EPISODE 8: Healthier habits to maximise performance with Professional Performance Nutritionist, Dr James Morehen
Extracting every ounce of performance from our bodies takes a measured approach to nutrition. Working with data, analysis, and an understanding of both good and bad habits all form the basis of understanding how best to fuel the body.
As a professional performance nutritionist who’s worked with me for a number of years now, NutritionX’s Dr James Morehen has observed first-hand the need for a personal approach to nutrition. He weighs in on making gradual changes to habits as opposed to imposing sudden ‘diets’, and the risk that comes with top athletes relying on CBD products.
LISTEN ON YOUR FAVOURITE PLATFORM
IN THIS EPISODE OF THE PERFECT ATHLETE:
- The personal approach to nutrition
- Sustainable diets
- Gradual shifts in habits
- How traditionally ‘unhealthy’ foods can actually be healthy
- Adapting the nutritional approach to the demands of different sports
- Calculating how best to lose weight and increase muscle mass
- The best supplements to take right now
- Potential pitfalls for CBD products
LINKS & REFERENCES
Chris Billam-Smith: https://twitter.com/chrisbillam
James Morehen: https://twitter.com/James_Morehen
Chris Billam-Smith: https://www.instagram.com/chrisbillam/
Dr James Morehen: https://www.instagram.com/james_morehen/
Morehen Performance: https://www.instagram.com/morehenperformance/
Atomic Habits, by James Clear: https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits
Get in touch: [email protected]
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
“Sustainability is a word I use quite a lot when it comes to nutrition and ‘diets’, because most diets aren’t sustainable.” – 7:00 – Chris Billam-Smith
“What we do is a science. So the more data, the more numbers that we can get on you as an individual, will only strengthen and tighten up the strategies that we then follow.” – 11:28 – James Morehen
“If you’re going to go vegan or vegetarian, all of a sudden your intake of leucine – which we know is a key branch chain amino acid, and is that light switch to help build and repair muscle – the main source of that is animal products. So if you’re knocking animal products out of your diet, we now need to think right, where are we going to get leucine from plants? And where are we going to get it in enough amounts?” – 21:58 – James Morehen
“The long term effects of under-fueling we know are hampered immunity, potentially increased injury risk, under development, undergrowth, and increased risk of bone fractures because your bones aren’t developing as strong as they could do. ” – 29:42 – James Morehen
“My job is not to make you look amazing, my job is to make you feel and recover to the best of your ability, so that you can go out and play to the best of your ability. The knock on effect of fueling and recovery correctly, will be that actually your body composition will improve over time.” – 36:32 – James Morehen
“After a Friday night game, rugby players are then expected to unwind and just be able to sleep straight away. They’ve got 300mg of caffeine circulating around the body, their ability to do that was minimal. So then on that Saturday morning, they hadn’t slept, they still felt sore.” – 55:34 – James Morehen
“Where we’re now in lockdown-ish, a lot of people have lost their commute to work. So something new I’ve begun to implement with individuals is a fake commute. Just because you don’t have to walk to work anymore, doesn’t mean you can’t still go out and have a walk in the morning.” – 1:08:19 – James Morehen
“I like to call supplements Ronseals, because it’s exactly what it says on the tin, right? They are supplements – so they should supplement an already-grounded, robust nutritional intake from food.” – 1:10:00 – James Morehen
