#2 - Sammy Cooper - Nutrition's Hidden Impact on Performance and Mental Health

:: 00:00

There is an old saying happy body, happy mind, and today on my podcast, I'm going to discuss the nutritional benefits for your mental health and your physical health with Sammy. From my experience of being one of Sammy's clients, her knowledge is next to none in terms of nutritional benefits for your mental health and physical health. Sammy is an elite performance nutritionist and a rising star within her space. Before becoming an independent nutritionist, sammy worked for March on for two years down at Harpenden. I'll provide all of Sammy's links to her social media so that you can get in contact with her. After the podcast MUSIC Sammy. Thanks so much for coming on. Thanks for having me Great to be here.

Firstly, I just wanted to talk about how we kind of know each other and you know, obviously I was one of your clients, I think about six months ago now, down at March on, and that's helped me massively and I was just pulling up here on my computer a few bits that you sent to me. But yeah, no, it's been awesome.

:: 01:01

So tell us a bit about yourself and yeah, so I, as you said, I'm a performance nutritionist. I started off I think it's been about three years now I did economics at uni, so nothing related. But I started playing rugby, got really into rugby. I wanted to do everything I could just to be the best player, and that's when I started to get into nutrition. So I've always found food fascinating, always loved cooking, and it was uni when I just first started to take it a little bit more seriously, tried a few things, some like definitely diet culture, mishaps along the way, but that was definitely the thing that kind of sparked my interest. Yeah, then I decided to pursue it a little bit more, went into marketing but decided that definitely wasn't for me and that's when everything kind of started. I then joined, yeah, march on it was over two years ago I was there for a couple of years. That's where I met you and we're looking at nutrition to support your rugby and just, yeah, everything's kind of gone from there.

I just love all things performance nutrition, whether it's like just a casual weekend warrior up to elite professional athletes, just supporting them, getting the most out of their performance and getting them playing and feeling good.

:: 02:11

Yeah, love that. How long have you been doing this officially now? Performance nutrition.

:: 02:15

So I think it's been about three years. It started off more like Gen Pop, just a lot of like body composition changes, but I mean I came from rugby so it's all kind of I've always loved that side of it and just had the opportunity to work with some cool people and just that's where I want to take things now, with my own business, working with yeah.

A range of athletes, mainly in rugby, football, marathon cultures, but, yeah, team sports being the most, rugby and football being the majority, and then, yeah, few cross-riders, but mainly getting into team sports and hopefully, yeah, continue to go that way.

:: 02:53

Love that and obviously, just speaking from personal experience, I couldn't recommend you more of anyone watching this is looking for a performance nutritionist or just some advice here and there. Sammy obviously has her own company out called Scoop Nutrition.

:: 03:05

Scoop. Nutrition, yeah Scoop.

:: 03:07

Nutrition love the name, but yeah. So Sammy and I met down at March on down in Harpenden, and March on has done wonders for me, not physically but sorry physically, but also mentally, and it's something I really treasure in terms of a place, in terms of the people I've met, in order to get my mental health in a better state, as well as my physical health for playing rugby and worked with Sammy down there.

And what we talked about before is just setting up plans for me quick, easy plans, especially when I was at uni and trying to make like food at uni and it sounds silly in terms of just making food, but it takes a lot of time and especially if you're training all day and not having set meal plans, you're sort of eating one offs and you're eating the wrong thing and then you're training poorly because you got the wrong food in your body.

And that was something I was awful for. And I think to a point on my shoulder surgery. I think I went shoulder surgery and then ankle surgery and my body fat before was around 12% and it went up to about 23%, which was a bit foreign to me in terms of I've always been like the skinny guy and then put on weight and was a bit here or there with what I was eating. So having you help me sort of push me through even if it's just small things like helped massively and I use that plan. I've still got it on my computer to today, like religiously and what I did when I was at university. But yeah, in terms of explaining what you do as a nutritionist, if someone was to join on as a client today, what could they expect when they signed up for scoop nutrition?

:: 04:41

A range of things really. So performance clients we usually start with looking at like, where they are now, what they're doing. Now we start with a little discovery phase Because, as, like what I'm good at is having full on meal plans that gives people and tells them exactly what to do it doesn't really install that much autonomy or understanding of why they're doing the thing. So that's definitely a big part of how I coach is giving lots of people education so you understand, like the what and the why, and with the what and the why is what they're doing now, why they're doing it, and diving into the why is definitely a big part of it. And understanding kind of people's perceptions around food and why they think the way they do will likely look at kind of what they've done historically and what was it like growing up? What was food like when they were growing up? Did they get any nutrition support from, like academies or whatever? That may be? Just understanding that We'll then probably look at.

So, first up, I guess we energy intake. Just ensuring that that's that's level where it needs to be. That's going to be the most important thing for performance. Looking at macronutrients micronutrients and that's often where people's perceptions come in of like, oh, carbohydrates good or bad? And I pretty much always end up upping people's carbohydrates to get them to perform better, and that's, I think, whether the mentality that comes into it is just people's perceptions of certain things and how it's going to impact them.

So once we've kind of nailed some of the basics, we'll be looking at sleep as well and ensuring we've got recovery protocols in place. What is their sleep schedule like? What are routines like? Because ultimately, sleep is like the greatest performance enhancer, greatest life enhancer. So looking at everything to do with sleep. Then we'll come on to things like match day what's eating a match day plus one, minus one, and supplements and things like that. So if there's any injuries around as well that probably happens early on We'll look at nutrition for injury. So, as you say, if I look at a lot of people like you, we'll end up getting weight throughout that process and that can be super difficult to deal with.

:: 06:39

So it's yeah, it is.

:: 06:40

Yeah, 100%. And so it's looking at one how we can manage body composition. Because if we're ultimately when we're recovering from an injury, the goal is still performance, like you want to get over your injury to them, perform well. So if we're able to maintain body composition, then we're going to be in a better place to perform better when it's kind of over. So again, it's looking at the mentality around injuries of is it like a fuck it, I'm going to do whatever I want because I can't play, and so it's.

How do we manage that? Is it how? What else are they doing outside of rehab, outside of training, nutrition, because you're not going to be able to have as much fun as you had when you're like with the boys, when you're training. There's so much missing and so a lot of what we do is outside of that. Then like, okay, what are your hobbies? And the amount of times I ask athletes that like, okay, what do you like outside of what you do? And people just don't know. People don't know what they like. I mean, you've got this, which is sweet, and I know you've got like other stuff, so, but it's definitely a big thing where people just don't know, don't know what they like doing outside of the day to day.

