How to Coach Sports Nutrition to Teen Athletes

INTRO

This is the Thorne Podcast: Performance Edition, the show that navigates the complex world of sports science and explores the latest research on 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.

Joel Totoro

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Thorne Podcast performance edition. Joining me this week is Shawn Pitcher, sports dietitian who specializes in supporting high school athletes. Shawn is currently the sports dietitian at Overtime Elite, which is a unique basketball league and academy, helping young basketball players achieve their dreams of competing professionally. Shawn, welcome to the show.

Shawn Pitcher

Appreciate it Joel, excited for this opportunity to chat with you.

Joel Totoro

Yeah, we have a lot to talk about and kind of your expertise in high school athletics, but can you give us just kind of a brief history of kind of how you got to where you are and kind of your history that kind of brought you to oIver Time?

Shawn Pitcher

Yeah. So my roots originate from a small town called Endicott, New York. It's about an hour south of Syracuse. I always give everyone kind of that marker because no one probably has ever heard of Endicott in their life. So I played football at Buffalo State University, and there I had a professor named Dr. Donation(?) who was able to guide me essentially on the opportunities that were around in sports nutrition at that time. There really wasn't a lot as Joel could probably assess. You know, he was part of kind of the original 15 to 20 dietitians that were kind of coming up in the field. So she was able to provide me some opportunities and contacts to show me the way of what's out there, what sports nutrition, you know, this is an opportunity that I can kind of go down. And, you know, from there I had a variety of different journeys that kind of come into play, you know, with athletics, you know, you're basically trying to jump on the next opportunity that is allowed or provided to you. So, you know, I've been at places like University of Buffalo, Pittsburgh State, IMG Academy, Nationwide Children's Hospital, and then, you know, recently when I was at My Energy Academy, this kind of led me to where I am today and Overtime Elite in the basketball community.

Joel Totoro

Yeah. So and I think you and I have talked multiple times in the past, but the idea of kind of bringing the high performance model to high school athletics super important. Obviously the earlier you can set habits and foundational nutrition, the better. But can you talk a little bit about I think what's overlooked a lot is the needs of fueling somebody who is still growing, still going through puberty. A lot of people that are focused on that and forget about the performance side of it or, you know, kind of just miss the whole idea of what's going on. So can you kind of step back and talk about, as a dietitian looking at the clinical side of, you know, that foundational, growing child? Right. And then looking at that also as this elite athlete, can you kind of talk about how you've kind of honed your philosophy and and what that looks like for you?

Shawn Pitcher

Yeah, I think a lot of times when you look at high school or adolescence athletes, right, it kind of gets overshadowed by I'm an athlete, but at the end of the day, you're forgetting about this is also an athlete that's also growing and developing at the same exact time. So not only are a lot of these athletes getting a ton of activity load and pressure on them, sometimes we don't then provide them the appropriate fueling, hydration, sleep education or needs that they may need or in a lot of cases, right. It's up to us as practitioners to try to help educate the coaches, the parents and other practitioners out in the field to be able to enable them to have the resources or at least have the context they can essentially go to to be able to provide the appropriate education for athletes at these specific ages. Now, obviously, this age group is also very challenging too. We're in a go-go society, so you can look at typical athlete’s schedule routine. You know, you're starting in the morning time, who knows, getting up anywhere between 5 to 7:00. You have school, you have obviously your training, practice, maybe a competition or game. So there's a lot of times if you're not planning and thinking forward and thinking ahead, which many athletes of this age aren’t, they rely very heavily on the parents. So what I've had to do, you know, especially the last four years, is not only take the athlete, but also be able to try to contact the parents and say, hey, this is what I brought to the table. I'm trying to help your your son or daughter do. But on your end, these are things you're going to need, right? Because they control groceries, snacks, fluids. You know, if they're going out to eat, if they're eating at home, a lot of those factors are going to then determine what decision the athlete is going to make at that age. You know, there are a lot of times they're not able to make decisions on their own or they don't have the finances to do those things on their own. So I think a lot of those details at times can be forgotten about, but definitely need to be brought to the forefront to allow us, as a dietitians to do our job, whether it's a consulting role or hopefully, you know, my my passion ambition is try to get more dietitians into the actual high school space so we can have some more full time people to help with that behavior change.

