Vibrant Health: Neuroscience, Nutrition, and Sleep with Lauren Costantini

Ever wonder how some people seem to glow with energy and vitality? What if the secret to that vibrancy was rooted not just in what we eat, but in deeply understanding the science behind our meals? Join me as I dive into an enlightening conversation with Lauren Costantini, a former neuroscientist turned nutrition guru, who unveils how the right diet can dramatically transform our health and enhance our lives.

Lauren’s journey is as fascinating as it is inspiring. From gracing stages as a dancer to exploring the depths of the human brain as a neuroscientist, and now guiding others as a nutrition coach, Lauren has lived multiple lives in one. Her unique blend of scientific expertise and real-world athletic experience places her in the perfect position to share insights that are not only research-driven but also tested in the fires of personal trial and perseverance.

Why vibrant health is important

In today’s fast-paced world, vibrant health is not just a goal—it’s a necessity. Staying energized, maintaining mental clarity, and feeling physically robust are crucial for handling the demands of daily life and achieving our personal and professional goals. Vibrant health also empowers us to enjoy life to the fullest, to engage more deeply in our relationships, and to meet challenges with resilience.

Lauren doesn’t just preach nutrition—she embodies it. Recovering from a significant back surgery, she turned to nutrition to enhance her healing and soon discovered its power to revolutionize health. By embracing a plant-based diet, Lauren not only accelerated her recovery but also found a new level of vitality that propelled her back to competitive sports with renewed vigor.

With Lauren’s background in neuroscience and her passion for fitness, she approaches nutrition from a holistic perspective. She tackles common misconceptions, like the fears surrounding carbohydrates, and illuminates the critical role of fiber and whole grains. Lauren stresses that understanding the nutritional content of our food isn’t just about avoiding illness—it’s about building a foundation for sustained health and energy.

Daily adjustments for health

So how do we move forward toward vibrant health? We discuss limiting added sugars, integrating ample fiber through legumes, nuts, and seeds, and considering the impacts of dietary choices not just on personal health but also on environmental sustainability. Lauren’s advice is clear: start small, make informed choices, and think of nutrition as an ongoing journey of discovery and enjoyment.

Whether you’re an athlete looking to boost performance or simply someone seeking to feel better in your day-to-day life, the principles of vibrant health are universal. Dive into the full podcast episode to discover more about Lauren’s revolutionary approach to eating and wellness, and take the first step towards a more vibrant, energetic you.

Here are Lauren’s key takeaways:

• Embrace curiosity and flexibility in your career path
• Prioritize science-based nutrition and fitness advice
• Understand the nuances of nutrition: carbohydrates, sugar, and fiber
• Benefits of plant-based eating
• Sleep quality vs sleep quantity

Listen to Lauren’s episode

___

Lauren’s Links

Episode Chapters

• Introduction and Background of Lauren Costantini (0:00)
• Lauren’s Career Transition from Dance to Neuroscience (1:35)
• Lauren’s Transition to Confluence Coach (7:27)
• The Importance of Science in Nutrition and Fitness (16:59)
• Understanding Carbohydrates and Sugar (22:31)
• The Role of Fiber in Diet and Health (28:12)
• The Impact of Processed Foods on Athletes (34:00)
• Lauren and Sonya’s Transition to a Vegan Diet (39:30)
• Final Thoughts on Sleep and Alcohol (46:47)

___

Transcript

Sonya Looney 0:00
It’s okay. I have a Anthony is my awesome editor, and anything we say canon will not be held against us, although he has done a blooper reel before, but it was only me on the hot seat, not my guest, so don’t worry about that. Okay.

Lauren Costantini 0:13
Oh, that’s so funny.

Sonya Looney 0:15
And it’s cost, cost Antonini,

Lauren Costantini 0:19
Costantini cost.

Sonya Looney 0:21
I’m sorry. I always like, it’s

Lauren Costantini 0:22
okay, you can put in an extra syllable. It’s Italian Costantini,

Sonya Looney 0:28
and that’s just for the intro, cost and teeny. Okay, great. I got it. Got it? Okay, welcome to the show. I’m so excited to see you.

Lauren Costantini 0:38
Thanks so much for having me this is so exciting. Well,

Sonya Looney 0:42
the last time I saw you was at the women’s cycling Summit, and you were presenting in the quandary cabin, and I walked in, and it was a room full of very enthusiastic listeners, and I was eagerly awaiting to hear your talk on nutrition. But before we get into that, tell us a little bit about yourself. You’ve had quite the journey, and you have a lot of different areas of interest and expertise.

