Imperfect Progress with Anne Guzman

Caffeine, America's most popular drug. More than 85% of Americans drink at least one caffeinated drink per day. 

But for athletes, caffeine is a drug that's not restricted by WADA, which means athletes can use it and reap the benefits in their sports nutrition plan.

I know what you're thinking, my coffee is a drug!? I know, that sounds strange, but indeed it is! Ever skip a few days? Withdrawals!

If you do use caffeine  to improve performance, whether on your bike, mountain biking, gravel cycling are you getting the most out of it? Do you know what dose has been proven to be effective? What the optimal timing of intake should be? Whether that timing differs between coffee, supplement capsules or caffeinated gum?

What about habituation? Do you need to cut back on coffee pre race to get the BEST bang for your buck?

Do your genetics impact whether or not you'll get a performance effect from caffeine? 

What about caffeine consistency between coffees? Is it generally consistent if you drop in at your local coffee shop? 

These are all questions you'll need answers to if you want to use caffeine as a performance enhancer. So to get you the science, I found a top expert on the topic,.

Dr. Bryan Saunders is a researcher who studies out of University of Sao Paulo Brazil. He has an extensive background in sports science and received his PhD from the University of Nottingham. He's researched caffeine, beta alanine and sodium bicarbonate deeply and he's also an avid cyclist. 

In other words he LOVES COFFEE (and tea!).

During this podcast you'll learn the answers to all of the questions above and a lot more including how caffeine exerts it's physiological effects on your body and how it could work into your cycling nutrition plan. 

Dr. Saunders was a pleasure to speak with and I hope you learn everything you need during this podcast. If not, tag us on social media and ask your questions, we will be sure to reply back. You can tag us on IG @guzmananne and Dr. Saunders @drbryanbeard, and on Twitter @guzmannutrition and @bicycle_brian. Head over to Apple or Spotify and help support my podcast by giving it 5 STAR RATING IF YOU LOVED IT! It really helps. THANK YOU!

If you're keen to learn more about your health from the INSIDE OUT, be the first to take advantage of my Black Friday discount with Inside Tracker! Between now and November 30th you can get $200 off the ultimate plan or 34% off the ENTIRE STORE!

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Don't make the mistake of believing the hype.  It could cost you your bike race.

Scroll Instagram for 5 minutes and you'll be inundated with diet and sports nutrition advice. Unfortunately a lot of it is BS. The reason I do this podcast is to bring you quality information from credible sources, so you don't have to learn everything the hard way. This conversation does exactly this.

My podcast guest is Eric Bustillo. Registered Dietitian, personal trainer, CrossFit coach and RD to many special forces athletes. Today we shed light on some sports nutrition myths that just don't seem to want to die. Here's what they are:

1) Intermittent Fasting and weight loss.

2) Eating carbohydrates at night will make you gain weight

3) RED-S (relative energy deficiency in sport) only relates to females

4) Caffeine is dehydrating

5) Training fasted means you burn more fat and therefore lose more body fat

6) BCAAs are an important part of an athlete's sports nutrition regime

It's easy to understand why this gets confusing. There are lots of "sciency" sounding posts out there and Twitter gets way more air time than science! But rest assured, what you hear today is not pseudoscience.

When you're training hard and the difference between good and great is nutrition, you want to know that you're executing optimally. Otherwise you may be leaving power behind that you'll need to get over steep hills, make a break , win a finish sprint. or get through a CrossFit session.

Eric is a compassionate person and this comes across in our conversation. So let's jump inside and get the facts, while also hearing a healthy attitude we can all consider towards eating and exercise, besides the one that suggests we need to "burn off our dinner" or "earn a meal."

First a note on my amazing podcast sponsor Inside Tracker!

There’s nothing more powerful than understanding WHY you feel great and why you feel sub par. To live that healthiest life it’s important to know what’s happening inside your body. One person may feel stellar at 45 another may not, and our lifestyles, genetics and nutrition can all contribute to this. Inside tracker goes beyond your annual blood work. 

What do they do? 

They analyze your blood, DNA and fitness tracking data to help you recognize where you’re doing amazing and where you need improving. They use a personalized system designed to help you live your most vibrant life, slow down the aging process and as a result, extend your health span.

