Fuelled with Dr Gemma Sampson

  In this episode, I sit down with Dougie Gunn, a recreational cyclist who would have once described himself as a “human vacuum” when it came to food. He shares his journey from riding casually and fueling randomly, to taking a more structured and strategic approach to nutrition for endurance cycling. Dougie originally got into cycling as a way to meet people after moving to a new city. What started as social riding quickly evolved into bigger goals, including completing long-distance events like Peaks Challenge. Alongside that, he also manages a medical condition, polycystic kidney disease, which adds another layer to how he approaches nutrition and hydration. We talk about how his understanding of fueling has completely shifted. Before working together, he wasn’t thinking about carbohydrates per hour, hydration strategies, or recovery nutrition. He relied on whatever food was available at rest stops, without considering how it impacted his energy, performance, or recovery. Now, he plans his fueling with intention. He understands how to build a nutrition strategy around his training, how to adjust for longer rides, and how to make decisions based on what his body actually needs rather than guessing. A big part of our conversation focuses on hydration. Because of his kidney condition, Dougie has to be particularly mindful of fluid intake, aiming for several litres per day. We explore how this integrates with endurance training, and how hydration plays a critical role not just in health, but in performance and overall energy levels on the bike. We also unpack his early experiences with carb loading. Like many athletes, his initial attempt was based on common misconceptions, which left him feeling uncomfortable and overly full. Through trial, error, and education, he learned how to approach carb loading in a way that actually supports performance rather than detracts from it. Another key theme is experimentation. From testing different gels and drink mixes to even creating his own DIY fueling options, Dougie shares how important it has been to try different approaches, take notes, and refine what works for him. This process of learning and adapting has been central to his progress. One of the biggest shifts he highlights is how he feels both during and after rides. Instead of finishing completely depleted, he now has consistent energy, recovers faster, and no longer experiences the extreme hunger and cravings that used to follow his training. We also talk about the importance of understanding your own patterns. Keeping a food diary, identifying habits, and building awareness has been a foundational step in helping him make meaningful changes. This episode is a great example of how nutrition doesn’t need to be perfect to be effective. It’s about building the right tools, learning how to apply them, and creating a system that works for your lifestyle, your goals, and your body. -- BECOME A FUELLED CYCLIST 🧰 Get your free Nutrition Assessment: https://www.gemmasampson.com/ceacq ⛽️ Join The Fuelled Team: https://www.gemmasampson.com/join    CONNECT WITH GEMMA 🌐 Website: https://www.gemmasampson.com 🎥 Youtube: www.youtube.com/@drgemmasampson  📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/drgemmasampson 🎤 Podcast: https://www.gemmasampson.com/podcast/120 🚴 Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/5723475

  In this episode, I answer a question I get all the time from cyclists and endurance athletes: what do I do if I’m not hungry after training? On the surface, it sounds simple. If you’re not hungry, you don’t eat. But when it comes to performance nutrition and recovery, it’s not always that straightforward. I talk about how intuitive eating is a valuable tool and something I encourage athletes to develop over time. Learning your hunger cues, understanding when you’re genuinely hungry versus when you’re eating out of habit, and finding a rhythm that works for your body is incredibly important. But there are specific situations where relying purely on hunger cues can actually hold you back. One of the biggest examples of this is immediately after training. For many athletes, especially after harder or longer sessions, appetite can be suppressed. You might feel flat, tired, or simply not interested in food. But this is exactly the time your body needs fuel the most. If you delay refueling, you are not only compromising recovery, but also setting yourself up for low energy, brain fog, and stronger cravings later in the day. In this episode, I explain why early recovery nutrition is so important, particularly for amateur athletes who are juggling training alongside work, family, and everyday life. You don’t have the luxury of extended recovery windows. You need your energy back quickly so you can function, think clearly, and perform in the next session. I walk through practical strategies for what to do when you’re not hungry after training. One of the most effective tools is using liquid nutrition. Smoothies, recovery shakes, chocolate milk, and fruit juice can all help you get carbohydrates and protein into your system without the heaviness of a full meal. I also share simple, flexible ideas for light foods that are easier to tolerate when appetite is low, like toast, rice cakes, cereal, or eggs. The key message is that recovery does not need to be complicated or perfect. It just needs to happen. We also talk about the downstream effects of underfueling. When you skip or delay recovery nutrition, it often shows up later as intense hunger, sugar cravings, overeating, and feeling out of control around food. By eating earlier, even when you’re not hungry, you can prevent that cycle and support more consistent energy and behaviour throughout the day. This episode is designed to give you simple, realistic strategies you can implement immediately, whether you are a recreational cyclist, a busy professional training around life, or someone trying to improve recovery and performance without overcomplicating your nutrition. -- BECOME A FUELLED CYCLIST 🧰 Get your free Nutrition Assessment: https://www.gemmasampson.com/ceacq ⛽️ Join The Fuelled Team: https://www.gemmasampson.com/join    CONNECT WITH GEMMA 🌐 Website: https://www.gemmasampson.com 🎥 Youtube: www.youtube.com/@drgemmasampson  📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/drgemmasampson 🎤 Podcast: https://www.gemmasampson.com/podcast/119 🚴 Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/5723475

