Mat Lock
Jenn Ryan welcome back to The Unleashing Potential Podcast.
Jenn Ryan
I’m back. It’s great to have you back. And you haven’t changed a bit at all since our last yet. So good.
Jenn Ryan
Still good in tan.
Mat Lock
That’s exactly right. For those who haven’t yet listened to your first episode, where you talked about your road to the games is never an athlete. And if you haven’t, and you’re listening, I would encourage you to do so. If you could just give a very short. Yeah. Introduction to yourself, who you are, and what you’re about, please.
Jenn Ryan
Yeah. So I’m Jen Ryan. I live in beautiful sunny San Diego, California. I am a nutrition coach and an ER nurse. I’ve been an ER nurse for 11 years. I’ve transitioned more to doing online nutrition coaching. So still still working with people, which I guess is my kind of my favorite thing to do. I’m also, I guess I’d call myself a CrossFit athletes. Yeah, I’m a Masters athlete. I’m 40. I got to compete at the CrossFit Games three years, this year would have been the fourth. But yeah, that’s kind of me in a nutshell. I have my two pups, two dogs, and that’s kind of me, you’ll probably see me either posting things that we’re talking about my dogs talking about CrossFit, or work.
Mat Lock
Or you’re preaching to the converted. We’ve got three dogs and two cats in our household. There you go. There you go. kids coming out Tuesday, but what are your puppy’s name? Oh,
Jenn Ryan
my gosh. Jordan is my three legged Yorkie mix. And then Paris is my over 16 year old Pomeranian terrier mix. So one is 10 pounds and one is five pounds. I keep them small, I give them small.
Mat Lock
What’s the very quickly what the missing leg What happened there?
Jenn Ryan
That was right before I got her. So I got hurt about three months old. And I think when she was like two months old, something happened. She was it was fractured or something like that. And unfortunately, it didn’t heal properly. So the owner left it at the vet, and I was blessed enough to take her from the vet. So
Mat Lock
sounds like she was blessed as well. Let me tell you,
Jenn Ryan
he’s awesome. She’s literally the happiest dog ever. Oh, she
Mat Lock
doesn’t know right?
Jenn Ryan
Now she has, she literally has no idea. She, oh my gosh, she scares me with some of the stuff that she doesn’t like no.
Mat Lock
More feeling sorry for herself and complaining about everything because she doesn’t know and doesn’t care.
Jenn Ryan
Nope, nope, not at all. Not at all.
Mat Lock
Absolutely. So well. Well, thanks for the introduction. And it’s a pleasure to be talking to you again. And when I when I first talked to you, for sure it was around the whole CrossFit. You’re winning and going to the CrossFit Games again this year to find out that actually that wasn’t going to be the case. But then I was really interested reading your website, Lifeline performance.com I have to say, I love the I love the way that’s written. It was it felt like I was learning about you, rather than just doing that, which is wonderful. And I was really interested if you could share with us today, let’s talk about how your nutrition has changed enough. So you’re someone who obviously is competing and performing at very high level. But you also look amazing. And you feel amazing, as you talked about last time. And that’s so important. It’s not about aesthetics, necessarily how you feel how you perform. And yeah, great to talk about how your nutrition has changed over the years, and then really importantly, how you’re applying that same learning for your clients and your athletes.
Jenn Ryan
Yeah, oh, God has
Mat Lock
changed. When did that really come on? Pop onto your radar, I suppose.
Jenn Ryan
nutrition in general. So I don’t know if you’ll find this money. I don’t know if anyone can relate to this. But I started paying attention to my nutrition in high school. Actually, I think I was a freshman in high school freshman or sophomore. And one day I just decided I told my mom, you know what, I’m not drinking the 2% milk anymore. I’m gonna need skim milk. And if we didn’t have skim milk, I would put a little drop of 2% in like the bowl and then add water cuz I didn’t want the fat, right? Because I’m 40 now so back then. Everybody was afraid of fat, right? That made you fat at that point. And I also decided I wasn’t going to eat any kind of meat besides a chicken breast and Turkey and some fish. Yeah. So that was when I started to dive into nutrition. I would take my own I would take my own little jar of fat free salad dressing to school every day, I would get a salad from the salad bar. Most people tend to do because we don’t quite have it all figured out, I would also sometimes get a cinnamon roll. I had these little inklings of trying to figure out nutrition. I was i a lot of it had to do with my body image. And the way I wanted to change how I looked. And so that’s where it all started. And those were the little things that I started doing. From there, I kind of changed.
