"Endurance Eating": Mastering Carbs, Calories, and Recovery with James LeBaigue

So welcome to fit mental fitness podcast this week, I have an amazing guest, the team's Olympic teams is registered sports nutritionist, working with their endurance athletes, and I'm excited for this conversation as endurance sports is something what I'm not, especially not in professional level, specialized. And I'm excited to learn so much from James. So James, first of all, welcome to show. Would you mind tell a little bit about yourself? Yeah, sure. And first of all, thanks very much for having me on to I've been looking forward to chatting with you. So yeah, my main role now is as a nutritionist, and I kind of have two roles that I work with as a nutritionist. So I'm the nutritionist for heavy the food up. And we're primarily a vegetarian website, which focuses on weight loss for females in the sustainable, healthy way. And then the other side of nutrition for me, is with my own company, nutrition, triathlon. And I work with amateur and professional athletes in sports nutritionist role in performance, working mostly with triathletes and runners are amazing. So can you tell us something about the importance of nutrition in endurance sports, so what is the what are the most critical nutrients and what athletes should focus on? Still, I think probably the way to frame it to start with might be a little bit bias here. But I think nutrition essentially, underpins all of it. So for the most part, I think is worth caveats as well, when I talk about endurance sports, I'm generally talking about anything over perhaps 30 minutes in length, and that's where nutrition really comes into play with it. But nutrition is the, the kind of key component that ties it all together. So with endurance sports, you're spending energy, and to be able to do that effectively, especially over longer distance events, I often work with Ironman athletes, or ultra running athletes, we have to be able to have energy for that. And your daily diet plays a massive role in that in terms of how well you train how well you recover, and actually can complete your sessions. And often these might be 1015 20 hour weeks, so you're training a lot. And nutrition is obviously a vital part of that. And then when it comes to racing as well, it's integral because what you've eaten in the days before does play into it, but you have to be able to take nutrition on board whilst you're racing. So it's kind of the linchpin, all of it, of all of it, because you might be able to train a lot, and a lot of people are very good at the training side of things. But if you don't have the nutrition to back that up, it's, you're kind of putting a lot of effort in but not getting much reward for it. Yeah, no studies, that is something what I, what I have seen, like, when I work with the guidance of somebody who is, for example, preparing for, let's say, 10k, run race or half marathon or even even full marathon, but that is that how big role that nutrition actually plays like that, you know, like you said, most people, they are very good at the training part, they probably know what to do. But then when it comes to raising or actually the performance, and there is missing that, like they are not really sure how to eat what to eat, how to help recovery. So you can work with the bitter quality, not only, obviously, quantity also, but especially quality of your workouts, it senses a lot with with the nutrition. So yeah, how how we would say that, how do you nutrients need to change change, like if we when we talk like a before, before even to race during the race and after evens. So yeah, we're taught phrases in terms of endurance nutrition. So if we're looking at before a race, what we commonly have is kind of a three to four running period, three to four day run in period into the race. And that's a really important time, because that's where you're putting in the work from a nutrition point of view, which is going to set you up well for the race. So the main thing we're looking at in this period is carbohydrate loading. So for all of these events, or any that last over about 90 minutes, we need to carbohydrate load, because that's going to give us a store of carbohydrates for our body to use during the racing. So we want to carbohydrate load and that is, in a nutshell, eating a lot of carbohydrates, no more than you normally would to maximize your body's store of carbohydrates, which is glycogen. that's then going to help you when you're racing but because it's going to reduce the likelihood of your carbohydrate stores running out and essentially mean that you're going to be able to perform as well as possible during that period as well. So the three to four days before your event, generally you lower the amount of fiber in your diet. And that's because fiber is something that takes a while to go through your gut. So normally, in a healthy diet, we love fiber, and we want lots of it, it's really good for our gut, it's good for our cardiovascular health. So very important, but it's a bit of a an issue for endurance athletes, because it's one of the main nutrients, which will sit around in the gut for a couple of days. So on race day, if you've been out running even for 90 minutes, but we're talking then eight hour races, that sort of thing, it's more likely to give you gastrointestinal upset. So tummy problems, so might increase the risk of bloating, diarrhea, cramps, that sort of thing, things which can really hinder your race. So three to four days, you reduce the amount of