Joel Totoro

You know, literally making an athlete or an administrator, I mean, a coach or an administrator go through the day that the athlete does because they only see their part of it right? And even if you want to do the best, I mean, I remember when I was in high school, we had like 45 minutes to fuel the entire day, right? There was no food in class, right? And like, we never had time to go back the... So even if I wanted to. Right. So I think I think part of that, it's just incredible that those resources there and just somebody being like there to ask those questions be like what are they going to eat? What's the fueling plan, right? I think that's so important. And you're kind of unique experience. You're one of the more experienced people in the profession, in the high school space. You kind of have a unique way of assessing those needs and kind of figuring out what the athlete actually needs. What's the right-now-answer? Can you talk a little bit about kind of how that came to be and what's a little bit unique about it?

Shawn Pitcher

Yeah, so currently right now we collect all of our information through what's called athlete management system. There's different ones out there. You know, I've used Kipman before. We currently have smart base, some university and pro settings will bring in their own data analysts and developers and they'll build out their own. So really kind depends on what's going to be, you know, beneficial or unique for your environment. But my big thing is I don't want to guess on what's going on with the athlete. I want to be able to track the information, I want to be able to analyze it, and I want to be able to provide the information back in a quicker response to where the coaches or the staff or the parents. So that way, in real time, they have an idea of what's going on, why we're collecting it, and what we're going to be doing about it. I don't want to be in a position where we're sitting there two, three, four months down the road. An athlete doesn't gain weight and we don't know why. I'd rather be tracking their weight, for example, for the next four weeks. And if they're progressing up, staying the same or going down, then I can, at least in real time right there in that moment, provide some feedback or suggestions or work with them during that week or every other week to try to get them in a better space. So we kind of have some buckets that we look at information. One is obviously going to be body comp. We do ISAC testing so looking at bone brassicas and our skin calipers. So we'll be looking at their lean muscle mass, fat mass. We'll do weights every Monday specifically in the morning before they eat or drink anything, which I always tell them I want to look at Monday through Sunday what you've done, right? A lot of athletes will say, well, my weight went up this day, went down that day at the end of the week. Right. What did you do over seven days? And so that puts you in a position to push you in the right direction. We're looking at some different options from hydration technology. Obviously, with hydration, that's got to you to have the right amount of staff depending on what tech you're going to use. You know, we're looking into things like inflow and intake and doing more of a behavioral change. Opportunity Inflow is something you can basically use in a urinal, it’ll pop up of color and then provide the athlete some type of information back to tell them kind of where their hydration testing and then kind of have some education literally right there in front of their face, like, hey, you're popping up a red. Here's the protocol that you can do right now to hopefully puts you in a better position for activity. And you know, we're also very fortunate and not many high schools can do this, but we do biomarker testing so we can see where a lot of their micronutrient levels are so we can provide the appropriate supplementation to get them to an optimal position. Right. Because at the end of the day, we're try to keep them on the court, keep them available and your best friend is available. See if you could stay available 90% of the time. You're going to be able to not only help yourself as individual progress to get to where you want to be, but you can also then help your team and their overall goal, which is to win games. You get to get to playoffs and to win a championship.

Joel Totoro

Yeah Shawn you sort of indirectly touched on it. When you were talking about weights and it's always very important to have that relationship with the athletes for them to understand the data you're collecting and why. But I think it kinds of brings up a good point of how do you establish relationship with this younger generation? I know every way I've ever previously communicated is not the way they like to be communicated to. So can you talk a little bit for our coaches, parents, practitioners, listening? How do you do that? Education. You talked about, hey, you're looking at your urine color. The education is right in your face. You can't miss it. But with this kind of short attention span and different sources of social media, how are you making the impact you traditionally had made previously?

