Automatically transcribed, so expect the odd wrong name or word.
Welcome back to another episode of the Virtus podcast. This is one that I know a lot of our family are excited for, especially myself. I've been keen to get you on for a while Claire. Claire's been with us for how long now? Beginning of the year pretty much, yeah. Claire is our new resident nutritionist and as you can tell by the accent, she is not from Australia. No. Before we get stuck into it Claire, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got over to Australia and a little bit about your early life?
Yeah, it's funny you should say that actually because at the moment all my kids are saying 'your accent's all over the place'. Some people think it's Aussie, some English but… You just decide on the day don't you? Yeah, it just changes. But yeah, born in England, raised in England and then London most of the time, kind of in the middle of England for my education then moved to London for work. Then decided to escape the rat race, raise the children somewhere else and chose Australia. Yeah and… And that was about 15 years ago. Yeah, that was going to be my next question.
How have you found the transition? Yeah, amazing. We did actually go back. We were here for a good 8 years and then we went back, tried to make it work in England but after 3 years we just missed it so much and the kids missed it so we came back. So I'm a ping pong pom. Claire, you said you had kids. Tell the audience just how many children you have. Well we have 7. So 3 are my own. I've got 3 boys and my partner has 4. So there's 7 in the mix. How's life in a house with 7 children?
It's awesome actually. People look at me when I tell them they're like 'oh my god' and one person even said to me 'oh that's ghastly'. I was like 'that's so rude'. It's a bit over the top. It's such a blessing really. We're very lucky they all get along really well. There's some beautiful friendships forming amongst them. Yeah sometimes it's noisy and it can be really busy but it's fun. Dinner times are the best. Actually having 9 around the dinner table is just great fun. We always practice cool gratitudes at dinner. It's just fun. And someone from myself coming from a small family.
The only time we'd have 9 around the dinner table was at Christmas and even then it'd only be every few Christmases so every day would just be a party. Who would have kept you entertained during lockdown and Covid? That's when it was a little bit more challenging. Like trying to work from home when you've got kids that need to be entertained. Because some of them are a bit younger so they need a bit of entertaining. That was a challenge yeah but it's just a lot of fun. If everyone is around the dinner table it always ends up in some kind of ruckus or game.
We've had huge hide and seeks and even with the 20 year olds they're all down for it. It's brilliant. I love me a game of hide and seek. How old is the youngest? Seven. Okay so you've got a really broad spectrum there. Seven to twenty. You are our resident nutritionist. Tell us a little bit about how you got started in the industry. Your experiences along the way and perhaps people that have shaped your belief systems and what not. Yeah well I went to university and studied biology so I've always had a real keen interest in the human body and then I started becoming more interested in sport myself.
Believe it or not played rugby at university. Little old me. Didn't know that. Not very well not for very long but anyway it kind of sparked my interest into being an athlete that wants to be strong and powerful as well is just it. So then the two just kind of kept marrying up for me you know how to eat well to perform well and feel better. And then the interest that deeper interest into the science of the human body. So once I came to Australia really I started doing more PT work personal training getting really into that and a little bit of nutrition on the side kind of wasn't qualified yet but I was just so.
It was an area of interest. Yeah I kind of help a few friends out along the way and stuff and always experimenting on myself. I was like my own guinea pig a lot of the time. And then I stumbled across CrossFit and it just ticked all the boxes for me you know strong powerful fast all those things loads of new skills to learn all the time and then that just pushed my interest in nutrition even further so I started coaching CrossFit. Doing even more research into nutrition eventually decided to take the plunge and study nutrition and was that fueled by desire to learn how to feel best to perform for CrossFit.
It was initially yeah because when I started CrossFit it was kind of what it just burst onto the scene and there was a huge interest in like the paleo diet. So I just took a deep dive into that and it just yeah it just stayed with me and I just kept wanting to learn more and more so I tried just about everything every diet that's out there I've tried it because I just so interested to see if it worked. And yeah that's one of my big training philosophies too and I guess the training in nutrition
they are a little bit intrinsically linked like I've tried just about every single training fad under the sun just to see how it works like I think being your own guinea pig in your own science experiment is the best way to do things. So you said you started with biology you started studying biology what did you initially want to be before you got into nutrition? I always had these like fantasies that I'd do medicine. That was always the goal. Not that I have any regrets in life but maybe if I'd pull my socks off at school and didn't have as much fun as an adolescent maybe I would have gone down that route my brother did.
But yeah I just didn't behave myself in school didn't get the grades so and I loved biology and I got in to study it so. Yeah that's a fantastic segue into my next question in what was life like growing up in the UK as Claire Power? Cold and grey. I don't know if you've been to the UK but it feels like the sky sits here. But there are some parts of England that are beautiful like where my parents lived up in North Yorkshire so right up near Scotland you know it's beautiful it really is. I had three older brothers they gave me you know.
