#624: Can Athletes Eat for Performance and the Planet? – Peter Res

Danny Lennon (0:00)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Sigma Nutrition Radio. This is episode 624 of the podcast. My name is Danny Lennon, and you are very welcome to the show. Today, we're gonna be taking a look at some of the practicalities of more sustainable diets within the context of athletes who are chasing performance recovery, et cetera.

And what we're really gonna look at is within that particular paradigm of maximizing performance, even at the levels of elite level sport, is that compatible with some of the recommendations that one may have for a dietary pattern that promotes sustainability around environmental sustainability? And so to talk through this idea of whether athletes can actually reduce the environmental impact of their diet while still meeting their demands of training, competition, recovery, I'm going to be talking to Peter Res, who is a elite level sports performance nutritionist, who has worked within professional cycling. He's worked with Ajax Amsterdam, the football club, within the Dutch Olympic team, within speed skating. And within this long career within elite level sport, he's also developed big interest in how we can make more sustainable food choices. And then specifically his work is how those two worlds can connect. Within that realm of elite level sports nutrition, is there a way that we can make more sustainable food choices? How we can empower athletes to do that? And then allay some of the fears they may have about some of the choices that may be required there. So we're going to walk through this. It's going to be a lot to do with some of the practicalities of this. What I what some of those changes might actually look like? What are the principal concerns that athletes typically come with? And how those can be discussed with them? And some of the practical changes that may need to be made in order to make those diets compatible with some of the sustainability goals that are out there. So hopefully this is interesting, particularly of those of you who maybe have an interest in these types of conversations around sustainability, but also within the area of sport. And as well as from a practitioner perspective, if you are looking for some input from someone who has done this for a long period of time.

Remember, if you are a Sigma Nutrition premium subscriber, you will be getting a set of detailed study notes to accompany this episode. They can be found either over on the website or in the description box where you're listening right now.

For those of you listening on the free public feed of the podcast, if you do want to get more out of your podcast listening, then consider becoming a premium member. It gives you advantages like our study notes for each episode, as well as a premium only episode every month and some other benefits too. I'll give more details in the description box. You can click through and check that out. I'll also give more background context about anything that was mentioned in this episode in the show notes page, which again, I will link up to in the description box. And then if this is a topic that does interest you, and you get more deeply into some of the science on this, there's a few related episodes that again, I will mention in the show notes page. So principally episode 320 with Dr. Hannah Ritchie, where we talk all about the concept of environmental impacts on diet and go into the data on that. We also have a Sigma episode 446, where we discussed potential impacts of things like climate change on nutrient status. And then more recently, we have episode 584, in which Alan and I took a look at the Eat Lancer Report and looked at their suggested planetary health diet and see how that ties up with impacts on human health. So if you want to get into the data and the research on some of those topics, check out those episodes. Again, I will mention them in the show notes page to this episode. But for now, I hope you enjoy this conversation between myself and Peter Res.

Peter, thank you so much for taking the time to come and join me on the podcast and for sharing some of your insights with us today.

Peter Res (4:28)

Thank you. My pleasure.

Danny Lennon (4:29)

Maybe before we get to any of the things that I'm really intrigued to ask you about, maybe the best place to start would be to let people listening know a bit about your background, your interests, current work you're doing, anything else that might be relevant for our topic today.

Peter Res (4:45)

Yeah. Peter Rest from the Netherlands. I'm a performance nutritionist and I've worked in different roles in different sports, ranging from professional cycling, professional football. I worked at IX Amsterdam for six seasons. With the Dutch Olympic team, I've worked for six or seven years in different sports and now currently mainly working in speed skating and also working on different projects in sustainability and where it touches on sports nutrition.