Welcome back to the racing unstoppable girl athletes podcast. I'm coach Bree and elite competitor coach for girl athletes. And I am so happy you are here. No matter where you are on your sports mom journey, just getting started, or you are the team mom, that's bringing the snacks to every competition. This podcast is for you to help you know, how to build confidence in your athlete daughter, get her to play to her potential and enjoy her sport. And also for you to enjoy this whole sports mom journey as well. Today's a special episode. We have Lindsay at Cortez. She is a registered sports dietician, and she's talking to us. All about what you need to know about preventing disordered eating and female athletes. So we're going to get into that in just a second, but before we do. I have a shout out from a mom in our community. I'm so excited to share this text that I got from Amanda. She said, I see a huge improvement. in my daughter, we have been struggling to get her showmanship up to creating presence by keeping her head up and shoulders back. And it's finally started to happen. I can see it easier for her now to show the confidence she has. And this has helped her win her latest competition. She won it. This qualified her for the national competition in July. Congrats. I am so happy to hear this. Especially love hearing parents that are like, I've tried, I'm telling my daughter this and telling her she needs to do this, telling her confidence or body language and like nothing's getting through. And then they joined the elite competitor program and they just hear it from a different voice. And then they learn strategies on how to unlock some of this confidence that they have in them. And then. Things like this start to happen. So congratulations, Amanda. I'm super excited to hear. How it goes this July. Okay. Today we have Lindsey Cortez. Like I mentioned, Lindsey is the owner of rides up nutrition and the host of the female athlete nutrition podcast. She's a sports dietician, entrepreneur and lifelong athlete she founded rise of nutrition, a virtual sports nutrition practice. Helping female athletes become fit. Fierce and fueled her flagship program. The female athlete system of transformation is specifically designed to help girls and women overcome disordered eating as fast as possible. So in this episode, we really get to the root of what disordered eating is and how we can help prevent our female athletes from going down that route of disordered eating, because you will be surprised or maybe not, but it is a lot more common, a lot more relevant than we might realize. And there are some things that your athlete can be doing now and there's way. You can support your athlete daughter now so that she can. Fuel her body in the way that her athlete body needs without going down this path of becoming obsessive or down this route of disordered eating. So whether your daughter, you don't think your daughter struggles with this at all, or she potentially, or potentially noticing some red flags pop up this, episode's going to be really helpful for you to help know how to navigate those situations. So go ahead and take a listen. I can't wait for you to enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed talking with Lindsay. All right. Welcome Lindsay to the Raising Unstoppable Girl Athletes Podcast. Thank you. Yeah, I'm excited to stay connected with you as we have been over the years, and we did a little podcast swap. You were on my podcast. Now I get to be on yours, so I'm excited. Yes. Yeah, so great. And Lindsay's actually in the elite competitor program. So for those of you that don't know, Lindsay recorded a really great workshop on Food Is Fuel, how to Fuel the Female Athlete, and yeah, it's just so informative. So athletes get to benefit from your, your teaching all the time in our program. Yeah. Thanks. I'm so glad that it's reaching more, you know, there's only so much I can do as one dietician only so many clients I can have. Right. But by linking up with you and your coaching programs for your athletes, like, you know, we're. Getting more nutrition information out there, spreading, you know, the information to the masses. Yeah. So, great. Okay. Well let's start off, for those of you or those of us that don't know you mm-hmm. Can you talk about your background and what you do? Yeah. You know, I am a lifelong athlete myself, did lots of sports in my youth. Gymnastics, track and field. I competed division one, track and field in college. And then, you know, post-college, just, you know, love, just love sports and fitness. So I've done a bunch of different things. I would say running is my main thing that I stay competitive with, with signing up for, you know, races and five Ks and half marathons and things like that. But just a lifelong athlete and I always knew I wanted to work in that field of athletics, but didn't know exactly what but my own journey with, I think being a, a gymnast specifically, I had some concerns starting in high school of, just being superstitious of what I ate on. On meat day. And then, there's things about performing in a leotard, on a four inch balance beam. And, you certainly wanted to make sure that what you ate felt good in your body, made you feel good in your body didn't wanna have any sort of like accidents or anything like that. Right, right. So just like, and, and, and also like you said too, gymnastics is one of those sports you can get really superstitious about certain things, like really regimented. And so, I started to engage in some nutrition behaviors at a young age. Some that were helpful, some in hindsight that I see now were potentially hurtful. But it just was something that was