fiber. And then in that 24 hour carb load period, you're more or less focusing on white refined carbohydrates, which surprises a lot of people as well. So that's the time you might want to eat white bread, you might want lots of sweets, lots of sports drinks, which also really feels really counterintuitive, because you're not really doing much you're not really training. But the advice is do eat loads of it just because it's so useful. And is this this is during the race or before the race. This is Oh the before period, and this is like usually 24 hours before the race. Yeah, so the the low fiber part, start, that's three, three to four days. And then I normally suggest carbohydrate loading for about 36 hours. Because there's some really good evidence that shows that you can actually do it in about 24 hours and get to the optimum level of carbohydrate stores. But I tend to say about 36 hours because it gives a little bit of leeway. It means if you haven't quite hit the required amount, or you might do a bit of Easy Light training, that sort of thing. It gives you a bit of a buffer for it. So my advice is normally 36 hours. Then, during the event, that's where we switch to, essentially carbohydrate only. I'll caveat that as well. And just say that, for the most part, endurance athletes during racing should be focusing on carbohydrates unless they have a specific reason not to. So for example, they might be following a ketogenic diet for health reasons or personal preference, if that's their thing. But usually, during an endurance event, we're focusing on carbohydrates, which is the simple forms of carbohydrates, which most people know about. So it's like gels or sports drinks. There's some two blocks that sort of thing. But the idea is easy, simple to absorb carbohydrates that are very well tolerated by your gut. And carbohydrate, there is the main source of energy. So we don't need fat we don't need protein during racing. And that's what they really need to get them through the race. What is your like? You said that their fiber you you want to limit or kind of cut almost out too good about them fruits like fruits are a great source of fiber? Is there some fluids like obviously, if you if I think Diana or apple or something they are coming like, if you look like tennis players or somebody who I would I love to watch the most of them or they are eating banana during the game is there is there what is your take on fluids like before the race or during the event. So Bananas are a good example that up pretty well tolerated and good. The fruits to generally avoid are things with skin. So skin is generally quite fibrous and hard to break down and process. So that's going to be more likely to cause trouble. And some of the dried fruits are the ones which are classically good for our guts. So things like prunes, apricots, that sort of thing. Those are generally the ones to avoid. So there was a bit of trial and error in this before the event period where people can just test it. And what I normally suggest is testing your carbohydrate loading protocol in a period away from the race, so it might be a couple of weeks out. So you just test it. No, understand how you feel how it works for you, because some people will tolerate much higher amounts of fiber than others. And what works for some person, people just really won't work and they have to dial it back a lot. fruits in general are fine. But again, you just have to kind of pick the right ones. No, no makes sense. Makes sense. What about the after event, what is how to if you do have had some race, how to recover like obviously what I know from my background, if I had some event, my nutrition that would be to celebrate it. Go out have some couple of beers. And what is the how is the probably that's not the most optimal way. So what is how to recover and what to do after that? Yeah, generally, the post race beers aren't ideal for hydration. And what I generally say is try to get your nutrition immediately right, and then you can have the beers later on. So there's a really nice way to remember the after raise period, and that's where the four R's. So by that we think of refuel, repair, rehydrate and rest. So the refuel part is carbohydrates. So we're specifically thinking about carbohydrates. Usually my advice there is one gram of carbohydrate per kilogram of bodyweight. So for 70 kilo athlete, it consumes 70 grams of carbs, then we think of repair that specifically protein, you can do something like a three to one ratio of carbohydrates to protein, but I generally suggest at least 25 grams of protein. Then rehydrated drinking lots of fluid. So generally, as well, after an endurance event, I'll suggest fluid with sodium. So sodium is the main thing which you will sweat out, it's an electrolyte, which you sweat out, but it's vital for maintaining your blood pressure, lots of different mechanisms, but it will also increase the amount of fluid you actually absorb. So ensuring you get fluids in and generally I'm looking for at least 500 meals fluid per hour, for the four to six hours after an event until you start feeling better and peeing regularly. And clearly. Then the last one isn't necessarily a nutrition tip as such, but it's rest, which means you take some time to properly recover. And actually give yourself some downtime, because triathletes especially like to go straight back into training and get back on it. Whereas actually, you need just some downtime to allow your body to just reset and settle. So what is what are 10 most common, like there was a very