Kate Shilland and Fran Taylor are Registered Sports and Public Health Nutritionists (AfN). Kate is a Performance Nutritionist with over 10 years’ experience working with athletes, of all levels across various sports. She has helped a number of athletes, including teens, achieve National & World Champion status in a variety of sports. She has been working at Crystal Palace Football Club Academy for 6 seasons and works with a number of tennis academies, sports clubs and schools. Fran has over 13 years’ experience as a Public Health Nutritionist. She works with schools, youth and community organisations promoting fad free, no nonsense nutrition advice. She also works with young athletes & sports clubs including elite junior taekwondo, rugby, netball, gymnastics and athletics.
Together under the banner of “Performance Canteen”, they work with elite young athletes, parents and coaches in academies, sports clubs and schools. They also have teenage athletes of our own and see first hand the lack of good nutrition advice out there, and the challenges that come with this.
- The high energy needs of youth athletes compared to there siblings or peers.
- The dangers of taking nutrition advice from Tik Tok or Instagram.
- The simple nudges a parent or coach can make to improve a youth athletes nutrition.
- Supporting youth athletes on plant based diets.
You can listen to the episode in full here.
You can follow their work via the Performance Canteen Instagram account: @performance_canteen and via their website www.performancecanteen.co.uk .
To learn more about the LTAD Network check out www.ltadnetwork.com or follow on Instagram: @ltadnetwork or Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ltadnetwork .
You can keep up to date with Athletic Evolution via our www.athleticevolution.co.uk , Instagram: @athleticevouk and Twitter: @athleticevouk .
Rob Anderson
Okay, Fran, welcome to the podcast. It’s great to be able to get you guys on this morning. Thanks so much for bringing your time and expertise into the podcast.
Kate Shilland
Thank you for having us.
Rob Anderson
So before we get into the nitty gritty of some of the nutrition topics we pulled out, give us a bit of an understanding of the background you guys are coming from as your own kind of individual journey. So, Kate, you want to kick us off? What did sport and physical activity look like for you as a youngster?
Kate Shilland
So hi, yeah, I was very sporty and active as a youngster, I athletics was my thing. So 100 metres, actually, 60 metres was my forte, the longer it got, the harder it got for 60 metres 100 metres. So sort of was counter champion was always sort of po do English schools, but kind of always be fast as loser in the final. So sort of about, you know, top eight in the country, which was good, but if you want to take it forever, it’s never it’s like there’s a decision to be made there isn’t there. And that’s where it kind of fell apart for me. And I do like to convince myself that if I knew then what I know now about nutrition and fueling, I would like to think I’d be an Olympic champion. But because there was such a hole there, and I remember being having the Kent chapter, the English, private English schools, and someone asked the question about nutrition, which was, you know, quite Forward Thinking it was 1991 There’s a long time ago. And the comment from the coach was, well, a Rolls Royce doesn’t run on water. And that was it. So whilst we were flattered being compared to Rolls Royces, but that was the extent of the the advice that we got. And really, I think there’s been such a massive gap there for such a long time. So obviously, that was, you know, 99 to one many moons ago. So my athletics career kind of stopped there a bit really. And then I’ve got more into longer distance running. So half marathons, marathons, triathlons, and more recently been competing in higher ups and kind of different challenges. I think it’s always nice to have a challenge. I’ve always very competitive. And yeah, athletics is great. I really, I really horribly so. But I guess it was a huge part of my growing up. And it’s really nice, because my daughter now trains at the track where I used to train and we’re kind of reliving it really, it’s actually the same coach, which is, which is really nice. But it’s such a nice. Sport is such an important part of growing up. I think it keeps you motivated and driven and surrounded by like minded kids and parents. And you know, being a teenager can be tricky. And sport is a great way to channel some of the some of the challenges, I think. So yeah. I also think if you’ve been fit and active from a young age, even if you have periods where you sort of go off the boil a bit, it’s much easier to get that level of fitness back. So that’s really that’s my background, I Yeah, competitive in kind of anything, I want to try and beat someone. Not that I was. But yeah, that’s probably enough waffle for me for annual to
Fran Taylor
Well, I wasn’t as good as Kate. But I’ve always athletics again, was my thing. I was cross countries to run for my county doing cross country and have always run long, you know, cross country long distance. And like Kate, I think, you know, I always struggled to eat before I ran, and didn’t really see too much of a problem in it. But never, you know, never kind of potentially got my full potential because of that, really. And again, knowing you know, if I’d have known what I know, now, I wonder how different things would have been. And also, you know, I’ve run throughout kind of my teens and my 20s. And did ran the London Marathon, I think back in 20 to 32,002. And did it so badly and fueled so badly. I’d been training and trained on an injury and all of that stuff. And that kind of led me into looking at nutrition and sorting things out because it was my early 20s. And yeah, did. Did you know I think I could have done things a lot differently. But I’ve always been interested. You know, I’ve always been sporty. And I’ve always run and I still love to run Hills basically.
