As you know, when it comes to ensuring high performance, I truly believe that nutrition is one of the absolute key items you should be focusing on.
But if you’re feeling a bit lost and unsure on how to do so, this episode is going to share 5 High Performance Nutrition principles that everyone can apply and leverage to enjoy their best quality life.
With these you will see more energy, better focus, better mood, and enhancement and quality of life in every single of facet of life.
In this episode I share:
- Why you should do these 5 steps in the order I am listing them
- The power of ‘finding consistency in the inconsistency’
- How do figure out your frame work in order to allow consistency
- Why you need to have a good source of protein at each meal and snack
- Some measurement guides for the amount of protein to include in your meals
- Examples at different kinds of protein foods
- Why you should be incorporating Nutrition Periodisation
- The power of including ‘all the colours’ in your diet
- How to incorporate vegetables and fruit into your diet
- How to step it up to incorporate ‘all the plants’ in your diet
- Why people get it wrong when they hear ‘all the plants’
- How the plant points system works
Key Quotes
“If a meal and snack is brown and white, it’s not complete.”
“Protein is key to retaining and gaining lean mass.”
“You are already eating, so imagine if you just learnt how to adjust what you are currently doing and had it work better for you.”
Episode Resources
Jessica Spendlove Website – www.jessicaspendlove.com
Jessica Spendlove Keynotes – JessicaspendloveKeynotes – Jessica Spendlove
The High-Performance Profile Quiz https://jessicaspendlove.com/quiz/
Jess Spendlove Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jess_spendlove_dietitian/?hl=en
Jess Spendlove LinkedIn 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 (00:03.983)
Welcome back to another episode of Stay at the Top. This week I am talking five high -performance nutrition principles that each and every single one of you can apply and leverage to live their best quality life. I’m talking more energy, I’m talking better focus, I’m talking better mood, I’m talking enhancement and quality of life in every single facet.
because the power of nutrition ripples into every single area. Now, there are a few reasons for that. The one that I always like to call out is it’s, the one I like to call out is it’s one of the only non -negotiable daily behaviors that we are all already doing every single day. Let that sit for a second.
You’re already eating, so imagine if you just learn how to adjust what you were currently doing and have it work better for you. Now,
Jess (01:11.279)
Now that is totally possible and today I know that you will find value in at least one or two of the principles but potentially all of them and as you know I really like to break it down, I really like to make it practical, I really like to make it tactical and I also just wanted to say welcome to the new listeners. We’ve had some new listeners join recently.
And I really wanted to stick with this kind of listicle style episode because they seem to be the ones that are really resonating with each of you. So if you’re new, welcome. If you’re a long time listener, thanks for tuning back in. And I hope you get a lot of value out of today’s five high performance nutrition principles that you can apply to your life.
Jess (02:16.271)
Team, the reality is that most of us want to live our best life, but some of us find it easier to put things into place and to have them stick and to create habits compared to other people. Now, consistency is definitely the name of the game and the more you can be consistent in any area of your life, the more you will see success.
Now, the reason for that is because consistency not only turns a behavior into a habit, into something that we put on autopilot, into something that we don’t even have to think about, but consistency also compounds, which means we’re not just adding the behaviors together, but we are multiplying them.
And when we’re multiplying them over the days, the weeks, the months and the years, the effect increases significantly. So today I wanted to take you through five high performance nutrition principles that I believe each and every single one of you will benefit from. And I wanted to take you through in the order in which you should start and follow them.
So basically what I mean by this is I’m starting in the order in which I would start with each of my clients. So you’re getting a little bit of an insight into my methodology and I guess in terms of a hierarchy. Now, everybody’s going to be a little bit different of course, it’s not a one size fits all, but after having worked with thousands of different individuals, I have seen that this order or sequence that I’m going to take you through,
is typically the order that most people need to follow. Most people need to optimize each of these and if we do it in the order that I’m going to take, if we do it in the order that I am going to take you through here today, you are going to get the most bang for your buck.
Jess (04:28.971)
Now, principle number one is finding the consistency in the inconsistency. So what this is referring to is that each and every single one of you need to establish your own individual framework. Now, what a framework consists of is a certain number of meals and a certain number of snacks that are personalized, that are optimized for you. Now,
Everyone of course is a little bit different depending on who you are, how often you train, how active you are, what your energy requirements are. But typically speaking, most people would either be three meals and one snack or three meals and two snacks. So if you’re really active, if you’re an athlete, if you train like an athlete, you may have some additional snacks and primers and things in there, but traditionally a framework would for most people.
