S3E11 · Ali Miles: Sports Performance Dietician

Guess what? It's recording. I hate my cheat. And in this moment, I swear, we are infinite. Let's do this! Come on! Mounting! It's too damn hot for a penguin to be just walking around. Three, two, one, eagle! Are these two doctors? I'm afraid so. And where are we going? I'm going to have to agree with Lachie and Tyler here, that intro is excessive. Anyway, welcome back to the Virtus Podcast. We are very, very privileged to have a wonderful guest and a wonderful client of ours, and a wonderful friend of ours, in Ally Miles. Ally and I know each other from Saints in the Hallways, kinda.

She forgot me on the first time, but we'll talk about that later. But more on like a surface level, and similar to our clients. They'll see you train, but they don't really know what you do, and how good you are at what you do, so we're going to dive into that today. So, welcome Ally. Thanks Mitchie, thanks. Good morning. Good morning. You well? Good morning it is, yeah I am. Besides the calf, but we'll get into that later. The baby calf? The baby calf. We blew a calf, we blew a calf. Anyway, sell yourself Al, who are you?

What do you do? What's a need to know about Ally Miles? I am a performance dietitian, and I'm also a mum of three awesome kids, so that kind of keeps my plate full on a week to week basis. And a wife of a wonderful husband. Yeah true. We'll throw Jono in there as well. He might, probably not. He might listen to this, but he may be not. He'll enjoy the shout out. So what is a performance dietitian? Or what's the difference of a performance dietitian to maybe a dietitian that works in GP or general practice? Yeah okay, so I guess I've got both qualifications.

I'm an accredited practicing dietitian as well as an accredited sports dietitian, and I'm actually also an advanced sports dietitian. So walking through in terms of being a dietitian, I can practice in clinical situations, so when clients might have disease states, I can give them clinical recommendations in relation to nutrition and diet therapy. An extension on that is that I've done further qualifications in sports nutrition because that's where my interest and passion developed over the years. I've been a dietitian for over 20 years, so I think I was thinking today, I graduated in 2000 with my Masters of Nutrition and Dietetics.

I was three. Rub it in. So yeah, I quickly realised that I loved the sports side of things. I've always been an active kid. I'm fortunate to grow up in an active household, so loved working with physios in practices and then started working with sports teams and really honed that interest. Did the IOC, so International Olympic Committee, diploma in sports nutrition, so that really honed the skills there. That was an eye on 15 years ago. And since then, again, just worked with various sports teams, different sporting codes. New South Wales Institute of Sport, Victoria Institute

of Sport in rugby, rugby league, worked in AFL for a significant period of time and also with our Winter Olympic team now for the past six years. Excellent. We're going to get into that extensive work here, Siri, because you put up a post maybe a fortnight ago? Yeah. Maybe? Yeah, maybe. On your career and where you've gone and where you are now. So we're going to get into that in a minute because I've got a slight picture of what that still remembers like, but that was way too much for me to remember. So we're going to go through it again.

But before we go down Ali now, what about Ali in the beginning? As a kid, sporty, academic, like what were your interests? Were you someone who wanted to be an athlete and then worked out, hey, maybe not for me, let's find some way to still work in sport? Or kind of what was the pathway to get into dietetics? Yeah, so I always loved sport. I was really shy, very much an introvert as a kid, and I chose individual sports. So I was a swimmer and I did cross-country running and loved it. I was also a RAAF brat.

So my dad was a pilot in the Air Force and we moved around all the time. You said a RAAF brat? Yeah, so Royal Australian Air Force. So RAAF brat. Typically because you move schools and houses so often, you're the troublemaker in the class. Although I wasn't. You would not be the troublemaker. I don't want to hear that. So we moved around, I guess to give you a bit of a snapshot. I was born in Brisbane, moved to America, back to Brisbane, to Canberra, to America, Brisbane. And then I chose to go to boarding school to finish off my high school because Dad got another posting.

So Mum and Dad were on the move again. Now, during that time, I swam competitively and also did cross-country running. And I remember being, I would say, in grade one. This is when we were living in Canberra in the middle of winter, running around Lake Burley Griffin in short shorts. In those days, they called them scungies. Awesome name, but basically... Short shorts? Short shorts. Yeah, okay. And T-shirts. I've never heard of that either. In zero degree temperatures, running around Lake Burley Griffin. And I remember doing 1 and 2K events and then I think we moved to America at that time.

Where in America did you move? So when I was really young, Idaho. So Boise, Idaho, potato country. Yeah, potato country. So there's an F-111 Air Force base up that way. And then Montgomery, Alabama. Alabama, where all the country people come from. It actually wasn't that bad of a country accent. For people who haven't ventured to Virtus in the last two years, country music has kind of taken over the playlist when I've been here. So if you come in, country music might be something you get to hear. Talk to me about that boarding school experience. So

did you pick it or was it something your parents saw, "Hey, this is probably a good idea for you to finish your schooling life in and then work out what you want to do?" No, so I chose to do that. I was very studious and I didn't want to be interrupted for my final two years of school. Plus I guess it's the friendship networks that you make. So I made that decision. That was quite tricky because I was quite shy and introverted, but it was okay. That's when my passion for nutrition, when I look back on it, started.

And actually when I finished my science degree at Queensland Uni, I needed to write an application to get into the master's program at Sydney Uni. And in that application I wrote about my experience in boarding school and so the food wasn't great. There were quite a few girls that had disordered eating tendencies. Not that I knew that at the time. I didn't identify that as a 15, 16, 17-year-old kid. But now when I got that little bit older, I could see that that was an issue. What are we talking about, boarding food school? I'm a very visual person.

What am I saying? So the one that is burned into my retinas is a tray of sausages that had a split right down the middle with cheese oozing out, sitting in a tray of oil a few centimetres thick. I'm not going to get that in my head now, so thanks for that. I'll join in your memories. Through year 12, was being an athlete still a possibility? Was that something you wanted to do? No, look, I'm going to be honest and say probably just being too shy was my biggest detriment. I lacked a lot of self-belief and confidence that I was capable of doing a lot.

Maybe just not being at home, I didn't have that mentor mum and dad around me at that time on an everyday basis to keep propping me up. Look, I always remained active, but I was never really super competitive when I was older. I've always participated and I've always been involved in sport and always remained active, but never highly competitive. Kind of wish now and feel like maybe. Hindsides 2020? I think a lot of us who work in sport probably have that too, going, what could it have been? I know I have that, sir. I know Lachie still has that and he's still trying, sir.