Lauren Costantini 1:06
Yeah, I always joke that if you saw my resume, it looks like I don’t know how to hold a job, because I’ve taken a very circuitous path. I’ve I’ve done a lot of things in my life, and a lot of it is just because I’m a very curious person, and even at this point in my life, I’m pretty much changing my career every five years, and I call that taking the leap. And I’ve always encouraging other people to take the leap if they find something that interests them more than what they are doing at the moment. So I’m definitely taking the leap. But like I said, sometimes it looks like I just have no attention span. So yeah, I started life as a dancer by the time I was 12, I was doing TV commercials and traveling around the country, and started undergraduate college as a dance major, and I was going down into New York City and auditioning on Broadway. And after a couple years of that, they just kept telling me, You’re a good singer and you’re a good dancer, but you’re just too short. So I’m five foot one. And back in those days, all the dancers on Broadway were rocket size, you know, they were like five foot 10 with really long legs and really big boobs, and I don’t have any of those things, so So I switched to neuroscience, which made sense to me. I always was loved science in school, and always did pretty well. So I finished my undergrad in biomedical science and then went on to get my PhD in neuroscience. I loved all the work that was happening in Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease, and we were doing some of the early work on stem cell treatments and different stem cell therapies. So that was really fun. And I finished my PhD, and I was in academia for a while, so I went to Harvard Medical School and did my postdoc there, and ended up becoming faculty there for a few years, and had my own lab and collaborated with some of the biotech companies there. And academia was fun, but I found that our research, which was we were coming out with these great new therapies for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, but they were just going into journals and they weren’t getting to the patients. And I really wanted to get our discoveries out to the patients. So that’s when I, quote, unquote, sold my soul to biotech and moved to Silicon Valley and joined a biotech company. And it actually was more effective, because then we could take our discoveries and bring them through clinical trials and through the FDA and get them to the patients. So that was really fun. So lived in San Francisco for a while and then moved to Boulder. Had planned on staying only two years here, and that was about 15 years ago, so I don’t know really what happened, and I, during all those years, I was always a cyclist. I loved riding my bike. I started out as a mountain biker. So mountain bike background, I refused to buy road bike for so many years. And this was in the Alison Dunlap days. She was my idol and and so I was always, you know, cycling always was weaving its way through my life. And so once I moved to Boulder, I was still doing some Alzheimer’s research, and then started my own consulting company, because I wanted to work with lots of different types of technologies, versus being pigeonholed into one company’s technology. So with consulting, I worked with about 40 different startups over the I don’t know, was probably five or six years that I was consulting, and that was really fun, getting my fingers in all sorts of different companies, companies, developments, of. Therapeutics and things like that. And I started moving out of the neuroscience world, and ended up being asked to be CEO of a fertility company. So that was completely outside of my neuroscience world. But by that time, I was leaving the science side and doing more of the business side of things. So being a CEO of a startup company. You’re pretty much just raising money, and you’re pitching your ideas to investors, and you’re selling the selling the idea. So that was, can

Sonya Looney 5:30
you say that part again, being part, if it froze for a minute, can you say being the CEO of a startup company? And just start with that.

Lauren Costantini 5:38
Okay, yeah. So moving out of the science and more into the business side of things, because being the CEO of a startup company, you’re pretty much just raising money and pitching to investors and selling the the idea of this company before you actually have a product out on the market. So that was really fun. I did that. I was CEO for about seven years, and then when we were about to launch the product, I just kind of stepped back and was like, I’m at the epitome of my career. And you hear this story so many times, I looked around and I was like, This is it. I’m not really fulfilled. I’m not really happy. I’ve worked my way up the ladder and did all the things I was supposed to do, and on paper, it looked like I was living a great life. I was I did a TED talk, and I was being flown around the world to speak on panels, and our product was very important. We’re changing the way women were getting pregnant, and I was just the most unfulfilled person because I had misprioritized things. You know, I put work first. I hadn’t been even visiting my family back on the East Coast. Even my friends here in Boulder were like, you know, when you hang out with us, we can tell that you’re not really hanging out with us. You’re you’re really just focused. You’re thinking of other things. I wasn’t being mindful. So I walked into a board of directors meeting one day as the CEO, and I said, I’m giving you my two weeks notice. And they almost fell off their chairs when I told them I was starting a mountain bike tour guide company. And everyone that I knew also was like, wait a minute, you’re leaving a CEO position and you’re starting a mountain bike tour guide company. And I said, that’s what I need to do right now. So that was my first big take the leap and just, you know, no ropes. So then that was an amazing company, and we can talk about that specifically, if you’d like but then covid hit, and nobody was mountain bike touring because no one was traveling. So I thought, well, what, what am I going to do next? What is my next chapter? And I thought to myself, it’s so easy when when you hear people say, Well, do what you love. And that’s so easy to say, but it’s hard to really think about. Well, what can I do for a living that I really love? And I just thought to myself, what when I’m when I have free time and I’m just searching the web, what do I like to search when I’m just kind of fooling around on the internet? And it was always nutrition, fitness and sleep. It was always, how can I optimize myself as a human, as an athlete. How can I get my performance better? How can I have a have a more vibrant life and energetic life? So I thought, well, maybe, because I’m already doing research on nutrition and fitness, maybe I can turn that into a career. And that’s when I started Confluence coach, and I’ve been doing that since 2020 and absolutely loving it. So I’m coaching people on nutrition, fitness and sleep. Yeah, it’s been amazing.

Sonya Looney 8:50
First when I hear this, I think, oh my gosh, you have so many skills. All the things that you’ve done, you have a very diverse amount of skills, because you’ve done so many different things. The second thing is, what a courageous person to you know, make all of these different leaps and the courage to pursue your curiosity and your passion. And before we go any further, I want to go into your what you’re actually working with, with your clients, because I think many of us would benefit, and I personally have already benefited from your nutrition talk, but all of us want better sleep, better longevity, better health. However, you said that, you know, you were trying to audition on Broadway, and your life had been dedicated to this thing, and then people just told you something that’s completely out of your control, is the thing that you can’t do. And then you just moved on to neuroscience. What was that transition point like? Because I’m sure there was a lot of challenges in that. Absolutely,

