by Molly Balfe
About a year ago three of my athletes suddenly asked me about using the Fuelin app for daily nutrition guidance. I hadn’t heard of it, so I decided to sign up for a few months so I could see what it was about and what type of guidance it was giving people. As a coach, I wanted to be aware of the information that my athletes were consuming so I could make my own recommendations about how to use (or not use) it.
Learning how to navigate the app was a bit of a learning curve, but I was able to figure it out relatively quickly. To ensure that daily recommendations are correct, you have to assign your workout start time and identify a training zone in your training software (the app can sync with TrainingPeaks, Today’s Plan, and Final Surge). Instructions on how to get started are available in their video library and in a pdf that is emailed to you when you sign up. The interface was pretty straightforward – days and meals are color coded to indicate low, medium, and high carb needs. There are goals for protein, fat, and carbohydrates for each meal and your plan is structured around your workouts. You enter your meals into MyFitnessPal and the app breaks them down into macros that you can track throughout the day. To support the app, there is an extensive video library and opportunities to connect with the broader Fuelin community. You can be self-directed or pay extra for 1:1 support from one of their nutritionists.
I went into this experiment feeling pretty confident about my diet. As a coach, I’m familiar with recommended guidelines, and I figured I was probably pretty close to those. I eat lots of whole grains, plenty of fruits and vegetables, and a good amount of lean protein. I decided to start out by tracking my regular meals to see how they stacked up against the app’s recommendations. I learned a lot and was surprised and somewhat horrified by what I discovered.
A nod to your author’s Irish dancing heritage
I am an unstoppable fat-eating machine. My regular diet sometimes topped out at THREE TIMES the recommended amount of fat. My healthy lunch salad featured half an avocado, some olives, a bunch of little mozzarella balls, a handful of nuts, and a drizzle of olive oil. Most of those are healthy fats, so I welcomed them all in the name of satiation and shiny hair.
Eggs are bullshit. I’ve been relying on eggs as an easy and inexpensive source of lean protein for a long time. An egg has around 6 grams of protein, so to meet the recommended 30g I was often targeting for breakfast I’d have to eat more eggs than I can possibly stomach. Thankfully, the addition of turkey sausages made things a lot easier.
I’m hugely misinformed about carbohydrates. I blame the Adkins diet that was popular when I was in my 20s and living in New York. What I thought was a higher carb option, like a sandwich, often didn’t even meet the CHO requirements for a low carb meal.
Alcohol is not a carb. I was astonished when I tracked a glass of wine I had with friends and saw it did nothing at all to my macro count. After some quick internet sleuthing, I found the reason why: alcohol is dietarily useless in small doses and can even be classified as a toxin in larger doses. It also messes with your sleep, so factor that in as well.
Overall, I was way over my recommended fat intake, and way under my protein and carbohydrate goals. As I let all that sink in, I started to realize how poorly I had been setting myself up for recovery and achievement. I know those missing nutrients are essential for turning training into strength and speed, and I was mortified by how off I was in my assessment of my own diet.
I started making some changes and almost immediately felt an increase in energy and an improvement in my body’s recovery time. I had blamed a busy life for my afternoon workouts always feeling sluggish, but WOW does proper fueling ever make a difference. I started getting better about post-workout recovery and was shocked by how much better I felt throughout the day.
I did run into a few concerns as I continued using the app. The main issue I have with platforms like these centers around an athlete’s tendency to become fixated on optimization and performance. I think this can be a valuable tool, but a lot of people may find they need to step away from the specifics once they’ve made some bigger changes overall (in my case, fewer mozzarella balls and so many more grains and protein sources). Also, while fasting wasn’t explicitly endorsed, it was certainly supported. Fasting may be effective for weight loss, but it can be catastrophic for training, especially if you have a higher chronic training load. It is also a slippery slope to unhealthy and dangerous restriction.
Finally, there was some unclear guidance about training nutrition. It was stated that the calories and fluids that you take in during a training session do not need to be tracked, but some workouts stipulated that you should only drink water. I found that somewhat murky, and I am an advocate for using every training session as an opportunity to work on your gut tolerance, so I moved some carbohydrates from the meal before the session to my bike bottles. I like to keep sport nutrition simple and I think that approach works well for most athletes.
My experience with the app was pretty positive. It helped me tune up my own diet and it has prompted me to ask more questions of athletes who tell me their nutrition is dialed. I was truly surprised by the amount of misinformation that was at play in my meal choices. I know better, but apparently decades of carb-phobic propaganda (and maybe a natural inclination towards cheese and ice cream) made a strong impact. I’m glad I identified those issues, and that I was able to make some relatively easy changes. That said, I’m pretty sure my lunch salad would still ring some fat alarms, but I really like avocados and shiny hair.
