomed to different cuisines,

00:48:05.040 --> 00:48:11.280
different approaches to to eating food. British  cuisine being awful, French cuisine being amazing,

00:48:11.280 --> 00:48:16.560
but concepts like the quality of food  presentation, the importance of meal times

00:48:16.560 --> 00:48:22.800
as not just an opportunity to eat, but it's also  an opportunity to be with people. We're social

00:48:22.800 --> 00:48:27.760
creatures. And in a team setting, for example,  that's critical. you know, yeah, you might have

00:48:27.760 --> 00:48:33.040
feeding strategies that are very individualized  that you have, you know, outside the weight room,

00:48:33.040 --> 00:48:38.960
on an airplane, on pitch or whatever, but it's  very important to have athletes sit together and

00:48:38.960 --> 00:48:44.000
eat or clients to eat with their family or youth  athletes to sit with. You know, there's all sorts

00:48:44.000 --> 00:48:50.080
of stuff there, but but you know, we've already  mentioned individual needs and preferences. And

00:48:50.080 --> 00:48:56.080
there's no greater example than that is when you  have international athletes in a team. And I've

00:48:56.080 --> 00:49:01.200
had many experiences of that, not just in US or  UK professional team settings where you often

00:49:01.200 --> 00:49:10.080
will have multi- lingual, multi-ethnic people,  but for example, in a typical Premier League,

00:49:10.080 --> 00:49:15.040
English Premier League soccer team, the joke being  hardly anyone's actually English. They're they're

00:49:15.040 --> 00:49:19.200
from everywhere, right? Including the manager.  The manager might be the German. The average

00:49:19.200 --> 00:49:25.440
teams are everywhere from, you know, Europeans,  Chinese, Americans, even whatever. I mean,

00:49:25.440 --> 00:49:29.680
it's all sorts. Every single one of them came  from a different part of the world. They're used

00:49:29.680 --> 00:49:34.080
to different foods. They all gravitate to eating  different things in different ways. And a lot of

00:49:34.080 --> 00:49:40.240
it is it's reminds them of of home. It's a comfort  thing. It's not just fuel. We got to, you know,

00:49:40.240 --> 00:49:48.400
problem with nutrition is we go on about calories,  macros. No, it's food. Food is much more than

00:49:48.400 --> 00:49:53.200
just calories and energy. It is something that  makes you happy. It's something that makes you

00:49:53.200 --> 00:49:59.120
sad if you miss it, right? Something that brings  communities together. It's really important stuff.

00:49:59.120 --> 00:50:05.440
But nonetheless, it's a huge challenge when you've  got 10, 15, 20 different nationalities sitting at

00:50:05.440 --> 00:50:12.800
the table and you've got to come up with with  with foods to suit everyone and yet still tick

00:50:12.800 --> 00:50:18.880
the well, this is what the athletes need to, you  know, fuel up on. It's match day, game day minus

00:50:18.880 --> 00:50:24.160
one. They're going to need higher carbohydrate.  They're going to need recovery meals afterwards.

00:50:24.160 --> 00:50:30.160
It's offseason. It's on season. And that again  requires you to spend some time learning about

00:50:30.160 --> 00:50:34.640
your athletes. They're not just athletes, by  the way. We keep calling them athletes. They're

00:50:34.640 --> 00:50:40.720
human beings. I think that's the first thing is  they're they're humans. And humans have crazy

00:50:40.720 --> 00:50:46.240
likes and dislikes, prejudiced, fads that they're  into. You've got all sorts there. So, you have to

00:50:46.240 --> 00:50:53.760
learn to identify what people like, don't like,  and work with the the chef or the team chefs. and

00:50:53.760 --> 00:50:59.760
you've got to try and find a happy medium, that  can be certainly challenging. And it's been very

00:50:59.760 --> 00:51:06.320
different in every environment that I work with.  But if you don't bother to get some feedback from

00:51:06.320 --> 00:51:12.240
your athletes, if you don't bother to work out  what people like and don't like, doesn't matter

00:51:12.240 --> 00:51:18.400
how well designed your performance nutrition  strategies are. I I used the term earlier it

00:51:18.400 --> 00:51:26.560
you know it's all very well having information but  if you can't have implementation and application

00:51:26.560 --> 00:51:31.280
it doesn't go anywhere and often times you'll  have athletes who won't eat certain foods because

00:51:31.280 --> 00:51:37.040
they don't like them or it doesn't meet their  religious or ethnic beliefs or or whatever you've

00:51:37.040 --> 00:51:41.920
got a problem because you've then got an athlete  who's underfueled or has gastrointestinal problems

00:51:41.920 --> 00:51:47.200
because they're being made to eat things they  just don't tolerate. Um, under fueling is becoming

00:51:47.200 --> 00:51:51.360
more and more of a problem where athletes aren't  eating enough food. But that all, you know, again,

00:51:51.360 --> 00:51:56.880
it's the listen and observe and then you keep  adapting. We have to keep adapting like you do

00:51:56.880 --> 00:52:04.400
as an SNC coach. You know, you keep adapting your  training program based on the actual realworld

00:52:04.400 --> 00:52:08.320
situations that your athletes find themselves  in. Yeah, I thought it was really cool. We had

00:52:08.320 --> 00:52:14.160
the opportunity to go visit Liverpool and go see  their new facility and yeah, you could see and I

00:52:14.160 --> 00:52:21.840
I went I went with Keiser and you could see in the  cafeteria they had the the nutritionist there. So,

