Charlie: Hello and welcome back to the Cook Eat Run podcast with x
Miles. Today I'm chatting with Lara Giusti,
the co founder and head chef at Veloforte We're going to be talking
about nutrition for swimming, which is arguably the hardest sport to
fuel for. But first, I'd love to hear a little bit
more about how and why you started
Veloforte
Lara Giusti: Well, hi Charlie. Thank you for inviting me on. it's a
pleasure. I started
Velaforte a little bit selfishly actually, because
I was just astounded by the lack
of natural sports nutrition on the market.
So I think when you are, ah,
active and you take care in
your health and fitness, it always
astounds me that you follow a healthy
diet. You try and do that day in, day out
and when you put your body through its hardest paces,
the options for sports nutrition were very
limited to ultra processed,
weird and wonderful, concoctions of,
ingredients that you would never, ever normally eat. And
that's what you're putting in your body when you're pushing yourself your hardest.
So I thought there must be a better way, there must be a
more natural way to do that. So I actually started
coming up with the recipes for Velaforte, really to fuel me
and my husband through our sports, and it's
really rolled itself out through there, really.
So we started, you know, making our own
prototype products in the kitchen and then sharing them with our
friends and then they wanted to order some and it just
became bigger and bigger and bigger. Ah, and here we are
now, with a full complement of sports
nutrition and wellness products.
Charlie: Amazing. So what was your sport, what were you, your husband, you
training for? Need the kind of sports
nutrition.
Lara Giusti: So mark, my husband, cycling
all the way, he was training for
a really long ride, Manchester to London,
to support ambitious about autism. and he
was just really struggling. He was either under
fuelling because he couldn't face taking on the
gels and the dry, dusty energy bars that
he was putting in his jersey pockets, or he
was having really bad gastric side effects
from taking on these, food that he just, his
body wasn't used to eating. and so that
was his challenge. And me, I'm a bit of
an omni sports person. I like to do a bit of
running. I, ah, like to do, you know, strength and
conditioning training. So it's just ways to
sort of help me fuel and recover
after my exercise. but yeah,
it was just sort of a no brainer
really, from I'm madly
passionate about home cooking and using real food
ingredients and to try incorporate those into
our fueling strategies for our events, then
that was just, you know, it was what we wanted to do
and what we ended up being very successful
doing.
Charlie: I mean, I know a lot of people that use your products. I personally,
I really like the, I don't know, the chews, the like
ginger. I feel like I save them for the
end of my runs when my stomach is feeling a bit
and they just feel like quite nicely
settling. They don't feel overwhelming. It's not like trying
to shove down another gel and
I feel like a lot of people who struggled with gels,
or normal gels in particular, have found your products and
they really work for them.
Lara Giusti: So, yeah, yeah, I think it's
because we use a combination of sweet and savoury
in most of our recipes. So the problem with
fueling for any long endurance, exercise
or session or event is that you get so bored with sweet
en suite fuelling and you can't face to have another
sugary, you know, gel or a bar.
So we purposefully use
spices and botanical ingredients that
sort of break that sweet on sweet flavour
fatigue. We want you to look forward
to your fueling. We want you to get excited about that. Oh,
you know, my garmin's pinged at 20 minutes. It's now my
next time to take on some energy. What am I going to have
next? Am I going to have something with a little bit of mint in it to
freshen my head? Am I going to have something with ginger in it because I'm feeling a little
bit nauseous. It's going to settle my stomach.
Our hydration mixes have herbs in
them, so there's basil and there's,
sage. So it really challenges
your taste buds and gives you that break and that sort
of motivation to keep fueling.
Charlie: I feel like the electrolyte drinks make quite good cocktails,
like post run recovery
cocktails.
Lara Giusti: I do have to say the most amazing hangover cure as well.
So, but yes, so, yeah, so our, ah,
activo, which is strawberry, and
basil. It's got some lemon in there as
well. Delicious. Shaken over ice with
whatever tipple you want to add, you know. Yummy.
