Bob Seebohar: Fuelling for endurance

Bob Seebohar discusses his approach to food. Changing the question from, "how much do you consume?" to "why do you consume it?"

Bob is a registered dietitian, an author, and founder of two companies. He is currently the lead nutritionist for the University of Denver Women's Gymnastics Team. In addition to completing 6 Ironman races, Bob is also a Leadman, which is quite frankly absurd.

Transcript:

Gary McCoy: [00:00:11] I first met Bob Seebohar some 20 years ago at a medical device company, Healthy Tech. He was one of six nutritionists working on indirect calorimetry measures and creating a database of nutritional information, then housed on what we considered cutting edge technology - a palm pilot. I was reintroduced to Bob in 2005 following his stint at the University of Florida, and I monitored his trajectory based around what would appear to be a fairly simple construct- nutritional periodisation for athletes. Fast forward to today, Bob has mastered his craft of metabolic efficiency, applying his data not only to athletes but to improve the baseline health for all humans, from blood markers to genomic testing. Bob's diagnostic and prescriptive process is second to none. He's an author, coach and the founder of Birota Foods and the All Around Snack company. But wait, there's more! As an athlete, Bob is one of a few to hold the title leadman, completing the gruelling portfolio of ultra endurance events, all completed in Colorado at over ten thousand feet of elevation. Listen closely, as there are nuggets of nutritional and training wisdom here for anyone. Bob, it's phenomenal to catch up with you, buddy.

Bob Seebohar: [00:01:43] Oh Gary, so nice to see you again. This is fantastic. It's been a while.

Gary McCoy: [00:01:47] I can't believe it's been 20 years since we first got together at HealthyTech, right? Golden, Colorado, fledgling little company. I was telling our producer Tyler, about the fact that I sat in a Outback Steakhouse with a guy by the name of Jay T Kearney and on a napkin, we rendered this thing called the energy balance equation. This little teeter-totter, right? Because we would yeah, we try to figure out, you know, his calories in, calories out. You know, we do a quantitative kind of nutritional analysis, but that's where we first met. And I remember at that time, I think you were completing your CSCS and then all of a sudden, you know, we both... I depart. I think you did shortly thereafter. Yeah, we lose track and then get reconnected through my wife five years later, which is amazing, right?

Bob Seebohar: [00:02:42] Yeah, it's amazing how the full circle just comes through, doesn't it?

Gary McCoy: [00:02:46] It is, incredible. So tell me, I want to dive into your journey a little bit here because when as a performance coach and strength and conditioning coach, the term periodisation was always, you know, it's thrown around like, you know, like a wet towel in a locker room. This term, right, and everybody's got a different understanding of it, different utilisation of it. And I never heard anybody apply it to nutrition or fuelling for Endurance until I heard you say it. And I, it was one of those moments stopped me in my tracks and I was like - That's brilliant. And it didn't surprise me that that you were the one kind of pioneering this. But tell me a little bit about that. Where did conceptually, where did that come from? Was it self experimentation or a thing you were seeing through coaching?

Bob Seebohar: [00:03:36] It was, you know, it's a great question because it's it's an interesting... you know, I call that, you know, my fourth child, right? Because this is like nutrition. Periodisation is literally like, I feel like it's one of my kids, one of my babies. But it was in the early 2000s, right, and I was working with athletes as an Endurance coach, strength coach. And this is what I was noticing. I was noticing that the other coaches I was working with and myself as a dietician and then the athletes, we weren't speaking the same language, right? So when I when I would talk to an athlete in working mostly with Endurance athletes and, you know, the crazy ones that do a lot of long, long distance stuff, you know, I would ask them, I said, You know, what training cycle are you in? And they looked at me like, I was crazy. And they're like, Why do you need to know that? And they didn't even know what that was, right? But why do you need to know that? I said, Well, because I need to fuel properly. To me, it just made sense, right? You you come from a strength training background and then you're an Endurance coach, too. I'm like, well, that just makes sense. So then I would we get a hold of their coach, I'm like, What training cycle? And sometimes like this is way back when, right? That's in Endurance world. Like in the strength and conditioning, periodisation is so well known, and it has been. In the endurance world 20 years ago, it wasn't really well known as much... Like we knew that we needed to build and recover, that's about it for endurance coaches. But I was noticing the coaches didn't really have a good grasp of what periodisation model they were implementing. So traditional, reverse, whatever they were doing right, it was so all... I mean, literally biasedly, I created the nutrition periodisation concept because I wanted us all to talk on at the same language on the same page, right? And then that was my only goal. And then it just blossomed, like it is literally as a sport dietitian now, it is the foundation guiding principle. It's kind of my far north, if you will. Whenever I work with an athlete, I always, always, always start with nutrition periodisation, the training load, training cycle, which is kind of... It's kind of cool to see the evolution over the past 20 years because now athletes understand it a little bit better. They don't grasp it, but they they definitely understand it. So that's that's kind of where it started, right?

Gary McCoy: [00:05:35] Phenomenal journey this is. And I remember the the times I've worked with athletes when it came to nutrition and I was fortunate to marry a, you know, as you know, a brilliant nutritionist and someone who's worked in team sports for a long time. And she... Every time I have a question, I would I defer to her first: here's what I'm thinking, what do you think? So I always clear it through her. But one of the challenges I always had was getting the construct of nutrition into sports. I was working into fuel, right, to take it from. It's a socially governed or developed system of eating, or it's something that I like to... I'm eating this food because it psychologically fills a hole or there's a convenience factor to it. Shifting that mindset to fuel was probably the the thing that, for me, in team sports, move the dime a little bit, had people actually thinking what was going into their bodies. Do you have that same challenge with an endurance athlete?

