How to Coach Healthy Habits to Esports Athletes

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Joel Totoro (INTRO):

This is The Thorne Podcast: Performance Edition. The show that navigates the complex world of sports science and explores the latest research and diet, nutritional supplements, and the human body. I'm Joel Totoro, Director of Sports Science at Thorne. As a reminder, statements in this podcast have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Any products mentioned are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

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Hi, everyone, and welcome to The Thorne Podcast: Performance Edition. This week, we're speaking to Tanner Curtis, former pro PUBG player, and current senior performance coach for Team Liquid teams across the globe. And Brian Canavan, aka BananaSlamJamma, aka BSJ, a streamer analyst coach, and former player in the Dota League. Both of you, welcome to the show.

Tanner Curtis:

Thank you so much. Happy to be here.

Brian Canavan:

Yeah, me too. Thanks for having me.

Joel Totoro:

I think we're going to have a great chat today. That was a very brief overview that I don't think, does you justice there. Can you talk a little bit about how a member of the Air Force and a biomedical engineering graduate ended up at the top of the gaming world, and how you're working together now to shape the future of gaming performance? Let's start with Tanner.

Tanner Curtis:

Yeah. My journey was a long one to get here. I was always a big gamer. I had an older brother who was four years older than me and we were always competing against each other. So ever since I got injured from traditional sports, I couldn't play baseball, football, basketball anymore. I took to Halo at the time, Halo 2 was out as my outlet of competing and being able to fulfill that itch, which took me into my late teens, almost 19, 20, by the time I joined the Air Force, which was a decision that I made for my future. I wanted to always have a backup plan in case esports didn't work, or things like that. So I did that for five years and obviously learned a lot, changed a lot. But during that time, I also was doing, I guess more so volunteer work in  esports. I never lost it.

I went on to coach and manage for an amateur League of Legends team that was attempting to qualify for the LCS. That was all while I was in the military. And then when PUBG came out, I really went all in on it. I think I had a little less than 12 months left on my Air Force contract. I went all in on it. A couple of things really lined up – where I got injured, and so I got some time off work, and I got to play more, a crazy sleep schedule – to make it all happen. I ultimately went pro and signed my contract with a team called Optic Gaming, played with them for a while, before transitioning over to coaching.

And coaching is where I think my real passion comes in, and being able to help the youth and share my experiences and my mistakes and my successes with them ahead of time is something that I'm very passionate about. So it is something that esports has been with me since the beginning and it's been sometimes more prominent than others, but I think that my hybrid experiences within real-world military and my lifelong knowledge of gaming has led me to be someone who can relate and influence the younger generation of players.

Brian Canavan:

I've always been a gamer as well. I remember I got my N64 when I was like 7, and I just fell in love with Diddy Kong Racing. And then suddenly in high school I got my first Xbox, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare got me in the online gaming world and realizing that video games weren't just sitting at home by yourself. It was much more becoming a social activity and something to do as a passion with friends and in your spare time. And I'd say I went to college for biomedical engineering, and as a kid, I remember having a joke with my mom all the time where she's like, "As much as you love video games, you'll never make money playing them." 

That was the one thing that always resonated with me when I was in college. Something occurred to me in the moment where I was like… I needed a job. I worked at Chipotle for two years, and I wasn't really feeling it anymore. And one of my friends goes, "You're pretty good at Dota." And I got into Dota because in college all of us were broke, so we didn't have money to spend on games, and Dota was a free to play game. And so all my friends from high school, we used it as a way to remain connected. And so at that time, when I was working at Chipotle, one of my friends goes, "Ah, you've gotten pretty good at Dota. You should try streaming it." And so I was like, "OK, why not? I'll try streaming it."

And this was my third year of college, so I still had about a year and a half left to go. And what ended up happening was they had an in-house league that was allowing younger players to showcase themselves. And crazy enough, I ended up winning it. So that gave me a little bit of popularity on Reddit and the Dota forums. And so that gave my stream a big jumpstart. 

