Good everyone, Sam here, Welcome to the wood Life. Maybe you've all had a wonderful week. I've had a romantic week, which is not something we typically go into on this little fitness and nutrition podcast, But Snares and I had our four year wedding anniversary last Tuesday.
And what did we do?
We went hot air ballooning actually across Melbourne. Most beautiful, stunning morning. Finally the weather has come good and it was so still. The sunrise was absolutely perfect. And the reason I took Snai's hot air b learning it was a little surprise, was our first date on the Bachelor.
We went hot air ballooning and it was the first day we ever had, the first time we ever kissed with sixty two bloody cameras in our faces, Albert, but it was so I thought we might relive that little bit of magic on a little date for anniversary and it was absolutely spectacular.
Now, how's this for a segue? Speaking of love?
Today, our guest is Jessica Spendlove, who is an elite athlete dietitian, and she's going to be teaching us the valuable lessons that she has taught thousands of athletes over the journey and how everyday people like you and me can apply them into our lives. That's coming up next on the Woodlife, and then we're going to answer some of your brilliant fitness questions.
Let's get into it.
We are joined in the studio today by an incredible sports titian who has worked with thousands of elite athletes across multiples of sports and different codes in her incredible career to date, and she's now working with everyday people helping apply those exact same athletic nutrition principles. Jess spend Love, Welcome to the wood Life.
Thanks for having me, hear Sam.
So let's dive into I feel like people are first of all, fascinated by how athletes live, how they eat, how they train, how they recover, and second of all, I then want to get into how we can learn as everyday people from these principles that even though it's for the elite, shouldn't necessarily change when they're applying them when we're applying them to ourselves. So I think an assumption a lot of people make and correct me if I'm wrong, is that you're an elite athlete. Of course
you eat well. And I've had nowhere near the experience as you have training elerde athletes. But I'd be shocked often at how poorly they ate. They trained the house down, but then I would ask them what they are eating to recover between sessions.
Heaps of takeaway. Very poor cooks.
Often really fought me on the importance of the nutrition side of things, and it's not until they change their diet and they see the difference that the penny drops for them. Am I Am I on the mark there? Or No, that's that's been what I've experienced.
No, you're one hundred percent on the money. And look, I think even if I look back over the last decade, I do think the importance of it is shifting, and clubs are investing in this space and educating their athletes more so, it's not just every single one, but the majority. I think you would be surprised. And I'll never ever forget the very first professional athlete I sat down with
the day before. I think I spent two hours preparing like a framework of a meal plan because I was just going to wow him with how amazing that was going to be. And he was an NRL player, very high profile. Sat down Okay, what do you have for breakfast? I don't eat breakfast. And from that day forward, it was like, make absolutely no assumptions that just because they've been through professional programs, they're representing the country, their number
one draft pick, whatever it might be. Don't assume because you don't know what someone's lived experiences. You don't know how they've grown up. Did they go to boarding school, did the family always do takeaway? Whatever it might be. So yeah, hopefully that kind of reassures a lot of people that, you know, elite athletes don't even know exactly what they need to be doing until they're in a program where they've got a sports dietitian to kind of
educate them. And you know, I think that was the thing for me when I was able to sit across so many different codes and sports and kind of start to see these common themes and start to see that
this is actually information that everybody can benefit from. Yes, professional athletes, but this is just about anyone feeling their best, living their best life, you know, going to work, having energy, or having energy in the afternoon to or in the evening to spend time with their family, not feel totally exhausted or you know, have a good relationship with food, not beyond this Hempster wheel of ordering food, wanting to change behavior, then feeling guilty about not changing it, and
you know it kind of continues on. So you're absolutely one hundred percent correct. It speaks to everyone. And professional athletes don't just walk in knowing all of this. They're taught this.
Yeah, I mean even everyday people that's me. They think about food in a weight loss context. They don't necessarily think about food in a performance context.
And there's a big difference. So now I'm not just eating well to be lighter or leaner. I'm eating well.
To feel better, to move better, to reach my bab's, to reach my potential. And when you explain it to them like that, of course that should apply to whether you're an elite athlete or your fifty year old Mary who just wants to come to the gym three times a week. You know it should absolutely not change.
