By Nicole Springle, Lead Sport Nutritionist and Registered Dietitian with the Canadian Sport Institute Ontario

Like many people, you may have started to incorporate mindfulness practices to the (often negative) feedback loop that runs through your thoughts. How often have you paused to bring awareness to how that voice that speaks to you when you’re eating, deciding what to eat, or to recognize how you’re eating? As a sport dietitian, my job is to instruct athletes on the principles of eating with the aim to optimize their health and performance, but I believe it is up to each individual to put those concepts into practice in a way that works for him or her. Science is only part of the equation, the rest involves understanding what works best in your body, at the right time, in the right way…and this is where mindful eating comes in.

So, what does eating mindfully involve? It applies the concepts of mindfulness (non-judgmental, present-moment awareness) to our eating habits. It involves being aware of the physical and psychological influences that affect how and why we eat.

Understanding the body’s natural signals like hunger and fullness can be challenging when we are constantly eating on the run or when our cues tend to be more psychological than physical (maybe your initial cue to eat has more to do with your mood than a pang in your stomach…) When you’re engaging in physical activity it is important to know what your body needs to fuel effectively and also honour your inner wisdom and listen to what, when and how that best works for you!

If the concept of mindful eating is new to you or you just haven’t found a way to put it into practice, here are a few tips to get you started:

1. Tune into your hunger and fullness cues. We may think this is natural, but everyone is a little different, and understanding your personal cues takes awareness and patience. For some it may be the traditional physical sensations we’re used to hearing about as a signal you should eat, hunger pangs and maybe a dip in energy, while others may not experience physical sensations until they are ravenous and would benefit from paying attention to more subtle cues like changes in mood or concentration. The same applies to fullness cues, which are often harder to nail down. Some will naturally sense when they are full, while for others it may take time to understand the subtle difference between feeling satisfied and overly full. In this case, experimenting with pace of eating, taking a break when feeling slightly less full and waiting 20 minutes to assess if the sensation has changed or even drinking a glass of water after finishing before going back for seconds can be helpful in bringing awareness to your body and its own individual responses.
2. Know when to listen to your cues and when not to! Sometimes, our hunger cues are impacted by physical activity or changes in our emotional state. Intense or lengthy workouts or going too long without eating may dull your hunger signals and depress your appetite, as can stress, sadness, depression, anxiety or other extremes in our emotional health. However, that doesn’t mean your body wouldn’t actually benefit from food during these times, so understanding when to override your natural cues to meet basic health or desired performance needs can be equally as valuable as learning to abide by these cues. This also applies to sensations of hunger, which in some cases, can be driven more by emotions than by an actual physical need for food. In the same way that you need to learn your own individual physical sensations related to hunger, it is important to pay attention to cues that relate more to ‘emotional’ hunger such as boredom, anger, stress, or on the flip side, joy and celebration, so that you can tell the difference and respond accordingly.
3. Shift out of autopilot. Before you eat, ask yourself why you are eating. Are you experiencing physical hunger or are there other emotional reasons you might be looking for food (e.g. boredom, cravings, loneliness, etc.)? It is important here to view this in a non-judgmental lens. Everyone eats at times for reasons that do not relate to physical hunger –it doesn’t mean that it’s wrong – it means you’re human! Use these instances as a time for curiosity and awareness to help to get to know your tendencies. It may give you clues to choices you’re making that could promote this behaviour, like undereating at a mealtime or leaving too long between your meals and snacks. It may also help you identify an emotional trigger that leads you to make certain choices and provide important insight that can help you address whatever is causing this response.
4. Eat with awareness and savor your food. When you do eat, make the decision to eat. Just eat, don’t scroll through social media, stare at the TV or run between 10 different tasks on your to-do list. Make the choice to sit down and slow down. Try to taste your food, appreciate what went into what you are eating, take time between bites (even consider putting your utensil down while you chew – a true test of patience) anything to help you take your time and be present. Only then will you be able to tune into your cues and be aware of your body and the choices you are making.

Understanding how, when and why you eat will help reinforce a positive and healthy relationship with food. Health and performance are not mutually exclusive. Putting some of these tips into practice will help you to eat for health, pleasure, and nourishment while still paying attention to overall nutritional needs that keep you performing at your best.

By James Piccoli, Professional rider with Israel Start-Up Nation and 2018 Tour de Beauce overall race winner

My win at the 2018 Tour de Beauce was the real start of my professional cycling career. It was the first time I actually believed that I had what it took to win at the professional level and it changed the course of my career. It changed my training, my racing and my mindset. But I’m going to tell the real story of how I won that race and the real story starts three months earlier in California.

It was in San Dimas, California, the season-opening race for the North American road racing circuit. I was racing with my professional team, Elevate-KHS. The San Dimas Stage Race started with an uphill time trial, which my Canadian teammate Jordan Cheyne won. We headed into the next day with the yellow jersey on Jordan’s back and we were going to try and defend it for the rest of the race.

Unfortunately, I woke up with a cold the next morning and I was unsure if I would be able to race. The truth was that I was very scared to make my cold worse by putting my body under the stress of racing and I was worried that it might derail the entire spring of racing. I knew I had a job to do for Jordan and my teammates but I was worried about the races to come. So, I got to the race that morning and approached my team director with my concern.

I’m paraphrasing here, but his response went along the lines of: “Jordan and the team really need you today. I’m not going to tell you what to do…you need to decide. But we need you.”

I thought about it and still a little bit nervous about how my body would react, I decided to show up and help anyway. What proceeded was my hardest day on a bike, ever. We defended the yellow jersey, but I remember being so exhausted by the end of the day that after the race I collapsed into a foldable chair and cried.

