Should you avoid processed sugar? It's the question I get asked every single day.

And whilst the advice that sugar is bad isn't wrong — it's massively out of context for women who train hard. It was written for a largely sedentary population. Not for a woman training four, five, six times a week asking her body to perform, recover and repeat. That is a completely different physiological context. And applying the same rules to yourself is quietly keeping you stuck.

In this episode Poppy breaks down the actual mechanism — why glucose is your primary fuel source for moderate to high intensity training, why the fast absorption of processed sugar that makes it problematic in a sedentary context is precisely what makes it valuable around training, and the three specific windows where it's the mechanistically correct choice.

Including the cortisol-craving loop that explains why the 9pm reach for something sweet feels so out of control — and why it has nothing to do with willpower and everything to do with what you did or didn't eat six hours earlier. Why the guilt around the gel mid-run is diet culture interfering with sports nutrition in real time. And why the reward mentality — finishing every session needing a treat to feel complete — is keeping women in the same relationship with food they've been trying to escape for years.

This is not a permission slip. It's the context most nutrition advice never gives you.

📩 DM @poppy.nfc with questions.

Why Your Head Is What's Actually Limiting Your Running

Your legs aren't always the thing holding you back.

Sometimes, it's your head.

In the final episode of the running series, we're diving into the mental side of running — from ego and Strava comparisons to the very different skill of learning to push when things get genuinely hard.

Because there are times when you need to get your ego out of the way: slowing down your easy runs, ignoring what everyone else is doing, and trusting your training plan.

But there are also times when you need to strengthen your mind.

When your legs are fried halfway through a peak-week long run. When you look at an interval pace and think, there's absolutely no way I'm doing that. When a race starts hurting and your brain immediately tells you to slow down.

Running isn't supposed to feel easy all the time.

The right training programme should challenge you — and learning that hard doesn't automatically mean bad is a huge part of becoming a better runner.

We'll talk about race-day anxiety, negative splits, comparison, Strava, confidence, handling races that don't go to plan, and why every difficult session gives you another piece of evidence that you can do hard things.

Because confidence doesn't come from telling yourself you're capable.

It comes from proving it to yourself, run after run.

Message me on instagram @poppy.nfc if you've enjoyed these running episodes or would ike to know more about the Half Marathon Program.

You've trained hard. Done the sessions. Shown up consistently. This episode is about making sure you don't get the fuelling wrong on the day that actually matters.

Because that's where most mistakes happen. Not in the training block. On race day itself, or in the 48 hours before it. And almost always it's not because women didn't try — it's because nobody gave them the specifics. Not the vague eat more carbs advice. The actual numbers, the actual timing, the actual decisions that separate a race that reflects your training from one that falls apart in the second half.

In this episode Poppy covers everything from the night before to the finish line. Why carb loading and calorie loading are completely different things and which one most women accidentally do. What to eat the night before and why the night before a race is not the time to try a new restaurant. Race morning timing, quantities, and the small top-up 15 to 20 minutes before the start that most women skip. Why 30 grams of carbs per 30 minutes during the race is the target and why one gel for a two-hour run is not enough. The carbohydrate oxidation study that found one female runner burned 120 grams of carbs per hour at half marathon pace. Why gut training is non-negotiable and how to build it across your training block. And what changes if race day lands in your luteal phase.

Nothing vague. Just the specifics.

Running series episode three. Episodes one and two are live now.

Fuel Her Fire 2.0 is open — 12 week progressive half marathon programme with bi-weekly check-ins. £299. DM HALF to @poppy.nfc on Instagram.

You're not going crazy. The same session genuinely does feel completely different depending on the week. And if nobody has ever explained why, this episode is for you.

In this episode Poppy breaks down exactly how your menstrual cycle affects your running performance from a sports science perspective — not a wellness one. How oestrogen and progesterone create four genuinely different physiological environments across the month, what that means for your heart rate, fuel utilisation, recovery, thermoregulation and sleep — and the practical nutrition and lifestyle tools you can use across each phase to keep your training intensity without burning out.

Including why a 10k run in the luteal phase might need a gel when the same run in the follicular phase needs nothing. Why your zone 2 pace being 30 seconds slower in week three isn't your fitness dropping. Why highly symptomatic periods might be a deficiency problem as much as a cycle problem. And what to actually do when race day lands in your luteal phase.

This isn't cycle syncing. It's practical adaptation, the tools in the toolbox that make each phase more manageable so you can stay consistent across a full training block.

Running series episode two. Episode one, What Actually Gets You From Good to Fast — is live now if you haven't listened yet.

Fuel Her Fire 2.0 launches September 15th. 12-week progressive half marathon programme with cycle-aware nutrition, RPE and pace calculators, and bi-weekly check-ins. DM HALF to @poppy.nfc to secure your space — limited numbers.

This one is for the woman who is already running. Not the beginner. The woman who has been training consistently for a year or two, finishing races, feeling like there's more in the tank — and not sure how to access it.

In this episode Poppy shares her own running journey from a 1:50 half marathon where she walked the last three miles, to a 1:37 and then a 1:35 — and what actually changed between those times. Spoiler: it wasn't more sessions, harder training, or a magic supplement.

Covers: why adding more runs stops working at the intermediate stage and what to do instead · the 80/20 training distribution and what easy actually means in practice · the ego problem with interval sessions and why hitting all your reps at 80% beats blowing up at 110% · why your 6pm interval session depends on what you ate at lunch · the numbers behind carbohydrate fuelling (30-60g per hour, plus the elite female study that found 120g per hour as optimal) · why a pre-sleep snack matters more in a heavy training block than most women realise · and the five questions to ask yourself before your next half marathon block.

