S02|E207
Elite Athlete Nutrition with Jessica Isaacs | Samson Strength Coach Collective
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Jess Isaacs:
Nutrition is a very confusing topic and you will go from even from dietitian to dietitian. And one will say, do this, don’t do this, do this, don’t do this.
And so it’s a lot to sort through and the average human or average athlete just wants answers. And so they’re gonna go to the places where they think that these people are. so it’s one, it’s our responsibility to be educating athletes on what our background and education is. But then that’s when that trust component comes in big. Because even if you have all the letters and the alphabet soup after your name and you are the expert.
If this other person over here has a million followers and they say things confidently and you’re bought into them, you’re going to listen to them.
Connor Agnew:
What’s going on Sampson strength coach, collective listeners on today’s episode, we have Jessica Isaacs, elite athlete, sports dietician, Jessica, thank you so much for coming on.
Jess Isaacs:
Thanks so much for having me, I’m excited to be here.
Connor Agnew:
I’m super excited for you to be here. Seriously. So for the listeners as well, they obviously all know that my fiance is a dietician. I probably mention her every episode. But when she saw that I was texting you to set up the episode and everything, she’s like, it’s so cool that you’re texting her right now. She is such a fan of your content and everything. So ⁓ she will probably call me as soon as we’re done recording and ask about everything. ⁓
Jess Isaacs:
it.
I love
it. well, I see her at the conference next week or the sports nutrition conference. No bummer. Okay. Okay. Okay.
Connor Agnew:
No, she’s not going, yeah, yeah.
But if I tell her that, she might buy a last minute ticket and fly out. So who knows? may get done. Well, first of all, thank you so much for coming on. Very excited to speak with you. I was first introduced to your content probably about a year ago and everything that you post on Instagram. I think it’s very funny and very beneficial. And so I thought you’d be a fantastic guest to have on the show. ⁓ If you wouldn’t mind just giving me a breakdown of your career and then what you are currently doing.
Jess Isaacs:
I love it. I love it. ⁓
Yeah, so I’m a second career dietitian. joined the military at a high school and was an aircraft mechanic. So nothing at all to do with what I’m doing now, but just kind of found my way to nutrition through like personal struggles, personal journey. ⁓ was doing it all the wrong way, eating disorders, all that sort of thing. Got into bodybuilding became another eating disorder for me. ⁓ but from that just saw the benefits of coupling nutrition and performance together and just the healing power of it from a health standpoint.
but a mental standpoint, but then also physically what it did for me and got excited about, you know, how can I take this, what I’ve learned of this in an in a one experiment I’ve done on myself to the highest level performers. I grew up a latchkey kid, military family, so I never really got to play sports. And it’s something I always really missed out on and felt like I, you know, I felt like I missed out on and wanted to be involved with. So that kind of led me to exploring, you know, how I could work with athletes and bring in nutrition. I didn’t know what a dietician was.
But in my late 20s, early 30s, I became a sports dietitian. I went back to school to do that. And then from there, started off kind of in clinical as I try to find the right role of what I was looking for. My goal was always to end up with athletes. ⁓ Then I got an opportunity working at Mamba Sports Academy, which was Kobe Bryant’s training facility. So I worked with all sorts of athletes there, kind of more of a private practice setting for me. I worked with youth athletes, but then also like guys coming in for
training for to go to the draft or the combine and ⁓ then also pro guys in their offseason that were coming in and doing some training. So got a nice taste of different things there. ⁓ But then the next opportunity was at UCLA working with the men’s women’s basketball teams. And at the time I was the first like basketball specific dietician in the country in the collegiate setting. Now we’ve got other universities that have some of these basketball specific positions as we see it kind of a growing need there. Basketball kind of being like late adopters as compared to like football.
But that was a really cool opportunity to kind of get to learn more about that world and dig in deep into basketball and then had an opportunity with the Clippers, spent a couple seasons with them as their first full-time dietitian. At the time, there was only seven full-time dietitians in the NBA. So again, just a growing field. I think there was like 13 or 14 by the time that I left. And then currently I’m over at USC. My title is the Sports Dietitian Manager. It’s kind of like Assistant Director of Olympic Sports.
and I work with the men’s and women’s basketball teams and the men’s and women’s volleyball teams currently.