Rob Anderson
So when did nutrition kind of coaching or nutrition as a profession for you kind of appear on the horizon? What was it that made you go down into that roof?
Fran Taylor
Well, for me, it was big. Well, it was a number of things that Kate and I both used to work in together in another lifetime at our desk job in London, and we both trained in nutrition at different times, but we like just coincidentally came down the same path but I was working at a desk job eating really badly. Running, doing things really wrong. Had a had a horrible night. Under marathan. And just kind of thought, like, is this what I want to do? Do I want to sit at a job a desk all day? Do I want to do this? And I’ve always been interested in nutrition. And I kind of it was at that point of like, do I want to work in in recruitment? I would just thought, Do I want to do this for the rest of my life? And the answer was, No. What do I want to do instead? Actually, nutrition is something I’m really interested in. So I retrained when I did a degree in Human Nutrition at that point.
Rob Anderson
And what about you Kate? I guess we’ve got 50% of the story.
Kate Shilland
so fun while I was in recruitment, which is kind of like the anti nutrition world, isn’t it? It’s like, yeah, a lot of going out after work and eating not so great things. But I left the recruitment quite a while before Fran and I started working with young offenders. And I was a counsellor for young offenders with drug and alcohol addictions, or crimes related to drug and alcohol, which was really enjoyable, really challenging. But I learned a lot and I was trained in in CBT. So helping sort of motivate clients towards a change, did really enjoy that. But then I had children and it became difficult emotionally to, to deal with that in the daytime, and then come home and not detached, you know, not be able to sort of detach from it and be a mom. So I thought, actually, I don’t think I can do the young offender thing for now. So I thought I’ll go back. So my first degree was in sports science and psychology. So I thought, I’ll go back and do a master’s in sports nutrition, and go back down the sporty route, rather than the psychology route. And like Fran, I’ve done I’ve done a marathon at that point, and screwed up my nutrition, I didn’t really understand it, then properly, always been interested in sport. My family’s really sporty. And so I thought actually, that would be a great positive use of knowledge and interest in application as something less stressful than the young offender bit. But actually, what I’ve found that experience with young offenders has been so beneficial to the recruitment, sorry, the nutrition side, because all about building relationships with people like, you know, nutrition is a science, but eating is a behaviour. So you have to understand how people how people eat, why they eat, what the challenges are, and actually how to work with them as a human. And I think that’s probably what Brian and I are really good at if I’m gonna blow our trumpet. Because I think being moms and dads know, people, people, it’s really important that you know, how to communicate on a practical level, on a way that people you get create the person in the middle rather than just an athlete, or do you know what I mean? So yeah, so that’s how I got into it. And yeah, the the experience with young offenders has been super, super helpful. She’s great. I guess all experiences built, you know, lead to where you’re going.
Rob Anderson
So did you guys start as performance canteen? Or was that an idea that came out after working with adults and kids and realising you need to do something specifically with the adolescents? How did that performance canteen come about?