00:52:21.840 --> 00:52:25.840
we just visited the cafeteria. We didn't visit  specifically with the nutritionist, but you could

00:52:25.840 --> 00:52:31.600
see even in that area when you walk through the  facility, you get there and I believe there were

00:52:31.600 --> 00:52:37.040
the flags of all the different players, you know,  home countries, and it made for a really welcoming

00:52:37.040 --> 00:52:40.880
and inviting place because these people are not  home. They're from all these different areas,

00:52:40.880 --> 00:52:45.360
and what makes everybody different ultimately  brings them together. But like you mentioned,

00:52:45.360 --> 00:52:50.640
food and the culture surrounding food is so  impactful for everyone. Everyone has their

00:52:50.640 --> 00:52:54.800
own unique experience whether that reminds them  of home or or growing up. So I thought it was

00:52:54.800 --> 00:52:59.840
really cool and it really struck me that they  brought that into the cafeteria area which I

00:52:59.840 --> 00:53:05.520
thought was really really cool. Yeah. I mean you  know an obvious challenge to that is I mean in

00:53:05.520 --> 00:53:12.160
that scenario you're talking about a club with  massive resources financially and a lot of the

00:53:12.160 --> 00:53:16.000
teams I've worked for been you know they've been  the best teams on the planet. They've got massive

00:53:16.000 --> 00:53:21.520
resour I mean they put huge amounts of money. the  the chefs are Misheland starred chefs. I mean,

00:53:21.520 --> 00:53:27.040
this is serious, you know, and we fly ingredients.  Uh we go to the best markets, we get, you know,

00:53:27.040 --> 00:53:32.000
a huge sums of money are spent on that food.  However, if you do not have those resources,

00:53:32.000 --> 00:53:40.480
you can still adapt anything toward to to to  better suit the needs and preferences of your

00:53:40.480 --> 00:53:45.600
athletes. You just got to observe and talk and  watch. See in the states one thing I when I was

00:53:45.600 --> 00:53:50.400
in the states of course it goes all very well I  was talking about international but of course in

00:53:50.400 --> 00:53:54.800
countries like the US which is such a big country  you got lots of people from different parts of the

00:53:54.800 --> 00:54:01.120
US and of course you've got very different food  likes and dislikes in your country and that alone

00:54:01.120 --> 00:54:08.160
is an issue you know um I spent a lot of time down  in in New Mexico for example and got to love all

00:54:08.160 --> 00:54:13.840
the chili and the you know New Mexican cuisine but  of course that was radically different from when I

00:54:13.840 --> 00:54:19.120
was uh up north, you know, in New York and places  like that. Completely different types of cuisine,

00:54:19.120 --> 00:54:22.240
but you can still adapt. That's the great  thing about the modern world we live in. Most

00:54:22.240 --> 00:54:26.320
things are available, you know, but if you don't  actually know what people like and don't like,

00:54:26.320 --> 00:54:29.840
you can't do anything about it. Absolutely. I'm  starting to get hungry as our conversation goes,

00:54:29.840 --> 00:54:36.320
but I don't know how you do so many podcast  episodes. Um I'm like, that sounds good. You

00:54:36.320 --> 00:54:43.360
you said chili. I was like, okay. Oh my god. Um,  so pivoting from these scenarios in which you

00:54:43.360 --> 00:54:49.360
can't necessarily always observe, you can't always  talk and watch. We talked a lot about working in

00:54:49.360 --> 00:54:54.480
a team environment and with athletes. Now, I  want to pivot into working with individuals,

00:54:54.480 --> 00:54:58.640
your gym bros, your weekend warriors athletes  where you're talking with them and having

00:54:58.640 --> 00:55:03.200
check-ins and conversations, but you're not always  there. You're not observing from afar. They have

00:55:03.200 --> 00:55:07.840
their own lives. So talk to me about kind of your  approach or some of the challenges of working

00:55:07.840 --> 00:55:14.320
with one-on-one or really the private sector with  consulting. Yeah, and that's I've done if anything

00:55:14.320 --> 00:55:19.600
I've done more of that, you know, that's for many  years and that's actually where my focus now is in

00:55:19.600 --> 00:55:25.280
helping nutritionists and uh nutrition coaches and  health and fitness professionals work more either

00:55:25.280 --> 00:55:30.080
in group coaching or nutrition coaching type  environments because this is this is where more

00:55:30.080 --> 00:55:34.720
people are going to find themselves. you know,  very few people will end up advising nutrition

00:55:34.720 --> 00:55:40.160
to elite sports teams. So, the challenges are huge  when you're working with individuals because out

00:55:40.160 --> 00:55:45.440
of sight is out of mind. So, you know, if you're  not there, which you're not going to be for the

00:55:45.440 --> 00:55:52.080
most part, you've got to find different ways of  developing accountability with your client. Um,

00:55:52.080 --> 00:55:57.840
and nowadays, you know, there are great ways to do  that. You can have people do anything from using

00:55:57.840 --> 00:56:03.680
things like My Fitness Pal to track, although  I'm not such a fan of tracking in the usual sense

00:56:03.680 --> 00:56:09.840
of the term for various reasons, including the  perceived accuracy of that. It's not particularly

00:56:09.840 --> 00:56:13.200
accurate. You know, you think it's accurate, but  it's not very accurate. We can get into that if

00:56:13.200 --> 00:56:18.320
we have time later. But people can take photos,  they can write food diaries, there's all sorts

00:56:18.320 --> 00:56:24.880
of things. But the more disengaged that they are  from the process, the more wild and crazy they

00:56:24.880 --> 00:56:30.000
go with things. So you need to have degrees of  accountability. Now there you mentioned check-ins.