Connor Agnew:
That’s awesome. That’s such a cool journey. And I’m very excited to ask you about each section. But the first one, must love LA.
Jess Isaacs:
You know, right? I’m doing like the whole, the
whole tour. You know, I’ve been lots of different places in the military. Sorry, my dog. ⁓ I’ve, I’ve been in the military. I’ve, ⁓ lived in like 11 different States. I lived in Germany for a little bit as well. And so I’ve gotten a taste of everywhere. And I think California just ultimately in Los Angeles specifically has like the most of what I like. ⁓ and, and a lot of opportunity, you know, I mean, you’ve got how many other places do you have multiple professional sports teams, ⁓ in, in one vicinity, you know? So.
Connor Agnew:
No worries.
Jess Isaacs:
⁓ When you’re someone like me in this industry and like yourself as well, think that you’re bound to find some opportunity if you know the right people and you’re doing the right things.
Connor Agnew:
It’s just so awesome that you get to stay somewhere that you love, instead of having to move city to city, which a lot of people can commonly see. You mentioned this and I’ve noticed the same trend as well too, where football sets the pathway for, okay, first ones that have strength and conditioning coaches and then have a full staff of strength and conditioning coaches as well. When I interned with the Jets, the Jets had a full-time dietitian and then a assistant student dietitian, kind of like fellowship.
Jess Isaacs:
100%.
Connor Agnew:
for a year afterwards too. And it was a no brainer. Like obviously they would have a dietitian on the team. And then, you you look at NBA teams or you look at other professional organizations, they don’t necessarily have that. Like you said, at the time you left only 13 to 14 teams had a full-time dietitian. I obviously know the importance of it, but why would you say it’s so important for each team to have a full-time dietitian and working specifically with them?
Jess Isaacs:
Yeah, I think sometimes depending on what people understand about our role, they might see us as like food people, know, the caterer, doing the catering and certainly like that part of it is part of the job and at a pro team, you know, the food service aspect of it is a huge aspect of it. But we’re health medical performance experts as well. You know, we can do things like look at biomarkers, we can help ⁓ prevent injuries, we can help optimize performance. You athletes work so hard in the weight room and sometimes they don’t understand that it’s not.
actually what you’re doing in the weight room that’s like growing your muscles and changing your body. It’s the nutrition that you’re putting into your body that helps you to achieve those training adaptations and those body composition changes as well. And so for so many of the aspects that are involved with an athlete from performance and getting the most out of them on the court, in the weight room, on the field, whatever the case may be, but then also the recovery longevity, you look at athletes like LeBron who, you know, a 40 year old playing basketball at the level he’s playing, right? Like that.
only happens. Genetics are a part of it, 100%. Good training and good people in your wheelhouse, having a lot of money to be able to fund those things for sure. But nutrition is such a huge component of that. Longevity, immune system support, recovery. know, even managing what we’re talking about, like older guys, cholesterol levels and heart disease risk and stuff like that. So there’s so much that a dietician can be involved with from the start of a career to the end of the career.
And then the next level of transitioning to be maybe a normal human, like, what do they call it? A NARP or some non-athlete regular person, ⁓ Yeah, there’s so many aspects that a dietician can be involved with. So we can certainly help with the food, but we can also help you guys ⁓ as the strength coaches and the athletic trainers, the physician, we can help them to really ⁓ achieve whatever goals that the athlete is working on or whatever changes that athlete needs to make.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, it’s revolutionary, I think, for a team that is not working with a dietitian versus a team that is. Because my big selling point and what I can do as a strength coach is the body transformation piece. Like, we can really assist you with gaining 15 pounds in the appropriate time frame or losing 15 pounds, whatever it may be. And those are the main pictures that we put up when athletes first come in the weight room for recruits, you know, and just say, look at what we can get you to do with your body and we can achieve these things. But ultimately, it can’t happen without the nutrition aspect.
