Welcome back to season 2 of Stay At The Top!
I thought a great place to start this season on would be to discuss the 4 main warning signs that our body and brain give us when it comes to our health and wellbeing. If you are like my clients, chances are you’re living a busy, hectic life, often having to look after other people and this makes it very easy to miss these warning signs. So if you want to catch yourself before you fall, this episode is going to provide the signs to look out for and how to act on them.
In this episode I share:
- Why the ‘energy crash and burn’ is one of the big warning signs
- What can cause the energy crash and burn
- How to avoid or handle this change in energy
- Why the one size fits all meal and exercise plans don’t work
- How to figure out your individual routine to avoid the crash and burn
- Why the actual craving for sugar is a warning sign for your health
- Why eating sugar doesn’t actually help with your energy levels
- How gut issue work as the third warning sign for your health
- What is often actually causing gut issues
- The importance of FODMAPS
- Why low immunity and frequent illness is a big warning sign
- How under eating can lead to illness and bad health
- My experience with under fuelling and how it affected my performance
Key Quotes
“I believe every single person has an operating system and a routine and a rhythm that works for them.”
“If you are getting sick often, take that as a huge sign from your body and brain that something is not quite right.”
Episode Resources
The High-Performance Profile Quiz (link) https://jessicaspendlove.com/quiz/
Jess Spendlove Instagram (link) https://www.instagram.com/jess_spendlove_dietitian/?hl=en
Jess Spendlove Linked (link) https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-spendlove-64173bb8/
About Your Host
Jessica Spendlove | Wellbeing Speaker & High Performance Strategist
Jess Spendlove is an international wellbeing and high performance speaker, coach, and advisor. With over 15 years of experience across corporate leadership, elite sport and the military she is known for helping ambitious leaders and teams optimise energy, build resilience, and sustain peak performance.
As one of Australia’s leading performance dietitians and a trusted voice in executive wellbeing, Jess delivers science-backed strategies that empower individuals, teams and organisations to thrive under pressure and achieve long-term success.
Episode Transcript
The following transcript has been automatically generated and not checked for accuracy
Jess (00:11.63)
Welcome back to season two of Stay at the Top. For those joining me, I am so thrilled that you are here and I know that you are going to love what I have in store this season. I thought a really great place to start was to talk about the warning signs that our body and our brain are often telling us that we’re not very good at listening to or understanding what the message actually is. Today I wanna get to the root cause of some of.
Today I wanna get to the root cause of four of the main warning signs that my clients, my community, and to be honest myself have had at different time points. Now the reality is we live in a very full, the reality is most of us have very hectic schedules. We’re worrying often about most other people other than ourselves, which makes it really easy to miss a lot of these warning signs.
whether you’re a parent focusing on your children and your family, whether you are…
Whether you’re a parent who’s focused on their children or the family household and the dynamics, whether you are, whether you’re someone who’s worried about your friends or your business or your employees or your team or your job, you name it, we have a lot of external factors which we care about because we’re humans who care. But what often that can mean is that we are not very good at looking after ourselves in a way that we need.
Now today’s episode is very much about my own personal and professional experience. I sit here as someone who for many, many years was so focused on my career, my job, the thousands of athletes that I worked with. I honestly put all of their needs before my own. And I know this is something maybe not to that extreme, I hope not, but I know that this is something that a lot of people listening,
Jess (02:17.39)
probably resonate with in some way, shape or form. So I really hope today’s episode is an opportunity for you to pause, have a bit of a reset, have a little bit of a reset and think about if you’re experiencing any of these warning signs. Now, some of you might be experiencing a lot of them very often. Some of you might only experience one or two.
And for others, this might just serve as a little bit of an indication on what to look out for if you do start to push things a little bit too hard. And what I want is for you to be able to identify, break that circuit, identify them and know what the solution is so that you can start putting things into place. This isn’t about being robots, we’re humans, we need to live our life.
Nothing is ever gonna be linear or static. It is always going to ebb and flow. But really importantly, we need to be taking care of ourselves. So on that note, let’s get into the four warning signs that our body and our brain are regularly telling us.
Jess (03:40.814)
Now the first one I want to talk about is the energy crash and burn. This can look a little bit different for some people it is across the day. So it might be a really big afternoon energy crash and burn. Whereas for other people it might be more that they fatigue across the week. That is something that is reported to be really common. They start quite good on a Monday. They’ve rested. They’ve relaxed. They’ve restored their energy levels on the weekend and then across the week because they’ve got
They’re racing between a thousand things.