Bob Seebohar: [00:06:37] Oh, absolutely. Well, and I remember when I first got out of my second master's degree was in food science and human nutrition. Then I did my registered dietitian internship, then you have to take the exam. You know that from your wife. But I remember coming out of that and coming out of my clinical rotation at the hospital as an RD. The only thing they teach you, and unfortunately still doing this in this day and age is how to feed sick patients to get out of the hospital as quickly as possible, right? So it's a lot of calorie, it's a lot of equations. So that's that's what I learnt in school. I started applying that, Gary, to athletes and I was doing some crazy, crazy spreadsheets. Like they were looking like, I'd polish them colours like, you know, grams per kilogram calories, all this stuff. And like, it looked good. I was very proud of myself, right? This lasted for about three months, literally three months after I became an official RD because I was giving it to my Endurance athletes and they were like, wow, they were enamoured. They were like, wow, this is fantastic. And then they'd call me up and they'd be like, oh, you know, I'm at the grocery store, I don't know what this is. Like, the plan looks good, but you know, like you're talking about with the fuelling they're like, I don't know what to buy. I don't know what food you're talking about, how do I put this food together? Like all you've told me was, these are the quantitative numbers based on my body weight or goals or whatever. That's when the proverbial light bulb went off to me for me and I said, oh, something needs to change. Like this, traditionally, what what sport dietitians have done, I cannot go down that path again because it didn't work. And that's when I developed, just like you said, you know, I developed more of an intuitive eating plan. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of quantitative models that I use in the background, but I don't present that to athletes because they just, one, they don't understand it, two, they likely don't need to understand it, to be honest with you. And because they just need to know, what do I need to do during the day? What do I, what's my nutrient timing protocol? Like, what is the biggest bang for my buck? So that was kind of my aha moment. And luckily, I caught it very quick.

Gary McCoy: [00:08:40] Yeah, no, that's phenomenal. And the quantitative analysis of nutrition, I mean, we dived into this at Healthy Tech a fair bit. And yeah, the development of that energy balance equation, like we were chatting earlier, I said, you know, that came from a, you know, sitting with now a consultant to the US OTC Jay T Kearney in an Outback Steakhouse in Colorado Springs. And I've got a pen and paper, and I can still find that that drawing that I went home and put on to PowerPoint. I can still find that online, which is pretty funny. But yeah, look, I mean, that was the beginning for me of a journey into deep into nutrition, right? And understanding the parameter sets of that. And I quickly realised that quantitative analysis is one thing, but qualitative analysis is something else. So, when you start with an athlete, like looking at say, let's start with maybe macro nutrient composition, do you do like food recall data? Have them keep a diary and look at that you look at try to match success of, say, personal best times with what were they eating at that time to get that? Or do you go deeper and say if necessary, hey, I'm going to do a gas exchange test. We're going to do a, you know, a treadmill protocol test or bike protocol test, depending on that athlete. How do you get started? How does someone start?

Bob Seebohar: [00:09:58] Yeah, it one, it kind of depends if they're local or not. So I'm here in Colorado, obviously. So I do all my physiological testing here, my metabolic efficiency testing. But but to your point, to start with an athlete, I like working with athletes for at least a couple of months because, as you know, as a coach too, it's just like you don't really get to learn about them and get to know them truly. And granted, I don't always get my way with that, but I always have to start, you know, the basic forms. But I do. I need I need a three-day food log. But here's  what I do. And I've, you know, I've been through the wringer and I've, you know, I've been doing this for quite a while. I only ask them three questions to keep on the log: what you're eating, when you're eating, and why you're eating it, right? So. And it kind of throws them off. They're like, so you don't want to know how much? I said, No, no, no, that's coming later, right? If I don't understand your behaviours first, we can't look at the quantitative, right? And that's that's this whole paradigm shift that, one, I'm trying to kind of manoeuvre in my field of sports nutrition and try to get other sport dietitians to really adopt that because, yes, quantitate... I mean, you know this too. I mean, the quantitative and qualitative is like a great marriage, right? It really supports itself really well, but you can't have one without the other, right? So that said, after we go through that process, I look for little red flags, I look for holes, I look for opportunities basically, right? And that's where I start saying, okay, do I do the macro? Do we do the quantitative? Do we, do we need some biomarker testing? Do we need some substrate oxidation testing? So that's where I kind of funnel it out, and it is... I'll tell you this too Gary, it's not for me. Even though I'm a high performance sport dietitian, I look a lot at health, right? Because as you know, if an athlete isn't healthy, they can't perform, right? So I've actually talked some younger athletes into this where they're like, you know, they're bullet-proof. You know, the 20 30 year olds are like, nothing's wrong, blah blah blah. I'm like, listen, but we need to look at your testosterone. We need to look at your different hormone balances. We need to look at this stuff because it affects how your body recovers. It affects how your body sleeps, right? So it is more of a comprehensive... It's not a holistic approach, it's just making sure we're checking all the boxes. I oftentimes, I mean, a lot of times, I'm the dietitian to say, well, how are you feeling? But more importantly, what is your... Like if they use a power meter... I'm really big on power metres and running metrics which we'll talk about, is a little tricky these days. But you know, I ask about performance markers that are very quantitative. Like, what if it's cycling? What is your FTP? What do you see on these types of rides? Do you see it dropping? Do you see it, right? And same thing with running, I mean, there's some power based measures out there. They haven't been that great, that we that we've tried to use as coaches, but it's kind of looking at that whole person. But I love it because when an athlete comes to me, all they think is that I'm going to tell them what to eat. And it's nothing of the sort like it's, that's probably five percent of the whole equation.

Gary McCoy: [00:12:43] Yeah, no, it's amazing. And it is a term I used to use a fair bit. You can't out-train a bad diet. Yeah, that part of the equation, you just can't do that. And to start to, you know, kind of behaviour modify an athlete, start to drop that vernacular onto them and use that term fuel instead of food and try to tie those outputs together. For endurance athletes, when I'm looking, when I when I look downstream at that from my vantage point, having run one Marathon, I think you might have been in. Background is... That one with Steve Wilhite that we did at Healthy Tech. We ran the Paris Marathon. I said, this is a funny thing, Bob, we did that, I think in 2000, I think it was. And I... And Steve's like, are you going to run another Marathon? I said, Yeah, as soon as I can't remember the pain I had of the first one, I'll run another one, right? Hey, guess what? It's... I still remember... I've got a good memory. Still mate, right?

Bob Seebohar: [00:13:36] You still remember the pain?