Right. And if we want somebody losing weight, we don’t want them eating just, you know, rice cakes in the morning and then chicken breasts and rice at night. Like those things, if they make you feel miserable, it hurts the sustainability of the body composition changes as well too. Um, and it’s just, I remember when I first kind of realized how important the nutrition aspect was, was when we had an athlete who just could not gain weight whatsoever. Um, and then he ended up meeting with the dietitian first, a private dietitian, cause we weren’t working with one at the time. Uh, and.
Jess Isaacs:
Sure.
Connor Agnew:
they’ve literally just figured out that he was just not eating enough snacks in the same timeframe he needed to. And then all of sudden put on 10 pounds within, you I think a two month timeframe. Like it’s not as hard as people think it is.
Jess Isaacs:
Isn’t that crazy?
And historically, you guys were doing all that. You guys were the ones. And still in lots of places, you guys are the, I won’t say dieticians, but you’re the nutritionists, right? Maybe you’re sourcing supplements and providing them. You’re the ones that are talking about food. What did you eat for breakfast before you came in here? And how are you eating? And you guys might be coaching them upon nutrition. And there should be a partnership there. However,
How much of that time does it eat up to do that well and effectively versus partnering and letting someone that can collaborate with you on achieving those goals to take some of that responsibility at our hands? Same thing with a physician. Physicians know a little bit about nutrition, not a ton about nutrition to be honest, ⁓ but how much time can they spend in an appointment with ⁓ a patient talking about nutrition versus having somebody whose whole education, training, experience.
is talking about nutrition and then individualizing that and finding out ways to apply that to that human no matter if they’re an athlete or otherwise.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, there’s a reason there’s specializations, right? And there’s things that you can actually learn about because you can dive deep into nutrition versus weightlifting. But ultimately, if you spread yourself too thin, when you try to focus on each subsection of sports performance. But let me ask you this, when does it go too far? Because I know a lot of, especially within basketball, feels like that is kind of the main strength and conditioning realm where I see strength coaches really say, all right, I want to take over this nutrition piece and we’re to go over all supplementation. And, you know, I’m really going to focus on
what performance place looks like and things like that. Like when does it go too far for you?
Jess Isaacs:
Yeah, I mean, I think it goes too far when you have somebody in that role. I mean, if you are doing it because you have to do it and you’re the person, then you’re the person. I would say try to bring in someone as a consultant potentially for your high risk athletes or bring in someone to do some education, whether that’s for the team or whether that’s for the strength coaches and the athletic trainers, the people that are speaking, those points to make sure that they’re.
They’re on the same page as far as nutrition philosophy because there’s a lot of fads out there. There’s a lot of extremism out there and strength coaches aren’t immune to that and athletic trainers and coaches and dietitians aren’t immune to that, right? There’s a lot of off the wall stuff there and yeah, it certainly can go too far that when you do have someone in a position whose role it is to do that, I say that’s when we should look at how can we partner to best support our athletes as opposed to just because you know some things and you’re interested in doing that.
take over and lead that completely.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, the partnership is just what really makes the biggest difference at the end of the day. Like it just can completely change an athlete’s life. So I appreciate that aspect. You know, how can strength coaches essentially best support sports dietitians?
Jess Isaacs:
Yeah, I mean, it’s a two-way street. I think, you know, I always talk to young dietitians about making sure that we’re not just like sitting in our office working on our computers and that we’re finding ways to engage and not just with the athletes directly, but with the people that work around the athletes, the athletic trainer, the strength coach, you guys are going to spend more time with them than we are. Even if we’re traveling and we’re full-time, you’re spending more time with them. And you’re the ones that might be seeing stuff first. You might be seeing their low energy. You might be seeing that they’re having stomach issues. You might be seeing
that they’re sore. You might be seeing things that have a nutrition component to it, but you’re the first one eyes on, right? And so ⁓ it works both ways to build that relationship with that strength coach because a lot of times, just with an athlete, I have to build rapport before I can even move the needle at all.
