 The only easy day was yesterday Welcome to the only easy day was yesterday the official Navy SEAL podcast What we put in our bodies affects everything today. We sit down to talk with a Navy SEAL and SWIC nutritionist You'll hear from my colleague Angie Giovanini as she speaks with Justin Robinson about the importance of nutrition during and after training Thank you for taking the time to talk to us a little bit about a really important pillar of training, which is nutrition If we could just start out with you giving us a little bit of your background And how that fits into your work here at Naval Special Warfare that would be really helpful great Well, I'm happy to be here, too. I've been working at the center aka the schoolhouse for the last two and a half years So I started June of 2015 Before that was teaching college for a year was in a similar position to this with an army unit for a Couple weeks before the government had some cuts that came down So it's nice to be back into that system prior to that. I worked in professional baseball I did a dual undergrad in kinesiology and nutrition and then my master's degree is in kinesiology as well and I am a registered dietitian and board-certified specialist in sports dietetics, which I know is a mouthful, but is the Sports nutrition credential for dietitians. And so what drew you to Naval Special Warfare? How did that? How does that all fit in here really just working with people who are highly motivated? I've done the general training. I've done the personal training. I've done the general nutrition counseling worked in the hospitals And that's great. You can make an impact But I feel I'm at my best when I'm working with people who are highly motivated people who will push me To do more research to read more articles so I can come back to them and provide them with resources and information that will improve their careers Try to add some longevity to their careers. So that that's probably the most is highly highly motivated population And so just to start out. Let's talk about how important nutrition is. Why is this something? We're even talking about today. Great question. Everybody's got to eat and I look at it this way that Nutrition won't be the necessarily the difference maker having a solid nutrition program will not make you make it through this training pipeline However, poor nutrition can be the reason that you don't make it. So we definitely see early on in the early parts of Phase and early parts of training when the intensity level is very high. We see low blood sugar or hypoglycemia We see dehydration. We see heat injuries And so the individuals coming through the pipeline the students who aren't hydrating who aren't Feeling high enough are gonna get that low blood sugar and it doesn't matter How motivated you are how fit you are how strong you are if you have low blood sugar you can't perform And so I like to say that it won't be the reason to make it through but it absolutely can be the reason that you don't So I want to eliminate that. Okay on the on the flip side There's certain diet Certain eating choices that you can make that can make you perform at your best absolutely So what are some things that you would recommend? So it's funny because especially now with so many different diet plans being very popular It's almost like a dichotomy You have the vegans over here saying that plant-based is the only way to eat and it makes you healthy Etc. Etc. And then on the other side you have more the carnivores whole 30 paleo and even the ketogenic crowd Who's saying well? No, no, no This is the only way to eat and so as part bystander looking trying to sort through the research My goals try to find those common denominators. Why can a plant-based Meat-free vegan diet work for somebody and likewise why can incredibly high-fat low carbohydrate diet also work So what are those common denominators? So to answer your question better? I believe those common denominators are eating real food You can call it clean eating which has a very loose definition, but my definition of clean eating is Real foods so foods that don't come in packages foods That's not processed if you do have a food that comes in a package the product over here that has five ingredients is Probably better than the one over here that has 20 if you don't like to cook and here's my first piece of advice If you don't like to cook learn learn how to do something other than cereal macaroni and cheese and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches To learn how to do things like overnight oats learn how to cook some meats or some eggs Because I feel that calorie for calorie when you create something in your kitchen It's going to be healthier than it would be from a restaurant or fast food restaurant. So Clean eating trying to eliminate added sugars trying to eliminate as much processed foods as you can would be those common denominators And how do you see nutrition fitting into the bigger picture of the fitness plan? I know there's some pillars that you guys look at as a whole as a big picture. I would say for longevity in some respects It's similar to baseball when you work with baseball players and they play a hundred and sixty-two games And in my opinion my role there wasn't necessarily to make somebody better for one game But it was to make that person just as good on game 162 or just as strong just as fit as they were on game One or in spring training. So Looking at this training pipeline here If you just look at an hour of what the students do a lot of really fit people out of strong athletes say I could do