Nutrition for high-performance and wellbeing - With Kate McDaid
Kate is a well-established health and performance nutritionist and founder of NutriKate, a Dublin-based nutrition consultancy that specialises in high-performance. Kate works closely with individuals, elite teams and corporations to help them achieve their health and performance goals. She recently appeared in Sport for Business' 30 under 30 list where she was recognised as one of Ireland's emerging business leaders working in the business of sport.
This episode is brought to you with thanks to The Fruit People. You will actually hear in this episode Kate mentioning the importance of fruit in our diet. The Fruit People are leading the way in workplace nutrition both in-office and remotely! Check out thefruitpeople.ie for more.
Finding the line between what's beneficial and what produces stress
Kate describes how she aims to offer her clients the support they need to add benefits to their lifestyle or training versus adding more stress to the already stressful times we're living in.
The term "corporate athlete" came out in this conversation while discussing the differences between the focus to optimise performance in elite athletes versus doing so in a corporate environment. Kate describes how it is similar in many ways, but in the corporate setup, the goal is to create awareness that we should be performing better every day and show up in the best version of ourselves.
Improving performance means you'll feel happier, both at work and away from work. By working more effectively and efficiently, we get things done in a reasonable time. So when you close the laptop, you have peace of mind to focus on your friends, family and hobbies and this is what we look to achieve with teams and individuals at a corporate level.
Nutrition looks different for everyone
It's essential to start looking at yourself as the individual you are, in the sense of evaluating what your day-to-day activities are. Sometimes we can get caught up in looking at what someone else is doing or what things are typical, but when it comes to nutrition, the individual decides what's important. Are you the person walking around all day? Or are you instead the person sitting in front of a computer most of the day? The energy requirements for each case are different. In the end, it will be essential to identify what's working for you and how you are struggling to find the energy to do basic activities because then you can find potential areas for improvement.
Acquiring new habits that help you improve your health and that adapt to your lifestyle is crucial. Kate mentions a few examples: "Are we drinking fluids day-to-day and staying on top of our hydration, something that can shift our ability to concentrate and focus. And it also will influence even our immune system. Can you simply add a bottle of water to your desk if you're at home the whole time? Or maybe if you're out, is there a bottle of water in your car or something that makes it accessible to stay on top of fluids."
Kate adds that it is easier to have a mindset of adding healthy choices to your diet or thinking about what's missing in terms of your nutrition, like fruits and vegetables, for example, instead of looking at what you've done wrong and the things you need to get rid of.
Using your environment to your advantage
At NutriKate, they make sure to implement effective strategies to make decision-making more manageable and healthier. One thing mentioned during the interview is how you can optimise your environment to make better decisions. Little things like placing nutritious foods on display in your house or the workplace make you more inclined to opt for something that's actually going to support your overall wellbeing or improve a goal you might have. This point extends to groceries as Kate remarks:
"If my fridge is excellent that makes it a lot easier to eat better if you know, you've got all the right bits and bobs, but you know, if our environment isn't kind of aligning with that [What you want to achieve], it makes it a lot harder to put it into practice because preparation can make life a lot easier."
Doing small things consistently and nutrition myth-busting
There are so many facets to health and Kate believes it is important to look at the bigger picture. You're going to have a more significant impact on your health over time doing small things well and consistently rather than trying too hard on one week and then maybe "falling off the horse" because you try to over-commit. Health will improve over time once you implement consistent changes.
Don't fall into this "all or nothing" framework that we're often subjected to and instead try to make minor changes towards the kind of person and towards the lifestyle you want to lead.
Finally, Brian ends the interview by asking Kate about some myths around nutrition and wellbeing:
Energy drinks, yay or nay?
Protein bars, are they chocolate bars in disguise? Or do they provide some value?
Is someone on a vegan diet getting all their vitamins and minerals?
Fats, they used to be our enemy, and now they're our friends. What kind of fats should we be looking at?
To supplement or not to supplement?
If you want to find out the answers to these questions, we invite you to listen to the full interview with Kate McDaid. You can listen to the entire podcast here or you can watch the video of the full conversation through this link.
If you want to know more about Kate and what she does at Nutrikate, you can visit the website www.nutrikate.com and you can visit their Instagram @nutrikate_hub to know more about the team and what they have to offer.
Competition Time
We've teamed up with The Fruit People to give you the chance of winning a delicious Fresh Fruit & Healthy Snack Pack delivered directly to your door. There’s a pack available for each episode of Season 3 of The Work Well Podcast and a new winner will be chosen each week.
The competition takes place on Instagram.
To enter, simply:
Follow @thefruitpeople and @workwellireland
Tag 2 friends in the comments who would love to win this prize
Share either the @thefruitpeople or @workwellireland weekly competition post to your story including the hashtag #workwellpodcast (don't forget to tag us!)
The weekly competition opens as soon as that week’s episode is released (episodes will be released every Wednesday for Season 3). The competition closes the following Monday at 10pm and one lucky winner will be announced at lunchtime on Tuesday (we'll be checking each step has been followed).
Best of luck!
Terms and Conditions
Competition is open to residents of ROI only.
This competition consists of 12 weekly giveaways.
One winner will be chosen at random from the comments each week.
You can enter each week and as often as you wish 😊
About Your Host
Brian Crooke is a wellbeing educator, speaker and adviser, empowering Irish organisations to promote and sustain wellbeing within their workplaces.
He is the founder of The Work Well Institute and the Workplace Wellbeing Ireland community and is Course Director of the Postgraduate Certificate in Workplace Wellness at Tangent, Trinity College Dublin. He is the host of The Work Well Podcast.
In his spare time, Brian is bringing free resistance training to every county and community in Ireland through his parkHIIT social enterprise.
If you have any suggestions for future topics you'd like to hear on the show, email Brian directly, brian@workwellpodcast.com