No, we won't have that against him. Masters. Maybe masters, maybe. Yeah, it's still a possibility. Masters athlete. Anything's possible. Let's say Alison Felix, what's she for, gold medals in a row now? After having a child? I'm sure I butchered that and got it wrong, but either way, it's still very impressive. Even some of the professional I see as Australian now, having babies, coming back. Jess Cameron, who's in the AFL, just had a child, she's back playing Hawthorne now. Pretty impressive stuff. Still, you might play in the AFL double here, Hal. My calf might tell us otherwise.

Yeah, we'll get to that. Uni life. How was uni life, being an introvert? So, uni's obviously somewhere where you kind of get to fly away from home, but you've already had that experience at kind of boarding school. Was uni life something you kind of tapped into from like a social aspect as well? It was still very academic and you had like an end goal of I want to be a dietitian. No, I didn't know at that stage. So, I didn't know I wanted to be a dietitian then. I did a general science degree, majored in biochem and physiol, loved learning about the human body and how that operated.

So, I lived on campus at UQ, Queensland Uni. So, look, that was a great experience. Again, food was not a great experience. And I lived on campus for two years and then moved out for that final year. Again, primarily food related. Must have been something in the area. The whole general path you were going on. Yeah. So, no, that was good. It was good. And look, that's probably when I started to grow up. But it wasn't really, I think, until after I finished my science degree, got into Sydney Uni to do my masters. And I moved to Sydney and I knew no one.

Knew no one. And I remember standing at enrolments and there's the big cork board with the notices and the little tabs of paper off them. Housemate wanted. I actually ripped one of those off and there was another girl standing beside me. And at the time Must have been her boyfriend was wearing like rugby shorts. Something that I went, oh, that's something I can connect with, being a Queenslander in rugby. Maybe you're all right if I'm picking something off a board and you're standing here. She was doing the same thing. So, I actually ended up being housemates.

Oh, there you go. For a few years. There you go. All from meeting in a pin board. I obviously work at Deakin now, so maybe I need to go put one up. I need a housemate because I need one of those too. With going into uni, so obviously the general science, what did you go into that thinking you wanted to do? Or what was kind of the thought process to pick general science, just being interested in the human body and academically? Yeah, so grade 11 and 12, I did biochem with my main sciences. Really always have been fascinated by the human body and I'm still fascinated.

Loved learning how it worked. I remember sitting in third year, medical biochemistry and medical physiol and just being jaw dropped open, front row kind of nerd, just completely engrossed in the content. Yeah, so Mitch, I'm probably gone, of course. Can't quite remember what the initial question was. This is the best part about a podcast. It doesn't matter. We can do whatever the hell we want. You're for me. Science. Yep. Into science and then thought, with obviously the background being, hey, I want to improve the food that I live and live around and the experiences that people have with food.

Or was it something like, hmm, might dabble in, I don't know, the science aspect of sport or do I want to look after athletes or was it purely on human body and what happens with the human body? Human body, primarily that science aspect and what can I go into that involves that. And at the time, there was one other course in Queensland that looked at nutrition and dietetics, but you needed to have attended QUT to be able to have any chance of getting into that program. It was highly competitive at that stage. So I put my application in.

As I said, I used my background in boarding school, started obviously after three years doing a science degree, kind of had a bit of an understanding of what I'd been observing when I was younger. Popped that in and said that I'd really like to be involved in change around the way younger people are eating and what we're provided. And yeah, I guess the rest is history. Packed up my bags and moved to Sydney. That's a good segue into what we're going to talk to you about after we talk about what you've done for work, because

we're going to talk about your business and what that venture looks like and the change you're causing, one from an athlete point of view and professional sport, but also from just a everyday gen pop, how can we better serve kind of the people around us or our kids or anything like that. We're going to get into that. But after your studies, after you finished your master's in dietetics, what happened? What did you do? Yeah, so I took a job in the clinical setting in a hospital in Sydney and worked there for a couple of years, but immediately recognised that wasn't my cup of tea.

I think nutrition requires behaviour change. And if we think of the stages of change theory, people need to be on board and wanting to make that change. And often when they're sick in hospital, they've just had a heart attack or they're unwell, the last thing they're thinking about is the dietician standing beside the bed trying to force nutrition information and behaviour change down their throat. Combined with the fact that I'd always been interested in sports, kind of probably at that stage felt a little bit lost and didn't really know what angle to take. I was quite young.

So when I started uni, my undergraduate degree, I was 17, so coming from Brissy, and I graduated, I would have been 21 when I graduated. So still quite young in the sense of just trying to figure out exactly what angle I wanted to take. I knew I didn't have a lot of business acumen. So actually, I don't think you know this, I joined a pharmaceutical company. I did know that. So I worked in hospitals for a couple of years, joined a pharmaceutical company to try and get some business acumen under my belt, and then ventured into part-time working for that pharma company as well as part-time starting up my own private practice as a dietician.

I'd already during that time, so it was pretty much within the first one or two years of graduating as a dietician, I then also did an AIS, Institute of Sports, Sports Dietetics course. I'm trying to think back, talking 18, 19 years now. I think you're doing pretty good as well. So obviously, I had that inkling that immediately I wanted to do that, but worked in the hospitals, needed some business sense about me, did that, then propped things up by doing part-time, part-time, and developed that then my private practice. And at that stage, I was doing lots of different contracts at lots of different places as well as different sporting teams and so forth.

How did you get into sport? What was kind of the first break the wall down, kind of I'm in sport now? To be honest, it's about, and it still rings true today, it's about volunteering your time and the connections you make and being just a good human and a good person and then good at what you do that then gives you the chance and people will genuinely give you a chance. How did you get your first chance? Yeah, so the biggest chances came from my late mentor, Dr. Helen O'Connor. So Helen was a pioneer of our profession in sports dietetics.

So she started SDA, which is Sports Dietetics Australia. Unfortunately, she passed away two years ago now. She was a fabulous mentor and she was also a mum. And she gave me some great chances in Sydney and some opportunities and was also just a great sounding board for being able to bounce ideas around. One of the great things I did, I worked alongside Helen in a practice, kind of in the same building as the New South Wales Institute of Sport there. But also when she did a sabbatical, I took over her lecturing responsibilities for a year at Sydney Uni in exercise sports science and that was awesome.

I told you there's lots of things I don't know about you. There you go. And that's when I realised that I really loved teaching aspect. And even though I'm not an academic and I'm not great with the research side in terms of I couldn't run a study to save myself, I feel one of my strengths is translating that tricky information and disseminating it and keeping it easy for students to understand and then peppering your lectures with lots and lots of real life examples. Yeah, I think you and I fit in that particular. I'm very similar. I really like academia, but I could never do that.