Lauren Costantini 9:45
yeah, yeah. When, when you’re told that it’s not really your talent, that’s the problem. It’s not something that you can work on, but it’s actually something that is out of your control. I have to say that that was both more frustrating and less frustrating. Was young. I was like you had said. I had been started dancing when I was three, and now I was 19, and suddenly being told, No, you’re really not going to be able to do this as a as your career. So I definitely was frustrated. I probably shouldn’t have been going for it for two years. I shouldn’t have wasted two years of just banging my head against the wall and being told every time you know you’re too short. So I definitely put up a fight. But I think I did just realize, well, it really is just my height, and so put it in perspective, Lauren, just move on and get past that. One thing that dance did do for me, though, is as I became more into the science of you know, as a scientist, you’re always submitting your papers and getting rejected. As a CEO, you’re always asking investors for money and getting rejected. So I learned that when I was a dancer, people would just reject me for reasons that were sort of out of my control. And I think at a young age, going through that helped me realize that it’s not personal. You know when, when someone is rejecting you for something like that, you just can’t take it personally. So I think I learned that at such a young age. So I had this, this armor that I was able to build up at a young age that when I was getting rejected, just move on. And so that I was able to carry that through. When I would be sitting in front of 20 different investors trying to raise money for my company, and they all said no, too. So it would just say, Okay, I’m moving on, just moving on next. So, yeah, I think that you learn that at a young age, but when you’re at that young age, it’s rough for sure,

Sonya Looney 11:50
and then also the perspective to move on, when to know, when to move on from something. Because I think that especially a lot of us listening, most of us are gritty and consistent, and it’s hard to know, okay, this thing, I need to just let this go and move on. So how did you know when to do that?

Lauren Costantini 12:06
Oh, my goodness, yeah, I think. Well, I hate to say it, but it was very specific. I was auditioning for cats on Broadway, which I don’t know how many of your listeners remember cats, but I had actually made it to the last cut. And you know, this was audition after audition after audition. And finally, on the last cut, they said, You’re out. You’re too small. And I said, Well, don’t you need some kittens in cats and but that one, I think it just hit me on the head, like, if I could make it this far and I still can’t get over the finish line that is now just becoming a waste of time. So I just turned it into a very logical thing. I’m a very scientific thinker, process driven. And so I just said, Well, I’m just not going to be able to get a job, so period. And maybe I was, I was overrunning my true emotions by saying it that way. But I really just kind of said, well, you know, this is just becoming a waste of time. So that was how that happens, yeah.

Sonya Looney 13:07
But what about the other ones? Because there’s been other pivots where you had to make a decision that it was time to move on.

Lauren Costantini 13:15
You know, it’s interesting. I’ve when I was in academia, I had been thinking about moving into biotech, and when you’re in academia, the people in academia do call that like selling your soul when you go into business. But I knew that it was in the back of my head, and I was really struggling with the decision, and then one day, it just fell into my lap that it was so clear that I was going to go into biotech. It happened. It had something to do with me meeting someone at a scientific conference and them basically turning to me and saying, oh my gosh, I need to hire you for my biotech company. And so there had been months of me sort of wrangling in my mind, should I do this? Shouldn’t I do this? And then when that happened, it was clear as can be. And ever since that day, that continues to happen to me. So when I was deciding to leave my CEO position, one thing that happened to me was I was diagnosed with some cardiac problems, and my cardiologist literally said, this is due to stress. Your stress is now getting to your body. And I know you’re an athlete, and you treat your body like a temple, but, but you are now getting so stressed at work that you’re doing damage to your heart for the long term, and so that also, you know, the the months before that, I was trying to decide, you know, I’m kind of over the CEO thing. It’s, I’ve been doing it a long time. The company is now moving to, or towards launching a product, which is not really my sweet spot. So I was struggling with it. And then as soon as the doctor said, your job is killing your heart. That, again, was something that was just dropped into my lap from the. Reverse and made it as clear as can be that I just had to, had to leave that job. And then the third one was when I was doing my mountain bike tour guiding. It was going great. It was running so well that already I was kind of thinking, Well, what’s my next business going to be? Because after four or five years, I always just get that itch, what’s my next business? What’s my next business? And then covid happened, so that also dropped into my lab. Well, the mountain bike tour guiding is gone for the foreseeable future. So it’s interesting, because I’ll start getting a feeling that it’s time for something new. And then I’ve been so luckily, lucky that the universe always just dropped something in my lap to make it as clear as day. It doesn’t always happen to everyone, but sometimes when I do start feeling restless, I say, well, something’s gonna happen in the future that’s gonna make it an easy decision.

Sonya Looney 15:50
There’s an attunement that you have to these things, and I think that a lot of us miss out on the signals that were being sent or the opportunities right in front of us, because I really I’ve been the same way in my life, like I’ve done lots of different things. You’re like one of my heroes, hearing all these things that you’ve done, and yeah, whenever you’re open, you’re open to growth, you’re curious. The way that you view the world and the way that you view what’s possible changes. And it really sounds like that is something that you experienced once, and then you immediately became attuned to

Lauren Costantini 16:24
that you’re right. You have to be open to these new ideas and not just so focused on your path forward that you miss these ideas. So, yeah, and you’ve, you’ve done the same thing. I love all that you’ve done, too. It’s amazing. Yeah, thanks.

Sonya Looney 16:36
There’s like, something I’ve been thinking about a lot. I’ve been over the years, you know, thinking about what type of things do I need in my life? And one of those things is letting go, letting things unfold, instead of white knuckle controlling everything. Because I think that whenever you are like you’re a very competent person, you can you have a lot of agency. Whenever you make things happen in your life, you feel that you have to arm wrestle things to make them happen, and then that actually causes constriction, and it doesn’t actually help you when you think you’re just I gotta just out effort this thing. So that’s something I’ve been working on, is how do I let go a little bit and let things unfold, instead of arm wrestling it and considering luck and serendipity? I learned this in my positive psychology degree, through reading literature is one way to improve our well being. And there’s a bunch of science supporting the positive humanities, which I actually can’t wait to record a podcast about that. But reading, reading works of literature can help increase one of the things it can do is help increase optimism through the idea of luck. And I think that people who work super hard, we don’t really think about luck, we think we’re controlling everything, but allowing serendipitous things to fall, quote, fall in our lap and then to take action on them can be a very empowering thing to look at.