So you were the youngest of four? Yeah the only girl and the youngest so I got yeah I copped quite a bit off my brothers. But surely would have had three older brothers there to protect you too? They did protect me at the same time but a lot of the time they wanted to get rid of me and in fact one of my brothers he was doing this like cadet army training thing at school. And he dressed me up in all of his camouflage gear and put it on my face and I thought it was the coolest thing ever.
He was like go into the garden because you'll be fully camouflaged and we won't be able to see you. I can see where this is going. I was almost there hiding away for ages thinking this is so cool they actually can't see me and of course they could they just wanted to get me out of the house. Oh my goodness. How old were you when that happened did you say? About 16, no about 6. Jeepers. Yeah. Very good. From there you came over to Australia. How did you find us here at Virtus? Because that's a question I don't know the answer to either.
Oh well I moved down to the peninsula about five or six years ago and pursued CrossFit still but I was travelling back to Cheltenham to do that. Which just wasn't sustainable especially when COVID hit and all the rest of it. So I needed to find the next best thing and I knew that I actually needed a break from doing CrossFit anyway. Because I'd coached and had quite a deep journey into lots of different versions of training I was really really fussy about where I wanted to go. So I tried loads of things I had a
really because I knew I was having that break from CrossFit I thought I'm gonna have an open mind and try lots of things even try pole dancing like I was just gonna put myself out there and see what's available. But I just loved the culture when I dropped into Virtus and I loved the way I loved the programming for a start because I'd had enough of smashing my body. I just wanted to stay strong get stronger for longevity that was like my only real goal at that time and it just ticked the boxes. And that's
a common theme I see like when it gets to that point a lot of people just want to be able to do the things they love doing pain free and for as long as physically possible. And so they've just got to pick a method of training that's going to help facilitate the things that they want to do. It's fun along the way if you're not enjoying it. Yeah a great community of people that makes it easy to come into work or come in to train and just come and hang out. I remember it was earlier this year I believe you came and did a free seminar for the Virtus family and I always get nervous with that sort of stuff.
I don't know why I'm just a bit funny with nutrition I think it is because it is similar to training and strength and conditioning it is such a jungle out there on social media so I'm always just a bit iffy. But I remember you came and blew me away and I was really really wrapped with your seminar you did for the fam. Thought it was phenomenal really evidence based and just no bullshit. You said you've dipped your toe into just about every single fad diet under the sun. Do you want to give us a really really condensed overview of some of your learnings with your own nutrition along the journey?
Yeah I think one of the things that can annoy me the most is people eliminating entire food groups in the diet for no reason. If you've got an allergy to a food or intolerance then yes we need to eliminate it. But other than that why would you deprive your body of so many available nutrients usually just in an effort to lose weight. We'll probably talk about why you would lose weight later on if you do do that. But yeah complete elimination of food groups and I think looking for shortcuts as well. You know there's like you say social media is flooded with all these fad diets and protocols you know especially when it comes to hormonal stuff.
There's so many supplements you know take this pill and you'll lose your belly fat in nine days. It draws parallels to the training journey, everyone's looking for a shortcut, everyone's looking for the magic bullet and it simply just doesn't exist. No that's yeah so six-week challenges things like that to lose weight they can annoy me as well because nutrition's a long-term thing you know. Any other learnings throughout that journey of dipping your toe into the water? Yeah I've definitely learned the importance of nutrient density but on the other hand the flip side not to demonize food either.
Like I don't think there's any there's such a thing as bad food there's just food that provides more nutrition than other food. That's you know keep it simple yeah. Yeah and it was a big rabbit hole and trap I fell into with myself. Last year I got so obsessed with nutrient density and perhaps avoiding foods that may or may not have been inflammatory and bad for my system. And it was the stress of actually trying so hard to eat everything organic grass-fed organic meat and everything just so nutrient-dense that actually probably wreaked more havoc on my health than just chilling out and sort of eating whatever worked for me.
Yeah it's really interesting to have a go at that stuff I did a similar thing and went a real deep dive I cut out heaps of stuff. I was literally eating like duck eggs and trying to source all these. Duck eggs? Yeah just to get that broader range of nutrients and trying to source all the you know salmon that was wild caught. It was really expensive and just not sustainable. And were all seven children in the house following along? No that was life before seven kids. Oh yeah that's it because it is quite a hit
on the wallet and I think what I didn't realize is you don't have to fork out for the the top shelf grass-fed organic biodynamic meat or salmon like you know near enough is good enough and it's not a long-term thing like one day hopefully you have the resources in which you can buy the top notch but like near enough in the short term is good enough. Yeah there's there's some things that I do choose to spend a bit more money on and that would be the stuff that matters to me so that's like the fruit and veg.
Yeah I wouldn't mind spending more while I do spend more money on that because I eat it the kids all eat it so I want to make sure it's as fresh as possible. Yeah absolutely. Lasts longer too so you actually it probably does work out the same or if not cheaper if that fruit and veg isn't being thrown out after a couple of days. Yeah and from an ethical standpoint for mine things like open range eggs and wild caught fish as opposed to farmed or caged is a big one for me that I'm happy to spend a couple of extra dollars on.