:: 07:41

Yeah, I think you're right. I think for me personally, with like what you touched on before, especially with my shoulder, the first time is I used it as I'm bad at not doing things like my ADHD makes me very a bit always doing, always doing. Then I get mentally drained and blah, blah, blah. But I felt like with my shoulder I sort of use it as an excuse to not do anything, if that makes sense.

And I moped around and I was like, oh, my shoulder blah, blah, blah. But when I was in the club and I was working, I was working hard and I was making sure it was spot on, but outside I think I was. A really important lesson was when it came to nutrition, when it came to sleep, when it came to alcohol, I wouldn't say I was out of control with it, but I didn't really care and I was like, oh, it's fine, like I've always had low body fat, like I've always been a good athlete, oh, it won't affect me, and it hit me really quick. It hit me really quick. And that's when I was a bit like, oh no, like I need to sort this. And especially going into my ankle surgery this time it was something I had in the back of my mind where I was like I can't sort of fall down that same trap. And I learned to enjoy the process of it a bit more in terms of you don't need to eat chicken, chicken, broccoli and rice.

And that's what all of us were really doing at uni and a lot of the boys still do that to this day, so many athletes are exactly the same it was just having that sort of variation, what we've got here, for example, you've got quick, easy meal ideas and you've got tuna mayo pasta like really quick, simple, a mini roast dinner. Cook your frozen roast potatoes and pastas in the oven together and cauliflower cheese and the microwave, either by a whole cooked chicken or cook it and have the rest spread out over the week. And it was things like that where I was a bit like you've made it sound so simple, but until someone puts it that simply, you don't really think about it.

And that was like massive for me in terms of my injuries and stuff. So a massive thank you for that. Obviously, this podcast is based around mental health. It's called Inside of Mind, so I was gonna ask you in your professional experience, can improved nutrition help with anxiety and depression symptoms?

:: 09:55

Yeah, I think it's very multifaceted and I think one definitely impacts the other and vice versa. So if you're naturally drawn to processed foods, if you're eating minimal whole foods, not much fruit and veg, your bans are physically not feel great and that will naturally me probably mentally don't feel great too. So it's, how can we bring in whole foods and simplify it as well and, as you kind of say, like it can seem overwhelming, seem complicated either it's chicken, buckwheat, rice or it's like what I don't know. So it's, how can we make things simple and that makes you feel better physically? That will no doubt impact your mental health and equally, not being scared of certain foods. I think so much of the anxiety that I see with people and athletes and just general people who have a correlation with food is just their perception of how like foods are good and bad and if they eat them then they feel bad and that plays into their anxiety.

So it's such a intertwined relationship between the two which is certainly fascinating and I think people probably underestimate that. Your perception of foods and how your I guess your relationship with food is an accurate representation of your relationship with yourself. So by eating kind of whole foods, by understanding what different foods do, will definitely and I've definitely seen it happen and just like improve anxiety and just having less stress around food when we simplify it and we bring it back to basics. No doubt, yeah, makes people feel better.

:: 11:26

Do you think there's any foods that people should, if they are struggling with their mental health, just try and cut out and be like or minimize, not cut out fully. But in terms like processed foods, high sugar, things like that. Would there be anything there I'd?

:: 11:38

say. I guess my approach is always what can we add? And it will likely be as a byproduct, those things might naturally decrease. So if someone's finding themselves that they will often reach like a takeaway or like McDonald's or just heavily processed food because that seems like the easiest option or they don't know what else to do, so rather than being like right, we need to reduce that, it's like okay, what can we do instead? Or what can we add to that? And sometimes it might even be right, let's, we're gonna get a takeaway, can we add a side of veg to it? And doing it that way?

Because, again, I think it plays into the whole like I shouldn't have this, I can't have this, and it goes into that guilt cycle which generally just makes people feel shit. So, in terms of like specific foods I mean at this point I'm pretty sure we all know that like ultra-processed foods, probably not ideal just for for health, for eating them on a regular basis, like making up the majority of our food and going with the whole, like 80, 20, like 80% of foods that fuel your body, fuel training, fuel, just general life, and then 20% of foods that I actually just enjoy them. You eat them because they taste good or for, like, social occasions or all that kind of other stuff. So there's there's never gonna be any specific foods where I'm like, yeah, you need to, you need to cut out or or reduce If it, and it's naturally gonna depend on on where people are starting, but I'd imagine a lot of people that who listen to this podcast are probably already invested in their health probably know that a diet made up of like all saturated fats, loads of processed foods, isn't gonna be helpful. So it's, I'd say, and like, one of my biggest things I do is is it tends to be like male athletes who may be like early in the twenties, just don't eat veg, don't eat any veg. So there we go. So what can we do then? So, like, regardless of kind of what they're doing is right, let's let's just see what we can mark on that. Let's see if we can increase your vegetable intake, diversify what you're eating, get different colors on your plate. I mean, like the.

The ultimate goal is probably to consume 30 different plant foods every week. So that could be fruit, veg, but it's also like legumes, beans, anything that kind of comes from the, from the ground. So it also includes herbs and spices, but we tend to include those as like maybe a quarter of a point rather than one cause we just don't eat them in an abundance. So for a lot of people 30 plants is a that seems like a lot a week. When you actually break it down it's actually not that bad, but if it still seems overwhelming it's okay.

Can we get to start off with five a day the standard government guidelines? Can we get five a day? Ideally three veg, two fruit would be sweet If that's easy. Can we get it to? So five veg, three fruit. So we're getting eight in there and just gradually building up like that. Again with practical things like what's convenient? Is it mixed veg that you just shove in the microwave? You're getting some variety in there, but it just requires like 30 seconds of effort to put in the microwave. For some people it might be that if they live on their own maybe the veg goes off faster than they want it to. They end up with food waste and no one likes food waste. So maybe it's frozen veg and it's just looking at little practical ways that we can increase their micronutrient intake and short. There's no deficiencies, which ultimately will support health and then our performance.

:: 14:43

For myself. I'm constantly looking into. I think I've become a bit obsessed with, a bit obsessed with trying to better myself, like mentally and physically. Now and I was reading, I've got something here. I was reading about Mediterranean-style dishes and that type of diet whole grains, seafood, beans, nuts, and sort of incorporating that in for my mental health but also my physical health. You touched on whole grains and things that I've had before. But is that a smart move for me, sort of adding that in to what I'm doing? Cause I like to think I've got a whole like a hold of what I'm eating at the moment and I've become quite disciplined with it in terms of I learned from my mistakes and when I was like you know, 17, 18, where I could eat whatever I want and I was like this is brilliant. And now I'm sort of looking at introducing more things like a Mediterranean-style diet, not fully, but like just incorporating it in slowly for my health. What would you recommend on that aspect for me personally?