Jess (04:17.774)
And then across the week they’re racing between a thousand things or they just have a lot of commitments which then leaves them feeling quite exhausted by the end of the week. Now…
One of the things I want to call out here is that if this is happening, it’s likely that you were not being proactive with your strategies. You were being reactive and you’re letting your day or week run you rather than being proactive and having your day or week set up to support you. Now, this can look in so many different ways, but some of the main examples I want to talk about here is one, your health and fitness.
When in your week are you prioritizing yourself? When are you moving? When are you having breaks? For those working, when are you having breaks?
How are you time blocking your day? Are you starting your day with the most important task? Are you working in cycles? When you’re breaking and having a brain break, which I’ve spoken about quite a bit in season one, if not, head back and listen to episodes that talk about micro recovery strategies. But when you’re having a brain break, are you actually being stimulant free? Are you stepping away from technology? That means emails and social media. Are you…
using that time to restore and actually regenerate whether that’s meditation or walking or having a nutritious snack. What we don’t want there is for you to just be having caffeine and or sugar and or technology. What we really need you to do is use those mini breaks, those brain breaks strategically to restore. Mentally that is really going to help you if you are one of these people who either has this energy crash and burn across the day or across the week it is going to
Jess (06:13.152)
going to really help you quite a bit there. Now, aside from looking at the structure of your day, the structure of your week, when you’re getting in these activities that support you and allow you to be proactive and allow you to increase your energy, whether that’s physical or cognitive, and then restore it, it’s also, of course, I’m going to talk about nutrition, but looking at what we’re doing with our meals and snacks. Are we being proactive?
Are we having our meals and snacks at set time points throughout the day? Not going too many hours between without having anything. So when we do get to our next meal or snack, we’re not absolutely starving. Now…
Everyone’s a little bit different here. I’m not sitting here saying every single person listening to this needs to eat three hours. I know I’ve got people who listen to these who are athletes or who train like athletes doing all different types of events. And for those people, they need to often eat two to three hours because they’re training twice most days. Whereas I know I also have other people who are moving a little bit or would like to be moving more. And if they were eating every two to three hours, they would be over consuming. So in those instances, it
it might be more like every three, four or five hours. But whatever your rhythm is, I encourage you to find that. And this is something I am so incredibly big on and whether that’s with my coaching clients or I’m really excited to, I guess, give you a little bit of a taste test, but in my brand new group coaching program, which is where I will be teaching my methodology that I use with my one -on -one clients in a very small group setting. So you get the best of both worlds. You get the practice, you get the support, you get the accountability.
but it is at a significantly reduced cost to what my one -on -one coaching programs would be. So if that’s of interest to you, click on the link in the show notes and make sure you join the wait list. But the reason I bring that up is because I believe every single person has an operating system and a routine and a rhythm that works for them. It’s really just about figuring out what that is. And when you’re busy, when you’ve got a family or when you’ve got a lot of work commitments or all of the above,
Jess (08:30.72)
How do you have the time, space and bandwidth to figure that out on your own? That’s why it is so helpful to have a coach or go into a program that helps guide you. The next piece of that is it’s not just about having a meal plan or a routine that you download from the internet or that your local gym has given you. That is just a one size fits all. This is what we’re putting everybody on because that doesn’t consider you. As I said at the start of this point,
on your energy, it really is about being proactive with your day, with your life, with your behaviours that set you up for success. And when we just copy the standard meal plan or training routine or whatever it is that we’re copying, that doesn’t consider us, our lifestyle, our lives, our goals, our starting point and all the other variables.
That’s where we get it wrong. And that’s why in my new group program, it is teaching the methodology, but applying it to your life. The very first step of that program is going to be the life order process, which I, it was episode 17 or 18 in season one, but I took you through the process. I explained the process that I follow with my one -on -one clients. And that is something I am going to be teaching in this new group program. Part of that is.
is getting you to capture what your energy levels look like across the day. Now, everyone’s a little bit different. We’ve got our morning people, we’ve got our night hours, and so everyone’s energy rhythm is going to be a little bit different, but what I am looking for is the peaks, the troughs, and like I said, that crash and burn. Now, if you don’t experience the energy crash and burn, well, that is fantastic, but I know a lot of people do. And like I said, it can either present itself at the, generally in the afternoon,
for most people, or it is that measurement of how you start the week to how you finish the week.