I need something a little bit more stimulating, but also coming from a, obviously done five years of study or four years of study, knowing that what the content is and what it could be, maybe I can be that kind of bridging gap between, yeah, this is really, really good dense information, but how do I make that a little bit easier to understand? So I think we both fall in that kind of category. I think that's really important with nutrition information because it can be crazy complex and you can hear lots and lots of different ideas around the same thing and just being a filter, super important.

Using mentors, obviously you had wonderful mentor. How did you best use your mentor? Because we hear a lot nowadays of, you know, you all need a mentor, everyone needs a mentor, a few mentors, but how did you utilise your mentor? What were the things you were bringing to her that she was then helping you with? One of the things that sticks in my mind that Helen taught me is that there will always be work for good people. And that was particularly important at the time that she spoke those words to me because that was when I'd had my first child.

At the time her youngest child was about five and so then I had a newborn. And you're thinking as a working mum, how do I actually do this caper? I still want to progress my career, but I also want to be a great mum. How do you do it? How do I take time out? And she was the one that said, don't take on board too much, but also know that there's always going to be work for good people. And I've held that all the time because I've travelled then since I was working in Sydney, moved to Brisbane and then moved to Melbourne.

And I've always just kept that in my mind that there's always going to be work for good people, so it doesn't matter if I'm moving state to state. I just keep that in the back of my mind. What defines a good person? In your eyes. What defines a good person? Gee, that's like the meaning of life. I feel like lucky and I feel real dirty right now. What are some qualities you like to see in people that you'd like to spend more time around? Genuine is probably the word that sums that up. Compassion, kindness, but also strength of character.

So I think just genuine. Yeah, that probably sums it up. Cool. With being a mum and still wanting to progress your career, I guess that's something that obviously females have to deal with. And males don't necessarily have to cop the full brunt of that, of being pregnant for nine months and then having to raise a kid for, I mean, up until they pretty much go to primary school. And lucky you had to start a couple of weeks ago on the podcast around, it was like 70, 80% of the time you spend with your kid is before they hit primary school.

And that kind of comes back to like, shit, that's a pretty big fact. So for you, how did you, if you did, balance being a mum, but being a practicing dietitian who still wanted to be really, really good at their job? What did that look like for you? Yeah, really tricky. I had amazing support of John, my husband, so couldn't have done it without him. And we really were a tag team, shits passing the night on many circumstances trying to keep things afloat. It's probably also when we realised that it wasn't maintainable in the long term, the extent that we were.

So April, my eldest at that time, when we were in Sydney, she was in childcare a few days a week. John was working full time, I was essentially working full time cobbled together by all the different contracts that I had. And that's probably one of the things in that sense is just all those different workplaces, it does take that toll in terms of just multiple workplaces to have in your mind and stuff that you're interacting with. And when you're trying to be a good person, you like to know everything about everyone. Exactly, yeah. I feel you.

So look, it was absolutely a juggle. And I think you're in the trenches during those periods or those years of your life in many senses. And anyway, you'll hear me now and it's like the troubles of the teenage years, it kind of does change and develop. April and Angel, what are you talking about? You're just not going to listen to it, so it doesn't matter. So yeah, couldn't have done it without John. I think we're both on the same page of we had the end ultimate goal. And in the end, it was a quality of life decision that we chose to actually move back to Brisbane.

We didn't have family in Sydney. John's parents live not in Brisbane where we moved to, but on the Sunshine Coast. So we've kind of always been used to not having a family around. But then I grew up that way as well being a rough brand. We never had family around. So I was always used to just driving school holidays to see my grandparents. What were some kind of strategies you employed to make quality of life a bit easier? We're still trying to have a full time job and different contracts and a young one and a husband.

What are some kind of strategies that you employed to make that a little bit easier or take the load off? If I were to be honest, during those years, there weren't any strategies. It was literally just the proverbial show. It's just trying to not single swim. It's only through going through that you then develop some strategies and coping mechanisms. In the latter years or more when we moved to Melbourne, so we've been here nine years. And when I started working and picking up contracts down here, we looked at an au pair. So again, we had no family around.

So we looked at a living nanny to help support us. But we were always of the mindset that we wanted to try and be there as often as we can when the kids woke up. And we would always be there to put the kids to bed at night. It was more just that making sure they didn't miss out on the after school activities. Yeah. How's that going for you? Yes. Multi-sport kids. We're nearly there. We're nearly there. On contracts, what was kind of like, maybe we'll call it a breakthrough, or what was kind of your first big one?

You thought, hey, this is pretty cool. So probably in Sydney, when I was working as a dietitian with New South Wales Institute of Sport and concurrently with West Tigers Rugby League and then Waratah's Rugby Union, as well as running through multiple practices. And then towards the end, took on Helen's lecturing responsibilities. All of those are key cornerstones in my mind that can start to build your resume out, give you street cred within the industry. That then means that you can take that on your resume to the next situation that you're in. I think you and I get along for a very good reason here, Elle.

So what was your kind of first, your big one, where you took, I know that you don't currently just have one role, but what was kind of the first one where you thought, hey, I could do this as just the one thing that I do? Or has that happened? Hasn't happened, mate. And it tends to not happen in dietetics at large. I'm very lucky to land a full-time role, and particularly in sports dietetics, it's very, very rare that a sporting organisation has full-time dieticians, which is an unfortunate situation. Is it changing? Not fast enough. Starting

to see some subtle signs that more organisations are recognising the important role that nutrition plays, but we've still got such a long way to go. And even when you look in different departments, there's always multiple S&Cs. There's multiple doctors, there's multiple physios, multiple of everything, but there's one dietician that is typically part-time. What do you think could expedite that process? We need to be more vocal and more definitive in outlining our key opportunities to progress and improve performance outcomes, to be honest. What's the hardest part about getting that over the line? History. Just the historical standpoint where nutrition has kind of been, "Oh, you know, it doesn't matter."

It's never been considered as something important. I think the other thing as well is because everyone eats, everyone has an opinion, and it's like, "Oh, it's just eating. How tricky can that be?" It can be really tricky. And I think the big impact, if we take a step back, with athletes, typically we'd be looking at eating minimum four times a day, but easily six or more times a day. Seven days a week is 42 time points that you have the opportunity to influence performance, adaptation, recovery, and so on. So I view it as a really, really big opportunity for sporting organisations to embrace that nutrition component and invest heavily in the sports dietetics component.

And you can see some cracking and awesome outcomes in terms of health, wellbeing, and ultimately performance, which is what clubs and organisations are ultimately looking for. I potentially put the health and the wellbeing before, but... And when you take a step back and think about it, 42 time points are probably the most involved for an athlete's week. They're not doing 42 sessions a week, even if there are five-minute sessions, they're still not doing 42 of them. So it's one of those things that probably has more effect, as you said, than what some people realise until they're open and honest enough to actually learn and want to know more about that.