Mat Lock
So no, no, sorry, I’m just before we move on, understand the motivation. And that’s not uncommon, sadly, even today, if that motivation, but wherever you’re getting your advice from at that point, then to make the decision about you know, fat being bad, and I’m only going to eat white meats, and even particular cuts of white meat. Where were you getting your information from? At that point?
Jenn Ryan
I honestly, I don’t remember. I don’t know, I think I just started paying attention to different magazines, I was probably reading some kind of Health magazine or something, you know, seeing you know, meal plans handed out, my my mom. So none of this really comes from my family, which is strange, because when I work with people now I hear so much of the way people’s minds are shaped around nutrition and body image, it does come quite often from a parent or a grandparent or a family member, right. But that no one really in my family paid a lot of there was not a talk of dieting or things like that. Um, and so I think it came from other other feelings that I had image, self image, things like that about myself. And so I think the information that I was getting was more so most likely from magazines and things that I was reading. Yeah, so so I think that’s it, right? Because back in the day, shoot, we didn’t even have cell phones then. So and the computers, you know, if there wasn’t like, a lot of googling all this stuff, and certainly what’s available now. I couldn’t even afford them back then. Right. And so it wasn’t as easy to get a hold up. But maybe in the the grocery store, I was pulling a magazine off the shelf, right? Things like that. So and we all know what some of those, say on the right, like, kiss or stop eating this and you’ll drop this or you’ll look like this celebrity. And of course, that’s that’s where I was getting my
Mat Lock
seven days and look like this.
Jenn Ryan
Yeah, yeah, a cabbage. I don’t know if anybody can remember this. But you know, here in the States, we had the cabbage soup diet or eat grapefruit, grapefruit only will help you lose fat. I mean, these are the times that I was living in, you know, and then I went
Mat Lock
and did those studies.
Jenn Ryan
Oh, my gosh,
Mat Lock
ah,
Jenn Ryan
jeez, Louise, when I think back to it, you know, but, and then, you know, there was the Atkins diet, the South Beach, all these things. And then going through my 20s, I was kind of reading things like oxygen magazine, and, and all of this. So I continue to be very interested in nutrition and health and fitness. I decided to go the route of becoming a nurse because I was very interested in health and fitness and nutrition. I didn’t know how to make the connection with what I wanted to do at the time, but even back then, I was so interested in it, and I wanted to work with people and also picking figuring out for myself, you know, because I was struggling, I was struggling so much. So, again, we didn’t have Instagram, we didn’t even have Facebook, till I was like my late 20s that’s, that’s how old I am. For sure, yeah, I got my first cell phone at like 19 or 20. I think you know, 20 Um, and so. Yeah, right. Those are crazy times. And there wasn’t as much if there’s something
Mat Lock
I mean, it would have been old school mainstream media.
Jenn Ryan
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So um, and then fast forward to when I started CrossFit, of course, paleo was the rage. Of course back then in Oh 910 11 when I started paleo and zone and so I tried both of those. And I’ll tell you my turning point and we’re really fall in love with With nutrition and CrossFit and what it could do for you was when doing like paleo and and starting there, and then I started to also realize that if I wanted to feel good, perform good and just be where I want to be in CrossFit, I needed to eat more, and I couldn’t be afraid of food. And all this nonsense from the past, had to stop. And I, I started eating more. And I introduced red meat back in one of the coaches that I worked with at Carolina, CrossFit back in South Carolina took me to this amazing burger place, and I ordered a burger and I remember them all staring at me as I took a bite. And I was like, oh, what am I been missing for so long, you know? And, and I remember just thinking, I want to be strong, I want to be healthy. And I want to feel good. I’m so sick of this. I’m, you know, being afraid of food. And so I just kept reading more and more than the CrossFit journal used to have so much out there on nutrition very much about, of course, zone and paleo. And so there’s only so much paleo you can eat when you’re trying to put on size and fuel yourself well, for CrossFit, as I began to find out. Yep. So fast forward, then to 2014, I began working with a nutrition coach who kind of introduced me to macronutrients and eating for performance. First and foremost, I was not put on any kind of a diet, I didn’t just get sets of macros. She showed me how to eat around training. So the first thing she said to me was, Do you realize that your nutrition, your your food intake sucks for an athlete? And I was like, What are you saying, you know, and as I started to learn how to use food as fuel, and that literally was just this aha moment. And I was no longer afraid of food. And it was, it was the start of just where I am now.