I’d say 80 to 90 % of people listening would sit either at either of those. Now, the first thing is to, I guess, know that and to reflect on what is the best, what is the best rhythm for yourself based on your goals and your requirements. But the next thing is to look at how that looks across the day. Do you go a really long time from lunch to dinner? Sorry.
Do you go a really long time from lunch to dinner? So the gap there might be something like six or seven hours, but maybe your gap from breakfast to lunch is only three or four. And then maybe you have a small snack there as well. So the thing with establishing consistency in the inconsistency is to create this framework to have your guidelines on the number of meals and snacks that you have each day.
and then to look at the gap between each one. Now, this isn’t about being a robot, this isn’t about being exact, but it is about having buffers. It’s kind of like going to the bowling alley and learning to bowl and you put the bumper bars on just so the ball doesn’t go straight down the gutter each time. That’s what we wanna do by having this kind of guideline and framework around the gap between our meals. Now, if we’re having…
Jess (06:54.959)
three hours between one meal and then six hours between the next. There’s quite a significant difference there. What you ideally want to do is aim within about 30 minutes to an hour. So what I mean by that is you would look at a more even distribution. So for that person, they might look at eating every around four hours. Now, again, it’s not an exact, so maybe some days it’s three, maybe some days it’s four and a half, but on average, it averages out to be around that four hours.
What it isn’t is those giant differences between three hours between one, three hours between two of those options, whether it’s two meals or a meal and a snack, and then six hours between the next, that’s a significant difference. So what we wanna do is based on our requirements, how many times a day we need to eat based on what our own.
based on what each of us need, and then we wanna have that consistency. So for most people, if you’re very active, so if you’re an athlete or you train like an athlete, that gap may be two to three hours up to four. Whereas if you’re someone who maybe exercises once a day, or maybe you’re just into more low intensity activity, you have a pretty sedentary job, maybe you’re looking at every like three to four to five hours.
It is very individualized, but the main thing I want you to look at there is when you start eating, when you finish eating, the occasions across the day, and then having those more consistent pulses. That way you’ve established consistency in the inconsistency, you’ve established your framework, you’ve created some guardrails. Now the order in which you have those meals and snacks may adjust. Your days may look different.
and you might not be able to always have lunch at 12 or one o ‘clock each day. Potentially you’re traveling, potentially you’ve got meetings, whatever that might be like. So what I’m encouraging you to do is forward plan, think about what your gap is, and if that’s the case, you may need to move some of your meals and snacks around. So the perfect example is maybe a meeting that might run over lunch.
Jess (09:11.567)
or a very early meeting which kind of crosses over when you would normally have lunch. Well, maybe you don’t wanna have an early lunch, but maybe you wanna move that snack forward. And then when you’re having that later lunch, you’re not in starvation mode. And again, so we’ve maintained that consistent gap between.
Jess (09:34.735)
So that is high performance nutrition principle number one. Start there if your day is not consistent and the meals and snacks are all over the place, that is where you wanna start. High performance nutrition principle number two is to have a good source of protein at each meal and snack. Now, what I would define that as is,
Ideally for meals, we’re looking at 20 to 40 grams of protein and for snacks, a minimum of 10 to 20 grams. If you are someone who struggles with breakfast and 20 grams is too difficult, then maybe you might start at that lower end, that 10 grams. But what we see a lot of people doing is not having any at breakfast or skipping breakfast, not having much at lunch and then having the majority of what they need to eat at lunch and dinner.
The other thing is there’s quite conflicting information between what just the general recommended dietary intake of protein is versus where a lot of the literature actually sits in terms of, for a lot of different population groups. So when we wanna look at that total protein intake, the recommended dietary intake sits around 0 .75.
to one gram per kilogram of body mass. Whereas if you go through the literature and you’re looking at different age groups, if you’re looking at active populations, if you’re looking at aging populations, if you’re looking at women coming up to perimenopause and menopause, those numbers sit much higher. They’re up around 1 .5 to even 1 .8 grams of protein, all the way up to 2 .3 grams. Now, of course it’s always a case by case basis, but…
If you’re a long time listener, it’s not the first time you’ve heard me talk about the power of protein. And I really can’t stress enough how much this is a key principle or it should be a key principle and a focus area. Few reasons for that. One, in terms of the foods that it’s in, it is more difficult to achieve than focusing on our carbohydrates and our fats in terms of the foods that have high quality, good amounts of protein. So,
Jess (12:01.167)
We’re looking at things like anything from an animal, meat, chicken, fish, eggs. We’re looking at anything derived, yogurt, dairy, sorry, yogurt, milk, cheese. We’re also looking at some really great plant options. So we’re looking at things like lentils, legumes, soy -based products, tofu, tempeh, nuts and seeds have a little bit of protein, but they would be more classified as a healthy fat.