:: 15:42

Yeah, yeah, I mean the Mediterranean diet is generally perceived as like a healthy one that helps with like longevity, and so it's as you kind of mentioned. It's a diet that tends to be higher in whole grains, an abundance of fruit and veg like feta, lean meats, fish, all that kind of stuff, and if we're looking at what those are, micronutrients if you can say that can come in any form, whether that is part of like a Mediterranean diet. But essentially adding more vegetables is going to be a helpful thing. Same goes for fish. You're going to cover it kind of all just comes out to variety and diversity, like we want to get as different foods as we can, cause we get a different nutrient profile, and a Mediterranean diet does that pretty well. It tends to be higher in fat. So we're looking at polyunsaturated fats, monounsaturated fats, so things like salmon or oily fish, mackerel that's the polyunsaturated. Monounsaturated tends to be like your olive oil, nuts, seeds, all that kind of stuff, avocado. So again, those things, in cooperating those are also going to be super helpful for overall health.

:: 16:47

Awesome. I was going to touch on this before as well, but you said, with takeaways, sort of looking to add on, not looking to sort of reduce. I think that's really smart, cause I think, on a personal standpoint and like friends I know and people trying to lose weight is they strip everything down and they do it stupidly. And this is one of the advice that you gave to me, where you were like, just look at making better options. If you want to get that takeaway, if you want to do this, if you want to do that, look at adding veg on, look at adding this on. And that helped me massively, being like it was almost like a bit of a weight off my shoulders, not worrying, like oh no, I'm just going to have to eat this and that I can't eat that.

It was more just if I am going to eat this and I am just going to make a smarter choice with it and that was like really useful for me and I spoke to like my family about that and it was really useful when we like incorporated that into our foods and not feeling guilty about getting a takeaway and things like that.

In terms of protein and this is something that's quite big in the rugby world and taking loads of protein, I felt a bit not a bit rubbish doing that, but maybe feel a bit bloated and everything like the big protein shakes et cetera, and I looked at more lean meats like the chicken, all those types of things, just getting a leaner sauce, rather than doing the supplements in terms of like big protein shakes and mass gainers. If you were talking to someone who's at that point where they're a bit like I'm taking this but it's not making me feel very good In terms of a food standpoint what would you recommend in sort of increasing people's protein? Because protein what we were talking about before is shows it reduces anxiety and depression symptoms in people as well if done correctly.

:: 18:34

And so I'd love to hear from you I guess it's first up like the intentions behind the protein, like do we actually need it? I've definitely worked with a lot of pro players who are eating like 250 plus grams of protein a day and like just don't need to. So it's first up. Could we actually just take them out and be sweet with it, like are we fine? If you are looking to increase protein and hit certain targets I also with that then we probably don't need to go over more than maybe like 2.2-ish grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, maybe up to 2.4 absolute max.

:: 19:09

So 2.2 grams per kilogram of body weight.

:: 19:12

Yeah. So if that's for like an elite rubber player who is like training a lot, maybe increase it slightly pre-season. You might need slightly more for the first couple of weeks, but in general, like you don't need any more than 2.4, like you absolutely just don't, and it might be detracting from elsewhere and it's taking your ability to get other nutrients in because it might be, as you say, like making you feel too full or just generally not making you feel good. So first up is, yeah, intentions, do we need this amount? If actually we decide we do and the foods are waiting to start making us feel great. So one protein in general it has a high thermoconferential food so you burn more energy just processing it. So I don't know if you've ever had like you need to go to those Brazilian restaurants and they bring around like loads of stuff on skewers and it's just unlimited meat and you end up getting like the meat twarts. That's like a legit thing, it's a thing. So protein can be pretty taxing to break down, particularly if you're throwing in like a steak, which is gonna be higher in fat as well. Fat slows down the rate of gastric emptying, so it just takes a little bit longer to digest so you can just sit there for a little while and just generally not make people feel great. If we're looking at protein shakes, sometimes it's the artificial sweetness in them that just might not sit well with people. So you could try and go for a whey isolate which is lower in lactose, almost lactose free, or like a plant-based one, or it's a I mean I say this all the time, like so much of nutrition is trial and error compromise, and it might be that if you're really really struggling to get protein, protein shake might actually be helpful and the compromise that we have is that it might not make you feel great. Ideally we could find some other food, but whatever the compromise might be. But so other things then Greek yogurt, high in protein you mentioned it like chicken is a lean source of protein that might be easy to digest, but it's gonna differ for everyone, and so going through that trial and error process is gonna be super helpful.

Having a few things how does it make you feel? Switching it out, trying something else and seeing how you go. So yeah, I guess to wrap that up then. So intentions do we need any more? Looking at portion sizes as well, like you probably don't need like a 50 grams of protein in one go. So can we just reduce it slightly or switching our sources? Can we go for an isolate or a plant-based source? I guess on that as well, I think people are scared of plant-based sources not being high enough quality and not what you need for muscle protein synthesis. But if you get a decent quality and if you generally have just slightly more, you are going to tick all the boxes and having that, having your protein from a plant-based source, will have no impact on your recovery as long as you're taking all of the boxes from any amino acid profile.

:: 21:50

Way isolate. That's like a sort of juice form of protein, right.

:: 21:55

It's basically a way just with like the lactose taken out there's, you can get like clear way, which is more like the juice thumb, and I think most clear way is an isolate anyway, but yeah, but for some people, if you don't like the milky kind of normal way having a bit like yeah, having the juicy one is helpful.

:: 22:11

Yeah, I don't know why obviously everyone's different but for me, like the milky kind of protein, they just make me feel rubbish and they feel really bloated. I might have something like medically because of that which I haven't found out yet, but you talked about. See, this is something I do, where you're like 50 grams of protein in a meal and your body just can't digest that right. Yeah, it can digest it properly.

:: 22:35

It can digest it. It's. It will likely be a fair amount of protein to digest, but it's not that it can't digest it, but it from a muscle protein synthesis point of view. So a muscle growth point of view, like you, it's gonna differ on person to person. Classic, but it's usually around like 40 grams, is the amount like amount that you use for muscle protein synthesis. So you'll still use the rest of it. So the extra 10 or whatever it may be, just for other like bodily functions. All of us has a made up of protein, so it will get used or you'll just pee out. So it's it's. You don't necessarily need 50 grams. It's not the end of the world, it's not gonna be like detrimental or anything. It's just probably slightly unnecessary and you're gonna be better off, just yeah, looking at maybe distribution or protein frequency, rather than just getting a shit tonne all in one go.