00:56:30.000 --> 00:56:34.480
Check-ins is a powerful thing. Once a week you  can, you know, you should always have a weekly

00:56:34.480 --> 00:56:39.440
check-in. Invariably, it's not going to be face to  face in your office. That can be expensive. It's

00:56:39.440 --> 00:56:44.320
impractical. But you can do that on WhatsApp. You  can do it using coaching applications. There are

00:56:44.320 --> 00:56:50.480
many that exist out there. But a weekly check-in  is extremely powerful. But over and above your

00:56:50.480 --> 00:56:55.600
weekly check-in, which is an opportunity for you  to see how they're doing, they know that at the

00:56:55.600 --> 00:56:59.040
end of the week, they've got to report back and  tell you something. Whether they tell you what you

00:56:59.040 --> 00:57:03.520
want to hear or what they think you should hear is  another conversation. But nonetheless, it's that

00:57:03.520 --> 00:57:10.240
weekly weekly follow-up situation. What I like  to do though is have a a sort of a a test don't

00:57:10.240 --> 00:57:16.320
guess scenario. And depending on the way your  practice is set up, your office is set up, the

00:57:16.320 --> 00:57:23.360
technology you have available, there are various  additional layers of this sort of test don't guess

00:57:23.360 --> 00:57:28.480
and accountability that you can introduce. Very  basic one of course is daily weigh-ins. You can

00:57:28.480 --> 00:57:33.520
just have them weigh first thing in the morning  every day. Um that'll provide you with some degree

00:57:33.520 --> 00:57:39.280
of trend on total body weight which can be pretty  useful depending on what you're trying to achieve.

00:57:39.280 --> 00:57:45.280
um all the way through to they might have access  to much more sophisticated methods of body

00:57:45.280 --> 00:57:52.000
composition analysis which you know again I said  if it's recreational athletes nine times out of 10

00:57:52.000 --> 00:57:56.320
that's going to be a huge thing they're interested  in is their body composition yes their performance

00:57:56.320 --> 00:58:00.800
will be important if they're triathletes or  whatever they're already using a thousand

00:58:00.800 --> 00:58:05.920
million metrics gadgets and technology to look  at their you know their fitness and their power

00:58:05.920 --> 00:58:10.480
and their all bits and bobs they have from their  from their smartwatches to their power meters and

00:58:10.480 --> 00:58:15.200
all sorts of things. That's usually not what the  nutritionist has to get involved in. Body fat,

00:58:15.200 --> 00:58:22.080
muscle mass. These are the things that tend to be  more interesting. So, you might have access to um

00:58:22.080 --> 00:58:28.400
clinics that provide DEXA body comp assessments,  which you might do say once a quarter, every 3

00:58:28.400 --> 00:58:34.000
months. Not so easy. In the UK, we have much more  restrictions on being able to do these things, but

00:58:34.000 --> 00:58:38.720
we do have private clinics now doing DEX tests.  In the States, I found it much easier to get

00:58:38.720 --> 00:58:44.960
my clients to get DEXA assessments. Um, you got  people that are highly trained in using skinfold

00:58:44.960 --> 00:58:50.800
calipers, using the Isaac methodology. Got to be  careful with skin folds. You need to know how to

00:58:50.800 --> 00:58:55.200
use them and where to put them on the body. That  isn't just a case of I've got skin folds and let's

00:58:55.200 --> 00:59:01.280
measure. Uh, that can be wildly inaccurate and  misleading. Bio impedance analysis is where you

00:59:01.280 --> 00:59:07.200
stand on a scale or hold some handles and it gives  you some information about body composition. I

00:59:07.200 --> 00:59:16.960
would say very very varied results can be taken  from that. There's different bits of kit out

00:59:16.960 --> 00:59:21.440
there. Some are much more accurate than others.  That's not really the purpose of my chat today,

00:59:21.440 --> 00:59:27.040
but you just have to bear in mind evidence  informed. Well, how reliable and robust is

00:59:27.040 --> 00:59:33.360
that evidence? I.e. my weight, my body fat level  that I'm using to inform my understanding of where

00:59:33.360 --> 00:59:37.840
I am today. Am I am I making improvements?  Am I making gains? Am I going backwards?

00:59:37.840 --> 00:59:42.480
Like what's going on? You know, the accuracy  of this information is highly influential.

00:59:42.480 --> 00:59:48.560
But it's very powerful as a motivating tool to  have this information whether it's body comp data,

00:59:48.560 --> 00:59:57.040
blood work, weighins, all of which are presented  at these check-ins, whether it's in office or via

00:59:57.040 --> 01:00:03.280
some remote methodology. That way both you as  a practitioner and your client is constantly

01:00:03.280 --> 01:00:08.320
focused on the outcome and the outcome is  for example losing body fat, gaining on a

01:00:08.320 --> 01:00:13.280
regular basis. You need to understand, am I  going in the right direction? And if I'm not,

01:00:13.280 --> 01:00:19.840
I need to discuss that with my client because  they're going to need some counseling. They're

01:00:19.840 --> 01:00:26.240
going to need some troubleshooting. They're going  to often need some calming down. Often times,