One hundred percent. And it's also like you can have all of that and enjoy it. This isn't about punishing yourself or we're not in prison here. We don't have to dislike what we're eating. It's you can eat the foods that you like, you can utilize nutrition to enhance all of those areas. And I think even that simple shift of not thinking about what not to do, but flipping the script and understanding what you should do, and when you focus on that, first of all, it's such
a nicer way to approach your own life. But by simply focusing what you know you should do, the behaviors that you should be focusing on, that naturally takes care of probably the things that you're trying to stop or avoid. So, you know, the perfect example, and something I talk to literally every single human I ever encounter in a podcast, speaking presentation, one on one, group presentation, whatever it might be, is looking at spreading protein intake out across the day.
And you know a lot of people think about that because, yeah, muscles gaining lean mass, recovery. But what I want to talk to people about that's all correct, is the role that plays in satiety and that feeling of fullness. And you know, when we're managing our intake and we're eating consistently across the day, our blood sugar levels are stable, which means our energy levels are stable, which means you know, we're feeling focused and we've got this nice, consistent energy
across the day. It's it's literally about quality of life and feeling your best. And you know that's what that's what I'm talking about. People might come and see me for the weight loss, or they want to put on x amount of muscle, or they want to they might want to perform in some sort of event, or a business leader that maybe hasn't prioritized their well being. But let's talk about how I can impact you on that day to day that quality of life. And I'm sure a lot of what we kind of touch on here
today will literally like literally, we'll do that. And that's you know, that's powerful. When you start to feel better within a day or two, that's a really powerful green flag, like, yeah, let's keep doing that.
And the question to people is what's your definition of performance? You know, is your definition of performance getting up with energy and being able to look after your kids all day? You know, it's not going out there and beating your four hundred meter PB or whatever it might be. And the protein example that you gave, I couldn't agree with you more. Did you see a difference between certain sports
and certain codes. Were there certain sports and codes that ate a lot better or were a lot more open to taking the nutrition advice on board.
Definitely a difference between sports. So I guess my first experience was really convincing athletes on the role of nutrition. It was nearly bargaining with them, trying to put that important front and center, which I was pretty green at the time and pretty eager, so I really enjoyed that.
Can I just ask you, Jes, how did you explain it to them? How do you I'm an athlete, I'm sitting here, I'm naturally strong, I'm naturally fit, I'm picked first in the team every week, I'm playing NRL or whatever my sport is, and you're trying to convince me that I can be better. I already think I'm great. I think I'm great. I think why have I got this meeting with Jess? What a waste of my precious time. You know, I've got a big ego. I'm twenty five,
I'm in the peak of my career. How do you convince me that I need to eat better?
Totally great question, and look, I'm going to admit, probably at the start of my career, I don't think I was doing the dance as well as I could have, it wasn't. I just had a conversation and they were like, oh, nutrition's the most important thing. Ever so often that that relationship with the athlete was really important, having that rapport,
but finding their why. So you know, were they an older athlete that was looking to prolong their career, or were they a fringe athlete who was looking to constantly make that first team, or you know, was it just a player at his absolute peak of his career wanting to sustain that. So, you know, I'm gonna I'm going to admit I probably wasn't switched into that from the absolute get go, but I learned that, you know, player first, you know, as a human, but also considering what's important
to them. What's important to me doesn't matter, it's what's important to them. So that was really really important. But look, I you know, it wasn't convincing athletes for my entire career on the importance of nutrition. Walked into the second club, different code, and they were just sponges. I mean they were very young, you know, I guess the way that the Giants was set up at the time, it was walking into a group of twenty year olds. So I wasn't there from the start, but it was from that
third season and they just thrived and loved it. So it might have been a combination of like a the environment, be just the code in general, and see I guess the environment and the way that it was set up and where nutrition was positioned. But you know, I even look at that and that first contract was one day a week, very much a consultant role. Come in do like a mini consult with most players to by the end or twenty nineteen, I was there till twenty twenty one,
but COVID really changed the landscape for servicing. But you know, twenty nineteen it was a full time role, so the importance was seen. But that was really like a five year process of advocating pushing the importance of building relationships with the right types of people player power as well as people in the right positions. And you know, all of that was really great because it enabled me to go, Okay,
well this is gold standard. How do we scale that to other sports where you only have like a miniscule budget, But what can you do with that? And you know, aside from all of that, I think the most important thing was it enabled me like I said to kind of narrow and really realize, Okay, there's like six or seven or eight things that everyone who's interested in, you know, levery the power of nutrition or at least open to
the concept. There's seven, six, seven or eight things that everyone can learn to help them perform at your best. And to your point, is that having more energy to play with their children at the end of the day, or you know, is that feeling better at work, or is that to go to the gym three times a week because they've not been able to do that for you know, forever and a day. Whatever that might be.