Gary McCoy: [00:13:38] Yeah. So yeah, so I still... I try to figure out for myself at that point in time, how do I fuel appropriately? You know, it was changing. Like, I was always a big, you know, kind of protein, you know, meat and potatoes kind of culture growing up. How do you find like, the transition like is for an endurance athletes? So first, we've got macronutrient composition. We've got some micronutrient, probably need a relative to depending on the individual, right, in the data that you're aggregating from their assessments and then you've got timing. Let's talk about that a little bit. If if someone's planning to say couch to 5K, how important is nutrition going to be and how important is that nutrient timing going to be for somebody even at that level?

Bob Seebohar: [00:14:17] Yeah, I'll tell you Couch to five. So so I love that you quantified it a 5K because that's that was going to be my question, because it really is based on the distance, obviously fitness level, too. But if it's like a couch to 5K, listen, the only thing we usually look at is the daily nutrition plan, right? It's very, very seldom because 5K, you're talking 3.1 miles. I mean, a beginner can do that. You could get eight to 12 weeks, you know, hopefully, you know, injury free if they do it right. So there's not a lot to do with the nutrient timing protocol really with like a 5K, maybe even 10k distance. Once you start getting in the half marathon, that's when and it's and it's all based on energy availability, right? So our bodies have, depending on gender and size, we've got about two hours’ worth of carbohydrate stores, glycogen in our bodies, right? So that's what gets my attention. So when I work with an athlete, I say, well, how long are you training? What is the intensity? What are your goals, right? What is the distance? So couch to 5K, I think is is fairly... I hate to use the word easy whenever we talk about nutrition or training, but it's fairly easy because we just really manoeuvre their daily nutrition, which is breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. That's that's like the low hanging fruit, for sure.

Gary McCoy: [00:15:25] So, so go to the other end of the spectrum. So you've got an athlete training for a marathon who's world class. I mean, someone, someone's coming in into there with you. Let's talk about that. Firstly, if you had if you've got examples of that, whether it's cycling, running and people at that level who are really approaching nutrition for the first time and what difference does that make to things like their personal best timing?

Bob Seebohar: [00:15:48] Yeah, that so that is a deal breaker. I think honestly, as nutrition is literally like we talk about it in the triathlon world as the fourth discipline, like, you cannot be successful without a good nutrition plan. Listen, when you get to marathon distance at that level, you can't fake it. Like you literally cannot fake it, right? So I love I love the saying you have, I've got another saying just to drop that kind of kind of exuberates this: nutrition can make a good athlete great. It can also make a great athlete good. So if you really let that sink in, that's the importance of fuelling strategies and nutrient timing because you can take the best marathoner or anyone, any athlete in the world, and they can have a subpar nutrition plan and they can completely either blow up or they can get tenth place when, you know, I mean, that's that's the importance of nutrition, right? And I've seen it happen in collegiate athletes and professional Olympic athletes like and luckily, like the more professional athletes and Olympic athletes I'm talking to, they are starting to get it. I would say, even like 10, 15 years ago, it still wasn't really on the radar as much. But now it's becoming like this huge population that are actually acknowledging it now.

Gary McCoy: [00:17:02] Incredible. And let me ask you this Mate on that to fads. Nutrition fads, whether it's whether it's probably, you know, we might be in that window of intermittent fasting, but let's let's cycle a few fads back, because one of the things as a coach I would always do is I would try on that diet for size. And my wife, Maureen, will tell you, keep me away from paleo because I'm a pain in the butt on that on that programme, right?  Going from paleo to, you name it, to seeing all of a sudden one documentary come out about plant based nutrition athletes and everybody on me saying I got to go plant based. So I'm out... No, you know, let's let's go goal dependent. Let's let's roll that back, right? So fads... do your athletes come to you? And how do you how do you deal with that?

Bob Seebohar: [00:17:56] Yeah, I'll tell you jokingly, that's what keeps me in business. I mean, honestly, it's kind of shutting down all because there are so many of them, right? It's not just the low carb anymore or the high sugar, whatever it is like, it is literally you've got paleo, intermittent fasting, you've got keto. And nobody really even knows what keto is because there's so many alterations to it. Like, it is just nuts right now. Here's what I've been learning, even probably over the past five, six years. Number one: biomarker test, so when I say biomarkers, I'm talking about blood work, I'm talking about hormones, that kind of thing. Biomarker testing is absolutely necessary for every single athlete. Not every single athlete will do it, but it's absolutely necessary. And here's why, because I actually learn about like their deficiencies, right? So I look at deficiencies to try to improve that. It's the same thing, like in strength and conditioning. We're looking at functional imbalances. So I guess you could call this functional imbalances in their nutrition, right? So what I have found is in, you know, people come to me with, you know, hey, I want to do intermittent fasting. I'm like, well, you know, you're doing probably 12 hours anyway, like, you do realise that, right? And they're like: "Yeah, I am? Wow, that's shocking."

Gary McCoy: [00:19:03] It's called break-fast for a reason, right?

Bob Seebohar: [00:19:04] Exactly, right? But I do believe so, yes. Literally, Gary, there's not a day that goes by where I don't either dispel a myth, point an athlete in the right direction, do some biomarker testing to literally prove to them that they do have these functional imbalances and that maybe intermittent fasting or maybe paleo or keto isn't the plan for them. And I was just talking to an athlete yesterday who is an Aerospace engineer, right? So very quantitative. And she's like, she was asking me a whole bunch of quantitative questions, and I said, well, I can't really answer those before we have data, right? So we'll do some biomarker testing and she's all over it, obviously, right? But that's that's kind of where I'm at in my career and what I'm trying to promote to other sport dietitians and certainly athletes is, let's I call it, popping the hood, right? Let's pop the hood. Let's get some metrics first. Let's do some substrate oxidation metabolic efficiency testing. Let's let's even you know, if you work with the coach, let's look at the biomechanics because all of this affects the fuelling strategy. So I do, I will. I will say this, though I know you're familiar with nutrition periodisation. I know, you know, I created another concept called metabolic efficiency training, right? And it's funny because whenever I mention that I always tell people there's not diet in a title, right? I don't mention the word diet. It's very rare that I will mention diet. It's really about how do we best optimise blood sugar to to regulate hormones? So so for example, if I've got a top Marathoner, or an I've worked with a pretty top marathoner in the past. Don't mention his name, but you know he's from Kenya, right? And their structure, their culture is a very high carbohydrate diet. So if I were to say, oh, we're going to X athlete, I'm going to put you on a low carb, high fat diet that would be preposterous, right? Absolutely ridiculous. Because I'm not using his genetics as genomics, right? I'm not using that culture. And, you know, with something like that, we're looking at, his engine is very different than maybe a US American, you know, male athlete, Marathoner engine. Like, it's just because we have to look at those different dynamics. But it's not until we do some testing, some biomarker testing. But listen, at the end of the day, it is really how we compare, how we put together foods to to to elicit different blood sugar responses, to optimise health, to optimise performance.