Kate Shilland
Well, we as I said, we started separately. So we both started doing our own things. And we were working with different different client bases, given individuals in sport and outside of sport, and then we kind of realised we’re both doing the same thing, why don’t we join up and do it together, and there was this big sort of whitespace was specific for young athletes. And actually, we were kind of frustrated and overwhelmed by all the ridiculous advice being sent out, particularly to young people who are particularly vulnerable to that. So it’s okay, let’s, let’s join forces and create something that’s a safe space of proper good information, and practical advice. Because sometimes the advice might be good in theory and science, but in terms of practical application for a teenager, it’s not going to work. So we thought we’d would try and create something unique in that respect, that it’s the right information, hopefully delivered in in a user friendly way. And I think,
Fran Taylor
adding to that, as well, kind of the, one of the things that we get, and one of the feedbacks we get, and why we started it, as well as it’s from the parents and the coaches side of thing is, is they’re overwhelmed with information. You know, we as parents, you know, we rely on quite a lot of our information around food and nutrition and around social media. And there’s a lot of when we look at kind of kids and eating, there’s a lot of what not to have, or, you know, banning like junk food advertising and banning things which obviously is a good thing. But it comes from a kind of negative point and that it creates a lot of fear and a lot what we find is parents don’t know and are scared of what to feed their kids, and especially parents of young athletes their energy needs. czar are really hot in there, you know, they’re hungry, they’re eating all the time. And parents are like, Oh, can I give them cereal? Or, you know, is to, you know, if they’ve had bread once in a day, can they have it again, and we just kind of wanted to provide a bit of a space for parents to say, look, it’s fine. You know, this is what you know, this is what are, this is what we know, you know, and able to give them a bit of a to help them relax a little bit around it as well. It’s
Kate Shilland
like being the middleman being a bit of backup and saving a few of those battles. A lot of the feedback we get is, Oh, thank God now actually, because we’re saying, nutrition isn’t rocket science, it really isn’t, isn’t difficult. But people have convinced us that it has to be complicated and confusing, because that bad, bad advice kind of makes you think that the good advice is too simple. So therefore can’t be real. So it’s sort of like the parents say, thank you, because actually, they listened to you, you were saying the same as we were saying, but actually, it’s coming from you when they’re listening now. So it’s kind of dissolving a few battles, potentially at home, and just kind of Yeah, being that voice of reason in the middle, because now we’ve got teenage kids ourselves. And we’re nutritionists and we know, they don’t listen to us, because we’re moms. It’s annoying from coming from us. But we’re not, you know, the young athletes, we work with mom. So actually, we’re all right. So it’s sort of just trying to tie it all together and create some or dissipate some of the stress around it. And also, I think sometimes that for me is just saying, I think there’s a pressure on her to try and be perfect and like, have to make everything’s homemade. Everything has to be organic, all this it’s like actually do you know what just beat the Jaffa Cakes eat, they need chill out, you need the the basic foundations are really good, nutritious diet, but actually, those kinds of foods are a handy way to actually meet the additional energy requirements of an active young athlete. So it’s sort of Yeah, embracing the foods and people will say, Oh, is that bad is bad? Or is it good food, like just trying to take away those kinds of labels around it? Definitely. So
Rob Anderson
we’ve kind of touched on one of the topics already. So let’s dive into it. So one of the things we’ve highlighted visit as a topic of discussion is around the energy needs for teenagers, but specifically, teenage athletes, this is something I run into, you know, constantly where you know, trying to have a discussion with an athlete and saying, Okay, if you’re training four nights a week, and your best mate at school isn’t and you’re eating the same, then it’s clearly too much for one or not enough for the other or you know, this mismatch here, you can’t be doing the same thing, nutritionally, that having different outcomes in terms of your exercise. So let’s dive into that when we look at the NG requests for teenagers and for active or, you know, for athletes, what what some of the differences and things you need to be aware of.
Fran Taylor
So I think one of the things and when we go into schools, and we work with like the talented athlete schemes and things like that is a lot of the time, people are just unaware of how much energy is needed for for a teenager as well, like, you know, actually, if you’re even if you’re not an active teenager, a 16 year old has higher energy requirements, and an average adult, whatever average means, anyway, it’s kind of pretty arbitrary, isn’t it? So it’s kind of that awareness. And then the kind of thing on top is actually if you’re active, if you’re training for five nights a week, your energy requirements are going to be really high. And, you know, we don’t like to talk in terms of numbers, because obviously, everyone’s different. But, you know, it could be three, four or 5000 calories, and kids are absolutely astounded by that number. And parents as well. Because actually, you know, parents are, oh, they’ve had their dinner, they don’t need anything else. And we’re saying, actually, they probably do. They might need two snacks after dinner, actually. And that’s okay. And I think it’s that awareness of just how much energy an active teenager needs.