important to me as to how I fueled and what food I put into my body. And then, you know, in trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, my mom, Took note of that and said, Lindsay, you're, you know, you're really pretty good at your food and maybe you can help other people with that. So I started studying it, but it always was that relationship of food and how you can fuel your body as an athlete. And then, in college as I was studying it, I was competing as a D one athlete and took that interest of how cool is it that what we put into our bodies affects our performance? Affects us at practice, can build muscle, can help us recover, can prevent anemia, you know, all those things really relating to sport. And so, my very first job as a dietician, it was in a clinical setting, which is super valuable to know, but I was able to continue to pursue that career path of nutrition in sport. I became a sports dietician a certified registered sports dietician, and got my master's in Sports Nutrition specifically and became a sports dietician for collegiate athletes at Florida State University, university of Georgia, and University of Texas, San Antonio. And then I also did a little bit of my career, not as a sports dietician, but as a performance dietician with special operations military. So it wasn't, wasn't, yeah, it was a really interesting experience for a number of years. it wasn't necessarily about, How to win or lose the game, but more so how do we fuel the body for these intense and unique scenarios of our military? And then, anyways, I, I, that was cool for a little bit, but I came back to my roots of sports once again and established my own business, rise up nutrition and really narrowed down as well, and specifically helping fuel female athletes. Which is just, you know, well that's what I am, so that's my passion and yeah. And something that I love and there's nuances, between, food is fuel for all athletes, but there's nuances and between males and females and girls and boys and especially for our young athletes during developmental years. There are absolutely differences physiologically in and the importance of fueling and I think also socially. Some body image concerns that start in our youth and high school girls. Not to say that boys don't struggle with body image. They do. Yeah. Just different. Right. And so I like to, you know, that's really my niche and my specialty. So that's the journey. Perfect. Yes. And I love that you landed with this special intersection of female athletes fueling nutrition, body image, preventing disordered eating. Like there's so much wrapped up into that. We, our topic for today is around preventing disordered eating, but you got me kind of. Interested What I mean on our side of things too, like mental training, we have narrowed in on female athletes as well, and we get that question all the time. I'm like, well, men or boys need this too. Guys need, like they struggle with, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. But there are some nuances that are, that are different for the female athlete. Where do you see specifically those differences happening in your world? With high school? Yes. Okay. So we can go first from a. Physiological standpoint, and I am gonna narrow down into the, the youth athlete as well. Going through puberty is huge for both girls and boys. But it's one thing that for boys, going through puberty actually helps them in their sport. That big boost in testosterone is wonderful. They get bigger, they get stronger. As girls go through puberty, we struggle with sport, and I don't say this as a bad thing. It's something that we want to be aware of and help girls through that. Because if they get through it, you're going to be a better, faster, stronger athlete once you get through it. But unfortunately, that is a huge, time period where girls drop out of sport where they lose confidence in their body, they start to gain weight, which is actually necessary and a good thing. But because of that, maybe society freaks them out about that. And then they think they need to control their diet and then they go on a diet and then that hurts their performance. And then, they don't go through puberty, then they don't get their menstrual cycle. When you don't have enough estrogen in your body, you don't develop your bones. And then we see huge bone injuries and stress fractures in young girl athletes. And then that takes them out from sport potentially. We also see just delayed. We see so many girls, active girls, and this is kind of a specialty of mine as well. So many active girls that because they're so active in sport, their puberty and their estrogen levels are kind of like delayed, delayed, delayed. Mm-hmm. We call this Amenia primary. Amen. Could also be classified as relative energy deficiency in sport if the issue is, is truly nutritional. And again, that's huge for their bone health issue. But then it's like, Okay, now we're going into college here. We're supposed to be a college athlete, but we're still in, you know, kind of a 14 year old body here. And I don't have the hormones to support muscle growth and recovery. And I'm run down and I'm sick all the time and I'm getting injured all the time. And again, that's just hurting them in their sport as an athlete. So again, a lot of this does tie back to, I mentioned hormones weight changes. And bone health, I think are just like the huge things from a physiological standpoint that girls are going through in those youth and adolescent years that they need support in, because for more the behavioral side of things and those differences is like I. You know, where I said, well, a, a boy going through puberty. I don't