It's not about running marathons or winning races. It's whatever that individual's performing at their best is.
Let's now take all of those learnings. As much as I'd love to just wax lyrical with you with anecdotes about athletes, and I'd love to get some names off you reckon, you'd have some ripper stories. What are the key learnings from your work with elite teams and elite individuals that you now from a message perspective, at philosophy perspective, a fundamentals perspective. Think the gen pop musted here too, and it absolutely is the same rule for them as it is the elite athlete.
There's probably six or seven, but I'm going to maybe pick two or three top ones. Let's show with the low hanging fruits, you know, the things that I've never met anyone walk in my door and go, they're nailing it. So one we kind of touched on was the protein, and that's that's so powerful and you will get that shift and you will feel that impact within a few days. So you do want someone to get that short term win, Like, it's not about quick fixes, but let's get them feeling good.
So start there. The next is hydration. It's you know, might sound a little bit boring, but it's some pretty powerful statistics on how many people are getting around dehydrated. So who thinks the World Health Organization thinks it's probably somewhere around seventy percent of daytime fatigue is contributed from dehydration. And you know, I don't think a lot of people sit there going Fifty percent of me or more is
made up of water. So when you do think about it like that, the brain's more than seventy percent, and it is so powerful in terms of that, you know, feeling lethargic, feeling tired, headaches, lack of focus, so simply having that on your radar. And again, you know, like there are some guidelines. For women it's two point one leads and for males it's two point six. And for some people they might go, I hardly drink a thing, so that again might seem like something that's impossible. It's
not about perfection, it's about progress. What's your individual starting point and where are you going to take that? Too? So for me, I nearly think my job is like supporting someone putting things on their radar until they can turn it into a habit, which is why it's also not like let's change five thousand things. Let's pick one or two generally, the one or two I know you can do and the one or two you'll feel that
impact and let's build from there. And then my third one, maybe coming from a more training sensor fatigue sense, is you know, training fueled. And look, if you go into a per class or a yoga class, not necessarily, or you know, if it's a high intensity session for thirty to forty five minutes, again not necessarily, but anything above that, or if you're simply like maybe I just want to
try training with some fuel on board. Probably my number one performance nutrition principle is fuel for the work you're going to do. And I guess what I see people doing is thinking about what they're doing after training and kind of being reactionary, Whereas what I'm really encouraging people to do is think about how they're setting their day up.
And for me, that principle applies to breakfast. So if you're someone who eats a really large dinner and you're always craving sweet foods at night, that's your body's way of saying you're not eating enough. I really just need some nutrition. I need something fast, and that's what I'm
going to reach out for. So if you focus on that front half of the day, so whether it's fueling for your work day or in a training sense, thinking about you know, having something before you train, if it's more than forty five minutes, you will feel such a difference in that later half of the day or that later half of the session. So they're probably my top three.
Yeah, I love it.
So protein in every meal, protein three times a week, every meal keep yourself great for muscle recovery, but also keeps you full. I love that seventy percent of us are walking around dehydrated, none of us probably realize it. Baby steps to get towards that sort of you know, low twos. I always say three letters because I think once people start exercising, we probably should round it.
Up as well.
