What's changed in pro cycling nutrition? I joined Tim Podlogar, Sam Impey and David Dunne at Hexis Elite Cycling Nutrition Conference Q&A panel to discuss fuelling practices, whether we need to fuel at 120g per hour, cyclists using ozempic to lose weight, protein, vegan nutrition and more. Episode show notes: www.gemmasampson.com/podcast/57________…

How do you learn to like eating healthy? This is a question I received on Instagram and I found it very interesting because the meaning we attach to the word healthy can influence how easy or difficult we perceive it to achieve. In this episode I discuss what healthy may or may not look like for you and steps to help you make changes to live a heal…

Often people come to me with these idealistic goals and visions of what they want to do achieve or change around their nutrition. Kind of like how at the beginning of the year we can get sucked into the whole new year new me resolutions kind of things. This year I'm going to be different. We make all these changes, but they are so far from our star…

If you get dropped on a ride - does that demotivate you or does it motivate you? Maybe I'm weird, but for some strange reason when it comes to group rides, being dropped REALLY motivates me to work harder and to ride my bike more regularly. It all started with the Sefton park chain gang 9 years ago. Episode show notes: www.gemmasampson.com/podcast/…

It's time for another edition of Ask a Sports Dietitian where each month I select a question submitted to answer - just like I do each week on my private podcast for Fuelled Team members. Susan asks: Hi Gemma, I am a 57yr old female Cycling endurance athlete. I like to compete for overall and AG in 80-100mi sportive/fondo/ races. I am using a train…

Have I always had a good relationship with food? This week on the podcast I am doing something a little different. One of my Fuelled team members asked a question about my relationship with food, how that has changed over the years as a dietitian and things I recommend you consider to improve yours. Episode show notes: www.gemmasampson.com/podcast/…

When it comes to sports nutrition for cycling and triathlon, I like to view it in three distinct, but related components. We have Everyday nutrition, Training nutrition and then our event or racing nutrition. They have overlapping but distinct needs and challenges to address, which I teach my 1:1 clients privately in our 1:1 sessions as well as onl…

Nutrition can either make or break a ride, and it's when you put it to the test and experience this properly for yourself that you really understand that it's not just a flukeAnge Hookham is a cyclist personal trainer who joined my Fuelled team and has been learning my Fuelled Framework over the past few months. After sharing some of her wins on In…

What does it take to fuel a Kona slot when you are an Ironman triathlete? Today I have invited Dan Barry, a triathlete and previous client onto the podcast to share his experience learning how to optimise his everyday, training and race nutrition through 1:1 sports nutrition coaching. He recently won his Age Group, breaking 9 hours at Ironman New Z…

Have you ever thought about what motivates you? What drives you to do the things that you do or don’t want to do? I’ve been speaking with a number of people lately about the topic of motivation and how it influences us, how it shifts how it changes throughout different phases of our life or even different seasons of the year. Whether it’s a goal th…

The number one nutrition goal cyclists of all ages and abilities have when they want to work with me as a sports dietitian is to lose weight and improve their power to weight ratio. Many cyclists assume that if you weigh less your power to weight ratio will be higher and you’ll perform better on the bike.While this CAN be the case - it is not alway…

My blood tests show that I am anaemic. I don’t like eating meat and am not a huge fan of eating eggs. What foods should I eat more of to help increase absorption and help manage fatigue? If you don't like meat or prefer to follow a plant based or vegetarian diet, getting enough iron from plant based sources can be difficult to achieve. Difficult, b…

For female cyclists, and female athlete, there is a lot of debate about whether our menstrual cycles influence our performance... how, when and what to do about it.A recent systematic review and meta-analysis concluded that performance may be reduced during the early follicular phase (which starts with the arrival of your period) but the quality of…

If you could snap your fingers and change something about your nutrition within the next 24h, what would it be?What's your Amazon overnight order?How awesome would it be if we could press send and within two days (or next day even) our desired goals arrived?When it comes to our health and nutrition, often we seem to expect lasting changes and trans…

What would a man know about female cycling?! Female cyclists have a few more things to consider for their training and their nutrition than their male counterparts. And a man is never going to fully understand the changes that we are continually going through across our lifetime. However, that doesn't mean the conversation needs to female exclusive…

How many foods right now are on your 'not allowed to eat' list?Maybe it's cookies. Maybe it's chocolate. Maybe it's icecream. chips, cheese..... It might even be hot cross buns! Whatever the food that you've got on your 'forbidden list - I want to challenge you to think about what happens when you restrict those foods - and try using permission ins…

Are you training for the 3 peaks Challenge in March? Have you thought about training your nutrition as well as the physical training you need to ride 235km with >4000m climbing in less than 13 hours? One of the things that fascinates me is that I will often see cyclists spending thousands of dollars on equipment, coaching and gear, training for mon…

