In this episode, I talk with a world leading expert in sports nutrition and University of Kentucky professor, Dr Travis Thomas. We start by discussing some of Dr Thomas’ academic and research highlights related to sports nutrition. While sports nutrition can be complicated, the most successful approaches are athlete-specific and individualized, which is why it’s important to work 1-on-1 with a dietitian. Dr Thomas and I emphasize the importance of your daily diet over fancy supplements, pills and powders. The foundations of performance nutrition lie in day-to-day eating and drinking, followed by intentional fueling around workouts and competitions, and only then topped off with specific supplementation strategies. Dr Thomas and I discuss the latest research on hydration and the reliability of using urine color to assess this. Urine color is actually a valid tool we can all use to monitor hydration status daily: beware though, some foods, drinks and supplements may affect the color! We talk about different environments requiring different hydration guidelines before, during, and after exercise: however, the best approach is unique to the individual on the day. Despite being a world leading researcher in supplementation, Dr Thomas, like we do at Rise Up Nutrition, focuses on a food first approach, followed by optimizing stress levels and sleep to help athletes perform. He speaks to the importance of ensuring supplement safety and efficacy, before highlighting the four key evidence-based dietary aids: buffers like sodium bicarbonate and beta alanine, dietary nitrates, creatine, and caffeine. We differentiate between ergogenic aids and medical supplements like vitamin D and iron for those deficient, and debunk why more is not always better and can actually be harmful! We talk about affordable and accessible health and performance supplements like beetroot juice and green leafy vegetables. Sports nutrition is not just for Olympians, and Dr Thomas explains how we can all benefit from his research regardless of athleticism: similar approaches focused on elite sports nutrition can help all of us function optimally day-to-day, stay healthy and age gracefully! We explore this further with a deep dive into vitamin D, exercise and muscle function: vitamin D is not just for bone health! Whether you exercise indoors or out, maintaining optimal vitamin D levels deserves special attention. At Rise Up Nutrition, we use InsideTracker to help monitor our clients’ blood biomarkers like vitamin D, iron and more. Follow Dr Thomas on Twitter@Dr_T_0926 Dr Thomas’ Official Bio D. Travis Thomas, PhD, RDN, CSSD, LD, FAND, is an Associate Professor of Clinical & Sports Nutrition and Program Director of the graduate Clinical Nutrition program in the College of Health Sciences at the University of Kentucky. Dr. Thomas is a Board Certified Specialist in Sports Dietetics (CSSD). He has held multiple volunteer and leadership positions with SCAN and served as lead author on the current Nutrition for Athletic Performance Position Stand endorsed by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, American College of Sports Medicine, and Dietitians of Canada. He was recently awarded the prestigious 2020 SCAN Achievement Award in Sports Nutrition, SCAN's first and highest award. Dr. Thomas has fourteen years’ experience conducting human studies involving nutrition and exercise interventions across the lifespan. Over the past decade, Dr. Thomas has served as an investigator on several funded research projects that focused on a wide range of nutrition issues associated with the preservation and enhancement of skeletal muscle function and performance. These studies have focused on understanding the relationship between vitamin D and muscle metabolic function, nutrition and physical function in aging and athletic populations, nutrition interventions to improve endothelial function and to reduce symptoms in patients with advanced heart failure, and investigating nutritional str