Shawn Pitcher

I think what would you say there at the very end? First and foremost is if you don't want to do social media, that's okay. But that's where our generation is moving. That's where they obtain information, that's where they're seeking advice. So the more I can try to figure out what spaces that they're going to receive, information, the better. And a lot of times I just ask them, How do you want me to communicate with you? Right? Is a text, is a phone calls a face time? Is that you rather you just post something on Instagram and you follow me and then you can look at that every day. You know, also what is your learning style? You know, athletes don't want to be talked at anymore. They want to be worked with. So it's going to be a collaborative effort from that standpoint. Just telling them information and putting a PowerPoint up isn't going to work. So a lot of times and I'll give you an example, let's say there's two topics that I kind of figure out that the group is struggling with. Let's say it's cramping and let's say it's pre exercise fueling. So what I'll do in that situation, right? Instead of putting a PowerPoint up or putting up all these words on, on a board, you know, I'll ask them. Here's two topics out of these two topics. Which one would you guys like to discuss? Right. Gives them an opportunity is something we still need to talk about, but gives them an opportunity to choose what they want to choose. All right. Cramping. Cool. We're going to go ahead with that. Who here has cramps, right? A lot of times people won't raise their hand, but there's usually one or two that are going to say, oh, yeah, that's me. And then I can use them as an example. And then now I'm doing their real-life situation up on the board, or we're just discussing and talking to her as a group or doing some type of activity. And once one guy in the group, especially if they're a significant figure amongst that group or team, says they're having issues that tends to open the door a little bit for more guys and then try to voice their opinion or voice their experiences. Right. And then now we're having these discussions coming about. But at the same time, right. I'm also then able to put in some of that education and things that I want to get to them, but I'm taking a lot of what they want to talk about, taking on, you know, their suggestions, their experiences and trying to put it into real time application for them, because I want to be able to give them something they can take hopefully after that 30 minutes in our discussion. And can they directly go apply that today, tomorrow or the next week? And can they feel a difference or a change specifically from that? I think the biggest thing that we can do is when we feel that the athlete feels a change in energy, feels better, makes more shots, whatever that specific… Specific feeling is for the athlete gives us a better opportunity for them to buy in a lot faster to what we have to say and then hopefully get them to come back for more questions. I work a lot with our facilitators and academics as well, and they have definitely provided me a lot of ideas on how to approach the athletes from their perspective. And I think, you know, collaborating with those, you know, staff members that you have in place is only going to make you a better practitioner because you know, you don't know everything, but there's people out there that know how to educate, embracing to the table in a way our athletes of this generation understand. So I'm trying to utilize those resources to the best of my ability, especially since they're in-house.

Joel Totoro

Yeah, I think you hit on two things that are super important there, and that's one kind of just establishing the rapport and making everybody know like, Hey, I'm here for you. My job is to help you in any which way. But to I think what's missing, especially in younger athletes, is that mental tie to look what I eat, what I drink, what I, how I recover. That's when I feel something off or when I feel better. Taking that step back be like, what did I do different to make me feel better to make me? So I think that's super important and really impactful, the way you kind of handle that. We talked a little bit. I touched on it earlier and you're you've got a couple of guys up for the draft in a couple of days here. Can you talk a little bit about how important the idea of establishing foundational habits early are in nutrition for, you know, just optimization, but also career longevity, health and wellness, quality of life after your playing career, The whole the whole gamut of what we deal with as dietitians.