Is that kind of fair? Yeah, absolutely. I can, in terms of, I often relate athletes and anyone who's ever been in any one of my talks, the simplest analogy I can make is that an athlete is a Formula One car. Lots of skill, talent, and ability. If you forget to put petrol in an F1, it's not going anywhere. My car in the car park is going to beat it. You can have all the skill and talent and ability in the world, but if you don't get the right petrol at the right time and the right quantity, you're not going to perform at your best.

Yeah, we talk about that in an SCC world very similar. I use a Hyundai R20 to compare a Ferrari. Those that have an R20 in the room, they get a little offended, but they get what I mean. You can have a high-performing car for an airplane or a mechanism or whatever you want to call it. If you go and put something that's shitty on top of that, you're probably going to drive with a handbrake on. Or if you're going to drive shitty brakes, you're probably going to break down eventually. I think that's probably an easy way to think about feeling for performance.

It doesn't matter what vessel you have, if you don't feel the vessel, it's not going to matter. You're missing out. You're leaving things on the table, I guess. In AFL, instantly, we talk about rally cars. Beaten up every weekend and front up again and again and again. 100%. With you going into an organisation, what's your methodology or philosophy on where do you start? You're going into an organisation and they go, "Hey Al, you're our dietitian now. Great. Fantastic. What's the process?" Yeah, so be a really good listener to begin with. I think I always employ the mentality of seek first to understand, then be understood.

Some wise words. Actually, my husband was the one that taught me that. Oh, Chotto. Chotto with the lines. I know. So very much don't go in there with your own agenda. Very much seek out the history and why is it that they do it that way? Why is it that they're not fueling or they're not doing this or why is it that they approach things? And get that understanding of why they're not. That means you can come in and be solutions focused and support them in the best way possible. Let's say you've gone into an environment where you see some areas for improvement.

What are some strategies that you find work generally quite well? Because I guess when we're talking about athletes and high performance, the principles and the foundations are the same when we're talking about just fueling for everyday life. You don't have to be an athlete to still follow the concepts that we're trying to talk about. What is kind of the things you go into an environment and go, "Hey, this is something that could improve." Or what are some general things that you see that in a lot of different environments you kind of have the same issue?

So without a doubt, the number one issue that I see across the board, pretty much any sporting environment I go to is issues around confidence with fueling and the flip of that is under-fueling. And the impact on health, well-being and performance is profound and is by far the number one biggest rock. If we're talking about big rocks in nutrition and performance nutrition, optimal fueling and addressing issues of under-fueling fuels 90% of the jar. Yeah, under-fueling I think, and I have a very, very skewed reality of dietetics and nutrition, but under-fueling and working with athletes, under-fueling is probably what I see as kind of the biggest issue.

There's other things that we take into account when we talk about food, whether that's body comp or the way we look or the way we feel. Under-fueling makes up a huge portion, especially for athletes. Yeah, and it falls in and it feeds into all of those issues that you just mentioned. How do we go about assessing under-fueling or what are kind of the things you do to look at that? Again, be a good listener, good investigator and ask questions and develop rapport and relationships so that athletes know that you're there to support them to help. And I think it's really good to explain the why.

There's no point going in like a bull in a china shop and just saying, well, you need to do this, this, this and this. You need to actually, again, seek first to understand why is it that they've been doing things the way that they have been and then help explain the why. Now, it's different for every athlete in terms of the hook or the lure that you might use to help them understand and to change their patterns of thinking. And under-fueling is one of those things. If it's born out of, whether it's deliberate or by

accident, if it's deliberate, it can be really tricky to change an athlete's mindset, particularly with societal pressure and thoughts around fear of carbohydrates and fueling options. But really, it's trying to find that hook and the lure that's important and significant for that particular athlete that will be that light bulb change that means that, oh, crap. Okay. So, you know, if I just think of some recent history, it's, you know, an athlete might present with a history of bone stress injury or niggling soft tissue injuries that has meant that they haven't been able to play for a significant portion of the previous season.

And so then you can adequately explain to them, well, I reckon that this could be one of the reasons why and explain what happens when you're under fuel and then why that can lead to some soft tissue injuries. And then they start to say that they're not visiting the physio as frequently. It's like with a lot of stuff when we're talking about performance, hindsight is 20/20. You don't realise these things that you put into effect until someone tells you to go and think about what the change is. We find that a lot with athletes, especially

here at Virtus, is like we do some screening and a movement screen when they hit their first start and they might have, they wake up with low back pain and their right shoulder's a bit sore and after kind of a few weeks and, you know, we like to think we can make change pretty quickly, especially when we know what to go and poke. We go, oh, how's your back feeling? You go, I don't really know. Haven't thought about it. Is it kind of like the same? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What is, what are some, let's say on under fueling, what are some common things you like to employ?

So it's a common issue of you see a bunch of athletes under forming. Is there kind of like an overriding, this is a common issue that you have a strategy that you go and use. So for example, like let's talk about like hip mobility. Like I've got a few tools that I really like for hip mobility that work for a lot of different people. I have some that work for some others because it doesn't work for everyone. But what is some kind of like those bigger ones, those overarching ones? Major learning point would be to have this concept of mirroring your intake or matching your intake to your training load.

So pretty much the more you move, the more you move your body, the more you're fueling your body. And I try not to do so much the reverse of the less you move your body. I think having an understanding that your body needs a certain amount of energy just to function to keep you alive as a human being. Your brain needs to think, your heart needs to beat, your lungs need to breathe. While you're asleep, your body is needing energy when you're absolutely doing nothing. So then what we do is we layer on top of that our training demands and we add extra fuel on top.

So rather than always thinking restrict, it's actually start at a baseline balance level and add extra in addition to your training load. So when you move your body more, you eat more. It's probably like if you can keep things simple, like we don't have to make it super, super complex. And so what I will do is I will look at an athlete's overall, if we think of it in terms of training cycles, in terms of if we take something like AFL pre-season to season to off-season, we can generically see that pre-season is going to incorporate the biggest training demands, biggest sessions, biggest energy expenditure reflected to season.

Where not as much overall on a weekly basis, but distinct days where there are significantly greater intakes required and then off-season where they're training much less. And then it's also thinking of putting a mirror up to a training schedule and you kind of think if I'm mirroring my intake to my training, it's days of the week, but then it's also times within that day. So if an athlete has double days at training sessions on various days of the week, then those days should be the days that they have the biggest intake. But then if we

actually looked within those particular days, if they're training morning and early afternoon, then we need to be really pushing extra carbohydrate to fuel those sessions in and around. So before, during and after each of those training sessions to fuel their goals. Cool. With sport, just in general, and maybe we'll use AFL as an example, what are some kind of measures that you use with athletes? What are some like daily or weekly, we call them check-ins or what are you kind of looking for across a week? Yeah, do you know what? It's good old corridor conversations to be honest.