Gary McCoy: [00:21:21] Love it. And how how often do you get somebody saying to you, just give me a diet, oh, just give me the plan.

Bob Seebohar: [00:21:30] Every three days.

Gary McCoy: [00:21:31] Oh yeah. It's like, OK, well, one size does fit all. It's like, you know, it's like... It brings up a really good point, too, because I recall designing a conference for personal trainers. This is back, I want to say 98-2000 somewhere in there. And the hot topic for personal trainers was nutrition. Well, brings up a couple of things. Firstly, every personal trainer thinks he or she is a nutritionist.

Bob Seebohar: [00:21:55] Right, right.

Gary McCoy: [00:21:56] I used to tell my wife, who was in a sea of personal trainers operating as a nutritionist, so they're giving out nutritional advice. Why don't you go on the floor and start telling people how to do a lat pull down? See what they do, right? Let's let's defer the qualification to where it needs to be firstly. But the other thing, the other thing you brought up there was the cultural variation and that you would have to extract from biomarker data. And I recall in that conference that I was designing, we had a nutrition panel and I had five nutritionists at the time who were fairly well respected. I think it was, you know, I won't go down through the names, but one guy stood out to me. It was a kind of a backstage conversation I was having with him was Scott Connelly, the founder of MET-Rx, the supplement company.

Gary McCoy: [00:22:39] Yeah. And he said to me this, he said, You know what? Culturally, he said, Gary, you know, he goes, I've got to look back genetically almost at the athletes and where they coming from themselves. He goes because if they if their DNA is kind of at that... North or south, you know, near one of the polar caps where their kind of ancestors grew up huddling behind the rock. All of a sudden they jump up anaerobic burst, you know, grab the peak, break it down, eat that, go huddle behind the rock for warmth again. He goes, I was more into the anaerobic kind of protein based diet plan is probably regulated. I'll start there for them. This is probably prior to the days we could do biomarker testing. And the same was kind of same was sitting for equatorial cultures as well, to your point, I mean, it's it's long, slow movement to try to find water or to try to find the next food source right if we go back, right? So all of a sudden you've got those genetic variations. But yeah, but bio... The biomarker work you do, are there similarities? Is everyone so different that you've got to start from scratch? How does it work?

Bob Seebohar: [00:23:47] It's amazing. I mean, I've got kind of a standard biomarker panel just from a blood work standpoint for most endurance athletes that I work with. Depending on health history, I'll get some, some more technical kind of deep-down biomarkers in terms of heart, heart related disorders and biomarkers. But it is definitely N-of-1. Like I actually... If you if you're not aware of this, but there's a there's a kind of growing trend in the nutrition field right now called nutrigenomics. So, it's basically how nutrition interacts with different genes and gene pathways. So, you can actually, like certain foods, this is it's fascinating. I've been learning about this for the past five years now. You have certain foods. It's almost like a dimmer switch on a light, right? So certain foods will will increase the inflammatory pathway or oxidation pathway, and certain foods will decrease the inflammation or oxidation pathway. So, we're getting into this a little bit more... That that is definitely N-of-1 like from a biomarker standpoint, it's amazing. Like, I mean, the standard things you look at, iron and B12 and folate metabolism. Yeah, that's that's way different for most people. But that's like, you still have ranges with that, right? Like athletic ranges with the genomics, this nutrigenomics, because it's still in its infancy, there are not technically ranges. Like I know with mine because I've had mine done before, and it's great because actually nutrigenomics, it's a one and done test because your genes don't change, right? So you have this done once, and then you can start affecting your nutrition based on that. But I know, like with me, I've got these what are called in layman's terms, we call them spelling errors on genes, and I have a spelling error on my vitamin D pathway. So I have to actually personally, even though I'm in Colorado, it's sunny, what, 300 plus days a year. I have to supplement with vitamin D quite aggressively because I have a spelling error on this pathway that limits my body's ability to make vitamin D. So that allows me like as a practitioner, to dive in and say... Because I'm not a big pill pusher unless we find deficiencies, right? I try to do it from food first, but sometimes you just can't, right? So we look at omega 3s, we look at, we look at vitamin D, we look at folate pathways all like iron and everything, and I'm finding huge functional imbalances. And the only reason we're finding it is because we're testing for it. And it's it's kind of that aha moment for athletes, because once I find this and we correct it, you know, 6, 10, 12 weeks later, we correct it through food and maybe some supplements. The athlete, it's like a different athlete Gary. They're like, "I feel so good, like, I'm recovering faster. I'm hitting my metrics in my training. Finally, you know, I don't feel like I need to sleep all day long." So it's like, I love that as a practitioner because we actually get to use quantitative metrics to affect real life, right?

Gary McCoy: [00:26:31] Yeah, it's kind of like you're looking at if we were designing maps or areas, it's kind of like the topography of that athlete, what do they look like, and then how do I chart a course for their best success? And how do you how do you fill the gaps? How do you how do you level the holes? How do you look forward and then go, okay, you're planning on this power burst during this race. And therefore we need to do X, Y and Z prior to the race. So it to me, it's science, right? It's just it's a scientific method. And that to me is the is the key to that success. But tell me about this, one of the things like and being in a sport tech company at Kinetyx, we look at just about every kind of wearable out there and I've been involved with a number of companies, consulted to some work for some, and I'm always looking at data coming off. One of the things that I noticed and we had a good chat the other day with Outside CEO Robin Thurston around a product he's kind of trialling right now as part of a... What's the word I'll use… As part of a clinical study. He's looking at this product called Super Sapiens. Well, this is a patch-worn device that kind of breaks the skin, gets in and starts to look at glucose now their glucose levels in that athlete. But there's also a number of companies coming to market that are that are claiming to get that same data from surface only, which non-invasive, great if it's accurate, right? So there's there's a there's a ring coming out of Australia that's got a glucose monitoring system on it. Yeah, let's talk about tech and wearables. Have you found anything that you say for outside of, say, a power metre, which is looking at so many different elements on a bike or anything like that? But has there been a wearable? Other than a quantitative wearable that you've been able to say, look back and say, you know, that's kind of transformative data because I can align nutritional strategies against that data. Is there anything that you'd like that you've seen and used?