01:00:26.240 --> 01:00:30.880
you'll find, "Oh my god, it's not working." And  they'll blame anything but themselves, right? And

01:00:30.880 --> 01:00:35.680
it might be that you gave them the wrong advice.  Often it's because they're not following your

01:00:35.680 --> 01:00:42.000
advice regularly or properly or whatever. uh and  that needs observation. You got to listen. You got

01:00:42.000 --> 01:00:49.040
to observe. Uh and there's a big skill set there  because you will often find that understanding

01:00:49.040 --> 01:00:54.560
what people are actually doing is not so easy to  understand. Particularly in nutrition, you know,

01:00:54.560 --> 01:00:59.280
it's much easier in the weight room. You can see,  you know, you can measure and observe how much

01:00:59.280 --> 01:01:03.760
somebody's lifting, what they're doing. Nutrition  is way more complicated, but those weekly

01:01:03.760 --> 01:01:10.480
check-ins are absolutely critical, but constant  feedback and refining and fine-tuning often will

01:01:10.480 --> 01:01:15.360
get you in the right direction. Big mistake I  made early in my career is I'd give somebody a

01:01:15.360 --> 01:01:19.920
nutrition plan and 3 months later I'd say, "Come  back and see me." You wouldn't see them 3 months

01:01:19.920 --> 01:01:24.400
later because they didn't get the results that  they wanted. So, you need to have that constant

01:01:24.400 --> 01:01:30.160
feedback mechanism. Um, it's like flying a  plane, you know, you got that constant, you know,

01:01:30.160 --> 01:01:35.520
you're being pulled in a different direction, so  you constantly correct and eventually you you'll

01:01:35.520 --> 01:01:40.480
land where you want to land. Otherwise, you get  massively deviated on your path. Yeah. And it goes

01:01:40.480 --> 01:01:45.280
back to this idea of buying too, right? The the  hey, come back and see me in three months or hey,

01:01:45.280 --> 01:01:49.280
Laurent is checking in with me once a week and  I have time in the schedule because he cares,

01:01:49.280 --> 01:01:57.120
you know? Yeah. Car completely. You know, Gabe,  that is such an important part of the puzzle,

01:01:57.120 --> 01:02:04.400
particularly in things like nutrition. You've got  got to demonstrate that you genuinely care about

01:02:04.400 --> 01:02:09.280
the troubles and strives that your client's going  through. And you genuinely care about finding a

01:02:09.280 --> 01:02:13.360
solution to those problems. And you need to you  need to illustrate the fact that it's not going

01:02:13.360 --> 01:02:18.000
to be perfect to begin with. We're going to have  some things that work. We're going to have some

01:02:18.000 --> 01:02:22.480
things that don't work. And that's just normal.  But if you don't have regular check-ins, if you

01:02:22.480 --> 01:02:29.120
don't have regular chats, conversations, whether  it's messaging, you're never going to develop that

01:02:29.120 --> 01:02:34.640
um that sort of care buying practitioner patient  relationships. Absolutely critical to get the

01:02:34.640 --> 01:02:39.920
outcomes that you're after. We have time for a  couple more questions. And earlier you mentioned

01:02:39.920 --> 01:02:44.640
supplements, right? I believe you said people  actually talk more about what they are doing

01:02:44.640 --> 01:02:49.680
and it's really about what they aren't doing. And  that kind of led into you mentioning supplements.

01:02:49.680 --> 01:02:53.200
So supplements are always a hot topic, right? Me  as a strength and conditioning coach, I get people

01:02:53.200 --> 01:02:57.120
all the time, what should I be taking? What should  I, you know, and I go back to, okay, well, like

01:02:57.120 --> 01:03:01.600
I go back to like, you know, are you sleeping?  Are you eating breakfast? Are you hydrating? Um,

01:03:01.600 --> 01:03:06.880
let's start there, maybe. But everyone's  always curious, do we really need them? So,

01:03:06.880 --> 01:03:13.520
how do you help athletes or individuals that  aren't maybe even athletes separate what's useful

01:03:13.520 --> 01:03:19.520
from what's just noise? Great question. So, this  is complicated because it depends on what question

01:03:19.520 --> 01:03:25.040
you're asking and how in what context, you know,  how many gray areas do we want to have in this,

01:03:25.040 --> 01:03:31.760
right? So, do you need supplements? Almost  certainly no. You don't need them. Define

01:03:31.760 --> 01:03:37.520
supplement. Firstly, define need. Um, a lot of  this will depend on who you are and what you know,

01:03:37.520 --> 01:03:43.680
what level you're at. The average person  rarely needs supplements, right? However,

01:03:43.680 --> 01:03:54.480
if they are vegan, if they are vegetarian, if they  are have some reason to heavily restrict their

01:03:54.480 --> 01:04:01.600
intake of food, if they're extremely fussy, if  they are unable to access quality foods. I mean,

01:04:01.600 --> 01:04:09.760
there are many places in this world, US, UK even,  where access to highquality produce is not an

01:04:09.760 --> 01:04:15.440
option. They might not be able to afford these  things. Sometimes it's cheaper to supplement.

