For those who push their bodies to the limit, mental resilience is just as important as physical training. Endurance sports demand not only physical stamina, but also sharp focus, strategic planning, and emotional stability. Factors such as attention, motivation, and the ability to stay on track are essential for achieving our personal best and maintaining performance during those grueling hours on the road or trail.
In this episode of Fast Talk, host Dr. Griffin McMath invites Dr. Kate Kresge, fellow licensed naturopathic doctor and Head of Medical Education at Rupa Health, to talk about the critical role of nutrition in optimizing mental performance for endurance athletes. Dr. Kresge explains that achieving optimal mental resilience and focus involves addressing foundational nutritional needs rather than relying on superficial quick fixes that don’t actually solve the issue.
Central to today’s episode is the frontal lobe of the brain, which governs cognitive functions essential to athletic performance, including sustained focus, planning, and goal-oriented behaviors. Dr. Kresge emphasizes how adequate blood flow, hydration, and targeted nutrient intake support this region’s functionality.
Diving into adrenaline’s role in this aspect of mental performance, Dr. Kresge talks through how its precursor, dopamine, depends on key nutrients vitamin B6 and tyrosine for synthesis. Even small adjustments to dietary intake of these nutrients can yield significant improvements in motivation, concentration, and endurance.
Beyond what we eat, hydration is also a vital nutritional component to mental performance, with Dr. Kresge stressing the importance of electrolyte balance alongside fluid intake. She reviews a few symptoms some may mistake as a sign of health that in reality can reflect an obstacle to optimal mental performance.
RELATED: Get the Most Out of Your Performance with Mental Strength Techniques
Dr. Kresge then explains that a reliance on plain water over electrolyte-rich fluids can lead to cognitive fatigue and diminished physical performance. Though most endurance athletes get this, she notes that the overcompensation with protein and electrolyte powders has many finding the wrong balance of fluids or DIY-ing their own electrolytes insufficiently.
The episode wraps up with Dr. Kresge advocating for a personalized approach to nutrition. She recommends that athletes work with qualified professionals who have both the time and knowledge to monitor nutrient intake, analyze dietary patterns, and identify deficiencies or imbalances.
Whether you’re a coach or an athlete looking to enhance your mental game, or just interested in the role of nutrition in optimizing mental performance, you’re in for a treat. So, grab your electrolytes and let’s make you fast!
Though both host and guest are licensed NDs, the content of this episode is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice. Follow up with your qualified medical care team for evaluation, treatment, and support.
Episode Transcript
Griffin McMath 00:00
A quick note about this podcast episode, though, both hosts and guests for this episode are licensed medical professionals, the content of this episode is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice. Follow up with your qualified medical care team for evaluation, treatment and support. Hello and welcome to fast talk. Your source for the science of endurance performance. I’m your host, Dr Griffin McMath, here today with Dr Kresge, today, we’re going to delve deep into the world of mental performance in nutrition. We’re going to shine a light on a critical but often overlooked aspect of athletic success, the role of optimal mental performance, especially for endurance athletes, for those who push their bodies to the limit, mental resilience is just as important as physical training. Endurance Sports demands not only physical stamina, but also sharp focus, strategic planning and emotional stability. Factors such as attention, motivation and the ability to stay on track are essential for achieving personal best and maintaining performance during those grueling hours on the road or trail. Understanding the nutritional foundations that support mental clarity and emotional well being can make all the difference in reaching peak performance. I’m excited to introduce today’s guest, Dr Kate Kresge as the head of medical education at Rupa health, and a licensed naturopathic doctor who’s treated many endurance athletes, Dr Kresge possesses a wealth of knowledge about how nutrition intersects with mental performance, making her the perfect guest for this discussion. In today’s episode, we’ll explore how root cause testing can illuminate issues affecting cognitive function, why understanding the neurological basis of attention and planning is vital for peak performance and the essential nutrients that support mental clarity and focus. We’ll also discuss practical strategies for hydration and electrolyte balance. So whether you’re an athlete looking to enhance your mental game, or a coach hoping to help your athletes enhance their mental game, or maybe you’re just someone interested in the connection between diet and mental and cognitive performance, you’re in for a treat. So let’s dive in and discover how we can optimize mental performance through nutrition with Dr Kate Kresge, hello and welcome back to fast talk. Before we get in, I want to tell you right now that Katie, as I’ve always called her, has a long time colleague. In fact, back. I don’t even want to say what year Katie and I study biochemistry in just every type of pathway we never want to hear again. But somehow, is the career that we’ve chosen. Katie is an amazing human being, now known as Dr Kate Kresge, and is also such a profound leader when it comes to, in my opinion, thought, leadership, and how we address mental performance and addressing patient care when it looks at lifestyle and nutrition, especially when things like attention deficit, mood and cognitive disorders as well. And so I just want to make that personal statement. I’m really happy that you’re here today. You’ve touched so many lives. I think you’re absolutely brilliant, and I’m really looking forward to using fast talk as another means of you getting this knowledge out there and such an empathetic voice you are too. Wow.
Dr. Kate Kresge 03:10
Thank you, Griffin, that means a lot. I really appreciate it. I’m glad to be here with you today. I’m really excited about what you guys are doing in the audience you’re speaking to and the tools you’re giving them. It’s really cool. Thank
Griffin McMath 03:19
you. Before we get super dive in. Can you just tell people what it is that you really do as head of medical education at Rupa health, and how that might actually pertain to what we’re talking about today?