:: 23:17

So would you recommend maybe like splitting your meals up in terms of like? For me personally, when I was at uni, especially in playing rugby, I'd just go because it was convenient, like either two or three absolutely enormous meals, which would just make me like lie on my bed after and be, like, oh, why have I done that?

but I'd always do that, and then, probably my third year of uni, I'd split it up into five or six smaller meals throughout the day and that's when I became a bit more disciplined and routine and what I was eating and made me feel way better and like I shed body fat a lot quicker and I felt like I was getting back to me again so that's something you recommend. If there was any like athletes out there who's trying to just pile in the food, would you split it up or would you just?

:: 24:00

yeah, from a recovery standpoint, splitting up definitely makes sense we're so. So this it's like the. The muscle full effect is so kind of as we mentioned. So there's only like a certain amount that you can use for muscle protein synthesis. Then the the rest will get used elsewhere. So there's no extra benefit of having like three lots of 60 grams in one serving. You don't get any, any benefits than having like 40 grams three times a day. The additional benefits come from actually having like spreading out a little bit better.

So going for more even distribution and having protein feelings like you say, five to six times a day, like spreading out between three and four hours, is gonna be more optimal for muscle protein synthesis we also have.

So there are fracturing period of leucine, which is like the poster boy for like muscle protein synthesis, that muscle growth process. That's the one that kind of kick starts the process and it takes it. What can take, maybe like three to four hours for that to return to baseline. So once it's spiked, so say like an hour later you have some more protein. There's probably not going to be any benefit of that. We need those levels to return to baseline in order to spike it again. So, yeah, there's more to it than just like total protein. I think if someone's struggling with protein, total protein is a good place to start, but if, like you say, if you're nailing three meals a day, we're probably it's gonna be more optimal to spread that out to into five or six feelings for for recovery you know you touched on I think it was 2.2 grams per kilogram for the protein.

:: 25:29

Is there anything in terms of hydration, in terms of a calculation, because I think for me hydration like it's something.

I'm all for that and like I never really know how much I should be drinking or not. What I should be, obviously water and stuff like that, but in terms of when I should be drinking, how much I should be drinking, I never really know. I just drink as much I can, but I find a lot of time. But training I'm like really dehydrated, yeah, when I go for a wheel or not, and I'm a bit like is there anything you give advice on in terms of that, especially for athletes, but just normal people day to day because I don't think it's that really spoken about in terms of like how important it is yeah, in

:: 26:06

terms of cognitive function and, yeah, also physical well-being for sure for day to day, aiming for the like two to three to the day will be sweet.

You'll likely be fine yeah, if it's a little bit hotter like it has been, and I think it's gonna get hot this weekend, then sure, if you, if you definitely know you're sweating a little bit more than increasing, that will be helpful. For someone who is into their performance and is training a lot, sweats a lot, it can be super helpful to look at sweat rates as well. So I will do this with all my athletes, so getting them to weigh themselves before a training session, then monitoring how much they drink in a session and then weighing themselves again and noting down just how long the session was as well, and you can work out how much you sweat per hour and then it shows just how much we need to be replenishing that biasing if we can kind of just keep on top of it throughout a session. So it's actually rugby players have like one of the highest rates of sweat rate, up to like two litres an hour. So sweating two litres an hour, so that's a shit ton of water. So try one to try and drink in that time and generally replenish.

But so, yeah, figuring whether that is, and then you can go for more of a bespoke approach. Ideally you want to be replenishing that, but, as I say, two litres of water. If you're losing that in an hour, if you're training from a mostly team sports, it's going to be very difficult to get that on. There'll be stoppages where you can get some water on, but you're unlikely to be able to to get all of that in one go. So then prioritizing hydration soon after most people know that, like having food soon after training is going to be super helpful. But if you've just sweated a lot it's been a really hot session particularly if you're then training in later that day, then actually hydration probably becomes an even more important one because, as you say, it does have a big impact on cognitive function, decision-making and your abilities like thermal regulation. So it's super important.

And things like electrolytes can be helpful then, particularly if you feel like you're a salty sweater. But most people will lose a reasonable amount of sodium in their sweat. So we lose electrolytes sodium, chloride, magnesium, potassium, a little bit of calcium those are generally the ones that we lose in our sweat, but sodium is the one that we lose in most abundance and actually it's the most important when it comes to fluid retention. So whereas magnesium, potassium we generally get in our diet and we easily can, sodium is the one that we want to be a little bit more timely in replacing. So having some electrolytes as you train and potential is part of a recovery strategy as well.

So sitting down with electrolytes or just sodium tablets and I guess this is also where it differs from just gen pop to people who are training and like up to elite athletes the government guidelines are generally put a bit of a little bit of fear mongering around around sodium and salt. But if you are training you're excreting a lot more salt than just your average person who sits at a deathful day and you might need like a decent amount. I know you can get supplements which have like a thousand milligrams of sodium in one go, which is yeah or, to be fair, most of them and they end up being like sachets.

Okay, but you can get effervescence ones which you pop and fluid or tablets you swallow like a, like a paracetamol and so, yeah, understanding what your sweat rate is, you can get like salt test as well to see how salty your sweat is and to see what you entail of that like electrolytes a little bit more specifically. But it probably is an underrated one, I'd say yeah, it does just have a massive impact on performance.

:: 29:30

I loved to hear your opinion on supplements we spoke about briefly before and it's obviously what the venture I want to get into at some point is vitamins and supplements, and that's something I swear by. In my opinion, I've spent the silly amount of money on trying to find the perfect vitamins and supplements. What helps me in terms of my mental health, my physical health? What would you recommend?

and I think we spoke about supplements a year ago now and you were very like boyish on boyish, bullish on Omega 3 and you are this is really important and vitamin D. Yeah. I think was the other one way you said, especially in winter, vitamin D, and I remember having that conversation with you and I was a bit like, okay, I look into this properly. What supplements would you recommend? Or the supplements vitamins Would you recommend in terms of performance athlete for physical health and mental health, or just anyone in general.

:: 30:23

Watch out there who's interested in how they can better themselves the three I always go with, just for everyone and anyone, are going to be vitamin D Amiga 3, as you say, and creating so vitamin D is Anyone living in the UK? We don't get a great deal of sun and even in the summer we do. We wear sun cream, we are inside and so supplementing, particularly in winter but potentially throughout the whole year, between two and four thousand IU. So when team I'll not up a little bit more, 2000, this in in summer will likely be fine.