know what that's like, but I imagine it's still challenging for them as well. Mm-hmm. But that boost in testosterone and that muscle growth and they feel more powerful and they feel really good with that. Yeah. Throughout their maybe high school sports and stuff like that. And there's certainly boys who struggle with delayed puberty and, and that's a challenge on them. But the girls going through with it when. Sometimes we see those body changes that make us feel uncomfortable we do see weight gain. And again, I'm not saying it's right, but society has their thoughts around that. And it just, it can really from a psychological standpoint, challenge a girl instead of building up her confidence, challenge a girl. And if it does, then lead them to resort to like fearing weight gain. That can be a problem. Altering their diet in a way that's restrictive, that can be a problem, not just from a weight standpoint, like a nutrition standpoint. We see a lot of low iron and anemia in our adolescent athletes, because they're kind of scared of gaining weight or they're uncomfortable with their body changes and they're limiting their food and, they watch a TikTok or an Instagram about staying away from red meat or something like that. Oh, that's fatty. And then that scares them, and then they're not nourishing their body and so yeah, I think that's a, like, it's, it's kind of like, as I'm saying this, probably people are nodding and like, it's, it's very obvious. Right. But yeah. Helping a girl understand the importance of nutrition during that time and taking the focus like away from weight or body image or actually building her up in that regard, empowering her that body changes are good. And helping her show this makes her a athlete even is kind of the way to then help her fuel her body better as well. Yeah. Wow, that's so great. I obviously know the difference. I taught health for 10 years and so like I know the differences in in puberty for males and and females. But you brought up such a great point a couple of times that like I hadn't thought of before, that puberty tends to favor the performance of male athletes that were females because of that distrust room. Like I hadn't Yeah. Thought about that. Yeah. And you know what else? Something else I just thought of too is From a hormone perspective, female hormones are more sensitive to dietary changes, whereas a male's hormones are not as sensitive. So what do I mean by this? Especially in regards to not eating enough, not fueling properly, like mm-hmm. A, a boy really can kind of, like, testosterone is so powerful. So a boy can maybe. Not fuel so great, but like the power of their testosterone, you know, they still have muscle. Right. Whereas a girl, we don't have that power of testosterone. We do have testosterone, but not very much of it. Mm-hmm. We also have other hormones like progesterone and estrin that are so, so, so helpful, but in, in how we function as females, but can sometimes work against us. Progesterone can be very catabolic and break us down. And so it's like, For a girl to not get enough protein is actually more harmful, I would say, in their muscle than like, if a boy doesn't get enough protein, like, wow, they've still got enough testosterone to help 'em out. Whereas if a girl doesn't get enough protein, their recovery really struggles and if a boy, doesn't really eat a good breakfast, like that's not ideal for him, but it doesn't. Might not hurt him if he then goes on to have a good snack and a good lunch and a good dinner. Versus for a girl, nutrient timing is very, very important for their hormones that are released in their hypothalamus and their pituitary gland that then downstream eventually create estrogen. To then have a menstrual cycle and things like that. Nutrient timing is far more important for females than it is for males that sometimes just going as long as, you know, 4, 5, 6 hours without a meal or snack. We see a down regulation in hormones which then again, down regulates everything. Like I was saying, down regulates recovery performance, bone health, menstrual cycles. So I would say that because of our unique female hormones, I don't wanna stress us out, but it's like there's certain things that are actually more important. You know, like getting enough protein and, and eating more often. These are things that are important for girls, and yet because of those body image concerns and societal standards, girls are more likely to skip a meal or not eat much protein. It's like, ugh, that's the exact opposite of what you need. Yes. And then the performance declines, then the confidence goes down even more. Like I can totally see yes, how this, this diamond spiral. And so that's why, you know, it's so great that you're like, you're focusing on what we can control around that. And that is nutrition and Yeah. We did, I didn't just get a question, so I just hopped off a call that we do monthly with the moms of. Athletes in our community and told them that I was meeting with you, and one of 'em specifically asked about timing, so we'll get into kind of this disordered eating and how to prevent that. But she, her specific question was like, is there an optimal timing of like, how often are, you know, our female athletes should be eating? And then you kind of lump in into that, like, okay, you've talked a lot about protein. How much protein should they be eating? Yeah. Yeah. So, How I always like to share this is like a normal human being just for like, life should probably be having like at least eating three times a day, like breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And most people feel that, right? If you don't eat all day, you're gonna be starving and