01:04:15.440 --> 01:04:20.480
Sometimes it's more practical to supplement.  There's all sorts of scenarios there. But if

01:04:20.480 --> 01:04:28.640
we can differentiate, you know, um, need from  what works and what doesn't work, right? So,

01:04:28.640 --> 01:04:32.480
we've already got that hierarchy of need, you  know, if you get all the basics right, chances

01:04:32.480 --> 01:04:36.960
are you probably don't need the supplements.  They're like sprinkles on the cake more than

01:04:36.960 --> 01:04:42.480
the cake itself. Um, there's one or two that you  could argue are way more important than others,

01:04:42.480 --> 01:04:48.320
like creatine monohydrate. In fact, the more we  learn about creatine, the more exciting it gets

01:04:48.320 --> 01:04:56.400
beyond its capacity to improve outcomes for  strength and conditioning, cognitive health,

01:04:56.400 --> 01:05:01.920
cognitive health, cognitive function. Other  areas that I found interesting with creatine,

01:05:01.920 --> 01:05:08.560
for example, is the impact it has on glycogen um  replenishment strategies. All sorts of cool stuff

01:05:08.560 --> 01:05:14.640
you can do with with creatine. Um you know,  yeah, you got your vitamin D for people who

01:05:14.640 --> 01:05:19.440
for various reasons, either due to ethnicity or  due to where they live on the planet, you know,

01:05:19.440 --> 01:05:25.920
there's no sunshine sort of scenario. There's  an argument there. uh protein supplements is uh

01:05:25.920 --> 01:05:31.840
and carbohydrates tend to be the two biggies that  people just completely misunderstand that you can

01:05:31.840 --> 01:05:39.120
almost always get enough protein through food. You  know, again, is a protein supplement food or is it

01:05:39.120 --> 01:05:43.520
a supplement? You know, like where does that one  go? You know, uh certain foods are very high in

01:05:43.520 --> 01:05:51.280
protein, meat, fish, eggs, some dairy like cottage  cheese, Greek yogurt, stuff like that. You know,

01:05:51.280 --> 01:05:57.600
you can normally meet your needs. Even the biggest  of football players etc. rugby players I have

01:05:57.600 --> 01:06:04.960
found can meet it through food. It just may not  be practical to do that due to travel. You can't

01:06:04.960 --> 01:06:10.240
cook a steak whilst you're in an airplane.  You know uh you you know you're on the coach,

01:06:10.240 --> 01:06:14.880
you can't travel on the train necessarily,  you know. So there's different scenarios and

01:06:14.880 --> 01:06:21.040
it just depends on the situation you're at. Maybe  because you're not at home, you're not in the team

01:06:21.040 --> 01:06:28.960
cafeteria or whatever, maybe it's a strategy as  a comp to compensate for the challenges that you

01:06:28.960 --> 01:06:35.280
have. Particularly large athletes and bodybuilders  who might be augmented, you know, they're using

01:06:35.280 --> 01:06:40.960
um steroids, etc., there may be an increased  argument for them to have additional supplemental

01:06:40.960 --> 01:06:49.600
protein. It just depends on your needs. um you  know uh fish oils if you don't eat fish ever

01:06:49.600 --> 01:06:57.600
um or rarely if you're vegan vegetarian and you're  not eating enough foods um you know that provide

01:06:57.600 --> 01:07:03.360
you with the substances that will enable your  body to manufacture essential fatty acid you know

01:07:03.360 --> 01:07:10.960
it all gets very challenging these are arguments  for some supplements but on the whole um I would

01:07:10.960 --> 01:07:15.360
say more often times than not you don't actually  need supplements which is quite an interesting

01:07:15.360 --> 01:07:20.880
conversation to have. Question for you. I have  a severe fish allergy and as well as shellfish.

01:07:20.880 --> 01:07:27.760
Fish oil to me is essentially a cyanide. So I  have heard people recommend like algae or krill

01:07:27.760 --> 01:07:33.360
or something like not krill algae maybe. Is that  a reasonable substitution? I don't know. And the

01:07:33.360 --> 01:07:37.360
reason why I don't know is because the evidence  doesn't really answer that question very well.

01:07:37.360 --> 01:07:42.000
What is interesting is if you properly look at  all the evidence, you know, it's it's not very

01:07:42.000 --> 01:07:46.080
convincing that any of these supplements are  actually of any particular value. You know,

01:07:46.080 --> 01:07:50.160
it's it there's a lot of bad science out  there, I'm afraid. And by bad science,

01:07:50.160 --> 01:07:54.960
it's like if you really learn how to read and  interpret the quality and relevance of science,

01:07:54.960 --> 01:08:01.680
it's really scary how bad a lot of it is. Um, a  lot of interpretations are made from very weak

01:08:01.680 --> 01:08:09.600
data andor completely awful, terribly conducted  studies. Um it's got nothing to do with who funded

01:08:09.600 --> 01:08:14.560
the study and all those sorts of things that  people might argue. It's just you know it's very

01:08:14.560 --> 01:08:20.960
difficult to conduct science. You know researchers  get a lot oftick for the quality of their science.

01:08:20.960 --> 01:08:27.440
You know particularly in sports science strength  conditioning we can't get the sort of numbers

01:08:27.440 --> 01:08:33.360
of people into our studies that public health  studies will have you know hundreds of thousands

01:08:33.360 --> 01:08:38.960
of people. We're lucky to get a dozen. You know,  an epidemiologist is going to look at that and go,

01:08:38.960 --> 01:08:43.040
you have nowhere near enough data to draw any  conclusions. And to a certain extent, they're

01:08:43.040 --> 01:08:48.960
right. Hence, I love case studies. You see, so  you yourself are a case study. You can't do fish.