So let's say get as close to that three letter market as you can. And then I'm massive on the longer you've been training and the more you're looking for that next challenge, and the more you see that getting in shape has no finish line and you should be
thinking about what's the next thing. Start to think of yourself as an athlete, both in how you'd move, how you train, how you program your workouts, how you progress your workouts a progressive overload, and just as importantly, if not more importantly, how you fuel your body you recover
after workouts. There's a lot of people in our space their ultimate is to work with athletes, so you know, they spend a lot of time, in their eyes, doing an apprenticeship with everyday people with the hope of getting a job with the sports stem. I love that you've
actually come the other way you've gone. I'm going to take all of these incredible learnings with these elite athletes, the best of the best across multiple sports men and women, and I'm going to help every day people apply these things to move better, to eat better, to feel better. And I think it's an absolute credit to you to
what you're doing. What's the best platform for people to come and check out your stuff if they'd like to find out more, because I reckon we've just scratched the surface today.
Thank you. I appreciate that. Probably Instagram pretty easy to find with my very unique last name, so Jess Underscore, spend Love, Underscore Dietitian. Otherwise, my website's also a great place, Jessica spendlove dot com.
Absolute pleasure having you on the Woodlife today and I'm sure our listeners will go and check you out. I'm going to go and find out a bit more about you too, Jess, And thanks so much for coming in the Woodlife today.
Thanks Sam, appreciate it.
Jess spend Love.
Now there's a last name you don't forget. Really interesting to see her transition across from athletes to everyday people and apply those principles. And I think the simple stuff is the most important stuff. And I was sort of listening and nodding along to Jess. It wasn't necessarily stuff that I didn't know, but always a valuable reminder, and I'm sure many of you felt that too. We're now going to jump into some of your fitness related questions.
We've got some absolute rippers in store for you. Let's get into it.
As we reach the end of what's been a brilliant first every year of having a podcast. I think this is the platform that I wanted. I wanted a place that people come and ask me questions like they do when I bump into them in the flesh, and I feel like this podcast does that. I don't know what
kind of question I'm going to get. Week to week, we get all kinds of questions, and then I hear great feedback from other people saying, oh, SAMU, I answered a question from someone else and that's exactly what I've been thinking and that really helped me. So please, please, please keep your questions coming in. I love answering them
directly on this podcast, no matter what they're about. And as I always say, there's a little link there in the show notes where you can send me an actual voice note and I can hear your question straight from you and get back to you.
So we've got our first question from Corey. Corey fire away.
With carbi foods like bread and pasta, how much would we be eating a week to make sure we don't gain weight and don't feel lethargic?
Corey, it's a great question.
I feel like foods such as bread and pasta probably they're the absolutely number one and two in this category. They're demonized because they're not bad foods if they're eaten in balance with more veggies and more protein. Whereas if you're just eating huge bowls of creamy pasta and a whole way of bread, that isn't a good thing because there's absolutely no balance there. So the biggest mistake people make is they don't have enough protein and veggies to
balance out the carbs. So if you look at your plate, if you've got a fist size of protein and then you've got half your plate covered in veggies, then having some pasta or some bread with that meal is a great meal. Don't stress about it at all. And then if you really want to get particular, if it's a brown version with more fiber and more seeds and less processed of that particular carb that's going to be a better option. A whole meal option versus a wide option,
that's going to be a better option. So don't stress about these foods unless you live on them. And I guess that's the thing that many people do. That's where they make the mistake. It's processed carb after process carb after process carb, and that's not what you want to do. My beauty wife is Macedonian. If I didn't have a household that welcomed bread and pasta, I would be divorced
quick smart. It's about integrating it in with your fresh fruit, with your edgies, with your protein, with your nuts, with your healthy fats, and it's all about having a balance.
A next question is from Mick.
Oh mate, just wondering if we should split up between a leaked day and a body day for workouts or is doing a complete workout the way to go?
Cheers.