Hey just circling back to your kids how did you find life I guess preparing and cooking and financially affording food and meals for seven children in the house? Yeah I actually did a story about it last week because a few people were asking me how do I do it. So I have to plan the dinners otherwise I can end up doubling the food bill if we're just doing it on the fly. So I plan all of the dinners and I always have in the back of my mind that that will do lunches for X, Y and Z's.
Yeah leftovers for X, Y and Z's lunches the next day and then it is a bit of a round trip because I'll go to the farm to get my fruit and veggies and I might go somewhere else for meat and fish and then the supermarket just for kind of staples. So it's anything between three and five hundred dollars a week to feed all of us. Oh boy. That includes breakfast, lunches you know all the snacky stuff because there are kids I'm not going to say there's going to be no chips in the house and no Tim Tams.
Of course there is you know. Totally. I try and home bake I can't do I can't keep up with them so and there's teenagers they come down at midnight and it's all gone. Yeah so I plan it and I do try and keep it economical in terms of cuts of meat like corned beef and so on and my partner's Irish so he's great with potatoes. There's lots of mashed potatoes going down so yeah we do try and keep the cost down where we can but also I try and put out good dinners because that's the only meal really I have control over.
Yeah do you have any tips and tricks for the audience for like some really cheap and this is one of the questions here from Bailey Schmidt actually some really cheap and quick and easy substitutes or hacks in regards to nutrition. And I'll put you right on the spot here so take your time if you need to think about it. Well things like lentils are really good they're cheap and get them anywhere and they're great for bulking out dishes like if you were doing a bolognese or something you can just add in a can of lentils. And define bulking out dishes just for more satiety just to make you fuller.
Yeah lentils are going to make you fuller because they're so high in protein and fibre but also it's going to make the meal go further so you know if you make a spagged bowl put some lentils in you're probably going to get two meals. And for seven children that's huge. So that's a good way to do it just thinking about how to bulk it out and what else did you say? His words were just some quick and easy hacks to be healthier like substituting something out for something else. Yeah fruit and veg getting more fruit and veg in.
Good hack is if you make smoothies which are great for busy people and it's really good if the fruit's just going a little bit too ripe stick it in a smoothie rather than wasting it. So I get zip lock bags and I put that fruit that's just about to go in a zip lock and then in the freezer. So when a kid wants a smoothie or anyone wants a smoothie you can chuck it in straight from the freezer with your milk protein powder. That's something I'm really guilty of as soon as my fresh fruit's going off it's gone.
So that needs to go in a zip lock bag in the freezer and then blended. You've tried just about every diet under the sun. What are your thoughts on optimal nutrition? One is it a thing and two yeah like if so what is it and does it exist or is it just going to differ from person to person? Yeah it's going to differ from person to person but there's no such thing as a perfect diet or perfect optimal nutrition because if we chase perfection we're going to fail on that front. It doesn't exist. It doesn't exist no.
So we're just aiming for consistent consistency really a good diet most of the time. So it is going to change from person to person because some people are just too busy to be able to execute certain things like some people are too busy to cook from scratch every day. And some people are high performing athletes so their need is going to be completely different to the next person. That person, a high performance athlete, we may be able to talk then about sports supplements like Grateen and so on. So their diet is going to look very
different to someone who is just trying to lose weight and knows absolutely nothing about nutrition or how to eat well, how to eat right for them. And that's one thing I found like I guess lucky enough that I can work from home when I'm not here and when I'm here I'm usually here for a little split shift in the morning or afternoon. I have the freedom to cook every meal every day if I wanted to but I've got to realise and tell myself that not everybody has that luxury so again the perfect nutrition for me is not going to be perfect for someone else that doesn't have the luxury of going home and cooking all their meals.
And I guess the perfect nutrition of some of the people that I follow on Instagram again is different to mine because I really last year when I had lockdown and all the time in the world, couldn't go out, couldn't do anything. I really deep dived on my nutrition for about four months, everything organic, filtered water, no inflammatory junk, nothing and my health and skin and everything was probably in a worse condition just due to the stress of stressing over it than it is now and I'm pretty much eating almost whatever I want. I'm still eating really nutrient dense high quality foods but enjoying myself.
I'm a real embodiment of the 80/20 rule. People come to me and they are literally living on ready meals. For them optimum nutrition for the next couple of months might look like well you're going to drink two litres of water now and you're going to have two pieces of fruit. For them that's about all they can manage initially so that's their optimum diet for now. You're not going to flip that on its head and say I need you eating everything organic right now. It's unsustainable. It's like the person that's never trained before or hasn't trained for 20 years, you're not going to get them in doing five sessions a week.
It's incredibly unrealistic. Hey we're about 20 minutes in. I'm going to start to throw to a few random questions that we got from the Virtus family throughout the week. You can feel free to spend as little or as much time on each one as you want. We sort of bounce off one another and we can go down some rabbit holes so we'll try and keep each other on track. First one here, I'll keep my mouth shut because I've got some pretty strong opinions on it so I'm not going to say anything and I'll just let you do the talking.