  Weight is one of the most sensitive and misunderstood topics in sports nutrition, especially for cyclists and endurance athletes. In this episode, I unpack a recent client experience that completely reframed how I think about weight loss, performance, and what progress actually looks like. When I reviewed my client’s progress after a few weeks, I noticed her weight had started to shift in the direction she wanted. My first instinct was to celebrate that. But I paused, because I know how easy it is to place all the value on the number on the scale, rather than what is actually driving meaningful change. Instead of focusing on weight, I asked her what she had noticed. What she shared had nothing to do with the number. She told me she had more energy, she felt happier, and even her husband had commented that she seemed like a different person. One of the biggest shifts was that she was no longer binge eating in the evenings. The constant cravings, the pull towards sugar, and the feeling of losing control around food had significantly reduced. This is the power of fueling properly. In this episode, I break down why the timing of your nutrition—what you eat before, during, and after training—is often far more important than the exact foods you are eating. When you fuel your body correctly, many of the behaviours people struggle with, like overeating at night or constant cravings, begin to resolve naturally. I also talk about the psychological barriers that often stop athletes from making these changes. Fear plays a huge role. Fear of eating more. Fear of gaining weight. Fear that it won’t work. Even when people are given clear advice, it can take days or even weeks before they are willing to try it. We explore why weight is such an unreliable marker of progress. It can fluctuate due to sodium intake, supplements like sodium bicarbonate, travel, altitude, hydration, and hormonal changes. You can also be building muscle and losing body fat while your weight stays exactly the same. That is why I always encourage looking at the bigger picture. In this episode, I walk through how to shift your focus towards meaningful progress markers like energy levels, recovery, sleep quality, mood, performance, and overall quality of life. Because ultimately, the goal is not just to weigh less. It is to feel better, perform better, and live better. If you have ever felt stuck focusing on the scale, or frustrated that things are not changing the way you expect, this episode will help you rethink what progress actually looks like and where your attention should be going.   -- BECOME A FUELLED CYCLIST 🧰 Get your free Nutrition Assessment: https://www.gemmasampson.com/ceacq ⛽️ Join The Fuelled Team: https://www.gemmasampson.com/join    CONNECT WITH GEMMA 🌐 Website: https://www.gemmasampson.com 🎥 Youtube: www.youtube.com/@drgemmasampson  📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/drgemmasampson 🎤 Podcast: https://www.gemmasampson.com/podcast/118 🚴 Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/5723475

In this episode of Fuelled, I sit down with Liz Nelson to talk about one of the biggest conversations I keep hearing from women in their thirties, forties and fifties: why training, body composition, muscle building and performance can suddenly feel harder than they used to. Liz brings a rare mix of experience to this conversation. She has a background in pharmacy, sports science, health communication and endurance coaching, and she works closely with athletes who want to keep doing big, ambitious things as they get older. We talk about the confusing and often conflicting information women are exposed to around perimenopause, menopause, strength training, hormones, cortisol, carbohydrates and endurance sport. One of the biggest themes in this episode is that the conversation is often far too extreme. On one side, there is fear-based messaging that tells women they need a completely different protocol, that carbs are bad, that endurance sport is harmful, or that they need a special menopause formula to train properly. On the other side, there is a pushback that can be so clinical and blunt that women who are genuinely struggling can feel dismissed. In this conversation, I wanted to create space for more nuance, more reassurance and more practical guidance.   Liz shares her own personal experience of going through the menopause transition and being shocked by a DEXA scan that showed she had lost 10% of her muscle and bone mass in just 12 months, despite still riding regularly and using hormone replacement therapy. That result became a turning point for her. Instead of giving up or assuming decline was inevitable, she made a deliberate decision to take strength training seriously, learn about powerlifting, and build her body back. A year later, a repeat DEXA scan showed she had regained the muscle and bone mass she had lost, and even added a little more. That story is such a powerful reminder that it is not too late to build strength, regain muscle, improve bone health and get fitter, even if things feel like they have changed dramatically. Another major theme in this episode is that strength training needs to meet the athlete where they are. Lifting heavy does matter, but that phrase can be unhelpful if it makes people think they need to jump straight into barbells, big numbers or a gym environment that feels intimidating. For one person, “heavy” might mean bodyweight. For another, it might mean bands, dumbbells or a gradual progression into more structured strength work. We talk about how the right strength and conditioning program can improve not only bone density and muscle mass, but also confidence, longevity, enjoyment and performance on the bike. I also share where I am personally right now with training. After a long period of illness, travel and inconsistent routine, I feel like I am rebuilding from a very low fitness base. That can be frustrating, especially when your brain remembers what you used to be able to do, but your body is not there yet. Liz and I talk about the emotional side of starting again, the value of beginner energy, and how motivating it can be to see those small improvements return. We talk about the importance of finding joy in the process, rather than only measuring success by numbers, pace or power. This episode is for any woman who has wondered why things feel different now, whether she can still build muscle, whether it is too late to start, how to think about strength training alongside endurance training, and how to stop feeling broken when her body is asking for a different approach. It is also for any endurance athlete who needs the reminder that progress is still possible, that strength matters, and that enjoyment is not optional if we want to keep doing this for the long term.   -- BECOME A FUELLED CYCLIST 🧰 Get your free Nutrition Assessment: https://www.gemmasampson.com/ceacq ⛽️ Join The Fuelled Team: https://www.gemmasampson.com/join    CONNECT WITH GEMMA 🌐 Website: https://www.gemmasampson.com 🎥 Youtube: www.youtube.com/@drgemmasampson  📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/drgemmasampson 🎤 Podcast: https://www.gemmasampson.com/podcast/117 🚴 Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/5723475