Plus, the full details on Fuel Her Fire 2.0. A 12-week progressive half marathon programme with built-in RPE and pace calculators, phase-specific nutrition, and bi-weekly check-ins.

📩 DM HALF to @poppy.nfc on Instagram or comment below after listening.

One of my clients messaged me last week - "How and why is it working? Like why does eating more allow the body to become leaner yet build muscle at the same time?"

And I love this question because it sounds like it shouldn't make sense. Eat more, get leaner and build muscle? Surely that's backwards?

It's not. But the reason it works is more interesting than most people realise.

In this episode Poppy breaks down the three conditions that have to be met simultaneously for body recomposition to happen, why your body's survival mechanisms actively work against fat loss when you're chronically underfed, why you have to cover the cost of your baseline day before your body has any spare capacity to build anything, and why training quality is the silent variable that most women are getting wrong.

Including the business investment analogy that makes the whole mechanism click, why crash dieting produces smaller but softer not leaner and stronger, and what consistently eating enough actually looks like in practice, not unlimited food, but matched to the real cost of your training life.

This is not an eat more and everything will be fine episode. It's the engine underneath body recomposition, why it works, what's actually happening, and why so many women are stuck not because they're doing the wrong training but because they've been trying to outperform underfuelling for years.

📩 Comment STRONG on Poppy's latest post for coaching details. Comment FUEL for the full fuelling guide. DM @poppy.nfc with questions.

Protein is the macro women fear least. Which makes it the one most likely to be overused, mistimed, and blamed for the wrong things.

This episode isn't eat more protein and here are some chicken breast ideas. It's the honest conversation about what happens when protein becomes the safe macro women cling to when everything else feels unsafe — and what happens when that approach collides with hard training.

In this episode Poppy breaks down why eating 160g of protein on 1,600 calories leaves no room for carbohydrates, why keeping protein high and adding carbs is calorie loading not carb loading, the difference between diet phase protein logic and performance phase protein logic, and why applying the wrong one to the wrong phase is why so many training women feel off despite doing everything right.

Covers: how much protein you actually need and how it changes by phase · the portion reality check (two eggs is not a high protein meal) · why a high protein breakfast is consistently the single highest leverage change Poppy makes with clients — and why the effect shows up within days not weeks · why protein before high intensity cardio is working against you · the luteal phase protein anchor · what happens to runners who keep protein high without upping carbs · protein pairing for plant-based women · and why red meat deserves a better reputation than it gets.

📩 Comment FUEL on Poppy's latest post for the full fuelling guide. Comment HYBRID for the hybrid training and fuelling framework. DM @poppy.nfc with questions.

Will cardio decrease muscle mass? Should you do cardio before or after lifting? Does eating protein or carbs right after training promote muscle gain?

This question comes up almost every single week — and the anxiety behind it is real. Women who are running and lifting, worried the miles are eating into the muscle they've worked so hard to build.

The short answer is no. You don't have to choose. But the place where most women are getting it wrong isn't the training. It's the food. And specifically — the fear of eating enough to actually support both.

In this episode Poppy breaks down why undereating is the real reason most women aren't building the muscle they want, what body recomposition actually requires versus what the fitness industry tells you, why your body cannot build something from nothing when it's in survival mode, and what the research actually says about cardio and muscle - including the interference effect and when it actually matters.

Including the phone battery analogy for post-session glycogen that will change how you think about every session after a run, why the women who get the physique results they want are almost always the ones who had to eat more not less, and the one question to sit with this week that matters more than any session structure.

📩 Comment HYBRID on Poppy's latest Instagram post for the full hybrid training and fuelling guide. DM @poppy.nfc with questions.

10,000 steps is everywhere. Every fitness tracker, every health app, every wellness article. And if you're a woman in structured training — running, lifting, doing both — it might actually be working against you.

In this episode Poppy breaks down where 10,000 steps actually came from (a Japanese pedometer marketing campaign from 1965 with zero scientific basis), why it's a useful target for some people in some seasons of life and completely counterproductive for others, and the two specific mistakes she sees training women make with step targets that are quietly stalling their progress.

Including why running steps count toward your daily total and are not a separate category, why forcing extra steps on hard session days and long run days competes directly with recovery, why using steps as a calorie-burning tool is diet culture logic dressed up as performance advice, and what step count is actually useful for measuring in a training context.

This isn't about shaming the 10,000 step goal. Context is everything. It's about understanding which season of training you're in and adjusting the target to serve your body — not a number invented for a completely different population.

📩 Comment FUEL on Poppy's latest Instagram post for the full running nutrition guide. DM @poppy.nfc with questions.

Am I doing enough? Am I doing too much? Why does adding more sessions not seem to be working? Why do I feel better on rest days but guilty for taking them?

This episode came directly from the WhatsApp community — and it's one of the most important conversations Poppy has for women who train hard alongside a normal life. Because the fitness industry has sold the idea that more is always better. And for women doing hybrid training, that idea is genuinely causing damage.

In this episode Poppy breaks down what training volume actually means — it's not how many sessions you do, it's total stress load from all training combined — the difference between overreaching and overtraining and why most women don't recognise the latter until their body forces them to stop, the specific signs that your volume is too high, why women are disproportionately vulnerable to the consequences of chronic high volume, and what a properly structured hybrid training week actually looks like.

Including the stress bucket analogy that changes how you think about every area of your life, why the Lucy Davis comparison is setting you up to fail, and Poppy's honest take on her own training right now — and why she's pulling back during the gym build even when every instinct says push.

📩 Comment HYBRID on Poppy's latest Instagram post for the full hybrid training guide. DM @poppy.nfc with questions.