Alexandra Cook - The Sports Dietitian

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Alexandra Cook - The Sports Dietitian

Alex Cook is a Sports Dietitian specialising in endurance athletes, RED’s & eating disorders.

Alex is a sport performance dietitian at Diet360 where she can provide consultation on-line and face to face consultation in her clinic (www.thesportsdietitian.co.uk). She has written for numerous publications such as Trail running magazine and Athletics Weekly and has worked alongside brands such as Adidas Terrex and The North Face. She specialises in endurance sports nutrition and is herself an

ultra distance runner. She has a passion for helping beginners to advanced athletes achieve positive change in their day-to-day lives and excel in their Sports including Running, Swimming & Cycling. As an athlete juggling competitive running, two children and a career she understands how daily life can impact health, fitness and food choices.

26/06/2025

Tracking macros can be a helpful tool — but for many (especially athletes or those with disordered eating histories), it can create the feeling of control while disconnecting you from your body.

Here’s why: ⠀ 🔸 It values numbers over intuition 🔸 It’s based on imperfect data (labels, apps, wearables = estimates) 🔸 It reinforces rigid thinking and guilt around food 🔸 It ignores how stress, sleep, hormones, and training affect your needs 🔸 It can mask disordered patterns as “discipline” ⠀ Eating well for your health and performance doesn’t come from perfect numbers. It comes from flexibility, awareness, and trust in your body.

✨ If control feels like safety, ask: Is this truly fueling me — or feeding my fear?

What should you do instead ?

⭐️Seek an Individualized, whole-food–based meal plan which will help create sustainable eating patterns tailored to your training demands and lifestyle—not chasing numbers

⭐️Focus on food quality, fueling timing, recovery, and mindset: Prioritizing performance and wellbeing over rigid tracking.

⭐️Periodic check-in vs daily logging: For many athletes, regular reflection and adjustments trump obsessive daily tracking.
 If you want to know more drop me. DM on how I can support you 

12/06/2025

Creatine is on the lips of everyone at the moment. One of the most researched & effective supplements around to aid performance .
We know the benefits for strength focused athletes but what about for Endurance Athletes ?
The message is not so clear cut ….

💥 What It Does?
Creatine increases phosphocreatine in muscles, boosting short bursts of high-intensity effort—helpful for sprints, hills, or strong finishes.

🏃🏼Enhanced High-Intensity Performance:
Creatine can improve short bursts of high-intensity effort—like sprinting, hill climbs, or surges in a race—common in endurance sports.

💪Improved Training Capacity:
By boosting phosphocreatine stores, athletes may be able to train harder and recover faster between intervals or strength sessions

🥯Increased Muscle Glycogen Storage:
Creatine may help store more glycogen in muscles, which is crucial for endurance performance, especially in long events.

🧠Neuroprotective & Cellular Benefits:
Emerging research suggests creatine could support brain function and reduce oxidative stress—both important during prolonged exertion.

📖In summary creatine helps endurance athletes most when the sport includes short, powerful efforts—or during training phases focused on strength, speed, or recovery. It’s less helpful for long, steady-state events.
If you want to know more about this & interested in working together DM me for more info.

02/06/2025

”The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”
There has been lots of change for me this year which at times has been unsettling but feel there is more to come.
I said I wasn’t interested in competing…..how many of you knew I was lying? 🤣

📸 credit

09/04/2025

Another reminder due !

I am still hearing women say they haven’t eaten before their morning runs or CrossFit sessions. While this is usually unintentional (it’s tough to eat early or close to a workout), many don’t realize the negative effects it can have on both health and performance. If they did, would they still skip that pre-workout fuel?

👩‍🎓Here’s the Fact:

Women are more sensitive to fasted training than men, primarily because of hormones.

❓Why does this matter?

Training on an empty stomach can trigger a stress hormone response, spiking cortisol while lowering estrogen. If this happens occasionally, it might not cause much damage—especially if you refuel properly throughout the day. But if you’re regularly doing early morning workouts without fueling up, chronically disturbed hormone levels can lead to:

✔️Irregular periods
✔️Fatigue
✔️Mood disturbances
✔️Weakened immune system
✔️Increased risk of injury

🧑‍🎓Another Fact:

Fasted training can actually slow your progress over time.

❓Why?

Training without fuel increases muscle breakdown. And, since women naturally have a harder time building and retaining muscle, we definitely don’t want to make it harder for our bodies to hold on to our hard-earned gains!

🏆What Can You Do?