Mat Lock
probably felt at the time, like a seismic shift in thinking, but now I imagine it just feels so natural and right. Yes, that I imagine that’s what you’re absolutely trying to accelerate that aha moment for your clients, I’d imagine.
Jenn Ryan
Yeah. Oh, man. Absolutely. And especially, and I work with so many different people, so many different athletes, and could be someone who is just starting to work out. Or it could be someone who has been working out for a while. And just kind of needs to change just, you know, has been kind of where I was almost afraid of food, not understanding what your body actually needs to achieve what you want to achieve. because quite often, if you’re eating for performance, you’re going to see some most likely a better body composition as well. Right. And that’s the really cool part that so many people are missing out on. And that’s what I was missing out on, you know. So yeah, I love when people start reporting back things like, Oh, my gosh, I feel amazing. And then suddenly, they, they are changing the way they look. And they’re finally like, Oh, this is what I’ve been trying to be like all along, you know, and they went through the same thing I did,
Mat Lock
what I love about the diet shift, a change in diet. And by diet, I don’t mean weight loss, just in terms of what you eat the diet. I love how profound it can be for people, if they haven’t had a great diet. If they literally just clean it up, this is before getting longer term results and body composition changes and so on. Just within a few days, even people feel so much better.
Jenn Ryan
Like, oh my gosh, I’m sleeping better. Or I just don’t feel groggy later in the day, or I oh my gosh, I’m not as bloated or my digestion is better. I’m like, yeah, that’s a big sign. You know, that’s exactly right.
Mat Lock
And hopefully then that that becomes that fuels the motivation, because the better we feel. I mean, if you do something that feels good, well, you’re more likely to do more of it, because it feels good, right? I mean, that’s the way the brain is wired. And so that’s one of the things I love about people who go clean up the diet and they immediately almost feel some incredible results and then the short, they can sustain that and I’m interested to hear how you how you work with clients and make things sustainable. I mean, we live in a world six week challenges, eight week challenges, the biggest loser type shows and so on. But But actually, I’m much smarter, as I’m sure you are about enduring, enduring within health and wellness and diet is really at the heart of that. I mean, it has to be it’s the fuel, we wouldn’t put diesel into our Ferrari, would we? So why would report junk into our bodies, I mean, and expect them to perform like a Ferrari. That’s just not common sense. So I really love to hear your thinking around your whole approach your philosophy, I suppose of, of installing something that becomes a sustainable and enduring way of life. Yeah.
Jenn Ryan
A big part of it is giving people information, like, but not just spewing out something from a book or spewing out something I read, actually applying it to each person. So I always start out by talking with someone on the phone, like, my first, we may 1 communicate via email, or if someone messages me, but I’m always getting on and talking with someone. Because I need to know, how do I how do I help you not need me anymore? Down the road? You know, so. And it, there’s so much you can get from somebody and talking to them one on one as opposed to just through email or just through like an intake form. So that’s a really important piece of it to me is talking with someone not just about, Hey, what did you eat yesterday? What are you eating now? Okay. Right. kind of find out a little more about what makes them tick. And then, okay, what can I help you change first? And how can I educate you on why this is important for you? Right? Not, you know that you can throw out generalizations on things, but so good, how many people are like, Oh, you’re not talking about me? Okay, well, how can I let you know that I yeah, yeah, I’m actually talking about you. And and this particular piece of it does apply to you. But let’s see how we can help you figure that out.
Mat Lock
Ownership, isn’t it? Yeah. That’s not to mean that now I own that piece of information.
Jenn Ryan
It’s not just info from a book like everybody should eat this. You know? Yeah. ownership. Yes, exactly. I love that. Yes, your education.