Shawn Pitcher

Yeah. So, you know, we use obviously those two areas an example for any of the athletes that I work with, I do what I do a one on one assessment that I've created that I can actually track in our athletes management system. I'm working with actually a couple of dietitians right now to try to see if we can utilize this tool as something that possibly validate or use amongst a lot of dietitians just because it provides the athlete an opportunity not only for the athlete to discuss and the dietitian to assess them, but on top of that, there's that visual representation. Right. I think a lot of times when you're talking to an athlete and then you don't have the visual representation of they can't visually see or think about what you're trying to do. It can be very challenging to kind of get your point across. So what we do is I have this initial assessment, I do I'll do reassessments after that, and it basically will look at their nutrition behavior, their hydration habits, sleep habits, and then also their fueling routine. And based on the responses they provide me, they then get a score that then goes in the assessment and then I can track their progression over time, you know, along with all the other data points what that helps me kind of do is be able to show the athlete a big picture view, hey, here's let's say certain things that you have trouble with. Let's say you only get 6 hours of sleep, you miss breakfast, and instead of hydrating all day, you hydrate parts of the day. Okay. On top of that, here's obviously your body comp and weight, here's your biomarkers, here's what your weight has fluctuated. It looks like in the preseason, during the season and in the off season. So now I have all these points and data so that when I can sit the athlete down, whether it's frequently or during specific times of the year to provide them essentially what is a report, I can then show them either acutely what's going on or I can show them big picture what's going on. So then in that case, when they're progressing on to college, when they're progressing on to the pros, right, hopefully I can then provide them that picture and show them, Hey, these are parts of the year you're doing a fantastic job. Like if we can continue these habits and behaviors during this time, that's going to make you very successful. But here's let's say, for example, in the off season or when you get done with the season, you tend to become lax. Maybe you start to forget and not do or be consistent with some of those things. And this is how that can impact as you go in the preseason or going into your next season. So try to give them that overall picture, trying to give them the data that supports that and try to show them obviously, you know, positive reinforcement of what you're doing a really great job at. But then here are some specific areas that we can try to touch on that I think that can help optimize or maximize your performance and puts you in a lot better position from year to year. So that way hopefully you have longevity throughout your career and you're not one of those guys that has a great year, injured, great year, injured because if you want to play ten, 15, 20 years, we've seen a lot of the greats that have been able to do that. It's at the end of the day taking care of your body and putting as much as you can into the recovery portion that you put into the 2 to 4 hours that you're doing your activities.

Joel Totoro

And as a as a former pro dietician, I thank you for the work you're doing because you make it easier for for everyone, at the next level. And kind of the bigger picture is those athletes now come in and they are the champion we talked about. There always has to be one champion. That kind of brings everybody else along on the nutrition recovery journey. So you're you're impacting not only that individual player, but really the impacts of every team they touch afterwards, which is so important to me.

Shawn Pitcher

Yeah, My my hope is, you know, my athletes that leave me when they when they go to the next place college or pros it's easy for that dietitian, right? If they don't have to do a lot it's a couple of tweaks. Maybe they can start talking about some higher level things they can do to continue to progress their career and help with fueling recovery, reducing inflammation of source, whatever that is. But it was the same thing as the last place I was. If I can just create better humans and better people and put them in positions where they have those long-term skills and tools, it's going to make it a lot easier for the practitioners coming up and they can then be a leader in the locker room for other athletes, right? Hey, I'm 18 years old and I'm coming into your division in college as a freshman, and out of the 16 or 18 guys you have in your basketball team, you know, I'm already above and beyond everybody and I'm already starting right, versus the guy who's been there for two or three years on that starting but doesn't take care of himself. Having a lot more role models coming in at that young age that can handle their business. Definitely can obviously push a lot of athletes that are going to come in around them. And then now the athletes are doing the work, they're promoting that these things are a benefit rather than us as the white noise saying the same things over and over and having to come up with a lot of different stuff to try to get across to them.

Joel Totoro

Absolutely. I mean, it makes all the difference in the world. So you've talked a little bit about, you know, the assessment and everything you do to make sure you understand each athlete individual. Can you talk about how that's kind of informs your idea of how you incorporate supplementation or not with your athletes?

Shawn Pitcher

This is probably the first year of my eight years where I've actually been able to do biomarker testing. And, you know, not only just do it once, but doing it consistently several times throughout the year to be able to track trends. Right. You know, obviously, we're always going to have a food first approach. But I think in many areas nowadays it can be very challenging, especially on the athletes, certain tastes, textures, foods they like, foods they dislike. It can be really challenging to get a lot of those micronutrients and specific food groups and them to be able to make sure that they're going to be at the levels that they need to. So getting this testing has been really key for us because, you know, if an athlete's got a 15 for their vitamin D, I'm able to show them that and say like, hey, if you don't get this up to an optimal level or at least a normal level, this is going to put you at a high risk for injury. And in that case, you know, if they're not at the level they need to it provides me an education opportunity. It provides me an opportunity to say we need to include these options. And then on top of that, hey, make sure you're taking your supplementation on a regular basis. And then if I can pull that data throughout the year to then show them right, that they're being on the court more because they're eating what we're telling them to eat, they’re supplements, how they're supposed to supplement. And they're probably report at the end of the day that they're feeling better they’re recovering faster. Right. I can also tie in the coaches so you make it more shots Are you getting more rebounds you know as your shooting percentage going up? You know now tying in everybody that's within our facility and with our company and the more people I can tie into that, that's just going to create more buying and value for me to continue to try to do this, to make sure the athletes are getting what they need from a resource perspective.

