“I remember going through a pretty awful breakup and just mentally wasn’t in a great place. Not knowing much about nutrition, I thought that I wanted to be a better athlete and I had this newfound sense of motivation. What ended up happening was developing this sense of putting a lot of pressure on myself. I just started doing Google searches like people do all the time. It was ‘How to be a better athlete?’ or ‘How to be stronger?’ or ‘How to be leaner?’ And what do you think the results are that came up as? There are different fad diets, cutting out carbohydrates, only eat this or don’t eat that or fruit. Gosh, I must have tried everything. I remember being so depleted at the end of some days. I thought, ‘OK. This is just how it’s supposed to be. They said this would happen. Just keep eating more protein or do things like that.’ There was a point that I got to where I determined, ‘This is not sustainable. My performance is now suffering. My mental health is suffering.’ That’s when I started learning actually and truly what nutrition means.”

Erin Kenney is a registered dietitian out of Boston who specializes in gastrointestinal disorders, sports nutrition, medicinal cannabis use. The reason I wanted Erin on this podcast was that I thought that she would be super helpful in navigating many relevant topics about fueling by runners. A little bit over a year ago, I reached out to Erin to get some of her advice on how I should be approaching things as a professional athlete.

She is also the author of ‘Rewire Your Gut’ and hosts her own Nutrition Rewired podcast.

▶ Follow Erin on Instagram here.

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