Cortney Berling on Why Runners Underfuel Without Knowing It: Carb Timing Around Workouts, What to Eat Before a Cross Country Race, and Why Craving Sugar Isn't a Willpower Problem

Your body doesn't know the difference between Coca-Cola and watermelon. And according to registered sports dietitian Cortney Berling, that might be the most freeing thing a runner can learn.

Back for her third appearance on The Running Effect, Cortney joins Dominic to dismantle the food rules holding runners back, starting with the sport's most controversial question: does weight loss actually make you faster? Her answer is a masterclass in why general nutrition advice fails athletes, especially female ones. 

The guidelines on your food label were built around a 154-pound reference man from 1941, not a marathoner in a training block, and definitely not a 14-year-old girl navigating puberty.

Cortney shares her own story of underfueling, doing everything society called "healthy" until she lost her period and, for a time, her ability to have kids, and explains why the runners plateauing hardest are usually the ones eating the least. Her rule is simple: only run the miles you're willing to fuel for.

Along the way, the two get refreshingly practical. Why full-sugar Coke beats Diet Coke after a long run. Race-day fueling blueprints for cross country and multi-race track meets. The hydration equation every runner should know. Why eating before bed isn't the sin you've been told it is, and how liquid calories save high-mileage athletes drowning in grocery bills.

But the biggest takeaway might be Cortney's fifth and final point: your relationship with food matters just as much as the food itself. You don't earn your food by running, you earn your run by eating enough.

Tap into the Cortney Berling Special. 

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