good points of those, especially fiber, what I have never heard before, like carbs kind of makes a lot of sense. But do avoiding fiber, what are the most common are some common mistakes, what endurance athletes athletes make with their nutrition? I would say from experience, there's probably two main mistakes, which I see. And that not eating enough calories overall, and not eating enough carbohydrates. Now, you mentioned earlier about what are the most nutrient important nutrients to focus on, I think I kind of missed it. But we can talk about that now. Because the way to think about it is like you're building a house. So you want to start at the foundations and work upwards. And a lot of people think sports nutrition is really complex, or you're focusing on those little bits of the diet to like eke out performance. Whereas actually, the most basic parts of sports nutrition on the most important, and will make the biggest difference for any athlete, whether that's amateur or professional. So number one not eating enough. So it's really common for athletes, or endurance athletes to not realize just how much energy they're expending, and they don't eat enough to cover that. I think there's two parts to it. One is that it's an unconscious mistake. So they just don't realize how much they need to eat and how much they need to fuel their training. And I think the other is that there's a bit of a tendency within endurance sports and triathlon and running the lighter and leaner is better, which isn't necessarily always the case. But I think that leaves a lot of people in historically from those that I've worked with, worrying about how much they're eating. And so that that skews them into slightly under fueling rather than over fueling because they worry about putting on weight. So that's a massive mistake. And that is pretty much the building block of good endurance, nutrition is eating enough in the day because the rest you can kind of build upwards and fine tune. But if you make sure that you're eating enough, you know, you're covering enough for their general health and making sure their basic needs are covered. Then not eating enough carbohydrates is the other one. So again, it's it's funny when you actually start talking about to people and showing them and explaining how much carbohydrate might be in a certain food and how much of that they need over a day to hit their training volume. And we're talking five hours, 10 hours, 15 hours of training a week, you need a lot because you expend a lot and for those of your viewers if they don't necessarily know about energy systems, we've generally got Kabara Drinks and fat are our two energy sources. Fat is essentially unlimited. So the average person will have 50,000 calories worth of energy stored as fat. And they'll have 2000 2500 calories stored as carbohydrates. And that's if they're fully stocked to start with. And if people might use up 500 600 calories worth of carbohydrates in one bout of exercise, and you repeat that, and also you have your general needs, you realize, actually, you need a lot to keep up with that. So those are kind of the two big things and are essentially the cornerstones of nutrition. And then you work up from that, then you'd be a bit more specific. So then you look at how much protein you might be eating a day. Are you eating enough fruits and vegetables? Are you eating enough and timing your meals? Those are the more nuanced bit, but the basics, the eating enough and eating enough carbohydrates, if people get those, right, they're at least safe. And then they can build up puts. Yeah, and I believe that actually the performance is going to improve already with those things like then if it's if you want I would say that like you mentioned like about meal timing everything those those are then probably like a things would like more advanced more to kind of professional level you are more you start to focus on those like they are maybe 0.5% improvements. But the biggest takeaway is the probably having enough calories having enough carbohydrates for for endurance sport, I can then after that, when you get those right, you start to focus on other data is always something to focus more on. Exactly. Because there's no point focusing on dialing in your new your meal timings if you're not eating enough over the whole day, because it makes no difference. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's the that's the, for me, it's it's the most important like, because you hear now, especially in a social media, there's so much information out and and then like, you could talk like what is what makes very little difference obviously matters too. But like is it before you focus on that? What makes it 0.5 pros and difference focus on that what makes gifts like more, like makes it 10% or whatever, like even bigger impact on that alien. So next thing what I wanted to talk is a protein intake. So if it's Darian lifestyle you mentioned you are a vegetarian I work with a bit stereo people and and it's from my experience to when or all people who I'm not a vegetarian myself, I don't eat a lot of meat, but I have a lot of clients who are are either saying or are Mysterion. So what is if you are vegetarian athletes, and our bodies always going to be challenges protein intake. So how is it? What do you have any tips for protein intake for endurance or for exterion? Athletes? Yeah, definitely. So it's not impossible to get all of your protein needs. As a vegetarian, it's definitely possible. And there are plenty of incredible vegetarian