They’re not going to listen to me until they know that they can trust me and that they know that I care about them. Same thing with a strength coach. You guys aren’t going to buy into Jessica’s program or any dietician’s program until you know us and trust us and you know, and you trust that we know what we’re doing because you care about the athlete and about the mission, which is when, and so you have to know that we care and that we are on the same page on that. ⁓ So yeah, I think that we just have to start building that relationship. And then, you know, oftentimes I have to identify if a strength coach has a better
relationship with that athlete than I do, then I might be using that strength coach as a conduit rather than being the one that’s spending the face time and telling the athlete, eat this. If I know that that strength coach has been with them for multiple years and that if that strength coach tells them, hey, eat this, then that’s gonna be the achieve the better outcome, I’m gonna do that. So we have to be able to be flexible. We have to be able to listen and hear ⁓ one another. We have to be able to not shut each other down as well. Sometimes,
Strength coaches will have certain ideas about nutrition that I might not co-sign, but if I come and say like, no, you’re stupid, that’s dumb, blah, blah, blah, blah, like that’s not gonna help anything. I can’t have a chip on my shoulder about it. I have to hear, have to listen. I have to understand where it’s coming from. know, what is it? know, maybe we have the same end goal in mind, but we have different routes to get there. How can we figure that out? ⁓ It’s communication, it’s relationships. It’s all of that stuff.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, and I love what you say too, because that’s why the sports performance team to me is so valuable. What I ultimately consider it is what we have at my school, right? Which is obviously just my experience. But we have a dietitian, we have an athletic trainer, and then we have the strength coach, which is myself. And every one of us have different relationships with those athletes. And I know for our body transformation guys, they’re probably going to like working with tests, our dietitian, a little bit more than they are going to like working with me. Especially our freshmen too. There’s a lot of mistakes that they may end up making.
all of a sudden I have to be kind of more of the disciplinarian versus they get to go to the athletic trainer or test my fiance and get to say, hey, Connor’s kind of a jerk sometimes. And they’re like, I know, we work with them all the time, right? And so ultimately that’s what I think is so, so beneficial is you know, Jessica may have this really good relationship with athlete X. And so why don’t we talk as professionals on the side and then say, Hey, could we possibly see this result from this athlete by you communicating it to them?
Jess Isaacs:
Yeah, good cop, bad cop. When I was at the Clippers, I had a strength coach who, he does the body composition testing at the combine. So it made sense for him to continue to do the body composition for the team. But so when he would have a guy that we would get on the scale or we would do like an in body or we would do decks or anything like that, he’d bring me over and he’s like, all right, I’m bad cop, you’re a good cop. I’m going to tell him, you know, I’m going to be mean and I’m, you’re, cause I won’t say someone is fat. I might say that they have fat they need to lose.
and I don’t love that terminology coming from anybody either. However, he might’ve been the one that did more of the bad copping and then, you need to make these changes. We got to do this. If you don’t do this, you’re going to get fined or you’re not going to play with whatever, but then bring me in to then, you know, provide the, here’s the changes we need to make nutritionally to support that. so, yeah, that bad cop, good cop relationship can really work sometimes. It does.
Connor Agnew:
It makes a huge difference, seriously. And I promise
you, the strength coach is almost always going to be the bad cop in those situations, which is fun. Every once in a while we can switch it though, and that’s a fun time. And so you mentioned something there too that I think is really interesting and I think it kind of deserves a spotlight on it a little bit, is that there’s a lot of negative language that people can use when it comes to.
Jess Isaacs:
Yes, yes, yes. Yeah.
Connor Agnew:
either food or body image, how can we as strength coaches be more aware of what we say? I know I’m asking you to basically break down a massive topic into something very small, but how can we be more positive and make sure that we don’t create negative associations with foods or body composition?
