Triathlon Taren:         What's up trainiacs, this is Triathlon Taren. 
                 No Triathlon Kim:        And this is No Triathlon Kim also known as NTK. 
                 Triathlon Taren:         In my 20s, I was 215 pounds and I was unhappy working the desk job I was 
                                          at. Now I’m the 941 Iron Man athlete who, with your much appreciated 
                                          attention gets to make a living in the sport that I love. Through this podcast 
                                          and our ever popular YouTube channel, we bring you triathlon stories, 
                                          science and training from amazing people around the world to help you get 
                                          to your start lines confident and your finish lines strong. 
                 No Triathlon Kim:        And as the resident non triathlete, I try to keep the show fun and accessible 
                                          for everybody. 
                 Triathlon Taren:         Let's do it. Today's podcast is brought to you by teamtrainiac.com. And I'm 
                                          going to say that so dramatically because it is hands down the best triathlon 
                                          training platform that we have ever created. 
                 No Triathlon Kim:        Good, good save. 
                 Triathlon Taren:         So teamtrainiac.com, it is the online training program that is currently a web 
                                          app later this year, I promise all trainiac athletes. So there is going to be an 
                                          app on your phone coming out, we're just doing the wire frames and 
                                          planning out how that's going to happen. And what you can get on 
                                          teamtrainiac.com is your full year of triathlon training. Whether you can fit 
                                          in four workouts a week or 14 workouts a week, whether you're doing a 
                                          sprint triathlon or an Ironman triathlon, whether you can only work out on 
                                          the weekend or you have shift work or anything like that, all of this is 
                                          customised based on just about 60 seconds of inputting the information that 
                                          you want to plan out. And then your plan is created for you automatically 
                                          with a workout every single day that you want to work out, and video 
                                          guidance and audio guidance on how and why to train that way. 
                 No Triathlon Kim:        And, and if you are a raw rookie, a first timer doing a sprint or a first timer 
                                          doing an Ironman distance race, or someone who's been doing it for a few 
                                          years, everything in between, regardless of what your goals are, there's 
                                          something for everybody. There's something for everybody. 
                 Triathlon Taren:         One of those things is actually freebies, if you are a first timer you might be 
                                          overwhelmed by a lot of the costs that have to come up with bikes and 
                                          shoes and helmets and wheels and race entries, and all the travel gear that 
                                          we need. It gets expensive. All of our partners, our sponsors throughout the 
                                          year are offering Team Trainiac athletes freebies. So there's a little benefit 
                                          to you. 
                 No Triathlon Kim:        And always discounts. There's always discounts on the website for our 
                                          athletes as well. 
                 Triathlon Taren:         So if you're interested in that, you can go check out a 14 day free trial at 
                                          teamtrainiac.com. Today's guest is my nutritionist, The Natural Nutritionist 
                                          Steph Lowe. We've had her on the podcast before. Dan Plews takes care of 
                                          my coaching. He also takes care of manipulating what days and when I have 
                                          carbs, but what I was finding over the course of 2019, is that I was actually 
                                          gaining weight on a lower carb approach, and I was constantly hungry. So 
                                          there's definitely something that we're missing. I reached out to Steph 
                                          Lowe, who is a nutritionist based out of Australia. And she's been working 
                                          with me on saying, all right, yeah, here are the macro nutrients that you 
                                          need to be successful as per Dan's instructions. But what are the exact 
                                          foods? What are the foods that you need? Is it potatoes? Is it sweet 
                                          potatoes? Is it overnight oats? Is it broccoli? What is it? And what are the 
                                          supplements that you can be taking? As we were going through all of that, 
                                          and I've been documenting my journey about lower carb, we've had many, 
                                          many messages from women saying that it's very different for females. 
                 No Triathlon Kim:        And so today, and we'll preface this for any male triathletes, listen to this 
                                          too, because you're going to learn something. This isn't just for women. 
                 Triathlon Taren:         Especially male triathlete coaches should know this. 
                 No Triathlon Kim:        Yes, absolutely, male triathlete coaches. But male triathletes, if you've got a 
                                          woman in your life, maybe you're going to want to learn some things here 
                                          today because Steph breaks things down in such an easy-to-understand 
                                          way. But we are talking about eating for women who are training. And 
                                          whether that's low carb, fasting, calories, what have you, we kind of cover 
                                          the whole gamut here. And it's super interesting because women and men 
                                          aren't the same. I know we know that. But especially when we're talking 
                                          about nutrition for triathletes, for endurance athletes, there's some pretty 
                                          significant differences and ways to gauge, that men cannot gauge. And yeah, 
                                          just fascinating stuff, it's absolutely brilliant, but makes things so simple and 
                                          easy to understand. 
                 Triathlon Taren:         If after listening to this podcast, or maybe you've seen some of the stuff that 
                                          we've done with Steph already, you're interested in just learning more 
                                          about her approach to nutrition planning, and even maybe thinking about 
                                          consulting whether, if you go to triathlontaren.com/steph S-T-E-P-H, there's 
                                          a free starter pack that explains how she's gone about her approach with 
                                          me. And then you can also get a discount on working with her directly. So 
                                          triathlontaran.com/steph, just put in your email address, and you can start 
                                      customising your own approach to this. And thanks Steph, always a pleasure 
                                      to talk with you. 
                                      So, let's start off here Steph, with the elephant in the room that I think we 
                                      have to address. As I started going LCHF, and no matter how many times in 
                                      YouTube videos I would say, just flat out for females, it's a little different, 
                                      and you should look into how this is going to work and be a little bit more 
                                      careful. There are a lot of female triathletes who have read Stacy Sims, who 
                                      is very much on the other side of things, and basically saying that low carb 
                                      and fasting and all these things that I'm talking about and you're a 
                                      proponent of as a female, is just outright dangerous for women. Can we just 
                                      start this podcast here head-on with addressing your beliefs and what you 
                                      found on that? 