Jess (10:43.534)
Now, the second warning sign that I want to talk about is sugar cravings. Now, sugar cravings, I’m not just talking about the desire to have something sweet, you know, maybe you feel like a biscuit or some chocolate and…
that’s coming from a place of, oh, that’s just something I feel like and I will enjoy. What I’m talking about is the very regular, if not daily, desire for sugar at generally the same time of day. So again, this is generally either in the afternoon, pre -dinner or post -dinner. The interesting thing about that is it’s never first thing in the morning. So for those of you experiencing sugar cravings, have you ever thought of that? That it’s never,
You don’t wake up craving sugar. It generally happens across the day. Now, the reason for that is that is your brain. That is your brain’s way of saying, hey, hello. I haven’t had enough of what I need. Now, that can be a few different things that can either be I haven’t had enough total food, so I’ve under eaten and I’m feeling really low. That can also mean that you just haven’t had the right mix of nutrients. So generally people are lacking
in protein, fibre or they might be dehydrated. So what I tend to find is that it’s generally a combination of all of those things. We know most Australians don’t have enough fibre. We know that most Western countries, including Australia, don’t have sufficient levels of protein with the… We know that in Westernised countries… Sorry Sam, I’m going to start that sentence again.
We know in westernised countries that most people have quite low intakes of protein at breakfast and snacks. And if we come back to one of the main points I regularly talk about, consistency with meals and behaviours, by under -eating protein at breakfast, having a large intake at lunch, what that does is it spikes and it disrupts our blood sugar levels. And when our blood sugar levels are disrupted, that’s when our energy and our focus is disrupted. And that is what can…
Jess (12:58.912)
and that is what can drive us to be over hungry going into the next meal or snack. So what we wanna do here is when it comes to sugar cravings, we wanna see this as a direct line from our body and brain saying, hey, hello, we’ve missed something here. So use it as a clue. The other thing I commonly see is when someone starts to crave sugar and they, you know, I don’t wanna…
When someone starts to crave sugar and they opt for biscuits, chocolate, cake, whatever it might be, they’re doing that when they haven’t actually eaten again for a number of hours. So one thing I like to tell people in this instance is have a snack, have an everyday snack which has some protein, some fibre and some colours, whether that’s Greek yoghurt, nuts and seeds with some fruit, whether that’s crackers with some smoked salmon or cheese and tomato, whether that’s a smoothie. We actually want to give
ourselves something that is going to satisfy us which is the protein and the fiber in particular and then if we’re still feeling like something sweet have it after that. What I see people doing is they crave the sweets, they choose the sweet foods but as we know all of these whether it’s cakes, whether it’s biscuits, whether it’s chocolate, all of those things they’re really low in fiber, they’re really low in protein, they’re really high in sugar and refined carbohydrates and saturated fat and these are foods that
that do not fill us up, they don’t help us feel good and that’s why we might plan to have a row of chocolate but we end up eating half a block because we’re actually hungry and when we’re choosing to eat something we’re not actually eating something that satisfies us. So another little workaround or strategy in this space is to have the snack first and then have the treat but sorry have the snack first and then opt for that sweeter option. Like I said this isn’t me saying don’t
This isn’t me saying don’t eat chocolate, don’t eat cake, but what I often find is people eating these foods regularly, daily. Yeah, I’m sorry, no, we don’t want that bit.
Jess (15:14.382)
Yeah.
Jess (15:19.375)
So like I said, in this instance, it really is about just understanding what your body and your brain are trying to tell you. And it generally means that you haven’t had enough or you haven’t had the right mix of nutrients earlier on in the day to satisfy yourself. And when you do start to do that, and when you do start to be more proactive and you start to get that rhythm and mix of nutrients earlier on in the day with more balanced snacks, a higher protein breakfast, you will find that those regular cravings
that are happening later in the day start to reduce or soften down, start to reduce or quieten down. The third warning sign I want to touch on are gut issues. Now,
Jess (16:07.215)
Now it is important to call out that there are… Now it is important to call out that more than…
Jess (16:19.982)
Now the third warning sign I want to talk about are gut issues. So if you’re someone who finds that they sometimes have gut issues, sometimes don’t. So this whether it is in the form of bloating, urgency with the bathroom, constipation, basically anything that’s impacting the gastrointestinal tract and it isn’t a consistent, likely this is being driven by stress. Now the brain and the gut are constantly talking about
to each other. There is a bi -directional communication and relationship between the two. So it’s important to know what’s going on in the gut is impacting what’s going on in our brain and vice versa. What’s going on in our brain is impacted by what is going on in our gut. Now it’s understandable for the first place for us to jump when we are having gut issues is to think, oh it must be the food. And in some instances it is the food and even if it is being driven by stress and what’s going on in our brain,
brain, it is presenting itself in the gut often as a sensitivity to certain foods. Now, the thing to call out here is that we basically have thresholds to different types of foods. They’re called FODMAPs, which stand for fermentable oligosaccharide, disaccharides, monosaccharide, oh, sorry, they stand for fermentable oligosac…
oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, is that right? Fodmaps, fuck, sorry.