Dr. Kate Kresge 03:30
Sure. Yeah, so Rupa health is sort of like Amazon. It’s a technology platform that allows doctors in the US to order an array of root cause testing for their clients, whether it’s microbiome, epigenetics, longevity testing, food allergies and sensitivities, a lot of the barrier to more doctors doing this is that it’s hard to get onboarded, right? Like it used to be harder you’d have to find a rep, sign up for an account, really like, take weeks of courses to understand a test. We now make it super easy for any doctor anywhere to help somebody find the root cause of their illness, and so a big part of that is education, so making sure the doctors understand what they’re ordering and why and what to do with the results. But one of the things I’m really passionate about with Rupa is that we do a lot of focusing on root causes, meaning, how do we really teach people how to understand food is medicine? Nutrient deficiencies, diet physiological disturbances that are playing a role in their clients, chronic conditions or just subpar performance, and then use evidence based interventions to correct it. And so that’s what I get to do every day, and
Griffin McMath 04:25
we are all about evidence based here at fast talk. So That’s music to my ears. So that being said, I love that he said that we’re getting to the root cause of something that’s happening with a patient. And I think what we’ll identify today is help people understand that there could be some root causes tied to nutrition and optimal mental performance. So as we dive into these nutritional interventions, I think we should just acknowledge that when we think about optimal mental performance, I think sometimes there’s this temptation to just say, Okay, well, whatever I have going on right now is great. I’m just going to. Add something else, and it’s gonna be a magic bullet. And sometimes we see that on social media with people just saying, if I just get an Adderall, I’m really gonna be focused. I’m even picking up my voice as I’m saying this, as we have a really productive day, it’s gonna be really great. I’m gonna get in all my workouts. I’m gonna do my full time job, right? But let’s just take it down a notch. Let’s slow it down. Do you really need that is that something that needs to be treated, and if it does, fantastic. All of us here are going to support you, going to get the care that you need and getting the evaluation. But today, I think we have such an opportunity in talking with you to say, let’s say if we can peel back the layers of optimal mental performance, see if there’s nutritional cause to what contributes to optimal versus what could be leading to not so optimal that’s tied to your nutrition. And then really understanding, okay, but if you are taking something like one of these stimulants, like an Adderall, for example, is there a way that we can actually cushion around that prescription to make sure that your nutrition is optimal, considering you’re taking something like that, so really looking forward to diving into that. And I think maybe setting the stage here. I feel like I say that all the time, Dr Kresge, and the work that you do and the things that you’re going to dive into today, can we set the table by really describing what is mental performance and why it’s so crucial for endurance athletes? Yeah,
Dr. Kate Kresge 06:20
I mean, I think every athlete’s gonna define it a little bit different for themselves, obviously, but there’s a couple different aspects of it. So there’s your emotional, spiritual, psychological health. What we’re really gonna focus on today are things like attention, planning, persistence, being able to achieve your goals, using things like the ability to stay on track, to cognitively stay flexible, right, to not get derailed by stresses or traumas, to stick to a plan that you made with your trainer, to reach an end goal and to not suffer from any undue psychological stress along the way. And so a big part of that is attention and is optimal brain health. Our brain is the organ of mood, thought and behavior. And so my specialty in practice, actually was ADHD and mental health conditions. And so I love what you said earlier about the fact that, like, hey, you know, if you do have undiagnosed ADHD and you’re kind of walking around not treating it, it’s definitely going to impact your cognitive performance. Like, there’s no question about that. We have a ton of evidence, which I’m happy to go into about that. But if you’re somebody who’s thinking like, you know, you don’t have a diagnosable condition, but I really would like to get to the next level. There’s a ton of things you can do and should be doing as an endurance athlete, using food as medicine that we can dive into today.
Griffin McMath 07:28
You gave such a great list of the things that someone might be seeing in themselves, if you’re an endurance athlete, or if you’re a coach listening to this episode, kind of pointing out, like, boop, boop, boop, boop, like I am experiencing all these things, then you know this relates to or it’s very correlated to your experience with fatigue. It’s very correlated to your experience with motivation. It’s very correlated with your experience with not only focus, but also this is an important topic when it comes to your risk of injury or how well you’re going to be able to be compliant with a plan that’s coming into place. We know that if you’re distracted at a turn, you know, and you’re just taking your ride kind of casually or distracted during a race a quick second, and you could go down and get injured, and that completely changes the trajectory of your season, let alone your career. So diving in to the role of nutrition here, let’s talk about how nutrition impacts different aspects of mental performance. So can we talk about that? I mean, what do you think is the first one that we can kind of check off the list here the aspect of nutrition and mental performance. So let’s
Dr. Kate Kresge 08:35
talk about the neurological basis of attention and planning. So how do you have a vision that’s based on your values and your goals and actually achieve it by staying focused consistently, by doing what you said you would do, but not getting derailed. So our brains evolved from back and bottom to front and top right. So the front top part of our brain is the newest part of our brain evolutionarily, it’s your frontal lobe. So if you put your hand on your forehead right where your hand is, that part of your brain that’s right behind your forehead is your frontal lobe, and your frontal lobe is what helps you pay attention, stay on goal, not get distracted, and actually perform well on things like tests. It helps you have a personality and act in alignment with your values. And so when people get injuries to their frontal lobe or damage to their frontal lobe, we see a ton of issues arise with that. And the reason I’m bringing that up is a couple things. One, there’s certain amount of blood flow that you need in your frontal lobe optimally to help you concentrate. And I see a lot of issues with our endurance athletes doing things that are compromising blood flow to their frontal lobe, which I’m happy to talk about, that put them in a position to not be performing optimally cognitively. The second is that there’s neurotransmitters that are needed to make this happen. We hear a lot about dopamine and distraction. Recently, dopamine is a really important and adrenaline are two important factors of what helps your funnel pay attention. But most people don’t know how to make those from food. And there’s really only three ingredients that you need to make adrenaline and dopamine, and most people are not getting enough of them per day. And so those sort of two approaches. So thinking about a part of your brain that’s really so responsible for so much of achieving your goals and staying on target is usually where I start with my athletes, because they’re at particular risk of deficiencies in nutrients in these two areas.
Griffin McMath 10:12
Okay, wait so can we go back to the frontal lobe part and the things that you’re seeing your athletes doing? We have to visit on that, and I know we’re gonna get into the three things that you need to be eating. But let’s go back to the frontal lobe part there that got me really excited.
Dr. Kate Kresge 10:25
What in particular about the frontal lobe got you excited?
Griffin McMath 10:28
You saw me dance, and you said, I’m very caffeinated right now, but you said, I can go into the list of the things my athletes are doing, and when it relates to blood flow and the frontal lobe, can you help us understand what people are doing wrong?
