Your body needs energy simply to function, and even more when you exercise. Whether you train for endurance, strength, recreational fitness, or weekend competitions, everyone can benefit from learning how to fuel their body so it has enough energy to perform, recover, and stay healthy.
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Key Takeaways
If you’re ready to fuel your body properly:
- Be honest about how much energy you need to feel well and perform—on both active and rest days.
- Plan and prepare meals and snacks so you can meet those needs consistently within the demands of your life.
Fueling Your Body With Jamie Scott
Jamie Scott is a New Zealand Registered Nutritionist with postgraduate training in Nutrition Medicine and Sport & Exercise Medicine, undergraduate degrees in Nutrition Science and Physical Education, and coaching experience in mountain biking. Over 25 years in health and fitness has shaped his focus: helping active people fuel for performance and long-term health.
You Are An Athlete
Many people don’t call themselves “athletes,” but if you move regularly—running, cycling, lifting, or training—you share the same needs. Recreational exercisers, weekend competitors, and serious hobbyists often adopt elite tools and strategies without recognizing they require comparable fueling. Jamie emphasizes that successful athletes often fuel more, not less, and that under-fueling is increasingly common with real consequences.
What Is Energy Flux?
Energy flux describes the flow of energy through your body: intake versus expenditure. Your body needs energy at rest for basic functions (brain, gut, immune system, repair) and additional energy for exercise. If intake is too low, the body prioritizes essential processes and reduces or shuts down others—leading to symptoms such as fatigue, brain fog, digestive issues, impaired recovery, injury risk, and menstrual dysfunction in women.
Jamie uses the phone battery analogy: energy availability is like the charge left on your phone. Most of us check our phone battery carefully but ignore our own. Low energy availability forces the body into “power-saving mode,” which compromises performance and health.
If you’re excited for Part 2, leave a comment below about what you’d like to hear next.
In This Episode
- The influence of social media, coaching, funding, and education on how athletes fuel (17:29)
- Who counts as an athlete and when fueling becomes important (23:24)
- Practical ways to find time and space to eat enough for your activity level (28:33)
- What low energy availability really means and its practical impacts (31:55)
- Why calorie-restrictive diets often harm performance, regardless of activity level (42:02)
Quotes
“In a nutshell, people are just not eating enough for what they want to do, and that’s becoming more prevalent.” (15:22)
“Our energy availability is the equivalent of the charge that’s left on your phone.” (32:36)
“You don’t just need energy for skeletal muscle contraction… Your brain requires energy; your gut requires energy; your immune system requires energy; your growth and repair require energy.” (34:15)
“This is becoming such a real problem in terms of the culture and normality around these low energy diets and this misunderstanding of what it actually takes to fuel a body at rest, let alone adding additional exercise on top of that.” (41:55)
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Energy Flux and Fueling for Athletes w/ Jamie Scott — Transcript (Edited)
Steph Gaudreau
Many recreational exercisers and weekend warriors are encouraged to eat less. In this two-part conversation with Jamie Scott, we explore what happens when you instead choose to eat more to meet real energy needs, how to spot under-fueling, and practical steps to change it.
Steph Gaudreau
This podcast helps people who lift weights fuel and perform better without obsessing over food. Today we dive into energy intake, defining who is an athlete, low energy availability, and a useful framework called energy flux. Part two will cover practical strategies, timing, and how fasting fits into this picture.
Jamie Scott
I work with a wide range of people—from elite athletes to weekend warriors—and I see the same problem across the spectrum: people are not eating enough for their activity. That leads to fatigue, poor recovery, injuries, illness, and in women, menstrual dysfunction. The recent Olympics exposed examples where athletes burned out because they didn’t fuel adequately.
Steph Gaudreau
Why do athletes under-fuel? Is it social media, coach pressure, limited education, or the desire to look a certain way?
Jamie Scott
All of the above. The democratization of gear, tracking tools, and nutrition advice means many non-elite athletes now train like elites, but without the same support. Contracts and social media add pressure to look a certain way. Many people juggle work, family, and training—there is often no time carved out to shop, prepare, and eat the volume required to fuel high activity.
Steph Gaudreau
How do you know if you should be paying attention to fueling?
Jamie Scott
If your weekly training is substantial—frequent sessions, long sessions, or high intensity—or you feel chronic fatigue, it’s time to evaluate your fueling. Don’t dismiss yourself as “not an athlete.” If your activity and total life demands are high, you need adequate energy.
Steph Gaudreau
What is low energy availability in practical terms?
Jamie Scott
Think of your available energy like a phone battery. If you eat too little relative to what you expend, the body reduces non-essential functions to conserve energy. That affects cognition, digestion, immunity, tissue repair, and reproductive function. People often underestimate basal energy needs and the nutrient demands of recovery. If total daily calories are extremely low—especially single-thousand totals for active people—problems often follow. Low intake also reduces non-exercise activity and resting metabolic rate, which can mask how little you’re truly fueling.
Steph Gaudreau
Jamie introduced energy flux: low flux means low intake and low expenditure; high flux means high intake and high expenditure. Higher flux (eating more while being active) supports better recovery, performance, and health than maintaining a chronically low flux.
Jamie Scott
Practical change requires planning—shopping, prepping, and creating the space to eat. In part two, we’ll discuss specific strategies to increase intake, balance nutrients, and handle social or practical barriers.
Steph Gaudreau
Follow Jamie on social media for more and join the waitlist for Strength Nutrition Unlocked if you want group support. Stay tuned for part two next week.
Stay strong.