In this episode of Stay at the Top, I introduce a powerful mindset shift that high performers know well in business but rarely apply to their health: A/B testing.
In marketing and business, A/B testing is second nature. You compare two strategies side by side, measure the results, and double down on what works. But when it comes to health and performance, most people take a “set and forget” approach. They hear a new strategy, protocol, or trend, adopt it, and stick with it without ever testing whether it is truly working for them in both the short and long term.
I share how bringing an experimental mindset to your health can help you stop guessing and start leading yourself like the high performer you are. From nutrition and training to sleep and recovery, this episode will show you how to build your own personal playbook instead of relying on one-size-fits-all advice.
In this episode I share:
- Why high performers need to apply A/B testing principles to health, not just business
- The risks of blindly following trends without testing whether they work for you
- A client case study on fasting: why short-term gains sometimes hide long-term costs
- How objective measures like DEXA scans and wearables can give you visibility under the hood
- Practical examples of what to test, from pre-training fuelling to sleep routines and hydration
- How to combine subjective data (energy, mood, focus) with objective data (body composition, HRV, recovery scores)
Key Quotes
“If you are not testing and measuring your health strategies, you are guessing.”
“What works in the short term does not always translate to long-term success.”
“High performance starts with personalisation.”
“This is how you stop guessing and start leading yourself like the high performer you are.”
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 Spendlove (00:03.682)
Welcome back to another episode of Stay At The Top. Today, I am covering an episode on a specific mindset or approach that I’ve been using and talking about more recently with my coaching clients and on some of my social media channels. And this is what I call…
A B testing your health and performance. Now the concept of A B testing might be familiar to a lot of people listening, especially if you’re in marketing, you might have your own business, even different teams or corporate organizations. And this is really referring to basically comparing one strategy with another. So you might be thinking about it in terms of landing pages or pricing strategies or ads or entire campaigns where you’re
running one against another to see which one gives the most desirable outcome.
But the truth is, I don’t see a lot of people taking this approach or mindset with their health and performance. They often hear something or hear a protocol or get a recommendation they implemented and off they go. Rarely do I see someone having an experimental mindset or taking the approach of is the strategy actually moving the needle? And also,
Jess Spendlove (01:34.74)
Is it moving the needle for both the short and the long term? Or am I just doing something because my favourite podcast host has suggested that?
Jess Spendlove (01:55.703)
So often I hear someone, so often I see someone hearing about a protocol so they think I’m just gonna try this and it often feels good so they stick with it. But there’s no comparison, no data, no evaluation in terms of how is this actually working out for me in the long run. So in this episode, I wanna show you what it looks like to bring that same testing mindset, that AB testing mindset that is so commonly used in various aspects of business
to how you manage your energy, your recovery, and your long-term performance. Because if you’re not testing and measuring your health strategies, you’re guessing.
Jess Spendlove (02:41.41)
and that’s not what we’re here to do. So on that note, let’s get into today’s episode.
Jess Spendlove (03:06.168)
Today’s episode has been inspired by a few things. One.
This is something which has been coming up a lot in my coaching sessions lately. And it’s an approach which is really resonating with people and it’s really getting them to hyper-focus in on what they’re doing, why they’re doing it and not just being on default or being on autopilot because this is something they’ve heard and they’ve started doing. And it’s bringing them consciously back into.
What am I doing? Why am I doing it? And am I actually getting the outcome that I’m looking for?
Now look, obviously when I talk about this approach, the benefit is the people that are starting to think like this and try all this strategy have a coach guiding them through. But I really do believe that you can do this on your own and I’m hoping this episode might give you some ideas. Of course, if you’re wanting more support, that is a conversation that we can have, whether it’s myself or whether it’s somebody else, depending on the area that you’re looking into. But I would encourage you to think about how
can I use this approach in my own life? And in particular I guess what I’m mainly focusing in here on today is health and performance because they are the areas where I work and live and breathe.
Jess Spendlove (04:37.454)
But I wanna switch gears for a second and I do wanna talk about business and corporations and how they currently use A-B testing. Now, if we think about when a product gets launched, there’s some messaging around that. There might be some different ads that are getting run, maybe one that’s a bit more problems led, maybe one that’s a bit more benefits led, and then those companies or individuals, depending on who it is and their team or if they’re like a solopreneur
small team or a large corporation, they’re tracking certain metrics to see which strategy is giving them the outcome that they’re looking for. So that might be things like clicks and conversions and cost per lead. And then once they have that data, then they can lean in or give more spend to the ad or the strategy that’s working. Now, if we come back to the individuals and everyone listening, when it comes to health,
Most people don’t take this approach. What they do is they often pick one approach, pick one protocol, and then they stick to it. Now, I guess some examples or things that where I see this happening are things like fasting or maybe a style of training or maybe a supplement.