Like don't underestimate the power of just stopping and having a chat and the information that you can just glean out of simple conversations rather than feeling as if it needs to be clinic style at a desk. I think there's a lot to be gained just from those corridor conversations. Yeah, even when they say getting treated on the physio table again, you can just kind of go past it's different times where you can just strike up a conversation. I'm just thinking over meal times. So when meal service is on, like when players are having lunch or

when they're making smoothies at the recovery station, they're also really great opportunities where you can have an interaction and then obviously you can have some scheduled appointments if you need to specifically address something at a specific time. And then obviously group style presentations can be really powerful. Great WhatsApp kind of communication opportunities, the ability for athletes to take photos of their food and there are great food journals now where you don't have to kind of keep the old fashioned three or seven day food diary. It's all just take a photo and then I can communicate

at my end and go like, awesome, great to see that you've got a great amount of protein on the plate, plenty of color coming through. Love the fact that you've got plenty of fueling carbohydrates there and I can see some healthy fat. Awesome. On that, what are your foundational principles for nutrition? Because you've just spoken about a few there and, you know, searching through your Instagram over the last couple of days, you have your little nice little visually pleasing posts that have certain categories. What are those categories? Yeah, so keeping it simple, I think if

you can approach a meal and think about four key concepts and that would just be that you've got your fueling carbohydrates that you're building with your protein options, that you're coloring your plate with plenty of fruit and veggies and that you've got your nice protecting healthy fats to protect your body. You can't go too far wrong. What are your favorite options for all of them? So in terms of fueling carbohydrates, you're looking for your whole grain types of carbohydrates to begin with. So things like bread and pasta and rice and then wraps and different grains, rolled oats, absolutely fantastic, different whole grain breakfast cereals.

Then you've got your starchy vegetables, so things like potatoes, sweet potato, corn and then dairy. So while dairy is awesome in terms of its protein content, it's also a great source of nutritious carbohydrates, so milk and yogurt. And then we've got our fruit. So, you know, whether it's fresh, dried or canned, absolutely fantastic. The main thing there is, again, with all of our food categories, eat a range. So eat a nice range of different whole grain and very different types of carbohydrates. I think one of the big things with everyone's fear, and maybe I'm going down here where...

Hey, welcome to a podcast. You can go down any path you want. While I'm talking about carbohydrates, with the fear that everyone seems to have, and I'm hoping that we're starting to change and gradually kind of turn the big barge around here. It hasn't been a quick process, but plenty of those carbohydrate foods are awesome. Fertilizer for what we call our gut garden, so our gut microbiome or biota. And one of the reasons we think that quite a few people have had gut issues in more recent years is because everyone's been really scared of carbohydrate, eliminating it, which is a major source of fertilizer for our gut garden.

I'm stealing that, by the way. Fertilizer for gut garden. Yeah, so if you think of your gut health in terms of a beautiful garden, if you would imagine a beautiful garden, it would have a wide range of diverse different trees, plants, flowers and lots of different colors, and very few weeds. Okay, and so what we eat can dramatically influence what grows in our gut garden. And if we're not fueling it and fertilizing it effectively, what we'll find is that we don't get a diverse range of different plants, we just get a few different bacteria growing, and a lot of those are going to be weeds, not the good stuff.

And that's when we start to have issues with our gut. And then we also know that our gut microbiome produce all these fantastic compounds that not only nourish the lining of our gut, but then also flow into our bloodstream, and can affect all parts of our body in a really awesome way. In terms of chronic disease, as well as mental health and the list goes on. And you could do a whole nother podcast on gut health. It's a big open can of worms that one. Yeah, but you know, our carbohydrate based plant foods are fantastic fertilizer for our gut garden that selectively improve the growth and proliferation of our good gut bacteria over our bad bacteria.

And so really important that we do incorporate that wide range of different carbs. Yep. Cool. So up to fuel. What's next? So build with our protein. So think to begin with animal based foods. So meat, fish, chicken, eggs, and then you can go into your dairy again. So milk, yogurt, cheese, kefir, and so forth. Then we've got our awesome plant based proteins as well. So tofu, tempeh, lentils, legumes, nuts, seeds, beans, and again, we want that nice wide range, lots of different nutrients in there. That give our body other things. So you think of red meat's got iron and so forth.

And dairy's got calcium in there. So really, really important. And I really think of our building foods and the reason I always kind of say fuel with carbohydrates, build with protein, color with fruit and veggies and protect with healthy fat because it helps you to associate what they're doing to my body. And this really came about talking to my kids and helping them to understand it's not just eat this, it's why would you like what what's it doing for my body? That was my next question. Where did that come from? Yeah. And so, for example, when Audrey, so Audrey is my youngest at nine, when she trots down in the morning, she likes something different for Brekkie every morning.

I've got no idea what she's going to throw at me. Whereas Henry is the bowl of muesli with wheat picks. Yeah, I'm Henry. Yeah. And blueberries every single morning. Audrey, it's like what I'm in for today. And so she'll come down and she'll say, Oh, can I have Vegemite on toast? And so then we'll go through and actually she likes avocado on toast. So she's kind of got, you know, and I'll say, okay, well, you're fueling with with your toast and you're protecting with your avocado. What else do we need? And I'll say we need to build.

Yeah, we build our body, build our bones and our muscles and our body. So like, would you like some milk or yoghurt? So then she'll then choose and it's like, okay, we need to colour the rainbow. What would you like there? And I'll say we've got a pear, an apple or a peach and she'll choose something. Yeah. And I feel like it's a fantastic way to simplify what we're actually eating. It's easier to imagine that rather than thinking about how much do I need of this or how much do I need of that? Oh, I need 10 grams of this.

Like it's, as you said at the start, like nutrition can be something that's highly complex. But because there's so much information involved in it, we can make it quite simple. And we talk about this actually teaching at uni this week, the difference of, in my case, a good coach versus a great coach. And probably very similar to you have a good digestion, a great digestion is that ability to bridge the gap between, as we said at the start, that highly complex, well-rounded information into something that's really easy to understand and simpler, so simple that kids can understand it.

And I think that's kind of probably our biggest RFI is how do we take the information that we learn and we know as adults and how can we teach that to kids? And we need to go down for your school and what that looks like in a minute. But I think that's something that you in particular do quite fantastically well that I, as someone who has a very, very small understanding of nutrition compared to what other people have. You have posts around fueling and building and all that and goes, yeah, this makes sense. Even taking, adapting that to, you know, the suggestions that I'm giving my clients, but also the stuff that I'm eating and stuff like that as well.