And about six months in, it felt like maybe there is something to do here. A lot of reason why people watched me was because my engineering mind. I remember, I didn't really learn engineering, I learned how to think like an engineer, which is just very analytical, like reverse engineering every process that you learn and really being able to break down step-by-step how you came to the conclusions that you arrived at. And that's something that's very valuable in Dota because it's hard to know what to do in the game. That was why people generally watched my stream, was that I tended to talk more about what I was thinking during the game and what I thought about after the game.

And by the time I graduated, I was making enough money to think maybe there's something here and it's consistent enough. And I decided I'll take a year after college to really pursue this full time, because I was really only able to stream maybe 25 hours a week during college, and eight years later, here I am. I was originally was pursuing professional Dota at the same time, and I made a few tournaments, never really placed all that well, but it was something where at the time I decided I either have to go one way or the other, either all in the coaching-educational-streaming route, or I need to drop that and go all in on the pro, because I was getting a little bit wishy-washy. And so I decided to go for the streaming route because, as you mentioned, Tanner, it just felt like what I was meant to do. It felt more like my passion was to educate and learn to be a content creator in that regard. 

So here I am. That was about five years ago where I completely broke off of the professional aspect of it. And I started in Arizona, the U.S., and now I'm at the Team Liquid headquarters in the Netherlands. So it's been quite a journey, but I wouldn't take back any of it.

Joel Totoro:

Yeah, I think that's great. Both of you have such unique journeys, and I love whenever people can find their passion and make it their career. So really great to talk to both of you. So for our main topic this week, we're going to be discussing the ins and outs of nutrition and why Thorne partnered with Team Liquid to support esports athletes. There's a lot of support around coaches and performance staff at Team Liquid, and you guys are leading the industry on that side of things. 

But at the same time, it's a very challenging schedule. It's a very demanding career to be a competitive gamer, and it's a culture that traditionally didn't always make the healthiest choices. So we're going to dive into that a little bit. And we often get to talk to experts and athletes individually about their lenses, but it's pretty rare that we have people who have been both on the coaching side and the athlete side. 

So we’ll talk a little bit between the two of you, how you looked at nutrition when you were younger and playing before all this information was out there and how you see it, the role it plays now in both how you game personally, but how you talk about it and educate the people you coach with. So BSJ, you want to take the first step?

Brian Canavan:

I would say my view on nutrition is largely, if you feel your body, then you feel your ability to think. And as much as it is important to be able to perform in the gym and in sports, I think you have to be even more… as much if not even more mentally acute to playing video games. And so when I view nutrition, it's something where my approach has always been how do I feel that day and how has my mind been negatively affected by anything in that regard? 

And I've always noticed, about four years ago, I'd say I noticed that I wasn't taking care of myself as well. I wasn't eating the right food. I wasn't having the right routines. And that was significantly impacting my performance over time. I was basically binge playing, binge streaming, not having the good work-life balance. And so when I view nutrition, it was more like the way I honed my Dota game and the way I think about min-maxing inefficiency, I should treat my body the same way because that's what I'm using to play this game. And that's really been my core view on nutrition as a whole.

Tanner Curtis: 

For me, I think I was someone who was not very healthy growing up. I had a high metabolism, and I thought I can eat whatever I want and still perform and still play traditional sports and all those things. It was also seen as cool to drink as many energy drinks as you could at a LAN event at the time. And I would say it wasn't until the end of my playing career where I started to explore the health and nutrition benefits. Again, I had the idea of, “Might as well eat worse when I'm young because I know I can't eat poorly when I'm older.” So yeah, I think that once I started to take my health and nutrition more seriously, I felt the difference. So with exercise, with actually being properly hydrated, when I moved into healthy eating and supplementing, I just felt the difference. Same as BSJ said, it's a difference you can feel and the more you feel it, the more you want to feel it. So I think that that's something that is... 

I always tell my players I'm not an expert in the health and nutrition area, but I think I'm probably getting to a place where I'm above average as far as gamers go. If a traditional athlete asks me questions, it'd be a little bit tougher. But with these guys, I think that they just need someone to get them to meet us halfway. And it's really exciting when you do get players who buy in and start to take their health and nutrition seriously and are going to the gym and are eating and watching their diet and cutting out sugars and things like that. It's really fun to see and it's fun to make a game out of it together.