athletes. The trick is just planning and working a bit harder and understanding what are good protein sources for a vegetarian, and then spacing those throughout the day. So we know when it comes to protein intake, it's really important to have a good amount of protein in every meal, kind of outside or spreading it out over the day and not just in one area. But there it's definitely possible. So we want to look for high protein sources for vegetarian soy eggs for classic staple which are brilliant. And then we have dairy sources as well. Now, generally, I would tend to opt for low fat dairy sources, just because in terms of calorie amounts and protein amounts, the protein content is higher in low fat dairy, so like low fat, Greek yogurt, you get a lot more protein in it. So that's focusing on those actually just building those into snacks or meals. And then things like low fat cream cheese, cottage cheese, great, then it's using the alternatives. Now a lot of people don't realize that you can get a significant amount of protein through whole grain carbohydrates. So you're thinking of rice, quinoa, pasta, those actually do contain a reasonable amount of protein. And then when you pair those with other sources like legumes, and soy beans, lentils, those sorts of foods, they can bump your protein intake up a lot as well. And then you've got other sources like tofu or soy, which is really good and the idea is sent Clay's just combining them not necessarily for anything like amino acid profile, but simply for more varied sources and other sources of protein. Because when you eat meat, it's very easy. You just have a chicken breast and that's everything. You just have to work that bit harder as a vegetarian. Ya know, it's a sentencing like ghosts, it's it's mounts what you have to be they are like, it's like exhibits, if you have 100 grams of chicken breast, it's much easier to get your 25 grams of protein than if you want to get it from like, lit rooms or from some other other it's amounts with you must they are a lot higher. So is there is there some tips that you would like to share on planning for vegetarian athletes like how to how to think about it that you had already some good, good tips would you share, but is there something specific how you would, what tips you like to share? So the way I would do it would actually be the same as a meat eater or anyone who eats anything when it comes to planning. So what I like to do when I say when I work with athletes, I tried to get them to have a standard baseline of their food. So what I mean by that is have a core setup of their food, which they can stick to every day, and then tailor according to their training. So you might start with something like breakfast, lunch and dinner, the classic three meals setup. And what I encourage them to do is build a foundation of meals, which they're happy eating regularly. And they enjoy and could eat day in day out and get those set for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And the idea between those is that they get pretty much close to covering their daily energy needs without training. So we might be talking around like 1600 calories, 1900 calories, something like that, depending on male, female, and weight. And then you build in snaps around that based on your training, because it makes it a really easy way to understand how much they need to eat. And then I tried to get them as well to classify things into like small or big snacks, and make them have a standard amount of nutrition that they'll take in the corresponds to their training. So for example, if they know they're doing two hours of training a day, they might have to eat too big snacks to work with that. And then it means that if they don't train, then they can just have their baseline food and just eat as they feel hungry as well. So it might be then just having some fruit or a bit of yoga on the side. And it just means that it helps them scale. So really, they have to put a bit of work into their nutrition at the start to get comfortable and understand how because ideally, you want to use their daily diet. So what they're already eating, because a lot of people feel that they need to eat something different or eat a certain way because someone else does. Well we know that that's not really the ideal thing because if you tried to have Brad drastically change your diet doesn't really work. And normally people eat what they eat out of convenience, comfort and cost and it fits in in their pattern. So what you want to do is just tailor that and so it might be asking them as well to understand how much for example how much carbohydrate they're eating so asking them just once or twice to weigh out how much rice or pasture they might normally use in their dish and you say okay, well this is actually what we need to get you out as a standard baseline. And then that sets that level and then you work up from that. Oh was this is what you just mentioned that is that is like that awareness if it's it is if it's it's basically for all its you don't have to be athlete it's for normal people also when you are aware like what most people don't understand not only athletes but Rick normal people how much if you have like as an athlete you want to focus on carbohydrates probably like we mentioned that that is the probably the biggest mistake that you don't get enough and then to see that just look how much carbohydrates you are getting from your in your daily diet without if you eat in a more or less in a normal days. And for other people look for who are