Lauren Costantini 17:54
Oh yeah, definitely. If there’s a way of bringing that even closer to our lives by doing something like reading literature. Oh my gosh, I would love to hear more about that for sure. Yeah, but letting go is one of the hardest things for people like us to do. You’re completely right, and that’s something I’m always working on as well, is just let it go. Take a deep breath, look around. Don’t be so focused on the moment in front of you. I mean, it’s still being mindful, but it is just being open to change. Yeah, and being broader. Great lesson. Yeah, yes, definitely.

Sonya Looney 18:29
So let’s dive into I wanted to when we before we turned the microphones on, I said, let’s talk about cutting through the noise, because we were talking about social media, which has lots of positive things, but also there’s a lot of room for people to post whatever they want. And the science of things we’re talking about your field, like longevity, we’re talking about my field, positive psychology, and how influencers can basically change what people think that field is and put out information that isn’t really that scientifically valid. So that’s why I was so excited to talk to you about this stuff.

Lauren Costantini 19:04
Yeah. I mean, my one of my taglines for my Confluence coaching is merging the science of nutrition, fitness and sleep. I wanted science in the title of what I do with people, because the example that I always think about, even before social media was there’s a Time magazine cover shots from four four years different, and one year the cover shot said, eggs are good for you. And then a few years later, the cover shot is, eggs are bad for you. And then you know, a month later, eggs are good for you, and eggs are so it’s just and now with social media, you’re just hearing the gamut of people that are just hypothesizing or opinionating, and there it’s not even really based in science. So because my background is in the scientific world, I am constantly in the scientific literature and reading. Clinical trials. And so what I say to people when I start working with them is, I’m going to share with you the science, and I’m going to help guide you on how you can bring all of that education into your life, but you are going to decide how much you want to take or leave. So so if someone were to come to me and say, and my clients range from pro athletes, where I’m putting together their training peaks program and all their nutrition and their race nutrition and off race nutrition and their their strength training programs, all the way up to I’ve got several 78 year olds who just don’t want to die tomorrow, and I’m just helping them walk around the block and you know, not not eat the foods that they ate 30 years ago. So my the demographics of my clients really run the gamut of everyone in between that. But I do say to them, you can count on one thing from me, and that everything that I share with you is going to be science based. And you can come to me and say, Well, I heard Peter Attia or Andrew Huberman or Joe Rogan say this. Can you tell me if it’s right or wrong? And I love hearing that from people. I want people to come to me and say, Well, I saw this on social media. Should I believe it or not? And then I’ll share the science with them and say either yes or no. So I think there’s people like us who really need to hold the other people accountable, but because they’re so charismatic and because they have such a following, people take what they hear as gospel from these people and and it’s tough for those of us who are steeped in science to kind of sit back and say, oh, yeah, they’re fantastic. You should definitely follow them. Yeah.

Sonya Looney 21:47
It’s really hard to decide where to start, because I feel like this is a conversation that could go on in perpetuity. There’s so much information out there and so many things people want to know, so I’m trying to guess what my listeners want. A lot of the nutrition stuff I’ve posted has been about, you know, reducing processed foods and increasing plant based nutrition for multiple reasons. How about, oh, you just kind of frozen.

Lauren Costantini 22:15
I don’t have my back, okay, right after, right after plant based nutrition. You froze.

Sonya Looney 22:23
Yeah. So talking about, you know, on my podcast, we’ve talked about reduction of processed foods, increasing plant based, you know, eating, and the how to eat plant based in a healthy way, because you can certainly be unhealthy and eating plant based or be a really unhealthy vegan. And that’s not the only way to do things, so I’m just trying to think what my audience wants. So I guess the first question, which this very much surprises me in this day and age, but it’s still clear that this is a big question for people, is carbohydrates, like people still think that carbohydrates are simple carbohydrates, and you shouldn’t eat them, and the context around sugar is is bad all the time. So can you create some some context to carbohydrates and sugar and when it’s appropriate and when it’s

Lauren Costantini 23:09
not absolutely and when I give my my nutrition presentation, I have a slide that says carbs are not the enemy, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re an athlete or not, the word carbohydrate is such a huge general term, it includes everything from, you know, chocolate chip muffins to steel cut oats and to have those in the same category, you can’t even really talk about those two things in the same category. So the carbohydrates that I encourage all of my folks to eat are the whole grain carbohydrates, and they should really be part of every meal. Now, whole grain carbs are and you have to be careful with labels these days, because things can be labeled whole grain, but they’re still highly processed. So one of the one of the best rules that I give, and I only have sort of a few very steadfast rules that I say to my clients. One of them is, this is very tangible information. So when you look at a nutrition label, there’s the carbohydrate line, total number of carbs, and then under that, there’s the number of sugars, how many grams of sugar? But under that is added sugars. And that’s the number that we have to pay attention to, because if you eat a banana or an orange, that’s very healthy fruit sugar, and we can talk about that in a minute. So that has a lot of sugar in it, but it has zero added sugar. So the added sugar line is the one that I say. My rule is you never want to see that over five grams. So five grams of added sugar or less. And if it’s more than five grams of added sugar, put it back on the shelf. Don’t even put it in your grocery cart. And so as soon as you start looking at things like ketchup. Up, or things like whole wheat bread, or things like yogurts, oh my gosh, yogurts and granola. You just can’t believe how much added sugar is in yogurts and granola. Even the non dairy milks that you know, those of us who are plant based, we love our non dairy milks. So many of them are loaded with added sugar. So when you’re thinking about carbohydrates, just looking at that added sugar line is going to help turn you down the right path. Of which carbohydrates are the less processed. Now, when people are trying to change their body composition, the one thing about carbohydrates versus protein and fats is people do tend to overeat carbohydrates just because they’re not as satiating as proteins and fats. So you know, portion control is important, and I do encourage a lot of my clients, especially the first few weeks that we’re working together, to track your food in a food tracker. My favorite one is chronometer, and that can be triggering for some people, and I work with them on that. But just knowing how how to portion your food, just for a few weeks, you just have to track your food for a few weeks, but using measuring cups, using measuring spoons, using even a kitchen scale, it’s not neurotic to do that. People sometimes say, oh, that means you’re being so anal, and that’s going to cause all sorts of problems. Well, we collect data on everything we do these days. We look at our power, our heart rate, our glucose, continuous glucose monitors. We’re looking at our whoop, our recovery. I mean, there is nothing neurotic or anal about tracking your food for a couple of weeks just to learn what portion size is really correct. So whole grain carbohydrates, you know, because they’re easier to overeat, because they’re not assatiating, it really is important to keep track of portions, but there should be things like brown rice and quinoa and whole grain breads, and, of course, all the fruits. What you were talking about with sugar years ago, fruits became the enemy also, and the way fruit works in the body is because the sugar is wrapped in fiber. It’s not causing the insulin spike in your body during digestion, because fiber slows down digestion. So you rarely see an insulin spike when you have a piece of fruit than you would with having a brownie, because the brownie is not full of fiber. So fruit, I encourage everyone to eat as much whole fruit as you can. Berries are the best. They have all the antioxidants you can have them in a smoothie. I would not encourage juicing, because juicing, even of vegetables, as well as fruits, takes away all the fiber, so that kind of fruit sugar does become a little bit of an insulin spike, but as long as you’ve got lots of fiber in your in your in your fruits, as well as your whole grain carbohydrates, you’re going to be fine. So yeah,