Joel Totoro:

Yes, I think you hit on a great point there. And anytime we work with any high-performance team, it's the ability to be at least conversational in other areas of expertise. And that’s kind of how you and I started working together. So what I love, I've been out to the Team Liquid facility, and you've got this war room of all these data and film that you're looking at to really support these athletes. How do you make the connection with your athletes be like, "Hey, hydration matters, when you are hydrated, this is what it actually looks like on your game." Because I think that's a concept that doesn't always translate. It's like, "Yeah, no, I should be healthier," but you're like, "No, actually what you did this morning is impacting your gameplay right now."

Tanner Curtis:

Yeah. I mean the statistics as far as your cognition levels when you're dehydrated dropping significantly, is something that once you start to tell these guys and show them the proof, they really will start to buy in. And of course it takes some time for them to habitually get into drinking water. And the fact of the matter is, gamers, especially when they're younger, can be lazy. They don't want to get up and walk all the way across the room and fill their water bottle even. They just want to queue, queue, queue, and I was the same way. So I think that being able to relate to them in that way and explain things in a different way that they're familiar with is something that really helps them and makes them buy into it. So a lot of the times, just as with supplements, I explain to them, "Hey guys, supplements are just that. They're supplemental. You still need to be eating properly, you still need to be hydrating properly."

My bare minimums for the guys are you need to walk an hour a week. That doesn't have to be one day, but throughout the week you need to be taking three 20-minute walks, getting your sunlight and drinking, hydration. So those are the three big things that I focus on are the movement, the sunlight, and the hydration. When you break it down and make it easier for them and make it digestible, once they can start to get that routine down, then they want to search for more. They want to know, “OK, what's the next step? I'm starting to feel this feel a little bit better. I'm getting something here.” And then they can really go in on it.

Joel Totoro:

Yeah, I think that's a great point. And we always talk about, to be able to talk about human performance, you have to talk about the human as a whole. And I think that goes to BSJ, to your engineering mind, the human body is a system. So I think it comes a little bit more obvious to you to think about everything being interconnected, but when we talk to gamers, your brain uses 20 percent of your calories at rest, and you think about all the decisions, all the reactions you're using, so there's a nutritional cost to everything you do. And then you start looking at, all right, what does screen time do to my sleep schedule? What does the schedule of gaming do to my sleep schedule? That's part of recovery. And just once you start making an improvement in one area, I love when competitive people are like, "All right, what more can we fix? How can I optimize?" So BSJ, how do you get people to understand what comes natural to you? “This impacts that.” Do you have any ways you'd help turn the light on in some people's heads?

Brian Canavan:

Yeah, so I mean I've been coaching individuals – I've never really coached a team – for about seven years. I'd say for the first five or six, it was purely Dota. They just came in, we talked only about Dota, how they could get better at the game. And it was brought to my attention through a lot of very wise, smart people, one of which is the head coach for Team Liquid, William “Blitz” Lee, the Dota team. There's a lot of things that'll make you play worse potentially. And a lot of those are outside of the game. And my coaching in the last two years took a turn towards more, “What are people's habits?” How do they treat Dota mentally with their approach? How do they treat Dota in their routine? As you mentioned, whether or not you're not getting enough sleep. And I always use the simplest example, that a few years back, I started working on my awareness, and one of the biggest things was, “What is making me play worse?” 

When I'm playing worse, which I can feel… Anybody can, if you ask them, “Are you playing well today?” They could tell you if they think they're playing well. And whenever I was playing poorly, I'd think, “Why?” And I noticed that around 7 p.m., I started playing poorly, and it's because I wasn't eating. I had to eat at 7 p.m. If I didn't eat at 7 p.m., that was about when I started getting grumpy and tilted and playing worse. So a lot of what you asked, the original question is how do I get people to buy into it and think about it? Is I encourage them to really look inward about how they feel like they're playing? Do you think you're playing well today? Do you think you're playing poorly today? Why or why not? And a lot of the times, we'll hatch like a plan, everyone's pretty... I don't know them personally, but they're able to tell me, “Yeah, these are the days I tend to play well, the times of days. This happened the day before, if I was playing poorly.”