Kate Shilland
I think the thing is, it’s the, the research always points to one thing, it’s pretty conclusive, but we underestimate quite how much a teen athlete needs. And we had quite an interesting sort of case study, actually, you know, not much good came out of lockdown. But I work at Crystal Palace Football Club Academy, and actually, after locked down quite a quite a few parents with combat reporting, the kids had these big growth spurts. And then when we looked at actually, well, what was going on there, their energy expenditure was was lower because they weren’t training so much. So we were realising, actually, you know, that growth and development is being compromised because you’re spending too much energy on the training and you’re not allowing your body to then have sufficient in the bank to then do what you’re naturally wanting to do. So actually, it was quite a quite a good thing to reflect upon and look at okay, how much are they spending if you think of it like a nutritional bank account, you make investments with your food, you make the drawers and Actually, we don’t ever want these young bodies to go overdrawn because that’s when problems come. But there’s multiple problems with that. And our we are very key at helping people identify how do you know if you’re eating enough because we don’t have like that battery like we have on our phone, we don’t have the fuel tank that we have in our car. So how what are the signs, so if you’re just feeling genuinely tired, or hungry, or grumpy, or your moods are a bit swingy, which happens as a teenager anyway, but if your performance is dropping off, or if you’re taking longer to recover from training or feeling a bit more achy, suddenly feeling like you’re dropping back in the pack, I could normally quite near the lead, and you’re, you’re struggling, these are all signs that you want to be really aware of, because there will always have thinking actually, maybe there’s not enough coming in. And I think that that is the overwhelming thing. And we did a really interesting exercise we do like the metabolic testing, so doing basal metabolic rate. And we have a lot of, so not only do we have the pressure, or the lack of understanding of actually quite how much fuel young people need. But we also have the added pressure of like social media on there, with all these what I eat in a day things and like you mentioned, your best mate a new, your best mate isn’t active. Sometimes people think I don’t want to look really I don’t want to look like I’m eating so much more than someone else. So there’s, there’s that level to it as well. So we did a resting metabolic risk test on one of the young athletes, obviously, with permission, and that the collective gasp in the room when they realise actually just at rest, she needed like 1700 calories, as you also train twice a day on back to back days. And yet, they’re all trying to achieve this magic number of 1200 calories. It’s just an education thing, really. And I think that’s where we want to come in is like, actually, let’s educate this farm. They’re intelligent brains with the knowledge and understanding. So hopefully, the emotional, irrational social media brain kind of gets pushed to the back a bit. Because actually, it sounds cheesy, but knowledge is power, the better you understand it, you better you understand your body that we say, you know, you’re the most amazing bit of sports equipment you’ll ever own is your body. And yet, we don’t take time to understand how to use it properly. We spend money on the best trainers and boots and rackets and whatever. But if we actually learn to understand, okay, this is what I’m doing today, this is the toolkit I need to do, it kind of keeps it simple and manageable, and hopefully, realistic for people. So that’s always kind of our goal, like, give you the knowledge help you understand your body, and how to do what you’re trying to do. And not fear eating more. Often people feel like they almost burn their food, but we don’t need to fuel your training, there’s nothing better than training, like feeling great and training. So yeah, that’s all kind of view on teen athletes, and also just not just overall energy requirements, but also some additional parameters. So for calcium ion needs increased requirements, as a growing human anyway, plus a growing active human, we need to be mindful of certain additional nutrients as well. Yeah,
Rob Anderson
I think that’s huge, isn’t it is that, you know, people maybe haven’t compensated for those additional factors like number one, as you said, you know, compared to an adult, you’re still growing. So you’re gonna need to manage the requirements for the tissues that are changing, the other elements is okay, we then need to fuel the activity you’re doing, which is probably more than mum or dad doing, maybe more than some of your siblings are doing if they’re not in a football academy. And then also, you need to recover from that activity. So actually, as you said, we can be completely under estimating the overall requirement, because you might take account of one of those things, but maybe not the other two or three things. And thinking actually, you know, on the whole, for me, the vast majority of athletes I interact with are under fueling. Yeah. Because they’re in the same, you know, they’re in the same amount as mom and dad, or is out as their brother, but their brother is not in the football academy, or he’s not going to the performance school, or he’s older, and he’s finished growing, et cetera.
Kate Shilland
Yeah, that’s, that’s the thing isn’t it’s like, sometimes it’s practical obstacles is like, Okay, I need eight more, but I’m rushing from schools to training. So how do I get that more more in. So it’s that finding the ways to fill those gaps in a way that actually isn’t going to give you some cake on the track or on the pit wherever you are, or make you feel sick, and it’s helping you, you have to practice that in training, so then you can use it in competition. And that’s another thing that we’re really kind of hot on making sure that you actually do practice it and don’t suddenly introduce new things. It’s a critical time for performance.