The system is created by leading scientists in aging, genetics and biometrics. How do they help? After analyzing your blood they provide you with a daily action plan with personalized guidance on the right exercise, nutrition and supplementation where needed.

Add InnerAge 2.0 to any plan to calculate your true biological age, and see how you’re aging from the inside out.

For a limited time, get 20% off the entire InsideTracker store.

Just go to inside tracker dot com forward slash Guzman Nutrition.

That’s inside tracker dot com forward slash Guzman Nutrition. insidetracker.com/guzmannutrition.

Now let's enjoy this amazing podcast conversation!

Misinformation is everywhere. I'm here to give you legitimate information backed by science.

Olympic cyclist Ruth Winder knows a thing or two about bike racing, cycling culture and what it takes to be one of the best cyclists in the world.

Ruth has won stages and the GC in some of the most prestigious races on the World Cup circuit. Like most athletes, she's no stranger to adversity .

In today's podcast Ruth shares some important lessons she's learned over the last 15 years on the road and track circuit. Ruth shares her story around relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-s) , how she ended up consuming too few calories, how it backfired and what she did to turn this situation around. and come back strong. 

We also talk about the importance of advocating for yourself as an athlete and how Ruth listened to her gut and sought help when she felt things didn't make sense. Ruth speaks to the importance of not just listening to people in power because they are in power and how we need to question authority and make our own decisions as athletes. These are important lessons for us all in life and in sport.

I spoke to Ruth about her transition into gravel cycling, how she's handling the change of intensity in life and what she's working on to keep busy. WOW Ruth has a lot on the go and a very cool new business venture that she unveils in detail here today. I think we can expect a lot from Ruth in the coming years.

Any athlete will appreciate Ruth's candor during our podcast conversation. If you've ever wondered what it's like to race in Europe, win the nationals solo by meters, transition from a full time professional cycling career to a more balanced career that includes the muddy gravel scene, Ruth walks us through it all. 

You can find Ruth on Twitter and Instagram and follow her new business venture here.

Thank you so much for listening. You can support my podcast by subscribing, sharing it with friends and supporting my sponsor Inside Tracker. Inside Tracker helps you improve your health from the inside out. Head over to this link today and get 20% off the entire website. Find out how you're aging from the inside out and add Inner Age 2.0 to any purchase. Head to insidetracker.com/guzmannutrition today, optimize your health and make this year your most powerful and consistent yet.

Please take a moment and head to Spotify or Apple and rate my podcast and subscribe. It's a huge way to support me and this podcast and would mean the world to me. On a mobile, click on the 3 dots on the top right hand corner of either platform where you'll see "follow" or "rate this podcast." For Apple, scroll down past the episodes to drop a star rating today. Ring my bell on Spotify to get notified of new episodes!

To learn more about RED-s and meeting your energy needs as a cyclist, sign up for my next newsletter on the footer of any page at Anneguzman.com.

Everyone's talking about creatine and rightfully so. As the most proven sports nutrition supplement on the market, it holds a lot of clout and can be an asset to both your performance and health span. It may even benefit your road biking or gravel cycling!

There's a lot of new research around creatine, and I wanted to make sure you were up to date, so I invited expert Dr. Scott Forbes onto the podcast to answer some important questions.

Dr. Forbes is an associate professor in the department of Physical Education Studies at Brandon University and an adjunct professor in the faculty of Kinesiology and Health Studies at the University of Regina. He's a certified sport nutritionist (ISSN) and a clinical exercise physiologist and high performance specialist through the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology (CSEP).

Dr. Forbes and I dig into a lot of interesting areas today, including creatine biology and physiology 101, so you can gain a solid understanding of what it is, how we make it, how our bodies use it and how it provides energy.

We peel the layers back on the following topics and do some myth busting.

If you have any questions comment on your favorite social media platform and tag me and Dr. Forbes. I'm on Twitter and IG and on LinkedIn. You'll find Dr. Scott Forbes (Dr. Creatine!) on IG at Scott_Forbes_PhD and you can also read more if his research here on Research Gate. 