cranky and hangry, right? So it's very normal to be eating, you know, three, three solid meals a day. Now if we add on top of that, like, well, you're an athlete, you wanna maintain your energy levels and you want to certainly have energy before and and recover properly after practice. So that's a huge things I add in a pre and post-workout or practice or game snack, right? So now it's like, okay, we've got three meals and we've got these two snacks to fuel up before and to recover after. And then frankly You know, our, everybody's needs vary. But I would say, you know, even a normal person, that's normal. I, when I say normal, I guess, I mean non-athlete. Yeah, I got you. Like us. Yeah. Yeah. So for like a non-athlete, even non-athletes have a snack or two a day, right? So it's like, okay, so as an athlete we're gonna have breakfast, lunch, dinner, pre-workout, postworkout, and then maybe still another snack or two, whether it's. Midday in between breakfast and lunch or after dinner. And so just like being realistic, that does end up being every, you know, two to three hours of having a meal or a snack. And as I mentioned before, specific to the female athlete, we actually don't want to go much further than four, five hours without food because of that hormone suppression. And so, yeah, I would say from a nutrient timing standpoint, you know, eating every two to three hours, I'm not saying it's wrong to eat breakfast at seven and lunch at 11, four hours later, that that could be okay. But having a snack in between there as well might actually be optimal those energy levels and that recovery. And then I think your follow up question was like how much protein again, super individualized here and especially as we are dealing with youth and adolescent athletes, like there can be a big difference in our body development and our size, like the amount of, of food that you need and the amount of protein that you need. Definitely. You know, body size, activity level, and then stage and growth and development all matter. But I would say it's a, it is important to try and get a source of protein most meals and snacks. Mm-hmm. Definitely in that post-workout recovery as well. I'm sure if you've Google things you'll see, you know, 20 grams of protein post-workout and I think that's solid advice. We've got tons and tons of research. To say that for adults it's probably between 20 to 30 grams. And so for a youth or adolescent athlete, I'd say like 15 to 20 mm-hmm. Is a good, a good aim for that post-workout recovery. And then certainly at your main meals, probably getting a similar, you know, 20 grams of protein at your main meals. And yes. And I think that's a good place to start, right? Because then it's like if we are fueling often, as I mentioned with nutrient timing it doesn't mean that you have to have chicken with your snack because there's lots of things have protein in it. Even if you just have some whole grain crackers and hummus, it's like, that's not much protein, but there is some in there, right? Bagels are mostly carbohydrate, but surprisingly do have in a full bagel, like, you know, seven, eight or nine grams of protein. You'd be shocked, right? Because we do get protein from whole grains. We do get protein from beans and from nuts and from seeds, and so we don't always have to have like this huge, like chicken breast on our plate at every meal. But yeah. So I would say too, even though this might sound like general advice and something easily, Googleable, if that's a word, but, right. Yeah. Yeah. That 20 gram mark at mo at meals and snacks is, is a pretty good place to start for most people. Yeah, I think that's good. And it's also just being mindful of what that snack looks like. I mean, with the athletes that I coach we bring in like a little nutrition. Element to it. But yeah, sometimes like, you know, after a game they're eating like goldfish crackers or whatever, and I'm like, right, right. Okay. Like let's just add maybe just a little protein to that and yeah. Have goldfish and a Greek yogurt. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Just like, absolutely. Yeah. Because I think as much as I'm like, oh my gosh, there's protein in lots of things. Our, our packaged and processed snacks are probably not, not going to have much of them. Right. And I'm not saying that they're bad to eat, but it's like, yeah, we're just coming home from school, raiding the pantry and grabbing cheezits and cereal. Which I have no problem with, but, oh yeah, there's, that wasn't much protein in there. So what if we had cheeses with string cheese? Mm-hmm. Or what if we had cereal with, you know, just a high protein milk and threw some nuts on top, threw some cashews on top for a little extra protein too. Yeah. Love that. Okay. So knowing all of that I think this is a good segue because we, we know that the needs of female athletes are very specific in a way. Like we, we know that they're going through hormonal changes and their body changes. They start to gain weight and which is necessary for the reproductive health. We know that they need a certain amount of protein and all that, but then because of whatever, you know, messages they're getting from, A variety of sources in their life, media, other people. Mm-hmm. Friends, family, they start to think that this is wrong, this is bad. Yeah. And so it becomes problematic to their success. So this is where it gets tricky and where I'm gonna ask some hard questions Yeah. Around disordered eating, and so we can kind of, we can understand why this happens. But first, can you take us. Just to a definition of what, what is disordered eating in the first place? Sure. Mm-hmm. Actually there's not a