Charlie: Might have to try that this weekend.
Do you have a particular favourite product?
Lara Giusti: Well, I think the whole Vellaforte journey started
with our endurance bars. It started with
our energy bars which are based on an ancient
italian recipe, Pam forte. So my
husband, his family are italian. He's brought up with
Panforti in his house. And, it was just a. It's
rumoured to be what powered the roman legions
to conquer the new world. So if it can power them, what
can it power you to do? So, we took an old family
recipe and I tweaked it, you know, pom Forte's
got lots of lovely, you know,
brandies and spirits in it, so they all
came out and fresh, orange zests and fruit juices
went in and I altered the mix of nuts and fruits
to give a really good endurance profile.
and our classico bar was born. And that is what really
started Veloforte And so I guess my allegiances
still are, ah, to our classico bar, which has just won
two stars in the great Taste awards as well as of
yesterday, which is amazing. So
not only does it support your endurance exercise,
but it is guaranteed to taste amazing, too. So,
I think, yeah, I'm in love with those. I love the chews
as well. but also super proud of some of our
newer product ranges which morph between,
performance nutrition and wellness
nutrition. So again, it's sort of supporting this 360
approach of what you put in,
you get out. And it's not just when you're on the bike, on the run,
in the water, swimming. It's everything that you do
before, during and after that really
helps your performance.
Charlie: Yeah, I've got the overnight oats to test that you
kindly sent me that. I can't wait. I'm a big overnight oats fan, especially in
this weather. They're such an easy kind of prep ahead.
Chuck in the fridge, have them after a long run or after a
run, or I take them to work to have them
in the hospital while I'm going through patient notes and
stuff.
Lara Giusti: Exactly. Good.
Charlie: okay, so swimming. We've talked a bit about
cycling and running. We talk about that a lot on
the podcast. I think that's the area that people
maybe feel not the most
comfortable, but are most aware of sort of how to
fuel and what to fuel with. But swimming is really
challenging and I feel like as more people are
transitioning towards
triathlon and for me personally, this
is quite a selfish, podcast episode because I want to do swim
serpentine, which is next. I'm doing it next
summer, which is 2 miles. And
I've got. I asked somebody today, I was
like, do they provide snacks on the route? Because 2 miles, I'm
going to be swimming for over an hour. I'm going to be
thirsty, hungry, grumpy.
So let's start at the beginning. How
does swim fuellings differ to
running and cycling?
Lara Giusti: So the joy of running and cycling is you have
all these wonderful pockets to shove your energy
products in, whether it's in your running belt, it's in your top
tube bag on your bike, you know, you've got water
holders, you can have hydration packs.
Easy peasy. So if you want to fuel, if
you want to run or cycle with fuel, and if
you're running and cycling for long enough that
demands you to fuel, then easy
peasy, right. You're going to shove whatever you fancy in whatever
pockets, obviously swimming much harder.
you've got the water nature of it. So,
you know, whatever you're going to be fueling with needs to be in a
waterproof packet. It needs to be easy to either
shove in your wetsuit or down your swimsuit. it
needs to be really quick to access, easy to
open, liquid format rather than
chewing, because chewing and swimming and water, very
difficult. so what we see is
a lot of people who swim tend to focus on pre
fuelling and post fuelling. And the
intra swim fuelling is sort of, as you say, if
you feel like you really need to fuel, then
having an emergency gel, something that's really easy to
open, take and carry on swimming,
seems to be the preference for people
who are swimming longer distances over an hour, over
an hour and a half. But for those shorter distance
swims, if you're doing it up to 60
minutes, maybe up to 90 minutes, if
you're pre fueling right, and you're taking your
recovery fuelling seriously, you should be
absolutely fine.
Charlie: I just get really thirsty when I do
swims the pool and I end up having kind of a
bottle of electrolytes with my like, swim
workout kind of taped to that at the end of the
lane.