Rob Anderson
I think that was one of the things that really took this, I think was one post you put up that I thought was really great because it kind of spoke to something another nutrition friend of mine said and it was around that nudge don’t nag kind of idea. And you know, and it’s funny because I did that thing on myself. Like I wanted to increase my own fruit veggie intake. So I stuck a fruit bowl just in my line of vision. So now every day I’m like, Okay, grab an apple and an orange on my way out to work now I’ve got it. And it is you know, we think sometimes, sometimes it can feel like nutrition input is a bit naggy isn’t or you’ve got to do this. You’ve got to do that and all You forgot to do this, you didn’t eat five fruit and veg. And actually, it is just a case of, if you realise how to engineer your environment, you can put those little cues about without it feeling like this burden or this obligation.
Kate Shilland
Because I think,
Fran Taylor
I think, sorry, as a team, as well, you know, as we, you know, we are parents are teens, and we work with parents, and we work with teens. And all you hear is nag, nag, nag, you know, like, oh, you know, you need to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and they just do not listen to you as a parent. So it’s a kind of nudge, kind of guide choice without removing other options or giving incentives. So it’s like, leading a horse to water and giving them the tools and the framework to like, actively want to drink. And I think that’s the thing when we talk about, you know, changing behaviour or guiding behaviour. For teenagers, we want them to have choice, because choice is power. And we want them to have the knowledge to understand why. So for example, like leaving a range of snacks near a kit bag, can you know means that they can choose what they want to put in, and then hopefully, they will have it and take it and feel good, which incentivize them to do it again. And then we’ve got that positive feedback loop. And as you said, kind of the behaviour, you know, a lot of the time when we when we think about diet and nutrition, people think of it like what not to have, or nag someone about where is that and, and kind of those language choices as well, like, oh, you can’t have that, or you should do that. Or you must do that, or those kind of words that are negative and don’t kind of motivate you to do the thing. Whereas actually having more visual cues or setting things up in a more positive or more positive language around it for a while for anyone actually, we know from how we look at behaviour change, but for a teenager, that’s going to be so much more effective.
Kate Shilland
Also, you’ve got that element of Lashley, how important is it to to be the best you’re gonna be. So if we’re saying, If to get better at this, why would you not like it’s a no brainer, it’s not like we say that everyone are not an extra 10k. Before training, it’s like, you just got to eat a little bit more. And that will give you the energy to train harder to perform better. When we’re like, if you’re competitive, which pretty much everyone is in sport, if you can have the edge of the margin between your you and your competitors is often really small. So if you can do the thing, that they’re not a new know that you’ve sort of controlled all the controllables you step on that track, really confident like, okay, my body is ready to like, you know, rock this race or whatever it is that’s ahead of you. And there’s little things that you do consistently well, but like, pay off and make quite a big difference over time. So it’s giving them a choice, I think sometimes think Well, do you want to be the best you can be? If so, just eat it. If not, like okay, don’t don’t get half but there’s that kind of the when it comes down to sometimes.
Fran Taylor
And then maybe that message needs to also come from someone else as well. Not not their parents. I think that’s that’s something too, which is what we’re here for, essentially, as
Kate Shilland
I used to think about, you can lead the horse to water but you can’t make it drink. I was listening to this great podcast, but you can sort the hay as an essay and it that’s what we’re doing. We’re sorting the hay.
Fran Taylor
Yeah, absolutely.
Rob Anderson
So I mean, I mentioned a couple that I guess, you know, we talked about the fruit bowl was like a cue and putting some snacks around for the parents and coaches listening. What are some of those little nudges that they could maybe do, you know, subtly that might start to, you know, point the athlete in in a slightly more positive direction nutritionally? What are some of the easy kind of nudges that spring to mind?