but they’re the main types of foods that we’re talking about. And then of course we’ve got things like protein powders or a lot of different processed and packaged foods are now starting to be fortified with protein because food manufacturers are catching on to the importance of protein. Now, regardless of who you are, if you are someone who just wants more energy, if you were someone who wants to improve their nutrition,
If you were someone who gets really hungry in the afternoon or evening, if you were someone looking to gain muscle, or if you’re someone looking to lose fat, by losing fat, you still wanna retain muscle. Whoever you are, I’m sure anybody and everybody listening to this ticks at least one of those boxes, if not more than that. And even if you don’t, even if you just wanna have good body composition and age well, when we talk about longevity.
Protein is key to retaining and gaining lean mass, what we call skeletal muscle. It’s a two -part process. We need to have resistance training, which is the breakdown, and then the consumption of protein, which is the stimulus or what helps grow. So whoever you are, this is a really high, really important high -performance nutrition principle. It’s why it’s the second one I bring into the mix once we’ve created that.
framework because we really want to look at how we optimize. So I’ve rattled off a whole heap of different foods there and I’ve given you some different numbers. So like the 10 to 20 grams is a minimum, the 20 to 40 is more of that ideal amount. And if you’re someone who really wants to get into the nitty gritty, the specific number that you want to look at per meal and snack for yourself is 0 .3 to 0 .4 grams per kilogram of body mass.
Jess (14:23.759)
If you’re injured, so if you’re an athlete or if you’re someone with an injury, often that number will bump up. So it’ll be a little bit higher. But for the majority of people listening, those numbers that I’ve given you there, those types of foods, and I really want you to zone in on your breakfast and your snacks. They are the two that most people struggle with. So depending on who you are and what you’re having, it might be thinking about, well, what’s going to be easy for me?
If you don’t have much of an appetite in the morning, maybe it’s looking at a high protein yogurt, whether that’s a dairy or a soy based. Maybe it’s making a smoothie and adding a protein powder. Again, whether you prefer WPI or so many different great plant -based protein powders out there. Similarly in the afternoon, depending if you like sweet or savory, it might be looking at some really good whole grain crackers with some different toppings. Maybe like some cheese and some smoked salmon.
If we’re plant -based, depending on what we’ve had in the morning, again, we might be looking at something like a smoothie, a soy -based yogurt, maybe we’ve got a lovely snack plate with some beautiful tofu, maybe some hummus dip, that kind of thing. So there’s a lot of different options, but we do really need to be quite strategic and dialed in because it’s quite easy if we aren’t to miss that and then be quite low in our protein. So.
That is high performance nutrition principle number two for you all here today.
The third principle is what I call nutrition periodization. So this is really talking to what our different days look like. And if you’re someone who every day looks the same in terms of your output, maybe you do the same exercise each day. Maybe you just go for a walk or maybe you go and do the same class. I’m not sure. And if you do that seven days a week, then that means seven days are exactly the same. But for most people,
Jess (16:26.831)
Most people have variations in their day. So they potentially have days where they have more output. Maybe they do a spin class or a weights class or high intensity class. And then maybe they have other days where they just walk or they do yoga or they do Pilates. So periodization means adjusting your intake based on your output. And in particular, the main nutrient or group that I want to talk about here are our carbohydrates.
So I spoke about protein as principle number two, because we wanna get that down pat. And the other thing I wanna call out with that is we wanna keep that consistent every single day. No matter what’s going on, however many meals and snacks, it should be consistent. Whereas if we have different days in terms of our output, our carbohydrates should adjust based on that. Now for the average person listening, someone like even myself,
I go to the gym, you know, a few times a week and I’m active every single day. That slight difference might simply be having a pre -training snack before I go. Getting that additional carbohydrates simply from a piece of toast, a banana, that type of thing. Whereas I know there are some athletes or people who train at the same level as athletes who listen. And for those types of people who are training for 90 minutes, two hours, three hours a day, on those days, we really need to be thinking about that.
four hours before, and if you train in the morning, we need to think about the night before, and are we having more carbohydrates in that window? So that’s really where that plate model starts to come in. Now, a quick refresher, three different plate models, a low plate, low intensity, this would also be for someone who might be looking to lose some body fat, quarter of your plate protein, quarter of your plate carbohydrates,
half a plate of colors, so your vegetables, whereas a medium intensity plate, so this might just be someone who they’re active once a day, they’re pretty happy, they’re mainly trying to sustain their weight and how they look, you might be doing a third of each, third protein, third carbs, third colors. Whereas a high intensity plate, so this might be someone who’s an endurance athlete, maybe they’re training for triathlons, Ironmans, ultra running events, that type of thing.