Dr. Kate Kresge 10:42
Oh yeah. Okay, so guys, your circulatory system, which seems like the least sexy thing on the planet, but bear with me. So your blood in your body is what brings oxygen and nutrients to your cells. So when you intake nutrients, they get into your bloodstream. Your bloodstream has to carry those to cells. They don’t just perfuse through your body, right? They’re trapped in your bloodstream, and you need adequate blood volume. Blood volume and adequate blood pressure and adequate sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system activity to deliver those nutrients and oxygen to different parts of your body. Now if you don’t have enough of those, what your body’s gonna do is prioritize your vital organs, which are between your brain stem and your gut. If you’ve ever been in a situation where you’re a situation where you’re a little bit dehydrated and stressed and your fingers and your toes start to go numb or turn white or get cold, it’s because you’re not adequately perfusing those parts of your body. And so your frontal lobe is one of the farthest parts of your brain from your heart, meaning if you don’t have adequate blood pressure, if you don’t have adequate blood volume, and if your blood is not made of the right stuff, that part of your brain is going to get oxygen and nutrients last and so if you’re not thinking about blood flow and optimizing your blood content, then you’re not going to get adequate blood to your frontal lobe, and you’re not going to be able to pay attention as well as you should. And the way that this shows up in endurance athletes is that a lot of them are not taking care of their blood content, in the sense of they’re not loading their blood with enough electrolytes. So part of what controls your blood pressure and blood perfusion in your body is two things on chronic pressure and osmotic pressure. Your blood is in blood vessels, which are tubes, and the thing that keeps fluid in those tubes is having enough protein in your bloodstream and electrolytes in your bloodstream to hold fluid in those tubes and keep pressure high. And so what this looks like is somebody who’s not consuming adequate protein, or absorbing adequate protein, not consuming the 80 different trace minerals they need in a day, is experiencing alterations in their blood pressure. Maybe they have super low blood pressure. You may even be proud of that, guys, if you have under 100 systolic blood pressure, I’m not proud of you. Needs to be said, yeah, you need good blood flow. You need adequate blood pressure. Don’t let me see like 100 over 70 or 90, over 60, no, especially not if you’re tired or depressed or having any sort of mood symptom or Katie will come for you. I will come for you. So like, yeah, I don’t wanna hear it. You know how many athletes I’ve seen after a race who are completely hyponatremic? They’re completely depleted of electrolytes in minerals. So they’re crying. They’re like, I’m so depressed, I just can’t concentrate my willpower so long. Like you are literally an athlete who can run 100 miles at a time, your willpower doesn’t change. It’s a tool. It’s a skill. If you’re feeling low on willpower or low on mood, you should look at your body and your brain first. We get some electrolytes and some protein in those people, and they pop back up a week and they’re ready to go again. I feel like with endurance athletes, so often, they’re willing to almost gaslight themselves, to be like this is an issue with my mental performance, with my grit, with my willpower. I should power through this mentally, and I’m looking at them going, your blood pressure is like someone who’s in shock because you literally didn’t fuel yourself during training and during this race, and so your blood is only made of the things you eat and drink, and athletes in particular, lose a lot of fluids and electrolytes, and often are not keeping up with their protein needs or absorbing proteins. Well, I mean, racing itself creates a lot of intestinal permeability post race. A lot of athletes develop gut issues, issued with absorption. You have to really be on top of this stuff to make sure that you’re actually factoring in all the things you need to even just deliver oxygen to your frontal lobe adequately. And so in my endurance athletes, I often see them dealing with some of those issues, and when we fix them, they feel great, and they find like, oh, I have the same amount of willpower I’ve always had. I just, like, physically couldn’t get the nutrients in my frontal lobe to put it into practice. Katie
Griffin McMath 14:20
will be coming for all of you. We’re both women, and so I can’t help but make that kind of maternal, like we are the ones making this recommendation of suggestion. It’s like, Come on, just eat something. Eat something, and you’ll feel better. You know, I feel like that’s what it comes down to. So speaking of that, can we go back to the other thing you had mentioned a while back, which was adrenaline and the three things needed? Can
Dr. Kate Kresge 14:39
we dive into that real quick. Yeah, so, guys, you actually make adrenaline from dopamine, which is, I think, a pathway most people aren’t familiar with in biochem and you only need two ingredients to make dopamine, and that’s tyrosine and vitamin b6 tyrosine is an amino acid. Vitamin b6 is the number one nutrient deficiency in the US. Fully 11% of people are deficient in it, according to the CDC, the. Guys, you don’t have to guess. You can measure you can use a tool like Coronavirus. MyFitnessPal does an okay job, but if you have not tracked your diet for two to three days in a tool that actually shows you your micronutrient intake. So how many vitamins, how many minerals, how much omegas, how many aminos? If you haven’t done that, I encourage you to do it. It’s free. You’re gonna be shocked. I have yet to see a single person in my practice. I had over 800 people in my clinic by the time I left my practice to join Rupa, and not one single person got 100% of every nutrient they needed in a day from food or even with supplements. And that’s a trend that we see nationally. By the way, your tax dollars, if you live in the US, pay for the NHANES study, which is conducted by the CDC and NIH in studies nutrient intake and habits in Americans. And we know that for the past 20 years, the intake of nutrients has been declining, even with supplementation. And so chances are you’re not getting enough of these, but tyrosine v6 that’s what you need to make dopamine, and then you combine vitamin C. And so top food sources of vitamin C, you know, don’t surprise most people things like red peppers, citrus, but most people aren’t consuming enough. And there’s actually some debate about the estimated daily requirement that the CDC recommends for vitamin C. It’s about 100 milligrams a day for adults. We have researchers like Linus Pauling who recommended a lot more, but regardless, most people still aren’t getting enough. And so those are the three nutrients that you need to simply make enough, dopamine and adrenaline. There’s a lot more factors that go into like how long you keep your circulating dopamine and adrenaline around for hormones, also implicate this. So just even starting there and auditing your diet and seeing Am I even getting enough of those is really critical. And if you’re not factoring in your activity, which is a critical mistake I see most endurance athletes make. They just log in, they put in their weight, their height, and they put in a meal plan. I’ve seen people go from looking like they’re getting 100% of what they need in 100% of what they need a day to like 20% depending on how hard they’re training, when they finally factor in their exercise. And so making sure you’re factoring that in is really important, because your needs are different as someone who’s training for an endurance event than the you who’s sitting on the couch every day. Your needs are not consistently your activity will absolutely change it. And so making sure you’re factoring that in, I will say most coaches who are counseling their clients about nutrition are not using software that tracks the micronutrients in their clients diet. And I think is inexcusable. I’ve seen a lot of athletes injured from a lot of dumb advice that they got from someone who’s supposed to be an expert. And so if you’re getting nutrition advice from a coach or an r, d or somebody ask to see the micronutrient intake of the diet they prescribed you, and if they can’t produce it and they’re not tracking it, go find somebody else. Dr
Griffin McMath 17:26
Kresge came for us today, and she’s going to come for you on your blood and pressure, and she’s going to come for you and your rd if they are not doing what they need to be doing. And we’re grateful for your advocacy. Thank you. This is a great pivot to talk about nutritional needs. So let’s talk about nutritional needs, and first break them into categories, one, macronutrients, two, hydration and electrolytes, three, micronutrients. And then I think we can wrap that up with actual timing and frequency. So can we dive first into macros?