This is your podcast. How to get enough iron on a plant-based diet and increase that bioavailability which is a fancy word for absorption pretty much. So it is going to be harder to get as much iron in on a plant-based diet. It's not impossible but kind of non-heme, so non-animal sources of iron. So non-heme sources are legumes, beans, leafy green vegetables but those non-heme sources are not as easily absorbed. The iron from them isn't as easily absorbed as animal sources. So you're going to have to pay really close attention to that if you're not eating animal-based sources of iron.
I'm a bit ignorant here. Is that literally a matter of just eating more quantity or are there some things you can do to help improve that absorption? Vitamin C really helps the absorption of iron. I prescribe an iron supplement, drink it with some orange juice to help the absorption. So I've learned something. So you could eat some legumes and beans and then hypothetically have a vitamin C chewable tablet and that would help increase that absorption. The good thing is those leafy greens that are rich in iron are also rich in vitamin C anyway so the absorption shouldn't be too much of a problem.
We just need to think about volume to hit that quota in the first place. How was your experience on the vegan diet? That was the one thing I didn't do. I was actually really, really keen to hear that. No, I didn't do it. One of the kids is a vegetarian. We managed that fine. It's good. It encourages everyone else to eat more vegetables because I have to think about what I'm serving her. There are some things to watch out for and because Ruby's a teenage girl as well I'm kind of conscious that we really need to pay attention to her iron.
It's a huge rapid growth age anyway and then when girls start menstruating we can have an added pressure on the body for that iron. Also the B12 as well which has similar benefits to iron though it can be easy to become deficient in those two things. So I always say to people if you are worried about it, if you're not sure you're getting enough iron, if there's any symptoms of low iron like dizziness, pallor, breathlessness, lethargy then go and get your iron levels tested because it's no fun if you're deficient in iron and you end up anemic.
Needing an infusion? Yeah, some people have to have regular infusions and that's not much fun so we need to stay on top of that. You briefly touched on menstruation, any general nutrition advice for PCOS? Yeah it's hard to condense PCOS. You could spend an hour on this. It's extremely common, I think it's the most common endocrine issue we see in women and I think the big association with PCOS and weight is that a lot of women with PCOS are overweight. But it's not because the PCOS is gone to them because they're overweight. PCOS doesn't discriminate
so anybody can have it but what it does do is interfere with your insulin and not in all cases but a lot of the cases which makes managing weight harder for those women. So if you are insulin resistant then that needs guidance with your diet. Obviously your calorie requirements are going to be altered if you're insulin resistant. Do you just quickly for the audience just want to explain insulin resistance? Yeah so it just means that you are less sensitive so your insulin just isn't working as properly. You're less sensitive so if you're having carbohydrates in your diet your insulin is just not as sensitive to your nice insulin response.
So it's just not going to be doing its job as effectively which is transporting the energy into... And is that going to mean just elevated blood sugars? Yeah it can do and storage of fat. So insulin is going to transport the energy glucose from your blood and distribute it to your liver and your cells and your fat. So if it's not doing that properly we are going to get problems with weight. And what, I guess it's hard to condense but any just general advice or things that you've implemented with some of your clients with PCOS?
Yeah one thing that has been shown to be really quite effective in recent studies is reducing overall calorie intake just for two days of the week. Doing very low calorie for two days and then kind of normal calories for the rest of the week not a deficit or a surplus. Just maintenance. That's been shown to be quite effective. Reducing carbohydrate has its place. It can be quite effective as well although I like to refine that a bit further with reducing carbs. I'm a bit fearful of that especially for women who are training. And that just goes back to what you said before you don't like eliminating whole food groups?
No. But weight loss for PCOS is one of the best things you can do to alleviate your symptoms. It can't cure PCOS, we can't cure it but it can have a huge impact on the symptoms. And is that an instance where you do prescribe training? Yeah I would do. I prescribe training in many forms to most of my clients whether that be walking starting with once a week if we're starting from nothing right through to helping elite athletes. That's the importance of us here at Virtus being a gym that is linked with a nutritionist such as yourself because it is all holistically integrated similar to you.
We have to prescribe nutrition. We have to refer people up to you. Both you and I, we are coaches. Your job isn't solely nutrition and ours isn't solely training. It is all intrinsically linked. Yes. Bear with me. I've lost my place on this note page. There was an interesting one on antinutrients on top. There was? Yeah. Because there is a lot of content out on social media from the meat based community that vegetables do contain a lot of antinutrients. Do you want to dive into what antinutrients are? Are they something to be fearful of and if so how can we mitigate their harm?
Antinutrients, there are some compounds in vegetables that could interfere with the absorption of other compounds. For example, broccoli and kale, those vegetables contain a compound that could interfere with the absorption of iodine which could then in turn affect your thyroid function. Yep. And I think if we are going to start sweating stuff on this scale, you are really going to run into problems. We are going to end up where you and I were, living on duck eggs and trying to source. It gets too much. Okay, if you have problems with your thyroid, then yeah you could look at that.