good definition for that. Oh, okay. So I told you I can you hard questions. Let me start with what is an eating disorder? Okay. Okay. An eating disorder is a clinically. Diagnosed medical condition. It's actually a psychological condition. It is in, in our mental health category more so, so it's a mental health concern that has physical implications. Wow, okay. Yes. So eating disorders can include things like anorexia, which is an extreme fear of gaining weight or of body fat that then leads somebody because of that fear, that mental disorder, that fear of gaining weight. Mm-hmm. They then, Restrict their energy intake and it has that physical implication of malnourishment under nutrition. It can lead to extreme weight loss and low body weight. But I also, I wanna be cautious here. You can be anorexic and not be in a low body weight, but even as you continue, like it could get there. Right? Right. But I also do, I do wanna say that because there are people who might be in what society considers a normal or larger body that are still afraid of weight and afraid of fat, and then restrict their calories very, very low. And, and so that's anorexia. We have bulimia. Is this okay to go into these details here? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Just making sure. Okay. We have bulimia that is Stemming from, again, the psychological of, I don't want this food in my body, maybe because I don't want it to have me gain weight or it feels uncomfortable in my body. Or s you know, there's some reason that I want this food to be out of my body. And so bulimia is an act of, of purging and getting rid of things. It can be through you know, vomiting, but it can also be through laxative use substance abuse. And I also wanna add in over exercise. It's not necessarily considered bulimia per se, but it's certainly a method of compensation of how do I get rid of these calories I consumed? And again, it's, it's usually stemming from this mental place of either feeling undeserving of that food that they just ate or feeling that what they ate was too much. And so with, with Bulimia as well. There can be very often sometimes a, a binging beforehand. It can happen without a binging or it can happen with a binge. A binge is where people consume a large amount of calories, typically in a short amount of time, but more so from that mental side. It's a feeling of a loss of control. Around food, because I do wanna be clear about this as well. There's a lot of people that think they ate a lot of food because society has convinced them they should eat a small amount. And so when they do eat a lot or they feel full, they're like, oh my God, I binged. And it's like, no, that wasn't, you just overate a little bit. Yeah. But a binge is when somebody like. Maybe engages in eating and might not even have a recollection of it later or truly had no control over stopping. And so that's what a binge is. That binge eating can happen on its own or it can happen where then somebody realizes what they did, they feel guilty about it, and they want to compensate and get rid of that. And that's bulimia as well. Mm-hmm. There's a few other eating disorders. There's Avoidant restrictive feeding disorder, which is very interesting. We're, we're seeing a lot more with the rise of some other like, Like autism and other conditions, maybe on the spectrum of people being very particular about like food consistency. Hmm. And, and being restrictive or avoidant because of that. So it's, it's like, it's not necessarily anorexia where they're scared of eating, but like they can't, like, they can't get themselves to eat it. And this is something I've personally Resonated with or understood, but I can imagine, and somebody explained it to me really great one time of like, imagine food put in front of you that like to you like, looks like smells, like, tastes like dog poop. Hmm. Yeah. It's, you know, you're being told to eat it. It's like, no, I can't eat that. Right, right. So that's avoidant, restrictive and again, as psychological work needs to be done there and then we put this big category called eating disorder is not otherwise specified because a lot of these things can overlap and, maybe you resonate a little bit with anorexia, but you have. Purged or there's certain foods that the consistency you can't do, right? Like there's just a lot of things in there. So those are eating disorders and those are not good. Obviously these are not good situations. And because of the physical implications of them as well they can become very severe, very quickly. They can be save going down that rabbit hole, but it is something to be taken very seriously. Now, disordered eating should also be taken very seriously, but it might be something that I wanna start with disordered eating. Might just be disordered eating or it might be something that eventually turns into a full-blown eating disorder. That's something to be cautious of. What I say disordered eating is, is anything that disrupts your physical, mental, athletic relationship or financial health. Yeah. So if you were trying to eat. So healthy. Maybe you're an athlete. Here's a perfect case scenario. You're an athlete that's bought into this idea that food is fuel and so you're trying to eat so you know, really healthy. Yeah. And you're trying to eat clean, and I've got air quotes around that. Mm-hmm. But because of that, you won't go out to dinner with your family on a Friday night. And you can't just like, you're like, no, I can't, I can't go out to dinner. That's, that's unhealthy food. Right. Well, One that's interfering with your relationships and your family life. And how much fun you're having. And then two, we can also go down the