Jess (17:55.086)
Yes.
So FODMAP stands for fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols. And these are basically short chain carbohydrates that the small intestine absorbs poorly. So every single person, these types of foods are poorly absorbed. Now you might find that you eat pretty much the same thing most days, or you’re at least eating the same types of foods, maybe in different ingredients or recipes.
But all of a sudden you’re starting to get these uncomfortable gut symptoms. Now, it’s really important to understand that when we are stressed, our threshold for those FODMAP foods is reduced. Not all of them, but some of them. And this is where we start to, this is why often people immediately think it’s food, but often having great stress management practices can be really supportive in improving our gut issues. Now, the other,
really interesting, the other really interesting point to make when it comes to gut issues is often the more irregular we are without nutrition, whether we are inconsistent with what we eat and when, or we are not eating enough, so we are under eating, whether that is intentionally or just a byproduct of having very full schedules, that can also exacerbate our gut symptoms, which again is the opposite of what our
brain would be telling us. When we have gut symptoms that are really uncomfortable, it’s really normal for people to pull back on what they are eating and get quite mindful. But often that pulling back, unintentionally or deliberately eating less can actually exacerbate those gut symptoms. Really, this is something I commonly see with whether it’s the corporate clients or the athletes that I work with that are experiencing these gut symptoms. When we
Jess (19:55.823)
when we work on their stress management practices and when we also just start by working on what they are eating and how much and when they start to dissipate. Now that’s not taking away from the fact that there are a lot of people that suffer from irritable bowel syndrome and if that is you I would definitely encourage that you are working with an accredited practicing dietitian to go through the FODMAP protocol to remove and reintroduce but what we don’t want to do because FODMAPs is something that is starting to get more
out into the media, people are starting to hear what it is. And if you are someone suffering from gut issues and you go on a low FODMAP diet, you will often start to feel quite significant gut relief quite soon. And the reason for that is because we’re removing those foods which do not completely digest in our small intestine. So therefore we’re removing the stimulus. But the downside of that is those foods that ferment in our gut
gut, those FODMAP foods are actually very, very important for our gut health. Now, I haven’t actually done any dedicated episodes to gut health, so I will do a few episodes in season two so we can get really clear. And this is why it’s so important that we’re informed. It’s really easy for people to go, I’m having this symptom, I’m removing that food, happy days, symptoms are all gone. But by doing that, two things. One, like I said, you’re not having the benefit of those foods.
in promoting your microbiome, which is very protective and our gut health is so critical that every single one of us who is a high performer or who is someone who’s just wanting to be their healthier self needs to address. The second thing is that when we remove a food, if we do have a little bit of a sensitivity to it and we don’t have that stimulus and we don’t work at our threshold, we are often then, we are then making ourselves more sensitive.
The last point I want to make on the gut issues is that you need to understand that it can also be circumstantial. So if you are in a period of high stress, so a perfect example is public speaking or a presentation, whether that’s at your job or whether you are a speaker. So I am a speaker myself and maybe a bit of an overshare, but that’s what I’m here for.
Jess (22:21.965)
This might be a little bit of an overshare, but this is something that I’ve had to really work on and use for myself. So if there are periods of high stress, whether it’s just a situation or an extended period of time, these FODMAP foods can start to become a little bit, you can start to react to them. So the example I like to use is breakfast most mornings, I’ll have like a few eggs on some sourdough with avocado and some vegetables. But if I’m presenting,
I still want to have that breakfast because that satisfies me and I want to be fueled and I want to make sure that I am performing at my best when I’m speaking. But I want to remove the stimulus of the avocado and certain vegetables that are high FODMAP foods. So I’m obviously lucky that I have awareness on what these foods are. But this is just another example of how you can start to tune into some warning signs that your body is telling you. And if that’s the case, I would really encourage you to
seek individual support or as I mentioned I am running that group program it will be launching it is a beta launch which also means the other thing I want to touch on with that a beta launch means that it is the highest touch highest access to myself the group is being kept small because I want to make sure that every single person in the group has the best outcome that they’re walking away with a customized plan and operating system tailored to them but it is also at the lowest price it is as it is the very first
time I’m running this program it is going to be less than 50 % of what it will be when I officially launch it later this year. So again if this is sounding like something that you need you’re wanting to reset, rewire, integrate these behaviors into your life, find a sustainable way of operating.