Jess (18:49.518)
or you might be someone who just trains twice a day and you might have a really high energy requirements or if you don’t maybe, if you’re a parent and you’ve got a very high level active teenager, they might need this style of plate. So a high intensity plate looks like a quarter protein, a quarter colors and half a plate of carbs. So you can see I’ve given you different ratios, quite similar.
but what has really adjusted there has been the colors and the carbohydrates. So like I said, for the average person, if you’re just going to the gym in the morning or after work, you simply might just be going about your business, going about the same meals, same ratios, et cetera, and adding in an extra snack. So that’s someone like myself that just goes to the gym for an hour. But if you’re someone who is training twice a day or training more intensely or for an event, particularly an ultra endurance event,
those plate ratios will be really helpful for you to look at in particular before those key sessions. So high performance nutrition principle number three is nutrient periodization.
Jess (20:04.334)
Okay, we’re coming up to number four. Now number four and number five are both about gut health. I consider the fourth one, the entry level, the beginner level. We wanna get this right first. And once we’ve got this one down pat, then we wanna progress onto the next one, which is a bit more of an advanced principle. But high performance nutrition principle number four is all the colors. Now,
If you’re a long time listener, you’ve heard me say it before, if a meal and snack is brown and white, it’s not complete. What this means is we need to get some color on there. Now color is simply referring to fruits or vegetables. Depending on what the meal or snack is will depend what you pair with it. Do bear in mind that in terms of requirements and what we need each day, we need more than double the amount of vegetables than we do fruits. So,
the general recommendations and what we should each be aiming for, two to three pieces of fruit a day and five servings of vegetables. Now, servings of vegetables can be a little bit of a tricky one and it doesn’t just mean having five different types of veggies on your plate. It is quantified by a volume, which is one cup of salad or half a cup of vegetables is one serving, but basically you need to have at least a third of your lunch or dinner, sorry.
You need to have a third of your lunch and your dinner from colors, from salads or vegetables to get close to that. And then ideally you’re also getting another serve either at breakfast or at a snack, depending on what you’re having. So if you’re a savory breakfast person like myself, maybe you’re adding some tomatoes or some spinach or some mushrooms to try and get that extra serving in the morning. Or if you’re a team sweet at breakfast, maybe you’re looking at a savory afternoon snack.
maybe a snack plate, maybe you’ve got some hard boiled eggs with some veggie sticks with some hummus and some whole grain crackers or something like that. Delicious, all the colours, happy days.
Jess (22:16.077)
So I’m gonna keep this principle short and sweet because it’s pretty self -explanatory. The tagline says it all. If a meal or snack is brown and white, it’s not complete. I want you to look at every single meal and snack you’re having. I want you to think, is there some color here? And if not, what can I add or what can I pair it with? So the first step is to think what you can add, what you can sprinkle on top.
what you can add to the meal, what you can grate through it. And if that’s not possible, simply pair something with it. It doesn’t necessarily have to match. You can just have it at the same time and you’re still achieving that principle. This principle is all about getting your vitamins, your minerals, your antioxidants. These are incredibly important for our long -term health, our gut health, our vitality, our vitality, our immunity. These…
foods are filled with different types of fibers, different types of antioxidants, different types of bioactive compounds, which are all these incredible antioxidants for our bodies. They are also the favorite foods of our good gut bacteria. So when we eat more of these foods and when we eat a diverse range of these foods, which is getting me close to number five, which is getting me close to principle number five, we’re really starting to give,
more of the food that our good gut bugs love. They eat more of it, they multiply, and that optimises our gut microbiome, which ultimately means we’re improving our gut health. So high performance nutrition principle number four, all the colours.
Jess (24:10.222)
Now this brings me to the last principle I wanted to touch on here today, which is a more advanced level to number four. So we wanna start there. If we don’t have principle four down pat first, start there. But principle number five is all the plants. Now, a plant is anything grown in the ground.