01:08:48.960 --> 01:08:55.360
You can't do your fish oil omega-3 cyanide pills.  And yet, here you are. You look to me like you're

01:08:55.360 --> 01:09:00.960
a healthy individual. You seem to be doing okay.  What What is it you're doing is maybe the question

01:09:00.960 --> 01:09:04.640
I should be asking. And maybe you're not doing  anything. And therefore that illustrates well

01:09:04.640 --> 01:09:08.960
maybe it's not actually as important as we once  thought. Oh I appreciate the insight. You can

01:09:08.960 --> 01:09:16.240
send me an invoice after the episode. So there  you go. Just quickly while we're there, there's

01:09:16.240 --> 01:09:23.280
a there's all this energy. There's all this noise  out there. We should all be, you know, consuming

01:09:23.280 --> 01:09:29.680
huge amounts of protein. We should all be cutting  carbohydrates. We should all be doing supplements,

01:09:29.680 --> 01:09:34.720
fish oils, and so on. But actually, should  we? It's a very individualized situation and

01:09:34.720 --> 01:09:41.040
you can argue either which way. Normally, even for  elite athletes, it comes down to it depends. Yeah,

01:09:41.040 --> 01:09:46.080
it's really hard to have this should we and it's  really like should you and because the you part

01:09:46.080 --> 01:09:51.520
really requires a ton of context for somebody's  situations going back to the N equals one kind of

01:09:51.520 --> 01:09:56.400
um always N equals one. Yeah. Yeah. No question.  So, you talked about research, you talked about

01:09:56.400 --> 01:10:01.040
quality research, poor research. for anybody  listening where what are some of the you know

01:10:01.040 --> 01:10:06.720
resources you like to turn for turn to excuse  me for quality research. Well we have things

01:10:06.720 --> 01:10:12.640
called consensus statements and if there's enough  evidence on a given topic or a range of topics

01:10:12.640 --> 01:10:20.160
like in sports nutrition for example for topics  that we have a lot more confidence in you'll

01:10:20.160 --> 01:10:24.720
find there's a consensus statement. So there  are a variety of bodies that produce consensus

01:10:24.720 --> 01:10:33.440
statements and in sports nutrition that will be  things like the ACSM IOC consensus statements on

01:10:33.440 --> 01:10:41.120
things like nutrition and sports nutrition but  also supplements. Um um you know there's all

01:10:41.120 --> 01:10:45.520
sorts of bodies out there. The ISSN I've mentioned  earlier, they've done a whole bunch of position

01:10:45.520 --> 01:10:51.040
sound statements. I've co-authored a few of those  like on um diets and body composition for example

01:10:51.040 --> 01:10:58.800
is one that I've done but I've done quite a few  those consensus papers are based on very robust

01:10:58.800 --> 01:11:08.640
data um that's been interpreted appropriately and  has had multiple layers of filtering by people who

01:11:08.640 --> 01:11:13.520
actually know what they're talking about. Right?  Hence the large numbers of people often involved

01:11:13.520 --> 01:11:19.520
in the production of these consensus statements.  A consensus statement is relevant, for example,

01:11:19.520 --> 01:11:25.200
to sports nutrition rather than just being a  randomized controlled study that's for, you know,

01:11:25.200 --> 01:11:30.720
an entire nation. It's very hard to tease out  what's relevant. Remember my favorite words,

01:11:30.720 --> 01:11:36.640
relevant, Gabe. Right. So, there's a lot there  um that you can see in consensus statements.

01:11:36.640 --> 01:11:43.920
That would be my first place to go. The other  place to go, of course, is to a well-trained,

01:11:43.920 --> 01:11:51.280
well- educated individual like you or me. um  who can then help further contextualize this

01:11:51.280 --> 01:11:57.360
and hopefully they are a person who beyond their  training and education is also able to know when

01:11:57.360 --> 01:12:06.080
they don't know the answer and are then able  to further refer to the relevant expert andor

01:12:06.080 --> 01:12:13.120
sources of information because it is a little  bit complicated. There obviously places like our

01:12:13.120 --> 01:12:22.160
podcasts and various other things. They are not  specific to your own personal needs is the point.

01:12:22.160 --> 01:12:29.040
Um but there are degrees of consensus but anyone  can do a podcast obviously. Um of course I'm

01:12:29.040 --> 01:12:36.560
doing one. However, um anyone can do an Instagram  post, anyone with a six-pack, anyone that calls

01:12:36.560 --> 01:12:41.840
themselves a nutrition coach or whatever, anyone  can do these things. So I think ultimately the

01:12:41.840 --> 01:12:50.240
individual needs to have a responsibility also to  try and differentiate quality from flawed sources

01:12:50.240 --> 01:12:55.200
of information and just have a think where's this  stuff coming from and are they really the right

01:12:55.200 --> 01:13:00.640
people for me to learn from? Just because they  look the part, just because what they're saying

01:13:00.640 --> 01:13:06.880
sounds right, does it really mean that that, you  know, that they're the person I really should

01:13:06.880 --> 01:13:11.760
listen to and follow all of their advice and  recommendations? Because at the end of the day,

01:13:11.760 --> 01:13:17.440
changing your lifestyle, changing your nutrition  can have real influences on your health and

01:13:17.440 --> 01:13:21.440
well-being and can be pretty serious. Not just  your performance. Okay, you don't win the race.