Dr. Kate Kresge 17:56
Sure, so your amino acids, which you need to produce dopamine and other neurotransmitters, which are some of the way that we just sort of generate thought and are actually able to pay attention, are usually derived from a combination of amino acids and B vitamins. And so proteins provide you the building blocks of that, and usually when you’re consuming proteins from a food source. Protein food sources contain a combination of amino acids, B, vitamins and minerals, all of which are critically important for brain health. And so just making sure that you’re getting enough protein each day is going to help your brain function in terms of neurotransmitter production. But as we talked about, it’s also going to help with your hydration, because having enough protein in your blood keeps fluid in your bloodstream, prevents it from what’s called extra raising in your tissues. So rather than you drinking a ton and it winding up making you looking puffy and in your tissues, it’s actually going to stay in your blood and help to deliver nutrients to every single cell in your body. You have to have protein first for that. So making sure you’re getting enough protein each day is critically important. The timing of it is going to depend on you personally. What I will say is that a lot of us have experienced sort of like pre loading before a race or consuming protein. Which foods right after a race, I would say, pay attention to your symptoms. Work really closely with your provider to determine when is best for you to intake protein. If you’re having a lot of gut issues, if your gut is super sensitive, you probably don’t want to be consuming a ton of protein, like during a race or immediately after, you’d want to chat with your provider about that, because when you are racing for a really long time, the permeability of your intestines starts to increase, meaning there’s tight junctions in your gut between the cells that line your gut, the cells that line your gut, a little bit like skin. If you look at them, it’d be like holding your hands up in front of your face, palms facing your face, and you connect your pinkies, right? If these are your cells of your gut. The fingers at the top are called villi. That’s what absorbs nutrients. Where your pinkies are joined is called a tight junction, and that’s supposed to stay tight. That’s not supposed to let big molecules through, because your immune system lives under these cells in your gut, and your immune system doesn’t like seeing big molecules. But when you race for a really long time, kind of no matter what you do, guys like this is just. Part of our physiology, those tight junctions start to pull apart a bit, and you get a little bit of intestine permeability, and so you have to be really careful about slamming back a super protein rich meal that you’re not chewing adequately, that you’re not breaking down, that you might not have enough enzymes for allowing your gut a little bit of recovery time after you train might actually be a lot better of a strategy for you being able to optimally absorb what you’re going what you’re going to eat, and so making sure you’re working with your team around that is super
Griffin McMath 20:26
important. So you’re not recommending that classic people do their first marathon, finish the race and then run over to have the bottomless beers and like the big pancake breakfast.
Dr. Kate Kresge 20:35
Listen, guys, do you? Listen? The people I was seeing were the people who either were having problems or wanting to get to the next level, right? Like, if that’s part of your jam and you love it, you’re happy, healthy, thriving, your performance is great, and you don’t have anything to work on, like, do what you want. But my clients were the clients who had been racing for years. They’re frustrated because they’re eating all the right things, but they have bubble gut. They’re constantly their gut is upset. Their performance is declining. You know, they’re somebody who likes to be out on the road or out racing or out swimming. It’s what makes them feel mentally free, and yet their body’s stopping them from doing that. And so that’s the folks I see. And so that was a lot of what we would focus on is like, hey, maybe we need to actually do an intervention where you’re focused on your muscle recovery and your mental recovery. You’ve never focused on recovering your gut. We’ve never even looked at your gut, never even looked at your hormones. Like, let’s do that.
Griffin McMath 21:21
I have to say, I think one of the things that you’ve brought up a few different times really helps elevate this conversation from not just what you’re eating. You might have the best plan possible for what you’re eating, but a, is it actually getting delivered, you know, when you talked about our blood flow, and B, is it being kept in and utilized the way it needs to when you’re talking about intestinal permeability. So this conversation about nutritional interventions for optimal performance cannot exist without these pillars of is it going to get there? Is it going to stay there? Is it going to be brought into where it needs to be brought into? These things have to be discussed, or you’re doing a disservice. You can have the best plan possible, and it’s not going to do what it needs to do. So thank you so much for bringing that up. All right, so maybe rounding out this little part, what about carbs, fats? Yeah,
Dr. Kate Kresge 22:10
they’re obviously really important. Let’s just like, start with the basic the most obvious, I think, in terms of mental performance. Just a few things. One is that your brain is made of primarily fat, and so getting enough and adequate fat is important. And I see athletes, at times, struggle with this, particularly athletes, female athletes who grew up in the 90s and like fat was the enemy. Hopefully we’re all past that by now, but we have a lot of research that omega threes actually help with attention. And I just gave a talk on concomitant use of nutrients in conjunction with medications for mental health disorders, including ADHD. And so we know so we know that, like when you give someone omega threes, 500 milligrams of omega threes along with SSRIs, their depression will improve. For example, same thing with ADHD medications, right? When you give omega threes alongside most mental health, supportive cognitive health supportive medications, their efficacy improves, and that’s for a couple reasons. One is your brain needs really healthy, flexible, fluid fats to function, and omega threes are that type of fat. The other reason is that when you have oxidative imbalance, so when you have not enough antioxidants, not enough omegas, which are anti inflammatory fats, and too many pro oxidants, including, by the way, vigorous training, which is a very oxidative activity, then you can create a condition in your body where you have a lot of oxidative imbalance, and that directly impairs cognition and mood. And so omega threes can play a really helpful part of balancing that out. And so in my practice, I would often see clients consuming less than half a gram of omegas per day. You really need at least two to three grams, according to most people who specialize in performance and health optimization, and if you’re someone who’s struggling with mental health or cognitive performance, you may even need more than that, temporarily, if you’re in a depleted state, to get you to a repleted state. Now omega threes come from things like salmon, chia seeds, flax seeds, walnuts. Those are the top four sources of Omega threes in the US diet. Other fish too, sardines, mackerel, have a good amount of omega threes, and so deciding how you will get those each day is really important, but it’s also like you just have to get enough each day, and you’re probably not going to do it by accident. I have yet to see someone who is doing it by accident. In my practice, would make food as medicine plans that combine food and supplements to get someone 100% of the micronutrients and macronutrients they needed in a day. Most people required both supplementation and food sources of Omega threes to hit their goals, particularly if they were an athlete who was training a lot. So omegas can be really important for recovery. They also can really help to do things like decrease inflammation and joint pain post a longer training event or race. And so that’s kind of like the spiel on fats that I think is probably most important for the conversation we’re having
Griffin McMath 24:38
right now. And I think with fats too, that the things that you talked about this is an area where you want quality. Getting something that’s rancid omega into your system is actually going to cause more harm, and it’s not worth you taking it if it’s gone bad, or if it’s been stored in plastic or something like that. So I think there’s just a small note that as we talk about this, we’re not necessarily going to dive into this aspect of it, but there are. Places where it’s worth your money to invest in higher quality, and places where you can get away with a little bit more fats. Is not one of them. Fats is one that you want good quality. So this is great carbs, right? We talk about carbs.
