Inadequate fueling. RED-S

• Your performance during training is lower despite giving it your all
• Gradual loss of performance
• Stagnation in training
• Delayed recovery between training sessions
• Skipping or missing menstrual cycle (Female athlete triad)
• The body holds onto more fat
• Disturbed sleep
• Fatigue throughout the day
• Cravings in the evenings (especially sweets cravings)
• No motivation for training

If you spot multiple of these signs, there is a good chance you are underfueling.

Underfueling can be intentional such as during weight loss but often it is unintentional.

Underfueling can be intentional as when you are trying to cut fat and lose weight. From a short-term perspective, it does not need to have be a detriment to your exercise performance, and it can even improve your weight to power ratio if done correctly.

But underfueling is often unintentional. Athletes who want to eat better often eat more vegetables, and avoid gluten-containing grains, which can decrease their energy intake.

Having enough energy around the training is especially important for the female athletes!

Clinically, it is called relative energy deficit or RED-S, which manifests itself mainly in athletes with high energy expenditure and insufficient energy intake.

What are some of the best practices to make sure you are fueling enough for your workouts so you feel light and energetic for your training.

If you want to get a better overview of your health, you have the option of testing blood biomarkers:

• Cortisol – increased levels of cortisol
• Testosterone – usually reduced
  Vitamin D
• Ferritin (iron stores). A typical problem of endurance athletes,especially women, vegans and vegetarians.
• Inflammatory markers – in runners, they are usually manifested by painful joints and repetitive injuries.

These markers will give you a better overview of your nutritional and physiological status and where your health is trending e.g. reduced low ferritin levels will show up before you have reduced hemoglobin – at which point athletes tend to be chronically fatigued.

What is the root cause of these conditions?

Too much stress (physical and mental) and reduced availability of energy (little food).
Therefore, if you take your training seriously, you should also take your rest and diet seriously.

Fueling best practices:

• Eat 3-6 times a day – smaller meals are digested more quickly and make you feel lighter.
• Include pre-workout snacks if your training is more than 4 hours after your main meal.
• Fuel during sessions longer than 60 minutes.
• If you had no pre-workout, and after training, you have more than an hour till your next meal, include postworkout protein and carbs, ideally in a 1:3 ratio. (banana and a scoop of protein)
• Don’t skip breakfast, even if your workout is in the evening.
• If you are training hard for 10 or more hours a week, then don’t limit carbs on your rest days. – you have relatively high physical activity, even if it doesn’t feel hard.

Why do athletes have trouble getting enough carbohydrates in their diet?

There are several reasons why athletes try to eat carbs with the problem of eating enough carbs. Some are physiological, some mental.

However, if your appetite is low, it may be due to exercise-induced stress or suboptimal food choices.

Typical cases are vegans, but also people who try to eat healthily. Their diet is dominated by vegetables, whole grains, lean meats, nuts, and legumes. While such a diet is undoubtedly healthy and helps to lose weight and subsequently maintain weight, it prevents people with high energy demands from getting sufficient energy.

Legumes, vegetables, whole grains are full of fiber, which is essential for the satiety and the health of the digestive tract.

In addition, vegetables are low in calories. Therefore, an athlete with a high energy expenditure should not have diet centered around vegetables but rather look at higher calorie sources of healthy nutrients.

Lean meat provides high-quality proteins, but at the same time, it can feel heavy for an athlete. Excessive protein intake is also not a benefit if it prevents the athlete from consuming sufficient total energy and carbohydrates. Quantity is essential! You do not need to eat 400g of chicken breast 3 times a day. 100g of chicken breast contains approx. 30g of protein.

Psychological aspects of underfueling

The psychological aspect is also important and I deal with it mainly in personal work with clients, because each person is psychologically very different.

In general, there are several dysfunctional patterns of thinking that athletes have.

“It’s only 10km, that doesn’t even count as training.”

Whether you consider running 10 km as training or not, the fact remains that you had to spend energy on it. Just because running 10km now seems easier compared to when you started with running, it doesn’t mean you’re not spending energy.

“Today I have a day off and I should eat less.”

If you are active outside of training, e.g. you walk 10,000 steps, or you have a job where you are physically active, you are expending energy. This energy expenditure can easily exceed the energy expended during training.

In addition, the training volume during the week should be taken into account. If you train e.g. 9 hours or more a week, you don’t need to eat enough calories and carbs. Therefore, limiting food during rest days can lead to insufficient energy intake in terms of the week.

“Unless I’m training hard, I don’t need as much energy.”

You may not feel this way, but you can burn more energy during light activity than during intense training. This is mainly because we cannot train at high intensity for long. On the other hand, we can walk for hours and not feel exhausted. Evaluating the activity in terms of intensity is not at all beneficial. (see table below)

In the table, you will find an example of the energy expenditure of 70 kg (154 lbs) runner who runs 10 km (6.2mi).

The data in the table is based on https://caloriesburnedhq.com/calories-burned-running/ and your individual expenditure may vary. The table serves to illustrate the principle.

As you can see, the runner has the biggest energy expenditure at a pace of 5:30 per km. Faster pace and more effort does not automatically mean more energy expenditure.

After intense strength training, people usually feel hungry. After intense cardio, quite the opposite. Here you need to look at the facts, not just the feelings.