It doesn’t need to be complicated—something is always better than nothing! If you’re currently training fasted, try having a small snack or breakfast 30-60 minutes before your workout. Aim for around 15g of protein and 30g of carbs (adjust carbs based on your training load), and keep it low in fat ( as higher fat can cause GI upset)

Some ideas to fuel up:
🍌 Banana
🥖 Toast + nut butter
🍯 Cereal bar
🍨 Yogurt + granola
🥣 Overnight oats

Remember: you can’t prioritise training over food . Planning what you eat ahead of time can go a long way in optimizing your performance and supporting your body’s recovery! 💪

10/02/2025

My main approach with supporting athletes is to simplify their daily nutrition making it easy. Sometimes this is hard especially with protein intake.
⭐️
General recommendations is we need approx 20-30g protein spread equally over all meals to meet our daily requirements. This is due to suggestions that only a limited amount of protein eaten in one meal can be used for muscle protein synthesis MPS (process that allows muscles to recover + adapt to training load).
⭐️
A study out in 2023 (link below)has turned the tide on this. They performed a single meal study over 12 hrs with 25g + 100g protein ingested after resistance exercise. They found the 25g load was absorbed after 6hrs + the 100g load was still being digested at the end of 12 hrs resulting in a 30% higher MPS rate over the entire 12 hour period.
⭐️
What does this mean?

This suggests that maybe we can make things more simple & not overly stress if we don’t manage enough protein in a meal. This study supports you can consume a larger amount of protein in a single without it going to waste.
⭐️
Total protein intake in a day is most important! Fits in with my no stress nutrition philosophy perfectly

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38118410/

📷

28/01/2025

STRONG WOMEN

At Beyond Walls, we believe strength is more than just physical—it’s about resilience, confidence, and pushing past limits, both inside and outside the gym.

Our training isn’t just about lifting weights.

It’s about lifting each other up.

Every time you step into class, challenge yourself, and support those around you, you prove that strength comes in many forms.

Whether you’re smashing PBs, conquering new skills, or showing up consistently, we see you.

Keep raising the bar.
Keep inspiring.
Keep proving that strong is not a size—it’s a mindset.

Tag a strong woman who motivates you!

02/12/2024

I’ve been a Dietitjan now for 20yrs . Over this time advice has changed over and over.
I am lucky to work with the where I see a lot of young runners injured not able to do the sport they love. So many of these juniors just don’t know how to eat once they can’t exercise .
I reflected that the terminology we professionals use does not help this …..for example Post run Fuel Pre training breakfast Recovery smoothie
If we constantly use words that give purpose to eating that is purely exercise driven then no wonder they are at a loss when they can’t exercise .
When I work with juniors I now ensure I talk about FOOD and not FUEL. I ensure I say to have a something to eat before and after exercise for nourishment, energy for the day and fulfilling hunger and not just focusing on eating simply to power or recover from that session.
Thinking about food around exercise is super important but more reflection is needed on how we pitch it ….especially to juniors. It is vital to ensure they do not feel food is only important when they exercise .
Its FOOD not FUEL

12/04/2024

Manchester Marathon is here again. I have so many athletes running this ever growing race this year !
Marathons are a strange form of enjoyment ……for me the enjoyment was only at the end 🤣 . Also a bit like child birth ….you are horrified by the pain but then you forget and go back for more.
Good luck to all of you .

📷 to remind myself that once upon a time I could actually run quite well 🌟🤣

11/03/2024

I was flicking though the book “The boy, the mole, the fox and the horse “ the other day and this page made
me smile at its perfect accuracy.
You can be held in a state of restrictive eating due to poor body image and negative perception of self . You may feel “ if I look thinner“ or “ leaner ” I will feel happier or look more like a runner .
In this process of restriction to achieve weight loss , you forget about what’s going on inside your body . You forget about how hard your body works for you 24/7….an incredible factory of intricate processes going on behind the scenes to enable you to do what you want when you want .
In this drive for external perfection you run the risk of damaging what’s most important - your internal wellbeing and health .
Nothing is truer than remembering
.
“We can only see the outside but nearly everything that happens is on the inside”

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http://www.thesportsdietitian.co.uk/

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Alex is a sport performance dietitian and UKA athletics coach at Diet360 where she can provide consultation on-line and face to face consultation in her clinic (www.thesportsdietitian.co.uk). She has written for numerous publications such as Trail running magazine and Athletics Weekly and has worked alongside brands such as Adidas Terrex and The North Face. She specialises in endurance sports nutrition and is herself an ultra distance runner. She has a passion for helping beginners to advanced athletes achieve positive change in their day-to-day lives and excel in their Sports including Running, Swimming & Cycling. As an athlete juggling competitive running, two children and a career she understands how daily life can impact health, fitness and food choices.