working more for let's say gaining muscle mass or or having like some normal for example weight loss goal or or want to change body composition is probably the protein was the most important macronutrient it's important for endurance athletes do but because it's a totally different thing to think like it okay I'm eating some protein or you know how much protein you are eating because it's most people you know, when I when I say like I will say that when I start talking to people he said 90 Proteins have been Bucha don't have are not even close to their protein goal and what it should be. And when you start to see that you are eating breakfast, and what is your protein and like protein sources practices I have every second day one egg. And that that is thinking how much protein. And if you did one, Nick has seven grams of protein more or less than that. And if your goal is to have 120 grams of protein, for example, it's you got a lot of X to cover that, then it's kind of probably same thing with the with the athletes that if you first step when you become aware how much actually carbohydrate someone's brought in? And then like you said, that really like planning ahead, making making those thinking like what, what is your source of carbs? What is your source of protein for meals? And then just learning from foods? What do you actually enjoy eating and not that was, I think that for professional athletes, but like a meal plan is a very good way. But if you think like a regular people, like you can't follow a meal plan, like on on on a point. But just learning from foods, what you eat on a daily basis, and then making small, sustainable assessments and everything gets slotted? Yeah, that's it. And it's, it's the same for whether you're training for performance, or whether you're, for example, trying to lose weight, it's just, you want to be a bit curious about your nutrition to explore it a little bit more, because most of the time, and I'm sure you've found this, that if you're completely dictating what someone should eat, they often don't do that well with it, because they need to have an element of buy in and understanding for it, and actually get on board and they still want to have their own food choices. Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. So what about that? Do you have any recommendations like for what's there in lifestyle for protein supplements, like I was obviously, like we said, it's not it's, it requires a lot of planning a lot of thinking. And if, at some point, you know, like, protein supplements it makes probably, since we started any supplements you recommend or add specifically protein supplements. You mean though, you know, just all it doesn't have to be protein supplements, it can be all supplements that are beneficial for endurance. So in part, I would say this comes back to what we spoke about earlier in terms of to start with, I don't like people to think about supplements, because I want them to think about their overall diet and actually making more gains there, I think probably the one which does have more merit than most would be protein powder or a protein supplement. However, I very much of the opinion that ideally, start without it, and understand how you might be able to reach your goals without it. And then make sure that you then when you use it, use it for a specific use case. So for example, if you're really short on time, or you might be traveling, that sort of thing, and basically don't just use it as a crutch and understand more about your protein intake first and how it might fit in. But protein shakes protein supplements are very good for vegetarians, if you're not eating oily fish or having a good source of Omega threes can be worth supplementing omega threes. slight difficulty always the way in the plant based Omega three supplements generally not ideal, because we don't convert the components of that as well. So not ideal. Vitamin D is useful, especially in England and probably a lot of Europe for the winter months. So NHS advice is during the winter periods or from about September to April off the top of my head would be to supplement vitamin D. So that's worth it. Then we get into kind of the the nitty gritty side which I really enjoy and could talk about for hours in terms of performance supplements and we're thinking of things like creatine, beta alanine, those sorts of things. Now, again, there's two sides to this, which I like to come back to one first thinking about everything else because when we're thinking about things like creatine, beta alanine, sodium bicarbonate, they're all performance enhancing and probably one of the few which are known to be performance enhancing. However, it really comes back to have you got the rest right in your diet because there's no point focusing on those again, it's kind Like meal timings because you're thinking, I'm gonna get this real good benefit from taking this. But actually, if you haven't got the rest, right, it's not really as useful. And also, because I work with professional athletes as well, and those who are in a high performance capacity, supplements are far more important, because those athletes are undergoing drugs testing, for doping offences, that sort of thing. That's what that's what we're trying to prevent, it becomes far more important. So you have to have talks with all of them to recognize or allow them to recognize the risks involved with it. And you're meant, or the athletes are meant to take notes. They're meant to have a list of all the supplements they take in their batch