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giving up alcohol for a month AND THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED!

1/1/2021

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When Jan. 1 rolls around, we are often full of good intentions in our bid to be better, fitter, healthier humans. One goal that seems to be remarkably common, especially this year, is Dry January. After several weeks of excessive alcohol consumption over the holidays, giving up booze for the first month of the year is often considered a great way to reset, detox, and kick start your year. This could be particularly true in 2021 with statistics from the first lockdown in the U.S. showing a 54% increase in alcohol sales. In my native Australia, one study found one in five people reported increased alcohol intake during lockdown. 
While I won’t be partaking in Dry January this year, I did complete a month of no drinking back in October. The goal was a month of zero alcohol for no reason other than wanting to challenge myself after lockdown. What I did not realize was the impact it would have on several parameters of health that I had been tracking with my Oura ring for several months prior. I was remarkably surprised to see just how much it affected my training, performance, sleep, recovery, energy levels, and mental clarity. For those of you aiming to complete Dry January—and for those of you who might be on the fence—keep reading to see the benefits it can reap. Some of this data might help keep you on the wagon a little longer!
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Resting Heart Rate

Resting heart rate is a good indicator of overall health and, typically, a lower resting heart rate is better and a good indication of cardiovascular health. During the months leading up to October, my resting heart rate was steady, averaging 42-43 bpm. Throughout October, there was a noticeable reduction in resting heart rate with the average for the month being 39 bpm. Depending on that day’s exercise volume and intensity there were days when it was consistently 36 bpm. This came as a surprise to see such a steady drop in heart rate. 
What was more of a surprise was that in the month of November, as I began to resume drinking alcohol, my average resting heart rate bounced back to 42 bpm. While the amount being consumed was certainly not large (and usually restricted to a Friday or Saturday evening), this is still some significant extra work for the heart, which, when you extrapolate out over the course of a year equates to 1,576,800 extra beats per minute. That’s a lot of extra workload for the heart. ​
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Coffee anyone?

12/26/2020

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Why is this important?

Another interesting study that looked at glucose control in relation to sleep quality and coffee consumption. The role of caffeine and its role in improving exercise capacity is well established yet the role of caffeine on fat burning and glucose control is a little less clear.

Conventional Wisdom

There is a fair bit of media coverage at the moment relating to sleep and its effect on glucose control and insulin sensitivity. It has been proposed that one night of bad sleep can negatively impact the following days control from a physiological standpoint - poor glucose control and reduced insulin sensitivity. Further to this, a bad night's sleep can impact your decision making by influencing areas of the brain that like reward and push you towards sweet and fatty foods. Pretty incredible. Couple this with prior research highlighting differing responses to coffee in the morning, the study sought to answer a few questions relating to the impact of sleep quality, black coffee and a high carbohydrate drink on glucose control.

Tinlane Perspective

The issue I have with this study is that who the hell drinks a sugar containing beverage for breakfast? If you are doing that, you have bigger concerns than your morning black coffee. It would have been great to compare the sugar drink with a high protein food choice and reveal the blood glucose response. This would have been minimal despite the coffee and perhaps led to some further insight into the choice of food for breakfast can significantly impact your blood glucose levels. The other interesting aspect about this study is that research completed in 1967 reported a similar effect on glucose levels after black coffee consumption. 

Key Takeaways

I will keep it succinct, 
  • Effectively one night of bad sleep does not affect your glucose metabolism, so you can hold despair and not worry about your newly implanted continuous glucose monitor attached to your left tricep (this is extremely trendy right now if you did not know). 
  • If you have a coffee before a high glucose containing beverage then you will see a significant spike in blood glucose levels and subsequent insulin response. 
  • Other research investigating short time frames (e.g. 1-3hrs post consumption of coffee) have found black coffee consumption to increase the area under the blood glucose curve (spikes blood sugar),
  • Long term studies have found it actually improves blood glucose control.
  • Regardless of the short term or long terms studies on black coffee consumption - DO NOT DRINK A SUGAR DRINK FOR YOUR STANDARD BREAKFAST.  Problem solved.

  1. Harry A. Smith, Aaron Hengist, Joel Thomas, Jean-Philippe Walhin, Philippa Heath, Oliver Perkin, Yung-Chih Chen, Javier T. Gonzalez, James A. Betts. Glucose control upon waking is unaffected by hourly sleep fragmentation during the night, but is impaired by morning caffeinated coffee. British Journal of Nutrition, 2020; 1 DOI: 10.1017/S0007114520001865
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Fuel for the Work Required

12/26/2020

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I am including this paper as it was part of the inspiration for the Tinlane system. James Morton and Graeme Close were lecturers of mine in London and their research has been a major influence on my approach to nutrition with clients. In this paper it describes how macronutrients, in particular carbohydrates, can be periodised in a similar fashion to exercise training and that the fuel being consumed should reflect the work that is to be done and also what the intended goal of that session is to achieve.For me, this makes complete sense and really helps me describe to clients what my strategy is with regards to carbohydrates as a fuel source. 