If you're keen to learn more about your health from the inside out, check out my podcast sponsor Inside Tracker! This is more than your annual blood test. Inside Tracker analyzes your blood, DNA and fitness tracking data to help you recognize where you’re doing amazing and where you need improving. They use a personalized system designed to help you live your most vibrant life, slow down the aging process and as a result, extend your health span.

The system is created by leading scientists in aging, genetics and biometrics. How do they help? After analyzing your blood they provide you with a daily action plan with personalized guidance on the right exercise, nutrition and supplementation where needed.

They were super accommodating because I have a 5 year old who needs to get to camp and I have work to start and they came at 7:20am to help make it happen.

Add Inner Age 2.0 to any plan to calculate your true biological age, and see how you’re aging from the inside out.

For a limited time, get 20% off the entire Inside Tracker store.

Just go to insidetracker.com/GuzmanNutrition. Don't miss it!

Thank you for listening and being a part of this community. To be updated on episodes head over to Imperfect Progress at Apple or Spotify and SUBSCRIBE today. Along with supporting my sponsor this is the best way you can support me and this podcast. I appreciate you!

There are a lot of devices and apps measuring your body's physiological data on the market, but can they really help you recover and perform better?  

To make sure I got the straight facts, I reached out to Dr. Marco Altini who has been working in the HRV space for over a decade. He's on the board for OURA ring, has worked with Strava and has his own app HRV4Training.com as well. I'd read several of his studies and was impressed with his background that integrates both computer science and exercise physiology. Add to that, he just ran his first 100km race and gets what it means to be an athlete. 

You've come to the right podcast to learn about what HRV is, how to interpret the numbers you read, why you shouldn't compare your HRV to anyone else's, how accurate the data really are, what can throw the numbers off, how nutrition and sleep can impact HRV, how HRV and heart rate differ and why one is a more telling metric than the other, how the menstrual cycle impacts HRV, when to measure your HRV and what improvements need to be made to make the data you receive even better. 

If you've been confused about this topic, get your pen and paper out because in this podcast we've simplified it as best as possible. Also, sign up for my newsletter at the bottom of any page at AnneGuzman.com because I'll be recapping HRV 101 in writing for you there too. Let me know what you thought and leave a comment at Apple or Spotify or tag me on your favorite social media platform. I'm @guzmannutrition on Twitter and @guzmananne on Instagram.

If you're keen to learn more about your health from the inside out, check out my podcast sponsor Inside Tracker! This is more than your annual blood test. Inside Tracker analyzes your blood, DNA and fitness tracking data to help you recognize where you’re doing amazing and where you need improving. They use a personalized system designed to help you live your most vibrant life, slow down the aging process and as a result, extend your health span.

The system is created by leading scientists in aging, genetics and biometrics. How do they help? After analyzing your blood they provide you with a daily action plan with personalized guidance on the right exercise, nutrition and supplementation where needed.

They were super accommodating because I have a 5 year old who needs to get to camp and I have work to start and they came at 7:20am to help make it happen.

Add Inner Age 2.0 to any plan to calculate your true biological age, and see how you’re aging from the inside out.

For a limited time, get 20% off the entire Inside Tracker store.

Just go to insidetracker.com/GuzmanNutrition. Don't miss it!

Thank you for listening and being a part of this community. To be updated on episodes head over to Imperfect Progress at Apple or Spotify and SUBSCRIBE today. Along with supporting my sponsor this is the best way you can support me and this podcast. I appreciate you!

Turmeric, it's more than just a spice to add flavor and color to your cuisine. In fact the evidence is starting to accumulate that turmeric reduces inflammation, improves  athlete recovery and can be as effective as Tylenol (paracetamol) in reducing osteoarthritis pain. 

I started using turmeric after a good friend recommended I try turmeric ginger shots a year ago. I was admittedly skeptical, but he swore it had significantly reduced his joint pain. As someone who lives with chronic neck pain, I was intrigued.

I started to learn that there were some data on turmeric and it's powerful capabilities and I wasn't alone in my experience. Although my experience is only anecdotal, I've noticed my improved post cycling recovery.

Turmeric falls more into the alternative medicine category, and it was important to me that I find an expert on the topic, since credibility is key for all of my podcasts. I was fortunate to have previously met Dr. Ravi Mohan and was able to invite him onto the podcast.

