Confident Eaters

Christina: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to this episode of the confident eaters podcast. Coach Christina here. For today's episode, we are going to bring you something a little bit different. One of the great things about our company is that we do ask for help. Today, you're going to be listening in on one of our coaches meetings, where we talk about topics that come up with our clients. You're going to hear coach Georgie and I on one of our many, many zoom calls discussing some of our client's real questions and challenges together. In today's episode Georgie and I discuss questions around how to handle your nutrition when it comes to illness, injury, or surgery. In other words, when you can't work out or your appetite just isn't the same.

What does it look like to maintain a healthy nutrition routine and stay motivated when facing these kinds of challenges? We are also going to discuss the topic of pre-workout nutrition. What if you're someone who hates eating before a workout? Is it [00:01:00] actually necessary?

Which people might benefit more from eating before their workouts and why. Let's check it out.

Welcome to the Confident Eaters podcast, where you get proven methods to end overeating, emotional eating, and stressing about food. We're heading for harmony between your body, food, and feelings. Hosted by me, Georgie Fear, and my team at Confident Eaters.

Georgie: All right. What questions do you have this week, Christina?

Christina: one of my clients is getting an Achilles surgery. And I remember when you were dealing with your back stuff, there was some mindset stuff that you talked about and how do you still work on your nutrition and how do you not get discouraged when you're immobile, when you're used to being a pretty active person.

Georgie: One thing that's important is to separate your exercise fitness life from your nutrition life. Because [00:02:00] often if we keep them, like, very married together, if we can't exercise, we feel like we might as well just eat ice cream and Cheerios. Like, we don't, you know, recognize that while you can't make progress in fitness for a limited amount of time after you have an Achilles surgery, now you have extra bandwidth because you're not trying to get yourself to the gym or anything like really hone in on your nutrition. And really having as much wins or improvement as you can there, can be really good.

So tuning into your appetite is a really big thing. When somebody's activity level goes down, their appetite is also going to come down. But if we don't pay attention to that, it's easy to just eat as much as we've normally eaten.

Christina: Yeah.

Georgie: So I would say if she's gone from working out, you know, five, six hours a week to working out like zero hours per week, then you're really going to want to tune into how's your appetite doing with asking for food. If you're not hungry, you may not need to eat as much. Preferentially, I usually recommend people dial back the carbohydrates, and this is of course not me saying go low carb, keto, or anything like that, but your need for carbohydrates [00:03:00] decreases quite a lot, while you still have pretty similar needs for protein, and you want to still have that moderate amount of fat to keep you satisfied. So with my own meals, for example, if my breakfast right now has you know, egg whites and veggies and cheese and three slices of toast. I eat a big breakfast. If I'm dropping my training, I'll go to one or two slices of toast, but I'll keep the eggs and the veggies and the cheese and everything else the same.

So I kind of find just shifting the carbohydrate portion of meals is a really handy one. As I said, keeping protein intake high. Is a really helpful thing for healing. And then mentally, I think it's important to recognize that, you know, not exercising can be a big hit just in terms of how we manage our emotions and our stresses.

So trying to substitute other things. One that always seems so obvious, but it wasn't obvious to me, was that getting outside and in nature is so good for our mental health. But many people like me really only go out in nature to exercise. Like, I go out for a run, I go out for a walk, but when I was injured and my back was bad, it was [00:04:00] like, you know, it didn't even occur to me that I could, like, go sit outside in a chair in the sun, like, I completely negated that, it would just sit inside and be like, oh, I wish I could go running.

So yeah, get outdoors, even if you can't exercise. That's a really powerful one. And then think about any other things that you want to put a little bit more time into, like creative hobbies, socializing, spending time with your kids, spending time with your spouse, that sort of thing, self development. I learned a language when I was super laid up. One time for many months, I, you know, learned Italian. So I can stumble around in Italian. So use that as an opportunity. And then last but not least, this is sort of obvious, but like, if you have Achilles surgery, your lower body is going to be out for a little while. You can become the best push up or pull up person ever. So you can really, really work other parts of your body, even if you can't use an arm or a leg. So when I had my arm in a cast last year, I did a lot of lower body things and hiking. Hopefully that's helpful.

