Sports Nutrition: Eating For Exercise and Fitness
A Conversation with Mary Teunis of Mary Teunis Nutrition
Have you ever wondered what you should eat to get the most out of your workouts? And what about fueling before/after a workout? If so, you are going to love the conversation I had with my friend, Mary Teunis - a personal trainer and fellow nutrition coach. Mary is a former competitive gymnast and a CrossFit competitor who knows first-hand how important it is to fuel your body for optimal performance.
In this interview, we dive into all sorts of topics to give you some actionable tips for eating for exercise and fitness.
Q & A Summary
Question: Mary, tell us your history as an athlete.
Answer: I started in gymnastics at 2 years old. I did the mommy and me classes and fell in love with the sport. I started competing at the age of 6. It was my life and I was in the gym 20-30 hours a week. Unfortunately, due to a car accident, gymnastics was no longer in the picture.
When I was a gymnast, I always struggled with body image and how to fuel my body. And just the pressure to be a small human being when I was rather muscular.
After gymnastics, I went to Frostburg State University and was a cheerleader but that wasn’t the best path for me. I then came home to finish my degree online and that was the time that I discovered CrossFit. CrossFit helped me learn that strong was beautiful and that it was okay to have muscles. And in order to perform, I had to fuel my body properly.
I went on to compete in CrossFit in 2018 at the Mid-Atlantic Regionals and at the Mid-Atlantic Challenge in 2019. I took some time off from competition after that but returned in 2021 where I competed in three competitions back to back. When I made the decision to compete again, I wanted to train smart, so that my body would be in peak performance. This is something that I did not do in the past. I focused on eating enough calories to fuel my training. I also focused on getting 8-9 hours of sleep daily and taking rest days.
Mary at a CrossFit competition in 2021.
Question: Tell us how you got into nutrition.
Answer: I can remember at 5 years old having a terrible relationship with my body. I remember telling my mom that I wanted liposuction. So that was when my disordered eating habits started. When I was 12 years old, I was diagnosed with anxiety and the way that I coped with my anxiety was through an eating disorder. I was diagnosed with anorexia at 13 years old and I was in and out of treatment centers all over the country from the age of 13 to the age 18. During that time, I worked with dozens of dieticians, therapists, and psychiatrists and I fell in love with they did. I have always had a love of nutrition but I always thought of food as being ‘bad’ and not as food as my medicine.
Faith is also a big part of my life. All my life I wondered why God was putting me through this. Finally, I got to the point where I realized that God put me through this for a reason and I needed to use what I had been through to help others. So that’s when I decided to change my major to nutrition. The nutrition science really helped me and the more I dove into the science, the more it helped me.
When I returned home from Frostburg, I was in a pretty bad spot - I had relapsed from my eating disorder and when I found CrossFit, I couldn’t lift the weights like I wanted to. And then I realized that the more I fueled my body, the better I felt, the more energy I had, and the stronger I became.
It’s so cool to me that such a simple thing has so many benefits to it - when all my life, I thought food was bad.
Question: Let’s start to talk about nutrition and fueling our body. I love how you said that with CrossFit you couldn’t perform if you didn’t fuel properly. I've seen you post about building a meal. It is very similar to what my clients would recognize as the balanced plate or the Eat Happy plate - making sure each meal contains high quality protein, a slowly digesting carbohydrate, a healthy fat, and some fiber. Is this how you fuel for optimal performance?
Answer: I also follow the balanced plate method because it is so simple. I typically recommend 3 balanced plate a day. Weighing and measuring isn’t for everyone particularly if you have disordered eating so I use the hand. Lean protein the size of your palm or ¼ of the plate. Same thing for complex carbs - about the size of your fist or ¼ of the plate. Half the plate of vegetables - so 2 scoops of veggies. And then a tiny bit of fat – about the size of your thumb.
So 3 of those per day anywhere between 3-4 hours or 4-5 hours depending on the person. And then 1-3 healthy snacks if you need it.
Question: Tell me how you would build a snack based on your activity for the day. How do you build yourself a snack pre-workout? Post-workout?
Answer: I typically recommend if someone hasn’t eaten a meal 2 hours in advance of a workout, to eat a snack consisting of a simple carbohydrate about 30-40 minutes before or right up to your workout. Simple carbohydrates enter into the bloodstream quicker so they will give you that energy for your workout.
Some examples are a banana, applesauce – things that will digest quick. You can also add a little protein as well to keep you fuller longer and keep your muscles happy. I keep fiber away from the workout because that might make your stomach upset.
If you are working out longer than 60 minutes and training hard or in competition, I typically recommend some carbs during your workout to make sure you are refueling those muscles and are at top performance.
You will want a carb and protein after your workout. For example, a protein shake, chicken, Greek yogurt paired with a carb – a piece of fruit, some crackers, a handful of cereal. Some of those don’t sound like the most nutrient dense carbohydrate choices but your body is going to use those carbs to restore your glycogen.