Sonya Looney 28:15
a long time ago, I made a t shirt because people are so concerned with protein, and we do need protein, and I do want to talk about that, because there are people that aren’t getting enough, but people are so worried about protein. And so I made a t shirt that said, where do you get your protein? And then I had a red X through the protein, and I wrote fiber underneath, because that’s so good. Yeah, I was the only one who thought it was funny, like I wore it around, and people looked at me weird. Oh,

Lauren Costantini 28:40
my God, that’s so true. You can ask everyone, where do you get your fiber? And people won’t even know what you’re talking or how much fiber do you need. Or, you know, right? Oh, that’s so good. I would buy that shirt fibers. Sell that shirt. So

Sonya Looney 28:51
important. Fiber is the most important things in our diet, and we often overlook it. And then there’s like, soluble and insoluble fiber. But let’s talk about, let’s, let’s talk about protein for a second, well, and just backing up for a sec. I’m so glad that you said eating a whole fruit. And there’s all these juicing crazes everywhere, like, oh, like, just, but people like and smoothies are okay, but we need the fiber. If you take away the fiber, which is, if you’re eating a refined carbohydrate, they’ve taken away the fiber. The white rice is because they stripped away the shell which has the fiber. If you’re drinking juice, the fiber is gone, I guess. How much fiber do we need? Or how much fiber should we be shooting for?

Lauren Costantini 29:27
Oh, gosh, that’s a really good question. You know, I don’t even know if there’s a number. I’m sure there is sort of an RDA number, but I usually put together meal plans for my clients that just have a ton of fiber in every single meal. I don’t even really look at the number of grams. It’s a great point that you’re making, because everything else, I’m very gram specific. You know, for your body weight and your athletics and your activity level, this is how many grams of protein, how many grams of carbs? I honestly never. Ever He even paid attention to the grams of fiber, because I just try to put it in every single meal.

Sonya Looney 30:04
Yeah, if you are eating it, you don’t have to measure it. I just put in chatgpt, the RDA. It says, which seems actually really low for me. It says under 50 men, 38 grams, over 50 men, 30 grams under 50 women, 25 grams. This seems way too low for me. It does. And then over 5021, like, I think it’s, I think I’ve asked somebody maybe in the past, and they said, like 70 grams. But I don’t actually know the answer. We don’t know the exact answer.

Lauren Costantini 30:31
I was thinking 50 or above, at least. Oh, that’s so interesting, yeah. But we never talk about it. And I think I’m, I’m at the age that fiber. When I was a little girl, our moms talked about fiber all the time, and it was always prefer bowel movements, and they just wanted to poo more and and so fiber was just kind of this, this weird stuff that you’d mix up in water, but, but fiber is way more than that, and it’s and it’s so important. And with the huge increase in diabetes right now, type two diabetes, we now know that fiber is one of the big issues in chronic diseases. So we also know that those types of low fiber carbohydrates are contributing to high cholesterol, which then leads to all the cardiovascular disease. So, so I think we need to talk about fiber in a different way than just, you know, and I do have a lot of clients who, they come to me and they’re taking Metamucil, or even, you know, MiraLAX, you know, laxatives, because they’re not getting enough fiber, and they’re truly constipated. We’re also there’s a lot of articles recently showing that under 50 year old, people are getting more and more colon cancer at a very early age, and it’s mineralizing all the both, both because of all the highly processed foods and low fiber that we’re that we’re ingesting these days. So colon cancer has gone through the roof in the younger generation. Yeah, is

Sonya Looney 32:07
that from, is that from the meat? Like, the, I forget. I’m forgetting all the like, yeah. I

Lauren Costantini 32:12
mean, it’s a combination. Usually they’re, usually they’re referring to the low fiber diets. But I’m sure it’s the increase in meat as well. There’s also the increase in alcohol, and sort of the millennial, luckily, the Gen Zers are not drinking as much alcohol, which we can talk about that too. It’s very exciting. The whole non alcoholic, yes, drinks push right now, and it’s all because the Gen Zers, but the millennials were just, you know, the ultra processed foods have no fiber, and they were eating a lot more meat too. So, yeah, colon cancer is on the rise in young kids, and that’s, that’s, I mean, there’s no cancer that is, is, you know, more or less good. But colon cancer is really rough when you’re at a young age and having to have surgeries like that. So, yeah, so I have more T shirts about fiber.