01:13:21.440 --> 01:13:26.160
Okay, you don't lose weight. It could be much  worse than that. you could end up with a serious

01:13:26.160 --> 01:13:32.000
health condition um by following the wrong advice.  So, it does matter where you get your information

01:13:32.000 --> 01:13:36.160
from. Absolutely. And a great place to find that  information, I'll plug it as the Institute of

01:13:36.160 --> 01:13:43.040
Performance Nutrition. So, yes, indeed. And me, of  course, I'll I'll caveat there's um I also have my

01:13:43.040 --> 01:13:48.400
own channel, Dr. Banak. You just put in my name,  Lauron Banak. Uh you'll find me on there. at the

01:13:48.400 --> 01:13:55.760
IOPN um we're more focused specifically on the  training and of educa training and education of

01:13:55.760 --> 01:13:59.920
um current and aspiring sport and exercise  nutritionists. One question for you and then

01:13:59.920 --> 01:14:07.040
just a couple of fun ones to finish up here. So  as you look at nutrition, you've been involved

01:14:07.040 --> 01:14:10.800
in nutrition for a very long time and health and  performance for a very long time. What I'm going

01:14:10.800 --> 01:14:14.880
to ask this in kind of two different ways. So  either one, what excites you most about the

01:14:14.880 --> 01:14:19.280
future of performance nutrition, you know, over  the next 10 to 20 years, or perhaps is there an

01:14:19.280 --> 01:14:24.320
area of this of nutrition that is not well studied  or really underappreciated that you think will

01:14:24.320 --> 01:14:31.440
take form um in the later years? Questions. Uh 20  years from now, Gabe, I'm going to not be doing

01:14:31.440 --> 01:14:37.120
any of this. I'm going to be sitting in my second  home in the south of France drinking wine going, I

01:14:37.120 --> 01:14:41.680
used to do this stuff and I don't care about body  composition anymore. So, I'm not thinking 20 years

01:14:41.680 --> 01:14:50.400
ahead, but I I love this topic because nutrition  is such an important part of what influences

01:14:50.400 --> 01:14:55.200
health performance, training, adaptations. You  think health performance, training adaptations,

01:14:55.200 --> 01:15:00.000
that's a big deal. Is it the most important  thing? No. Um, you know, but in the same way,

01:15:00.000 --> 01:15:03.520
you know, what's more important, your left leg or  your right leg? I mean, this is kind of a silly

01:15:03.520 --> 01:15:09.520
question. It's part and parcel of what we do.  So, I love nutrition. It's evolving, constantly

01:15:09.520 --> 01:15:16.160
evolving. And what are the areas that I think are  really exciting? I think as technology improves

01:15:16.160 --> 01:15:24.720
and we start to learn how to understand what the  individual body what the individual body's needs

01:15:24.720 --> 01:15:31.280
are things like you know if we could truly  learn glycogen levels if we could truly learn

01:15:31.280 --> 01:15:37.520
uh nutritional status at the cellular level I mean  properly particularly on the pitch in your office

01:15:37.520 --> 01:15:42.960
you know without involving big labs and various  other things I you know like genetics um you

01:15:42.960 --> 01:15:50.080
know I there are tests and so on for genetics and  nutrition and so on. I don't believe they're there

01:15:50.080 --> 01:15:57.040
yet, but we're going to get there. And very soon,  our ability to provide truly personalized advice

01:15:57.040 --> 01:16:02.640
based on evidence to inform our recommendations  will just get better and better and better and

01:16:02.640 --> 01:16:07.200
better as time goes by. And that's the wonders  of where we're at. You know, technology keeps

01:16:07.200 --> 01:16:12.720
going in the right direction and so will what we  learn and what we can apply. And that will give

01:16:12.720 --> 01:16:17.920
us more and more buying. There's nothing like a  set of test results and you go, "Okay, you know,

01:16:17.920 --> 01:16:22.240
I shouldn't have fish oil because it might kill  me." You know, you don't have to actually try

01:16:22.240 --> 01:16:26.480
it to find it out. That's really cool. I, you  know, I know there are a lot of companies now,

01:16:26.480 --> 01:16:30.560
especially with a lot of genetic companies,  a lot of biomedical companies out there.

01:16:30.560 --> 01:16:40.560
So I am curious to see where maybe this study of  um and um investment in genetics and understand

01:16:40.560 --> 01:16:47.200
genetics better will take us and I'm thinking  about you um 20 years from now sitting you know

01:16:47.200 --> 01:16:52.640
in the south of France and I wrote this down now  I wrote down the phrase taste informed drinking

01:16:52.640 --> 01:16:57.040
with your wine and I'm going to have a vineyard  gape so I will be and then this is what I wrote

01:16:57.040 --> 01:17:01.760
here and then now you're going to be lecturing or  telling are going to be passionate about what's

01:17:01.760 --> 01:17:10.960
relevant to the production of wine. I'm I'm going  to become a Yeah, I think uh I think uh I think

01:17:10.960 --> 01:17:17.440
that's going to be my next career, Gabe. Why not?  You know, evidence evidenceinformed wine drinking.

01:17:17.440 --> 01:17:22.480
There you go. Yeah. There you go. So, and then  just like you know your friend who had who

01:17:22.480 --> 01:17:26.640
had mentioned something to you Brad about about  creating something like this, you will look back

01:17:26.640 --> 01:17:32.800
to me and say Gabe actually said that I should  be doing this, you know, in my vineyard. So,

01:17:32.800 --> 01:17:38.560
um yeah. Well, I'll dedicate a um special edition  of wine with your name on it. All right. So,

01:17:38.560 --> 01:17:42.480
this is a really tough question for me to always  answer, so I'm going to ask it a different way.