I am currently in Adelaide at Tour Down Under this week and was asked the question what does a successful athlete look like to me? Such a great question!Typically when it comes to success, most peoples minds would go to performance, winning races, crossing the line first, winning the gold medal, rainbow jersey. However I think success goes much dee…

You don't have to give up any of your favourite foods, go on a crazy diet or start an extreme exercise regime this January if you don't want to.At the beginning of the new year there can be a lot of pressure and diet culture guilt that you should totally change your life and create a 'new you''.But it's totally okay if you don't have the brain spac…

There are a lot of labels attached to the word 'hungry'. Sometimes people think this can be considered a 'good' thing, for others it's a bad thing. Especially when people are trying to lose weight I often see people feeling hungry all the time, fighting themselves and their hunger all the time because it's not time to eat or they don't think they a…

Rather than using nutrition tracking as punishment to guilt trip or shame you into action (which rarely works in the long time by the way), I like to use nutrition tracking intentionally as a tool to help you rewrite the way you eat on and off the bike. The first step if you want improve your nutrition is get clear on what you are eating, when and …

What life lessons have you learned this year? Can you see ways in which you have grown and developed and changed? In a previous episode I shared some of the life lessons I've learned over the past 6 years, and as we wrap up 2023 and head into 2024 I wanted to share a couple more of my lessons from this year. I have been sharing them with friends an…

Josh Bradwene is a cycling coach and long distance cyclist who has been making major cycling performance gains since shaking up his nutrition approach. He joined my online Fuelled team six months ago and learned how to apply my cycling nutrition framework to his cycling training and racing. He has been experiencing more and more cycling fuelling su…

Protein pancakes, protein brownies, protein smoothies... there's even protein chocolate bars and protein popcorn in the supermarkets now! Protein plays a key role in muscle growth and repair, it forms enzymes and hormones to keep our bodies functioning normally and performing optimally. It's good stuff, and is often overlooked by many of the cyclis…

How long does it take to learn a lesson and stop repeating the same mistake time and time again? Why do we repeat making the same mistakes time and time again? And how do we change and make progress? I believe the key is in self reflection, taking intentional time to review and reflect on what we are doing, why and make a plan to change. This is a …

I went riding with a cyclist recently who told me that during their off season they kept training anyway (despite being told to take a break) because they didn’t want to gain weight. Fear of food, fear of stopping training and fear of gaining weight has been the common theme in conversations I've had on and off the bike these last few weeks. Are yo…

One of the biggest changes I have seen in the past 5 years of cycling is the amount riders are fuelling during competition. Five years ago we were aiming for 80-90g carbs an hour, whereas now I am seeing an increasing number of riders fuelling with 120g per hour and seeing their performance skyrocket. Tim Cutler is one such example - winning Dirty …

Have you said to yourself that you know what to do when it comes to nutrition, but you just aren't doing it?Let's unpack why that might be, what's stopping you and how to start doing the things you already want to do and aren't doing. Episode show notes: www.gemmasampson.com/podcast/30__________________You can find Gemma atwww.gemmasampson.comwww.i…

Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (REDs) is a syndrome of deleterious health and performance outcomes experienced by male and female athletes exposed to low energy availability - which is - inadequate energy intake in relation to exercise energy expenditure leading to REDs. It’s very common in cyclists and in this episode I explain what REDs and …

"REDS: Nobody told me about it, I didn't know that losing your period was a problem.. the team asked if I had my period and I said no. That's when they raised a red flag and said that is something you should address"Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (REDs) is incredibly common amongst both male and female cyclists, resulting in multiple negative …

What do bike fitting, Race Across AMerica (RAAM) and Cyclists Fighting Cancer have in common?If you are uncomfortable on the bike, or are getting injured or pain from your position then a good bike fit can make the world of difference. Which is how I was first introduced to Rich Salisbury for a bike fit at Pedal Precision based at the Manchester Ve…

Have you ever thought about how many food rules and thoughts influence your nutrition, what you do and don't eat? For example, were you told as a kid that you couldn't leave the table until you had finished eating? I know I was! As adults we have been programmed by so many different rules about what we should and shouldn't eat and often don't recog…

Have you ever wanted to get support with your nutrition but ruled yourself out because you aren't a pro athlete? Well today I am here to put the facts straight and dispel that myth! While I do support lots of professional and Olympic athletes, I also help many amateur athletes and people participating in sport for their own enjoyment learn how to f…

Are you trying to lose weight as a cyclist to improve your power to weight ratio and frustrating by the rate of progress? Our Ask a sports dietitian question of the month comes from Jamie who asks: "I am struggling to work out why I'm not making any progress with my weight loss. For some reason this morning I weighed myself and I'd put on over a kg…

