Who has a race on the calendar??
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Carb loading 🥯 can be daunting, especially if you have dietary restrictions (e.g., vegan, gluten-free). There's more to it than just loading up on pasta 🍝 the night before. You should aim for 3.5-5.5g carb/lb bodyweight/day (150 lb person goal: 525-825 carbs/day) and most importantly, you should already be eating adequate carbs in your daily training so that this scale up is realistic!!
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It's best practice to carb load 2-4 days pre-marathon and 1-2 days pre-half marathon 🏃🏻♀️ , but if you are newer to carb loading or are overwhelmed by the amount of carbs you need to consume, you can take a more gradual approach. Aim for the lower end of the carb range for 4-6 days pre marathon and 2-4 days pre half marathon.
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Planning your carb loading days doesn't change too much if you are vegan or GF. Most carbs are vegan, and there are many naturally GF products (e.g., rice 🍚 , potatoes 🥔 , fruit 🍌) or processed GF products (e.g., GF bread 🍞 , bagels 🥯 , pasta 🍝, crackers) available. Just make sure to focus on simple carbs rather than complex carbs like whole grains and legumes. This is a situation where simple carbs are preferred over complex carbs! Practicing with different sources during training will be helpful so you know what works best for you- adding in some complex carbs is fine, but research shows simple carbs work best for carb loading & may reduce GI distress (source PMID: 29444266)
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Need support & want to make a plan together? I am hosting a masterclass on creating your race day fuel plan on 4/3 at 5pm EST (yes, it will be recorded!!). Sign up and join us at the link in my bio!
It’s been a minute since I introduced myself on here!
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I’m Holley 🙋🏼♀️ & I’m the dietitian, personal trainer, coach, podcaster, CEO and endurance athlete behind this account + Holley Fueled Nutrition LLC.
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I help endurance athletes of all levels learn to fuel their bodies to perform how they want & live their healthiest lives 🙌. I don’t have time for crazy fad diets, body shaming, or injuries & neither do you 👉 so I work with my clients so they can avoid these things too ❤️
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I am a runner myself (though my first sport was 🐎 equestrian), 7x marathoner, 4x BQer, and am currently training for the Boston Marathon 🦄. I have been in the shoes of the underfueled, injured, and restrictive runner & am here to help you avoid my own mistakes so you can get the most out of yourself and have fun doing it 💪
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Check out the link in my bio for several resources:
🎙️ Holley Fueled Nutrition Podcast
👉free downloadable guides
📧 email newsletter (meal plans & more)
🍽️ 1:1 & group coaching
💻 online nutrition courses & masterclasses
💪 Strength Program for Runners
🏃♀️ Half & Full Marathon Training Plans
📚 Busy Bee Cookbook & Meal Planning Guide
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Need support? Send me a DM!
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#runnersofinstagram#runningcommunity#sportsdietitian#dietitiansofinstagram#runcoach#strongrunner#bostonqualifier#holleyfueled
Let’s talk about cortisol…
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Cortisol is known as our body’s stress hormone because our body creates it in response to stress🤯. It’s a steroid hormone secreted by the HPA axis. When we’re in a stressful work meeting, scrolling social media & triggered by things we see, or getting chased by a bear, our adrenal glands that sit on top of our kidneys release cortisol. This then triggers our fight or flight response (AKA sympathetic nervous system).
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This fight or flight response causes our blood pressure & heart rate to increase, our digestion to stop, we may start sweating…our body is priming to run away from that bear!
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On the other hand, our parasympathetic nervous system does the opposite (e.g, slows heart rate, allows you to digest food). A lot of people, especially busy, high achieving runners, have trouble getting out of fight or flight mode & switching to rest & digest mode. This will then cause you to be pumping out a ton of cortisol all day long leading to elevated cortisol patterns, often due to acute stress & overfunctioning in this way for a few weeks. After a few weeks when things calm down, your body will be able to regulate itself again & this HPA axis dysfunction resolves.
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However, what I see even more is an athlete with tons of responsibilities, running many miles per week, strength training, not eating enough, & not recovering properly, so this elevated cortisol becomes chronic & actually leads to a low cortisol response. This person may start to struggle to get out of bed, feel like their spark is gone, can get through training but not feel their best, feel wired but tired, struggle to fall or stay asleep, have poor libido, etc.
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Does this sound like you? Comment STRESS & I’ll send you a link to sign up for my new “Stressed Out” masterclass!
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#cortisol#stress#wellness#wellbeing#hormonehealth#running#strongrunner#runstrong#nutritionforrunners#marathontraining#marathon#athete
NEW PODCAST EPISODE🎙
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On today’s episode of the Holley Fueled Nutrition Podcast, we continue our Supplement Myth Busting Series with a deep dive into protein powder & BCAAs.
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While they’re not necessary for everyone, protein powders can help you meet your protein needs as they’re a quick and easy way to up your protein intake. All protein powders aren’t created equal, though! Some are higher quality than others, and some contain ingredients that may upset your GI system (e.g., sugar alcohols, artificial sweeteners, chicory root, dyes, gums, excessive fiber).
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So should you supplement with protein powder and/or BCAAs? Check out the episode to hear more!
