Triathlon Nutrition Academy

You can get away with a fuelling gap over five hours. You cannot get away with it over 13.
Stepping up from 70.3 to Ironman is the exact moment most triathletes work out that their fuelling needs attention. Julie Whitton is 13 weeks out from Ironman Western Australia, her first full distance race after a decade of racing halves. She is a paramedic with New South Wales Ambulance, she has been a shift worker for 21 years, and she trains off a nine day roster that changes constantly. In this episode she takes Taryn through exactly what she has had to upgrade to get to that start line, and where the gaps showed up once the hours went up.
This is not a first Ironman story. This is the step up story, for the triathlete who already races 70.3 well and assumes that skill carries over.

IN THIS EPISODE
What changes in your bike and run fuelling numbers when a race goes from five hours to 13 hours
Why a small hourly shortfall you got away with at 70.3 compounds into a walk at full distance
The shift from liquid fuel to solid food on long rides, and the trap of swapping over too fast
How to gut train on gels without hitting flavour fatigue weeks before race day
What Julie was doing at 70.3 that stopped working the moment the volume climbed
Why she moved her recovery from 90 percent to 100 percent, and what that changed in her week
Fuelling your body for what you want it to do rather than for how you want it to look

TIMESTAMPS
04:37 Training for Ironman around shift work
07:12 Bike fuelling from 70 to 80 grams
13:25 Run fuelling and flavour fatigue
17:35 What stopped working at full distance
23:35 Fuelling for performance not appearance

ABOUT JULIE WHITTON
Julie (Jules) Whitton is an age group triathlete and a paramedic with New South Wales Ambulance, where she has worked shift work for 21 years. She has been a Triathlon Nutrition Academy athlete since January 2023 and is now part of the Supercharged Squad. After a decade racing 70.3, she is stepping up to full distance at Ironman Western Australia on 6 December 2026. Julie was last on the show in Episode 119, Juggling Shift Work and Triathlon.

If you have a couple of halves behind you and a full quietly sitting on your list, the athletes who come unstuck are almost always the ones trying to learn how to fuel and how to train for 226 kilometres at the same time. Do one of those things first. Get your name on the list for our next cohort of the Triathlon Nutrition Academy at [dietitianapproved.com/academy](https://www.dietitianapproved.com/academy) and you will be the first to know when we open doors.

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The Triathlon Nutrition Academy® is a podcast by Dietitian Approved®. All rights reserved.
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Are you paying up to $5.20 a gel because that is what they hand out on course?
Maurten, Precision Fuel and Hydration and SIS Beta Fuel are the three gels I get asked about more than any others. So I put them side by side and worked out what is actually in the packet, what each one costs you per 100 grams of carbohydrate, and whether that price gap buys you anything at all. No brand has paid me a cent to talk about them. I am Switzerland when it comes to sports nutrition products.
One of these gels costs roughly two thirds more than another for the exact same gram of carbohydrate. Whether that is money well spent comes down to three things most triathletes have never been taught to look for.

WHAT YOU WILL TAKE AWAY
What is actually inside each gel: carbohydrate, sodium, calories, caffeine and the main ingredients
What it costs to fuel at 90 grams of carbohydrate an hour on each brand, in both Aussie and US dollars
What the glucose to fructose ratio means in plain English, and the carbohydrate rate you need to be hitting before it matters to you
Whether the hydrogel does what the marketing implies it does
Which gel makes sense for Sprint, Olympic, 70.3 and full distance racing
How to read a sports nutrition label so you are not at the mercy of whoever has the biggest marketing budget

STUDIES MENTIONED
Currell, K., & Jeukendrup, A. E. (2008). Superior endurance performance with ingestion of multiple transportable carbohydrates. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 40(2), 275 to 281. [https://doi.org/10.1249/mss.0b013e31815adf19](https://doi.org/10.1249/mss.0b013e31815adf19)
O’Brien, W. J., & Rowlands, D. S. (2011). Fructose-maltodextrin ratio in a carbohydrate-electrolyte solution differentially affects exogenous carbohydrate oxidation rate, gut comfort, and performance. American Journal of Physiology-Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology, 300(1), G181 to G189. [https://doi.org/10.1152/ajpgi.00419.2010](https://doi.org/10.1152/ajpgi.00419.2010)

ALSO MENTIONED
Episode 47: What is a Hydrogel? Does it improve endurance performance, with Andy King. [Listen here](https://www.dietitianapproved.com/podcast/episode-47)

The exact gel you use is the last 5% of your race nutrition strategy. If you want the other 95%, the Triathlon Nutrition Academy is my nine month education program that teaches you how to fuel your training week, train your gut and build a race plan that is uniquely yours. Doors open again soon, so register your interest at [dietitianapproved.com/academy](https://www.dietitianapproved.com/academy).