Mat Lock
Yeah, absolutely. So so one step at a time. I know. I’m not a swimming coach. But I’ve done quite a lot of swimming. And I was so bad to start with. I remember that little tips, tricks and techniques I was taught, so I’m able to impart those to people who are not great swimmers. And it’s right. It’s the same philosophy, I suppose. Where if I was to say to someone, right, okay, now next time, change the position of your hands change efficiently head Oh, and don’t forget about your feet, Oh, and by the way, do this and give them three or four things to try and adjust in one go. That’s not going to work that overwhelmed. It’s too much. The human brain often can’t cope with that anyway, and becomes unachievable. So it sounds like you also one step at a time, let’s work on the first and most important thing and get that under control. And next. Exactly.
Jenn Ryan
Yeah, yeah. And, and taking a look at more than just, okay, you’re gonna put me on a diet, right? When I start working with you. I’m like, Ah, you know, let’s take a look at everything that’s going on here first, and maybe we don’t need to, like diet diet right away, you know, if you feel like crap, and you know, everything else is kind of in the gutter. Let’s talk about how we make all of this better first, and then you’ll probably start seeing things on the outside start changing. So that I think is a really big part of it. And again, not just throwing out generalizations like, Hey, you need to sleep more, hey, decrease your stress and eat more veggies. Well, somebody’s gonna be like, okay, like, thanks. I will. I don’t even know what to do this. And so again, that’s where it’s kind of like talking through every part of things with someone. You know, there’s a lot of people I talked to about their sleep, and they’re like, they start out with telling me Oh, I sleep really great. Oh, well, and then I’ll ask a few more questions like, Oh, you know, yeah. My, my two year old sleeps with me. Oh, yeah. And they wake me up like a bunch of times night. Oh, yeah. My old dog. I gotta, I gotta take them out, like two times a night. And then you know, maybe, like significant or snores. Hmm. You know, I guess I don’t really sleep very well at all, Jen. And I, like, you know, but it’s that if you just were to have an intake form where it says, Well, how do you sleep or how many hours you sleep What’s your sleep? Like, they’ll initially just give you that. And then it gets completely, like thrown to the wayside. And then someone wonders why, like, their body composition, performance, and like, you know, carbohydrate until, you know, tolerance is the where it is, and we’re missing like this really key part. And then I don’t just say, Oh, well, then you need to sleep better. Okay, you know, then then we’re breaking it down. And we’re talking about why and I’m talking about, Hey, this is the little piece that it’s affecting, you know, so. So it’s all these little things. So that’s my approach I take, it doesn’t matter who you are, even, you know, the only the the athletes, the elite, and the athletes who are just the everyday athletes, right? They all start the same, we look at every single little thing. I can’t just hand one group macros. And you know, another group of people hand you this is, everybody’s got start with the same little things, because I made that mistake in the past of just jumping right to something. And then we have to come back and completely revamp something be like, whoa, wait a second, we have completely missed over some of the most important things. And so I start everybody out with the same kind of the same thing we got to go through, just like when I’m a nurse, you got to triage someone. And there might be four people that come in with abdominal pain and nausea and vomiting. Okay. But that’s, that’s just the start of it. There’s going to be basics, right, so I’m going to get a set of labs. But if someone’s only got abdominal pain, and just, you know, and that’s it, but someone’s got abdominal pain with nausea and vomiting, I’m going to get them different subtle labs, maybe or further labs, or maybe you’re going to get fluids than the person with just pain isn’t or there’s going to be different diagnostics, right. So there’s always the basics. And then there’s the next the treatment, you know, and that’s what’s different, and it applies uniquely to each person.
Mat Lock
Yeah, absolutely. We’ll hanker from wonder fit retreats, and the program. He does the programming for our events. He’s had the programming and then he also, he in a team provide coaching services around fitness, coaching, and so on. And I’ve always loved his approaches. And similar to yours, I have to say, this is why I thought to mention it, but it starts off with learning about the individual sleep stress, how is it a work, how’s it at home has everything, you know, every aspect of that athlete’s life, to be able to even think about what it is that required to move them forward towards whichever goals they have stated. And it might well be that it’s not, it’s not the programming, that’s the starting point, it might be the sleep, it might be the de stressing it might be any number of things. But that’s so important that we are all different. We all have different, different makeups different bodies at the end of the day, the nuances, our own nuances, let’s say to our life, and so, yeah, it sounds like a really, yeah, yeah, offsets working. It’s worked for you, and it’s working for your clients. So given that our audience here is, you know, absolutely everyday athletes, a fairly broad range, therefore, what would be your sort of one or two key takeaways piece of advice for them? If they’re looking to, I guess, improve their wellness, their performance? Both? What would be some general, you know, you see, what are the general themes that come up that you give advice around?
