Founder Series | Ep #36 | Dalal L. | Triathlon Preparation – Conversations on Nutrition

medical advice welcome to the founders series of doctor of the podcast this year i’m signing up for a triathlon happening in summer and to prepare myself in this founder series i’m going to be having one-on-one conversations with experts in the field and hopefully it will keep myself accountable and nurture my community on a day to day so without further ado hope you enjoyed this episode so happy new year to everyone today we have dala lookly a licensed and qualified dietitian and nutritionist and also a personal trainer she specializes in sport nutrition and is based in belgium welcome dad thank you for your invitation in your podcast series so surprise surprise i’d like to discuss nutrition with you uh but more specifically in the context of triathlon and so for people who don’t know what a triathlon is it’s basically a race in which competitors swim cycle and run without without stopping between events in those specific sports which is swimming cycling and running what as a personal trainer with that point of view what do you see in the physical effort how would you categorize the physical effort here before a triathlon is a multi-sport even made it up of three different discipline now swimming climbing and running which is uh for a lot of energy is required to hold on over different distances okay so when we are doing a high activity we use our muscles yeah our muscles are divided in two major categories of fibers are the first category are the slow twist fiber which are called sorry the st and the second category are the fast twitch fiber it’s called ft okay sd it’s called slow and ft for uh fast okay sd and ft all right they are used to improve the endurance okay now in triathlon we need more entrance so it’s to improve endurance and ft to build more muscles okay it’s more for uh support with the strength so here in triathlon we’re going to use more st than ft but we use both right but that makes sense that we would be using st which is the slower fiber is that correct exactly yeah for endurance um and less strength what would you say is the proportion for a usual triathlon a ratio of eight eight percent sorry st and 20 percent of ft we know it’s a high carbohydrate requirement if necessary when you use stiff fiber so ringing from around 60 carbohydrates 20 protein and 20 fat it’s contrasts with ft which requires a higher protein uh intake you know the difference so st needs more protein no more carbohydrates exactly and ft needs more protein to summarize uh st we need to to maintain or to get the st developed you need carbohydrates and for fts which are needed more proteins for muscle development okay that makes sense now now that we we understand like these different muscles and uh fibers as a vegetarian what would you say is the biggest challenge with diet in preparation for for that type of physical effort protein of which 11 are synthetized by your body okay it’s uh your body managed that and nine founded in food yeah okay um as i said before uh we find an oldest nine protein in meat or three fish so the the nine uh protein essential we don’t find it uh on this food so we have to follow it in other food yeah okay so we can eat it uh from cereals like uh bread rice uh quinoa this kind of cereals and you have to um to take with absolutely it’s very important legumes when i say legumes i mean lentils beans we’ll go into a more practical kind of diet uh you would you can give us but um is there like an a specific nutrition you need to have before the competition during the competition and after the competition you have to uh have a specific diet before because you have to prepare yourself to the day of competition of course so uh when you’re going to train or to uh going workouts you have to eat well to prepare your body to avoid injuries so it’s important and uh during the the competition it’s important to have a specific diet because when you are biking or running or swimming you don’t have a time to make a perfect decision of your food yeah you cannot okay you have to eat something quickly but also they they have to help you to to give you some energy to convert the carbohydrates ba in energy so it’s very complicated right that’s why we uh all the competitors of triatron of uh this kind of sports are based on androids they take only liquids you know liquids yeah liquids yes like the transitions right when you’re getting from the the swimming to the bike or the bike to the run yeah okay yeah that makes sense anything liquid that that would be able to give you energy quickly right and what about before prior to the competition would you say 60 of proteins how what would be the the ratio yeah okay uh the best because it’s a sport with android you have to eat sixty percent of carbohydrates okay it’s very important um thirty percent of protein okay okay and twenty percent of fat okay and and during the competition you said any anything that is liquid is great does it need to be high in a specific nutrient yes in carbs absolutely in carbs to uh to to help your body to um give the energy as quick as possible to glycemic index will be high to give you the energy and of course a little bit of protein but you don’t have to be a big ratio in protein the most important is carbohydrate post training what post competition actually what would you say is the most important thing when we when we are preparing some competitor uh we have um a kind of ritual uh we call that a pasta party why pasta because your um glicogen uh full file it’s empty you’ve now you’ve run out of out of it yeah so you have to file the the the glycogen so this is why we call this pasta party to eat a lot of carbs also to have more energy uh to rest a lot and it’s important uh i didn’t mention that you have to drink a lot because that’s always like a controversial not controversial but a complicated conversation about how much right because like some people would just say one leader some would say two some would say three what have you come across in in your experience so um from my experience um i think when you want to drink water you feel that you want to drink water your um your brain is almost two percent of this degradation or dehydration okay so so when you feel thirst you’re already at a little percentage of dehydration okay okay exactly and when you are in this kind of situation your performance will be low and you’re not going to be performing yeah i mean that i mean that makes a lot of sense and it’s interesting so you would have to be a bit proactive of your water intake say you drink too much wouldn’t you have to pee during the the no because you sweaty you know yeah you evacuated all the water that you you drink yeah but if you’re drinking a lot you feel so uh bloated and like you know so i’m just you know i’m always scared i’m always scared of having too much water because then it’s like what if i need to pee and yeah not three liters just before so all right and and for a more practical like