Sonya Looney 33:04
I’m imagining the more extremists which I fall in that category, listening saying, Okay, I need fiber. And then they go all in on all the fiber, and then they can’t, like, then they’re like, eating all this fiber before a bike ride or something. So let’s talk about when it’s appropriate to eat fiber, and when we should maybe tone down the fiber a little bit. Yeah,

Lauren Costantini 33:23
from a performance perspective, I always have, I have this whole, I give these guides to my to my clients, and they’re, they’re one or two pagers that kind of say, here’s what I want you to do, and then here’s all the science behind it. Because some people just want to know. Just tell me what to do. I don’t really know what to know the science, and then other people want to read the science. So my my workout nutrition guide, talks about what to eat before a workout, what to eat during a workout, and what to eat right after. And yeah, you want the carbohydrates that you eat before and during a workout to be quickly utilized. So it’s kind of counterintuitive, because that’s when, when you’re on the bike, that five grams of added sugar Max is out the window. So that’s when you want to have your quick sugar, your added sugar, your pure sugar. The funny thing, though, is that a lot of the athletes that I’m working with when I look at their blood their lab work, and I look at everybody’s blood work, I have a long list of labs that I want them to go do the a lot of them are becoming pre diabetic because of all the highly processed foods that we’re eating on the bike now we are working we’re incorporating it into our glycogen, and we’re using it up on the bike, so no one is gaining weight, but this is what we call fat skinny, or skinny fat. So these athletes are skinny on the outside, but because of all the highly processed foods that we’re eating on the bike, they’re fat on the inside. So they’re becoming pre diabetic. They’re getting atherosclerosis in their blood vessels. Animals, and so what I encourage my athletes to do is on the bike, and you may have to work up to it because of the fiber. Have dried fruits, have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Have you know, I love the dried mangoes, the dried dates, even just fresh fruit, even have the peanut butter filled pretzel nuggets and save the $2.50 cent sis gels and the the scratch endurance drinks. Those are fantastic. They’re incredible new technologies that are allowing us to increase our carbohydrate intake on the bike, but there’s still such highly processed foods that now we’re seeing athletes, you know, like I said, becoming more pre diabetic, so less fiber before and on the bike or workouts, or if you’re a runner or a swimmer, because you want those carbohydrates to go through your system pretty quickly. Fiber slows down that process. So keep the high fiber foods to when you’re when you’re finished riding and finish the bike. Yeah,

Sonya Looney 36:07
could I ask a question about just the like, the health of athletes? So you mentioned that eating these ultra processed foods on the bike are contributing to bad health outcomes. Do you think that that’s also due to the fact that a lot of athletes think, well, I’m an athlete, I’m an athlete. I’m burning lots of calories. I’ll just eat whatever I want, and then their pancreas is just in turmoil all the time, and not just on the bike. Absolutely,

Lauren Costantini 36:28
I just had that conversation yesterday. We, a bunch of us, did a huge ride here in Boulder. It was, you know, 70 miles and 7000 feet of climbing. And then we all went to a party afterwards, and everyone was, we’re all athletes, right? And everyone was eating french fries and burgers and sweet cow ice cream and and that is what we do. We we reward ourselves for the big, huge ride we did, but we have to think less in terms of, well, I’m not gaining weight. So we think we’re still thinking, well, I burned it off. It’s all calories in, calories out, and I don’t look fat, but your organs don’t know the difference. Your organs are still seeing french fries and burgers and pure added sugar in your ice cream. And so you’re absolutely right. Physicians are now seeing and that’s what we call skinny fat. So you’re skinny on the outside, but you’re fat on the inside. And most of us, when we go to the doctors, they look at us and they see our muscle tone, and they look at our resting heart rate in the 40s, and they’re like, wow, this person is so healthy. But because we’re rewarding ourselves with burgers and fries and beer, you know, after every mountain bike ride, everyone goes for a beer, well, your organs are still seeing the beer and the French fries as a person who’s not exercising, so think less in terms of whether you’re going to gain weight and more in terms of what’s really going to help your organs work their best and help this is where longevity comes into play. So you may be nice and thin and fit, but what are your organs are going to be doing when you’re in your 50s and 60s and 70s, if you keep eating that way? So we need to think more about nourishing foods and when you get off the bike, I always encourage people, okay, you may want to have a little treat later for rewarding yourself, but the first thing you want your muscles to see is something like a green smoothie, or, again, like a nice big bowl of of non dairy yogurt with a bunch of berries in it, antioxidants, a little bit of maybe Grape Nuts on top. I’m a huge fan of Grape Nuts. Everyone should be eating Grape Nuts, and so have I want your muscles to see something like that first, and then, if you want to have a few French fries or a scone, have that an hour later. But when you’re when you finish a hard workout, your muscles are inflamed, and if you pour added sugar or oils on your inflamed muscles. I call that pouring gasoline on a fire, so you’re not going to be recovering. So right after a hard workout, have something really nourishing, a big Buddha bowl or a smoothie, and then maybe an hour later, after your muscles have got have gotten all that good nourishing nutrients into them, then you can have maybe some of your french fries, or if you have to have a burger or a beer. So yeah, timing is everything when it comes to

Sonya Looney 39:27
that, yeah, and I heard you say non dairy in your opinion, and what you’ve seen in the science like, what do you think about dairy?