Lara Giusti: Yeah.
Charlie: Would you suggest kind of having electrolytes
pre swim then to try and kind of combat
that?
Lara Giusti: Totally. There is a misconception because you're
in the water, you don't sweat. You absolutely do sweat. And
especially if in your pool, if you're in a heated pool,
you will be sweating, you will be losing vital
electrolytes and you won't be necessarily as aware
of that. So it's really important to stay on top of your
electrolyte load. So, yes, pre fueling with
electrolytes before you swim, you know, 500
mils of an electrolyte solution, you can have energy in
there as well to sort of help with your pre
fuelling. And then if you are in a pool, having
a bottle pool side that you can every three or
four lengths, have a good swig and keep going.
Brilliant. If you're out open water
swimming, harder if you're on your own,
obviously, to take electrites with you, but you can
have electrolytes in your energy fuel as well,
so lots of gels contain electrolytes. All of our
gels contain an electrolyte load as well. So if you're taking
on energy, you can also start taking on electrolytes there as
well. And obviously, if you're doing ultra
distances outdoors, then you should
have some support boats with you that they can carry your
fuel for you. But it's all about the
planning and the training of your gut
and your fuelling as you're, as you're
exercising, as you're swimming, as well as your support
team as well. So they know exactly what you'll need. Need at
what stage. But yes, hydration is something
that's often overlooked. So yes, pre
hydrating, post hydrating as well. So having a
hydration mix as part of your recovery
routine is best.
Charlie: Okay, so we, you said a little bit there about
kind of training the gut, and that's something that I really advocate for in
run training. If you're planning on having
a gel kind of midway through or partway through
your swim, is that something you'd suggest then practising in
your longer swim training, even if you're in the pool?
Lara Giusti: Absolutely, yeah, totally. You don't want any
surprises on event day. So it is
hard to coordinate, you know, treading water, opening
a gel, taking it. What do you do with the packet no one
wants, you know, sea pollution, shoving it back down
you, you've got to practise it and you've got to
know how that feels when you can't touch the
bottom, and when you're slightly out of breath. So
absolutely practise it in your training.
Make yourself do that. Even if you're doing a shorter
training swim, still practise the fueling.
It's not going to do you any harm, but the actual going through
the motions, having your muscle memory, knowing what it's
like to take on fuel while you're in the
water is essential if you're on those longer swims. And you
know you're going to have to take something when you're out there.
Charlie: Just thinking about the logistics of this. for those just
listening, you're kind of demonstrating as if you just have it in. But my
wetsuit is a really hard to get into and
you kind of don't want to let that water in. Once you're kind of cosy
inside, could you shove it up the
sleeve or.
Lara Giusti: Any opening is a
goal, to put your fuel. So if it's easier to
shove it in your sleeve, if you're wearing a sleeveless one, to put it
in here rather than obviously down your neck.
yeah, but practise, practise in
the thing you're going to swim in. Practise fueling,
wearing your outfit and where you're going to
stash and re stash your packet after you've fueled.
Charlie: I'm just imagining myself next summer in my like,
local pool with like a wetsuit on, getting
gels out and trying to film it. I mean, I'm
already, it's already embarrassing enough, me trying to kind
of film myself, have my workout, have my
electrolytes. Now I'm going to be in the wetsuit with my
gel, having a little snack.
Lara Giusti: As embarrassing as it may be, it's worth its weight in
gold. So please do practise.
Charlie: Yeah, yeah, that's really good tips. And
so, again, selfishly, for those who are doing swim
serpentine, it's part of the London classics. For those who don't
know, that is when you complete the London marathon
ride, 100 hundred mile bike ride
and 2 miles in the
serpentine. For me,
I think that's going to take me an hour and a
half ish. How would you recommend
structuring? Do I feel for it? Like an hour and a
half run with that pre,
load? Would I carb load before that? How
would you recommend kind of leading up to
that as my race day?
