Meteor Nutrition arose after lifelong athlete, Kelsey Pontius RD, LDN wished to pursue her passion for the impact of nutrition on the human body in motion.
Kelsey grew up playing competitive soccer, and eventually ended her career as a D1 soccer player to transform into a distance runner who has since qualified for the 2020 and 2024 US Marathon Olympic Trials. Through several instances of her athletic background, she felt the ebbs and flows with nutrition on performance. She knew she was destined to help other athletes benefit from the implementation of optimal nutrition.
Aside from working with ambitious athletes with a specialist in sports dietetics, Kelsey has worked in the clinical arena with a multitude of different medical complexities through her experiences in working in acute care and one the country's largest spinal cord and brain injury rehabilitation centers, Brooks Rehabilitation.
She currently is a consulting dietitian with four division 1 NCAA programs and works 1:1 with athletes in a private practice setting. Her current interests in the field include preparing for endurance racing, optimizing gut health, nutrition to support injury healing, and accomplishing hormonal balance through proper nutrition.
In this episode, we discuss the importance of diet in injury healing. Whether you're dealing with a bone stress injury or chronic tendon injury, we’ll discuss how to approach your nutrition strategy to help optimize your road back to recovery. We’ll take a look at some commonly asked questions starting with what labs may be important in your initial injury assessment followed by a discussion of what foods promote and reduce inflammation, the role of protein in recovery, and what the evidence shows regarding things like collagen supplementation. We hope you can take away some helpful tips with today’s discussion on Kelsey’s evidence-based approach to nutrition strategies for overcoming injury. You’ll want to fuel up for this one as we get ready to run with registered dietitian and 2x Olympic marathon trials qualifier - Kelsey Pontius!
What we talked about:
3:50- Introduction to Kelsey
5:10- Importance of diet in injury healing
14:45- Role of protein for injury recovery
18:05- Approach to carbs and fats
22:20- The difference between a registered dietitian and a sports nutrition specialist
24:45- What an initial assessment looks like with a dietitian
29:15- Lab work to focus on as a runner and post injury
38:25- Timeline for improvements in biomarkers
41:05- Knowing when someone is ready to train based on biomarkers
44:15- Collagen and its role in tissue repair and tendon loading
51:10- What to look for to know a supplement is certified
53:35- Intra long run fueling
1:04:30- Key takeaways about optimizing nutrition as an athlete recovering from injury
Show notes:
www.meteornutrition.com
Instagram: @sportsdietitiankelsey