Have you ever caught yourself saying you'll try to do better when it comes to your nutrition and eating habits? I’ll try to do better next time. I’ll try to remember to eat more of this and less than that? I'll try not to eat xyz?There is more going on than just numbers when it comes to our nutrition choices - which is why my cycling nutrition fram…

Where do you start when you want to transform the way you eat on and off the bike? My cycling nutrition framework is a 4 step process to simplify how you eat around the training you are doing in a way you can sustain whether you are in full training mode, on holidays (like I am at the moment in Mallorca) or taking a break from riding.Today I talk y…

Do you think your cycling nutrition plan needs to be really hard and complicated for it to work? If you are a cyclist trying to lose weight and improve your power to weight ratio what is stopping you trying something new (and easy) to achieve that goal? I'll give you a hint. It ALL starts with nutrition timing - the way you fuel before, during and …

Should you use sugar water to fuel your cycling efforts? In this episode Dr Gemma Sampson puts sugar water to the test and looks at the research around whether this makes a cost effective nutrition strategy that gets the sports dietitians tick of approval. Episode show notes: www.gemmasampson.com/podcast/20------If you are a cyclist unsure how to f…

What is stopping you?This is THE question of all questions to ask ourselves to taking action and achieving our goals. It's the question that stirred Gemma into action to do an Ironman, discover my love for cycling, become a sports dietitian and move to Girona. When it comes to achieving your goals, be they personal, professional, cycling or nutriti…

How much can carbohydrate loading improve your performance as a cyclist? Is it a myth or does carb loading actually make a tangible difference?In this episode Dr Gemma Sampson invites Glen and David onto the podcast to discuss their experiences carb loading before various cycling events. Their results after carb loading included medals at the Austr…

Do you find yourself exhausted, incredibly hungry and often headachy after long rides?In today's Ask a Sports Dietitian episode Dr Gemma Sampson answers a common question: What can I do to stop being so fatigued the day after a big ride? I feel exhausted, incredibly hungry and often headaches. Hint - the clue is probably what you didn't eat in yest…

"Hippocrates said the surest way to health is if we could give each individual just the amount of nourishment and exercise. He was talking about personalised medicine and periodised training and nutrition - He was on to something! He didn't know why or how, but now we do - the answer is hormones." In this episode Dr Nicky Keay talks about her upcom…

Professional cyclist Lauren De Crescenzo used to think that being thin was the key to success. But instead it led to injuries and spending all her time and energy obsessing about what she was eating and how much she was exercising. In this episode Dr Gemma Sampson explores what helped Lauren shift from appearance focused disordered eating to fuelli…

You don't have to be a professional cyclist to gain from enlisting the help of a sports dietitian. In this episode, Dr Gemma Sampson shares a nutrition coaching call with client Steven Mayers, an A-grade cyclist (and psychologist by day) who wants to improve his nutrition in preparation for the National Championships. She takes him through the firs…

Welcome back! In this episode, Advanced Sports Dietitian Dr Gemma Sampson updates what’s been happening since the last episode, including finally attending graduation, a major seachange and cycling nutrition updates.She introduces the Fuelled Cycling Nutrition membership which you can win a month free access to when you submit your nutrition questi…

Dr. Jamie Pugh (PhD) is a post-doctoral researcher at Liverpool John Moores University who has looked at the effect of exercise on the gastrointestinal system and the effects of probiotic supplementation for endurance athletes. In episode 12 with Advanced Sports Dietitian Gemma Sampson, Jamie explains how probiotics can benefit endurance athletes, …

Sammy Munday is an Australian Professional cyclist riding for Team Novo Nordisk. In this podcast with Advanced Sports Dietitian Gemma Sampson, Sammy shares what it means to live with type 1 diabetes, how it influences what he eats in training and racing. He also talks about some recent changes he has made to his diet, the importance of carbohydrate…

Dr Nicky Keay is an exercise endocrinologist who specialises in supporting male and female athletes with low energy availability. In this podcast with Gemma Sampson (Advanced Sports Dietitian), Nicky explains how low energy availability impacts health for both male and female athletes and why body weight and body fat isn't a measure of energy balan…

Gemma Sampson is an Australian Advanced Sports Dietitian based in Girona working with endurance athletes to fuel training and competition for optimal performance. With this podcast she aims to inspire people to move more, eat mindfully and fuel their training.Episode show notes: www.gemmasampson.com/podcast/9…

Hayden McCormick rides for Black Spoke Pro Cycling team and has recently begun racing ultra-cycling events including the Tuatara in New Zealand which he won and Badlands where he came second. In this podcast with Gemma Sampson (Advanced Sports Dietitian), Hayden talks about his experiences with food and nutrition during ultra cycling events and the…