Amiga 3 so in general I always go with a food first approach. So if you're able to get these nutrients in through your diet and that's what we want to be doing where practical and I guess the where practical comes in with Amiga 3's in particular is Like one salmon. At the moment you, low-key, need like a small mortgage to go and buy some salmon. It's so expensive, so sure, we want to have like two portions a week, but it gets pretty spending. So one to you. If I like salmon, it's okay, it's a start. If you don't, then a supplement would be would be helpful, and we're looking for probably one to two grams a day.

There's some decent research around that as well. With Like muscle mass retention, particularly in with injuries. So another helpful one for athletes, but definitely one just for Gen pop and creating. So creating is like the most well researched supplement out there, like numerous benefits, such a kind of widely known for performance, increased strength, power, recovery, a little bit more an endurance now as well. But there's actually recently been a Like a meta analysis of all the studies on creating and how just more Data coming around, its impact on mental health and the impact that it has. So for sure it's definitely one that I'd recommend for anyone anyone like athletic, but also the cognitive benefits.

I think that there's slight limitations in the data that it's we need a little bit more on different age groups, but particularly in those who are older and potentially you have things like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, there's a little bit more emerging data on how they can support that and there's also a decent amount on those who are on antidepressants and show like greater signs of learning depressive Symptoms for those who are taking antidepressants. So definitely, again, really helpful with that. In general the whole, yeah, I guess it's just positive signs that to creating has a has a positive, positive impact on anxiety and depression. Definitely more research needs to be done just to get a little bit more conclusive and seeing if it is different between males and females yeah, which it could well be and the effectiveness of creating supplementation on females Might be a little bit less than male just because of like estrogen and other things going on, but there just needs to be a little bit more into it, and particularly around anxiety and depression. But it's certainly an interesting.

:: 33:10

Basically, what I was going to expand into was what type of supplements would you recommend for mental health in terms of anxiety and depression, or for me and with my personal journey in ADHD is I never knew creatine had any sort of cognitive you know help with cognitive function?

:: 33:27

which is crazy.

:: 33:28

Oh, when you think creating, you just think big bodybuilders. Yeah or rubby play, takes creatine, wants to look a bit bigger and hydrates muscles more, and that's kind of what my you know basic understanding of creatine is. But no, I never knew. That's really interesting.

:: 33:42

Yeah, yeah, it's literally well, it's a pretty new thing, that's that's kind of coming out, so definitely an interesting one to watch this space.

:: 33:49

I had a DM from someone the other day and I put poll up on my Instagram earlier where people could ask questions of what they wanted to ask you, and one of the guys meshed me and he said he's suffering with insomnia and Insomnia is. You know, I don't sleep well Because of my ADHD, but I'm getting a bit better with it and wake up to natural light. I've got a loomy lamp, which sort of is yeah, things that which I'm like really trying to figure out. I have sleep tablets, I have five HTP melatonin in, and these are all things that are really helping me. But in terms of like a nutrition standpoint, obviously you can take supplements or whatnot, in terms of any foods in particular, which he could take or, you know, incorporate into his diet to give him better sleep.

What would you recommend when time is easy, to eat as well?

:: 34:40

Yeah, that's probably a good place to start actually is looking how close to bedtime are you eating? In an ideal world, probably Like leaving it two hours before bed would be probably ideal. Again, if performance comes into it, that might be a limiting factor and it might be a compromise that we have to make. But, yeah, and it might be that case. So you have a late training session and you you get home at like 9, 30, 10. Maybe we have dinner a little bit earlier, so you have you actually eat before you go to training and maybe it's just a quick protein shake that's easy to digest and not like a massive load on the digestive system is you're going to bed. So timing close to bedtime that food, food close to bedtime is probably one to look at also. So these will likely all be trial and error. Again, I might have more impact on some people than others and, again, practical sound point just might not work.

So there is some research around like carbs before bed being helpful. Okay, yeah, too, I think it's to do with like it. So it's starting to do with like serotonin, and serotonin is like the precursor to Melatonin, which is the sleep hormone, and how it like crosses the blood brain barrier. It is similar way to tryptophan, which is often found in like high protein foods and how. That is the precursor to serotonin, which is a precursor to Melatonin, and it it can say tryptophan can cross the blood brain barrier and so can potentially help that. So having I Want to say, like the, I remember reading a study around like so tryptophan early in the morning, so protein rich breakfast, which again, I think probably a lot people would do at this point, so that is going to be helpful. Also, things like so tart cherry, so what Marancy cherries are high in melatonin, so stuff like that might be helpful. Http again is a precursor to melatonin, so things like that can be helpful.

Magnesium for some often when people start supplementing with magnesium they see improvements in sleep. It's the research is kind of inconclusive, but it's generally in those who are deficient in magnesium. So I mean I'm always going to recommend again food-fresh approaches thing. We can get magnesium in pretty much again Just from that very diet, enjoying your eating, different plants, different vegetables. But if you are deficient then a magnesium supplement might might be helpful.

:: 36:58

Right. So I've got some quick fire questions which we put together and this is from my Instagram followers and from my own personal questions as well, so bit of free advice for anyone out there. This is all to sort of help mental health and it's just gonna be yes or no quick fire rounds or touch briefly on it later on. But does regular exercise have potential benefits for mental health? Yes. Can caffeine negatively impact anxiety levels.

:: 37:25

Yes.

:: 37:27

Is containing high amounts of saturated fats beneficial for mental health problems. No Can excessive alcohol worse, worsen depressive. Everybody can excessive alcohol worsen depression symptoms.

:: 37:44

Yes.

:: 37:46

Does consuming excessive amounts of vitamin supplements guarantee improved mental health? No, that was something I was big on, because I thought it would for a while. Does a vegetarian or vegan diet inherently lead to deficiencies that negatively impact mental health for people?

:: 38:04

It's a hard to be fair. I think I've done so well to take these quick answers. It depends. Inherently no, I'll go with no yeah.

:: 38:13

Does excessive sugar intake have a negative impact on one's mental health?

:: 38:19

Mmm. Oh, that's a really hard to say. As a note, it depends, I'll go with yes.

:: 38:28

You're smashing this Last one. Now this isn't sort of a yes or no question, but if there were three vitamin supplements you say are essential in helping them with their mental health? Obviously we touched on it bit briefly before, but if you could just go Three, take on to a desert island for your mental health, what would they be?

:: 38:47

Vitamin D, omega 3, creatine for sure.