And so it's something about the awareness factor. The body communicates to you very clearly. The brain tells you, "You don't feel good today. Something's off, something's wrong." And using that, our body's ability to communicate to that, we have to be able to actually understand that language. And it's not the same for everybody. So it's a lot about trying to teach them to look for it. And that's been a really fun process. It's funny, you see somebody make a mistake in Dota, and half my conversations are like, "How'd you feel when you did that?" And half the time, we end up talking about their real life rather than the actual mechanic that they messed up in the game. And that's been a really cool change. And it seems to be more impactful with actually giving them improvement in the game as well.

Joel Totoro:

Yeah, I think that's a huge, hugely important thing to touch on is that you didn't immediately just get worse. It's not you. Well, I mean it's you, but there's something else going there. It's like your skill didn't fall off a cliff. And that leads me to Tanner. You've got a guiding principle that I think is great that I've heard you say, "Better players, better people, better program," and I think that can apply to any organization. But can you tell me what that means to you, and how it drives your coaching style?

Tanner Curtis:

Yeah, so I think that coaching… Obviously we're still in the infancy of coaching in esports, and I think we have a long ways to go, but I think we're starting to find a few really, really good coaches. And usually it's just been about the players or just about the team. And I think a lot of people ask, "How do you coach video games?" And for me it's like I don't coach the mechanics of the game as much as I coach everything else, like the team camaraderie and things like that. So I think everyone tries to coach the players. So obviously we want to make better players. We want to make the players perform at their highest level so that they can the part of the team that they need to be. But then I think real good coaches take it the next step and care about the person behind it and want to make them better people, better with their families, better with each other, better with their communities. And what does that look like?

So I like to share a lot of my experiences and my mistakes as well as my successes. When I was 24-, 25-year-old professional for the first time and recently divorced and traveling to all these other countries of the world, I made a lot of mistakes. I may not have been practicing as much as I should have been or things like that. So I like to share with them, honestly without fear, what has turned me into the person that I'm today, because I think that most of them look at me and know that I'm someone who still has a lot to relate with them and can still joke around and have fun with them. But at the same time, I've become someone who really does care about people and really wants to help any- and everyone. So that’s the better people. And I think the biggest part of that is helping them become more self-aware of who they are.

Not everyone’s the same, and not everyone can have the same habits, and not everyone can do the same things, but we can't all learn to have a good heart. We can't all learn how to talk to people, how they want to be treated and things like that. So that's the “better people” part. 

And then the “better program” is just something that I honestly think it's maybe a little more ego-driven, where I just have this desire to be the Yankees of the 2000s or the Steelers of the NFL or the Packers, these teams who just have this culture of winning. And I think, like I said, part of that is the ego of I want to be able to say I was a part of helping create that, or I made the outline of the system that I can prove it works because it's done it time and time again. But I think that that's something that is important to me personally, and it's not important to everyone, but that's where those three things meet, and what I mean when I say that.

Joel Totoro:

Yeah, we could do an hour on just that concept alone. I think it’s super important, and we talk a lot on this podcast about how you can’t fake or hide passion, so just being passionate about what you’re doing, and people see that, and it just means, "Hey, I'm here for you, but I'm also here for this bigger thing together, all of us together." So I love that. 

You talked about how everybody has to be, individually, in your coaching style, and that's a thing we talk about in supplementation. Can you talk about some of the areas you see? There's some general ideas like obviously hydration and whatnot for everybody. But what are some of the supplementation or areas of nutritional support you needed that you didn't expect when you started working one-on-one and digging a little bit deeper?

Tanner Curtis:

Yeah, so I mean at base level, I guess one of the first things was I always knew sleep was important, but I don't think I knew how important sleep really was until I got deeper into it. But right now, I think that there's a lot of things that I'm getting interested in that I wasn't interested in before as far as... I'm trying to think of the right way to explain it. But with these people and with them being individuals, there's a total equation that goes into it where if you're changing core beliefs about them... The topic that I'm getting on is discipline, the importance of discipline. And it's something that our players, they make their own choices 99 percent of the time with everything they do, for the most part. They get to choose when they're waking up and when they're playing and all these things with the exception of basically scrim time or team time.