Lara Giusti: Yes. I mean, you want to perform at m your best,
you want to enjoy it, so you don't want to hit that
wall in the water. That's horrendous. So
approach it like you would approach any event. Yes, you can
carb load. We would always suggest that you don't do
that in just one bowl of pasta in the night before. it
sits too heavy in your stomach and you're bloated
and, you don't sleep well. So in the three
days running up, just generally increase the amount of
carbohydrates you take on with each meal. So, you know,
have another little spoon of pasta, have another scoop of
potato, have another slice of toast. It doesn't have to
be huge mammoth portions. You're just trying to
generally up your carbohydrate intake.
And it's that slow increase in your carb
intake that makes sure that your glycogen
stores in your muscles and your liver are tip
top when you're entering that race. So,
yes, have a carb focused, meal
the night before your breakfast or the meal that
you, enjoy before the start. It might
not be a morning start. Should be two
to 3 hours before the start line to allow your body
time to properly digest it.
Carb focus with low level protein, some
healthy fats in there, something that you've eaten
before. No surprises on event day.
So if you love oats, have some oats.
Yeah, have it with some greek yoghurt. Have it with some fruits and
some bit of honey or maple syrup to up that
carbohydrate load in there. if you're like
a scrambled egg lover, whole mil toast,
scrambled eggs, you know, bagels and peanut butter and bananas.
All of these are fantastic. And if you've tried it before and
you know that it sits well in your stomach, go for something that,
you know works for you. Now, your
start line, you know, if your start line is 3
hours ahead of your breakfast, you're going to
need to top yourself up. So an
hour before, we would suggest a little carbohydrate
snack. And again, think about your hydration at that point. You can
take on some electrolytes in that hour
window beforehand. And that is the time, if you
love caffeine, to take on caffeine.
So there's a lot of misconception about caffeine in
that, ten minutes before, if you're on a run or a
ride last hill or ten minutes before the
end, I'm going to take my caffeine gel. And,
no, it takes 45 to 60 minutes for
caffeine to enter into your system and then it
stays in your system for three to 4 hours.
So use that time. Your hour
before is the time to load with caffeine. If you like to fuel with
caffeine and then, you know, by start line it's fully
absorbed. Your tip top, you're mentally switched
on. Your perception of exertion is
lowered and you're ready to like put in your all on
that. Diving in on your first part of.
Charlie: The serpentine swim also bit
tmI, but also the caffeine. A hot drink
can help things get moving so that you can go to the loo
before your race.
Lara Giusti: Very important, like, because when
you're in the water you can wee,
but not anything else.
so yes, very important to try and be regular,
to choose a food that, you know, sits well in your
stomach to think about when you're going to fuel with your caffeine
and then, you know, 20 minutes before a little
extra, carbohydrate load a little gel or a
half a banana or something to really get you tip
top. You can fuel your
muscle glycogen stores in the three days beforehand. Then
overnight when you're sleeping, your liver stores will drop.
So the food that you take on in the morning and in the
run up to the start line is topping up your liver stores again.
So you want to enter it as full as you can. Because
if you find that fueling during that swim, if
it takes you an hour and a quarter, an hour and a half,
if you find it really difficult to fuel, your body
holds enough glycogen if you go in full for
up to 90 minutes. So you could finish it
without taking on extra fuel or
you could time it. If you are comfortable taking on gels, then
you would time it more like a long run, more
like a long ride. In that you would start to fuel
within the first half an hour, 20 minutes, half an hour of
your swim. You know, take a gel and then little
and often as you go through your swim because that
improves your absorption and, it
reduces the, risk of your gastric side
effects if you do little and often fueling throughout the
swim.
Charlie: Guess more, more tricky in terms of
like stopping and opening things. So maybe like that. Yeah,
just the, like you said, kind of a
gel every sort of half hourish in
that you only hopefully need two
in that one, one in each sleeve and you're good to go.