Dr. Mohan is a practicing physician in Canada. He has his PhD from Oxford University in Exercise Physiology and he has first hand experience in the benefits and turmeric as well as research on turmeric which he continues to do today.

Here are some of the things you'll learn today when you tune into the podcast:

Thank you for being a part of this learning community. If you found this useful please share it with friends and on your favorite social media platform. You can tag me @guzmannutrition on twitter or @guzmananne on IG and find me on LinkedIn at Anne Guzman or Nutritionsolutionsanneguzman.com here on FB.

Learn more about Dr. Mohan and Root Rescue Wellness below.

Root Rescue Wellness Website: https://rootrescuewellness.com/pages/about-us

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rootrescuewellness/

Shop for turmeric/ginger shots, teas +++ here:: https://rootrescuewellness.com/#shopproducts

Every year athletes drop out of races because the heat beats them down. It's a hard pill to swallow after all of that training you've put in, to have to DNF. But it doesn't have to be that way.

Heat adaptation is a powerful performance tool that even the best in the world aren't implementing, but they should be. The proof is in the science and the many Olympians who have put it to the test.

In this podcast episode I had the privilege to speak with Environmental Physiology expert

Dr. Stephen Cheung. Dr. Cheung has been instrumental in preparing many athletes for Olympic games including the Tokyo Olympics and Doha World Championships, where the heat was guaranteed to be a factor.

Dr. Cheung is a Professor and Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Kinesiology at Brock University. He was also Canada Research Chair in Environmental Ergonomics from 2007-2017. He's also the author of several books including the Science of Cycling and Environmental Exercise Physiology 

With over 25 years of research in Environmental Physiology, he is known worldwide for his expertise and has collaborated with other world renowned scientists in this space. Dr. Cheung has worked in the field with numerous elite level athletes including Olympian Amber Neben, who helped prepare for the high temperatures which were well anticipated at the Tokyo Olympics.

Here are some of the things we cover during our conversation and time stamps:

Remember, a LOT of your competitors will NOT undergo a heat adaptation protocol, so by doing so, you may really surprise yourself on race day! You'll be FLOORED when you hear the percentage of athletes who didn't heat adapt for the 2019 Qatar World Cycling Championships. Shocking!

Remember, you can't make up for all of the ramifications of the heat with a cold water bottle, you really need to invest the time and do the work. That's what it takes to beat the heat.

I love reading your comments! Please share a comment on the podcast or on your favorite social media platform and tag me on twitter @guzmannutrition or IG @guzmananne!

I love sharing comments with listeners and posting them in IG stories. Share your NUMBER 1 learning and you may just help one person out there learn something important. This is what it's all about.

Share this episode now with any athletes, coaches or friends who may benefit!

Stay tuned for some interesting episodes on inflammation and training technology. See you in the pod!

Over the last decade, more research has focused on the benefits of exercise in alleviating and treating depression and anxiety. I had the incredible opportunity to speak with Neuroscientist Dr. Jennifer Heisz about this topic today.

Dr. Heisz is an Associate Professor in the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster University and directs the Neurofit Lab. She received her Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience and completed her Postdoctoral Fellowship in Brain Health and Aging at the Rotman Research Institute. 

Today we discuss how the pandemic has impacted global levels of depression and anxiety, what it feels like to struggle with either mental health disorder. Dr. Heisz shares her own story and struggles with anxiety and depression and this includes her journey to starting exercise and even an incredible story about a mid triathlon panic attack and how she managed to finish her event and learn from it.

Dr. Heisz walks us through the science of depression, how it affects our brain biology, how antidepressant medications work, what antidepressant resistance is, what types, duration, and intensity of exercise we should do to derive the benefits for mental health, how to overcome barriers of low motivation and a lot of other very interesting topics that help us understand how stress and inflammation play a role in mental health.

Dr. Heisz is an incredible woman. She is courageous and vulnerable and strong. It is a gift to have this conversation with her. I hope that you enjoy our discussion as much as I did.

To learn more about Dr. Heisz and her new book Move The Body Heal The Mind, skip over to my website Anneguzman.com where I link to her book, her Nuerofit Lab and her contact links on Twitter and Instagram.