numbers and that sort of thing. So supplements actually become far more important than I would say, the average athlete, because they don't risk that, that kind of danger to their career. Yeah. But what is what is like, What are the dangers like are so what I'm what I'm, like, I'm interested on creating, especially because it sounds like there are so many studies supporting like, dark benefits of not only, like, athletic performance, but also a lot of normal, like a healthy, positive benefits cow timer, preventing probably even some cancer. And when it's like, it's kind of a natural source, it's not some like that, I don't want that somebody's thinking like that, what you talked about drug testing, or that kind of stuff like that, those would be we're talking, they are not like a protein powder, creating vitamin D, or omega threes, or those kinds of supplements they are, you don't have to worry about it's more like a combination. So if you start to take pills from somewhere, but But it's basically great in life, it's there in lifestyle, as it's sort of like from coming usually from meat. And then what is your take on creating? So you're absolutely right, there's heaps of evidence for it from a performance point of view and into the other realms of health as well. You mentioned cognitive function, or cognitive preventing cognitive decline. So it's a very good supplement, it's very safe. When I talk about the risks, it's really we're talking inadvertent doping offenses. So the ways to mitigate mitigate that if you want to consider it is using things like batch testing for supplements. So I don't know if you've heard of it, but there's something called informed sport. And there's other ones around, where essentially manufacturers send their product or a batch of their product to another company who test it for some supplement for substances which are on the wider the world anti doping agencies prohibited list. So it's essentially making sure that those athletes are doing whatever they can to minimize the risk of contamination and that sort of thing, because a lot or some supplements might be made in the same factory as someone or another product line, which might have substances which would be banned. So it's just trying to minimize that risk and making sure that they know the actual benefits, because again, when it comes to endurance sports, creating doesn't, it's not that relevant. So most of the function for creatine is short, intense movements, were thinking of lifting heavy weights in the gym, or kind of going to max effort, maybe up to about 30 seconds in total duration might be some benefit if you're thinking of high intensity intervals, and squeezing out a little bit. But again, they're we're looking at cost versus benefit and actually, whether that really works for them, but it's a very safe and very effective supplement. No makes makes totally sense. So let's move on I wanted to talk to us something about training. So, what are like you that you are specialized for triathlon? But in general for endurance sports, so what are the fundamental Vendula principles of training for triathlon or for long, longer endurance sport? Probably the biggest thing to understand I would say is volume and intensity. So by volume, I mean how much you train. So whether you're training an hour a day, two hours a day, 10 hours a week that that's the volume side of things. Then we've got the intensity side of things, which is how how hard you're going. So that might be, you're going absolutely flat out and you're doing as hard as you can, or you're doing a very easy pace, which is what we might think of as the endurance pace. Now, for me, the fundamental thing to understand when it comes to IN DURANCE training or triathlon training, is the volume is king. So the more you can do, overall, the better your performance is going to be. So if you want to get good, or you just want to start going towards that, and you're looking at performance, you need to get as much in as you can. But that has to be a gradual build. So one of the things that people often fall into a trap of when they look at endurance training, especially triathlon is doing too much too soon. And with three sports through discipline, so you have swimming, cycling and running, you want to train all of them train every day, or do loads of sessions. And actually, especially when you first start out, that's really not the best approach, because you'll burn out quickly and you'll, you'll just be overworking yourself. So understanding that there's got to be this build period, then, the way I like to think about it, and there's lots of different rules or splits would be something like 80 20%, an 80 20%, split, so 80%, maybe even 90% of training, in my opinion, should be easy endurance training. So we're thinking of 60 to 70% of maximum heart rate. So really quite easy. And it should be, it should feel easy. So this is the sort of thing which someone could keep up for hours and hours. And that's probably the biggest trap that endurance athletes fall into. Is they go too hard. Too much of the time. Yeah, no, was this is this is like, just to clarify this is it's you are talking about shown to if you have like a sport boats or something that this is what you are is what you are telling generally, yeah, so it's slightly difficult in the in, in endurance sports. Depending on who you talk to, you'll have different zones. So some people will have a three zone model. And so for that I might be talking about zone one. I was I was talking like if you have in your four