And so I've been really focusing on showing these players how important it is to have the discipline to, for example, take the supplements every day, but also to try a cold bath, try doing something that you don't want to do like your whole body is telling you, "No, I don't want to do this." But then when you do it, you feel like you really overcame something. And forget all the actual science behind it and what's actually going on when you're releasing these different chemicals in your body. But for you just as a person to feel like you overcame something that you didn't need to put yourself through and you chose to do it, those things I think actually have impact on performance in the long run. And I'm sure it's just as much the chemicals that are actually being released, but for them it's starting to realize, "OK, it feels good to do things that I don't want to do, but that I know are good for me."

So that's one thing where, digging real deep right now, I'm fascinated by it and fascinated by watching how they respond to doing things you don't want to do. But then what I was alluding to at the beginning is there becomes a breaking point where if you're forcing or suggesting someone to do something that they don't want to do, it needs to be something that is good for that individual. For example, there's some people who are just such unique individuals that when you try and encourage them to do something like that, they might have a negative response because what makes them comfortable makes them perform well is feeling like everyone trusts them or they can do exactly what they want when they want. And so it's a very interesting and difficult concept to dive into, but that's really what I'm fascinated by right now.

Joel Totoro:

And BSJ, personally for you, what have you found in your career you've added to your mix or looked at nutritionally or supplement-wise, as you've learned more and you understand more, what are some of the things you personally do?

Brian Canavan:

Well, I used to be an athlete back in the day, back in high school and college, I was a track runner and American football player, but in my 20s during gaming, I didn’t really take care of myself all that well. And just the last two years or so, I really learned what it meant to go to the gym meaningfully with intention and more so be able to feel what the limits of my body actually are and things that contribute to whether or not I’m able to push those limits in a meaningful way. And the reason why I bring that up is just because I realized that about a year in that my diet was my limiting factor. I was getting enough sleep, I was doing the right things at the gym. I felt like I was taking care of myself, and it was simply my diet.

So I became more aware of what it took to go to the next step. Tanner mentioned, when people dive in one step, they're 1 foot deep. It's like, OK, time to dig deeper and deeper as they know what they've hit their limit. It's like, "OK, I've hit my limit right now, but how do I get to that next step?" And for me, I really looked at balance of carbs and protein and I realized in my diet it was pretty difficult to get the protein I needed without supplements. So that was definitely something I started taking.

And then generally just vitamin supplements as well, because there's a lot of, even as a gamer, the simple one of vitamin D, big problem because we're just not in the sun at all. At least I'm not. So these are the type of things where it really came with, OK, what is actually limiting me at the gym especially? And I use that to extrapolate that into my work life as sitting on a computer. And I realized that the nutrition aspect was the limiting factor, and that's what got me into it more. But I’m waiting until I hit that next wall to know what the next thing I got to do is.

Joel Totoro:

All right, I think that's a great time to take a break. We'll be right back to answer some questions from our listeners.

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Joel Totoro:

And we're back. Now it's time to answer some questions from our community. Our first question this week comes from a listener who asked is 30 too old to be a gamer? Let's start with BSJ.

Brian Canavan:

Well, I'm currently 31, and I recently hit my highest MMR in Dota ever. That was about six months ago. And so my first answer would be that no, 30 is not too old to be a gamer. I think that what happens when you get to 30 is that a lot of other things in life matter to you than just games. You gain perspective on the bigger picture of the world, and maybe that means that you don't want to play games for 12, 14 hours a day or maybe life just doesn't let you, but by no means does that prevent you from being a gamer. And it's something that I think a lot of people have, at least in Dota community, there's a lot of shame around it where it's like, "I'm too old to be playing this game. This is for teenagers."