that. It's like all right. Well, yeah, you maybe could do a log PT session But could you do log PT after a four mile run in the sand knowing that you have a two mile swim Coming up knowing that you're gonna get four hours of sleep wake up and do the whole thing again tomorrow Wet and sandy so it's about that longevity Sustainability and just trying to have those good foods more for that endurance and more for the long haul the 21 weeks all the way up to a year and a half Training depending on which pipeline you're going through. So that's what it is. It's about the endurance factor So say I am just considering for the first time Going, you know into the seals or the SWIC team. What would be the first steps? You would suggest I take in reconsidering my diet. I Think the most important factor is the right diet plan for the right part of the training program So that's what I really like to hone in on my education piece is that what you're doing early on in training will differ from When you get to qualification training and that'll differ from when you get to the teams as an operator So finding the right overall diet plan. I feel is that first step So if you're looking at some of the trendy diets as I mentioned, you know I'm not getting paid by anybody to say anything So I don't feel that a ketogenic or paleo diet might be appropriate for an incoming student Whereas it may have application for operators or for qualification training students. So getting enough calories I think is going to be the number one point getting enough carbohydrates getting enough hydration getting enough healthy fats Because it is very intense So I'd say that making sure that you're feeding your body enough total energy the second component to that would be to get your Total weight in your body composition in check before getting here because once you get to prep or once you get to Coronado, that's not the place to try to gain that last 10 pounds that you know You need to gain or try to lose that last 10 or 15 pounds. So get your body composition Where it needs to be is there like a metric or We don't like we don't give hard numbers So I can say that where we see the fewest amount of injuries is in that 10 to 15 percent body fat range Typically if incoming students are too low So seven eight percent really fit athletes, then they have trouble keeping weight on or maybe their endurance suffers On the other end of that spectrum if somebody's coming in at 18 19 20 percent body fat Then they're probably carrying around too much weight on their frame So 10 to 15 would be that range But I would say we the metrics we look at would be more of an obstacle course type of Output so how are you doing with body weight push-ups? How's your four mile run? how are your pull-ups and If your run is suffering, but you're really really strong in the gym Well, then maybe you need to lose a little bit of weight Likewise, if you're a very very fast strong runner But you you can't do that many pull-ups then maybe you'd actually need to increase upper body strength, so it's I apologize. I can't give you all that hard answer. I know everybody loves numbers I'm sure there's a lot of number geeks out there like me But I'd say that 10 to 15 percent range. Okay, so let's let's take it down to the most basic You know, I wake up in the morning. I decide I want to go into special warfare. I go downstairs I look in my kitchen What do you get to be there next to me pointing out different things that I need to change? What do you think some of the most common changes would be? So I'd say one of the first things would be to get rid of the breakfast cereal and the popped hearts So sorry no cinnamon toast crunch But looking again at Whole Foods and if you really can't think of anything else think carb fat protein fruit vegetable Just get in the kitchen try to find something that looks like a carbohydrate a protein and a fat put that on your plate Try to get a fruit or vegetable. Try to get some color. So eggs are fine I know for about 30 years We had the low fat guidelines and low cholesterol and we're finding out now that that's Not as true as you once thought so Scrambled some eggs would be fine throw some spinach in there if you want some breakfast meat I would suggest ones that say nitrate free or no nitrates added or uncured So some uncured bacon some eggs some spinach and then your carbohydrate which could come from oatmeal or fruit So nothing too complex carb fat protein color fruit or vegetable and do your best to eliminate things that come in Packages, what do you think of those categories? What do you think people get the most confused about? I mean, you know you say carbohydrate that could mean a lot of things is all of them an answer I Think I think we get confused and I'll go I'll try to hit on each of these very briefly But I think we get confused on protein so with protein. We know that athletes or incoming students have high Chloric needs high protein needs, but that doesn't mean that they need to fill their plates with protein So I like to say think of your plate for an entire day your breakfast your lunch your dinner your snacks and about a third Of that should be protein if you get too much more than that It's not going to shut down your kidneys But then you're probably not getting enough of the other quality nutrients like carbs and fat with fat The biggest thing there is again We thought for so long that fat kind of makes you fat But now we understand that it's a great fuel that the healthy fats the omega 3 fats that are in fish And chia seed and flax seed and walnuts Have a strong