Cutting Back on Alcohol: What to Know and What to Try

If your pace fell off a cliff the second it got hot out, you're not losing fitness. You're adapting! Amanda, Chelsea, and Dr. Chris break down the summer slowdown, the very real reason your easy runs suddenly feel brutal and your heart rate spikes for no obvious reason. They get into what is actually happening in your body when you train in the heat, why it is diverting resources just to keep you alive, and why pushing through it is one of the most effective things you can do for your fall race season. Plasma volume expansion, improved sweat response, glycogen sparing, and why heat training works a lot like showing up to a lighter planet after training on a heavier one. Slower in the summer does not mean less fit. It means you are handling a whole extra set of challenges, and building something that pays off when the temperature drops. Black Iron Nutrition Book a Free Discovery Call Free Macro Calculator Free Downloads Black Iron Blog

We have more health information available to us than ever before, and somehow people are more confused than they have ever been. Amanda, Chris (PhD exercise science), and Jess Gordon get into why nutrition and fitness misinformation spreads so easily, what makes it so believable, and how to build a better filter without getting an advanced degree. They cover why "doing your own research" on PubMed can actually give you a false sense of confidence, why simplicity almost always beats truth online, how fear and urgency get used to sell you things, and the specific red flags that should turn your BS meter on. Blue check marks, letters behind a name, always and never statements, and the toxic ingredient headlines that make everyone clutch their pearls. Nobody here is telling you to stop learning online. They are just handing you a sharper filter for what you find! Black Iron Nutrition Book a Free Discovery Call Free Macro Calculator Free Downloads Black Iron Blog

Alcohol consumption in the US just hit its lowest point in nearly 90 years, and the conversation around drinking has gotten a lot more nuanced. Ryann, Sabrina, and Nic get into why people are drinking less, what is actually driving the change, and what the growing market of alcohol alternatives looks like for people who still want something in their hand at a social event. They cover the real impacts of alcohol on sleep, recovery, performance, and mental health, how to think about it if you have a complicated family history with it, and why there is a meaningful difference between not drinking and demonizing people who do. Plus a breakdown of the actual alternatives, which ones are worth trying, which ones are mostly marketing, and how to figure out what actually fits your lifestyle. Black Iron Nutrition Book a Free Discovery Call Free Macro Calculator Free Downloads Black Iron Blog

Wanting to change your body composition as an athlete is common. Knowing how to do it without tanking your performance is a different story. Krissy, Kelly, and Kelsey get into what body recomposition means for performance, why being your leanest is almost never the same as performing your best, and why the slower and less dramatic the process is, the better. They cover how to periodize your nutrition around your training season, what a realistic body recomp timeline actually looks like, why performance does not improve infinitely as body fat decreases, and why the athlete you are comparing yourself to on social media has probably been training for ten-plus years to look that way. This one is specifically for people who train for a purpose. If your primary goal is performance, this conversation will change how you think about the relationship between your body and your sport. Black Iron Nutrition Book a Free Discovery Call Free Macro Calculator Free Downloads Black Iron Blog

You already know you should be sleeping more. This episode is about actually making it happen. Morgan, Ryann, and Nic get into both the fundamentals you need to have in place and the newer research most people have not heard yet. They cover why poor sleep does more damage to your nutrition progress than a bad diet day, what your circadian rhythm actually is and why wrecking it on weekends is basically giving yourself jet lag on purpose, and the surprising research on hot showers before bed. Plus mouth taping, temperature regulation, why the little standby light on your TV might be ruining your sleep, and what social jet lag is doing to your body even when you think you are catching up on rest. This one is dense with good science, and still very funny. Black Iron Nutrition Book a Free Discovery Call Free Macro Calculator Free Downloads Black Iron Blog

Feeling uncomfortable when you try to change something is not a sign you are doing it wrong. It is a sign your brain is working exactly as designed. Amanda, Brooke, and Kelly get into the biology and psychology behind why behavior change is so hard, why your brain is literally wired to talk you out of new habits, and why friction is not the same thing as failure. They cover productive discomfort versus the kind of discomfort that is actually a red flag, why people quit new things too soon, the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth one, and how to build the kind of resilience that actually makes habits stick. This is not an episode about pushing through pain. It is an episode about understanding why this feels hard and building something that can handle it anyway. Black Iron Nutrition Book a Free Discovery Call Free Macro Calculator Free Downloads Black Iron Blog

The scale is capable of doing exactly one thing well: telling you your relationship to gravity. It cannot tell you how much muscle you have gained, how much fat you have lost, how your sleep has improved, or why you finally stopped stress eating at 10pm. And yet most people use it as the only measure of whether any of this is working. Ryann, Christin, and Joyce talk about what progress looks like when you stop letting the scale be the only thing that counts. They get into the non-scale wins that show up in clients who are doing everything right, why the goal weight you have in your head is probably more arbitrary than you realize, why a bigger body is not a less healthy body, and how shifting your focus to habits and deep health is what actually makes any of this sustainable long term. Black Iron Nutrition Book a Free Discovery Call Free Macro Calculator Free Downloads Black Iron Blog  

Road trips and good nutrition do not have to be mutually exclusive. But they do require a little more thought than just hoping there is a Chipotle at the halfway point. Ryann, Kelsey, and Nic get into the real barriers that make eating well on the road so hard: the f*ck-it mentality when your kitchen is not with you, the boredom snacking through Kansas, the moment your cooler runs out and you are staring down a gas station. They share what they actually pack, how to navigate fast food stops without blowing the whole trip, how to find decent options at a gas station when you are out of options, and which chains are actually worth stopping at. This one is practical, specific, and includes a very enthusiastic endorsement of Buc-ee's. Black Iron Nutrition Book a Free Discovery Call Free Macro Calculator Free Downloads Black Iron Blog

Every year around this time, without fail, the summer body messaging is in full-force. The "last chance to lose 10 pounds before beach season" ads, paired with the implication that you have to earn the right to be seen in a swimsuit. It is the same story in different packaging, and it has been going on since your grandmother was worried about her waist size. Amanda, Kelsey, and Sabrina talk about where that messaging actually comes from, why it sticks, and why hitting the number you have been chasing is almost never the thing that makes you feel better. They get into the negative feedback loop, the self-talk red flags, anchoring bias, why nobody at the end of a vacation remembers what anyone looked like in a bikini, and why BIN stopped running summer challenges. You are allowed to have goals. This episode is just about making sure the story driving those goals is actually yours. Black Iron Nutrition Book a Free Discovery Call Free Macro Calculator Free Downloads Black Iron Blog

Dessert is not the problem. Guilt aorund it is. Morgan, Christin, and Jess S. get into why so many people have a complicated relationship with sweets, where that relationship actually comes from, and what the science says about what happens in your brain when you restrict something you actually want. They talk about the food rules we grew up with, almond moms, the restrict-overeat-reset cycle, and why trying to replace the brownie with fruit and then a granola bar and then cereal means you end up eating everything in the kitchen and still not feeling satisfied. Plus a conversation about generational food guilt, raising kids without passing it down, why cravings are information and not a character flaw, and why just having the brownie was always going to be the better option. Black Iron Nutrition Book a Free Discovery Call Free Macro Calculator Free Downloads Black Iron Blog