                Steph Lowe:           Yeah, look, I think we do have to acknowledge that the majority of the 
                                      research up to this point in time has been done on college age men. Because 
                                      it's largely a funding issue, and usually women are excluded from a study 
                                      because of the influence of their hormones and how that would influence 
                                      the data. So I respect Stacy's work to no end, and I think we have to really 
                                      acknowledge that we can't apply literature or studies on men to women. We 
                                      don't want to do that. But I also think that everyone is really unique. That 
                                      it's more nuanced, again, than just saying, all women need to eat high carb 
                                      or all women shouldn't do any fasted training. To me that's taking things a 
                                      little bit to the other end of the spectrum. And I say this all the time, but it's 
                                      about finding that middle ground and also experimenting too what works 
                                      for you. 
                                      Because you and I, Taren, aren't talking about keto, or 25 grams of carbs a 
                                      day, or 50 grams of carbs a day. The acronym that I like the best when we 
                                      look at LCHF, actually is lower carbohydrate, healthy fat. So that lower word 
                                      is really important when we look at what the comparison is. So it's lower 
                                      than the food pyramid, you know, so it's lower than 400 or 600 grams of 
                                      carbs a day, that's a good thing right, because of what we've been told in 
                                      the Western world to eat, in terms of that food pyramid that has been so 
                                      carbohydrate heavy for so long. 
                                      So we have to break down the acronym and look at the difference between 
                                      what we're actually uncovering. You know, we're not talking about keto. 
                                      And furthermore, the specific macronutrients or ratios that we look at for 
                                      males and females are different within LCHF. So we can unpack that as well. 
                Triathlon Taren:      Have you seen any detrimental side effects from female athletes that start 
                                      going lower carb? 
                Steph Lowe:           So I think that for female athletes, our menstrual cycle is our monthly report 
                                      card. So the answer to your question is yes, if someone goes too low carb 
                                      for them, probably also if they're doing too much high intensity training for 
                                      them, they're not periodising their training, and they lose their menstrual 
                                      cycle, then of course, what they're doing is not working. So it's possible, but 
                                      that shouldn't mean that LCHF doesn't work, it means the version that 
                                      you've started with wasn't quite right. And it's time to either take a deeper 
                                         dive to educate yourself or get some personalised support to what nuances, 
                                         what changes will help optimise that whole foods approach for you. 
                 No Triathlon Kim:       So let's talk numbers then, because of course people are going to say, all 
                                         right, then what is too low? So what is the range that we would be looking 
                                         at that would be, and again, realising that it's going to be different for every 
                                         single woman, and person, but what's the range we're looking at that 
                                         typically ends up being a decent healthy range that still allows you to be 
                                         lower carb, but maintain the health of the menstrual cycle? 
                 Steph Lowe:             Yeah, for sure. So if we look at rough calories to start, let's use some 
                                         numbers that a female athlete might be having, say on a rest day, 1700 
                                         calories. 20% of that would give us, let me get my maths happening here. 
                                         20% of that would be 340 calories. If we divide that by four, it's about 85 
                                         grams of carbohydrates per day. So that would be an example of what our 
                                         rest day carbohydrate requirements would be. So then if we, maybe 2200 
                                         calories on a training day where it might be a one hour or a 90-minute 
                                         session. So 2200, if we look at what 20% of that is, that's 440, divide that by 
                                         four, it's 110. So it might be 85 to 110 grams of carbohydrates per day. But if 
                                         we're an endurance athlete that's been doing two or more hours of training, 
                                         that could take that one or two days a week up to about 150 grams of 
                                         carbohydrates on that day, so not every day of the week, but as a function 
                                         of your training, and obviously how many calories you're burning. Because 
                                         20% is your goal, like 20% carbohydrates per day. So the percentage doesn't 
                                         change. But clearly the grams of carbohydrates per day will change based on 
                                         how long you're training for, or if it's a rest day. 
                 Triathlon Taren:        So here's an interesting thing. I'm hearing numbers that are basically 
                                         identical to what I'm doing. What I have found is that sweet spot that we 
                                         just talked about a little bit off air, is that I try to get into that 110 to 130 
                                         grams of carbs per day. And this is where I'm starting to get lots of messages 
                                         on Instagram from females that are saying, what you're doing is dangerous 
                                         for women, Taren. And you're telling us that, no, not necessarily. 
                 Steph Lowe:             Oh, I don't see what's dangerous about a whole foods diet. The interesting 
                                         thing, if you looked at it the other way, so if we reverse engineered this. If 
                                         we thought, all right, so we know the food pyramid is usually to blame for 
                                         what's going on in the West health-wise, so these avoidable lifestyle 
                                         diseases. So we know the food pyramid is too high in carbohydrate. Now, if 
                                         we simply started with whole foods, so if we moved away from refined 
                                         carbohydrates that are in a packet or a box, and we looked at whole food 
                                         carbohydrates like fruit and vegetables, if we were really understanding, 
                                         okay, plants are the foundation for everyone, regardless of your dietary 
                                         preference, outside of our carnivore friends, of course, but we need to be 
                                         starting with plants. And we navigate our way through quality protein, from 
                                         a hormonal point of view, that we also need healthy fats, then we will land 
                                         way lower than 200 grams per day just naturally. 
                                         So someone who's maybe feeling a little bit angry or not quite 
                                         understanding what we're trying to achieve here with a whole foods diet, 
                                         maybe don't try to eat to fit your macros, just eat normally. And then have a