anti-inflammatory effect on the body So that would probably be the most controversial is fat and then carbohydrate almost as controversial But you again, I think with a very very high energy output a high caloric output You need carbohydrates to fuel that again once you get to a certain part of the training pipeline or if your goal is to Reduce weight then we can modify carbs a little bit and tweak them down But if you're going into this pipeline on a low carb diet You're probably not going to have the energy to make it through So sugar is something that comes up a lot now It seems like that's under attack the most and it appears that there's science behind that But yeah, would you agree? I would and I would say we need to specify though between naturally occurring sugars And added sugars and then further specify between athletes and non-athletes So if you're a non-athlete Then absolutely limit total sugar and especially added sugar If you're an athlete, I wouldn't worry so much about naturally occurring sugars in fruits, for example They're a healthy carbohydrate I would do your best to limit added sugars Which would be some of them are very plain to see like skittles are all sugar fruit loops are all sugar But then there's added sugars in products like yogurt and granola bars And then there's some of the You guess you could call it a hidden sugar in a product like sports drinks So if you are going to consume those added sugars make sure that it's Within the 30 minute window around an exercise session because that's when your body can use them up So 30 minutes before during or 30 minutes after But a sports drink is not the beverage of choice On a Saturday afternoon on a recovery day when you're just sitting around the house So recover that's some that's the topic that I definitely want to talk about How how do we Recover best most efficiently is it supplements? Is it food? What is the magic formula top priority? I would say is sleep. I realize it's not necessarily a nutritional issue, but Most 18 to 22 year olds likely don't sleep enough And you know, it's funny quick story I when I was in college my roommate on the my way to the gym would be always say Oh, you're gonna go do some bodybuilding and actually I'd say no, I'm gonna go do some body breaking down I'll do my bodybuilding later on tonight when I sleep And so that approach of that you recover when you sleep I it just kind of switches the mindset a little bit. So even before I focus on nutrition if I see somebody who's Who has poor sleep or is only sleeping Four or five hours a night I will focus on that and then maybe we'll have a team approach to see what we could tweak on that, but you know drinking the right recovery shake or eating the right foods is Has a lesser impact in something like sleep or potentially just taking off A day here and then so listening to your body knowing that there might be some days when You might need to skip a session just so you could foam roll and stretch and do some of those Topics that I'm sure you've talked about on some of the other podcasts, but to hit the nutrition standpoint Sleep number one proper mobility exercises two three. I'd say hydration. So when we're getting into the nutrition aspects hydration because when you are breaking down Muscle tissue when you're working out muscle glycogen You're also burning through water. And so when we replace that muscle glycogen or the storage form of energy in the body We need water to go along with it. So I'd say hydration one And then The rules aren't really that different the carbs the fats the proteins I try to make things simple. So The old school theory was I need carbs before workout and protein after a workout And there's some truth to that I try to make it a little bit easier and say get a combination of carbs and protein before And get a combination of carbs and protein after And then in your later meals, maybe in between your workouts That's where you maybe have a slight emphasis on the healthy fats because fats do digest rather slowly So a high fat meal An hour before a run is probably not the best idea But a high fat meal two or three hours before or two or three hours after is a great idea So you don't you don't think protein powder is the answer because it seems like that is pushed on us a lot I'll give you two responses to that. I think that in general protein powders and shakes and bars are Convenience foods So yes, they can be part of an overall training program for an athlete and they can be beneficial But I would still focus on whole foods first Having said that the other part to that the other caveat is our supplement policy, which I know we'll we'll get into in a little bit So most protein powders would not be permitted for students Going through the training pipeline. So my my short answer to that is Try to do your best to train Like you will when you get here create a similar environment for you now So that when you get to prep when you get to coronado when you get out to the teams You know what to expect and your body knows what to expect Well, let's just dive in then supplements. So supplements I'll start off with the the letter of the law so to speak these supplement policy Only permits foods that say nutrition facts Versus foods that say supplement facts. So anything on the back of a food label Is going to typically say nutrition facts drug facts or supplement facts Anything that is a nutrition fact or drug fact is regulated by the FDA the food and drug administration Anything that says supplement facts is not regulated. So no supplements are regulated in the united states An act that