Bob Seebohar: [00:28:37] I think, you know, back to the HRV, you know, you mentioned the Whoop previously. We know there's still a lot of error there, but I'll tell you what for some of the athletes I work with who have HRV recording devices or if they do a chest strap with their phone or whatever. Well, it's not 100 percent accurate. It is very enlightening for the athlete to manage stress level, right? So stress can be training stress. It could be food stress. It could be emotional stress, right? So that has helped. But I don't give it, you know, I don't I don't give an A+ on the scale. I use it, definitely. But it's part of the equation when I coach an athlete. I will tell you this since you were on the CGM, the continuous glucose monitor. I tell you what, I got my hands on one for four weeks. A couple of months ago, I wore it. You know, it's it's very similar to the one you mentioned. It was a different company that just let me trial it. I mean, I've been doing this for almost a quarter of a century, right? Yeah, that changed the way I approached food personally as a sport dietitian. Like, it was like a total game changer. So I wore it right behind my arm, back of the tricep, you know, had the app. I was my wife... I was driving my wife crazy because I would literally eat something and I'd be like: "Okay, watch my glucose, watch what's happening." Because it's real time, right? It's absolutely, and it's it's so... So here's the thing to customise nutrition for an athlete. I feel that a CGM is a is a necessary piece of technology that will that we'll look at in the future, for sure. Because here's the thing like, you're going to respond differently to that sandwich that I'm going to respond differently to. But as a sport dietitian, it allows me to say Gary instead of, you know, having two slices of turkey maybe have five slices of turkey on it. Let's see what happens to your... And it's so it's so powerful, even for those... I mean, traditionally, CGMs have been used for for people with diabetes, right? But we're going to see this huge, I guarantee it, huge influx in the sports market. Actually, I just there was a story in Colorado. Unfortunately, a 16 year old swimmer down in Colorado Springs was competing at state and he got disqualified, right? 16 old, because he was wearing a CGM on his arm and the kid has type one diabetes, for goodness sake, right? I mean, right? So but, But my point is, we're going to see more and more of these wearables. I don't know. Like, I can't speak to like the ring. And I've heard, like Apple Watch is going to look at glucose monitoring soon. I can't speak to that accuracy, but I will tell you the efficacy of CGMs. It's going to blow up the way we approach nutrition here, probably in the next few years, I guarantee it.

Gary McCoy: [00:31:11] So that could functionally change, when I look at the course of that continuous monitoring, right, that, in race, that kind of could alter the supplements strategy or the timing strategy continuously.

Bob Seebohar: [00:31:24] Huge, huge. I know of a couple of professional Ironman athletes that have been experimenting with it during racing right in Ironman, and they're literally looking at that. You know, that metric as they're as they're riding mostly and they're able to fuel. Like, so their dieticians have helped them, kind of, that fuelling strategy based on their training metrics also. So it will, it's a total game changer, like total game changer. It'll probably... Well, it's like any physiological testing if you think about it, right? But that's just like in-field testing, which is actually what we need more of. I mean, lab testing is great. Don't get me wrong, I do lab testing, yes. But when you get field testing in an athlete's environment, that is make or break, like that is golden right there.

Gary McCoy: [00:32:03] Yeah. And that's and that's exactly where we're at with Kinetyx. We realise that, you know, it's in-situ or in-field where we need that data coming from so we can apply it correctly. So I can, I can see a day where our force protection algorithm in a endurance runner like seeing increases, decreases in force production and looking against that fuel gauge if we wanted to call it that at some point in time, how we could potentially manipulate that. I mean, there's a future, hopefully based on data, but then decisions are made hopefully human intuitively too, because at the end of the day, right? Yeah, let's let's do this because I don't think our listeners will know this. So let's take your coach hat off. Let's put your athlete hat on. Yeah, mate Leadville. Tell me about. Yeah, tell me. Tell our listeners about the distance, your training, you're a Leadman. And I want you to tell me a little bit about that, because anybody who's in Houston who knows anything about Endurance is going to go, Oh, what training for that? What was your motivation? How do you approach that for yourself personally?