Joel Totoro

All right. Now it's time for us to take a short break. When we come back, we'll answer some questions from our listeners.

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Joel Totoro

And we’re back so Shawn, the first question coming at us from our listeners. The question is What age is it okay to start weightlifting? And I know you've got that a lot.

Shawn Pitcher

I would say the big thing there is it is okay to do resistance training. It is not going to stunt your growth. The younger, the younger, the age that you can provide your athlete an opportunity to do some type of training is going to be extremely beneficial as they grow and develop. Now, if they're really young, right, ten, 12, 13 years old. Right? Depending on kind of how developed they are, you know, what stage of adolescence are in. Right. Just starting even with some simple bodyweight stuff, push-ups, pull ups, sit ups, air squats, doing different jumps, doing med ball throws. Something that even is a small resistance if you're someone who is still hesitant to doing a lot of extra resistance, that is some really baseline sets that you can add. Now obviously if we want to get into more resistance training. I'm going to highly recommend that you have somebody that is CS, yes, CSCCA someone that has a strength conditioning degree, background and credentials. So that way you are having someone you can trust and that's going to teach your athletes or your son or daughter the appropriate movement patterns, technique. And then that way they're developing those from the start as it progresses up and through. You know, what I see a lot of times is athletes want to go start resistance training. They're not quite sure what to do. And then all of a sudden they'll get in the gym, they'll try to squat, but they don't know how to do it correctly. And then let's say you do that poor technique for multiple years in a row. A lot of times when you're getting into middle school and high school or even athletes in high school have never lifted a weight in their life and then go to college and start resistance training. The better technique you can learn early on, you'll set yourself in a better position when you then do get exposure experience to those things.

Joel Totoro

Yeah, just like nutrition. If you build good habits early and have a great foundational, it tends to go with you as you grow. So the next question is actually kind of a second part to that question is my son's a football player and wants to bulk up. He's only 16. How should he be trying to gain weight?

Shawn Pitcher

So my top three things that I used for any athletes that are trying to increase muscle mass or increase weight, first and foremost, I look at the seven days in a week, right? We have three breakfasts and we also have three snacks. So if you do seven times six, 42 opportunities, an athlete has every single week to capitalize on getting all their meals and snacks. And that's first and foremost. The next thing is, you know, I have some strategies that I'll use with our athletes to try to help encourage getting more calories in the first one is can you increase your liquid calories? So juices, whole milks, smoothies shakes. Right. It tends to be a lot easier at times to drink things than it is to actually physically chew things, especially if you have a lot going on. You're going from place to place, right? Every meal add 16 ounces of whole milk, maybe twice a day. You have a smoothie and those are things you can add to your meals in addition to your snacks. They're going to be really easy to get a lot of calories in, but you won’t have to physically chew on. Some won't be as hard to get those calories in. The next thing will be increase your healthy fats. The one thing I always say, if you want to visualize this in your mind, peanut butter a tablespoons about a thumbs worth so you hold both of your thumbs up right now, that's two tablespoons. Two tablespoons is almost 190 to 200 calories. Right. Or a palmful of nuts, almost 150 to 200 calories. So if you look at those two things, if I'm having a PB and J sandwich, I'm not just going to do two thumbs worth of peanut butter. You're probably going to do probably 6 to 8, ten, whatever that is. So that way you're not adding a huge portion of food to something that you're doing, whether it's a snack or a meal, but you are adding a lot of extra additional calories on top of that. And then my third one is just progressively increase your portion sizes over time, right? First and foremost, can you eat 100%? What's on your plate if you can? Can I eat another quarter of a plate, a half a plate, a second plate. Right. As long as it's not causing me any type of guy or stomach distress or it's not causing me any negative consequences around the activity time, your gut can adapt to handling more food over time. So just trying to go from 0 to 100 isn't going to be the right thing to do. But if you slowly add additional portions onto your meals, your snacks, and your body is able to adjust and handle those and you're still able to do what you need to do during the activity time, that's a method you can utilize as well. So I always ask my athletes, Hey, here's these three options. Which three are you willing to do or willing to try? Right? It becomes that relationship, that trust, Hey, I'll do this and I'll add that this week. Cool. And then basically it just becomes following up with them and asking, how's that working out? Is your weight shifting in the right direction that we want to? And then hopefully after doing that, we're making some progress.