Fran Taylor
I think, well, the fruit bowl is an obvious one. I think. Just think thinking like, you know, when you pack a kit bag, you never forget your trainers, or your swim stuff or your swim hat if you’re a swimmer, or whatever it is. It’s kind of having some of those things. So you’ve got a checklist of like, Okay, before you go to training, have you got some of these things? Have you got water or electrolytes? And have you got some snacks to take with you? That’s quite an easy one. Also
Kate Shilland
saying to the coaches, because again, the coaches generally there’s sort of a hierarchy isn’t there in terms of who an athlete or sort of listens to or respects or wants to impress really, so if we can then impact on the coaches around and say, Look, can you help give these messages to so any, in your sessions be like Right guys, drink, break, snack break, actually create it as part of your session? Any session over an hour requires fueling throughout. So we’d like to assume that you’d like to assume your your athlete is turned off fueled but then again, you can read more Find the money labour. Don’t forget, you’ve got a fuel before you turn up next time, or you’ve got to let you know you’ve got to bring your snack otherwise you can’t train almost do it as a bit of a, we’ve got to create some habits here. So any session over an hour, it’d be great if coaches can be saying to their athletes, okay, you’ve got your snack the midpoint, because you’re much more coachable, you get much more out of that session if you’re still fueled right to the end of it. And just in terms of sort of emotional resilience as well. It’s much more frustrating when your your fuel tanks low, it’s not just physically it’s mentally as well. So concentration goes down, frustration goes up, feedback from a coach feels more like criticism. So actually, if we can all get on board, then it works in everyone’s favour. So we can say your coaches, remind your athletes bring their drink, bring their snack, give a kind of a natural break at the in the middle of the session, so that you know, they’re still going to be able to be pushed at the end. We’ve done some brilliant work with some tennis academies, where the the S&C coaches have said, Thank you so much. Because now we feel that we’re not breaking our athletes, you know, we feel like we can do the job that we’re doing and push them and expect what we expect from them in the confidence that actually, they’re not just breaking down. So obviously, training is the catalyst for change, but you have to have the rest of nutrition right around it. So if all those three things are done, well, then you accelerate the benefits, and you obviously offset risk of injury as well. So there are things that coaches can be doing, and just kind of factoring it in because nutrition is very often an afterthought. And still really is it’s definitely changing, which is fabulous. But it’s still often we’re winging it with nutrition media. But we don’t we were saying if you take out with a G from winging it, you can start winning, and which we thought was very clever.
Fran Taylor
But I think I think the thing as well like that kind of framework of coaches, if they put that in place, it becomes like a non negotiable, it’s just part of training. And you know, when we look at changing behaviour and getting people to do things, having some non negotiables in and a framework is this is just what we do, makes it so much easier for everyone.
Kate Shilland
Yeah, and what we want to do, so they’re not just we like the nudges because the ultimate goal is to create an autonomous athlete, we don’t want someone that the parent we want the parents and coaches on board, of course, but actually, it’s the ones that do the right thing when no one’s looking, or just that no, okay, if I do this, this is going to get the best out of me. And so we want to, it’s a fine line, isn’t it between helping, not helping, because the more you help, sometimes the less you help them. So it’s creating, so it’s from our back to our recruitment days, like selling the benefits of it, like helping them understand why it’s so important to do this, and why it’s in your interest to just do it, and to want to do it and be responsible for doing Yes, your parents and coaches are going to help you and will always help you. But the more you can help yourself with it, the better it’s going to be for the long run. So it’s sort of nudging into, like creating a young person that can just kind of roll with it.
Rob Anderson
Yeah, I think that’s really crucial. And I think there’s often a lot of dead time in the bigger sessions. And I’ve tried to start utilising that time by saying, Well, what did you have for breakfast today? Or how do you know to check, try and get an evaluation? Have you turned up fueled? Or are you empty, and then we can have that discussion around some of those bits. And one of the things that has probably, I guess, gained a lot of popularity in the last decade is certainly when I was training in a young footballer, it wasn’t something that anyone ever spoke about. But these days being a plant based athlete or, you know, a very, certainly less of a meat eater is becoming more and more fashionable and popular. So what are some of the considerations that that we maybe need to be aware of for athletes that have maybe made a decision to be more plant based?
Fran Taylor
Yeah, I think, I think for I think there’s a couple of considerations. Really, I think one thing is that, you know, the British dietetics Association has, you know, have a statement saying that if you can be a vegan and you can it supports healthy living and people of all ages. So, you know, it is entirely possible to to grow and develop and be successful at sport being plant based. And I think we had a, I had a conversation with them, Cassie Patton, who’s the, you know, Olympic swimmer, though, was an Olympic swimmer, and she was vegetarian and every single coach, she had put her off and tried to make her eat meat. And I think that’s changed. Hopefully that’s changed. But the there are some considerations, I think one is energy intake. If you’re plant based, you can be genuinely eating more fibre, not all the time because a lot of you know fairly processed vegan foods, but if you’re eating lots more fibre, you’re gonna get fuller quicker, so you need to eat more volume. And obviously, we know that under fueling is a key consideration for young at lates. So I think that is a consideration and making sure that we’re having concentrated sources of energy. So you know, including lots of energy dense foods like oil and peanut butter and avocados and soy yoghurts and things like that would be something to consider protein as well. Again, plant based sources of protein tend to be higher fibre. So that is a consideration because you’d need more to have an a, you know, enough protein. So again, looking at good sources and having it space regularly throughout the day. And then the other thing is the micronutrients, Kate mentioned earlier, iron. And I’ve been doing a bit of research into or looking at doing some stuff around iron and 48% of girls between 15 and 18 have low intakes of iron in their diet. And if you are plant based, if you are, you are an athlete, and you’re expending lots of energy. If you are a girl who’s started their periods and their periods are heavy, that increases your risk even further. So making sure that you are having foods that are fortified, I think is really important for plant based diets. So things like cereals, which you know, are a great thing. I did a post the other day saying like to Weetabix contains 30% of girls, teenage girls iron intakes for the day. So you know, just simple things like that having having fortified foods in your diet, I think it’s really important.