Please hop over to my podcast on Apple or Spotify and rate it. I would be super grateful as it helps the podcast get more listeners and that means these important messages reach more people and hopefully help more people. Also, leave a comment about what you liked so other listeners can learn about the podcast. I love sharing comments on social media. Tag me and follow me on your favorite social platform. I'm @guzmannutrition on Twitter and @guzmananne on IG.

If you are interested in being a podcast sponsor, please email me at [email protected]. I would love to work together if it makes sense for both of us.

Thank you for being a part of this community. 

Until next time, keep moving forward and remember that progress looks different for everyone and it's rarely linear and always imperfect. Keep on moving.

Anne

Ever wonder why you're not recovering as quickly as you used to, why your joints feel a bit more "crickety," and why your training routine isn't bringing you the returns it used to?

With age, our bodies change and our muscles change. We must understand what to tweak to best manage our changing bodies and keep them strong and resilient.

I reached out to Dr. Stuart Phillips to discuss the topic of muscle loss related to aging, how this can impact our functionality and quality of life, and what we can do about it.

Dr. Stuart Phillips is a Professor in the Department of Kinesiology and a member of the School of Medicine at McMaster University. He's also the Director of the McMaster University Physical Activity Centre of Excellence (PACE). His research is focused on the impact of nutrition and exercise on skeletal muscle protein turnover. In addition, he has a keen interest in diet- and exercise-induced changes in body composition, particularly in older persons.

During the conversation we touch on so many interesting topics including but not limited to:

Thank you so much for listening. Please share this with your friends on your favorite social media platform and tag me @guzmannutrition on Twitter or @guzmananne on IG, and Dr. Phillips is @mackinprof on both Twitter and IG. 

I would be super appreciative if you could head over to Apple Podcasts and rate this podcast (scroll down to the bottom where the 5 stars are). Ratings are important for getting more people to listen to the podcast, and the reason I do this podcast is to help translate the science from my amazing guests so that it can reach more people in an accessible format. More ratings equal more people learning and that means more people staying healthy and navigating this imperfect thing we call life! Also please click the SUBSCRIBE button while you're there and leave a comment about what you thought about the episode.  

 Check out my Bone Health for Cyclists Course here!

"As ketone levels go up, ketones themselves inhibit their own production. When you drink an exogenous ketone and you elevate the ketones in the blood, you're going to be in the short term, blunting that fat release, that lipolysis component."  Dr. Brianna Stubbs

If you're an endurance athlete on the internet, there's little doubt you've stumbled across a conversation about ketogenic diets and ketone supplements, and you may have left more confused then when you arrived. That's because there are a lot of myths floating around  and recommendations not based on sound evidence. I wanted to bring clarity about the differences between supplements, the data behind supplements for both performance and brain health, the required dosing to see any effect, if there is one to be found, and whether or not this is a sound investment for someone whose curiosity is peaked. To bring you reliable information, I reached out to Dr. Brianna Stubbs.

Dr. Stubbs is a world expert in exogenous ketone metabolism and its implications for performance, resilience and health-span. She completed her PhD in Metabolic Physiology at the University of Oxford, and while completing her studies, she competed on the British International Rowing Team, and was a two-time World Champion lightweight athlete. Dr. Stubbs is currently Lead Translational Scientist at The Buck Institute for Research on Aging, where she's part of a team focused on developing our understanding of ketone biology, the metabolic effects of novel supplemental ketones, and their role in healthy aging.

Today we dive into a lot of topics related to ketones and ketogenic diets included but not limited to:

I would really appreciate it if you could take 1 minute right now (that's all it will take!) and head over to Imperfect Progress with Anne Guzman at Apple here, scroll down to the bottom where the comments are and give the podcast a rating out of 5 stars. This really helps me get the podcast to more people and to share this quality information with people who may be listening to everything they read on social media. I would love if you would leave a quick comment about the episode or podcast! I love sharing comments on social media and truly appreciate the feedback every time. Thank you for being a part of this learning community.

To learn more from Dr. Stubbs, follow her here on twitter: https://twitter.com/BriannaStubbs.