came out 1994 deregulated supplements Meaning that I could put And i'm using an extreme case here, but it's possible. I could put steroids In my protein powder and sell it And somebody starts taking it like man, this protein powder is really working and it's well. Yeah, it's not the protein in there It's the contaminated steroids And you so you hear of collegiate athletes and pro athletes Testing positive and they'll blame it on a supplement because they probably took a supplement They allegedly took a supplement that was not regulated And not properly tested So our supplement policy here is it must say nutrition facts one It must also be a single serving size So we do believe that students need additional calories additional carbs fat and protein So having a bottle of a protein shake is fine having a protein bar is fine because that's a single serving The other component to our supplement policy is no energy drinks We really want to do our best to limit caffeine especially if you're consuming a pre-workout and as we just said may be contaminated with amphetamines or The amount of caffeine listed may be different from what's actually Inside of the product and so it's very easy to over consume Caffeine or amphetamine types of substances, which will affect heart rate Which will affect your body's ability to regulate your temperature And as I said our students working out here are already at a high risk for dehydration and heat illness So it's a very strict policy to be honest, but it's also a very black and white supplement policy For any students coming through who maybe do need A pill or a powder for example, maybe someone who's had a history of stress fractures And needs vitamin D or calcium that has to be approved by a navy medical provider So you can take things like fish oils calcium vitamin D multi vitamins If a navy Doctor says yes for whatever reasons this is what you need So my advice to students is train with food because like I said, I wouldn't want You know the placebo effect to kick in and you're taking something that maybe is legit is clean is not going to make you test positive But when you get here, you you don't have that anymore and it's like taking away the binky or and It's such a mentally demanding environment here that I wouldn't want that Lack of a placebo effect or I wouldn't want you to take that away and think that oh, I need my multivitamin Or I need my protein powder in order to recover properly It's it's not physically necessary So Kind of get used to that now would be some of my advice. Yeah, that's huge. Those are some very important takeaways So nothing that says supplemental info on the label train with whole foods. Yes And pretty much, you know do your best to eat vitamins in the food format not in the pill Precisely and if you need those extra calories and you want the convenience food It's fine to have the bottled protein shake or some of the Energy bars or protein bars again Going back to the clean eating when you're searching through the different ones Don't necessarily just go for the one that has the most protein as a lot of us do But maybe try to find the ones that have a grass-fed protein. That's a little cleaner Try to find ones that don't have artificial sugars artificial colors artificial flavors So again that fewer ingredients still applies to The bottled protein and the bars So while we're talking about the labels, there's a lot of words on labels that are hard to understand Are there a few that you would say are just no Absolute no's. I remember partially hydrogenated soybean oil being something that's pretty bad Are there like three things that you just say no no no Great question. And yeah, partially hydrogenated oils would be high up on that list I would say anything that has a color or a number associated with it so Red five blue four any of these different artificial colors. So That would be the first thing and I like to say that if A fifth grader could not pronounce it you it probably shouldn't be in there. So polysorbate 80 and sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate and some of those ones that Yes, if you're a college Chemical engineer or chemistry student, you you know what those mean But if a fifth grader can't pronounce it you probably shouldn't put it into your body Nice. I like that rule a lot So When you look at the top part of the label, you know percentages of everything Is there any sort of rule of you know Not over this amount of sugar in one serving size or something like that that you would say is a rule of them Another awesome question and I would say when it comes to the percentages My rule is to ignore those Because those percentages are based on a 2000 calorie diet And I would say that most of the students coming through the pipeline here Need at least double and sometimes even triple those amounts So early on and to throw the calories things out there some of the numbers Early on in training students here are burning five to six thousand calories per day And during hell week or during the tour that number goes up to 10 to 12 thousand calories per day So looking at the percentages and thinking that you need a 2000 calorie diet You're going to be incredibly under fueled for this training environment So I I like to look at the ingredients my other rule you know ignore the percentages I I actually get away from the macros the grams of carbohydrate fat and protein to be honest And I go straight to the ingredient list the ingredient list Is listed from largest amount of that food to the least highest the least in terms of its weight So if you're looking at a