There are so many ways that you can, if you are worried about antinutrients, is reduce them by cooking, steaming, fermenting, basically just how we cook vegetables anyway. Vegetables bring such an abundance of nutrition. I would be really disappointed if people started turning away vegetables because they are worried about antinutrients. Just for the small, small. Tiny, it's minute. Please don't sweat that small stuff. When traditionally prepared by cooking, you are mitigating pretty much 100% of the risk. And again, that's a trap I fell into last year too. On the vegan v carnivore, would a carnivore diet increase a risk of gout or how can you get more nutrients in on a meat based diet?
You mean purely meat like this carnivore? Yeah, I don't have it on my sheet here but one friend asked me how do you get more nutrients in on a meat based diet or can that diet increase your risk of nutrient deficiencies? Absolutely it could. If that meat, you are eating too much animal protein and you are pushing out any room for fruit and veg and grains, of course you are going to be missing out on loads of nutrition. So I don't like the idea at all really. It could leave you deficient in veg and minerals for sure.
You said, we touched on nutrient density before. This isn't really a question here, it just says nutrient density vs calorie counting. I guess I'll add on to this question, how do we find that good balance? For a lot of people that come to me, we are working from the foundation, the base, we look at nutrition, nutrient density before we even talk about calorie counting. There is a misconception out there that if you go and see nutritionists they are going to tell you how many calories to eat or they are going to send you away with a diet plan.
This is what you are going to eat Monday to Friday. That's not the way I work anyway. I want to look at how nutrient dense is your diet. Are you getting everything that you need? I love that. We'll start there first and then we'll look at everything else around that. That involves your lifestyle too. Once we start improving that general foundation, building that good base, and by the way that includes stress, sleep and water. We need to refine it because that person does want to lose some weight so we need to implement a deficit. Or that person wants to gain weight or they want to make weight for competition.
Then it becomes appropriate to count calories. That can be done in a variety of ways. We can count our calories ourselves using my fitness paddle or nutritionist. I might do that behind the scenes, give them some food lists and I know that if they eat off that list they are going to fall into the profile I have set for them. I love that because one of my big values is health. I know health underpins every single physical quality and training adaptation that you could want. You can't get stronger, you can't perform, you can't lose weight on a base of really shitty health.
It underpins everything and I think one of my biggest gripes with the industry is we have these social media pages and they are comparing Maccas burgers. They are saying if you want to be healthier opt for this Maccas burger instead of this one because it's got 50 less calories and I think they are just missing the boat completely. When you can't lose weight or gain muscle, perform well, if you aren't getting an abundance of micronutrients in to have healthy cells and support every chemical reaction that's got to take place in your body. That was one thing that my coach hammered home with me before he put me on a caloric surplus.
He wanted to make sure my health was in tip top condition to deal with the extra inflammatory and digestive load of more food in the system. And again this is another one, eating for aesthetics versus eating for health. How do we draw that balance? So a lot of my clients will come to me because they want to change the way they look and straight away for me that will then instigate further investigation into their mental health. Obviously if they require any counselling, if I feel they do, that's out of my scope and I'll refer them on.
But if somebody is unhappy with their body image, where is that coming from? Is that causing them to have a poor relationship with food? Are they eating their emotions? Are they restricting food? Are they counting calories? Are they exercising just to lose weight? I really like to get into the nitty gritty of that with people. Otherwise it doesn't matter what plan I put them on, we're not going to have a great success rate if they have a poor relationship with food and this is just about aesthetics. So I really encourage people to improve their relationship
with food and have a deep dive and look inside when it comes to their body image and why they might not be feeling so great about themselves. And then try and direct the nutrition towards this is going to make you, good nutrition is going to give you good energy then you're going to feel more like doing some exercise. You're going to have better energy to do better in your sport, at school, in your relationships, general life and good food is going to help you with your immune system, you're not going to get sick as often, your skin is going to feel better.
It's about protecting your long term health as well, short term health and long term health. So I kind of direct them towards why we're going to have good nutrition and that's not necessarily what's going to get you a six pack. But is a six pack going to make you happy? Really? Is anyone going to love you more or less if you've got a six pack? No. And that's great because we have all new members fill out a holistic wellness scale, which is pretty much 10 components of their life, which I'm pretty sure you would have filled in when you first joined up.
And that's your hydration, sleep quantity, sleep quantity, sleep quantity, sleep quality, stress levels, all these different aspects of your life, which when you look at them, you don't think, oh, that's going to help me reach my goals. But as you said, if your nutrition is on point, your immunity is going to be on point. If you've got good immune health, you're not going to get sick. If you're not going to get sick, then you can consistently train multiple days a week. If you're training well, you're probably sleeping well. If you're sleeping well, then you're recovering. So it's just all intrinsically linked.