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Thank you @betterhelp for sponsoring the show! For 10% off your first month of therapy, visit BetterHelp.com/holleyfueled
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#pod#podcast#runner#running#athletes#nutrition#sportsdietitian#protein#proteinpowder#supplements#marathoner#runningcommunity
What’s stopping you from properly fueling your runs?🏃♀️
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🤔Are you running fasted in the AM?🌅
🤔Are you skipping your intra-run fuel?
🤔Are you waiting hours to eat post-run?⏰
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Whatever the reason is for skipping your pre-, intra-, or post-run fuel or not eating enough in general, you CAN change this! Fueling enough improves physical AND mental health. It takes time to train your gut, unlearn food rules and diet culture norms, improve your body image, and learn how to properly fuel to support your training.
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Want extra support in learning how to fuel your training and how much you need to be eating daily? Comment RUN and I’ll send you the link to my group nutrition program for fall races starting in September!
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#fuel#runfuel#running#trainingday#marathon#marathontraining#slowrunner#easyrun#longrun#morningrun#sportsnutrition#sportsdietitian#underfueling
Have you heard “if you can’t pronounce it, you shouldn’t eat it” or “you should only eat products with <5 ingredients”?📋
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It’s important to know what we’re putting in our bodies, and we want to eat to feel our best, but fear of our food having “chemicals” or “toxins” or an obsession over ingredients or additives can be doing more harm than good.
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We need to remind ourselves…
✅Many additives are super beneficial to our health! Folic acid is added to refined grain products to reduce the occurrence of neural tube defects in newborns, vitamin D is added to milk to prevent deficiency, and some additives such as citric acid and vitamin E keep foods fresh for longer to improve accessibility and reduce waste
✅Just because an ingredient is hard to pronounce, doesn’t mean it’s bad for you. A hard-to-pronounce ingredient may just be another name for a vitamin or mineral (sodium ascorbate = vitamin C, cyanocobalamin = vitamin B12)!
✅The number of ingredients doesn’t determine a food’s nutritional value. <5 ingredients is a completely made up rule not based in science. It’s great when we can get high quality ingredients in our foods and variety, but we don’t need to strive for perfection.
✅Ingredients are listed in descending order according to the weight used within the product.
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It’s a crazy world out there, and we hear such mixed claims about food and nutrition. Make sure you’re getting your nutrition advice from dietitians! Remember that the dose makes the poison and we can’t argue that anything is “toxic” (like water, for example) without specifying dose.
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Want to learn how to optimize your nutrition as a runner and set yourself up for success in your fall race? Comment STRONG, and I’ll send you the link to enroll in my Strong Runner Academy Fall Group Coaching Program starting in September!
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#foodrules#athlete#bodyimage#wellness#nutrition#health#dietculture#dietculturesucks#nutritionmyths#sportsnutrition#sportsdietitian#nutritionforathletes#foodmyths
Come race my first postpartum race with me!
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Jumped into this race down the road from me last minute to rip the bandaid off and go run fast for the first time in maybe a year- I don’t race 5Ks super often & have been running mostly easy effort mileage (around 20mpw) & focusing on strength and rehab and fueling the crap out of myself at 5.5 months postpartum. I wanted to see how it felt to go run “hardish” at a shorter distance… it actually felt great!
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My goals:
👉don’t die
👉don’t go out too fast
👉run an even effort (maybe sub 8:00min/mile pace? I really had no idea)
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The outcome:
✅ 21:42 (6:55 min/mile)
✅ negative splits on quite a hilly 5K course (220ft gain)
✅ first OA female (it was a small race but I’ll take it 😂)
✅ absolute torrential downpour (and some thunder lol) the whole race, accidentally butt dialed my mom twice because of how wet it was, but had so much fun!
✅ my husband and baby boy at the finish line 🩵🥹
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Super excited for more races this year and beyond & proud and pleasantly surprised by this postpartum effort! Starting to like 5Ks more and more…
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#motherrunner#momswhorun#momswhorunandlift#motherrunners#womensrunningcommunity#sportsnutrition#nutritionforrunners#runnerfuel#fuelyourbody#beginnerrunner#couchto5k#runnh
Happy Fueling Fact Friday! We’re making the easiest DIY sports drink today. Here’s the recipe:
Makes 32oz:
💧 3 cups water
🍋 1 cup lemonade (with sugar over HFCS preferably to get the glucose to fructose content on par for toleration purposes)
🧂 1/2 tsp salt
🍭 3 tsp sugar (could sub for honey or maple syrup)
🏃♀️ Optional add ins: squeeze orange for potassium, other splashes of juice for flavoring, extra salt if you’re an extra salty sweater
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Nutrition content: per 16 fl oz- 19g carbs, 575mg sodium
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Components of a proper oral rehydration solution (aka, sports drink that hydrates us properly while we sweat)? 👉carbs, sodium, water.
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💰 Not to mention how cheap this is if you’re on a budget but still gotta fuel 💪
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Tadaaaa!
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#oralrehydrationsolution#sportsnutrition#sportsdrink#hydrate#hydrateordiedrate#longrunfuel#fuelyourbody#marathontraining#halfmarathontraining#fuelup#runnerfood#diysportsdrink#fuelingfactfriday