Kate Shilland
I think so switching, I think probably the the most important thing, if you are changing your dietary habits for any reason and cutting things out, you need to be to get advice on to what to replace it with. Because cutting out generally means missing out. So it’s perfectly possible to perform and be brilliant on a plant based or vegetarian diet. But you have to seek advice and get an understanding of okay, I’m cutting this out. So what are then my sources that I’m replacing it with? So there aren’t any gaps? Or if there are gaps from real food, what supplements are regulated supplements and what I need to take to back this up. And that’s again, the thing that education, that knowledge is just understand what you need. So that if there are things that being removed, it’s like, okay, no problem. Put that back in. And that, yeah, that sorts me out. So yeah,
Rob Anderson
yeah, some some key things there. And in terms of linking back to the previous topic discussed around in terms of the calorie needs, the expenditure of a growing athlete, you know, becomes a bit more tricky, if potentially, you’re plant based, and there’s more more fibre was something I hadn’t actually considered. But it makes a lot of sense, actually. Now, you mentioned it. But then the secondary element, as you mentioned, around the female athlete administration, that’s a huge component. And something I’ve run into in terms of like previously with athletes who maybe, you know, on that relative energy deficit kind of spectrum, and maybe, you know, the high training load is causing a bit of a deficit, as you mentioned, they’re aiming for maybe 1200 1700 calories, which isn’t sufficient. You know, you couple that with an iron deficiency, and suddenly, you’ve got some alarm bells ringing health wise, don’t you? Yeah,
Fran Taylor
absolutely. And, and from, from an athletic performance point of view, if you’re iron deficient, you know, you’re constantly fatigued, you’re gonna be finding it a lot more hard work. Yeah. And so, absolutely, that’s the key.
Kate Shilland
I think, as well with that. So often, we find people saying, oh, yeah, I’m always tired. But it’s, you know, I train a lot. And there’s, if that’s, that’s normal, it’s like, don’t just you’re a young athlete, you should be in like the prime of your life, you’re young and fit and healthy and active. Tiredness shouldn’t be really on your constant radar. achy sometimes, because you’re working hard, but energy should be good. So if you are constantly tired to speak about it, let’s have conversations. And again, it’s like, you know, like the period thing, we want to be making sure that everyone’s comfortable with with talking about things, getting conversations out in the open. So we’ve got a better understanding of how our bodies working. And if there’s enough coming in to support what we’re doing, and that constant tiredness, like if so many people say yeah, when I’m always tired, well, don’t settle for that. Like that. There’s a reason if you’re tired, there’s more going out than coming in, we can fix this. And sometimes people will say, Oh, I’m training really hard. My performance is just like, yeah, that’s all platter of despond. And it’s like not because you’re not fit or not able just not got enough fuel coming in. Suddenly you eat a bit more and like, oh, great, I’m performing really well. So it’s kind of makes it I just be kind to yourself as well. I think people often beat themselves up because they think something’s not going right but if you stop and question why it might not be going right, then we find the solution and then we’ll Oh brilliant. I am a good athlete again, you know, I think that’s a really nice sort of gift to be able to go to someone got it your credit incredible just eat a bit law and and yeah, you’re on your way. It’s
Fran Taylor
quite a nice, easy fix sometimes isn’t it with that. And that’s What’s lovely about our job. Sometimes it’s, you know, as Kate says, nutrition is often overcomplicated because people want to try and sell you a solution to it. But actually, you know, sometimes it’s pretty straightforward words, like
Kate Shilland
our slogan if Nike did food so that their strap line will be just eaten.