SUPPORT THE PODCAST (https://www.dietitianapproved.com/legend)

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The Triathlon Nutrition Academy® is a podcast by Dietitian Approved®. All rights reserved.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Everywhere you look, someone is telling you to eat more protein. If you are over 45 and your power is going backwards, more protein is not the fix you have been promised. Back in January the US dietary guidelines roughly doubled their protein recommendation, and that was overdue. But guidelines written for a sedentary population are a very different thing to guidelines for an athlete training 10 to 15 hours a week. Something real does change in your muscles as you get older, and the research on masters triathletes makes for uncomfortable reading. What it does not show is that eating more protein fixes it. In this episode I take you through what is actually happening in ageing muscle, what happened when researchers doubled the protein after a muscle damaging session, and the 5 protein levers to pull instead of just reaching for more.
WHAT YOU WILL TAKE AWAY
• What anabolic resistance is in plain English, and why the rules changed at about 35 without anybody sending you the memo
• Inside the Australian study that compared masters triathletes with younger ones, and what happened to their muscle repair and their cycling time trials
• What doubling the post exercise protein dose actually bought masters triathletes, and what it did not • Why your total protein intake stops paying you back once you are in a reasonable range
• The 5 protein levers, and why most triathletes only ever pull number 5
• Why your breakfast is almost certainly the weak link in your day
• Why the same mistake is happening right now with carbohydrate
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Everywhere you look, eat more protein
00:27 Over 45 and your power is going backwards
00:55 The number is the easy part, eating it is not
01:22 Welcome
01:43 What actually changes in your body as you get older
02:10 Anabolic resistance, in plain English
02:41 Inside the study: masters versus younger triathletes
03:40 What happened over the 3 days
04:04 It is not your fault, the rules changed at 35
04:43 So should you just eat more protein?
05:08 The follow up study: double the dose
05:57 What doubling the protein actually bought them
06:43 Why simply more is not the fix
07:17 The bit that is genuinely hard for an age-grouper
08:01 What happens in the real world, week by week
09:14 The internet gives you a number and walks away
09:51 The barbecue study, Episode 141
10:14 You are a human, not a snake
10:51 Masters swimmers: the total was fine, the pattern wasn't
11:28 The 5 protein levers
12:17 Eating more is not a strategy
12:48 The recap
13:22 What to actually do about it
ALSO MENTIONED
• Episode 179 with Joe Friel on how masters athletes can get fast and stay fit after 50: https://www.dietitianapproved.com/podcast/episode-179
• Episode 141, affectionately dubbed the barbecue study, on large protein doses in one sitting: https://www.dietitianapproved.com/podcast/episode-141)
STUDIES MENTIONED
• Doering, T. M., Jenkins, D. G., Reaburn, P. R., Borges, N. R., Hohmann, E., & Phillips, S. M. (2016). Lower integrated muscle protein synthesis in masters compared with younger athletes. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 48(8), 1613-1618. [https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0000000000000935](https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0000000000000935)
• Doering, T. M., Reaburn, P. R., Borges, N. R., Cox, G. R., & Jenkins, D. G. (2017). The effect of higher than recommended protein feedings post-exercise on recovery following downhill running in masters triathletes. International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 27(1), 76-82. [https://doi.org/10.1123/ijsnem.2016-0079](https://doi.org/10.1123/ijsnem.2016-0079)
• Santos de Souza, M., Zaleski Trindade, C. D., de Souza Castro, F. A., Buss, C., & Schneider, C. D. (2025). Protein intake by master swimmers: Implications for practice in sports nutrition, a cross-sectional study. Nutrition and Health, 31(3), 1095-1101. [https://doi.org/10.1177/02601060241276918](https://doi.org/10.1177/02601060241276918)
READY TO STOP GUESSING?
Knowing what to eat and when, around your own training program, is the whole game as you get older. That is exactly what I teach inside the Triathlon Nutrition Academy, and then troubleshoot with you every week in our Power Hour calls, so you are still doing it in 12 months time.
Register your interest for our next cohort at https://www.dietitianapproved.com/academy.
Download the FREE audio series The 5 Biggest Nutrition Mistakes Costing You Time on Race Day
Recovery Accelerator Program
SUPPORT THE PODCAST HERE
CONNECT WITH TARYN
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The Triathlon Nutrition Academy® is a podcast by Dietitian Approved®. All rights reserved.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Your legs are heavy, your easy sessions feel hard, and you are not improving despite training consistently. If you immediately thought overtraining, you are right. That is also the exact symptom list for under-fuelling.
Researchers went looking for every training overload study that also measured what athletes were eating. 21 studies made the cut, and in 18 of them, 86%, the athletes were under-fuelled. So the majority of athletes diagnosed as overtrained in the research were in fact not eating enough. Which raises a fairly uncomfortable question about that extra session you are thinking of adding to your training schedule right now.
In this episode, I show you how to tell whether you are overtrained or under-fuelled, why adding volume to an under-fuelled athlete makes everything worse, and the 3 signals plus 3 fixes to run through before you touch your training program.