path of is this actually affecting you physically? Like maybe, maybe you did need those extra fats and calories from that meal. You know, maybe you are actually starting to lean out. Maybe you're not anorexic, but you're like really, really lean. And you know what? As a female athlete, you're not getting your period regularly and you're not recovering, your energy on the field isn't as good like, Maybe you actually did need a good restaurant meal to refuel you, and yet their brain is kind of limiting them because they're thinking, oh, that's unhealthy. Right. So I, I don't have a clear definition for disordered eating, but it's like, it's like that one step below of. You know, maybe this is not clinically manifested into a, a full-blown eating disorder, but we're starting to do some behaviors around food. Mm-hmm. Or we're starting to think about food that might actually be limiting us. And the longer it goes on, the more, more likely it could turn into an eating disorder. Absolutely. Yeah. Maybe some other examples of disordered eating, I would say is certainly falling into any of our. Diet trends going on right now. Like we spoke earlier about the importance of fueling often. Well, if somebody's like, no, I have to do intermittent fasting, and they truly believe like intermittent fasting is good and healthy and they're like, I can't eat. I can only eat between the hours of 10 to 8:00 PM and they will not allow themselves to eat breakfast even if they have morning practice. I'll say that's disordered. Yeah, I would say that that's disordered because we have no proof that intermittent fasting is good or healthy or right for you, and you're, you're like limiting yourself from practice. You're limiting yourself from having breakfast. You're potentially harming yourself physically and you're mentally stressing yourself out about holding yourself to these. Arbitrary times that are, you know, made up. That's what, when I say there's no proof, it's like this, we're, we're just making this up, that there's nothing to say that eating outside of 10 to eight is bad, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So that's maybe another example, and, and I'll also say with disordered eating it is that mindset approach towards food, again, in our culture and society. Recently, recently, not recently, I don't know, the past, like 20 plus years has certainly created this like, you know, salads are good, fast food is bad mindset. And people will think I'm crazy for saying this, but I don't believe that's true. Right? Because if you are always and only eating salads and never eating fast food, I can see that that's disordered because as I just mentioned, like I. Maybe you aren't getting physically all the nutrients you need. Maybe you're not getting enough energy or fats and maybe you're limiting yourself in, in having fun with food from time to time. I'm not saying we should eat McDonald's three times a day every day. I'm not saying that, but like you have it once a month, it's, it actually is. Okay. Yeah, it, it is your body can handle that. It, it's, I, you know, people will argue with me over things like this, but your body can handle it right? And knows how to digest it. And sometimes again, this is a very individual response, but sometimes there's more harms to not giving yourself that permission once a month. Totally. Yeah, I, I can, I can absolutely see that. And so what I'm hearing you say is there's a whole classification of eating disorders that are clinically diagnosed and mm-hmm. If you suspect that your daughter has an eating disorder, definitely should be addressed by a medical professional. And there needs to be a, probably a combination of like physical and, and mental Yes. Health there. Yes. Yeah. But there's also this kind of category of, Behaviors that can lead to like, lead down this path. And we see it. Like, I, I see this all the time in athletes and when I talk to moms too, you know, they'll say like, oh, I'm gonna go on a diet or I'm gonna do Whole 30, or like, you know, I can't eat that. And so how can we prevent these turning into full-blown eating disorders? Yeah. So This is very hard for the parents and moms to hear because they were raised in a generation that like they were exposed to disordered eating. Oh yeah. Yeah. When I look back too as a, I'm like, oh my gosh, my, yeah. I see. Yeah, mom for sure. Yes. Yeah. I mean, I went to my first Weight Watchers meeting with my mom when I was like 14 or 15 because my, it was my mom going, yeah. And I was interested in the stuff and I wanted to support her, and I thought it was healthy. Me too. I went to Weight Watchers with my mom. Yes, yes. But you know what, then that did for me at 14, 15 years old, I started counting my calories. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Couple points, things were worse. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And I got very good at it, very fast. And, Then I'm thinking, oh, well my mom is eating 1500 calories, but I'm smaller than my mom. I'm younger than my mom. I'm, you know, so I should eat less than that. Right. And so a again, I'm saying this is hard for the parents to hear because I do not blame any parent and what their experiences were. Yeah. Nor do I blame their parents. And, you know, my grandmother, my, my own grandmother, I sometimes see with her own, nutrition issues and body image issues. So it's like this generational thing, and I really want to empower the moms as much as you can to learn yourself the harms of dieting and diet culture. Maybe do some self-reflection on, on how it has negatively affected your life. And that could be a really good first place to start to make sure that something is different for your daughters, right? Mm-hmm. And, and frankly, that, that is a huge part of my story. I do not blame my mom for what she went through, right? You know, raising kids in the nineties and early two thousands when it was, you know, we were in the, the. Low fat. Yeah. Haze at that time. Yeah. Like I grew, like there were SlimFast shakes in my house. I remember I loved those SlimFast shakes. I was drinking them. I loved them. The then skinny cow. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. But then I thought that that was a meal. Mm-hmm. You know, and it wasn't. And then I began to hurt myself. Right. So it's and by the way, moms are allowed to have different diets than their daughters. That's okay. But, you know, watching what we say I think that, You know, this is such a blanket statement, but it's so powerful if you actually embody it. All foods fit. Mm-hmm. And all foods can be good. And again, I'm gonna go to the extreme and be radical here. I am a dietician. I love salads. However, soda, which we've got, Lots of things to say that maybe soda isn't so good for us. Right? Right. All foods fit, all foods can be good because if you've got a diabetic who's got low blood sugar going into hypoglycemia, give that diabetic soda and it will save their life. Mm-hmm. Maybe not even a diabetic. A girl at practice one day that accidentally skipped lunch and she just passed out on the court, give her a Sprite. Mm-hmm. Bring her blood sugar back up. And she will be feeling better. Right? Right. And so it's like all foods can fit, all foods can be good. I'm not saying that we should drink soda all the time. However, just recognizing that first and foremost to never say that a food is bad is so important. Food. Food is not moral. It is not bad. It is just an option there for us, ready to provide us with. Calories, maybe carbs, proteins, fats, some vitamins, some minerals. Some have more than others, some have less than others. It is just an option. And once you learn about a food, it is not bad, but you can then learn how can I make this fit in a way that fuels me and makes me feel great? Mm-hmm. You know? So yeah. If I drink soda as my form of hydration all day long, I would not feel good. I would probably notice that in my energy levels throughout the day. I would probably start to see that in my blood work, you know, and things like that. I would see that on, on the court or on the field where it's like, oh, I didn't have enough protein. I'm not feeling strong. I'm not recovering, and I just chugged a soda, so I've got tons of energy and then I crash, you know, later. So we have to start paying attention to our bodies. And these are, I think, for parents, Conversations to have with your daughters. Like, well, how did that food make you feel? It's not, don't eat that, that's bad. It's how did it make you feel? And again, the younger athlete, it's gonna be kind of hard to get this outta them, but they might say like, you know, well I felt fine, but then like, yeah, I felt really tired afterwards. And then you could say, oh, maybe you need something that's gonna give you more long lasting energy. You know, I think maybe water and some, oatmeal, granola bar and water will give you more long-lasting energy. And then, Sprite, let's, let's save that for the weekends after your game as a treat and. I'm totally going on a tangent here. Just talking. Am I answering your question? Yeah, I think so. Right. We're talking about like this overarching preventing that, you know, going on the path of eating disorders. Yeah. Yeah. So preventing it is really it. I mean, the conversations that we have, the influence you and I talked about this. A little bit, I think on my podcast, just the, the power of the mother-daughter relationship. It's so strong. And I, and I say this not to scare a parent into, you know, thinking they're going to be the cause or creation of an eating disorder, but because I, I would never put that, that blame on them. But it is just knowing that the words you say about food matter and so starting to embrace that all foods can fit and all foods can be good, but we have to figure out. When and why does it, you know, is it good for you? And when and why does it not feel so good for you? Yeah. And then I think you know, modeling that yourself again, which is hard, but modeling that yourself is important. So it is important for you as a parent to, try and eat a balanced diet. Get your spinach in, get your lean proteins in, talk about the importance of protein, and then enjoy a cookie with your daughter as well, right? Yeah. You know, to, to really do both. And not only is that helping your daughter prevent eating disorders, but I'm gonna say again because of what parents have gone through in their own journeys with food gonna help you too. You're gonna be absolutely, probably better nourished and a lot happier with your fueling and life as well. Yeah, totally. No, I think that's so, that's such a good point. And yeah, like you said, it's not anyone's fault and I think at the root of it, we're trying to do what's best and like, you know, when I think about my mom's like kind of in and outta diets and like, I can't eat that right now. And I, all of that, which has really impacted like my relationship with food. But I'm like, okay, she's just, she's. I'm choosing to believe that she is trying to be a healthy version of herself and Yeah. You know, the way we went about it was like, kind of, you know, had some implications, but this is a big question, like how, how do we balance and walk that line of like, you know, I had a question from a parent specifically that said like, how do I tell her what she's eating is not healthy without