Dr. Kate Kresge 25:12
Eat them. Eat enough of them. Get somebody to tell you how much you need and eat them consistently. Don’t let yourself get hypoglycemic. Is like the main thing here. Your brain runs on sugar. Your brain is one of the most energy hungry organs in your body. Unless you’re someone who’s in like a perpetual ketogenic state, which I think is probably not most of this audience, you need enough sugar to fuel your brain. And so again, remembering, if you’re somebody who is an endurance athlete, you know you have a lot of willpower, you know you have a lot of focus, all of a sudden you’re feeling like you don’t have access to that. The first thing you should be thinking is, does my brain have enough fuel? And fuel doesn’t just mean neurotransmitters, and the ingredients for neurotransmitters, it also just means just straight up sugar, which you get from carbs. And so I think making sure, again, that you’re working with somebody who’s going to help you understand how many macros you need to get, making sure that you’re fueling appropriately during and after a race with carbohydrates and a type of carbohydrate that doesn’t upset your stomach, that you actually absorb, is really important, but there’s also some really good evidence we have. For example, like you really carbs help you transport the ingredients that you need to make serotonin across the blood brain barrier. And so they play this really beautiful interactive dance with the rest of your nutrients when it comes to even delivering them to your brain. And so if you’re an athlete, you know getting enough carbohydrates is important. I see a lot of athletes who are also focused on body composition. It might be cutting their carbs for one reason or another. And unless you’re really working with someone who is helping you do that in a scientific way, I would not advise that if you’re struggling with performance, great. Thank
Griffin McMath 26:36
you. Let’s shift gears to hydration real quick, and maybe some hydration strategies. You’ve talked about electrolytes a few times, I don’t think we need to dive too deeply into it, but just kind of recapping some known and unknown signs of dehydration and its overall impact on mental clarity.
Dr. Kate Kresge 26:53
Yeah, so hydration, there’s two forms of not having enough fluid in your body, and one is dehydration, which means you don’t have enough fluid, you don’t have water, and the other is hyponatremia, which means you don’t have enough electrolytes. And so for any of my clients who struggle with either of those, we pay a lot of attention to the type of fluids that they’re in taking. So a lot of folks might really load up their drinks with like protein powder pre workout electrolyte mixes, and they may not be consuming enough fluid in proportion of those powders or whatever they’re loading that fluid with, that fluid might be not dilute enough, and so your body is actually having to pull fluid from your tissues to sort of rehydrate whatever mixture you’re drinking, which is not ideal. The opposite can be true. Most of my athletes, I just basically have a rule. It’s like you are someone who should never be drinking clean water, at least not H 2o from the tap. That’s H 2o and chlorine, the water we evolved drinking from streams, lakes, rivers, springs, was H 2o mixed with 80 different trace minerals, right? It wasn’t the stuff that you get from the city. And stuff from city is great, right? I love chlorine, like, chlorination is great. You know, I don’t want cholera or any sort of these, like crazy diseases that you could get from untreated water. So don’t hear me saying you have to go out to a stream and drink the water. Thank you city water workers for all the work you do. Yeah, Bless you. Bless you guys. But yeah, your water is nutrient deficient if you’re drinking artificial water that’s not from a natural source, and so knowing that and knowing that you’re losing electrolytes at an increased rate. If you’re an endurance athlete, you have to supplement around it, or be willing to eat a crazy amount of mineral rich foods. And so you guys will hear me use the terms minerals and electrolytes interchangeably because they are interchangeable. Electrolytes are minerals, always full stop, potassium, calcium, magnesium, rate. Think of an electrolyte. It’s a mineral. So you need an adequate mixture of minerals and H 2o in your water to even be able to absorb it, but then also to have a positive impact in your bloodstream. So what happens when you drink a lot of pure water that’s not loaded with electrolytes, and you’re losing a lot of electrolytes, and you aren’t replacing your electrolytes, is you get in a hyponatremic state, meaning you have too much water, not enough electrolytes, your body will start to pull electrolytes from your tissues and your bones to try to keep you alive, because you can survive a really long time without enough macros, you can’t run your body’s electrical system, which runs on minerals and electrolytes, without enough of them. And very quickly, when people get in this electrolyte depleted state, you start to realize that their cognitive function goes down. They get really, usually sad and weepy. You see somebody like that after a race who’s like, just crying, and they don’t know why, and they can’t find their way home, like they’re hyponatremic, but it can be deadly. So hyponatremia, dehydration can be can be deadly, but hyponatremia can cause heart attacks because your your heart is reliant on proper electrical signaling to work and to beat optimally. And so I actually find that, like sort of this chronic low level hyponatremia is really common in my athletes who are trying to eat really clean. Actually, it’s way more common in those people who are like avoiding salt, they don’t want to do anything unnatural, they’re like making their own electrolyte mixed with honey and salt. And I’m like, What about the 80 other trace minerals? Man, you know, like, what are you doing? So you have to use a very scientific approach to this, but those are two really key components of hydration. And so being dehydrated, you know, like, if you’re super fatigued, you’re getting a ton of cream. Hips, you’re not recovering well, and then if your cognitive performance goes down, always looking at your hydration is a key strategy,
Griffin McMath 30:06
I think, when you talked about the person who’s weepy after all this exercise, I’m like, do not be confused with relief from finishing that 100 mile race to you know what you could be experiencing as a Simon symptom. Wonderful. Thank you. Can we pivot now more toward micronutrients? I think this is really the last category I want to get to before we talk about meal frequency here, but micronutrients for not only mental health, but optimal mental performance. Yeah,
Dr. Kate Kresge 30:33
so electrolytes are micronutrients. So we can start with the mineral category that we might not have, like drilled down into a ton yet. So we have a ton of evidence, for example, that things like iron, zinc and magnesium play a critical role in focus and attention, and they’re usually cofactors in the creation of either neurotransmitters or certain hormones. And so making sure that you’re consuming enough of all minerals each day is really important, and I encourage that as a whole strategy, because guys, I mean, it takes 15 years from research to make it into clinical practice. Clinical Practice. There’s really only 80 nutrients that make or break human health, and so if you’re just getting enough of them each day, you’re really hedging your bets that you’re giving every organ what it needs. I wouldn’t wait for the study to come out that like proves that selenium specifically improves the ability to, like, focus on a bike, to take it right, like, you know your body needs it. Just get enough of it. So those three mineral zinc, iron, magnesium, we know from studies, play a critical role in attention, and actually help folks who have impaired attention, diagnosable impaired attention, with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, to focus better, get better outcomes when they take medications, get better outcomes. Just in general, even if they aren’t taking meds. And so food sources, of things like zinc, for example, tend to be things like oysters and beef liver. Those are the top two sources zinc in the diet. So if you’re not eating those every day, you might not be getting enough. Same thing with iron. Number one food source of iron in the US is actually fortified cereals, funnily enough, and that’s because irons are number two nutrient deficiency in the US. And so there’s been efforts to actually fortify processed foods with iron. There’s gotta be
Griffin McMath 32:03
a better way. You know, for a
Dr. Kate Kresge 32:06
lot of Americans, there’s not, because, like, they’re not willing to take pills, they are willing to eat highly palatable processed foods. And so it’s like, how do we get them this stuff? You know, you can’t put in the water, but you can put it in really tasty kids foods. So that’s a strategy. And my clients who come in and like, I know this is probably something you guys have covered on the podcast, but a lot of endurance athletes have issues with a history of disordered eating, or feel like they struggle with that at times. And so a lot of my clients, particularly my female clients, who are obviously at higher risk of iron deficiency because they’re losing blood each month as they’re menstruating, they come in and they’d have these, like, insatiable cravings for breakfast cereal, right? So like, they’d be eating their kids breakfast cereal at night. They’re just, like, constantly craving cereal. They didn’t know why we’d fix our iron deficiency. That would get better. So, like, thinking about too like, what are you craving? What are you binging out on? Like, is it a fortified food that’s really high in a nutrient that you’re deficient in? Kind of giving your body what it needs? Can actually sometimes help with that.