Lara Giusti: You're all fine.
Charlie: Yeah.
Lara Giusti: Evenly balanced? Yes, totally. And
then after, the
important thing is that you really take your
recovery fueling. Because if you haven't managed to take on energy
during that 90 minutes swim, your
glycogen levels are through the floor, you're in massive
glycogen debt. So your focus on recovery fueling
needs to be carbohydrates first and
then your uptake within those 1st 30
minutes, which is your golden window of
recovery, is improved by low level
protein. And then you can take on your fluids and electrolytes at the
same time as well. So having a protein shake
that is ready for you or a
protein bar with carbohydrates in it
is the best thing to do. As soon as you're out the water,
warm up, have something to eat which is
carbohydrate focused with protein, and restore your
electrolytes either with electrolyte drink or having electrolytes
in your protein recovery shake. Then, you know, that
you've ticked that box, you've kick started your
recovery and then you've got two to 3 hours to have a
proper balanced meal that you would, you know,
have your proteins and your carbs and your green
veggies and everything else, so. But it's in that
30 minutes window that your body is most receptive to
topping up those stores again. And that's really going to help you if you
are on back to back events. just help with
your recovery in general.
Charlie: Now, the water in the UK,
unfortunately, and especially
m recently, isn't the cleanest. It was the
triathlon in Paris the other day and there was huge.
Lara Giusti: They delayed it for 24 hours, didn't they?
Charlie: Yeah. I've been recommended by a
friend with no scientific background or
knowledge to have like a coke or something
like that afterwards, almost as like a. Ah, I know. There's so
much disgusting stuff in it that it will then
balance out kill anything you've
accidentally consumed.
Lara Giusti: A coke after is great for carb
loading. Obviously, there needs to be a full
sugar coke, not a zero. and any
other, you know, carbonated, sugary drink will do as
well. so, yes, you could have that. I don't
think the chemicals within a coat will, will
neutralise any of the, any of the bacteria or anything that you
take on. it's a Coca Cola. If
a Coca cola is something that you look forward to and you
know you're going to want after you finish, then have
one. It's all about getting the
carbohydrate in, in whatever form you want.
Choose a form that suits you, that you
enjoy, that you know, you're not going to get to the end and go, I can't face
that, you know, train with it again. So
if you're doing your long training swims, think
about what would you have as your recovery? Is it a
shake that you've tried and tested before, you know, sits well
in your digestion? Is it a protein
recovery bar? Is it a can of coke and
a packet of peanuts? You know, you're getting
what you will need, your carbohydrates, your
proteins and your salts from those
foods. Choose something that you know you're
going to stomach. the healthier
the better.
Charlie: And hopefully try and find bodies of water that are, on
the cleaner side and just keep your mouth closed.
Lara Giusti: Yeah. At least with the serpentine, it's a lake, isn't it? So,
you're hoping that there's no sewage contamination?
Charlie: Yeah, unfortunately, I train,
will be training in the Thames and it's. I haven't
summoned it this year because it just looks so disgusting, or I've
heard so many, they won't even throw.
Lara Giusti: The copses in after the Oxford Cambridge boat
races anymore. So.
Charlie: Yes, yeah, but, yeah,
the serpentine is at least a little bit
more. It's probably bird poo rather than
human pigeon poop. Yeah.
talking of kind of open water, is there a difference in
fueling needs in an open water swim
versus, like, the training in the pool that probably most people are
doing as a more regular, you know, get that, getting
their swimming miles in?
Lara Giusti: Yeah. I don't think you should underestimate the
force of nature that is open water swimming.
So it's temperature, it's
tidals, it's currents, it's general
weather around you, it's the impact of
waves on your stroke style. so
if you can do some open water training,
if that is what your event is, then do it. training
in the pool is great for endurance and
understand you can practise your fueling and
hours and hours of repetitive muscle memory and
everything else, but actually training in the
conditions that you're going to do your inventing
is paramount to success, really.