chords, like most people have like a five zones. But what is how to know like, because if you the Lego, okay, at least probably know if it's if you know your maximum heartbeat. But if you don't know how to say that, what is that. So it's, it's something we'll go to, like you said feels relatively easy. And what I love to use is, is that you can keep talking, you can talk, like what I heard, I heard it, somebody said it pretty well that you can talk, like let's say, not longer than 50 emergencies. But you don't want to talk all the time. Like if you want the dog all the time, you are probably it's too, it's so one or two easy. And if you can talk, it's already already, if you can't make like a verb sentence, without taking a breath, it's probably already too hard. So absolutely, I actually tend to stray on the even easier side of what you mentioned. So I actually would opt more for endurance training of being able to take a full, like, essentially a hold a full conversation. So there's really nice, the other thing that I use when talking to people is if they can breathe in through and breathe in and out fully through their nose, they should be in the right area, because the nose is obviously a bit harder to breathe in, in and out through just smaller. If you can do that, then generally you're in the right zone for endurance, easy endurance training. And you said that 80 to 90% of your total volume should be on that zone. Exactly. Yeah. Which is for a lot of people, especially when they're coming into it kind of blows their mind a little bit because it's often like, but I'm not going to be getting any benefit from that. I need to be working hard. I need to be sweating. I need to be doing that. But actually, totally the wrong approach for most people when it comes to endurance training. Yeah, and it's this is like Albert, you talked about, like, three at launch. But this is probably the is this principle, apply this for like just some, let's say a normal runner or something who wants to who is going to run now for, let's say, three times a week for an hour? Like would you apply this principle also for that kind of person? Or are you talking specifically basically specifically for athletes? Yeah, very good question. And the answer is yeah, I would say I would apply it to pretty much anyone. So if you're starting out if you're elite, I would pretty much be going down this route for for almost everyone because they work on different parts. What's of your metabolism and different energy pathways. And for most people in terms of health and the the also, the important thing to talk about here actually isn't just from a performance side of things, it's longevity. So, longevity in terms of training and consistency, because a lot of people, and I've seen it so many times get very enthusiastic, and it's awesome to see it, but they will just go high intensity after high intensity after high intensity. And within a couple of weeks, they are frazzled, and they can't keep it going, or they've got aches and pains and niggles because they've never really done that sort of intensity and volume. So by balancing out that 80 90%, as easy training, you also reduce the risk of doing it, because it's still good for you. And it's still healthy, but you just won't feel absolutely exhausted or smashed and battered afterwards. And this is this is one of the like, biggest right? Often when I talk when somebody wants to improve their running time, and I tell that probably for you going easy, it's a fast walking. And then they're like the day are usually they are used to do like, they go for on like 30 minute or one hour. And then you know, they are chasing that feeling, what do you get after running. And if you don't, if you go for a walk, you don't feel to say you don't get that same kind of dopamine, boost what you get when you go for a run. And if you don't, you're not sweating, you don't feel that you have done something. But then then actually, that is you get a lot more benefits, or it's doing more good for you. And then you do it in in this way, like like you said, what actually like endurance athletes how they are training, obviously, speed is going to be different for someone who is marathon runner or who is athletic, they are going to run probably faster than somebody who is just starting and for most people that is just simply walking. Yeah, absolutely. I think we all people undervalue how good it is, I think it's a different kind of enjoyment. And that's something well, so for example, endurance athletes generally know what they're trying to do and what they're trying to get to. But certainly the people I work with are complete novices. And they might be someone in their 40s, or 50s, who's aiming for weight loss, they do not care about performance at all. And it's teaching them that that exercise is still good for them. And you don't get quite the same hit in terms of how pumped you feel afterwards. But it's a different kind. And often, I think if they find the right exercise for them, if they find something which they enjoy, and will do regularly, they start understanding the benefits of it. And also like the mental health benefits of getting out and moving and doing half an hour an hour of walking and how good that can make you feel. Yeah, exactly. What about them, but then do 20 Prozent what kind of training that should be for endurance athletes or someone who want to improve their endurance, sports specific. So I would always suggest context to how that 20% might be very different. And there's no hard or fast