And this might be something they’ve heard about on a podcast or seen a short reel on Instagram or TikTok, or maybe they’ve even read about on LinkedIn. Maybe any and all of those things. And don’t get me wrong, often when someone’s making adjustments to what they’re doing, they can often feel good in the short term. And that’s great. I’m a big…
supporter of people feeling good and figuring out what works for them. It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. But the problem I have with this is what works in the short term isn’t always going to be what works in the long term. And I guess what I mean by that is people really thinking about why I’m changing this behavior or why I’m adding this strategy and what is the purpose of that.
Jess Spendlove (06:53.536)
What am I looking for in the short term and what about my long-term goals as well?
Jess Spendlove (07:03.01)
And so I guess what I mean by this, and I wanna use an example, so it’s probably easier to follow and so you can start thinking about this for yourself and see how you might be able to use this approach to test and trial strategies that you’re currently doing, is a client that I’m working with, we’ve been working together since about, I think, we’ve been working together since about May, June, and he came to me, he is…
a corporate client who also has performance goals. So he has a sport that he competes in at a very high level. And we were going through his goals, which were very much related to his overall health. There was some body composition goals attached to it, and there was some performance goals attached to his sport. And when we were talking, he was doing a version of fasting. And, you know, I guess this was off the back of like,
Fasting is something which is out. It’s really in the last, I don’t know, few years, three to five years, become a lot more popular. A lot of people are trialing it. There are a lot of variations to it and it really has kind of, I think it’s been put on a pedestal. Now, I’m not saying that it doesn’t work, but I think we really need to…
Identify the individual, like I said, individual, their goals and make sure that it matches for them. Now, the most common feedback I hear from people around fasting is how good they feel in the morning. So in particular, maybe their energy, maybe their focus, maybe their productivity, they feel fantastic. Great, I’m here for all of those things. But.
what they then don’t often think about because as you adapt to a new way of being, whether that’s from an eating, a sleeping, a moving, whatever behaviour change we’re talking about, that becomes our reference point. And we quite quickly forget how we felt before in different situations. And so I guess what I’m talking about here with someone who’s fasting, like this particular client, he got some weight loss in the short term, which was a goal, but this was being measured purely from
Jess Spendlove (09:10.307)
clothes and scales as opposed to like a Dexascan where we’re a complete picture of that composition. And so what I mean by that is not just weight, but what is the muscle composition? What is the body fat composition? What is the visceral fat composition?
And also we weren’t necessarily thinking about how the back end of the day was being impacted. And so short term felt great in the morning, short term there was some weight loss, but…
What was getting missed was the long term on what type of weight am I losing? Am I losing fat and retaining or gaining lean mass, which was a goal for this client? And how is my overall energy levels going and my appetite and my cravings? And while the morning he was flying, when we really dug into it, in the afternoon he was having quite a dip in energy, more significant than before, and he
his meals, the size of his meals at lunch and dinner were quite a bit bigger and there was more sweets and treats popping in somewhat subconsciously.
Jess Spendlove (10:36.021)
And so it really took for this client to sit down and obviously have this conversation and for me to, I guess if I’m honest, somewhat challenge the notion that fasting was the best thing for him. And the only reason I say that is because you really need to look at the person and what, like I said, their goals are, but what their life is like as well. And the thing I haven’t mentioned with this client is he was training in the morning. And so he’s trying to gain,
or retain lean mass while he’s in a deficit, which is challenging within itself, but then his nutrition didn’t actually match the training and he was trying to fast and prolong his intake and most of his nutrition was at the back end of the day. So it wasn’t supporting his fueling or recovery in the morning and…
On top of that, we didn’t have the objective data around long-term how was this actually impacting his overall body composition.
Jess Spendlove (11:44.001)
And this is a really common thing. what a lot of people miss or get used to is things like that afternoon crash and burn. Look, we all have it in some way, shape or form, particularly in the afternoon, but there’s definitely degrees of it. And I really challenge you to think about…
when your energy is particularly low in the afternoon. And now I’m recording this episode in the afternoon, which I wouldn’t normally do, but to make sure that I was ready for it, I’ve just gone for a walk. I’ve just had a brain break to really elevate my energy. And that’s something I really encourage people to do in that afternoon. But if you’re really low because your nutrition and your training are not supporting each other, well, that’s something else that’s exacerbating that.