Jess (24:13.582)
Find a sustainable way of operating networks for your life and your goals and where you’re starting from, that you want that accountability. And the other thing I just wanna say here is that…
The people I work with are highly intelligent people and it’s not that they don’t necessarily know some or all of the things that I talk about, but there is a difference between knowing and doing. And that’s where it really comes into behaviour change and that’s where it really comes into knowing the first one or two behaviours, or as I like to call them, dominoes that we need to push in the right direction. And that is dependent on you and where you’re starting from in your life. And that is what these one size fits all meal plans or
exercise routines or strategies that we just get given at our local gym or we download from the internet or someone else that we might follow that isn’t an expert doesn’t consider those factors. Now, the very last warning sign that I want to touch on here today is if you are regularly getting sick. Now, I’m talking about getting run down, getting colds, getting flus or getting gastro. If you’re someone who’s very active, that’s definitely a warning sign from your body.
that you are under -fuelling, you are not getting enough of the right nutrition either in total or around your training sessions. Now, the thing about when we exercise, no matter who we are, if we’re training, I know people that listen to these, they’re doing Ironmans and marathons and they’re training twice a day. If you are not getting the nutrition piece right before, during and after, you are not buffering the stress that is caused on your body when you train. The way that we improve our physical fitness,
no matter who we are is by stressing the body. This is good stress. But what we want to make sure that we’re doing is that we’re supporting our body by fueling adequately before, during and after. If we stress our body, increase our cortisol levels, we don’t buffer them down, that increases our risk of getting sick.
Jess (26:13.486)
The second part to that is if we are just under eating in general or we’re burning the candle. We’re training, we’re eating, sorry, we’re training, we’re working, schedules are very full and we’re getting caught up in the messaging around. The other side of this is for the…
The other side of this is for the person who is simply just not eating enough. Now if you are training once or twice a day,
I would really encourage you to seek guidance if you are getting sick often to make sure that your nutrition and your recovery is tailored to your program. This is something I really commonly say. I’ve worked with international speakers and business owners who are also training for, like I said, these kind of these Ironman or marathon events. And when I sit down and hear what they’re eating, they are massively under fueling for their requirements. If you were someone, whether it’s yourself or if you’re a parent listening and it should show,
and they’re very active and they’re getting sick a few times a year, that is a really big sign that the fuelling piece of the puzzle is not optimised. Now for me myself, my whole journey into doing everything I do today was off the back of me being a high level national level swimmer in high school. And…
Mics. And unfortunately, I started to get sick really often. I had injuries. I was.
Jess (27:48.174)
in my performance and we were searching for answers and it turned out that I was massively under -fuelled for the sport that I was doing. I was getting colds and flus and ear infections multiple times per year and that is a really big sign that something is not quite right. And when you are training a lot, when you are training a lot or even if you’re only exercising, when you are training often,
it can be really easy to under eat. The other side of that is if you’re someone who just exercises once a day, but you’re really trying to be mindful, maybe you want to shift your body composition or lose some weight, you might actually be underestimating how much you need. And again, if that is, if you are getting sick often, take that as a huge sign from your body and brain that something isn’t quite right. And the first stop will be your nutrition and looking at that. But the second piece of the puzzle will be your overall
schedule and your recovery and do you have downtime and what does your whole training, what does your whole week look like and is it being periodised correctly. So to summarise the four warning signs that we need to look out for that we need.
So to summarise, the four warning signs to look out for are our energy levels and whether that’s across the day or across the week. Are we experiencing a crash and burn and are we being proactive, not reactive? The second are sugar cravings. These are a direct line from our body and our brain telling us that we haven’t quite got the right mix, whether that is the consistency of our meals, whether that is what is actually in a lot of the meals.
consider that your warning sign to take action there. The third one are gut issues. Is this something that you’re experiencing here and there regularly? Is there an element of stress involved which is being overlooked? How are we treating that? How are we getting the support that we need to reduce them without removing foods or food groups which may have consequences later on? And the fourth one is poor immunity. So if you are getting sick often, that is definitely a sign that we
Jess (30:00.768)
not listening to our body and our brain, we are potentially under eating, we’re potentially over training, or we’re potentially just burning the candle at all of the ends and we’re not having time to rest and restore. That’s it for the first episode of season two. If you’ve liked what this is about, I would absolutely love for you to make sure, I would absolutely love for you to share this with a friend, share it on social media.
If you haven’t left a rating and a review, please do that. It means so much and it just helps the podcast reach more people. And otherwise, otherwise I will be back again at same time next week, helping you not only reach the top, but sustainably stay there.