rule for it, because it depends where someone might be in their season, or it might depend on what their aim is. So in that area, you've kind of got different zones, again, that you're working on. So some might need to focus on high intensity intervals where we are working at, for example, VO two Max, so maximum amount of oxygen we can use, and we're doing a shorter amount of high intensity work. So it might be something like 10 to 20 minutes overall split up into into fours. But for some people, it might be far more important to work on what's called the lactate threshold. So where their lactate is accumulating at pretty much the same rate that they're getting rid of it. And that might be for endurance athletes, an extremely important place to work on. And that might be working on what's called tempo or threshold. So it's intervals that you can sustain for longer than the classic high intensity, three minutes, four minutes, but it's working at a different part of your energy system. And that might be really useful because that athlete for example, might not be very good at that. And by raising that, that gives them a huge performance benefit. They might be very good at VO two max that might not be their ceiling. So it's very much sport specific and context specific on the athlete. But essentially we're looking at kind of 85% plus max heart rate. And just understanding a probably I'd say another issue that Then people fall into is going too hard, too frequently. So people often think during the high intensity that 10%, it's as hard as possible. Whereas that might not be the case. And for example, if you're doing tempo threshold workouts, that can often feel pretty easy. For most of it, it does start to bite. But it's really about understanding your personal zones and what you need to work on. And understanding that harder is not necessarily better. Yeah, yeah, this is, this is I think it's the mental mental thing of this is just the trusting to process and, and not push. It's, it's a, it's it don't, always working smarter, doesn't mean working harder. And this is this is the what makes it kind of programming and this training part that it's, it's for me, I can tell you personally, like I'm not an endurance athlete. But now when following actually training program, and seeing I when I was I was my background is I was professional ice hockey player, and I was working hours. And now, but I didn't I didn't have any plan or or plan was not very good. And I was spending so many hours. But now when I'm older, on working with the plan, doing things, what actually matters more, and I'm seeing a lot better results. For myself, even my goal is not any more improved that much my athletic performance test for overall health. But when you have a plan, well then trust the process, it makes, it's such a mazing feeling like that, because I used to be also like, like most people they are working harder is always better if you can do like go go to the gym every single day. And when when I tell that you probably are going to see better results if you go to a gym, say three to four times a week. And no, but they don't want to believe but then when you actually give your body time to recover. And then obviously to endurance sport, it's, it's, it's more about volumes, but also like having a principle but if you like you said for most people, if you go for a run this always same same brown, same speed, or or trying to make it that you do only ball is that you feel exhausted, or tired and good after that workout, you are probably gonna see like, obviously the beginning probably gonna see some results. But in the long term, if you actually follow this principle, what you just said, you're going to see so much bigger difference, does it and it really, it's consistency. And that's whether you're training for performance, whether it's weight loss, whether it's just healthy living, it's consistency, and it's finding that balance. And for a lot of people, it's understanding that it's training smarter, living smarter, not necessarily harder. And you want to be able to do it over time, which also means picking something you enjoy. Yeah, yeah. And like you said, consistency part of this. It doesn't like that, getting rid of that all or nothing thinking and that if you can't work out three times a week, then you don't do anything at all. So if you you have we all have busy periods of life when you can't do anything. But in those weeks or days, even a couple of minutes, just personal providing yourself that you are doing this and making little bit better than you normally do that makes such a big big difference. Yeah, so we are running out of time. Seems do stare anything you want to share where to find you from social media media, how to work with you. Anything you want to share? Sure. First of all, so thanks. That's it's been a really good chat. I've really enjoyed speaking with you I was really appreciate it. So I'm on Instagram and YouTube and my website nutrition triathlon for the handles or nutrition triathlon.com. And again, all the handlers hurry the food up and hurry the food up.com Come check us out the vegetarian website, meal plans and recipes. And then I do lots of free videos for nutrition for endurance athletes, which hopefully help people out with their goals. Yeah, absolutely. And please check out at least check out I can't force you to follow who even I would recommend to follow James, but check I will put in Jonah's all links. So thank you for the interview and talking with me was a pleasure. And talk to you, John.