Jess Isaacs:
Well, I mean, food and nutrition is so nuanced, right? Like I can have, I can eat a Twinkie, right? And we can agree that Twinkie is not a health promoting food. However, in the context of having a diet that is full of fruits and vegetables and lean protein and whole grains and all that sort of thing, a Twinkie is probably not going to make a big dent, know? Twinkie is not going to hurt me. However, if my diet is predominantly highly processed foods, probably less health promoting, right?
Food in itself, like one food or one ingredient isn’t good or bad. We have to look at it in the context of the whole thing. So we shouldn’t be using terminology of that’s a good food, that’s a bad food, that’s a junk food. We can say more health promoting, less health promoting, more nutrient dense, less nutrient dense, more energy dense. Something that’s purely carbohydrates and sugar is energy dense. It’s not nutrient dense necessarily though, like fruit snacks. They might be a great choice during activity and they’re just sugar, right?
But that might not be a great choice to be chomping on later in the day because we don’t need something as energy dense. We’re looking for something more nutrient dense. So not calling food, placing morals on food and not.
assigning ⁓ a grade to an athlete based on their food. You eat like shit, right? That’s not nice to say. You’re not shit because you eat like shit. Your diet needs to improve. We need to improve the quality. We can find ways to say what we’re trying to say in a way that plays less negative stigma on food. going back to like, strength coaches can be the bad cop. Because historically, like-
In the weight room, it’s discipline. It’s discipline. do the same thing. You do the, you know, you have some variety, but you do the same things. It’s discipline. It’s daily, you know, that sort of thing. Nutrition, you can’t have that same level of discipline because there’s so much tied to it. There’s so much social, familial, ⁓ emotional. There’s so many things tied to food that you can’t really, you can’t be as strict and disciplined and expect people to be that same way, even if that’s your mental, because that’s where the world you come from.
People are different. Food is different than weights. So the more that we can kind of take away negative stigma of the way that someone eats defines who they are, ⁓ the better that we’re gonna, I think, be able to move the needle.
Connor Agnew:
I love that perspective and I appreciate that greatly because nobody really has a cultural background in lifting weights. It’s kind of something that you gravitate towards. It may have been more of a familial thing, but ultimately it’s not based around somebody’s entire cultural history. And nobody’s had to lift weights every single day of their life, but everybody has to eat every single day. So obviously there’s going be a lot more emotions attached to the actual food aspect. Well,
Jess Isaacs:
Agreed. Yeah, yeah.
Connor Agnew:
Again, I appreciate it again. And you did a great job of breaking down a massive topic. Thank you very much. And it does bring to mind a story for me. We had an athlete and I think you’ll appreciate this who came to me and I said, Hey, what’d you have for breakfast this morning? And he said, a honey bun. And I was like, okay, we can work on that. That’s fine. Right. And then I said, okay, what about lunch? And he said, a honey bun. And I was like, okay, that’s, getting a little worse. I didn’t say this, you know, but in my head, I’m like, this is the closest I’ve ever been to being like, okay, you do, you may eat like shit. Right.
Jess Isaacs:
I it.
Yeah.
⁓
Connor Agnew:
And
then I was like, okay, please for dinner, what did you have? And I’m like, I had like, please like fingers crossed, fingers crossed. And he’s like, two honey buns. And I was like, oh my gosh. I never, this was a regular occurrence. Yeah. And so I never in my life thought I’d be excited about an athlete only eating two honey buns in a day when we slowly worked out towards it versus one or whatever it may be. It drove me absolutely up a wall. So that was probably the one time I’ve been very close to putting very negative connotations of food.
Jess Isaacs:
it was just a one off day or something like that. Bless bless
Yeah.
Connor Agnew:
just said, hey, maybe we can slightly work on this. This would be a great project for you to grow.
Jess Isaacs:
It’s so
funny outside of this world, people really think that athletes eat like perfectly. Like, like even at the highest level, I mean, I’ve seen guys bring in like wings at halftime, an NBA game, and then go out and play the rest of the game. like there’s such a big disparity between, mean, athletes are normal humans when it comes to what they eat. You know, there’s some, there’s obviously some exceptions. There’s some people that are really bought into it, but athletes like, because they can a lot of times get away with it.