This is a really good question because it depends on a number of things. First of all, why you're going to the gym. Second of all, how often are you going to the gym? Because if you're going to the gym every day, seven times a week, even six times a week, I'd be starting to split your workouts up. You'll get much more bang for your buck if you train a particular body part or couple of body parts harder and then let them rest while you work in another area, and you can split it into a myriad
of wae. The Blitz system is you do one body part every day. Monday, I do chest, Tuesday, I do back Wednesday, I do legs, Thursday, I do shoulders, Friday, door arms, Saturday, do abs Sunday, or rest whatever it might be. And then you can do split days. You can do a push day, so I do my chest and my shoulders and my triceps one day, and then I have a pool day, so to my back and my biceps on the other a leg day, and then I'm back to push and I'm on a rotation. That way,
it can be upper and lower. It doesn't matter how you split it. The key is you're mixing it up. You're getting more volume into a particular area while giving other areas rest. And that's just as important because it's not just about what you are training, it's about what you're not training. If you're doing push ups or chin ups or squats every single day, you're not going to be able to train those muscles maximally because they're never going to get more than a twenty four hour window
of recovery. Whereas if you're doing legs twice a week, you're going to be able to go heavier with more volume because you know, no it's going to be seventy two hours or even a little bit longer before.
You hit your legs again.
So if you're training for hypertrophy, if you're training for strength, if you're training for power, and you're going to the gym, often a split system is good. If you're an absolute beginner or you're only going to the gym two or three times a week, a full body workout is great because you're still probably getting a full rest day between workouts. But if you're hitting the gym more than five times a week and you're training for power, strength, or muscle growth,
start a split system. You'll see a massive increase in your results. A next question is from Sarah.
I have a niggling injury around my achilles.
I've gone to a physio and I've done the exercises for a few months. It's slowly getting better and it doesn't prevent me from being active, but I can't get rid of it.
Should I stop exercising until it's healed.
I think you almost answer your own question, Sarah by saying that it's slowly getting better. The achilles is one of those things that you've got to be careful of. It ten to definitely get trickier as we get older. It tends to be far more susceptible to injuring as we get older, our calf area and our achille achilles area, so the saliis which is the base of the calf muscle, not the big belly one, but the little one lower on the leg, and that achilles area can become really
vulnerable as we get older. Now, the thing with our achilles is we want to keep it stretched and we want to keep it strong. So you should be definitely doing a combination of your calf raised type exercises through a full range of motion and stretching it through a full range of motion. It's about understanding your body and balancing it up. You can still train your legs by riding a bike with zero impact and that will allow
your achilles to rest. However, you then got to be careful the first time you go for a run that you don't ping it because you've lost the elasticity in it or the strength in it because you haven't been doing any running. It's a hard question to answer exactly when you don't you know the exact circumstances. But my advice would be it sounds like you still can run a little bit, Sarah, but I'd look to shorten the distance and perhaps lower the intensity. Surface changes can be
really good running on a softer surface like grass. I'd probably avoid soft sand running that can be really dangerous with achillee injuries. But the key here and the biggest mistake people make is they do go to the physio and they get these strengthening and stretching exercises and they do them for a very short period of time, or they don't do them at all. You've got to do them, and you've got to do them consistently. Your calf area recovers very very fast. It's like your abs, it's slow
twitch muscle fibers. You can do them every day. You can work your calf in the achilles every single day, same asine to at work every single day. You're not going to get fatigued. You can push through, so train it every day. Or five or six times a week. Increase the load slowly on a soft surface, and a by load I mean you're going up in distance or up in time running for but in the meantime, if
you're missing that you're training as much. Get some cross training in, get some bike in, get some other cardio options in, like boxing that are taking the pressure off your legs while still getting your heart rate up, and then you'll find your fitness won't drop off too much, but you won't injure yourself while you build up the flexibility and the strength in the achilles. I feel like I've been chatting to a whole bunch of athletes today.
You are my athletes. We are all athletes. The fact that so many of us live sedentary lives and don't eat very well means we sort of scoff when someone says we're an athlete. But there is an athlete in all of us, whether you're seventy or seventeen. It's just about finding your potential by moving your body well and fueling your body well consistently, and you'll be amazed at what lies underneath the same way, there's a runner in
all of us. So my message to finish today's episode is let's find the athlete in this until next week.
M hm hmmmmm