Bob Seebohar: [00:33:13] Yeah, it was... It was an interesting one, for sure. Let me let me give you the back story first so everyone understands. So I grew up as a competitive soccer player. You know, soccer and loved it to death, so very, and in your mind, in my mind, with the coaching hat on, we're thinking anaerobic, right? I am extremely fast twitch dominance. Like, let's just set that up. Love sprinting. I could outrun anybody, you know? I mean, that's the thing. When I was in college, I got dared to do my first triathlon, sprint triathlon. I didn't really know how to swim. I had no idea, actually. I didn't even know what a triathlon was, but a buddy dared me. I'm I'm highly competitive, so of course I'm going to take that dare. You know, finished close to dead last. But I loved it because I was like, ehoa, I can get better at this. So it's just important to understand, like I've gravitated to a very fast twitch muscle fibre to try to try to do my best at endurance. But what I did was I started after my triathlon introduction in undergrad. I started looking at, okay, I need a challenge, right? I absolutely need to do something. So I started training for Ironman triathlons, and this is going to sound really weird. But some of your listeners are going to understand after what six Ironmans I got like literally, and it's not to say anything about me, but I got bored. I'm like, It's the same thing over and over. Like, I love the sport to death, don't get me wrong, but I needed something different. I'm in Colorado. Leadville is literally less than two hours away. Back then, like my first Leadville, I've done it a few times. My first Leadville was was actually right before I went to Florida in 2006, and it was just, you know, it was easy for me to train because here I am in the mountains and it's there. That was an eye opener, like my first Leadville run, and let me just back up. So the Leadville is 100 miles. Well, they have a lot of different races, but you know, you always have to start with the 100 mile because that's that's the big, the big one. So it's a 100 mile run. You know, starting altitude is 10200 feet in Leadville, you go up to just over 12000 feet. You know, it's an out and back course. And I, you know, I coach people with this all the time, but I tell them, Leadville, the course isn't hard. Yeah, there's a lot of elevation gain and drop. It's the friggin altitude, right? That's what gets everybody. So. So after my first one, you know, I went to Florida, you know, with the Gators for a while, came back home. Then I decided, Oh, I need another challenge. Oh, what's this Leadman? So this was 2009. I've got a lot of loose screws in my mind. But but honestly, I think it's just being an athlete, like I wanted that next level, right? So the Leadman was, it is, a series of... You start out with a Marathon and this is all in Leadville, 10000 feet and above, right? So we did a Marathon. Then a couple of weeks later, there's a 50-mile bike ride on no, I'm sorry, 50 mile run on Saturday, 50 mile bike, mountain bike ride on Sunday. Really, you know, harsh terrain. Then a few weeks later, you've got a 100-mile mountain bike. Then the next day you've got a 10k run and then a week later you've got the 100-mile run. So within seven weeks, you've got a marathon run. You've got a 10k run. You've got a 100-mile run. You've got 50-mile mountain bike and a 100-mile mountain bike, right? I'll tell you, I didn't do anything else that summer, like it was all trying to recover. But you know, it was like for me, like spiritually being out on the trails and nature. Like, That's my thing. That's that's my my way of just connecting. So the training I'm not going to say, was easy. Like I would Gary, I would put in... I think my longest run was like 32 miles. It's in granted, this was when I was younger, so I actually recovered a lot faster. But you know, I would be out. I would ride, you know, 60-to-80-mile mountain bike rides. I would like literally do... I didn't feel warmed up for running until I hit like 10 miles. Like, literally, I got to that point where the first 10 miles, I was like, oh, still not feeling good because my normal runs would be like 15 to 25 miles. Right. So if you think of that, like, it excites me to talk about it because, oh, because I actually might try to do something crazy like this again and actually come down your way next year, there's actually a race called Cocodona 250. So, I've entered that. I'm going to I'm going to try it with an athlete that I that I work with. But it's a 250-mile trail race, right? Yeah, maybe we don't call it a race because it's like a five-day event. But anyway, I mean...

Gary McCoy: [00:37:32] Survival.

Bob Seebohar: [00:37:33] Survival, exactly. Yeah, yeah. So Leadman, I'll tell you what, though, like it was, it was fantastic. Such an accomplishment doing it. But as an athlete, I learnt a lot about my body's limits. That being, I didn't have many and truly, I don't believe we do have many physical limitations. Unless you have an injury, right, then I totally get it. There are some nutritional limits for sure, and I believe the mental limit is mostly driven from the physical thought of a limitation. But again, it's just that thought. It's just the mental process because and you've been in the same place.

Gary McCoy: [00:38:07] Yeah, well, exactly. And thank you for touching on this because I want to go back at the start of that narrative. On your journey as an athlete, you said something that is critically, I believe in my experience, uncommon. And that is I wasn't good at this, being the triathlon. This is something I can get better at. I see 99% of athletes, especially young athletes saying: "I'm not good at this. I'm not getting the trophy right away. I am shying away from this." Right? So rate limiting capacity and it brings into discussion, you know, recently, you know, picking up Alex Hutchinson's book Endure and a couple of this inside a Kinetyx read that. And it kind of was like, these oh wow moments. It took me back to the 1999 ACSM Conference that I was at, where this central governor theory was repostured and brought through, and I started using that. I recall that and started using elements of that in training baseball players and hacking things like how to throw a baseball faster, right? So even even in that like central governor theory, and I think you touched on it here, I've often said, you know, most you know, well, let's do this. Capacity on an athlete, athlete capacity. Where does is that visualised first that I have a ceiling? Is it? Does it come through from some sense of, say, pain and feedback that you don't have the ability to work through that process? Give me your thoughts on that because I think that's especially when we're talking about endurance of like a 100 miles in a in a Leadville race or the 250 that you're planning, right? Where what's going to be the rate limiting factor? Is it mind first? Is it body first? Is it fuel first?

Bob Seebohar: [00:40:02] Well, yeah. So they all interact. I think it's very difficult to prioritize, but I will say biasedly: I do not believe we have physical limitations. I really do not. I think a lot of athletes have shown us that you look at the Paralympic world you look at like there are very few physical limitations. There are nutritional limitations. But but listen, besides hydration, like you can mess up a fuelling strategy, but as long as you're staying hydrated, you're going to stay alive. Like, let's put it that way, right? I truly believe the one rate limiting step that holds everyone back is is literally between your ears, right? It is literally the mental component because, you know, I coach junior triathletes and I've seen the same thing in young athletes. Like you were saying, if they're not good at something first, they will move on to the next thing. I don't believe that's a central governor theory thing. I believe there's a little bit more how they grow up, the socialization, everything. But I do... I do not believe that there are limitations on athletes. From a mental standpoint, you can train that we know we can in physical and nutritional, but I do believe it is a mental... I think the mental holds back athletes and mostly because what I've been learning and mostly it's because of confidence, to be honest with you and I don't know. And again, I work with a lot of young athletes, too, and it's instilling that confidence and teaching them. Even probably like the young baseball players you worked with as they just haven't been on this earth long enough to be able to to really process all of the confidence builders. But, you know, kind of their self-worth also. And I think that spills over. That's why we see a lot of in endurance, we see a lot of the more successful athletes as they age, right. So we're talking 30- and 40-year-olds and even 50 and plus that's when they're becoming more successful. And listen, what happens when we age? Biology takes, takes hold, right? So we know recovery decreases, sarcopenia. I mean, everything is just crushing down on us. But why are these males and females getting better? I believe because they're getting better mentally and they're learning how to really govern their mind in terms of of, you know, doing a 250 mile race or whatever, like they're just more withstanding and more resilient.

Gary McCoy: [00:42:04] Yeah, it always amazes me to hear somebody professional in our industry talk about the mind body connection, and I always stand back and go, Well, hang on a minute. When were they disconnected that we have to discuss this, right?

Bob Seebohar: [00:42:18] When is it disconnected, yeah?