Question: In terms of the post-workout snack, when do you eat it? Is it immediately after you workout? What is the window of time in which you should be eating after your workout in order to restore those glycogen levels?
Answer: I typically eat it on my drive home from the gym. Anywhere to immediately after to 30 minutes after and then another full balanced meal about 1.5 hours or 2 hours after that.
But it is all going to be individualized. If you are hungry 30 minutes after your snack, then you need to listen to your body. If you have an intense workout and 10 minutes later you can’t drink your protein shake then don’t drink it yet.
Question: Tell me some of your personal favorite go-to snacks.
Answer: My go-to pre-workout snacks are a banana with a little bit of almond butter, a slice of bread with almond butter, and Fuel for Fire squeezable snacks. And my go-to post-workout snacks are a protein shake with unsweetened almond milk plus a carb. Some of my favorite carbs are overnight oats, a handful of cereal, and rice cakes. I always make sure to have protein after a workout to refuel my muscles and help with muscle recovery.
Question: I want to talk about carbs particularly because they are such a hot topic on the nutrition scene. I know we are very much in alignment on our views on carbs but I love having people articulate it in a different way. So, Mary, what is your take on carbs?
Answer: Carbs are our body’s favorite source of energy. Many people don’t realize that vegetables and fruits are carbs. So when we say carbs, we don’t just mean cookies, ice cream, pop tarts, and all the carbs that get the bad rap.
You need carbs because they are going to restore that glycogen and refuel your muscles for the next workout. Typically if you feel under-recovered it is because you don’t have enough carbs in your diet. Personally I can tell if I didn’t hit my carb intake from the day before because my workout the next day does not feel great and I feel under-recovered.
You don’t realize what your body can feel like until you fuel it like the way it supposed to be fueled. It is just like a car. You are going to give it the gas it deserves. The type of gas it will utilize. That is what carbs are for our body. The body likes to utilize carbs – it is its favorite source of energy.
Question: I have noticed that I personally have hungry days. They usually come a day or two after I have a hard workout. Does this ever happen to you? And if so, can you tell us a little bit about what this might mean and how you handle those hungry days.
Answer: I am having one of those days today! I feel like I eat and then I am hungry again. Our hunger is a signal so it really comes down to being in tune with our body. If you think about what you did yesterday or the day before, our body is trying to recover from that; it is constantly repairing.
I think it is important to understand that we are not robots. Having a calorie goal is okay in some circumstances but I don’t think we need to eat the same number of calories every single day because we do different things every day. Your body is going to have hungry days because your body put in more work the day before and your body needs more fuel to recover.
Question: What is the most important thing that you feel people need to know when it comes to nutrition?
Answer: There is no quick fix. There is no magic pill. It is not going to happen overnight. It is going to take a lot of hard work mentally and physically. And it is all about consistency.
Also, the scale is not the only indicator of progress. It is one measurement and many times we don’t have control over what that value is. I think people focus too much on the scale when it comes to nutrition. They think they need to restrict calories in order to lose weight or gain muscle. But maybe they actually need more calories. Maybe they have been starving themselves and their bodies are trying to overcompensate for that. I don’t think people realize how many calories the body really needs in order to operate at its fullest.
Question: What is the most important thing that you feel people need to know when it comes to fitness?
Answer: I always thought more was better but I have learned to work smarter and not harder. If you run your body into the ground, 7 days a week, you are not going to see the progress you want to see. Your body will break down - your central nervous system will be shocked and your hormones will be all out of whack.
People think more is better but your body needs a variety of functional movements – things that you are going to do every day. I used to think that if I didn’t leave the gym completely exhausted then I didn’t have a good workout. Working out is supposed to make you feel better not worse!
There will be days when you can kick butt at the gym but you can’t do that 7 days a week. I think it is all about balance and you need a structured program that includes resistance training, endurance work, active recovery, and a complete rest day. Also finding the things you love to do and sticking with it.
Question: We both have a shared history of an eating disorder. Now that you are where you are now, is there anything you would say to young girls? Or that you wish you learned when you were a young girl?
Answer: Food is your body’s medicine. Food is not the enemy. Diet culture and fake knowledge is the enemy. Be weary of where you get your nutrition education from and who you follow on social media. Know their credentials and don’t believe everything you see on the internet and the news. I feel like if I was taught how to properly fuel my body and was given nutrition education then I may not have struggled 10+ years with an eating disorder.
The Full Conversation
For more in depth answers and rich conversation, be sure to watch the full conversation. Mary and I talk about fad diets, carb cravings, getting into right relationship with our hunger, and much more!
Watch the video to get the full conversation I had with Mary about eating for exercise and fitness.
Mary’s Contact Information
You can get in touch with Mary through her website and follow her on social media:
Website: www.maryteunisnutrition.com
Instagram: @mteunis
Facebook: Mary Teunis