Lauren Costantini 39:34
Well, I have to tell you my story of how I became vegan, and I want to hear your story too,

Sonya Looney 39:42
but I actually realized you were vegan, and I didn’t want to ask, because I thought I don’t know if that’s something she wants to talk about or not.

Lauren Costantini 39:49
Yeah, yeah. I have been since 2019 and the story is kind of a funny one. I had to have back fusion surgery in 2019 so I had been. Been wrecking my back for so many years, you know, as a dancer, as a young girl, and and trail running, and then mountain bike racing and just, you know, I never stopped moving from the time I was three years old. So my back was just kind of a mess. And it got to the point in 2019 where I was losing any feeling in my legs. And so I ended up knowing I was going to have to go in for back fusion. Luckily, I had months to prepare for it, and at that time, I had started my mountain bike tour guide company, so I had to get over that surgery quickly, where I wasn’t going to be making any money because I was leading the tours as well. So I had to get back on the bike as soon as I could. So for the months leading up to my surgery, I started researching how what is the best diet to heal from surgery? Because they’re cutting through my skin, they’re cutting through my muscles. They’re drilling hardware into my bones. So I went into the medical literature, and I just said, I’m going to look up paleo, carnivore, keto, vegan, vegetarian. I looked up the science of every single diet out there, and which one showed the best data, facts, data that you are going to heal from a surgery the fastest. And when the data came out that vegan showed the best healing, I was so bummed. I was like, No, I don’t want to go vegan. Are you kidding me? I love sushi. I love, you know, cheese. And so I thought to myself, well, I need to get back on the bike as soon as I can. So I’m gonna go vegan for the first three months after my surgery. When that you know that that healing is most important, and then as soon as I’m back on the bike, three months after my surgery, I’m just gonna go back to my regular diet. So the three months was great. I felt amazing. My recovery was remarkable. In the words of my surgeon, he was just like, I have never seen anyone recover this fast. And I said, Well, have you ever asked anyone what their diet is? And he said, No, that has nothing to do with recovery, of course, because we can talk about why doctors never pay attention to nutrition. So once three months occurred and I got back on my bike, I continued to just keep eating vegan, just because I had the food in my house. And my recovery from my workouts was through the roof, and the movie game changers had just come out. And if anyone who is listening has never seen that movie. It’s about how all these athletes decided to go vegan, and how their performance just went through the roof. And so I hadn’t even seen game changers yet, but all I knew was, when I was back on the bike, I could go six days in a row hard as I could and never get sore and never get tired, never had delayed onset muscle soreness. It was just incredible. So I decided to do a little more research and realize that all the reasons that being vegan helped my body heal from the surgery were the same reasons that they helped me heal after each workout. You know, it makes sense, the antioxidants and all of the phytonutrients, all of those things help you recover from surgery, but they also help you recover from your day to day workouts. So I’ve stayed vegan ever since, and I feel like I’m fitter and can work my body harder than I did when I was in my 30s. Wow, it’s pretty amazing, yeah, and it was all science based. And then I just put it into into action. And now I don’t force my clients to be vegan, of course, but people will come to me and say, I kind of want to be more plant based leaning, so I help them become more plant based leaning, plant slant, yeah. But then I always have a lot of clients who say, Well, I’m never giving up my cheese. I’m never giving up my XYZ. And I say, that’s fine. We can work around that, no problem. So, but yeah, so how did you do you have time to just tell tell your vegan story?

Sonya Looney 43:53
Yeah, I’ll tell it real quick, because I want people to benefit from your knowledge a little bit more. So yeah, I changed my diet in 2013 actually, and I watched the documentary Forks Over Knives, and in the back of my mind, I was always very and I still am fearful of like cancer and like heart disease, which are the top two reasons why people die. And I have felt that all that stuff was out of my control, and it’s just someday, that thing is going to get me, and I’m going to die, and we’re all going to die someday, and some of us are still going to do everything right, and still die of cancer or whatever. You know, just a dose of reality. However, what I learned in that documentary was that a lot of the diseases that we have are due to our diet and lifestyle. And that didn’t occur to me at the time, and I thought, Oh, I don’t even know if this is true. This is just some documentary on on Amazon or on Netflix or whatever. And my now husband is the one who had recommended it to me, and he had been plant based for a year, and I met him at a bike race, and I saw him eating all this stuff. I was like, I don’t, I don’t know if I want to eat like that, like or I don’t want to be a weirdo vegan, you know? But so then I looked into. The science as well. You know, my first master’s is in electrical engineering, so I’m a total nerd, and I like getting into the why. And then I thought, Okay, well, I’ll give it a try. I don’t know how this is going to go. Like, at that time, there weren’t that many endurance athletes eating vegan like, what’s going to happen to my like, I want to do this for my longevity, but what’s going to happen to my athletic performance? And I was expecting all these bad things to happen, and I gradually shifted. And then I started, like, winning more races and doing way better. So not only did it, you know, help me with my anxiety about the future, but also it started helping me perform better, which, and for years I doubted it, it’s and anytime anything happened, it’s like, oh, well, maybe it’s because I’m eating plant based. And I didn’t actually tell anybody that I ate plant based for about four years, like I had to come out of the quote, unquote, vegan closet because I didn’t. I was afraid that people would feel judged in my presence because of the way that I don’t care how people eat. This is what I’m doing, and this is working for me, and if it’s going to help you, then please do that. But I was just so worried about the judgment piece, and so I didn’t tell anybody. But then eventually it became to a point where it’s like, well, I should probably start telling people about this, because it’s so important. I

Lauren Costantini 46:06
love that. Oh my gosh. And it is true that we, we question it even when we’re doing it, at least initially, because you just, you just can’t believe that changing your diet can change your performance so much. Yeah, it’s amazing. Or even the negative

Sonya Looney 46:18
things that are happening, like, oh, is this bad thing happen? Like, if I’m whatever, got a cold, is it because there’s this, there’s this misconception that, okay, you’ve changed your diet to plant based, and it does all these good things, but now you have to be invincible. You’re not allowed to get sick. You’re not allowed to get injured. Like, I broke my foot several years ago, and my dad thought was, is that because your diet? Like, No, it’s because I broke my foot. Right?

