ETP, Hydration, Women’s Issues with Jeff Rothchild, Mike T Nelson Phd, and Brad Dieter, Phd
I’ve been enjoying the series of Podcasts done the Eat to Perform and sharing them whenever possible. This ETP podcast with Brad Dieter, and Mike T Nelson Phd discusses Hydration, Women’s Cycles, and Bloating with Jeff Rothchild from EatSleep.fit. The podcast, which is free to listen via soundcloud, is linked below and definitely worth listening to in its entirety.
In this first half of the ETP talk, hydration is the main topic, followed by Women’s issues starting at the 30 minute mark. I’ve learned a few interesting and facts, some of which I’ll share:
Regarding hydration and acclimation/acclimatization from the first half of the podcast:
- During exercise, water is good but absorption is better when water includes sodium and glucose. This is especially important when you’re sweating a lot.
- Intensity varies with activity, acclimation, and temperature; a person can sweat out between 2 and 3.4 liters of sweat per hour.
- You can only absorb 1 to 1.5 liters of water per hour, efficiency of absorption is important during recovery.
- Sweat is hypotonic or mostly water without the high concentration of salts/minerals. Sweating will increase serum sodium concentration.
- Salinity levels in sweat vary per person, if you wear a black shirt and notice large salt rings around sweat areas, you might benefit from increase salinity in replenishment water intake to reduce cramping.
- Some people load with salt water in preparation to increase their plasma volume vs drinking plain water.
- Hard exercise can cause a 5% loss of body weight from fluids, some from blood volume, which increases heart rate.
- Levels of humidity impacts body cooling; hot and dry weather makes for more efficient cooling vs a humid day where the sweat just drops off.
- The color of your morning stream can indicate the last 24 hours of hydration. During the day urine color is deceptive as they body maintains homeostasis with body hydration.
- When rehydrating however, you need to drink 150% of water lost to fully hydrate.
- The army uses WUT to calculate hydration: weight (less than 1% change daily), urine color (morning), thirst.
- It takes approximately two weeks to adjust to temperature or climate changes.
- If you are traveling to a warmer climate for competition and want to perform at your best, sitting in a sauna for an hour or two daily helps your body to adjust to the climate change. Give yourself two weeks to prepare, this process is a technique developed by the military.
Regarding Female Hormonal Issues
Phases of female 28 day hormonal cycle:
- Day 1 cycle start, both estrogen and progesterone is down, where estrogen starts to increase.
- Day 9 -12 estrogen starts coming up, peaks just before ovulation.
- Day 13 – 14 ovulation occurs, estrogen lowers, and body temperature increases .5 to 1 degree (stays elevated for 7-12 days) thermal regulatory systems get shifted up. Luteinizing hormone peaks as well as follicle stimulating hormone.
- Days 15 – 18 Estrogen dips back down after ovulation
- Days: 19 – 24, estrogen/progesterone comes back up but not as high as in the initial days of the cycle. Might be an increase of glycogen usage in this phase for some people.
- Estrogen increases insulin sensitivity and decreases muscle damage; inflammation rates change.
- Progesterone increases insulin resistance, body temperature increases, and metabolic rate increases.
- Plasma volume changes by 8-10% in the luteal phase or days 20-24 heart rate increases due to lower plasma volume. The body will crave water and salt as it tries to increase plasma volume. Protein needs increase due to the catabolism. Both the plasma volume and body temperature might impact training times and efficiency.
- Days 10-13 and 24 to 28 there tends to be more fluid retention.
- During the back half of the month a low carb diet can help with fluid retention, however add carbs back in when training heavily.
- Days 19-24, use this for a technical week or a down week exercise volume wise and using the first half of the month for higher intensity fitness activities.
- Use trackers like flow or period tracker to know where you are in your cycle. Basal body temps help to determine ovulation time.
- Female athletic triad: low energy availability, low bone density, menstrual dysfunction; could be caused by not eating enough daily.
- Hormones: bypassing the female process as most meds are synthesized vs natural occurring hormones; processed hormones can contain androgenic properties.
Overall, this is an excellent ETP podcast on Hydration and Women’s Issues that I’d highly recommend listening to if you have the time. Soundcloud makes it easy to come back to the talk and start where you left off.