We did dabble on immunity there. What are some immune health hacks that you might have for the family? Me and you chatted about this before because as the audience might be able to hear, I'm sounding a little bit nasally, I'm a little bit under the weather. You gave some great ones to me off the camera before. Do you just want to delve briefly into your best immune health supplements and supports? Yeah, well, I guess I've seen heaps of COVID and flu and everyone's immune system seems a bit out of whack right now, which is we should talk about why after this.
So for those illnesses that I'm seeing at the moment, I'm getting people to drink lots of water and take lots of rest. Do not rush back to the gym until you're feeling 100% and then when you do, start back easy. That's it, because you're training a stressor. Exactly, we want to reduce the stress. And then supplements, vitamin C, but we need a really good vitamin C, like a powder is actually easily absorbed. So good brands like Bioceuticals. It's worth spending the money when it comes to supplements. So good vitamin C powder, zinc is great and zinc picolante is the most easily absorbed as well.
You might have to go through the internet. So you recommend Bioceuticals again for that? No, I think Thorne online do that. That's really funny. My coach says Thorne and Bioceuticals are two of the best supplement brands. Yeah, it's always worth spending the money on it. So yeah, zinc, vitamin C, olive leaf extract as well is a good one. I use this Metagenics blend of mushrooms. I've always used it every time I've been run down. So yeah, I recommend people use that as well. Yeah, cool. And then in regards to whole foods, what are some of the most nutrient dense foods out there?
Like soups, everyone says have soup when you're sick, but actually is one of the best things you can do because you can chuck so many veggies in there and you can chuck some protein in there. You can add bone broth, some herbs and spices. You can just pack it full of nutrients. You can blend it or you can have a chunky, you know, depending on what your taste buds are doing. So you're not talking like the packs of powdered soup that you can buy, you're talking like an actual proper homemade. But you know, if you've got a slow cook or just a big iron pot, just tuck it all in, put it in the oven and forget about it.
It's not that hard. I love that. Intimate and fasting, is this a diet that you tested when you're on your little science experiments of yourself? I have tested it and I last about three days. I couldn't do it. A lot of my best friends are right into it and it works for them. And I guess that's the kicker. If it works for you, then brilliant. Do you want to dive into what it is? Is it worth doing and why it may work for some people and why it may not work for others? So intermittent fasting is just you have an eating window.
So you allow yourself to eat between hours of say midday and 6pm. The rest of the time you don't. You can drink water, but that's it pretty much. Most of the time it's been used for weight loss. I think that's how it got fashionable, people losing weight on it. People lose weight on it because it just reduces the amount of time with which you can eat. So if you're suddenly skipping a meal, which you're probably going to be doing if you're doing intermittent fasting like breakfast or dinner, you've skipped potentially to 600 calories. So yeah, you're going to lose weight.
There's no magic beyond that in terms of the weight loss. Some people think it might have something to do with eating in accordance to your circadian rhythm. I don't think there's enough science backing that one. Some people feel better eating alongside their circadian rhythm. If it makes you feel better, then cool, go for it. There's a few things I don't like about it and that's I don't necessarily like training fasted. Join the club. Some people thrive off it. I'm not one of those people. You know, some people actually hate having food in their belly when they train and if it makes them feel yuck and they don't enjoy training, then don't eat, then that's okay.
But maybe that's a time you could look at some intra workout carbohydrates or some BCAA just to mitigate any stress you could be experiencing by training fasted. But I like food to train. I think people train better on food. Absolutely. And I like food after training. I like food before bed because it helps you sleep better. Food is fuel. I just love food. Back on that BCAA because a lot of influencers on social media love to shit on BCAA's and I don't think they're 100% necessary at all. But I don't think there's any reason to shit on them.
Do you want to quickly delve into what they are and how they can be of benefit? So the branch chain amino acids, there's 21 amino acids and we need all of them to stimulate muscle protein synthesis. Leucine being the biggest trigger for muscle growth. So to hit all of those 21 amino acids, we need to have a really nice varied amount of protein in our diet. If we're just having chicken and eggs, we're not going to hit all 21. We need to have fish and red meat and pulses and so on. So if people aren't having a varied amount of protein in their diet, BCAA's can help bring you up to hitting that profile of 21 amino acids.
So I think they have a place then. And I also have been reading a lot lately about the benefits of leucine for women during their period or in the run up to their period. It can really help mitigate those feelings of fatigue and brain fog. So I'm asking my females who suffer with PMS to have BCAA's or just leucine in the week before the period if they're feeling a bit fatigued and perhaps don't really want to go to the gym. Any good brands of leucine or BCAA that you'd recommend for the family? I just think
with any supplement, pick the brand that's not got an ingredients list as long as you have the stuff and then you can't pronounce, let alone know what it is and avoid it. That's great advice. On the supplement chat, creatine is one of my absolute favourite supplements. Incredibly well researched, incredibly beneficial. Is a loading phase necessary? asks Matthew Bullis. Not necessary. You can do it if you want to. There are some benefits around loading for five days. If you had 20 grams for the five days, if muscle gain is really what you're after here with the creatine, then loading for five days is fine.
