My Confession: I'm writing behind your back

Announcing my column for Move Nutrition Network.

In the event that the New Personal Best newsletter doesn’t satisfy all your snarky sports nutrition advice needs, I’m stoked to announce my monthly column over at the Move Nutrition Network.

(Full disclosure, I’ve been doing the column secretly behind your back for a few months now. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be unfaithful. It just sort of… happened. Maybe a little variety to our relationship will be a good thing.)

Move Nutrition focuses on the supplement industry. If that’s not your jam, it’s still packed with other great opportunities for nutrition nerds to geek out. Topics range from the athlete’s microbiome and women in sport.

If you’d like to start by checking out what I’ve been doing over there (I feel so dirty), you’ll find the two-part column “You Need to Eat More.” Part one covers how increased calories can sometimes aid with weight loss. Here’s a snippet:

Today, I’d like to talk about the customers I dealt with during my tenure at the fitness company Beachbody (now BODi). Oftentimes, people would use our programs, have great results, then hit a weight loss plateau with “just five pounds left to lose.” 

My initial comment would invariably be, “You don’t need to lose that last five pounds. Your fitness is awesome and you look great. Now, please stop posting your underwear selfies on my social media.”

This advice usually fell on deaf ears except, thankfully, the underwear selfie part.

When trying to lose those final few pounds, it’s all about outmaneuvering adaptation. Adipose tissue (body fat) functions as emergency fuel, so your body works to hold onto it, especially if you’ve been stressing it by combining a calorie deficit and consistent hard workouts. It has no idea how long this deprivation will continue, so it does what it has to do to survive.

 Part two covers how eating more can improve exercise performance. Here’s a hunk o’ that one:

One of the fun parts of embracing a new endurance sport is the steep mastery and fitness curve. At first, you don’t need to dial in the specifics of your training in order to improve. If you just go out and do your new activity, your performance will naturally get better.

Most neophyte athletes do this for a while and it’s all pretty exciting because they just get faster and faster or go longer and longer—until they don’t.

When this happens, it might be that you’ve reached your peak fitness and to progress you’ll need to get on a serious training plan. However, odds are that you’re either overtraining, undereating, or some combination thereof—and progress can resume with a quick fix.

Please check out the column and let them know what you think!