And it's something that we all grew up loving, and it's not like something you're just supposed to give up at some point. You don't have to give it up. I do think gaming can be dangerous in the sense that it's right there all the time. It's super fun, it's super easy to just get it really hooked on a game, and as long as it's not detrimental to the rest of your life, I think gaming is an amazing way to hang out with your friends. It's an amazing way to keep your brain active while also just sitting at home. And there's just so many positives, I think, to gaming. And if you're also looking to be a professional gamer, maybe certain sports that are reaction-based might be a bit tougher if you started at 30. But in Dota, there's professionals still at 35 years old, 34, and they're the top of the world. I've never really seen gamers give up because they're 30, they give up because they've done it for 12 years, and it’s time for bigger and better things for them personally. 

But I really encourage everyone to not put a number, put a limit on their gaming lifetime, because I think that's just such a huge stereotype and stigma in the gaming community as a whole that just only hurts us and doesn't really help.

Joel Totoro:

Yeah, that's actually a great transition to our next question, which I'll shoot over to you, Tanner, but the idea of being a competitive gamer, but obviously people want to be great at their hobbies. So the next question is, do you still game for fun when it's your job, or do you have other hobbies?

Tanner Curtis:

Yeah, I think that's one of the most difficult parts. Whenever somebody asks me what I do for work and I tell them about my esports career, their first reaction is just, "Oh, that's so cool that you do that for a living and that you get to do what you love for a living." And it's a double-edged sword because, yes, I am very blessed to do what I do and it is something not a lot of people get to experience, and it's incredible in many ways. But on the other end, it becomes very hard when what you love and what your hobby is becomes your job, then you don't have that outer escape. It's like if your world is just 24/7 revolving around the game, it could become difficult. It used to be something that I would get off of work in the military, and I would be so excited to go home and play. It's just a little bit less excitement. It's like, "Oh, I have to get up." And I'm sure BSJ knows about sometimes where it's like, "Oh, I have to get up and stream and I just wish I could take a day off." And sometimes you can take that day off, which is great, but sometimes you've made a commitment and you can't take that day off. 

So it's a double-edged sword. It's very difficult. I'm encouraging my players to have other hobbies. I've taken up other hobbies, recently got into golf, something that I was never good at and I never thought I could ever get good at it, but put in some time to it. And you find a good friend group who also does it. We have one player and two of our staff members who also have picked that up as their hobby. So it's something that I finally have that release that's not game-related because it used to be coach all day and then, OK, now I'm going to play, or now I'm going to learn something new about the game or try and learn something.

And so now it's nice to step away and have more of a personal life and do those things. So I do still game for fun every once in a while, but I think it's a little more in spurts. BSJ mentioned earlier, the way I am with playing games is I really binge game. So I'll get into a month where I'm like, "All right, I'm going to grind." And that doesn't mean that I'm going to ruin my sleep schedule or my nutrition or anything, but I'm going to focus this month on seeing where I'll end up on the leaderboard and then taking a few months where I'm not really playing as much. In order to reach a higher level of gaming or almost anything competitive in life, you need to be doing it a lot in a short amount of time and to stay good at it. And then I like to take my extended breaks afterwards after I've reached my peak Elo.

Brian Canavan:

Recently, I'd say the last six months is where I really realized the full transition of not feeling like I have enough hobbies because gaming was once pretty much my only hobby because I didn't have too much free time during college and all that stuff. So I definitely have highly valued having a more well-rounded life I mentioned I don't play less games now. I don't play less Dota now because I don't like Dota. I've just realized that there is more to life than just Dota, even though I do absolutely love Dota. The emphasis I would put on hobbies, I specifically have gotten into a little bit of kickboxing. I used to play basketball as a kid, so I've gotten back into that. Actually on the side, I play a little bit of poker. I enjoy the strategic aspect of poker in comparison with Dota.