Joel Totoro

Yeah, I said it before. I think people wildly underestimate how many calories it takes just to grow new tissues of growth and then now to grow new tissues and muscles and tendons and whatnot. On top of that, just an incredible amount of calories. So for sure, kind of the best place to start.

Shawn Pitcher

You’re growing and developing in general in that age group. And then you tack on all the activity. And, you know, I always say sometimes an athlete has almost a part time job of just activity, you know, 15 to 25 hours a week. So it's like now you're trying to fuel two different things, growth and activity at the same time. So it can definitely be a challenge for sure.

Joel Totoro

So this is a bit of a tough question that I know we've all dealt with multiple times. But the question is, are there any red flags I should be aware of for how my kid eats and practices? I haven't always been a biggest fan of how our coach handles things.

Shawn Pitcher

Yeah, I would say if you're in a situation where you don't have a dietician on hand, it's just a coach, it's a parent, you know, a trainer, you know, all these different people that might have exposure to our athletes. I always try to, in those situations, especially at this level, provide them resources that are out there that are free, right? USOC. CPSDA. Shippin which is a sports organization with the Academy of Dietetics Nutrition, the Australian Dietetics of Nutrition, that's four different sites that all have free resources and infographics that were made and developed by actual sports dietitians or dietitians with a PhD and a research and nutrition background. So if you don't know anything about nutrition at all, you know, and there's these free research, out there at least bare minimum to try to utilize those, since we're also very heavily on social media, I would say if you are navigating those spaces or telling your athletes to look at different things on there, again, same thing, if they're looking at something that social media does the person have an actual degree in dietetics nutrition? Do they have credentials that says they're an actual licensed registered dietitian? And where is the information coming from? Is it an actual research article? Is it just science? Because I would say 90% of the stuff on there is a lot of B.S. So trying to sift through that and provide the appropriate information, education is really key. And then I would say my last one is if you have colleges, if you have pro organizations that are in your vicinity, don't hesitate to hit them up on LinkedIn. Send them an email and just reach out and see if either they have resources or if they're even willing to come in for 15-30 minutes and just chat with your athletes. Right. And that can at least put them in a better direction, give you a resource, or at least bring someone that's going to be better. That's been in the field for a while that could provide the proper information and education.

Joel Totoro

Yeah, I think you made a really good point. I just want to underline there is, especially at that young impressionable age, the idea that, oh, this is what my favorite celebrity does. It must work for me that, you know, a lot of times that's not necessarily what they're actually doing, even if it is. We talked about there's so many different variables that play into what works for you and what your needs are. So, yeah, really being aware of who that credentialed person is that you're getting that information from.

Shawn Pitcher

Yeah. And one thing I had on to is, is a lot of time what you're seeing on social media and content, you're just, you're seeing the 1%. So even though someone has six pack abs, they look ripped. You know there there's huge crazy looking athlete right. That's that's far few in between you know not every athlete body is going to look like that And just because someone does look like that isn't going to 100% equate over to them being the best athlete or performing the best. So I think a lot of times we get these visual misconceptions. We see an athlete needs to look a certain way, but it doesn't always result that they're you're going to perform that way just because they look like that.

Joel Totoro

Yeah. So we always get the question about youth athletes and whether a restrictive diet or a selective diet, whether it be vegan, vegetarian, whatever diet they're trying to follow. Can you talk a little bit about what they need to consider in order to make sure that's right for them as an athlete?