01:17:42.480 --> 01:17:46.880
What are some of your favorite foods, dishes  that you really, really love and enjoy? Well,

01:17:46.880 --> 01:17:54.080
depending on pair, so genuinely I I I do like my  wine and I will often think about the wine that I

01:17:54.080 --> 01:17:59.120
want and then I'll pair the food with the wine.  So, for example, you know, like a good steak,

01:17:59.120 --> 01:18:06.400
you know, will match very well with a wine. I love  all kinds of cuisine. I love I love I do love what

01:18:06.400 --> 01:18:12.240
in France is a basic staple of steak fruit, you  know, steak and chips with a a good wine. I mean,

01:18:12.240 --> 01:18:17.280
it just, you know, with a really good salad,  it's just just epic. all the right macros are

01:18:17.280 --> 01:18:22.640
met. High protein, appropriate carbohydrate, you  know, it's all there. Definitely stimulates the

01:18:22.640 --> 01:18:29.200
lucine threshold. You know, I get my uh I get my  protein synthesis comes off the back of that. Um

01:18:29.200 --> 01:18:34.960
we mentioned chili. I'm I have a massive weakness  for chili gate. Love chili, spicy chili food,

01:18:34.960 --> 01:18:40.960
whether it's like in the UK, we're obsessed with  Indian food, good good curry, but yeah, chili,

01:18:40.960 --> 01:18:45.840
anything with chili in it. I love chili. The  hotter the hotter the better, frankly. I was just

01:18:45.840 --> 01:18:48.720
talking about steak fruits last night with some  friends. We were actually getting ready to go to

01:18:48.720 --> 01:18:52.240
dinner in Chicago. We have a really great Italian  food. That's where I'm based out of right now. So,

01:18:52.240 --> 01:18:57.520
we had a nice big Italian meal last night.  Still thinking about it. But yeah, steak

01:18:57.520 --> 01:19:02.800
fruits to me. We we were telling each other how  perfect like that dish is. Like it just there's

01:19:02.800 --> 01:19:08.320
nothing there's no weakness. There's no weakness  in that dish. The first time I went to Chicago,

01:19:08.320 --> 01:19:13.600
it's a few years ago now. I I can't remember where  it was, but it was some famous place for getting

01:19:13.600 --> 01:19:20.080
the ultimate deep pan pizza. It was epic. I mean,  it was No, I'd never heard of pizza like it,

01:19:20.080 --> 01:19:24.960
you know. I'm sure there's other things in uh in  Chicago, but I do remember that. It sticks in my

01:19:24.960 --> 01:19:29.680
mind 20 years later. Yeah, there's some famous  ones. There's Peekquads, there's Gino's East,

01:19:29.680 --> 01:19:35.200
Lumladis, there's those are kind of like the  classic ones. Which one? But yeah, but you know,

01:19:35.200 --> 01:19:41.440
in all seriousness, that that's the power of  food, right? We love food. So, it's not protein,

01:19:41.440 --> 01:19:45.600
it's not carbohydrates. We, you know, we we  talk about pizza, we talk about steak. And

01:19:45.600 --> 01:19:52.240
the feelings that it draws for us is epic, isn't  it? That's nutrition, man. That's nutrition. Well,

01:19:52.240 --> 01:19:57.200
that and you were talking earlier about the impact  of food and having meals with other people. And,

01:19:57.200 --> 01:20:01.120
you know, I was with eight friends or so and you,  it's this old school Italian restaurant with the

01:20:01.120 --> 01:20:04.640
red and white papercloth. all the photos  of all the famous people, Michael Jordan,

01:20:04.640 --> 01:20:08.320
all that stuff. You see it on the wall and like  that is part of the dining experience. It's like

01:20:08.320 --> 01:20:12.560
look at all of these people who have come here to  enjoy this like amazing Italian comfort food. So

01:20:12.560 --> 01:20:18.080
my mind was definitely thinking about that. Well,  it's not just my mind. I am now hungry. So yeah,

01:20:18.080 --> 01:20:23.840
it's time for me to go eat. All right. Well, we  can end it. So thank you Dr. Laurent Bennock of

01:20:23.840 --> 01:20:27.520
the Institute of Performance Nutrition. Thank  you so much for joining me on the Keiser Human

01:20:27.520 --> 01:20:32.000
Performance podcast. If you're listening today,  you want to learn more, like I mentioned,

01:20:32.000 --> 01:20:40.240
you can visit ww.theiopn.com. You can follow the  IOPN on Instagram. And then Laurent, for you, you

01:20:40.240 --> 01:20:47.280
have your own channels as well. Where can people  follow you? If you just put in Lauron Banick, L A

01:20:47.280 --> 01:20:53.600
R N T Banick, you'll find me on Instagram, etc.  Uh, I'm pretty easy to find. Dr. Lauron Banick.

01:20:53.600 --> 01:20:58.080
There's only one Dr. Lauron Banick on the planet,  so that's kind of handy for me. Uh, and I'd be

01:20:58.080 --> 01:21:02.400
glad to share what I have to share with anyone  that wants to listen. Awesome. And for those

01:21:02.400 --> 01:21:08.000
that did listen in today, we hope you're not too  hungry right now. Thank you and have an awesome