Christina: That's very helpful.

Georgie: Awesome.

Christina: Thank you.

Georgie: No problem.[00:05:00]

Christina: Okay, so next question is, one of my clients said. oh, you know, feed the flu, starve the cold or something. And I had to Google this. I've never heard this phrase before.

Georgie: Feed a cold, starve a fever,

Christina: starve a fever. Okay. Is this legitimate? Or this is like a totally old school

Georgie: wive's tale. Total wives tale. Usually when people have a fever, they're going to lose their appetite. It's just part of the way that the brain regulates food intake is when your body temperature is elevated, your appetite is like, buh bye! But you certainly still need food. So when people are sick, I usually recommend trying to stick to your normal eating times.

And if you have particular aversions, like, I just don't want vegetables, or I just don't want meat just do the best you can. Usually it's going to be. A number of days, less than a week. And honestly, if you ate no nutritious food for an entire week, you'd be totally fine. Like you could live on white bread and butter for a week.

You're going to be no worse off. Just focus on getting better. [00:06:00] If it's something that tends to stretch on for a long period of time, for example, somebody develops a chronic disease. They're going to be handling this disease for months, then we do want to look at more solutions to like, make sure you're getting your protein, make sure you're getting vitamins and minerals.

That's the case if somebody has like liver disease, cancer, pancreatitis, the sort of stuff that they're going to have for a while. But if it's cold or a flu or COVID, make yourself comfortable. Try not to eat for boredom because we're all bored and frustrated when we're sick, but just try and stick to your regular meal times.

Not eating twice as much as you normally eat, not eating half as much as you normally eat, just get through it.

Christina: Yeah. Okay. So last question, one of my clients was trying to eat before her workout. And now she's like, I definitely don't like doing that. I don't want to eat before I work out. It feels gross. Because I know you've said it's ideal if you can eat something before, but

Georgie: agree, and I'm glad you're asking this question because it shows that you're getting that there's like there's ideal. And then there's priorities. under that. So [00:07:00] usually there's bigger fish to fry, so we won't need to fixate on that part of that particular thing when it is something that you want to hammer on, even though they're telling you, I hate it, I'm so sick is if they're overeating after their workout. that's usually the biggest one, or if they have a medical condition like polycystic ovarian syndrome or PCOS, It's characterized by high stress hormone levels, it just can exacerbate an already stressed sort of endocrine profile to do exercise in a fasted state, so I try and recommend it. Or if somebody's already dealing with lots of life stress. And it comes up in the terms of their immune system takes a hit. They get lots of cold sores. They get the flu and the cold, like weekly, like if they're giving you a lot of signs that their body is under a lot of stress, then I would encourage people not to do it because it is a significant stressor the body to try and mobilize enough fuel to do a workout when it has to all come from the body, there's none coming in from the outside.

Christina: Okay. [00:08:00] So if they're dealing with a lot of life stress, the immune system is lowered. They're getting a lot of cold sores. You recommend that they do try to eat before.

Georgie: Correct. Yeah. Cause I don't want them to have that extra stress. Yeah. So if somebody is like, no, I feel relatively well, this is what I've been doing for a very long time. Often it is.

Christina: Yeah.

Georgie: Just go ahead. That's fine.

Thank you again for joining us on this episode of the confident eaters podcast, First we discussed maintaining a healthy nutrition routine and staying motivated when dealing with immobility due to surgery or injury. Remember separating your exercise and nutrition routines can help support you on your way to confident eating. Second, we debunked that saying feed a cold starve, a fever. And emphasized the importance of listening to your body's signals, just doing the best you can and prioritizing self care during illness. And finally we explored the topic of pre-workout nutrition [00:09:00] and when it's necessary. Sometimes ideal doesn't always align with reality. And we here at confident eaters want to support your nutrition journey in a way that fits into your real life. As always thank you for listening to the confident eaters podcast, please like subscribe and share it to help us reach more people on their journey to a healthier relationship with food. If you listened to this episode and think you could use the accountability and support of a coach who can help you choose day after day to eat in alignment with your goals and your values, then head over to confident eaters.com and send us a message which will go directly to our fairy God coach, Georgie fear herself. We would love to help and we will see you in the next episode.