Gary McCoy: [00:42:19] Yeah, yeah. And so I use I use a chart sometimes with coaches and I say, Look, I think all decisions, the framework of this is, is emotions, right? Is the foundation. Then it's cognitive, then it's kind of the physical systems and it's technical, tactical, strategic in that kind of flow. At the end of that strategy, there's going to be an outcome and that'll feed back into the emotional side and away we go. There's that continual build or that continual failure, if you want to use that term, right? I always try to put it into the concept of it's not failure, it's feedback. So how are you going to process that feedback? So, yeah, the mind, you know, it's kind of starts there and I guess it starts there nutritionally as well because I mean that same profile and I, you know, I try to look at every single athlete I work with through like childlike eyes, through fresh eyes. I've got to approach it and leave my own biases aside and try to approach with with what they're presenting with and what data I do have on them, right? So at that point in time, it gets to a point. There's some people that kind of buck at those ones and you listen for it in the words that they use, in their body language and the things that aren't... When things aren't going well, you can see it. And the trickle-down effect, it kind of spirals for me, for some of the athletes I deal with, spiralled into nutrition. Next thing you know, they're at the fast-food drive thru. You know, it's like trying to fill some emotional hole through food. So, yeah, I mean, it's that it's like the operating system on a computer, right? We've got this operating system, tapping in and understanding. Is it is it Windows or is it iOS, right? I mean, that's kind of what you try to do with biomarkers and then the evaluation of the athlete that's presented in front of you.

Bob Seebohar: [00:43:58] Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And you know, I would just hope that athletes realize that this this is a complex system, like our body is a complex system, and we're really trying to gain as much information from it as possible to be able to give them a good prescription, be it be it mental, be it nutritional, be it physical, whatever it is. And unfortunately, I just think a lot of athletes want that quick fix. Like, remember what you said earlier is how many athletes just want you to tell them to put them on a diet or tell them what to eat, right? That's so far in the future that we need to follow about 100 steps or go through 100 hundred steps before we can even answer that question. Like it's funny because proverbially I'm the I'm the sport dietitian that when an athlete comes to me to get a question answered, I always ask them questions, right? So I usually don't answer their question for a few minutes and they're like, "Can you just answer my question?" And I say, "well, I can't do that yet, right? Because I don't have all the information."

Gary McCoy: [00:44:49] Right, and it's part of that evolutionary process in coaching. I'll say the same thing to an athlete. Yeah, they'll say, Look, can you answer these questions? I go, probably not, but I'll give you the ability to ask better questions. that's what I'm trying to do. Educate that mindset through there. So how hard is it to get good food?

Bob Seebohar: [00:45:08] It it's very difficult, right? It's difficult. And here's why. Because the mental part of choosing food that, and the psychological piece of it. So how we grew up, what culture, what mom and dad did, our socioeconomic status. Good food... Like, and when you say good, it's kind of kind of I mean, when you say like, I would think of good food is as nutrient dense foods, right? So right food. Yeah, exactly. So that's... I mean, you can find it, you're going to pay a little bit more for it, right? But you can find it. But here's the thing. A lot of individuals just don't know what to look for because how they grew up, and that's what I actually encounter. That's a huge obstacle in my nutrition coaching business because that's what I'm trying to help them overcome. You know, they might say, Oh yeah, we want to do grass fed beef. We've heard that, but you know, I can't afford it. Or why would I? Do you know? So there are all these obstacles before actually going to the store to get grass fed beef where you think it would just be easy to say, Gary, put grass fed beef in your in your grocery cart but there's a block there somewhere because they haven't. So it's all a behaviour modification strategy.

Gary McCoy: [00:46:13] Yeah, no. It makes a lot of sense. My wife, Maureen, was very fortunate to have access to her when I was in Taiwan, trying to figure out how. Why aren't these athletes recovering and squatting down and eating eating out of a food box with chopsticks in this dugout? I looked around and I thought, I'm with these guys three meals a day. I don't see a lot of protein here.So my very first step was try to go and figure out protein supplementation, supplements or something they weren't even used to having. So how do you get how do you get a protein drink to work with the palate of somebody in Taiwan? Those were really challenging days, but it made it made all the difference in the world at the end of that from a not only recoverability standpoint, but also an injury prevention standpoint. So right? Let's talk about food. Stay on this a little bit because you have your own line of foods, and I've been fortunate to try your oatmeal, which I think is best oatmeal I've ever had by the way. Phenomenal stuff. Tell me about Birota. Let's dive into that a little bit. Tell me, how did that come about and and where is it at?

Bob Seebohar: [00:47:15] If you were to hit me up 10 years ago and said, Hey, Bob, because a lot of people did, they say, you should, you should develop a food line, some food products, I'm like now, that's crazy. Like, I'm a sport dietitian. Why would I create a food? Like, I counsel athletes, that's what I do. So here's the thing. And since since we've last talked, I've actually created another food company too, right, called All Around Snack Company. So I'll tell you... So I've got, so Birota Foods came to fruition in 2016. All Around Snack company was was a COVID company, right? So 2020. But but here's the thing so one was created out of innovation, and that's Birota Foods. The other was created out of frustration. And that's All Around Snack company, right? So let me go back to the Birota foods. So quick back story. I was out on a bike ride. It was probably 2015. It was in the winter in Colorado. Storm came, you know, usually we can ride year round here in Colorado. So I was on the road. Storm came in. I'm freezing my you know what off. I'm trying to get home as fast as possible, and all I can think about is, how do I get warm? I grew up in the mountains in Colorado, hot cocoa was a staple, right? It was just like your comfort food, hot cocoa with a ton of sugar with marshmallows. So that's the first thing I thought of, like, wow, how do I get warm? But then I was like, well, I don't want sugar, right? Because that's going to just do a whole bunch of bad things in my body. I don't want marshmallows, so I'm like, How can I make a good cocoa? So fast forward, Birota Foods was actually, you know, it was born on a bike because I was on my bike, and this is what has happened. I found a great business partner who's also a sport dietitian. She's also a chef, a food scientist. So kind of the pieces of the puzzle that I wasn't. But basically the innovation is this: I wanted a cocoa, and this is where it started. I wanted a cocoa that had functional abilities, right? The mainstay of all of our products is we put caprylic acid, which is one of the four medium chain triglycerides in it. So caprylic acid stabilizes blood sugar, it crosses the blood brain barrier. It helps stabilise brain functioning, improves brain cognitive functioning. Everything, right? It's just, it's fantastic. So that was the really the the innovation. We also put d-ribose, which is a five carbon sugar instead of a six carbon sugar. So d-ribose actually decreases blood sugar. They actually tell people with diabetes to be careful with that. But but basically, that's the innovation. It's not like a cocoa that just dumps some sugar and, you know, red cocoa. It's like we're putting these functional ingredients to elicit good blood sugar control. Because remember what I talked about earlier? I'm all about optimising blood sugar. So that was that was the cornerstone. Then we created a creamer, then we created the noatmeal that that you were talking about that is all plant based. It's no, it's not allergens. There's actually no oats. That's what we call it noatmeal, because it's no oatmeal, but it has caprylic acid. It has d-ribose. So, that is, we're just trying to create this innovative functional category, if you will. So it's fantastic. We've had some great experiences with athletes, with individuals. The other company I created all around snack company, I was saying, was out of frustration. So locally, I work with the University of Denver women's gymnastics team, right? I'm their sport dietitian. This is year three. And what I found was, you know, obviously we know there are some, there are some challenges when it comes to feeding any athlete, especially female gymnasts.