Griffin McMath 32:56
That is so funny. We have an actual episode at the beginning, and I can’t remember what episode it was, but I think sometime last winter, early spring, where at the beginning of the episode, I talked about hiding a box of oh my gosh, what was it? Captain Crunch, like the peanut butter one in my car, and just going ham on it. And sure enough, yeah, do I crave that particularly once a month? Yes. But I was also treated for iron deficient anemia last year too. So, you know, a little proof in the pudding. You
Dr. Kate Kresge 33:23
know, for you, it was cereal. For other people, it’s like the rotisserie chicken. I have so many people with the rotisserie chicken story that, like, just ate a whole rotisserie chicken in their car one day, and they’re like, I think I’m like, protein deficient.
Griffin McMath 33:38
Oh yeah. But, you know, Captain Crunch, and I go way back, so
Dr. Kate Kresge 33:43
just if that’s how you want to get your nutrients power to you,
Griffin McMath 33:46
if it agrees body, no, it’s not, not at all. But I’m saying there’s it’s true. It is really fascinating how that does work. And because of the measure that was made to fortify those foods, I think it’s also just a known entity for some of us older generations, where that diet style, that Western diet, was more normalized a couple of decades ago. So I think when we’re experiencing that deficiency, we start craving it. It’s also really easy to go back to what was known from a long time ago and kind of fill those cravings and with something that’s really familiar, rather than maybe something that’s optimal in other ways too. But to your point, you know, not necessarily with this audience, but where you can get it. Sometimes you have to think about the right audience, but this audience, I think that’s so helpful for people to understand, and especially for athletes who may be menstruating. It Hey, if you start finding yourself down the cereal aisle once a month, you know, we got other questions we can start asking you. So we’ve talked about a lot of these micronutrients, and we’ve talked about just the concept of hydration. We talked about macronutrient balance as well. Here. What about the timing of our consumption and meal frequency as it relates to, you know, snacks supporting sustained mental performance. I mean, you talked about dips a few times. Sometimes, you know, and feeling hypoglycemic, but what’s the method to the madness? Dr Kresge, or not staying mad,
Dr. Kate Kresge 35:07
this one is really personalized, I find and changes. For women, we have what’s called an infra and rhythm, which means we have a, you know, pretty drastically potentially, if you’re a woman who’s in your menstrual years, and you’re not sort of artificially changing your hormones, then the way that you use nutrients and the way that you use them, and the way that you need to time them may differ, actually, from week to week. So that’s important to state, right there is, like, even just within a person, in a single snapshot in time week to week, this might change for you, certainly is going to change across the lifespan, depending on, like, if you’re, you know, a teenager who’s still growing, whose metabolism is a bit higher. If you are post menopausal, or you’re someone who’s in andropause, your metabolism is going to shift the way you use and the speed at which you use nutrients is going to shift. And so always working with someone who’s actually helping you, one get a nutrient dense diet, figure out timing, and then who can help you check in and assess how that timing is working for you, I think, is really important, and really just dropping any preconceived notions that you have or sort of shame or rules that you have around food can actually be some of the most helpful ways to get objective data about this, and using tools like a CGM, maybe to measure your blood sugar when it comes to meal timing, because I do think this is really individual. It’s really hard to, like, make any hard and fast rules. But I’ve had a lot of clients that come in and like, they’re doing intermittent fasting or fasting because it’s a trend, and they feel like they should, and they feel like it’s healthy, and it’s like, really impacting their performance and their recovery. So it really is, I think what I would invite you guys to do is to actually experiment regularly and allow yourself to experiment regularly. A lot of my clients did not realize that they were, like, under eating or not timing their meals adequately until they actually allowed themselves to just eat when they were hungry, or they, like, went on vacation for three days, and they realized that eating smaller meals throughout the day actually made their gut feel better. And so I think eating enough, eating at a pace where, like, your workouts are fueled, unless you’re someone who does your workouts better fasted, but then regularly experimenting with that, because you might do workouts better fasted in one phase of your cycle, if you’re in a body that’s menstruating, and not in another part of your cycle. And so not staying stuck with like this is how I time my meals for the rest of my life, but being willing to regularly do that analysis and inquiry, I think, is actually like the best answer here. What were you thinking? I
Griffin McMath 37:12
mean, this is exactly what you’re talking about when it comes to personalized there needs to be and this can be difficult depending on your relationship with food, and maybe the pressure of I’ve got to stick on this path, but working with your coach, working with your registered dietitian, to maybe approach this, not necessarily with a sense of play, but with a sense of curiosity. And what would happen if I allowed myself this week to do this particular thing when it comes to timing, obviously, unless it’s like, Oh, I wonder what would happen if I went to an all you can eat buffet at this particular time before training session. Yeah, let’s not get that curious. I think we know the answer to that one. We don’t really need to dive into that. But otherwise, really experimenting with nutrient timing, working with a professional who can understand the implications of what some of those little experiments will result in. So you’re set up for success would be most optimal, actually, you know, speaking of that, let’s talk about what it actually takes to create a personalized nutritional plan. And first, as someone who’s done this for athletes, when a doctor or a nutritional coach. I don’t even know where we’re at right now in certifications with nutritional coaches, which you know exists, but first you have to assess the athlete for understanding. Before I even give you a personalized treatment plan, I need to know what I’m working with. So can you run through a list of what you use to assess so that before an athlete or a coach were to say, Yes, I think I need to go and get some help here. What can they expect? What types of information do you collect, and how do you collect that information?
