Jessica Isaacs, The Sports Dietitian

Jessica Isaacs, The Sports Dietitian A Registered Dietitian with a passion for performance nutrition, helping athletes fuel for sport and humans fuel for life.

I believe in creating easy to digest nutrition resources all can understand and apply.

🎅🏿 is that too much to ask for?
12/22/2025

🎅🏿 is that too much to ask for?

12/16/2025

Honestly the fact this one bombed originally is a travesty 😂

Anyway - creatine is not just for muscles. It also helps the brain make and recycle energy.

After a concussion, the brain is working harder but has less energy available. That mismatch can drive symptoms like headaches, slowed thinking, and fatigue.

Creatine may help support brain cells by improving energy availability during this recovery period. Research suggests it could help reduce mental fatigue and support overall brain health.

It is not a cure or a replacement for medical care, but it is a low risk, evidence based tool that can support recovery alongside sleep, good nutrition, and proper medical guidance.

Typical dosing used for brain health and concussion support is 3–5 g of creatine monohydrate per day. A loading phase is not necessary.

Consistency matters more than timing, so it can be taken any time of day, with or without food. Creatine should be paired with adequate hydration and overall fueling.

As always, use third-party tested products and follow guidance from a medical professional, especially during concussion recovery.

12/12/2025

Your body runs on two shifts.

Day shift is when you are awake. You train, think, move, burn calories, respond to stress, and spend energy. A lot gets done, but very little gets repaired.

Night shift is when the real work happens. This is when muscle tissue is rebuilt, glycogen is restored, hormones like growth hormone do their heavy lifting, the nervous system resets, and your immune system gets to work.

Now imagine the night shift is scheduled for 8 hours and you only give it 4. You did not make the work disappear. You just cut the time available to do it.

That unfinished repair shows up the next day as soreness, fatigue, poor focus, slower recovery, and plateaued performance. The day shift then has to operate on a system that was not fully restored.

This is why hydration, food, supplements, and recovery tools can only help so much. They support the process, but they do not replace it.

Sleep is not passive rest. It is active repair.

If you keep short staffing the night shift, do not be surprised when performance suffers the next day.

12/12/2025

Here’s the tough love part. There is no magic pill, powder, or juice that outperforms basics done consistently.

Sleep is the primary driver of tissue repair, hormone regulation, and recovery. Miss it regularly and you’re starting every day in a deficit.

Hydration directly affects blood flow, nutrient delivery, and how well muscles tolerate load.

Chronic dehydration = chronic soreness.

Yes, foods, supplements, and tools like tart cherry can support recovery. They help at the margins. They do not replace the foundation.

If you’re under-sleeping and under-hydrating, I can optimize around the edges all day and it still won’t stick.

Recovery isn’t hidden. It’s boring. It’s consistent. And it works when you actually do it.

No shortcuts. Just receipts.

Hey, it’s Jess. Your friendly neighborhood Sports Dietitian.For those new around here:I’ve worked as a sports dietitian ...
12/10/2025

Hey, it’s Jess. Your friendly neighborhood Sports Dietitian.

For those new around here:

I’ve worked as a sports dietitian for about eight years and in the health and fitness space for more than 15. I’m a Board Certified Specialist in Sports Dietetics, which means my background is rooted in science, metabolism, physiology, clinical nutrition, and then advanced specialty training in high performance. Before stepping into the dietitian role, I was a rugby player myself, so I understand the demands of sport from both sides.

My career started at Kobe Bryant’s Mamba Sports Academy supporting athletes from youth to pro, then moved to UCLA where I served as the first basketball specific collegiate dietitian in the country. After that I joined the LA Clippers for two seasons, working with rookies, two-way players, draft prospects, and veterans to optimize health, recovery, and longevity.

Now I’m at USC working with basketball, volleyball, golf, and women’s water polo, providing everything from team education and one-on-one counseling to fueling operations, recovery support, cramp prevention strategies, and injury nutrition to speed return-to-play. I collaborate closely with strength, athletic training, and medical staff to keep athletes performing at their best.

My philosophy is simple. All foods can fit. Food comes first. Supplements are strategic. Nutrition should be approachable, individualized, and built around where each athlete is and where they want to go.

There’s a lot of noise online that makes nutrition feel complicated. My goal is to cut through misinformation, simplify the science, and give athletes clear, evidence based guidance that actually makes sense in real life.

12/04/2025

Creatine is pretty stable in powder form, but once you mix it into liquid the clock starts ticking.

In room-temp water it holds up for a couple hours, but the longer it sits the more it slowly converts into creatinine, which is the inactive form your body can’t use for performance.

Heat and acidity speed that breakdown even more. So adding creatine to hot coffee, acidic drinks, or leaving a pre-mixed bottle in a hot car can all increase the rate it converts and reduce how much usable creatine you actually get.

There’s also a recent study showing that many creatine gummies on the market contain little to no active creatine because much of it had already degraded into creatinine. Since gummies are already a small dose and cost significantly more, the combination of low potency and higher price makes them less reliable. https://www.wholefoodsmagazine.com/articles/16736-now-testing-identifies-creatine-gummies-failings

My recommendation: stick with creatine monohydrate powder. It’s the most studied, most effective, and most stable. Timing doesn’t matter and you can take it any time of day, even on rest days or if you’re not training intensely. If you genuinely love the gummies and the cost isn’t an issue, use them only for travel or convenience, but rely on the powder for your daily routine.

Thankful 😊
12/01/2025

Thankful 😊

11/19/2025

No, no…I believe you. Your body is defective, not your fueling strategy. 🙃

💅
11/18/2025

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