It can be advantageous. And then after that, it doesn't matter whether you train or not, creatine happens every day. Five milligrams every day. Yeah, that's your maintenance dose. Yeah, creatine is great. Good supplement. And just clarifying for the people listening that may not know the loading phase, that's just simply a week of having a higher dose before you get into your normal dose of five grams a day. Yeah, just brings you up to a nice level and then you just go on to maintenance to keep it there. Give it a kickstart. Is there need to increase dose once you're a few months into supplementing with creatine and maybe you've plateaued with strength or anything?
No, just stay on that same dose. Sweet. Very good. Hey, a day in the life of Claire now, so not necessarily what you get up to, but the food you fuel yourself with, and that's going to change depending on the day and whether it's a weekend or whether it's your birthday, which it was the other day. Happy birthday for Monday. But a general day in the life of Claire, what do you fuel yourself with? What are some of your favourite foods to get an abundance of nutrients from? What perhaps do you not like? Reiki, that changes if I'm going to work out, then I opt for fast carbs, such as I'll go white bread, ripe banana, quick oats.
These are carbohydrates that don't have as much fibre in them, so you're going to get the energy from them a lot quicker. And yeah, that pre-workout breakfast, I would avoid protein and fat then as well, maybe a little bit of protein, but I just want energy fast. So if I'm not training, then I'll go more heavier on protein and fat, so love my eggs and love smashed avo on toast and with goat's cheese and chilli, I'm a chilli fiend. So Reiki, yeah, depends on the training. Lunch, luckily live around the corner so I can nick home for lunch most days and I usually have leftovers for what we've had for dinner.
Snacks, I always refuel after training as well. I really try and get in protein, good server protein, 20 grams and some more fast carbs within an hour of training. In regards to that protein, is there a quantifiable number that is good for everyone or again, is that going to depend from person to person? What should the audience try and hit in regards to their protein goal? Yeah, well I think looking at a minimum of 20 grams post your workout, but you know, if you're... Sorry, I thought you were going to say 20 grams today and I nearly fell over.
20 grams post workout. Post workout. So if you're a big dude and you've got massive protein requirements and we need to split that across five meals a day, it might be 40 grams for you. But I aim for 20 grams as kind of baseline after a workout. Yeah, nice. Are you a coffee drinker? Yep. I know the answer to this, but just for the audience, you're a coffee drinker? I think you saw me have an afternoon coffee for the first time in a long time the other day because I was just running on fumes. But normally I'd stop my coffees in the morning.
What are your general thoughts and consensus around caffeine and coaching? Coffee is one of the best pre-workouts you can get. Absolutely. Yes, it's safe, provided you're not like an anxious person and it triggers those feelings or keeps you awake. It's safe, it's effective, it's brilliant. You know, it's ready to go in 40 minutes after you've taken it and it will keep you going through your workout. Caffeine is going to give you some extra reps for sure. Because I'm one that can crash, like I love a coffee, but I can crash in the mid-afternoon. Do you have any tips on how to mitigate a potential crash?
Keeping your lunch is actually a little bit smaller to help with that crash because that's like post-prandial fatigue. It's like when your stomach's working really hard to digest a big meal, it can cause that post-lunch crash. So is that like the food coma sort of thing? Yes, that's why you fall asleep after Christmas dinner. So maybe having a snack after your training, getting those fast carbs and protein in after training, and then you might not need such a heavy lunch then. That can help. A lot of people just crave sugar around that time. Grab some fruit then, have some sugar.
In the summer I have icy poles at three o'clock. They're my go-to. It's only a few calories that taste yummy. Zoopa Doopa? Yeah, they're the best. Nothing wrong with Zoopa Doopas. Pre-training or footy match, what's an ideal time window? I asked this question a few weeks ago at footy. One of the senior lads, it was about midday, so about two hours before he was meant to play, and he was tucking into a big pass and all the boys were laughing at him saying he was going to have full guts trying to run around and play footy.
They asked me my opinion because I work in a gym but I'm not a nutritionist and I didn't really have much of an idea. How soon before the game? It was about two hours. Yeah, it was a bit too long. So what's an ideal time window and amount of food and I guess breakdown of macronutrients prior to a game such as footy? So like three or four hours before, so if you've got an early game I guess you're going to apply this to dinner, but you want a good amount of fast carbs, so again those low fibre carbs, so heaps of pasta, heaps of rice and some protein in there as well.
Not a huge amount, just a single serve of protein. Is there a reason for that? Because it slows down the release of the energy from the fast carbs. So we just want to keep, it's all carb orientated, it's all fuel at the end of the day. So three or four hours you want that big meal, fast carbs, protein and then an hour right up to 30 minutes before the game, more fast carbs, top up those stores. But not too much, like I love, I've just helped a team of footy boys recently and I've just told
them to go white bread and jam or honey, like half an hour before the game and they were flying apparently, so topping up the fast carbs. You did spend some time with Balnaring Football Club doing some seminars with their teams, what did you find to be some of the key learnings that they may have taken away from your seminar? I think the most... Sorry, what I'm trying to ask is what were some of the big gaps in their knowledge? Most of them were really shocked when I actually took veggies and protein along and said this is actually how many vegetables you need to be eating a day.