Things like the tides and the waves. It will
increase your energy demands. So what
you are comfortable fueling in with
endurance swimming in the pool, you should consider to
increase your energy intake. So we would suggest, you know,
45 to 60 grammes of carbs per hour, if you're
swimming over those 90 minutes, is what you should be
focusing on. You may feel that you need
more than that in open water swimming. So
it's better to carry more fuel and not
need it than to carry less and find
that you're hitting the wall, that you're really struggling with your energy
levels.
Charlie: Good advice. Do you have any kind of final top
tips for people taking on a swimming
challenge or just kind of new
to perhaps fueling for swimming?
Lara Giusti: just try and, try and try the different types
of fuels on the marketplace. Find one that you enjoy,
that you want to fuel with, because in
that moment when you're battling a
wave or even in, like in the
serpentine, where there's lots of swimmers around you, and that's a
very new experience as well. Normally, your swimming
training will just be you in a lane or very
few swimmers, in a lake or
wherever, but having that volume of swimmers, the splash
that's going on around you, the turbulence in the
water, choose, something that
you're gonna, you're not, you're not gonna brace yourself for fueling
you're gonna enjoy the taste of and you, and you look forward to,
you know, sits well in your digestion as well.
So it's all about practise, you know, it's, you
know, fail to prepare, prepare to fail, all of
that.
Charlie: Thank you so much, Zara. Is there anything we can be looking out
for coming soon from Belleforte? Any
sneaks, sneak peeks to any products?
Lara Giusti: I'm always busy developing new
products. we have around 30 products on the market now
from energy bars, protein recovery bars,
gels, our natural gels, which are a
blend of plant based syrups versus sort of synthetic
sugars, and we've got chews,
hydration shakes. our
wellness range is fantastic as well. So,
again, alongside our performance bars,
our wellness snack bars, our ot snack bars, which
are no added sugar, they're great things to chuck in your
commute bag and just have at your desk as well. They
just won great taste awards as well, so that's fantastic. And
obviously, we've just launched, as you said, our overnight
oats, which are brilliant. So they're everything
in one pack. Give it a good shake. Just add, water
and you've got your carbs and your crunchy seeds and
your source of protein and your fibres
and all of the good stuff in there. You don't have to think about it. So it's
like one pack fits all. So,
yeah, really excited about those.
Charlie: Amazing. Well, I will leave a link in the show notes
to some of my favourite products. And for
those products that are available on xmiles, you can
save 10% with the code cook, eat,
run. And that will save on all of the
Vellaforte products on xmiles, you can save your 10%.
So, yeah, give them a try. People that are new to the
brand, give those. I highly recommend
the chews. And, it sounds like I'm going to be ordering some more
bars because they sound absolutely delicious.
And, yeah, so give them. Give them a go.
Charlie: Thank you so much for listening to.
Charlie: This week's episode of the Cook Eat.
Charlie: Run podcast with x miles for regular listeners.
Firstly, thank you. Your support means so much. And for those
that have taken advantage of the discount codes in the past,
yay. I know it's been a little confusing, but we're sticking
with one simple discount code from now on.
Charlie: Cook, eat, run.
Charlie: All one word, all uppercase, no months, no
numbers. Each month, that discount code will give you
10% off the brands we're chatting about in the shows
so that you.
Charlie: Can stock up on your favourites and.
Charlie: Try out new nutrition products.
Charlie: So if you want to try the.
Charlie: Amazing Veloforte products, you can save 10% across the
range at xmiles.com. throughout the month of
August with the code cookeatrun, my
personal faves are the ginger chews, although I'm really excited
to try the overnight oats made with real food and complete with
16 grammes of plant based protein. I've got the
apple and cinnamon flavour to try out, but they've also got a strawberry and
coconut which sounds ideal for summer, and a smooth cocoa
tea. Please do share the podcast with friends or
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