It's one, it's very visually pleasing to look at, but two, it's very, very simple in the way that it's just good information done really, really well. So I think that's something that you do really, really well. Thank you. I'm glad you take the cover, but normally you brush them off to the side. You know me too well. I know, I know. What else? What else? Well, we're coloring the rainbow. Yeah, we are. So as simple as that. And again, it's you need to paint. Well, ideally it's painting that rainbow across the day and across the week with a wide range of different fruit and veggies to paint that rainbow.

It represents all the different phytochemicals, awesome nutrients that each of our different fruit and veggies possess in the different colorings that just do amazing things for our health and well-being. Immune function, gut health and so on. And then protecting with our healthy fats. So anti-inflammatory both short term and long term. So if we think of athletes, you know, recovery from really hard, intense training sessions. You know, if I think of AFL players, they are slamming their bodies against each other on Saturdays and Sundays on weekends. And then their body has five to six days to turn around, repair and heal.

And they've literally been shredding and tearing their body apart. So lots of healing goes into play there. Really important also in terms of a long term or a chronic perspective in terms of chronic health as well. So heart disease, diabetes and anti-inflammatory conditions in that sense. Really important in terms of brain function and cognition as well. So high concentrations of omega 3 DHA in our brain. So yeah, it's incorporating the healthy fats there. And then in terms of simplifying that from a family perspective and talking about the kids, I got the kids too. And I think this is on one of my posts somewhere.

I've got a picture of the actual post that I sat down with the kids. And I think this must have been at least three or four years ago that I did this. I had a big sheet of cardboard from the newsagent that I just ruled up into those four columns. So fuel with protein food, sorry, fuel with carbs, fuel with protein, colour with our fruit and veggies and protect with healthy fats. And I got the kids to list all the foods that they recognised that they liked to eat that fell under those categories. And then they drew fun little pictures beside them of each of those foods.

And then we stuck that up in our kitchen. So that helped them to learn. And these were their choices. It wasn't mum and it wasn't the dietitian saying this is what you have to have. It's then when you get those questions around, well, I just want to have toast for breakfast. It's like, OK, that's fine. But what are we going to do to make sure we build that out into something really nutritious? And often a strategy would be levelling up by one as a starting point. So if they want toast, could it be that you just have a glass of milk with it?

And then over time, it might be that you evolved to being able to add in all those components. But certainly it's those baby steps, building tiny habits to gradually build something significant in the long run. How, apart from in our own households and trying to employ those kind of strategies with our kids and friends and families and stuff like that. How do you think we can do it generally across the board from primary school age? What can schools implement potentially? Because I look at this like very similar to like teaching kids how to run properly. Like running is a skill that we all do and we it's a developmental pathway that this is how we grow and develop.

We learn to run. Doesn't mean we learn how to run. Well, I kind of in my head, I kind of think about nutrition being the same way we all eat. But how do we learn how to eat better from an early age so that we don't have issues, let's say, down 10 years time when we're trying to be a highly active kid? How can we take that to a nutrition standpoint? Yeah, look, I'm going to say from a, OK, it's coming from a mum, a parent's perspective as well as then from a dietitian. I think it all starts and responsibility lies with parents.

It's our responsibility to make sure that we provide a range of different nutritious foods for our kids to choose from. And then the kids are responsible for choosing exactly what they're going to put into their mouths and how much they're going to eat of that. And I think to ask schools to take full responsibility of of education around food, they've got so much going on. We can't like handball that to them. Where I think it can come in is the canteen situation. And I know various states around Australia doing fantastic things in terms of healthy school canteens.

I think that's a situation where schools can reinforce the messaging. And then obviously there are certain time points in the curriculum where they do incorporate nutrition into there. And it would just be really keeping those simple, clear messages that then just back up what hopefully parents are teaching in the household. And again, it's our responsibility as parents to ensure our kids have a wide variety of different nutritious foods to choose from. We can't force them to eat it. Henry will not eat many vegetables. I'm similarly and hearing that not in the way that I don't eat vegetables.

I probably eat more vegetables than most. But I eat the same thing every week. Lots of other people do that. How does that change potentially our relationship with food over time or does it? Yeah, look, your taste buds do change over time. And so I remember when I was a kid, I hated mushroom, tomato and avocado. I don't know at what time point, but I now absolutely love them all. And I think the things with food and I do this all the time with my athletes and say the younger, like the older teenagers or the younger ones in their early 20s is your taste buds do change.

Your new taste buds that grow up like our taste buds change over every 10 or so days and the new taste buds that pop up will then get exposed to whatever foods we're eating. And that's what they're going to consider as tasting normal. So if you just continually expose your taste buds to new tastes and flavours, potentially you'll start to get more used to them and they'll be accepted as being quite normal. And then eventually you might decide that you like them. And I say that this is often the case with veggies. So if we think from a historical perspective, veggies actually taste bitter.

So it's very normal for toddlers and young kids to not like vegetables. They taste bitter. And this is for a reason. They taste bitter. Plants developed these chemical compounds so they wouldn't be eaten. So dinosaurs and cows wouldn't eat them. So we pick those up as kids on our taste buds as bitter. Bitter in our brain from caveman times means poison. So don't eat. But again, if we have in our mind that our taste buds change every 10 or so days, if we just keep exposing our taste buds to these and just encourage tasting. You don't have to eat it all, but please just taste it.

Then eventually over time you can broaden that range of different options. Now I'm still waiting for that to happen with Henry. He's very pristine and precise with what he does. But again, even then it's trying not to create the fuss over it. Trying not to create a state of anxiety at the dinner table. It's just like in our family, it's very much the expectation is that you'll always just try and taste new things. You don't have to eat them, but we appreciate that you at least try them before you eat them. How do you take into account like food intolerances as well?

Because again, as you spoke about before, it's probably becoming more of an issue now that we're not exposing ourselves to so many different things and gluten intolerance and things like celiacs. How do you take that into account when we're going through like your four foundational concepts? Yeah, so I think that's why it's really important that you just don't go willy nilly about cutting major food groups out of your diet, because we know that that can have flow on effects in terms of the broad range of nutrients that your body is exposed to, including your gut microbiome.

So I think if you are thinking that you've got some sort of intolerance or an allergy happening, it is important that you get a proper diagnosis and proper guidance from someone who is specialised in that field. Now, even as a dietitian, my specialty is sports dietetics. There are dietitians that are awesomely trained and they specialise into gut intolerances, food allergies and all those sorts of things. So it's really seeking out that professional help and making sure that you're just not doing this blindly and just wanting to cut out gluten because you think it's healthy or it's the in thing to do.