Lauren Costantini 46:39
Exactly, exactly. It’s so easy for people to point the finger right, even though, when people, when omnivores, break their foot, people don’t say it’s because you eat. So shitty. Yeah, so funny. Yeah, it’s been game changing for me. Yeah? So

Sonya Looney 46:56
we have like, five minutes left. I want to talk about, do we go sleep, or do we go alcohol? Or maybe we need to have another one of these, where people actually write. People actually write in their questions, and we can talk about, love that. Okay, I’ll put that in the intro. Okay. Well, what do we want to tease in the last five minutes then, oh

Lauren Costantini 47:12
gosh, I would say, oh gosh. Sleep is sleep is a long one, so we may want to leave that one for another, another, another time. But what I love about the alcohol story is it is, well, actually sleep too. We used to never talk about sleep, and we really used to never talk about alcohol that much. So the fact that it’s in the headlines almost every day now, and people are tracking their sleep, paying attention to sleep is amazing. I’ll just say one thing about sleep to make people feel better. The latest research is showing that it’s not the number of hours that you sleep that are important anymore. So don’t stress out if you only get five hours of sleep or six hours of sleep. What we want to know is, are you getting into deep sleep, and are you getting into REM sleep? And if you can get deep in REM, about 60 to 90 minutes a night, some people can get into deep in REM for in just four hours, and so that’s all they need, is four hours. Other people need 10 hours of sleep in order to get into deep in REM. But don’t stress so much about the number of hours anymore. You know, you wake up at two o’clock in the morning and everyone’s like, Oh no, I’m not gonna get my eight hours. That’s out the window.

Sonya Looney 48:19
Wake up every morning at five, and that’s what time he gets up no matter what.

Lauren Costantini 48:25
Oh my gosh, no matter what time you put him to bed, yeah.

Sonya Looney 48:28
No matter what, yeah.

Lauren Costantini 48:30
Oh my goodness, yeah. But if you’re getting deep in REM sleep and you’re feeling refreshed when you wake up in the morning, then that’s the number of hours that you need. So don’t stress about eight to 10 hours of sleep anymore. That’s That’s old science. And then the alcohol piece we now know, unfortunately, all those studies years ago that showed red wine is healthy, all that’s been debunked. All those studies were and there weren’t actually many studies. It’s just that there were a few studies, and everyone, of course, grabbed onto them, saying, yay, red wine is good for me. It’s now shown that it is a poison. It really is in every way. There is no safe number of drinks to have. There shouldn’t even be a Well, women, three drinks a week. Men, five drinks a week. It is now zero drinks a week. It really is, and not just for athletes, but we’re seeing that it’s changing your risk of Alzheimer’s, it’s changing your risk of cancer that every day. There’s new research showing that a lot of cancers are associated with alcohol intake. The good news is there are so many really good, non alcoholic beverages out there. Now they’re coming out, and it’s fun to try them all, because there are some that are really terrible, but there are some that really, really good, really bad. Yeah, yeah. The wine is still really bad, unfortunately, but things like the gins and the Yeah, like they have these, some great palomas and margaritas. And almost every bar now that you go to has non alcoholic mocktails, and they’re really fun to try. They’re. Are now full liquor stores that the entire liquor store is non alcoholic. Oh, cool. There’s one in in San Francisco that I went to last week, and there was one in LA that I went to a few months ago. You walk in, it is a massive liquor store with bourbon and gin and vodka and tequila, rows and rows of this stuff, and every single one of them is non alcoholic. So I tell my clients, I want you to go to the liquor store every weekend, and I want you to go try a new non alcoholic drink every single weekend at the liquor store. And it makes it fun, because, you know, curiosity, there it is again. Going to the liquor store is fun. You know, my nutritionist told me to go to the liquor store every weekend. Well, I want you to try some of the new canned mocktails. And

Sonya Looney 50:44
what about the sugar? What about the added sugar? Yeah, so a lot

Lauren Costantini 50:49
of them actually have low added sugar, but a lot of them do have high added sugar. So definitely, but I’d rather see someone on a Friday night drink a high sugar, non alcoholic Margarita than a regular 100% Margarita, so sometimes there’s a little bit of a trade off. But yeah, you still want to look at that five grams of added sugar number for sure. Well, thank

Sonya Looney 51:11
you so much for coming on the show. Like, yeah, I feel like we didn’t even really talk about that much stuff, but somehow an hour went by, which is the case a lot of the time. So I can’t wait to have you back and to have people write in. This is another prompt. You guys write in with your questions, because we’d love to answer them and nerd out, because that’s apparently both of our favorite things to do,

Lauren Costantini 51:32
I guess. So, Science, Science, Science, that’s right. So where

Sonya Looney 51:36
can people find your coaching? Because I know a lot of people are probably really interested now to learn more. Yeah.

Lauren Costantini 51:41
So I’m on Instagram and Facebook, and I post every other day lots of science based tips on nutrition, fitness and sleep. So that’s Confluence coach on I think that’s both Instagram and and Facebook, and then my website is Confluence coach.com Yep. Well, Lauren, thanks

Sonya Looney 52:01
so much. It was so fun to get to chat, and I really can’t wait to do this again.

Lauren Costantini 52:04
Thank you so much for having me. It’s been so fun talking with you. Bye.