product a bar and brown rice syrup is the first ingredient on that energy bar That means which is a sugar that means there's more added sugar In that bar than anything else Whereas another bar over here with the first two ingredients may be cashews and dates And yes dates have sugar, but they're a natural sugar So that would be my rule of thumb is ignore the whole top part of that label Go to the ingredient list look for things as we said that a fifth grader can't pronounce Try to find the products that have the fewest number of ingredients and then try to find the ones that don't Sound like artificial or added sugars. Okay, so You know a lot of people when they turn 18 Are shopping for the first time sure and that is going to be a lot of people that you're seeing here Do you have advice for someone as they walk into the grocery store to do the right thing? So you always hear the tip of we'll stick to the perimeter and I believe in that to an extent However, there's a lot of frozen foods in the middle a lot of frozen vegetables and frozen fruit to make smoothies in the center aisles That's really healthy food. So you'll you'll hear that one a lot and there's some truth to it The best advice I could have is It starts before you get to the grocery store and that's to make a plan You know we we talk about with operators here. You have to pay attention to detail So you have to be very detail oriented thought process So I say make make a menu for the week and you don't have to make a menu of breakfast lunch and dinner and snacks The easiest way to do it would be to make a menu for five days just for dinner So here are my dinners for the week and I'm going to plan to have leftovers one night And I'm going to plan to eat out one night and then maybe my lunch is going to be my leftovers from The night before so make that Five meal week long Menu and then see what ingredients you need and use that to create your shopping list Because otherwise I think we'll have a tendency to buy the exact same things every single time we go through The grocery store. Okay, we'll get milk. We'll get bread. We'll get a thing of lettuce And then we'll go home that day. We'll make a salad and then the next Sunday We'll open up the bottom drawer and that lettuce is wilted and you're wasting money. So I know at 18 budget is a concern And so if you plan to do things like the salads and your fishes and your fresh meats early in the week Then you could plan to use your frozen foods frozen vegetables Later in the week. So we were talking about all these things that are so good for you One of my personal favorite expressions in this community is work hard play hard Which indicates a certain amount of uh consumption of other things outside of training What what are your suggestions on managing that? I mean you're going to go have fun. You're going to drink your you know Going to eat junk food What do you do when that occurs? How do you get how do you recover from that? You know, yeah, you're absolutely right Work hard play hard. Yeah another quote in this community is if it's worth doing it's worth overdoing So I know I know where you're coming from with that thought process So I'm a big fan of the 80 20 rule which you may have heard before where if you focus on healthy eating 80% of the time Then that other 20% you can have the junk food and go out and enjoy it So within that I'll say two things one Depending on your personal goals You may need to adjust that if you struggle with losing that last five to ten pounds that you know You need to lose because you want to get that four mile run time down You may need to be on a 90 10 type of diet And then when you get to a certain point you can go a little bit back towards 80 20 So I'll say this on the second part of that is Eat what you like. I always tell people that the double fudge Brownie a small portion is better than an entire tray of low-fat sugar-free brownies All right, so make satisfy yourself and what I usually Tell the students and operators here is Lump all your junk food to your fast food your desserts Your alcohol lump that all into the 20% as well so if you If you like your double IPAs in your wine, then you go for that a salad and a salad That's the exact exactly just like that. So do what you like. Just try to control Think you think about a week long process of all right. Well, where's my junk food? Where's my booze? Where's my fast food? And You know, how am I going to manage that all into my 20% and not everyone's, you know Do you have advice for someone who? They didn't eat a salad. They got drunk and they had a cheeseburger and then they're feeling bad about that It's like what what do you suggest to get back on the wagon again to get back in The mindset great question and it's it's all about establishing healthy habits So if you have the habit of drinking a lot and very frequently, then you're probably also going to have the habit of Going out and eating the cheeseburgers or the pizza or the tacos late night. We're in san diego So it's it's california burritos here. I know it. I understand it So I would say just getting back into that routine the next day of all right Yesterday was yesterday today's today and I need to get back into my fitness routine It's funny when you read about habits that People who are more fit people who exercise more You know people who make their bed if you if you've heard that from one of our Former leaders here when you make your bed in the morning That everything else just trickles down start start the day doing something that's productive so that the rest of the day falls from there