Jenn Ryan
First and foremost, I would tell people to take an inventory of yourself. So take different feedback areas and rate yourself and be honest about it, right? energy levels, your mood and motivation, your sleep, stress, you know, your hunger, your libido, you’re training these areas and rate them, you know, where are they at from day to day, you got to take that self inventory first. If you take into account digestion, right, all these things, know what you’re starting with. Because if all of those are in the gutter, then then you kind of have your starting point, right. And so I see a lot of people who don’t do these self assessments, all they see is what’s in the mirror, and they immediately go the opposite direction. And they’ll take advice on nutrition on Okay, I need to do a calorie deficit. I need to eliminate all of this. I need to take out carbohydrates. I need to do this or that. And it’s like, Oh, you didn’t even take a cell phone. assessment on where you’re at yet. So number one thing before any of that is just rate yourself because then at least you have a starting point. Today, I think one to
Mat Lock
1010 being awesome.
Jenn Ryan
10 Yep. 10 being great or even could be one to five, you know? Um, yeah, just one to find nice and easy, right? And just rate those different areas. And, and then you can start to say, Okay, now, what’s the next step? Cool. So then the next step that I usually go to people is to say, Okay, well, now, where’s your health that, right? If you just need to start being healthier, if you’ve kept yourself a food log, and you take a look at it, and you don’t have much variety, and it’s a lot of white, you know, like, processed, a lot of processed foods are white, right? So next thing is like, hey, add some color, let’s add color to your plate. Because now, if, if any of that feedback is kind of in the gutter, we start adding a little more color, a little more volume. Now we’re gonna start seeing some of that increase, you’re getting more micronutrients. And I mean, quality, right? So now you’re improving quality. If you are self assessing, and you’re super stressed, not sleeping, well, always tired, add color and add some volume, right? So add a little bit more volume to your plate, but add volume in the right stuff, you know, in that color. So those are those are the couple of key points I would say is self assessment with those items, and then taking an assessment of what your your plate looks like what your daily intake looks like, and improving from there. Those are some starting points, because you can assess continually then from there on on all of those things, you know, you know,
Mat Lock
fantastic advice. Thank you. And of course, you’ve already mentioned your coaching services you offer our online, so if anyone listening was interested to reach out to you, and have that chat and maybe become a client of yours. So how would they get in touch with you to do that?
Jenn Ryan
You can get in touch with me a couple different ways. If you’ve just got some questions on anything related to nutrition, or lifestyle, you can always
Mat Lock
pull it back to about nutrition, no.
Jenn Ryan
life, life nutrition, or I’m sorry, life advice. Because sometimes I say Do as I say not as I do, especially to the kids that I train with, or in their 20s I’m like, you don’t want to know about me back in the day. No, yeah, nutrition or lifestyle, you know, nutrition around like training or you know, doing a competition, things like that, you can always send me a message on Instagram, it’s Jen, underscore, underscore, Ryan, don’t mind chatting here on Facebook at Jen Ryan, you can message me or you can send me an email at Jen at Lifeline performance comm or you can go onto my website, Lifeline performance, COMM And you can contact and get in touch with me there. So any of those ways. Like I said, I don’t mind answering any questions that you’ve got to so.
Mat Lock
And all of those links will be in the show notes for sure. When we released this episode, so we’re, I could talk to you all day. And I’ve got a question for you once we finished. But nonetheless, thank you so much again for being so generous and giving with your time, your knowledge, your expertise. And I didn’t say at the end of the last one. So congratulations again for an amazing result this year. And we’re just saying you smash it out of the park again in 2021. But we’ll stay in touch him again. Thank you so much for your time.
Jenn Ryan
Thank you. Thanks a lot. This has been awesome.