Brought a visual aid. Love that. And they were like oh my God. And the proteins, well they didn't realise how much protein they actually needed and I think, especially my generation, there was a lot of fear mongering, like you can't feed your kids a high protein diet, sugar is the devil, you know. There was a little bit of work to do around that, like no you need this much protein, you're growing lads, going through puberty, you're playing a high demanding sport, you need it. And this is how much, you know, this is what it looks like.
Yeah, and the sugar as well, you know, the parents were a little bit, when I said gator, it's okay. You know, half time if you need a top half of electrolytes, water and glucose, what's wrong with gatorade? That's it and I guess what people don't realise is hydration isn't just water is it? No, you need electrolytes too, yeah. We've got like 10 minutes left, I'm keen to do some myth busting with you, some debunking, starting with that protein and sugar one that you just touched on before, do you want to expand on that a little
bit, what were some of the fears that people had in the past in regards to high protein, high sugar diets and do you want to just shoot them in the head for us? Yeah, so high protein is going to damage your kidneys, no it's not. I've seen studies, you've had guys on huge amounts, more protein than you can imagine and there's been no impairment to renal function at all, so no, it's fine. Sugar? Sugar, look, worst case scenario you might gain a little bit of unwanted weight or you might get some tooth decay, short term
it's really not a problem, it's instant fuel, okay, like if you're hiding minding sports, gatorade, sugar, super duper, it's fine, it's just about using it appropriately, yeah. Long term effects though, we don't really want to gain a huge amount of weight, that's why I say use it appropriately. We've done the anti-nutrients in vegetables, what about in regards to nuts, are there any myths and misconceptions around nuts? I haven't heard any, I just know that people go nuts are really good for you so they eat 10 fistfuls and wonder why they gain weight. Are nuts a good source of protein?
Per nut there's quite a lot of protein there but you have to eat a lot of nuts to get a decent serve of protein in there. That's it, that's sort of where I was trying to get at with that one, I hear a lot like nuts are a good source of protein but in reality you need to eat an arse load of nuts to eat any sort of meaningful protein. Yeah and it's like when people say but a gorilla's a vegetarian, look how muscly they are, they don't eat protein and like well they do because there is protein in what they're eating but have you seen how much a gorilla eats?
That's outrageous. If you want to eat that much to get your protein requirements, go for it. Are there any more myths and misconceptions that really drive you mental, that you want to clear up? Again I've put you on the spot so you can take 20 or 30 seconds to think. Carbs make you fat. Carbs don't make you fat, too many calories can make you fat. Literally. What is one thing that you wish you could teach the world and it doesn't have to be in regards to nutrition, just anything you could teach the world? Oh that's huge.
We're going deep. Yeah. We're going deep in the last two minutes. Teach the world, wow. Be grateful, be kind. It's so cliche but that's the message that we're always trying to draw home to our kids. It's so simple and probably one theme that's been prevalent throughout this podcast is it really is just simple nutrition training. There are no quick fixes, there are no fads that are really applicable, it's all just simple. Any more for any more? Any parting words of wisdom for the family? Look I do place a strong emphasis on stress when people come
to see me and like I said if there's some issues around body image and so on, touch on mental health, it's a huge part of nutrition. It really is because it is going to be so hard to execute any kind of plan if you're stressed or not sleeping enough. Absolutely, yeah. So that's such an important part of it so I would just say to anyone if you're going to embark on any kind of eating plan just make sure the foundations are fixed first. What are some things you implement to help people reduce stress? Oh god that's a deep dive.
I asked people what they're doing already, is it working? Great, let's do more of it. If they're not doing anything then we need to experiment. So that could be meditation, meditation is amazing, if it didn't work it wouldn't still be here thousands of years later. But it takes practice, the benefits accumulate, the more you do it the better you get, the more benefits you get. Meditation is cool, some people meditation looks like going for a walk or reading a book or listening to music, whatever takes you away from that chatter in your mind. Brown noise, have you heard of brown noise?
I sleep with brown noise every single night. Do you? Yep, brown noise is cool. And then there's other therapies as well like breath work, I've started to get into that recently, awesome work. That's a deep dive. It's a deep dive, it's like therapy without having to talk, it's cool. And cold dips, hot cold exposure therapies, the list is endless. Lovely, love that. It's been an absolute pleasure having you on the podcast. Thank you, it's been fun. Next week, could not tell you, I think I might sit down with Mr Lachlan Wallace again because you guys just don't hear enough of our voices.
But we'll play that one by ear. It's been an absolute pleasure having you on Claire. I hope the audience got a few nuggets of information from that one, we busted a few myths and a few misconceptions. Been a pleasure, thanks for listening. Thank you.