The other thing might be they might be having extra caffeine. So maybe they’re having an extra shot or an extra coffee, or maybe they’re finding that they’ve got more of a sweet tooth than normal. It might be that their training has, which they were progressing in, in particular, their strength has been stalled because they’re under fueled or their nutrition isn’t matching their training goals, like in this instance that I’m talking about. Or there might also be…
a decline in muscle and bone density because there’s no baseline data, because we’re not
measuring the full picture. And while the example I’m talking about is for a male client, this is particularly important for, well, I think for everybody, know, anyone who’s listened to any of the podcasts I’ve done where I’ve spoken about subjective measures and objective measures knows that I really believe the sweet spot is how you feel from an energy, how you perform, how other signs and signals from your body like
Jess Spendlove (13:32.22)
vitality and appetite and cravings that really tells us a big piece of the puzzle but the other piece is the objective data and now I recorded an episode just a few
episodes back on why I believe every high performer should be a wearable, should use a wearable, which specifically focuses on that type of objective measure. But in this instance, I guess one of the objective measures I’m really talking about is a DEXA scan and getting that full picture for the body composition aspect and
The reason I started talking about women needing to do this, particularly as we’re going into the perimenopause and menopausal phase of life, is because there is a more acute decline from both muscle and bone during that 10 to 15 year window because of the changes to our sex hormones and in particular, estrogen. So as estrogen declines,
we start to lose muscle and bone density at a more rapid rate than any other phase of life because estrogen is so protective for both of those things. And so the long and the short of that is I’m a big believer in everybody looking at this full picture, in particular this client that I’m talking about for this episode, but.
also giving some tips on other people who might want to start thinking about this. And look, if you’re not sure if this is something that is new to you, you’re not sure what I’m talking about, feel free to reach out to me and I can send you a link, but I’m talking about a DEXA scan. So D-E-X-A, you can search for that where that might be in your area. And the thing I will say is this, if you are going to have one, make sure that you are fasted. So they will tell, make sure that you are fasted. So preferably go first thing in the morning.
Jess Spendlove (15:26.414)
it little bit easier. And so I guess when it
Jess Spendlove (15:36.277)
And so if I circle back to this client that I’m giving as the example for this episode, the question isn’t is fasting good or bad? That’s not what the conversation is. That’s not what the point is. But the question is, is it good for you? And is it good for you across the full picture, considering your life, your lifestyle, your goals and what you’re trying to achieve? And when we sat down and looked at all of that, the answer was
most likely not. But this was something which I could tell wasn’t going to just be a…
Jess Spendlove (16:16.65)
this wasn’t just gonna be an education piece and we were going to switch. And so I suggested, well, look, why don’t we A-B test how you respond to shifting your nutrition on the days that you train and in particular your more intense training session days. And so we looked at his fueling, we looked at his recovery, we looked at his intake across the day. also, so we looked at his performance in the gym and we also looked at his energy.
I did get him to get a DEXA scan, but in the longer term, he will see the trends. But this is something I would typically only do with a client once or twice a year. And so…
The purpose of that is measuring that more from that long-term perspective, but in the shorter term, we were dialing into things those subjective measures. So we were looking at, like I said, his energy, we were looking at his performance in the gym, we were looking at his cognitive performance and his focus and how he felt across the day. And we were also looking at his energy and his appetite and his cravings. And also the size of the meals that he was having later on in the day.
And so when we ran this parallel of continuing for a few days of the fasting variation that he was doing and the more optimized tailored approach that I’ve just mentioned, it became really clear to him that on the days that he matched his nutrition to his training, he had more energy.
He performed better in the gym. His appetite was more under control. His energy was more sustained across the day. He was having slightly less food at lunch and he was feeling, and he was even sleeping better at night. And then we also added in a wearable to that picture as well. So.
Jess Spendlove (18:11.795)
I don’t know about you, but I’m sure most people listening to that would love all of those things. And so I think this just really serves as a pulse check or a question to yourself on is there a strategy that I’ve adopted that I’m continuing to do that might be a little bit of a blind spot for myself that I’ve just set and forget, but…
might not actually be delivering me the benefits that I’m wanting it to do or my intentions were for it to do when I started it.