Dr. Kate Kresge 38:49
It depends who you’re seeing. If you’re seeing a doctor, they’re gonna do they should be doing some kind of like physical exam, really intensive intake, to look at the function of every system of your body. You want someone who’s going to look at your labs, so who’s going to understand how your thyroid is working, what your lipid panel looks like? Do you have enough vitamin D? And just sort of like even the basic things that your doc will check at a physical can be really helpful for figuring out where you stand currently, metabolically and from a nutritional standpoint, you want someone who’s going to factor in your type of activity and your stage of life. You want at least someone checking on your hormones. If your goal is anything related to athletic performance, your hormones have to be part of a comprehensive assessment, particularly your thyroid, especially as you’re looking at metabolic rate. And then you’re also going to find people who are going to do more comprehensive assessments. So I always look at existing diet, and you’re like, What are you eating that’s working well, that you really love to eat. Let’s actually look at the nutrients you’re getting from that. Let me fill any gaps that you have in a way that actually is going to work for you. Let me assess your gastrointestinal function to make sure actually absorbing those nutrients. And then let’s do some testing to make sure those nutrients are getting and staying in your bloodstream. So you can do labs to check for like fat soluble vitamins, vitamins A, D, E, K, very easily. Water soluble vitamins are a little bit they fluctuate a bit more. And so you can check them fasted, as well as amino acids, like vitamins b1, through b2, 12. You can check in the serum. You can look at things like vitamin C in the serum. You can also do your metabolite testing to see if someone is adequate in those nutrients. And that can be sometimes an easier thing to do, because it gives you more of a snapshot over time of somebody’s metabolism of those vitamins that tend to fluctuate in the bloodstream a lot. So what you don’t want to do is like, go take your multivitamin, go get your blood drawn. Like it’s going to look like your water soluble nutrients are adequate. So it’s false data. Yeah, exactly, yeah. And then typical like CMP that your doc will run it, your physical is going to give you some of your mineral levels. But I would urge people to not be fooled by that, because your body will, as we said, pull minerals from your tissues and your bones to keep your serum levels adequate. The serum levels of things like calcium that you need are very small. You can look at the range, and it’s only like three numbers wide that range, because your body keeps a really tight regulation on that. That’s not actually a good indicator of your body status. And so looking at things like consumption can actually be much more helpful when it comes to like those minerals. You can check on things with like omegas, with an Omega check. And so just looking at like omega threes, Omega sixes, you can look at things like inflammation status in your body, which can tell you about either like any sort of underlying inflammatory conditions or lack of antioxidants can be really helpful. So some combination of physical exam, comprehensive intake to see you know, what are you dealing with in your body? Somebody who’s going to assess gastrointestinal function, whether it’s just by asking you questions about your symptoms or doing comprehensive statistical analysis, looking at your microbiome, and then blood Labs is usually a good place to start, and then tracking over time, where you’re eating. And so if they’re not using a software that’s actually looking at the micronutrient you need to take of your diet, then they really should be making sure that they’re putting some nutritional insurance in place to just ensure that you’re consuming enough nutrients, whether it’s like multivitamin combination of amino acid supplementation, whatever it is, if they’re not going to check, they need to ensure So, I would say that’s what people should really look for in a specialist who’s helping them with this. And I think that’s
Griffin McMath 41:54
the key word here, is specialist, because what so many people do when they get their labs back, because historically, if I’m talking to anyone about this, that you’re the best person to talk about this with labs. But people will look down a lab, they’ll see the color coded for if something’s outside of a certain range, and unless it is far outside of a specific range, most of the time, people just say you’re fine or that’s not the case. So can you first answer the difference between something being optimal versus within normal range, and what that means in the world of labs, as someone who is in the world of labs, because most people will get their labs back, and their provider, who may not understand this is only looking for massive, massive Red Flags. What’s the missed opportunity in that?
Dr. Kate Kresge 42:41
Yeah, so I think part of it goes back to like, what type of provider you’re seeing. So if you’re seeing a primary care doctor or conventional doctor, that really is their only job, right? Like, their job is to catch if you’re dying or you’re about to die, you’re gonna die soon, and stop it. That’s what your primary care job is to do. They get five minutes with you a year, and they have a million things to do. And if you’re like most Americans, you’re behind on all your screenings for things that are going to kill you. Like, they have a lot to tackle on that visit. They don’t care about your labs not being optimal. Like, that’s not their job. If you’re going to them for that, you’re in the wrong place, and that’s your fault. You need to go to a type of doc who actually specializes in interpreting labs using optimal values and specialized in performance. Maybe it’s longevity prevention, whatever it is. And so those docs tend to have either training in functional medicine, like a ifmcp, some sort of functional medicine certification, Andrew Weil center, there’s a couple places around the country that certify doctors in that, or they’re a naturopathic doctor who’s just trained in that in their schooling, or they have some other credential that lets you know that they have the time to talk to you about that, and they have the training to look at optimal labs. And so please don’t go to your primary care and ask them to do this, like, it’s really not fair and it’s not what they’re there for, unless you’re seeing like a special functional medicine primary care doctor, and then totally do your thing. And so I would look for someone with training in that specifically. And so when you’re looking at optimal labs, what you’re looking at is a couple things you know you’re looking at beyond just like, is something flagged high or low? You’re looking at where it is in the range? Is it trending up? Has it been trending up for a while? Thyroid is a great example of this. I know a lot of docs who focus on performance, who don’t want to see TSH above, like one and a half. When your TSH rises, it’s an indication that your thyroid isn’t working optimally. But most conventional doctors are not going to treat you until it gets to four and a half. And so that’s a pretty big range, and there’s a lot of sort of subpar performance and suffering that can happen in a range that’s still technically normal, but as you sort of creep up towards that four and a half number that could take years for you to get thyroid medication or some kind of type of intervention to treat your thyroid like subclinical if you’re going to see a doctor who’s going to kind of look deeper at your labs, you first need to find someone who actually has time, because sitting down and looking for optimal ranges takes time. It takes thought. And there’s tools that will help you do it. Like at Rupa, we have trends. You can sign up for Rupa health account as a client, as a non practitioner, and upload all of your previous lab results for forever from lab core, from wherever you get it done, and it’ll show you the trends over time for each biomarker. So is your thyroid trending up or down? Yeah, it’s really cool. And then it’ll show you. If it’s like, optimal, abnormal, abnormal, low, abnormal, high, optimal, high, optimal, low, like, it’ll kind of give you your numbers in that range. And so I think the first part is just going to a doctor who can actually do it. And most docs call the front desk and ask, right, say, I’m looking for someone to do this, but also pay attention to how they write, what’s on their website, what’s on their blogs. Like, have they seen a friend who’s done this for them? That’s a good way to find someone who’s qualified, and then you can catch things early before they’re pathological, diagnosable, and instead they’re abnormal enough to be impacting your performance. Catch those early, reverse them and stay healthy.