:: 38:50

So obviously we started talking about at the start, but in order of becoming a performance nutritionist. What sort of spiked your interest in it and why did you want to become a performance nutritionist? You said you were in marketing and made a career change.

:: 39:03

Yeah. So I was in marketing. I knew it wasn't gonna be like a long-term thing. I didn't. I wasn't massively enjoying it, I wasn't like overly fulfilling. But then I had shoulder surgery and was off work for eight weeks from rugby.

Classic shoulder injury, yeah, a lot of stuff. And so, yeah, I had eight weeks off of literally not doing anything at all, probably similar to you, just like didn't really know what I was doing. Just I think I couldn't drive, so I just I walked everywhere and had just had a lot of time to just think, basically, and that was that was when I decided then it was time to one. I just wanted to be able to support myself badly through injury. But that's that's kind of where I decided. I didn't know what I wanted to do, so I may as well just jump and Just dive into, dive into nutrition and fully go for it. So, having eight weeks off, I always see there's just so much opportunity in injuries and they're they're super shit, but they do bring so much. They bring resilience, they bring, for me, brought a lot of education. I did a lot of learning in that eight weeks and understanding who I was like beyond rugby or just general, yeah, general life. So that's generally how I got into nutrition. And then the sports massively sparked my interest in nutrition for injuries. I've worked now with quite a few athletes who have had some pretty serious injuries and Looking at nutrition strategies that can can help support those things.

I think collagen is probably a big one that's relatively like new in the in the in the terms of research, with emerging Evidence suggests that it could be super helpful for general connective tissue, so Like tendons, ligaments, cartilage, potentially. So looking at those and bring those into into people's days I'm looking at when, when they're having them I think collagen is often for more of like a beauty standpoint. It's people take it for that. That's probably, I'd say, mixed I'm not definitely no expert on that it's like fairly, fairly mixed, but in terms of connected tissue and all that kind of stuff, it's definitely. It's definitely that and particularly combining it with vitamin C as well just helps the collagen synthesis and uptake. So that's definitely something that I've looked at more more recently. And if someone is struggling with tendonopathies or Maybe you did a co, I definitely go on on the collagen cool.

:: 41:16

Also, we spoke about um and obviously it's on your instagram at the moment of. Anyone doesn't have sami on instagram, I'll put her links below, but you've got a new preseason preseason package preseason. Preseason program that's come out, which is going to be pretty awesome so it's that time of the year again, dreaded preseason. You're just. What does that package? Yeah, so it's a week of one-to-one coaching.

:: 41:39

Um, Looking to ultimately like boost adaptations from from preseason. It's there for a reason to get the most out of it. This season, particularly in rugby, there's a minimal opportunity for for, like, gaining strength, gaining size. A lot of people actually lose size throughout the season. So preseason is all about getting those adaptations, and so nutrition is that to support those things.

But also just build some like sustainable habits, kind of like the stuff that we went through together of how can we build Males that are easy to do when you're knackered or you just can't be bothered, that are a little bit more exciting than chicken, broccoli and rice. So, say, laying down some basic foundations like that, Of course. Looking at nutrient adequacy, diving into what you're doing now with a bit of an analysis around that Sleep analysis. Looking at macronutrient profiles, probably periodising them throughout the week depending on the level of training. Looking at carbohydrates when you're having them, tailoring those around specific sessions, rest days, all that kind of stuff, and then moving on to supplements and looking at what we can do to boost performance there. And then looking at match day what's eating on match day, what's eating during a match as well, trashy around that. Match day minus one, match day plus one.

Yeah, as I say, a lot of people, particularly in rugby, will lose weight throughout the season and it's likely all down to not all down to, that's a bit of an over-generisation, but a lot of it is the match day plus one where people aren't quite nailing, so it's ensuring that we're doing that. And then anything else like there's a lot of myths, there's a lot of random, like just stuff that people do still like. So much of it is just the gym, bro, life, chicken, broccoli, rice, tap away everywhere. And, yeah, I'm always here to answer the questions that you're too scared to ask anyone else.

:: 43:22

That was another Instagram question which I've got here and it was what are some common misconceptions and myths about nutrition?

:: 43:30

that you try and debunk for everyone when they're part of your team. So we kind of mentioned protein before, like protein, but you just don't need as much as some people are having. I think we've been sold the dream with all the marketing protein, weasel protein, this and that everything. So, yeah, actually sometimes reducing protein intake can be more beneficial. It means we are able to get in other stuff, carbohydrates being one of them.

Big mess around carbs that they make you fat or they're just generally not good for you, but for anyone who is performing to a decent level or just any kind of intense exercise, they're essential. I think there's been a fair amount of research in elite athletes, both rugby players. There was one on female I think it was the LIS actually and just no one's really getting close to the kind of the amount of carbohydrates that they theoretically should be eating and so much of it. Some of it will come down to the practicalities of it, and with carbohydrates comes fiber and that can be filling, can make you feel a little bit bloated, but a lot of it is just down to the mentality and perceptions of what carbohydrates are and what they do. So that's definitely a big one in the performance world. Whether it's a myth or I don't know. It's just a done thing that I've seen so many just boring plates of food that look highly on appetizing.

Yeah yeah, palan de Salle, so beige, and that, yeah, you don't have to sacrifice taste or even socializing, things like that or a big thing. A lot of athletes are scared to eat out or don't know what to do, don't know how to navigate eating out. So I mean, because performance is so multifactorial like, sure, nutrition plates, apartment body composition plates apart but you have to be your best self and if you're unable to go and socialize with your friends or go and see your family and eat meal with them, that's obviously gonna impact your performance. So it's looking at the multifaceted side of things, knowing that it just doesn't have to be boring. You can eat. There's more to life than chicken, broccoli and rice, and performance comes down to a number of different things and there'll be so many different tactics that we can employ to make you the best person and, ultimately, the best athlete you can be.

:: 45:37

I'm gonna touch on alcohol now and obviously when you're in a rugby environment and I spoke about this with one of the guests I had on, joe, and we talked about being in a rugby environment. It's quite like a lad culture. It's quite a drinking boozy culture and that's quite hard when, in terms of calories and in terms of tracking what you're eating, because I could be mistaken here but isn't a pint of beer like 200, 250?

calories or something crazy like that, yeah yeah yes, yes a lot and as a male, on average I'm supposed to have 2,500, and as a female it's 2,000, is that right?