And then once you've actually figured out exactly what it is that might be triggering your situation, it's then making sure you can eat the widest variety of foods around that, whether you need to completely exclude that or eat small amounts up to a threshold point. Cool. Now we have about 10 or so minutes left nearly after, don't worry. Talk to me about fuel school. So what is fuel school for people that haven't seen or potentially don't follow you yet? Because they will after this. What is the new kind of business you eventually go and get? Thanks for asking.

Fuel school is a performance nutrition hub online. So I guess where fuel school has come, so it launches October 17. It does. I have drawn the line in the sand. It is happening and launching in the AFL off season. I actually have a slight amount of time on my sleeve as of next week. So look, over my career and if we take even the AFL draft system each year, I have a new cohort, a brand new awesome footy players that come in and sit in front of me. And typically they're now in the AFL environment. It's the very first time they've ever had a discussion with a dietitian before around their nutrition.

And they're already at the elite level being thrown into incredible training sessions in terms of intensity and duration and all of that. So in terms of what their body is set to go through, they've got very little nutrition knowledge in how to support their body, to fuel their body, look after their body. Yet their training loads just go off the rig to scale. So what I'm trying to do is make performance nutrition readily accessible for the average Aussie family. So I'm creating a performance nutrition program called Fuel School. So it will be six modules of the basic foundations of sports nutrition knowledge and I'm presenting those.

So it's as if you are coming to see me in six consultations, one on one, but in a much more cost effective manner. And then also from that, there'll be a membership platform after that. So pretty much you'll learn the knowledge and then I'll hold your hand to implement the knowledge afterwards if you so choose. I'm pretty passionate about it because I've got so much knowledge and experience and I want to be able to give back and I just can't help the number of Aussie families that I know need the help. And so I just feel that this is the way that I can utilise my expertise and give back.

What's not maybe not your end goal, but like progressively, we obviously you want to see change and things like that. But what does change look like? Confidence around food. I think people are so scared and unsure and confused about how to do something as simple as put food into our mouths. And it's really sad that it creates that much anxiety for so many people. And the fact that so many people exclude significant components of food groups based out of fear. Yeah, it's really concerning. So, yeah, and I think if we can approach that at a

young age, and I see this happen all the time when I work with development athletes versus to an athlete who I meet for the first time when they're already operating at the elite elite level and at the later stages of their career. If I can teach them the fundamentals from an early age and can teach them the importance of mirroring their intake to their training load that it's not normal to not have a period. That ongoing persistent injuries and niggles and getting sick all the time, like that's all not normal. And that's all a sign that you're under fuelling.

I've had lovely situations where I've been working with an athlete and she calls me and says my period didn't come this month. And so straight away we were able to act on it and immediately rectify the situation. That's because she knew and she had that education that it's not OK, it's not normal to not have your period. And then it's just learning, well, crap, I didn't realise because I did that particular training camp and that was at altitude or I did this one here. And that meant I was just expending a lot more energy than what I actually thought that I was.

Pretty powerful that if you can make that behaviour change and the connections at an early age, they can then take that through their career. And I just think how many illnesses, how many injuries could we have prevented? It's not just about having an under fuel body, it's having an under fuel brain. And we see so many brain farts happen on a performance track, on the footy field, on the slopes that result in injury. And I think the big thing, and going back to our conversation around finding the hook or the lure for athletes, the one that I found most pertinent for most athletes is time off training.

Because if you're not training, you can't adapt and improve on your performance and you can't be eyes in front of the coach's eyes. The best quality is availability. I've got lots of analogies to talk to athletes around fueling, but your body, if you're not fueling it enough, it will start to shut down a lot of the background apps. It's in survival mode. So like a mobile phone, when your mobile phone goes into power saver mode, it will shut down background apps that aren't essential for it to function so that you can make that all important SOS emergency call.

Your body does exactly the same thing. So it will start to shut down background processes that aren't essential for your survival. And so it's important that your brain keeps thinking and your heart keeps beating, your lungs keep working. But it's not so important to have an awesome immune system going and recovery then starts to get affected. We start to see hormone production being affected as well. And so that's when we start to see sickness, illness, injury, lots of periods, drops in testosterone kind of important in spoiling context and building muscle. So that all paints the pitch and you kind of, all you have to do is say drops in testosterone in front of a group of AFL boys.

You've got them. Or I wonder why you've been getting all these niggling injuries. Yeah. I think it's still such a huge blind spot just for everyone that life is never as black and white as we want it to be. As much as we want it really simple, there is so many things that make up the way we behave, not just from like an outcome body view, but how our body processes the inputs that you give it that, yes, under eating can give you niggles and injuries. And a lot of people still don't make that bridging connection.

And I think that's what I'm really excited about for field school is that to try and make that different and change behaviour from a way that, hey, this all does make a huge difference and now you know why. And I think from like an athlete point of view, working with so many athletes, like it doesn't matter how hard you train or how well you sleep. If you don't eat well or if you don't recover well or anything that you want, it all comes full circle and it's all part of the big picture. It's not just X equals X and Y equals Z.

They're all coming together and sometimes you're going to have a H in there or sometimes you're going to have a B in there. And that all makes up your ability to perform. It's not just what you do from like a sports specific point of view. Yeah. And I think I often say to athletes is your body's pretty good at being able to handle the training that you throw at it provided you respect it and fuel it appropriately. It's just not going to like it when you're not putting enough petrol in the tank. And I think the other aspect as well is so many athletes I find deliberately under fuel for fear around body composition issues.

And I just want to take the hands, give them a big hug as well. And actually this is where I just walk them through the process of helping them to understand that what you're currently doing in under fuelling is actually making the situation 10 times harder for you. And I have had athlete after athlete after athlete approach me where they've been in situations where the body composition hasn't been ideal for either a coach's perception, their own perception, or potentially they may be legitimately carrying a bit of extra for what their sport from a health perspective and longevity perspective.

But by restricting their intake and under fuelling, the metabolic rate drops, they become fat storing machines and then it just exacerbates the situation. And if we take the focus off the weight and actually make the process the goal, the behaviours, the strategies that you teach them around mirroring intake to training load, eating more when you're training more, working around things like understanding, building foods, fuelling foods colour, how you implement all of that. What you actually see happen is that with all that focus on just looking after your body, respecting your body, fuelling it as it

needs, their body composition actually comes beautifully into line without any stress around measuring skin folds, managing skin folds, what my body fat levels are doing. It's actually, I'm nourishing, nurturing my body. Heck, I'm training awesome as well. I'm not getting these niggles. I'm not getting sick, which means I can have continuity in my training as well. And you just develop a weapon of an athlete that is also, oh look, what it comes, kind of fix itself in the process as well without having to actually focus on it at all and creating a huge big issue out of it.