In this episode of Fuelled, I sit down with Matilda Raynolds to talk about one of the biggest endurance cycling goals in Australia: completing Peaks Challenge Falls Creek in under eight hours. Matilda recently became the first female sub-eight-hour ride leader for the event, and this conversation goes far beyond the headline result. We unpack what it actually took to get there, from training and mindset to race-day fuelling, body composition, and the long-term evolution of her relationship with food and performance. Matilda shares how ambitious the goal really was, especially because she does not see herself as a natural climber. She explains that her background is much more suited to sprinting and classics-style racing, which made the idea of targeting one of the hardest gran fondos in the world feel both exciting and audacious. We also talk about how different her journey has been compared to the women who have previously gone under eight hours, and why that matters when it comes to representation, performance, and body diversity in cycling. A major theme in this episode is endurance fuelling and how much the culture has changed over the last decade. We reflect on the advice many female athletes were given years ago - low carb, under-fuelling, trying to stay as light as possible, and pushing through long sessions on next to nothing. Matilda speaks candidly about how sad she feels for that younger version of herself, who was training incredibly hard while under-fuelling, compromising both performance and wellbeing in the process. I also share examples from the data I collected with her years ago, and how dramatically different her race fuelling looks now compared to 2019. We talk through exactly how Matilda fuelled for her sub-eight-hour Peaks Challenge ride, including how she approached carbo-loading, breakfast, race-day gels, bottles, caffeine, and fluid strategy. She explains why she kept things deliberately simple, why she practised not stopping in training, and why learning to fuel consistently every 30 minutes made such a difference. We also cover how training the gut, trialling products in training rather than only on race day, and learning what works for your own body is a huge part of performing well in long endurance events. Another key conversation in this episode is the complex relationship between body composition and performance in cycling, especially for women. We discuss why weight does matter in some events, but why the conversation becomes harmful when it is oversimplified or turned into the only thing people focus on. We reflect on how quickly women’s performances get reduced to weight loss, while men’s performances are far more often discussed in terms of power, tactics and physiology. We also speak honestly about how different body types can still perform exceptionally in endurance cycling, and why comparing yourself to another athlete’s build, fuelling strategy or physiology rarely leads anywhere helpful. We also explore how periodisation, fuelling around the event in front of you, protein intake, menstrual cycle changes, and meal satisfaction all play into performance. This is a practical and honest conversation about what endurance performance really looks like when you zoom out from the numbers and look at the whole athlete. If you’re training for Peaks Challenge, a gran fondo, a long cycling event, or you simply want to understand how to fuel endurance rides better, this episode will help you think differently about carbohydrates, recovery, body composition, and what sustainable high performance actually looks like. -- BECOME A FUELLED CYCLIST 🧰 Get your free Nutrition Assessment: https://www.gemmasampson.com/ceacq ⛽️ Join The Fuelled Team: https://www.gemmasampson.com/join    CONNECT WITH GEMMA 🌐 Website: https://www.gemmasampson.com 🎥 Youtube: www.youtube.com/@drgemmasampson  📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/drgemmasampson 🎤 Podcast: https://www.gemmasampson.com/podcast/116 🚴 Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/5723475