That means it is a fruit, it is a vegetable, it is a nut, a seed, a lentil, a legume, a whole grain and herbs and spices. What a lot of people hear when they hear all the plants is vegetables. And this discussion around eating more plants and eating a greater diversity of plants came from this landmark study called the American Gut Project.
which found that people who consumed 30 or more different plant foods each week had a significantly more diverse microbiome than those who ate 10 or less. Now, your microbiome is the environment of your gut health and a more diverse microbiome means there’s more, there is greater diversity of the different types of bacteria and fungi and archaea.
archaea and all of the compounds that make up your microbiome. So by eating more plants, we’re diversifying them, we’re growing them because they’re feasting on the foods that they really like. And this ultimately leads to us improving our microbiome. So as a refresher, plants, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, lentils, legumes and whole grains, what you can do is gamify this process.
You could count, you could keep a record of what you eat in a day or eat in a week and count how many plants are there. And then look at ways that you can improve that. So whether that’s simply being aware and adding more options by adding more colors or whether you get a little bit crafty and you start subbing some things out. So for example, overnight oats for breakfast, you might normally have blueberries or maybe you start doing mixed berries. So if you swap blueberries for…
Jess (26:22.606)
strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries, you’ve gone from one to four. If you have a handful of nuts as a snack, cashews, say for example, again, maybe you swap that for mixed nuts, which might have cashews and almonds and walnuts and pecans and peanuts. I don’t know, I’m just rattling them off, but you can see here by swapping a single item for a multi, we’re doing the same thing, but we’re…
We’re doing the same thing, but we’re diversifying our intake. So 30 is the magic number. I will just say this, that every single different type equals one plant point. So for example, if you have a banana at breakfast every day, seven days a week, that is only one plant point. But if you had a banana one day and strawberries the next day and an apple and a pear and a fig and…
you know, blackberries and blueberries. I’ve just rattled off seven different types of fruits there, one each day. You have seven plant points. When it comes to herbs and spices, they only equal a quarter of a point each. So you can add all the different herbs and spices in which are so great for you for so many reasons. They are packed full of antioxidants and amazing compounds for us. But when it comes to totaling the number of plant points,
one herb or one spice equals a quarter. So I like to say aim for 30 of the others and then the herbs and spices are an added benefit. So for my people who’ve ticked off principle one, two, three and four, focus in on all the plants, focus in that diversity piece and aim for 30. And if you hit 30, keep going. That’s just kind of this number that we’ve got as a great reference point. And we’ve been able to quantify that eating 30 or more.
is better than 10 or less. But if you can keep going, the more the better, the more diverse, the greater number, the better for your gut health. So there we have it friends. That is my five high performance nutrition principles that I would love every single one of you to think about your life, think about what I’ve spoken about, become a little bit more aware of your habits, become more conscious with how you go about your day.
Jess (28:47.021)
If you wanna actually follow a process, I’ve spoken about it before, it’s called my life audit process. I should have looked it up, I think it’s episode maybe 17 or 18 of season one, I actually take you through it. I provide you in the show notes with a link to a template, which is really just a word document where you can capture a full week. But the great thing about doing this, it turns some of these subconscious behaviors and things we just do into more conscious when we put pen to paper.
we start to see the gaps. This is where you’ll start to see, are you being consistent with your gaps between meals and snacks? Do you have that protein? Am I getting that 10 to 20 grams? And if you’re not sure, maybe listen back to some of the examples, or you can also do a quick Google and look up, you know, what 10 or 20 grams is, but I’ve definitely referenced it in previous episodes. You can definitely find it on my Instagram as well. If you scroll back, there’s heaps of infographics there.
Think about nutrition periodization and is that relevant for you? Think about how I got colors at each meal and snack. And when I’m nailing those four, I need to look at my plant diversity and I wanna be hitting 30 or more different plant foods each week. So there we have it friends, five high -performance nutrition principles. I would love for you to go and apply them. I would love for you to let me know if you are applying them, what you’re feeling, what you’re finding, how you’re going with it.
Once again, thank you so much for those tuning in. Thank you even more for everyone reaching out. I love hearing from people, whether it’s via email, Instagram, LinkedIn, messages if you know me personally, if you’re listening to the podcast, if you’re finding value, it really means so much to me. And if you’d be so kind to share any episode you like or think that would be valuable to a friend, a family member, or on social media, if you haven’t subscribed, please hit subscribe.
And if you would take 30 to 60 seconds to leave a rating and a review, it really does help me in the podcast so much. Thank you once again for tuning in to another episode of Stay at the Top. I’ll be back again next week, helping you not only reach the top, but sustainably stay there. I’ll see you all then.