Exactly Is there is there a navy seal and swick equivalent of making your bed first thing in the morning? Is there a nutrition equivalent of that? Oh, man, that's a good. That's a very fair question I would say drinking water. I think we the first thing we typically do in the morning is we go to the bathroom And we wake up dehydrated. So I'd say start the day hydrated There there it is start the day hydrated your your brain cells need water your muscle cells And so you can think more clearly you can Listen to your body a little bit more clearly in terms of your hunger and satiety When you are hydrated that's really interesting because I'd say A very large percentage of us start the day with coffee sure a diuretic essentially Um, so maybe like chug a glass of water before you have that coffee. Is that exactly exactly? All right I like that. So we've we've gone, you know Big picture down to some of the the smaller sweat the small stuff kind of details of this Let's bring it back to the plan If I'm looking at this for the first time and I'm trying to map out how I'm going to attack, you know My journey to the special warfare community. What would you recommend? I look at first and then you know how to map it out So the first step would be some form of self-assessment And I think the easiest thing you can do is just write down What you eat and what you drink because I feel that we are in autopilot when it comes to nutrition Most of the day that we don't realize we're grabbing this snack or grabbing that snack Or at the end of the day, we don't realize that we may be over consumed On this product and maybe under consumed on this product or under consumed water So I'd say that first step is just The self-assessment the awareness of all right. What am I actually putting into my body? Because you can go online and download a diet program, but it may not be specific to you what are One to three aspects I can focus on today Or tomorrow morning that will improve what I do. It might be drinking more water. It might be Not skipping a meal. There's a hundred different things we could look at but The self-awareness is probably that first step How often do you find that people are surprised once they do start tracking? I'd imagine it's a very high percentage a very high percentage. Yeah, nine out of ten In fact, there's some studies. This is more on the weight loss side But just simply tracking their calories and not having any Input from a dietitian that alone people lose weight. Wow. So you can become more fit simply by Becoming more aware as they said of what you're putting into your body or what you're not putting into your body Kind of indicates a lot of mindless activity going on. So it's all about mindfulness and exactly. Yes Well, I know one of the things that you wanted to make sure we addressed is you know, there's a there's a plethora of information out there There's a lot of data. There's a lot of research. There's a lot of websites and apps and you You know your goal is to make sure that people have a simple Have simple explanations and ways of attacking Their health and nutrition What would you kind of dispel it down to for for some takeaways? Great question and we we touch on this when we were discussing protein a little bit But if you think about that big plate Again, your breakfast your lunch your dinner all your snacks and about a third of that plate should be protein Well about another third of that should be vegetables. And so I would say that most americans including Athletes including naval special warfare operators. Don't consume enough vegetables So make a third of that plate vegetables and then make the other third of that plate Your carbohydrates your starches your starchy vegetables. So potatoes are starch peas corn and carrots or starches not vegetables And and just kind of think about that third third and third with your healthy fats spread around And then if you need to gain weight or lose weight, we can modify that a little bit if your goal is to gain weight Maybe the carbohydrates is a little bit bigger portion If you need to lose weight, maybe the vegetables becomes a little bigger portion But that would be a great starting place is thinking about Again, what you're putting into your body. What foods are going on that plate And just having an honest, you know gut check moment of all right. Well, what does my plate look like today? What does that pie graph look like and then what are some steps I can take to make sure that I Tweak that pie chart to look a little bit more like that one third one third one third I'd say probably most of the students we we think about Half of it is probably the protein and about another third is our starches and then maybe that last little sliver is our vegetables Are there any Trends, I know you said that it's it's an individual thing and then everybody at every stage along the training process And and wherever they are in life has to look at it But are there any trends that are just ridiculous that right now, you know, it changes every year? Yeah, it does so again What is appropriate for somebody who's diabetic or somebody who's overweight or even somebody who is Special operations forces operator may not be appropriate for a student So if I'm looking at something like intermittent fasting, for example, which is a very popular Trend where it's eight hours of eating and then 16 hours of not eating I would say that is not appropriate for a student coming into this pipeline because you're just going to be grossly under fueled When you get to a point in your career where you maybe will have to go out