Yeah, absolutely. With fuel school, and I don't want you to divulge too many secrets, but what do some of the modules include? Just a couple, don't go full into it because I know you want to, but what are some just little snippets? Well, I guess you can probably pick the most significant and first module, a cab of the rank is fuelling your goals around understanding what it takes to fuel your body properly and recognising the signs of under fuelling. That then stems into the foundations of really exploring, you know, fuelling foods, building foods, colour foods and protecting foods, and then how you actually practically take that into fuelling your body on a day-to-day basis.

Really focussing in then on building your day out in terms of general, you know, breakfast, lunches and dinners, but then how do we fuel effectively in terms of pre, during and post training, competition, tournaments, hydration and so forth. So that kind of, again, if you came and saw me five or six times as an individual athlete, you can expect... This is the process. It really is all the key strategies, behaviours and foundations that I teach the elite athletes that I work with. You're privy to exactly the same information, obviously tailored to more of an age group that, as I said, I'm really, really passionate in this development, youth athlete emerging and the multi-sport active adolescent.

Speaking of that, what's your week look like? What does my week look like? Speaking of multi-sport, kids? Yeah, so, yeah, lots and lots of different sport. So I've got three kids, as said, who are all doing lots of different things. So my eldest, April, comes here to train with you. So she's doing strength training. It's a love-hate relationship, she hasn't either. She has athletics and running and life-saving and, oh gosh, I'm just trying to think what else she's up to these days. Henry is like our swimmer and he loves his nippers, life-saving and... He's the early morning.

Basketball. He loves it, though. And then Audie is just the sunshine and lollipops kid who just loves dabbling in a lot of everything. So again, nippers and swimming and basketball and she does singing and drama and Broadway. She loves hanging here and building cubbies. Yeah, that's the thing. We should trademark that. We built some pretty impressive cubbies. Jazz in particular. Jazz is looking a little bit better than mine, though. But, I think that's one of the great things about Curtis as well is the fact that the kids can actually see Mum train. They can do it with you.

Let's go for it. Yeah, and Audie can see Big Sister train and it kind of just is super normal. So it's so normal to be training your body and to be throwing weights around a gym. So then hopefully the girls will develop into adults that think that that's a completely normal, everyday part of life. Yep. Outstanding. Anything else you want to talk about? I've got a few little questions at the end, but like little short, sharp questions. Mate, I could talk. You've got me on the soapbox around nutrition. I can talk, if you need to. Alright, I have a few questions from the gallery that are stored up here.

Peanut butter, are you a fan? Yes, absolutely crunchy all the way. Oh, the hell's it got to be on the next one? Peanut butter and apple, if you haven't tried it. Okay, so this question came from Tess Rolley and she's obsessed with peanut butter and apples. I wasn't a kid who ever really had peanut butter or I can tell her any of those kind of spreads. So the peanut butter is sneaky new at Smoothie Club. They're becoming more regular, but it was a crunchy or a smooth, but then what's your favourite addition to peanut butter? Apple.

Apple. I do like just peanut butter on toast though. It's awesome. And that's a great snack as well. Yep. So if I'm like doing a smoothie, I'll often do a smoothie with a slice of whole grain toast and peanut butter. Yeah, nice. Awesome. Ben Raisingburger, so one of our clients here had a question on brekkie burgers, which you're not going to answer. I'm going to answer for him because he's obsessed with brekkie burgers. Brekkie burgers being? In particular Commenfolk's brekkie burger. Right. Ben has an oddly weird obsession with brekkie burgers. He would like to know how many is too many and Ben, I'm going to say you need one every day for your mental health.

That's all I'm going to say. So I have no idea what the Commenfolk brekkie burger looks like, but what I can say is that I do serve bacon egg rolls up at North and we often have them as kind of a weekend, I would say almost lunch probably more so, but whole grain roll avo. So automatically we've got our fueling carbs. We've got our healthy fats protecting our bodies. Then we do use egg and bacon. Yep. All right. And then spinach and tomato in there. Perfect. So we're hitting all those four key points, color and then building the protein.

Yeah that Ben, add your avocado because none of that add avocado all the time. Another question from not one of our clients, but someone in the community, exercise, weight loss, nutrition with menopause. How does that, what are you kind of taking into account that you may not necessarily in other situations? There's some great information coming through. And again, we've got dietitians now that are specializing in this field and I've got an awesome colleague and friend, Angelique Clark, who is an accredited sports dietitian as well, advanced sports dietitian. She's really focusing in on this area. And there's so much to explore.

I mean, this is the area where I am. My kids are getting older and I'm getting older as well. It's really interesting. I think one of the big things is lift. Women need to be lifting and that's probably one of the key things. And I really only took on board strength training. I'm coming through and showing my age in terms of generations here, but it was always just cardio. I've always been a long distance runner and I've kind of always done pump, but you know, started properly lifting. We all know what you mean, don't worry. We all know what it means.

Lifting proper weights. After Henry was born 2010, so I guess now 12 or so years that I've actually been what I would consider strength training and it's just awesome. Awesome insight anyways. Getting there. Getting there? You can't. You're there. I have videos to prove it. Haven't hit my goal yet. You keep moving the goalposts, that's why. No, no, no. Goal five processes the goal. I had one more question and I can't remember what it was now, so that's going to annoy me. Oh, that's going to annoy me now. No, I don't have another question. Guess what, Elle?

What? We're done. Aw. How'd you find it? Oh, fantastic. Thank you for showing the interest in nutrition and thank you for seeking reputable advice for that. Well, when I asked you to do it, you replied in I think 90 seconds, said yes, I'm out. Not that we can already talk underwater, but this is a nice little modality that some people can learn off some of the cool things you're doing and then also with the field school and stuff coming off of a way that they can start to implement some of this stuff as well. Yeah, no.

And if you're ever in training at the same time as me, you won't ask me any questions. Sometimes you drift off the ferries, but you're allowed to. This is your space. No, I'm in the zone. That's the ferries. The zone is the ferries. I'm the tiger playing in the background in my mind. I don't have to work anymore. Or in your case today, I don't have to go and do three other jobs at this meeting and X this and drive there. Well, at least just for that hour. This is Elle's space. We're working on ourself. And you've hit the nail on the head there.

Training and exercise to me is mental health. Yeah. I understand. It's a space that you can come and work on you. And for everyone who has demanding jobs or multiple contracts or three kids, you name it, everything that you do, we all need something that allows us to be who we want to be or also give us a space to do something for ourselves, which is what you do well. So good job you. Thanks, T. Well, we're done. Thanks, mate. And on Lucy's note, as everyone's starting to like and enjoy, I need to find the right button.

Have a good day.