RJ Performance Nutrition

RJ Performance Nutrition Effective, evidence-based nutrition for sports, health and lifestyle.

22/06/2026

Fuelling long runs is important.

Getting it right improves performance, supports recovery, reduces the risk of underfuelled training, and makes your run a lot more enjoyable.

But it doesn’t have to be expensive!!

A personal favourite for your next run fuelling:
🥤 250ml flat coke per hour (cheaper the better - flatten it though, no one wants bubbles up their nose mid effort)
🍬 4 jelly worms per hour (Aldi - or M&S if you’re feeling fancy!)

That’s around 69g carbohydrate per hour and less than £2 with enough for a 4-hour run.

It’s tasty, easy to carry and you can break it down into a jelly sweet every mile or two alongside regular sips of coke.

Strongly recommend pairing with Taylor Swift 🎧 and muddy sunrise trails you have all to yourself 🌅 (I will be back 🏃‍♀️⛰️)

Cola here is providing carbohydrate rather than all of your fluid needs, so I’d also top up with extra water depending on conditions and sweat rate.

Not every run needs fancy sports nutrition products. Sometimes the best fuelling strategy is the one you can afford, enjoy, and actually stick to.

On a more positive note, I had a lovely evening on Saturday and a very welcome distraction setting up a little fuelling ...
15/06/2026

On a more positive note, I had a lovely evening on Saturday and a very welcome distraction setting up a little fuelling station for runners taking on The Wall.

Everyone still had a smile 55 miles in, always an honour to watch people do incredible things (almost convinced me to sign up for next year, but I maybe need to reign it in…).

The gherkins were controversial - a specific request, but there were converts (a pretty good palate cleanser after all that sweet stuff!).

Well done to everyone who took part, and thank you for all the lovely messages afterwards. They genuinely made my weekend.

😍 And find yourself friends who’ll help you set up a fuelling station as a hare-brained scheme with less than 48 hours’ notice.

A bit of a personal update that I’ve gone back and forth on sharing - on Tuesday I’m having a hip replacement.I’ve kept ...
14/06/2026

A bit of a personal update that I’ve gone back and forth on sharing - on Tuesday I’m having a hip replacement.

I’ve kept it fairly quiet, partly because I’ve never really known what to say about it and partly because I didn’t want to make a ‘thing’ of it. It’s not the worst thing. It’s the only real option, and one I’m hopeful about.

But I’ve also found that because everyone sees it as the ‘right decision’, there’s an assumption - or at least as I perceive it - that I should be completely fine with it, when actually I’m scared of what it means. And that’s felt hard and often quite lonely.

As a dietitian, I spend a lot of time talking to people about changes that are necessary, helpful or important for their long-term health and performance. One thing I’ve been reminded of recently is that knowing something is the right thing doesn’t automatically make it easy. It’s made me think a lot about how I show up for others in this situation.

So much of my life is tied up in movement, the outdoors, running and cycling. Whilst I’ll absolutely do everything I can to get back to those things, I also have to accept that I don’t have any certainty about what that will look like.

I might share some of that process on another account. Mainly because I’ve found very little reference for what recovery at my age looks like, and maybe documenting it will help someone else. Or it might just help me make sense of it. We’ll see.

I know these aren’t feelings unique to me, so thoughts to anyone else in the midst of uncertainty around injury, recovery, health or whatever “the right decision” happens to be that’s still jarring for them.

10/06/2026

I had a question recently that got me thinking about how we define progress in sport, and whether the outcomes that are perceived as mattering most are actually the most important.

What counts as progress to you?

Creatine is one of the most researched supplements available, but much of what we know comes from studies in men.For wom...
05/06/2026

Creatine is one of the most researched supplements available, but much of what we know comes from studies in men.

For women, the strongest evidence supports benefits for strength, physical function and lean tissue preservation, particularly when combined with resistance training. Emerging research into cognition, peri-menopause and menopause is noteworthy, but the evidence is still developing.