:: 46:11

Yeah, yeah, I mean, even those estimations are just very generic and for someone like you yeah, training a lot, probably gonna need a lot more, but yeah, ultimately, fundamentally, there is a lot of calories in alcohol and there is definitely a thing but yeah, as you say, particularly in rugby, we're just drinking as a culture, and even pros and elite levels it's still there, and so I think a big part of it is looking at the identities that we have around it. So much of identities comes down to how you think other people will perceive you. So if it's a sound of thing to go after a game, go drinking or whatever it may be, so much of it is we don't wanna drink because we don't want other people to think we're boring or whatever. So it's challenging those identities and thinking about what is the identity that you do wanna try and create and just bridging the gap between that. It might be that you there might be an occasion that, okay, right, I do wanna have a drink and that's cool. It's then right, okay, do I want the next drink? Am I having the one after that? Because I've already brought around that I need to get someone else back. Am I having the one after? Because someone's giving it to me and I can't say no.

So, looking at the intentions behind why we're drinking. Then each drink, what is that? Is it you there? Are you out in the pub with your pals? Or maybe it's in the club? Are you there drinking just because it's just the thing that you do? It's just the habits, the go-to then? Okay, am I actually here to socialize and spend time with my friends? Okay, do I need to drink because of that? Or am I there because I generally just really like to taste a beer, whatever it may be? So, looking at the intentions behind it. But there is such a big culture thing which is ultimately hilarious because every record player has the same thoughts everyone's thinking that.

Like, why is this a thing? But it's just breaking those down of, yeah, what is this identity you've created for yourself or you've perceived to have? Do you want to change it? How do we do that? Look at the intentions behind why we're drinking and even then there might be some whether it's like a Christmas party or end of season do, and actually, yeah, you just wanna drink and sweet find.

Again, we can look at the intentions behind each drink. It'd be great, but I always say the basic minimum I wanna do is probably hydrate. Get my athletes to hydrate in between if they can, or just ensuring that they're rehydrating the next day. Maybe smashing some electrics when they go home would be nice, yeah, and managing the next day then. So what are they normally like on a hangover and I guess that's partly where we kind of mentioned it before anxiety comes in it and the anxiety associated with that. So it's understanding the intentions behind it. Does alcohol actually serve you? What do you get from it? And it does. It serves people. It's a suitable thing to do and there's nothing wrong with having alcohol. It just does it serve you.

:: 49:04

And having it in the right amount as well because that's something I'm awful with is I'll message my girlfriend about just going out for a couple with the boys. Oh, be pretty chill. And then a couple turns to seven or eight, and then that turns to a long Uber home.

:: 49:18

Yeah, and then? So why do you think that is? I think it's a bit of a peck-sipe, sorry. Why does it go from a couple to seven? And what do you think that?

:: 49:24

is, I don't know. I reckon it's a whole mix of things bit of peer pressure in terms of I'm awful when I drink. I can handle my drink well, but the next day it really affects me for like two, three days afterwards in terms of like my mental state, how I focus, and I'm not really sure what that's down to, probably a sign of a bit of immaturity through university. But you know, you just think I think for me, when I get to that point is I feel a bit awkward in myself because I feel like everyone's on a different wavelength to where I am and that sort of makes me feel a bit on edge. When I'm around people and what we talk about is like they're seeing things a bit differently to me, and I think it's just being comfortable in yourself.

And you know there's loads of like great drinks, like Spencer Matthews from Maine, chelsea, has his clean, clean alcohol company, like Zero Alcohol but tastes the same, and there's loads of things that I've tried and I do enjoy, because I do enjoy the taste of like an aprol spritz on like a sunny day or a nice cold beer and after a long I love that. But I think it's for me now I'm sort of coming out of that culture of uni rugby and sort of into real life. It's getting ahold of that because a lot of times like I impulse by five or six VKs in the SU and just be like hey, legend, yeah, we've all been there, but yeah, I think it's just like finding a balance between that.

I'm getting a bit better with that with my mates, and I'm definitely not no role model when it comes to drinking I'm not no angel at all but I think that's something I'm getting scripts with a lot better and more better understanding myself, and this is another reason why I'm sort of like taking this journey as such and this is where I want to go in my life is I want to better understand myself and speak to people like yourself and you know the other guests I have on the podcast about how I can better like well, be better in life and better understand why I'm doing things, why I'm sleeping poorly, why my nutrition was bad and why how can I improve that All to better improve myself, and then from that, people will be able to learn and take snippets of what goes on, whether that's 15 second clips watching the full hour of this podcast, and for me, that's just like amazing in the fact that maybe I can help people out then. And I think there's a lot of lost people, people who are struggling right now, and I was one of them for a long time and although it seemed like I was having a great time and I was playing rugby and you know a lads lad and I have great friends, great parents, great family. You know I was lost for a long period of time and and I needed little videos, little helpers, little pointers, try this, try this, and now I'm able to sort of repay that back with my mistakes and what I've learned and speaking to people. It's just, it's been amazing. But yeah, I want you to debunk this for me and this is something we talked about just before we came on the pod.

But I read an article about a Japanese article study about a Japanese cell biologist and he's won Nobel Prizes and pretty well known in his space and he talked about doing 72 hour fast in order to reset your dopamine receptors. And for me I thought of my ADHD like that's awesome because I do scroll all the time. I need hits of dopamine and I thought this is something I could try. But I wouldn't just want to do it like wake up tomorrow and go. You know what, I'm just going to fast for 72 hours without having any plan and obviously playing sport and stuff that could really mess me up. What would be your recommendations around that? Is that? Is that true? And I'm sure it's true to an extent, otherwise wouldn't have been published. But in terms of being a nutritionist, is that a bit like oh no, there's better ways.

:: 53:22

Or yeah, I guess it's like it's never going to be a go to for me, particularly working with athletes, like fasting just is, it's just not going to work. So if it, I mean it's it's looking at. Are there any like underlying things that we can do first that are going to actually help? And if we, if you do this fast and you feel great, but then at what point, like, do things just go back to how they were so and like, from a practical standpoint, a lot of people will just find it difficult to do just around, just life, and then, being an athlete as well, like you're going to need to feel for specific stuff. It's, yeah, I guess, to summarize it in brief, it's definitely not something that I would do. I get my clients to do, I mean, if people do and it makes them feel good, cool, great, sweet, happy for them. Yeah, I think it's looking at the pros and cons for each individual person, what could be the risks for that individual. But yeah, let me know if you give it a go.

:: 54:19

Yeah I was thinking about. Obviously I feel like I'd want a proper plan around it, like I said before, like yeah, pass out. But one thing I meant to touch on earlier.