on a three-day Hump and you don't have access to food Well, then maybe using some intermittent fasting along your training pipeline to get your body used to not eating would be absolutely appropriate But when you get to prep when you get to Coronado, you're going to get three squares a day and During certain parts you'll get that fourth meal or the snack so Get used to that regimen feed your body because you're going to need to burn through Those calories so that would that would be the one right now that I would say would not be appropriate for Students coming in so hydration is important. We we understand that I think that's Widely known and maybe something that we could all focus on more But is there a certain amount that we should be focusing on? Is is it a percentage of body weight? How do you look at that? Yes, exactly and We like to say get a bare minimum half your body weight announces And so that's if you have a low training day You're not really sweating or burning a lot But that can go all the way up to three quarters of your body weight and for incredibly intense days Or for those of you who are in the midwest or the east coast where it's really hot and humid Then maybe even your body weight in ounces So if you're 200 pounds, you should be drinking about 100 ounces Of fluids per day and it it is definitely a relative amount You know people will say well you should drink eight glasses some people say you should drink a gallon Well gallons 128 ounces so for most 180 to 200 pound students coming in that's probably a pretty good Range a good estimate I would also say we should talk about electrolytes in the sodium and the potassium And that if it is hot and humid you need to make sure you're getting some form of Essentially salt into that water and it might be water and salty food. It could be a sports drink Some people will talk about hyponatremia, which is too little sodium in the blood We don't see that here in In my two and a half years here and in talking to the medical providers who've been here long Longer than I have I don't know that we've seen any cases of hyponatremia But we've absolutely seen plenty of cases of heat and illness and dehydration So if you're thirsty you should drink and you should probably drink a little bit beyond your thirst You know at thirst is a really good regulator Uh, I would say just drink slightly beyond your thirst get half your body weight to three quarters of your body weight In ounces of fluid per day and then make sure that when you are exercising getting some sodium Especially in one form or another should anyone be worried about over hydration and and over hydration would be that hypo Natremia It's I would say in the population coming in here. It's probably pretty rare You have to be drinking for like four or five hours Where it can become a threat would be people who are running marathons Who finish in that five to six hour range and have been drinking water every aid station But like I said, you know if we're gonna Put our money down on something. I'm going to put my money down on somebody being dehydrated In this population than somebody being over hydrated. So you don't ever you may not need to go over One ounce per pound of body weight that might put you at that risk for over hydration or hypo natremia, but Half to three quarters of per pound is good. And while we're talking about amounts when it comes to advice about You know shifting to eating a whole food diet can be a little challenging for somebody who hasn't done it before Or maybe who hasn't cooked for themselves before Are there any kind of little tips that you've learned along the way for The daily consumption, you know, especially as someone on the go. Sure. What would you recommend? One of my go-tos is trail mix and if you find a whole foods type of store Where they have the bulk section you can make your own trail mix And nuts and seeds and dried fruit and you can get different varieties of that. You do one that's almonds and Tart cherries. I love tart cherries. I love tart cherry juice. So trail mix things like hard boiled eggs. I think are incredibly easy and then Some of the different energy bars that are whole food bars If you want to get adventurous you can go on Pinterest for example and look up homemade energy bar recipes So I would say those things trail mix hard boiled eggs homemade energy bars and then There's a thousand different recipes for like overnight oats or homemade oat meals where you could put in almond butter One of the favorites of the students here that we do a little cooking class when they get to qualification training and pumpkin pie Oatmeal is one of the favorites where you put some canned pumpkin some dark chocolate chips a little bit of honey sea salt and the oats And it's Five minutes and delicious. That sounds great. I love that. Yeah, I've heard a lot about that lately Is there any Where people can go to find out more about this? I mean, I think there's you I think you have a lot more to share Well, I know where the the sealswik.com website is constantly being revamped and you know I'm working on some different pieces getting some more nutrition education to go along with all the great Training information that's already present. So I'd keep coming back to that I just want to thank you justin for being here. This has been So interesting. I feel like we could talk for days about it. Maybe we'll have you back again Sure part two absolutely appreciate your time and best of luck to everyone out there further with our training Find out more at sealswik.com and join us again for the next nsw podcast