Rob Anderson
Yeah, I said that a lot of times a lot radio players. I mean, that reminds me of a conversation I’ve had not that long ago with an athlete. It was in a school actually. I said, What do you think about taking pre work and I said, Listen, if you’re 14 years old, and you’re taking pre workout, you’ve got bigger problems. Because if you’re not motivated, if you think you need caffeine to get motivated for a session, it means you’re not sleeping, right? You’re not eating right, because what you’re gonna do when you get to 35, if you workout that 14 years old, you’re in a world of pain. But
Fran Taylor
I also think kind of on as well that there’s a lot of space on on social media on Tik Tok on YouTube, on Instagram, where that’s seen as normal, like for teen boys to go to the gym like that whole pre workout, the bulk of the language around bulking and cutting. It’s seen as that’s what you do. That’s quite normal, when it really really isn’t. But suppose to this world where that they’re seeing these messages all the time. And that’s kind of something that we really, yeah,
Kate Shilland
kind of FOMO and isn’t isn’t not doing if everyone’s doing it. I don’t want them to benefit and not me. So yeah, I’m really sorry, but I’m going to have to. It’s all
Rob Anderson
good. Well, I’m going to wrap up in the next five minutes. Anyway, we’ll just talk about where to find performance canteen, and some of the stuff you’re going up. So yeah, no, okay, well, good.
Rob Anderson
So friend, I love what you guys are putting out on social media because it’s exactly what you said in terms of its kind of clearing up some of the nonsense that some tick tock it’s really, you know, focusing on the basics and getting the big rocks in place for a lot of young athletes. So it’s kind of cutting through the noise and putting some sense into the nutrition on social media. So where can people find performance canteen, and give us an idea of some of the bits and pieces you guys maybe have coming down the pipe in the next 12 to 18 months? Okay,
Fran Taylor
thank you. So you can find us on Instagram at performance underscore canteen. We’re also on Tik Tok, probably not as much at performance canteen, and we’ve got our website, which is WWE dot performance canteen.co.uk. So you can find us on there, we’re probably most active on Instagram. And we, you know, put out kind of little infographics, but also videos, and also good, simple little recipes as well. So that’s where you can find this.
Rob Anderson
And presumably, I mean, obviously, you guys are active in terms of some of the consultancy roles with different clubs, etc. But you’re also putting out a lot of resources for parents and webinars and things like that as well. Yeah,
Fran Taylor
so we work with different sports clubs, we work with individuals like premium coaching on a one to one basis with a young athlete and their families. We also have launched our Eat to Perform monthly subscription, which is parents can just pay a monthly subscription and then and then they get access to a parent q&a once a month. And also the athletes get a new monthly cooking because we really believe in kind of giving people the tools to to take in as we mentioned before take control of their own fueling. So we do that and we’ve got various things that we send out to them on a monthly basis as well. And I put on yesterday a post about prime energy because that’s launching next next month which will be you know, costing loads of money on the black market so it’s our monthly subscription probably cheaper than Acana prime
Rob Anderson
yeah it’s it’s funny how you know when you when you come through that phase and you look and you kids are talking about you know and the dollar for two or three weeks was all they were talking about this Prime Minister that Prime Minister this I got this for 10 quid I paid 20 for and I was like this is marketing at its finest like there’s literally no mean the genius is almost Yeah, I wish I thought of it but it shows you just how crazy it can get on social media in that this thing takes up as you’ve said before the fear of missing out suddenly now people are bending over backwards for something that’s kind of label slapped on it. Meanwhile, you could be making your own thing at home with you know, a bit of diluting juice and a pinch of salt and you know cost if you have to
Fran Taylor
pay Yeah, or to pee. Yeah, exactly,
Rob Anderson
exactly. But it’s all because of the marketing behind it but it does show how vulnerable you know, young athletes are to nonsensical information that’s out there because it’s hyped up and it’s attached to certain people whoever following etcetera
Fran Taylor
huge hugely and that’s what will that is one of the main reasons we set up performance canteen is because As you know, teenagers are and young athletes are at one of the key growth and development periods in their life. And they are the most acceptable they are the most active group on social media, and the most susceptible group on social media. And that together is a dangerous combination combination. And we, we know, we want to be there shouting, like, ignore them, you know, come Come and look at us. This is where you get your advice from.
Rob Anderson
Fantastic, well, we’ll definitely be putting the links to performance Cantini in the show notes so people can go and check you out and hopefully start cutting through some of the noise and the nonsense on social media to get some proper nutrition advice. Because it is, you know, I’d say there’s an awful lot of garbage out there that can lead people down the garden path. So thanks for what you guys are doing. And thanks for the information you’re putting out and you know, keep doing what you’re doing because I think you do some fantastic work.
Fran Taylor
Well, thank you for having us.