WHAT YOU WILL TAKE AWAY
Why overtraining and under-fuelling start in exactly the same place in your brain, and why that changes the fix
What energy availability actually is, and why it is not the same thing as calories in versus calories out
The maths run on a 75 kg age-grouper training 12 hours a week, and what his number actually comes out at
Why overtraining is a diagnosis of exclusion, and what the professionals rule out first
The 3 signals that tell you under-fuelling is on the table at all
The 3 things to fix today, before you add another hour of training
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 The symptom list you are about to recognise
00:54 The number that should stop you adding a session
01:57 Same origin, same dials, different fix
02:20 You do not get fitter during your sessions
03:37 Inside the research: 18 out of 21 studies
04:17 Why overtraining is a diagnosis of exclusion
05:26 Energy availability, in plain English
07:15 Running the numbers on a 75 kg male age-grouper
09:35 The same maths for a female athlete
10:31 Why your own numbers will be different
11:37 What happens when training goes up and food does not
13:05 But I just need to train more, right?
14:55 Signal 1: your appetite has gone the wrong way
16:05 The feather, the brick and the truck
16:30 Signal 2: the scales are not behaving
17:36 Signal 3: easy is fine, your top end has gone
18:31 The fourth sign: illness and niggles that outstay their welcome
19:35 Fix 1: what you do during training
20:31 Fix 2: recovery nutrition and the 4 Rs
21:19 Fix 3: does your food move when your training moves
22:08 An important note if this episode touched a nerve
23:01 The recap
24:21 Run the sums before you add the session

STUDIES MENTIONED
Meeusen, R., Duclos, M., Foster, C., Fry, A., Gleeson, M., Nieman, D., Raglin, J., Rietjens, G., Steinacker, J., & Urhausen, A. (2013). Prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of the overtraining syndrome: Joint consensus statement of the European College of Sport Science and the American College of Sports Medicine. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 45(1), 186-205. https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0b013e318279a10a
Melin, A. K., Areta, J. L., Heikura, I. A., Stellingwerff, T., Torstveit, M. K., & Hackney, A. C. (2024). Direct and indirect impact of low energy availability on sports performance. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 34(1), e14327. https://doi.org/10.1111/sms.14327
Stellingwerff, T., Heikura, I. A., Meeusen, R., Bermon, S., Seiler, S., Mountjoy, M. L., & Burke, L. M. (2021). Overtraining syndrome (OTS) and relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S): Shared pathways, symptoms and complexities. Sports Medicine, 51(11), 2251-2280. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-021-01491-0

READY TO STOP GUESSING?
Your day to day nutrition is the single most valuable thing I help my athletes with inside the Triathlon Nutrition Academy. I teach you how to fuel for training, racing and life, so you are not asking the internet random questions at 9pm every time your program changes or you see something shiny. Get your name on the list for our next cohort at dietitianapproved.com/academy