Shawn Pitcher

I think the best plan is the one you're willing to follow at the end of the day and the one that you're able to actually implement into the schedule and routine that you have and what's going to be realistic for you and your parents to actually be able to do. I think those are things that you need to check the boxes on first. And if you can't do those base level or basic things consistent day in, day out basis, I think adding some type of restrictive diet or for example, like a vegetarian or vegan diet, may make it very challenging to acquire the type of nutrients and micronutrients that you need, right? I'm never going to tell someone they can't do it. They shouldn't do it. Stay away from it. Right. I'm just going to ask a lot of questions and see where is it coming from. Why do you feel like you need to do this? Why do it? What do you feel like this is going to change? Because a lot of times the athletes are transitioning to these types of diets is, again, I saw this professional athlete or this person doing it or this person said that I'm going to have energy or I'm going to feel better. But in reality, what are you currently doing that may be causing you to feel that way, which is then the reason why you're trying to shift over to making this vast change that maybe you're not ready or prepared to do right? If we switch to vegan, we're cutting out all animal products. We're cutting out all dairy products. And my first question to the athlete is, okay, we're cutting out two major food groups. How are you going to get zinc, B12, protein, vitamin D, calcium, right? All these really critically important nutrients, not only for growth and development, but also to help with performance and recovery. If we don't have an alternative source that we can get them from, well, it's going to make it very challenging. And then on top of that, right, a lot of our plant-based proteins and plant-based options really aren't going to be as absorbable as your animal based options. And you might have to eat double, triple or even more than that to get the same amount of nutrients that you would from an animal-based option. So, you know, at the end of the day, I'm never going to tell them they can't do it, but we're definitely going to have the conversations. So I can just provide a realistic view and see if it's something that they can actually do and follow a long term or have the ability to make those switches to foods that are going to be able to provide them the nutrients that they're missing out on from the food they're taking out.

Joel Totoro

All right. Let's let's end on a fun one. I know you're a science guy, a strength guy, nutrition guy. You're always kind of tweaking your your protocols, whatever. I know we we got you a little sneak preview of our upcoming pre-workout, but what are you kind of playing with in your supplementation? Training, Whatever. What's going on with Shawn?

Shawn Pitcher

Yeah. So I actually, you know, I got hooked up with the pre-workout, and what I really like about that is instead of having the stimulant effect, right, has is using things like, you know, different mushrooms that are providing more of a focus effect. So I don't have that kind of jitteriness. You know, I've been basically using that with like a creatine, something that helps with that vasodilation like a beet juice or a black currant, you know, before my workouts and then also adding a little collagen there for my my joints. And so that's something I'm trying to kind of stack and combine together to try to have provide one a big benefit to my own training, but then also try to get some of those nutrients in. There are a lot quicker to help with the after effects of my training at the same time.

Joel Totoro

Well, that's all the time we have this week, Shawn. We talked about finding trusted sources of nutrition information and you're certainly one of them. Can you tell our listeners where they can find your podcast which is an excellent resource and just learn more about the work you're doing?

Shawn Pitcher

Yes, I'm a little bit everywhere nowadays. I'm on YouTube, on Instagram @Overtime_Shawn. I'm also on Tik Tok in that I have, as Joel said, my Roots podcast, which you can find on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. The main objective of my podcast is to bring on practitioners across athletics in multiple different levels, you know, all the way from high school D2, D3, NAIA, professional, tactical. I just want to be able to give not only if it's just a general individual that's interested in athletics, a view of what all these practitioners do and how they help the athlete. But then also on the other side, some professional development and some opportunities for our professionals in the field to see how everybody collaborates and works together to be able to essentially help to serve the athlete. And everyone has different resources at this level. So you're going to get a wide range of experiences and nuggets on how those practitioners do those based on where they're at.

Joel Totoro

All right, Appreciate your time. That was Shawn Pitcher, Sports Dietician for Overtime Elite. Thanks for listening.

OUTRO

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 Five Daily blog. For this performance edition of The Thorne Podcast, I’m Joel Totoro, reminding everyone to stay active and stay hydrated.