Gary McCoy: [00:50:28] Especially gymnasts, oh, my god, yeah.

Bob Seebohar: [00:50:28] Yeah, right? And I was I was looking at them like, okay, and I was noticing their snack patterns like, number one, they don't really snack a lot. And if they do, it's super high sugar. It's not great for a D1 student athlete. I mean, right? And so I was looking at their snacking and I was like, OK, how can I make this better? And I would look for a trail mix. I look for anything in the store, but then you then you have, you know, mixes with dyes, you have high sugar, you have preservatives. All these all this crap, right? I'm like, I wouldn't give this to my kids. Like, why would I recommend this to my athletes, right? So this was the frustration. There was nothing in that, even though, like the whole snacking is a huge market. I just basically said, I don't care, I'm going to create my like, what do I want to accomplish? I want one with a... I wanted a complete protein source, not just plant based, right? I wanted one with super high omega 3s, anti-inflammatory fats, high antioxidants and low sugar. Like those were my functional things. And then I just built it from there. So I've got four flavours. It's my gourmet snack mix. I've got four flavours. But here's here's the thing you're going to appreciate because you and I speak the same language when it comes to protein. I'm totally fine with plant based. I love plant based. I was a vegetarian for 10 years. I totally get it. But when it comes to athletes like I, the thing that sets my snack mix apart is that I actually include these whey protein puffs. They look like little cereal bites, right? 100%whey protein isolate. Wow. Huge amount of leucine. And as you know, but just to remind the listeners, leucine independently is the amino acid that triggers muscle protein synthesis. So now all of a sudden, I've got almonds and walnuts. Great plant source based protein combined with whey protein isolate puffs that I actually coat, depending on the flavour, I coat a little bit with honey and cinnamon. Because, interestingly enough, honey and cinnamon trigger certain genes to reduce inflammation. That's just off the cuff.

Gary McCoy: [00:52:25] Holy cow.

Bob Seebohar: [00:52:26] Yeah, yeah. So now I've got this huge, functionally good snack mix that I mean, literally I created for this gymnastics team now. The reason actually the reason I went to market, I'll just say this quickly. The first flavour I created was called dark chocolate and tart cherries. So and I like my ingredients like even the dark chocolate Gary. Like I looked at it's 72% organic dark chocolate. But here's the thing like I needed. I didn't want soy lecithin. So look, next time you the grocery store, look at all the chocolate bars, every single one of them will have soy lecithin. I wanted sunflower lecithin because it's not chemically extruded from the sunflower, right? So like, that's the level of detail I'm looking at with my ingredients. But the reason I brought this to market, and I'll tell you, is because my daughter actually liked the snack mix and my daughter is probably the pickiest of the pickiest, right? So that was like, that was my aha moment! Like, I've got something, she likes it, it's functional, then I started giving it to my gymnasts are like, wow, this is amazing. And now I have a snack mix that no one I feel good feeding to my family. Number two, my gymnasts are actually eating it. So here's the thing we're improving the nutritional status of a student athlete and number three, it just tastes really good. So that's kind of what I've been doing in the food market lately.

Gary McCoy: [00:53:44] Unbelievable. So I guess a question our listeners can ask themselves is, is your... And I won't use the word diet, is your fuelling strategy functional? Would be a great question to start with. So Bob, where can our listeners where can our listeners find out more about both the food line, the snack line and more about you? Tell us where to find out more.

Bob Seebohar: [00:54:05] Yeah, I'm pretty easy to find on anywhere. Facebook, Google, you can google my name, but but my nutrition coaching business is called eNRG performance E-N-R-G Performance. That's where I do my biomarker testing, physiological testing, all nutrition coaching, endurance coaching. Birota Foods is my functional cocoa creamer noatmeal, so that is B-I-R-O-T-A foods. Interestingly enough, the word Birota is Greek for bicycle, right? So that's, I'm sorry, Latin for bicycle because it was born like, right, so Birota Foods. And yeah, All Around Snack company .com So allaroundsnackcompany.com.

Gary McCoy: [00:54:47] Fantastic. Bob, It's been spectacular to catch up with you, Mate. And what's next for you? Is there something on the horizon that we need to know about?

Bob Seebohar: [00:54:55] I've got so many, so many things brewing right now. I don't want to... I don't want to jump the gun just yet. But you know, let's check back in about six to eight months. I should have some some good projects coming to back to fruition here.

Gary McCoy: [00:55:08] Well, I'll tell you what, when you get to Arizona for that two hundred and fifty mile race, you've got a built in support team and a place to stay. So just let us know.

Bob Seebohar: [00:55:18] I will definitely call you up. Absolutely. That'll be fun catching up again.

Gary McCoy: [00:55:22] Be awesome, buddy. Fantastic. Thank you so much for your time today. And yeah, let's keep in touch.

Bob Seebohar: [00:55:28] Awesome. Thanks. Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Gary McCoy: [00:55:32] Thanks for listening to the Human Kinesome project. Our music is provided by the incredibly talented Joanna Magic. I hope you will join our community at Discord.gg/kinetyx. Team, the game is just beginning.