Jess Spendlove (18:45.055)
And so I guess the danger when you don’t test is that you normalise problems that aren’t normal. So that energy afternoon crash, well that’s not normal, that’s feedback. That third coffee or that handful of a sweet treat that you’re constantly reaching for at 4pm. Well…
that’s likely a compensation strategy. If you’re going to the gym and it’s a real push effort or you’ve plateaued, that’s not because of your age or anything like that. It’s likely it’s an under-fuelling or a mismatched fueling strategy. And that declining lean mass or bone density, which is something…
not necessarily visible at all and in particular as it’s a slight decline over, you know, years and decades, it’s invisible until much later years unless you are testing, unless you are getting that objective data. And I guess this is another version of seeing under the hood. Last week or the few weeks ago when I was talking about the wearables and the physiology, like that was more from that side of things and I guess this week I’m talking
about the Dexa, giving you the opportunity to see under the hood when it comes to the actual anatomical structure and the makeup of your body and your muscle mass and your fat mass and your bone density. We need to know this information and to be honest it’s accessible and it’s a pretty low cost and it’s really something. Honestly once people get into their…
mid to late 30s, my recommendation is once a year and then if you’ve got specific body composition goals around that then maybe that’s when you might be looking at twice a year. I should flag it does have a very low dose of radiation so that’s something to be mindful of.
Jess Spendlove (20:38.987)
And I should have looked that up before I got on to record this, but from memory, it’s around 1, 100th or 1, 200th of an X-ray. So it is a very low radiation dose.
Jess Spendlove (20:58.985)
And so I guess if we come to thinking about what some of this testing might look like when it comes to your health and performance, it might be thinking about like…
the nutrition piece that I was talking about. Version A might be skipping breakfast, training, fasted, relying on coffee, waiting until lunch. And version B might be fueling before with a piece of fruit or a piece of toast and some coffee, so some carbs and caffeine, having a protein rich breakfast within 30 to 60 minutes after.
some proper hydration, really having some electrolytes before and after and then running that for honestly like a few weeks if you can but within a few days like within one week of running a variegation of that you’ll be able to see definitely subjectively in terms of your appetite, your energy, your clarity, your mood, your focus and your performance you’ll be able to detect which one is working better for you and then if you think about from an
side of things and you do have a wearable like an aura or a woot band you can also look at things around your sleep and your resting heart rate and your HRV and your recovery scores and then you could also have a dexa scan
and then compare obviously what that then looks like down the track. So that way you can assess, what I’m doing, is it working for me or is it not? Am I actually achieving what I’ve set out to do or is it working against me?
Jess Spendlove (22:36.671)
And this is really how you build out your own personal playbook. It’s not a copy and paste protocols from somebody else’s podcast or something that’s working for someone else. It’s not about having one size fits all advice. It’s about you having your own data, your own insights, your own strategy, and looking at the outcomes that you’re achieving, both in the short and the long term.
And so as I come to the end of this episode, this is the takeaway. High performance starts with personalization. And if you’re not testing and you’re not measuring and you’re not considering the short and long-term outcomes, then you’re guessing.
And so here’s my challenge to you. I’d love for you to pick one area of your health or your performance this month and think about how you might A, B test that. The example I’ve given here today is very heavily around nutrition and training. And so maybe that’s.
the option that you take. It might be you’re fueling around training or maybe another example might be your evening routine and starting to implement more of that sleep landing protocol, which I’ve spoken about on a lot of my sleep episodes. The other one might also be hydration. Maybe you’re starting your day, you’re front footing your day with a glass of water or electrolytes and you’re seeing how that pays dividends across the day.
Some of the other options might be you might start journaling or you might start your day with meditation or you might, if you’re accessing your phone within the first 30 minutes or last 30 minutes, first 30 minutes of the day or last 30 minutes of the day, you stop that and you see how you feel. There’s so many examples of how you can run this A-B testing concept with your health and your performance. I’d really encourage you to pick one, run version A, then run version B.
Jess Spendlove (24:28.23)
track both, run them side by side, and then decide which one is actually the best protocol and process for you.
This is all about testing, tracking, comparing, and then deciding. And really this is how you stop guessing and you start leading yourself like the high performer that you are.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s episode. If you found value, I’d absolutely love for you to share it with a friend or a colleague or share it on social media and tag me. Otherwise, I’ll be back again next week for another episode helping you not only reach the top, but sustainably stay there.