Jordan saw me in the corner of the parking lot and came over and thanked me. I don’t remember exactly what he said on the count of my state but it was something along the lines of, “I really appreciate what you did for me today and I can’t tell you how much it means to me. Thank you.”

Fast forward three months to Saint-Georges, Quebec, and the last stage of the 2018 Tour de Beauce. Jordan and I are both racing for Team Canada and after a tumultuous week we found ourselves in the breakaway on the final stage. There’s a real chance of a great result for both of us on the day, but there is also the slim chance of overall victory for me as I get closer to virtual yellow on the road.

I don’t even remember saying anything to Jordan in that breakaway that day, but I felt it. Jordan was going to sacrifice everything for me and the slim shot I had at overall victory. There wasn’t even a question that he would give everything he had to give me the chance to win. Jordan and I started to ride the front and the time gap grew…the long shot I had at winning the race overall now seemed within reach. The plan was going perfectly until Jordan crashed on a tricky corner on a descent. I soldiered on hoping he was okay but what I didn’t know is that he was still fighting behind with everything he had to make it back to us and to give me one final pull at the front. Almost an hour later he made it back to us, pulling for maybe a minute.

Seeing how hard he was willing to fight for me made it even sweeter when I crossed the finish line soon afterwards and found out that I had won the race overall. It’s still one of my nicest memories of racing, and the post-race hug with all of Team Canada was something more than teammates winning a bike race, it was friends giving everything for each other.

And little did Jordan know that day, but helping me out in that breakaway was the first step in the rest of my cycling career.

Thanks, Jordan.

By Jenny Trew, Women’s NextGen Track Endurance Coach with Cycling Canada

So in retrospect, in 2015, not a single person got the answer right to “Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?”

I think this might be one of my favourite memes of late. And that’s with the internet being on FIRE with a great selection of hilarious takes on 2020. We laugh so we don’t cry.

This quarantine is the great rain delay of our lives. For those non-track racers (or only Milton track racers) out there, a rain delay occurs when a track is rendered non-rideable by water. I have seen these delays in many forms:

1) The most popular: due to rain falling from the sky – all outdoor tracks have seen this one

2) The season dependent: A wet track due to the temperature falling below dewpoint – popularized in Canada during Dieppe Nationals in 2013

3) The Victoria special of corner three never seeing sun

4) When water falls from the roof – thank you Burnaby

Rain delays can elicit a spectrum of emotion from anxiety of when racing will restart, to relief that you have a few extra minutes to gather your thoughts. Or is it hours? Or even days? Maybe the event will actually be canceled?

The confusion that comes with this COVID-19 break (a charming phrase that my 6-year-old coined as this all started as March break, and around the beginning of May morphed into the more appropriate COVID-19 break) reminds me so much of a rain delay. I have no real control over when we resume. I need to trust that the people in charge of making those decisions will choose to prioritize competitor safety. And possibly the biggest challenge: I need to be both relaxed as to not waste energy in the present, but also prepared to turn “it” on at a moment’s notice. So how does one balance being ready with being relaxed in a situation you can’t control? How do you make the most of this unanticipated break to come out stronger when the competition reopens?

Like most track racers, the phrase “rain delay” conjures up so many memories for me – pit of the stomach anxiety included. However, the most poignant memory comes from over 20 years ago: 1999 Track Nationals in Calgary. Now, Calgary isn’t known for its rain – in fact I have as many memories of snow in July as I do of rain, but that weekend was four days of on-again/off-again rain. On the upside, we had a great big drained hockey rink to hang out in, I was sleeping in my own bed and I got to practice my warm-up more times than I can count. The whole weekend was sitting on pins and needles with events being run in fits and starts. For the junior women, we managed to complete the Pursuit and the Match Sprint over the four days – actually make that five.

As a young, focused (and somewhat emotional) athlete, this National Championships tested me and my mental fortitude (and undoubtedly that of my coach, Dan Proulx, and my parents). I had big goals for the weekend and desperately wanted to get out on the track and build on the success that I had felt the week before at Road Nationals. As we slowly moved through the sprint rounds, I struggled to stay present and enjoy the process. However, despite my emotional rollercoaster, I made it through to the finals, of which the first round was held on Sunday afternoon (please note that the competition started on Thursday morning). I went into the ride terrified that I was going to lose – this was my biggest goal for the season – what if I didn’t do it? Funny enough, my fear of failure was a self-fulfilling prophecy and I rode a tactically poor race to give my opponent the first round. Luckily for me, the rain rolled in once again and I didn’t have to go back to the rail that night to race Lisa Howard (née Sweeney), who in the following years would become my nemesis, roommate, teammate and confidante.

With some persuasion, the organizers took the Monday as the “rain day” to finish up the Match Sprint rounds. I arrived to the track that morning with a new resolve to enjoy the process under the brilliant sunshine. Instead of stressing warm-up, I goofed around on the track with a teammate and embraced the opportunity. Funny enough, I don’t remember the two rounds run on the Monday. I was calm and relaxed and just did my thing – and it was enough to earn (my only) Maple Leaf jersey.

So, as I sit here in my home office, listening to the kids playing in the hallway (why is sliding down the stairs with bedding a universal experience?), staring at the brilliant blue sky with shining sun, I need to remember the lessons of that day.

• I do not get to make the decision of when we restart, but I get to decide what I think and how I behave in the interim. Control the controllables.
• Deviating from how I imagined something to be is scary and can throw me off my game. I can come back from that.
• A break in action can be a good thing if I relax and use the time wisely.
• Life will start up again and I am going to have to trust that I still know how to do it.

So, while this is definitely not my answer to “where will you be in 5 years?”, this is an opportunity to slow down, take stock and recommit to your goals. We will get back to some sort of normal, and your goals will still be there to achieve. And maybe your new approach will turn out to be a force.