causing her this to have this complex or this potentially leading to an eating disorder. Okay? And she's eating 11 for teas at night or whatever is what I want. So my first tip is instead of pointing out what's not healthy, is to point out what is healthy. Okay? So that, that's tip number one is, is to point out, hey you know, fruits are really healthy. Are you, what fruits do you like? I notice you're not eating any fruit throughout the day. Let's, like what fruit do you like? And maybe maybe your daughter fights back and says, I don't like fruit, but it's like, really not anything. How about fruit cups? How about bananas? Like, you know, and then, okay, great. How about you start bringing a piece of fruit with you to school every day? So whatever it might be is start pointing out what is healthy and if they are eating something healthy, like. You know, make sure you're like, oh my gosh, that looks delicious. You know, you don't have to be like, good job for eating healthy, because they're gonna think that's weird, but like, yeah, wow, that looks like a really yummy meal. That looks awesome. So encouraging the healthy food, making sure it's available and yeah, bringing the focus on what is healthy instead of pointing out what is unhealthy per se. Okay. And then the next thing would be you know, feel free to have a conversation of like, You notice a lot of tortillas at nighttime. Are you eating enough throughout the day? Mm-hmm. Do you need more? Do you need to bring more snacks to school? What if we brought you, what if we packed some tortillas as a midday snack at school? Right? So that and, and even still, maybe it's a ton of tortillas, but even still, it would be better to eat. Five tortillas midday and five tortillas at night than it is seat 10 tortillas at night. Right. It, it really is. It really truly is. And, and maybe if they pack five tortillas during the day, then maybe they actually wouldn't be hungry at night. Mm-hmm. Right. So I think just asking them, or just saying like, Hey, I noticed you doing this. Like, are, you know, are you, are you hungry? Are you craving that? Like I just. You know, I just wanna help you. You know, you don't have to say it's really bad to eat at nighttime. It's like, well, why are they eating at nighttime? So I think again, tip number one, focus on what is healthy. Tip number two is to just curiously ask, coming from a place of, I've noticed this behavior, is there anything. We can do that might help. Third tip is to ask them how, you know, I guess along with that number two tip is like, how are they feeling? Because they're gonna be like, yeah, I'm starving at nighttime. Or you know, maybe they are like, starting to feel like, yeah, I know it doesn't feel good, but I'm just so hungry. Or I just really like it. Or, just gotta be like, talk through it with them. And the last tip that I hate to say, but it's just the truth is this is where bringing somebody else into the picture can be helpful. Yeah. Right. Yeah. There's, there's moms and dads are always know what's best for their kids, and yet sometimes the kids just don't listen. Right. And so that's where like for me, even when I'm working with clients, like a huge part of it is education because they're not getting this information in school. They're not, I mean, maybe our high schoolers have a health class, but like they're not Really understanding or it's not tailored to them as athletes. And so, mm-hmm. You know, by just bringing in somebody else to teach them or guide them or have these conversations with them can go a long way. Oh yeah, no, totally. We hear that all the time. Like, oh, you know, I say this all the time, but when she heard it from you, now she's, and especially when it comes to like food and nutrition, like anytime that athletes get any sort of education around nutrition, I hear, I hear from moms that are like, well, I've been telling her all the, like whole time that she should eating more protein. Now all of a sudden she's like, can we go to the grocery store and. And signs and healthy sources of protein. So yes. Yeah, that's, yeah. That's so, so helpful. Well, yeah. Okay. This has been great. I, I feel like I could have a whole nother podcast of questions and information here. But what you've provided has been really great. Lindsay, can you Yeah. Tell moms where else they can find you? Sure. So I am on, Instagram mostly @female.athlete.Nutrition. I have a podcast, the Female Athlete Nutrition Podcast, and my website is www.riseupnutritionrunrun.com. RiseUP nutrition run.com. And that's my business name, rise Up Nutrition. Mm-hmm. And yeah, if you go on my website You know, we have links to the podcast, links to blogs. I have a shop for some downloadable resources. Fueling Your High School Athlete is a free ebook that I have, and also I have a free quiz. If you go to RiseUP nutrition run.com/r e d s, which is red s I know we didn't dive into it too much today, but red s is called Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport and, and we see it a lot in female athletes. You know, whether or not they're strongly resonating with like an eating disorder or disordered eating. It's that concept of maybe I'm not fueling enough or appropriately for my sport needs. Mm-hmm. And I have like a free quiz on there that you can see if maybe red s is starting to become a concern for you, because that's one of my specialties in helping female athletes overcome red s and overcome disorder to eating. So lots of resources there. Yeah, totally. We'll link those in the show notes. But thank you again, Lindsay. This has been really great. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your wisdom with us. Thanks so much, Breanne.