Download the FREE audio series The 5 Biggest Nutrition Mistakes Costing You Time on Race Day
Recovery Accelerator Program
SUPPORT THE PODCAST HERE
CONNECT WITH TARYN
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The Triathlon Nutrition Academy® is a podcast by Dietitian Approved®. All rights reserved.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is carb loading a myth? A paper published in June has social media convinced that it is.
A comment landed on my socials this week saying exactly that. It didn't appear out of nowhere. There is a new paper doing the rounds, the headlines have picked it up and sprinted into some pretty heavy clickbait territory, and they have taken it somewhere I don't think the authors ever wanted it to go. So I'm going to tell you exactly what that paper says, what it doesn't say and how to apply it to you as an age group triathlete.
I'll walk you through the 14 studies this whole argument rests on, why only 2 of them were double blinded and the detail in the research design that changes how you should read every one of those headlines. Then I'll show you brand new data on 27 real women racing at the 2024 World Champs, which I think is the far more important number for you.
IN THIS EPISODE:
What the June 2026 commentary actually did, and why it is not the carb loading study everyone thinks it is
How 10,422 papers were screened down to just 14
Why most of that research doesn't reflect how you actually race
What happened to muscle glycogen when athletes ate enough carbohydrate
Why I never wrote Matt Hauser a carb loading plan, and what that tells you about yours
The World Champs food diary data on what female age groupers really ate the day before their biggest race
The second problem with this research that nobody is talking about yet
What I want you to do differently before your next race
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 The comment that kicked this off
00:27 The paper behind the headlines, and what it actually is
02:58 From 10,422 papers down to 14
03:29 Why only two of them were double blinded
04:17 Riding with no fuel on board, and some of them fasted
05:42 The two studies the myth claim rests on
06:23 What actually happened to muscle glycogen
08:02 The one that was really a creatine study
09:33 Why I'm not calling this case closed
10:15 World Champs: only 26% hit their carb loading numbers
12:25 Train like a professional, eat like a beginner
12:48 Why Matt Hauser never needed a carb loading plan
14:34 There is a ceiling, but that doesn't mean your tank is full
15:40 The second problem nobody is talking about
16:26 Risk versus reward
17:54 What I want you to do before your next race
18:42 So, is carb loading a myth?
STUDIES MENTIONED
- Areta, J. L., [LILY: confirm the full author list from the paper before publishing]. (2026). Beyond belief? Absence of double-blinding and limited ecological validity in carbohydrate loading research. International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijsnem.2026-0058
- Burke, L. M., Hawley, J. A., Schabort, E. J., St Clair Gibson, A., Mujika, I., & Noakes, T. D. (2000). Carbohydrate loading failed to improve 100-km cycling performance in a placebo-controlled trial. Journal of Applied Physiology, 88(4), 1284-1290. https://doi.org/10.1152/jappl.2000.88.4.1284
- Tomcik, K. A., Camera, D. M., Bone, J. L., Ross, M. L., Jeacocke, N. A., Tachtsis, B., Senden, J., van Loon, L. J. C., Hawley, J. A., & Burke, L. M. (2018). Effects of creatine and carbohydrate loading on cycling time trial performance. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 50(1), 141-150. [https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0000000000001401
- Jones, R. O., Areta, J. L., Bennett, S., Pugh, J., & Louis, J. B. (2026). Dose-response of dietary carbohydrate intake on skeletal muscle glycogen, gastrointestinal comfort and body composition in endurance-trained individuals in simulated preparation for competition. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 36(6), e70312. https://doi.org/10.1111/sms.70312
- Fortis, H. O., Whitehead, A. E., Cronin, C. J., Johnson, K. O., Shepherd, S. O., Hackney, A. C., Close, G. L., & Strauss, J. A. (2026). From intention to execution: Pre-race nutrition behaviours, influences, and performance outcomes in female endurance athletes at the IRONMAN World Championships. European Journal of Sport Science, 26(7), e70193. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsc.70193
If you want carb loading laid out properly in a way that is easy to understand, with a planner and a calculator that does all of the hard maths for you, my Carb Loading Masterclass is at dietitianapproved.com/carb-loading.
Download the FREE audio series The 5 Biggest Nutrition Mistakes Costing You Time on Race Day
Recovery Accelerator Program
SUPPORT THE PODCAST HERE
CONNECT WITH TARYN
Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube
The Triathlon Nutrition Academy® is a podcast by Dietitian Approved®. All rights reserved.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.