And the one thing I've noticed about having more hobbies and just a more well-rounded enjoyment of life is that I actually appreciate Dota more. I enjoy playing the game that has become my job that previously, like you mentioned Tanner, there's just too many of those mornings before where I was just like, "Oh, got to go again. It's not that I want to play Dota today, but it's my job to play Dota.” And now that I've had a much better work-life balance of the extracurriculars on top of my Dota, I've noticed that that happens far less. Sometimes it still happens. It is what it is. Work is work. But the majority of time, I on average, look forward to playing Dota as a whole. And I just realized that sometimes you forget how fun your job is. You forget how fun it is to play games and you fail to appreciate how lucky, like Tanner said, we are. We're very grateful. I have always thought that, and sometimes you just don't feel it. So the hobbies for me, that's the biggest impact that they've had.

Joel Totoro:

Yeah, I think that's great. And you guys are making this easy, kind of leads into our next question. We talked a little bit about the balance of being a gamer and life, but the next question is a loaded one. So we'll give you guys a minute each to give your bullet points here. But question is, can you be healthy and be a gamer? Let's go back to BSJ.

Brian Canavan:

Well, a 25-year old me maybe would've said no, but I would absolutely say “yes” now. The biggest thing for me has been that I have really altered my perspective to my job and gaming as a privilege, and it's something I get to earn. It's something that I love doing and I need to take care of myself in order to earn these things. So on the priority list, I've put it below things like sleep, gym, eating times. I have a strict eating schedule. When I say strict, it's like around noon, around 7 p.m., I eat, and stuff like this where I make sure I know in my head that gaming fit in between all of these things. Where can I meaningfully with intention fit gaming into my schedule? 

And even though it is my work, I still want to prioritize taking care of myself more. So I really do think that a lot of people, myself included throughout all of my 20s, you just load up the game. It's like, "I don't really know what else to do," or, "That sounds fun right now," and I just load up the game. So for me, the intention aspect of what it means to appreciate playing and also knowing that I have to "earn it" has really raised the health bar, my gaming lifestyle, and it definitely works.

Joel Totoro:

All right, Tanner, what's your overview there?

Tanner Curtis:

Yeah. I mean, I think it takes work. It's hard, and as many things BSJ's mentioning, it's later in life, things start to change. I mean later, as in after your mid-20s, your priorities get different and that's when you can really go in on it. But for younger players, it really depends on your goals. Obviously, you can still be healthy, you need to be healthy or else you’re never going to have a career in gaming, but how much work it takes to maintain that health varies as you age. So I think you can absolutely be healthy and be a gamer. We’re now no longer in the days of mom’s basement and Monster and Doritos.

Joel Totoro:

This has been great. And I have one more question that’s kind of my question. Tanner, I want to circle back to something you said earlier, about how you turned nutrition into a game and tap into the competitive nature and tie that to be competitive about your performance and your health.

Tanner Curtis:

It's important to get these guys, to speak their language. And for them, they are incredibly competitive human beings. So to be able to get them competing against each other is something that has done a lot to help with their health and nutrition. They want to one-up each other with how many times they've been to the gym or what their eating patterns are and how they're limiting their sugar. So I think that it's something that once you can start to speak their language and let them turn it into a game for themselves and one-up each other, then their health and nutrition really starts to roll from there.

Joel Totoro:

All right. Folks, that's all the time we have this week. BSJ, Tanner, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Where can our listeners go to follow you both? BSJ, let's start with you.

Brian Canavan:

You can find me live on twitch.tv/bananaslamjamma. You can find me on YouTube with the same handle as well as on Twitter. I make educational videos for Dota on YouTube, more of a live chat interaction on Twitch. And I keep you guys posted with what I'm up to on Twitter.

Tanner Curtis:

Yeah, you can find me on Twitter @7teen. So that's the number 7-T-E-E-N. Also on Instagram @7teen with TC at the end of that. So those are the best places to find me, and from there you can find the other socials.

Joel Totoro:

Excellent as always, thanks everyone for listening, until next time.

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Thanks for listening to The Thorne Podcast, Performance Edition. Make sure to never miss an episode by subscribing to the show on your podcast app of choice. You can also learn more about the topics we discussed by visiting thorne.com and checking out the latest news videos and stories on Thorne's Take 5 Daily blog. For this performance edition of The Thorne Podcast. I'm Joel Totoro, reminding everyone to stay active and stay hydrated.

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