Stupidly forgotten when we're talking about sugar is I suffer from not suffer, but I have low blood sugar and my dad's dad had low blood sugar and we talked about this in the gym at March on one day when I was under a squat rack and I literally was like I felt like my eyes closed in. I didn't really know what was going on and it wasn't even that heavy. It was the warm ups and I felt like really unstable walking around.

I felt dizzy, and that one that went on for months, and I was like there's something wrong here For me with low blood sugar. I try and stay away from sugary things due to my ADHD and anxiety, et cetera.

But, that's kind of hard when you have a low blood sugar at the same time, and I've never really spoke about that in terms of what I could do to help. Would you recommend anything for me? And I'm sure there's people out there with low blood sugar who are trying to not, you know, just have loads of packets of Harry Bows or you know. You know, you know, you found honey worked for me on the pre-workout. And obviously it's not the best.

:: 55:29

I think, like when it comes to sugar, there's definitely a lot of just misconceptions around it and it's like people talk about, like the highs and lows of blood sugar, spikes and low blood sugar and for someone who has like a normal functioning pancreas, normal insulin functions and can regulate their like blood glucose levels, like sugar will be absolutely fine, like it's completely normal for blood sugar to spike and then return to the high blood sugar to spike and then return to baseline. So I guess that that aside there and it probably comes back to as well like it's not like a thing that is going to cause anxiety or make you your mental health worse, unless you're eating just sugar, then fair play. But again, right, so if you feel like you have something to. I mean, I come across so many people who are like I need to get a control of the sugar situation. It's not the sugar that's the issue. It's why they're having the sugar. So I know this literally isn't answering your question, but I'll get to it.

So it's, it's a why are they having the sugar? What are they masking? Is it because they're not eating enough in the day? And they're not? Their meals are not fulfilling. Are they bored? Are they sad? Are they looking for just for some dopamine, what is it? So, yeah, the sugar itself isn't problematic. It might be that you end up having sugar. Then it means that you're not hungry for your dinner. Then you don't end up getting the macronutrients micronutrients that you need in your dinner. So, yeah, I guess summarizing that is there is nothing wrong with sugar.

It's actually super helpful for performance and, as you say, if, if, particularly for anyone, even if you don't necessarily struggle with with a low blood sugar, is, from a performance standpoint, it's super helpful to have some circulating glucose in your blood to to dip into when you're training. Honey is a good one, like you say, it could be that actually, yeah, harry Bow is just an easy option. And coming back to kind of what we touch on at the start and how nothing, no food is off limits and if you struggle with your relationship with food, actually having these foods is a super helpful thing to do. And knowing that, yeah, having them before you train is going to be helpful to, yeah, to give you that quick release energy that you can metabolize quickly.

Jelly babies are a firm favor for a lot of people and it can be helpful to if you struggle with like portion sizes, if you feel like you can't have like a few and you end up eating the whole pack, then this is a good way to kind of like challenge that, knowing that what you're doing is actually going to be helping you perform better. It could be just some fruit as well. If you struggle to get fruit in, then actually having it intentionally around and training can be helpful as well. From from sugars like grapes.

:: 57:52

Yeah, grapes pretty high in carbs because I know Billy in the at March on in the gym does grapes with honey. Yeah, it's like pre-work not obviously not like a pre-pre-workout type thing but before he goes and works he does grapes, and honey is like a quick energy burst and I started doing that and that was great. It's so simple, but like, yeah, it's all the same stuff just anything that you can metabolize quickly, so.

:: 58:14

So grapes with bananas are a classic. You often get those in like half-time games, stuff like that. It's just anything that you generally consider sugary will be. It means that we can metabolize it quickly. There's no, our body will break down like sugar processed sugar versus like natural sugar in exactly the same way. So there's there's again. I think people have the perception that natural sugar is better. The natural sugar content we process in exactly the same way. No, no deals there, fair play. There's going to be more nutrients in like fruit as the sugar side, or there's going to be more to offer than like a jelly baby or something like that. But from a sugar standpoint it's exactly the same. And I think knowing that as well, knowing that one isn't better than the other, is a really helpful way to help that relationship with food. And again, if we're helping our relationship with food and it gives us one less thing to be anxious about, then that's going to help overall well-being.

:: 59:08

Awesome, I could obviously speak to you all day about all all this stuff and we've only got a set amount of time here, but I just wanted to end it on this. And obviously you've been doing this properly for three years now and you went through injury and you took all your learnings and sort of put it into the nutrition space. If there's anyone watching this who's looking to start out as a performance nutritionist or just nutritionist in general, or someone who's struggling to find their feet a bit, because that you know that happens a lot and you've done really well so far and you've been part of a great team down at March on. Now you've got your own business and you're flying through. If you could give any piece of advice to someone who's, you know, maybe starting out or just struggling in this space, what would it be?

:: 59:52

from your lessons on what you've learned and yeah, yeah, I'm gonna take those two separately and say for any practitioner who is just starting out is just coach. Anyone coach people. Ultimately. Any athlete is a person to start with and I think understanding a person and how behavior change works and how our thoughts work, how we deal with negative thoughts, just getting to coach anyone, you'll start to learn that and understand how people work and then you can learn all the science, then you can go into the cool stuff and I'm looking at the more specific athlete stuff.

For anyone who is maybe an athlete themselves, I think looking at the why like we said, like whether it's the why with with you drinking, and is it just because of the peer pressure? Is it just understanding why we do stuff is a super helpful way to to make sustainable habit change because we can. We can employ loads of other things. We can do lots of stuff, but if we don't know why we're doing the more, for that just a bit of a like acting like a plaster and not addressing the underlying solution, it's not going to work and it's not going to work in the long run. So understanding the why is a big thing and it's probably like a bit of a wanky thing to say it's like what is your why? But like yeah, actually it's just such a, it's such a big thing, and that's probably a big thing that athletes don't necessarily expect is is is getting the, the questions like that and understanding people on an actual personal, human level, rather than just the athlete looking to perform their best.

:: 01:15

Love that awesome thanks so much, Sammy Thanks thanks for having me.

I'll just say now I'll attach all of Sammy's links below. If you want to get coached by Sammy, from my own point of view it was next to none. It was awesome and she taught me so much about myself in terms of nutrition and just in general. Like we touched on understanding the why's of why we do things drinking, especially in a high, high level rugby, like culture drinking is, has been big, so that was huge for me in getting taught about that from Sammy. But if you want to get coached by Sammy, she's doing the pre-season program at the moment which goes on for the next eight weeks, so please get in touch with her or just in general, if you want to chat with her, her Instagram will be put in the link below and I'll make sure to promote her best I can from there. But yeah, thank you very much, sammy.