Griffin McMath 45:32
Okay, this is not a podcast at all that was actually about Rupa. It’s in no way sponsored by Rupa, whatever, but I’m kind of loud right now because I don’t think I remember that that feature existed. If we’re going to talk about this again, this isn’t me giving, like, an ad space for ruper or anything. That’s same. How fantastic that, at the heel of this episode, talking about this and saying, like, what can we do to put this into someone’s hands? Like, what information they need? You just gave one of the best little tools we’d even talk about this before the episode that you were gonna say that that putting your lab history, uploading it into this site, and this site kind of popping back to you, like, Hey, here’s some things we’ve noticed with this that you can take, you can at least get a little bit of information to equip yourself. And then when you make the appointment with your provider, like, you have one place that you can already show them, whether it’s you know someone you’ve met on ruper or not, and say, like, Look at this. And then by looking at these trends, you can also start to piece like, this is what was going on in my life at that time. These are other things that were happening. And you and I love this, because this is part of becoming an ND is patient education is such a critical part of patient care, but this does that in such a great way. So shout out to you guys. That’s an awesome innovation. And I think something that coaches can also point out to their athletes, and even take a look. The last thing I’ll say here too, when you talk about personalized plan, and you had talked about this with calcium and serum levels, if like, this actually doesn’t tell the full story. Is really talking to someone who knows how to put context around labs with asin, like you said, again, Dr karzaki is going to come for you if you’re going to your PCP and asking about longevity care, and they’re working in like a public health setting, where they need to pop people out and make sure they’re addressing all the walking pneumonia cases they’re seeing in kiddos right now. Like, you don’t have time for that. Don’t do that to them. See someone who has the time to give you what you need and has also, secondarily, the knowledge to be able to put these things into context, like what you said with calcium, it’s not just about what we’re seeing with the serum levels here. We actually need to have a conversation about consumption, and someone who would have time and space to do that. So these are all such great things. I think these are really great recommendations on what someone can expect if they’re truly getting a personalized nutrition plan, and what that looks like. And then just bringing this full circle, something you said that was really poignant at the beginning, was understanding someone’s goals. And we joked about it a little bit when I was like, do they go for bottomless beers and pancakes afterwards? And you said, hey, if that’s what you want to do, that’s your goal, and that fits in with your lifestyle. Go for it, but really understanding what your goals are right now and understanding, you know, I was just talking to a female endurance athlete in her 30s the other day, and she was like, I’m gonna go get a coach. I’m gonna get a coach who can help me actually bring balance into my life. I am fantastic when it comes to all things cycling in this area, but I’m starting to get older. I’m a female my 30s, and I don’t think I’m really doing adequate strength training. And what do I also know that happens with that now, my nutritional needs are going to change when it comes to this. So getting the help that you need for the goals that you have, and if you’re starting to change some of those things you want to up level your performance, your mental performance, is such a key part of that. And if anything, we’ve learned so much today at so many of the root causes of how not only to have baseline mental performance that we need, but optimal as well. Thanks to you, Dr Kresge, so maybe if we can wrap up, one thing that we tend to do is we tend to ask a question to our forum so our listeners can hop over the forum later and start a conversation based on what we’ve talked about, and then we do a recap of our takeaways. So something you’re kind of saying, like, Hey, if you’re listening at the end here, this is one of the main takeaways you should have from this episode. So I think for the forum question on this episode, I would really love to take an opportunity to pull together the advice that people are seeing online, of what people are doing, and maybe slow down that conversation again. Bring it full circle. This isn’t just a quick fix of like, Oh, I just, you know, Papa gel and boom, I’m Superman for the next 15 minutes mental performance. Or when things like Adderall or those other stimulants get inappropriately used or used as a crutch rather than getting to the root cause. So I think something I’d like to ask is really starting a conversation of when they’ve kind of slowed down and they’ve really peeled back the layers they’ve gotten to the root cause, or just the roots of their mental performance. As it relates to nutrition, maybe what’s one thing you found with your nutrition that. Really surprising. I’ll give an example my mental performance as I started working with my coach or a nutritionist, I realized that we talked about earlier, I’m really iron deficient, or I realize this, I think, really helping people realize the wide range of things that could be contributing to their mental performance, by seeing in a peer, by seeing in someone else and helping them realize that there are so many different factors that contribute. So hop on over our forum. Tell us what kind of root cause you’ve noticed in your own nutrition plan that’s contributed to your mental performance, and you might be helping out someone else who could be opening their eyes to something in their own life. So help someone out. Go to the forum post for this episode and join in on the conversation. So as we wrap up, Dr Kresge, let’s do our takeaways for the episode. Is there any final advice or the key takeaway you’d Usher our listeners attention to,
Dr. Kate Kresge 50:53
I like what you did there? Yeah. You know, if you’re an endurance athlete, and you’ve been able to have pretty good mental performance throughout most of your career, and you’re suffering right now. Always look at your body. I see it again and again. With you guys, you’re a tough bunch, the temptation is to go to your psychology and is to go to your mental toughness and to go to your grit and just sort of, there’s almost this phenomenon where a lot of the athletes I see have been gaslighting themselves for a really long time. This was like something about willpower or their mental tools that they just like weren’t doing well enough, and what they missed was looking at their body and looking for a possible root cause, contributor to their depression, fatigue, distractibility. And oftentimes, when we find it and correct it, they pop back right back up to where they normally were. And they lost a lot of time and spent a lot of time beating themselves up for something that was just physiological. Was just physiological. And so I just want to urge you, like, if you’re in that camp and you haven’t done the testing, you haven’t seen a provider who can help you just assess your whole body health and find any root causes, please do that as a first step. And I think you’ll be really pleasantly surprised at what you find and how you feel when you correct what you find.
Griffin McMath 51:58
I think the takeaway that I really appreciated a lot, that there’s so many that you talked about today in this episode that I would usher attention to is, you know, at a surface level, this, this is not a quick fix, and that that’s okay. And then if you do need other tools and resources while you are addressing this issue that may seem like a band aid or quick fix, that’s okay, just work with a professional to do it. But again, it goes back to finding someone who has the time, who has the knowledge to look at these labs, to truly dive into your diet, the timing, the micronutrients, the blood flow, the intestinal permeability, to look at these different factors and give context to the greater picture of these nutritional building blocks that make up how you are able to show up every single day mentally as an endurance athlete. So really, knowing who you’re talking to and is this person going to be able to give you the time and knowledge that you need? So thank you so much for being here.
Dr. Kate Kresge 52:56
Thanks for having me.
Griffin McMath 52:57
This was wonderful. And as always, I could sit here and listen to you talk all the time. I’m gonna be dancing and cheering you on all the way being like, yes, yes, drive that boy home. But that was fantastic, and I really appreciate you taking some time out this evening. Thanks
Dr. Kate Kresge 53:09
for having me here. I think what you guys are doing is great, and I look forward to hearing from folks how they feel after trying some of this stuff.
Griffin McMath 53:15
Great. That was another episode of fast talk. The thoughts and opinions expressed on fast talk are those of the individual subscribe to fast talk wherever you prefer to find your favorite podcasts, be sure to leave us a rating and a review. As always, we love your feedback. Tweet at us at fast talk labs, join the conversation at forums dot fast talk labs.com or learn from our experts at fast talk labs.com for Dr Kate Kresge, I’m Griffin McMath. Thanks for listening. You.