kind of uh advice what would be like a typical breakfast you would recommend for a vegetarian who’s prepping uh who’s training more endurance um for the breakfast for example in the morning you can drink some smoothie with a banana avocado um some they eat fruits to fruit is very important so don’t escape this part because they’re gonna help you for an antioxidant effect in your body you have also to add some scoop of protein supplementation of course to to help your body to get more protein and i recommend also some supplementation of magnesium right to avoid all the cramps and so with regards to supplements as a vegetarian we will so you mentioned proteins you didn’t mention magnesium for for hydration and making sure to reduce cramps anything else you you would recommend to as a supplement yes sure like b12 it’s only finite in i mean in meats and also iron and it’s complicated because we have two kind of iron we have iron from uh the the animals we have uh iron from uh the vegetables food and it’s complicated it’s not assimilated um in the same way i guess it’s just knowing what are the you know the spots where you kind of need additional help um and supplements are great for that okay so we we were talking about an ideal breakfast and what about lunch a body as i said before need 20 kind of essential protein and in that meal you can find nine uh essential protein that your body needs i mean if you want it for example lentis you have to add it with with them some rice it’s important to add together rice and lentils and lentils um contain a lot of iron so it’s good to help your body to to absorb the iron you have to add some vitamin c with it okay and vitamin c we can find it uh in lemon orange fresh paprika parsley so you can make your own juice okay and dinner would you recommend something lighter for example you have to be all always careful about the protein so here for dinner also you can eat for example uh hummus if you like hummus with delicious so you can add with your almost some slice of bread but wool wheat bread of course to help your body to get some fiber minerals and of course some vegetables so we went over the the different diets and the different type of dishes that along a day what i like to kind of shift on is addressing kind of the issues or the challenges uh with regards to diversity uh in sports especially in triathlon is something that i’ve noticed that there’s not much female of color and even less if you were to say uh wearing a hijab one of the intentions that i have as we have these conversations um with specialists is for them to kind of share their perspective and their experience regards to their experience being part of a minority group with being exposed to these type of um sports i’m sure you must have had a bit of an experience i’m from a very athletic family i had a lot of chance to explore many sports since i was i think six so i practiced basketball dance jiu-jitsu brazilian swimming gymnastics but i was not so easy to handle to be honest hijab and sport because many clubs are not open-minded you know yeah and neither are the tolerance so um sometimes it was so i was so disappointed and having to to quiet a sport that i love because of that that it’s very pity for me so do you feel that you had to because of the hijab or the acceptance or the view of the hijab has been a reason for you to kind of take a step back on actually doing sports yeah yeah clearly because uh when you are in an environment who people don’t like you and judge you because you’re wearing a hijab i when i practice sport with uh with this kind of club i feel judged because i’m wearing hijab of course and people sometimes don’t want to talk to you because they have some as i said stereotype okay i’m so i’m afraid of you i don’t want to approach you um so it’s not it’s not easy to be honest but fortunately i have a lot of chance not all the clubs are like that uh i’ve been of some clubs which were very open-minded uh and uh they accept me and i i felt so comfortable there even though the fact that you’re wearing a hijab did make you kind of take a step back on on doing sport you then decided to find a club that would accept you and you didn’t stop and and and you know said okay oh okay so i can’t do sports anymore because i think that that’s what we need to do is push ourselves and and say okay well if there’s not then i create a club or if there’s not then i’ll make it i’ll stand out and i’ll i’ll stand up for for people who look sound like me and that will kind of help create the change uh and acceptance from people it’s not because you are wearing hijab or because you are black or you are from a different acne you can’t do something that you love and this is why i’m trying to to help these people and i also practice it’s not a by discriminate men’s but i have only women i train only women to fill them um free about that if you want to to practice some box if you want to practice basketball jujitsu i’m here for that yeah so if you want to uh to do it so just tell me and we’re gonna do it together yes i’m trying to do yeah power to you know that’s great really uh i think that the more we we set the example as well to a certain extent and and show to people that this you know it’s not a big deal and and sometimes it’s also about so there’s the people who are receiving you with with your differences but then there’s also part of the community that sometimes feel that oh they don’t belong there because you know it’s not something that you know someone with a hijab or someone who is brown should be doing um and i think that that shift is is something that we need to start creating and and by showing up by by setting examples and by saying by sharing experience and by basically by saying it’s not a big deal exactly but i’m so so happy and proud of this new generation they’re fighting for uh their right with this motivation for me because i didn’t uh had this example when i was younger quite a positive note of just setting yourself an example and don’t be defeated by whatever society things you’re supposed to be doing uh but before we end this episode uh we usually end with a rapid fire question and so my my first question to you is what is the first sign that kind of indicates you that you’re out of balance when you’re feeling tired and motivationally slow okay what is your method of coping when you’re out of balance you should to let it go letting it go yes and last one what is one book that has impacted your approach to wellness or well-being oh one book it’s very famous it’s called the secret letters of the monk who sold the ferrari yeah rabin sharama that’s that’s a good that’s a good reference for for people it’s quite motivational all right well dalla thank you so much for uh spending the time with me to give me advice basically on how to eat better uh to prepare myself for this triathlon and uh take care thank you too goodbye if you enjoyed this episode go ahead and select that follow a subscribe button for now stay safe and we’ll see you next week