Conventional Wisdom

What is frustrating in the nutrition world is the notion that only one approach can be utilised when it comes to creating a meaningful change in an individual. This may be the result of research often investigating single nutrition strategies and then those results being misinterpreted or misrepresented to the wider public, especially when a marketing label can be applied. 

Tinlane Perspective

Something I tend to repeat is that carbohydrates and fat are both worthy fuel sources for the right type of training. Science has shown that depending on intensity, differing fuel substrates will be used. If you manipulate those fuel sources in line with your training then you can achieve many differing goals, whether that be fat loss, peak power output, time to fatigue or gut training. 

Key Takeaways
  • A higher fat diet can assist with body composition goals, inducing improved FATMAX and higher maximal fat oxidation (MFO) yet it will likely reduce your ability to oxidise carbs, hit peak work numbers and perform at your absolute maximal capacity. 
  • A higher carb diet could induce unfavourable body composition results if the intake is above what is required yet could result in peak performance during training and racing. 
  • It is possible to structure a nutrition plan that meets both these goals.


Take your time and read this free article online. It makes a lot of sense to me and hopefully to you as well.

  1. Impey, Samuel G et al. “Fuel for the Work Required: A Theoretical Framework for Carbohydrate Periodization and the Glycogen Threshold Hypothesis.” Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) vol. 48,5 (2018): 1031-1048. doi:10.1007/s40279-018-0867-7
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3 Steps to Hiring the Right Coach

10/17/2020

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With some careful thought, a rewarding athlete-coach relationship can be yours.
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 by Jordan Blanco of Avid Endurance

You may be considering getting yourself a triathlon coach. But how exactly does a person go about choosing the right coach? We caught up with three triathlon coaches for their advice on finding your perfect match for the new year. 

Step one: 

Define your goals: as with any decision, selecting the right coach starts with a review of your needs and goals. Work through the below checklist of things for you to consider before talking to coaches.

A. Level of experience. Are you a beginner lining up for your first IRONMAN race with the single goal of completing it within the time limit? Or do you have several seasons of racing under your belt and you’re now looking to take your abilities to the next level? 
​

AJ Johnson is a USAT Level I coach with D3 Multisport. "If you are looking to be on the top step of the podium you want a coach that has previously coached athletes to that level," he says. "Conversely, beginner athletes would be best served by hiring a coach that specializes in first-time athletes." 
​

Being very clear about your goals and needs will help you better evaluate the variety of coaches and coaching plans available.
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 "Being very clear about your goals and needs will help you better evaluate the variety of coaches and coaching plans available." Jordan Blanco

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Want to Avoid Bonking? Learn the Science Behind It

7/29/2020

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deep dive on bonking, glycogen stores, and the train low diet.

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We’ve all done it — and we all dread it: bonking. That terrible feeling when you know you’ve not consumed enough calories and it’s going to be a slow, painful shuffle home or, worse yet, to the finish line. Yet understanding a little more about how bonking happens can go a long way to helping you prevent it. 

Firstly, let’s start with glycogen. Glycogen is a collection of glucose molecules (or sugar in its simplest form) and the simplest form of carbohydrate. Glycogen particles come in two forms: proglycogen and macroglycogen. These two forms of glycogen particles are important to understand as they are both responsible for differing rates of glycogen particle repletion. The proglycogen acts quickly and is dependent on dietary intake of carbohydrates, thus allowing for rapid replenishment, while the macroglycogen are formed from collections of glucose units that build slowly and allow secondary glycogen particle repletion over a longer period of time to occur. Both are important phases and are described as the “biphasic nature” of glycogen repletion. 

WHAT YOU HAVE

Before worrying about getting depleted and needing to refill your stores, you should know that your body has approximately 600g of glycogen particles in it, dependent on body mass, diet, overall fitness and your most recent bout of exercise. The majority of your glycogen particles are stored in your muscles (~300-700g), and the remainder in your liver (~80-160g) and brain (100 times less than the number of glycogen particles stored in your muscle cells). The liver glycogen particles are constantly used to replenish the small amount (~4g) of glucose in your bloodstream. This amount of glycogen is entirely adequate for a sedentary individual who is not performing bouts of short to long, low to high-intensity exercise most days of the week (that’s not you, endurance athletes!). For triathletes, understanding your glycogen stores and how they affect you—and how you can affect them—becomes a lot more important to understand.

In order to have muscular contractions, ATP (adenosine triphosphate) needs to be produced. This is the energy that powers you during exercise. It is (at the most basic level) the energy that allows cells to function. Without it, you do not perform. It is produced by organelles called mitochondria, which are the energy factories of your muscle cells. ATP is produced by the oxidation of fatty acids from the bloodstream and from intramuscular fat stores, along with glucose supplied by the liver into the bloodstream and the glycogen particles stored in your muscle cells and between the muscle cells. It is widely agreed upon that as exercise intensity increases, reliance on blood and muscular glycogen particles increases. In fact, as intensity approaches 60% VO2max, you will find that the predominant fuel source being oxidized through anaerobic and aerobic processes to produce ATP will be the glucose in your blood and muscle.1 This is in large part due to the type of muscle cells being recruited (i.e. Type II) in order to allow for the intensity and exercise to continue.  

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