As always, supplements should complement good nutrition, adequate fuelling, recovery and training - replace them.

Do you take creatine, or have you been considering it?

Dietitians Week! Pass the cake 🎂 Half my family still think I cook the hospital food (not sure anyone would thank me for...
03/06/2026

Dietitians Week! Pass the cake 🎂

Half my family still think I cook the hospital food (not sure anyone would thank me for that..)

I often reflect on how lucky I feel to have a job I enjoy. Dietetics challenges you, keeps you on your toes (hello, social media nutrition myths), and means you’re constantly learning. I’ve learnt, travelled, researched, talked (a lot!), cried, held hands, laughed and sometimes tried very hard to get a laugh.

Whether it’s in my intestinal failure clinical role or in sports dietetics, my favourite part of the job is supporting people through situations that can have a huge impact on their health, identity, and quality of life, helping them get back to feeling like themselves and doing the things they enjoy.

Food isn’t just fuel, and dietetics definitely isn’t just about calories, macros and micronutrients. It’s about helping people get back to the things that matter to them - and it’s pretty great.

Creatine is one of the most researched supplements in sport, but its benefits have increasingly been presented as univer...
27/05/2026

Creatine is one of the most researched supplements in sport, but its benefits have increasingly been presented as universal across athletes and sports without a strong supporting evidence base.

This carousel looks at where creatine has demonstrated benefits, and where caution or context matters.

As always, supplements should sit as an adjunct to good daily and training nutrition.

24/05/2026

Creatine is one of the most researched supplements in sport, but advice is often presented as universally applicable without much consideration of the strengths and limitations of the current evidence base.

I wanted to look a little more critically at where the evidence is strongest, where it weakens, and where context between sports and athletes still matters.

Full carousel coming this week.

Also check out a great evidence-based post from the brilliant looking at creatine from a broader health perspective — worth reading alongside the sport-performance side of the conversation.

Most athletes understand training load, but not always the importance of adjusting nutrition to match it.One of the thin...
18/05/2026

Most athletes understand training load, but not always the importance of adjusting nutrition to match it.

One of the things I commonly see (and historically unintentionally did myself) is eating relatively similarly despite increased training load or regardless of whether it’s a rest day, an easy session, or a long / high-intensity training day.

Training changes fuel requirements and in turn, fuelling impacts how well you perform in and respond to training. Nutrition doesn’t just matter for the session itself: it influences recovery, adaptation, immune function, bone health, hormonal health, and the ability to maintain training consistency over time (to name just a few!).

I’m a big advocate for keeping nutrition simple. We’re all busy, and fuelling well shouldn’t feel like another task to manage.

A useful way to think about building your intake around training is through four key food groups/roles:

• Fuel: carbohydrates (bread, pasta, potatoes, rice etc)
• Repair: protein + fats to support recovery and adaptation
• Support: micronutrients, fibre, and wider health
• Hydrate: fluids and, where appropriate, electrolytes

Adjusting the balance of these on your plate and through snacks can help simplify fuelling.

The goal isn’t “perfect eating”. It’s learning how to adjust intake so that it reflects demand, including thinking beyond the session itself and fuelling forwards into upcoming training.

More training, or higher intensity training, generally requires more fuel.

Do you adjust what you eat based on the training ahead?

I struggled a bit writing this in case it sounded cliché or glib. Mental health is a big old deal and not something that...
15/05/2026

I struggled a bit writing this in case it sounded cliché or glib. Mental health is a big old deal and not something that can be captured well on an Instagram carousel — but it matters, and awareness does too.

It’s easy for sport to become reduced to metrics, and for value to be placed only on the version of ourselves that’s performing well.

But some of the most resilient athletes I’ve worked with are people navigating injury, uncertainty, stepping back from training, or periods where they’ve had to rebuild their relationship with sport and what it means to them.

At the time, that often doesn’t feel like growth. But often those periods require the most strength and are where the foundations for a positive long-term relationship with sport and health are built.

Not easy (understatement) - actually very difficult, but worthwhile.

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