Connor Agnew:
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jess Isaacs:
or to a certain extent, they eat what they want and they eat what’s accessible or they eat what sounds good or whatever. And I think that there’s a big disconnect with how people think that athletes eat. So sometimes we might be moving the needle forward, like you said, with just reducing the intake of a honey bun or just getting like one green thing on their plate once a week. know, like that might be, that might be a huge win.
Connor Agnew:
Yep. And so, okay, well, how do you approach those conversations with athletes when, you know, I think the stories I hear the most are like DK Metcalf with his candy consumption or like Tyreek Hill ⁓ with McDonald’s bags going into games. Like, how do you handle those conversations with athletes who may see that and say, well, you know, if they can do that, then I can do the exact same thing.
Jess Isaacs:
Yeah, well, you you’re not DJing Metcalf, right? You’re not, like everybody is different and even if it’s the quote unquote perfect program, that might not work the same for one guy as it works for the next guy. Everybody’s individual, how your body responds, ⁓ everything is different, right? Your training might look different. ⁓ Your microbiome might look different. Like there’s so many different things.
Connor Agnew:
Exactly.
Jess Isaacs:
that that that changed but I would argue with someone like that first of all if we’re eating a bunch of candy around Performance, mean candy is sugar. So that’s not the worst thing in the world, right? Like like I can see it serving a purpose for providing fuel now from the other like a biomarkers and Body composition and other things probably not the greatest but I would argue like how much performance are you leaving on the table? Like even if you’re the best athlete in the world, how much better could you be or how much better could you feel?
How much better could you be recovering? How much less sore could you be? But yeah, I think it’s just like having to understand like even if you do everything the same way as Tyree Kill, you’re not gonna be Tyree Kill.
Connor Agnew:
No, it’s obviously a lot of genetic basis as well too. You know, obviously DK Mechhaf and I look very different from a body composition standpoint, which is a lot of hard work has gone into his side as well too. I don’t want to take that all away.
Jess Isaacs:
Yeah, yes.
But it’s hard.
don’t help. I I tell when I have athletes coming in, say, look, everybody has a platform these days. Everybody. Everybody has a platform. So everybody is going to talk about what they do, whether they do or they don’t, whether they’re just getting paid to say it, paid to say that they take a product that they don’t actually take, or they’re taking the product because they’re getting paid to take it.
Connor Agnew:
Mm-hmm.
Jess Isaacs:
or they’re talking about, you know, I’ve seen athletes talk about their nutrition in interviews and I know for a fact that’s not how they eat. They’re just saying that they eat that way because either for shock value or because they want to tell you that they’re eating better than they actually are. I’ve seen that so many times. So I wouldn’t like put all your stock into what you see on social media or these athletes site anyways.
Connor Agnew:
I appreciate you bringing up social media because I feel like that is kind of one of the things that generates the ⁓ most, I would say misconceptions within the athletic training world. mean, like if we’re, even if we’re talking about strength and conditioning where athletes would come in and say, well, we should be doing this specific workout, you know, and then I have a million questions about, okay, well, what time of year were they doing this workout in? Was that player injured previously? You know, like there’s a ton of things that kind of go into it. You know, how do you handle social media now when also anybody can kind of claim their
a nutritionist when obviously there’s a big difference between that and a dietitian.
Jess Isaacs:
Yeah, I mean, that’s a big reason why I just started getting involved in social media is that like, at first I was kind of like, don’t listen to them. They don’t know anything. But then I realized like, if you, if you, if you’re charismatic, if you say things confidently, if you say things black and white, even like, don’t do this, do this, like people listen, people want answers and it’s, it’s really confusing nutrition. Like lots of things in the world are confusing. Nutrition is a very confusing topic and you will go from even from dietitian to dietitian. And one will say, do this, don’t do this, do this, don’t do this.
And so it’s a lot to sort through and the average human or average athlete just wants answers. And so they’re gonna go to the places where they think that these people are. so it’s one, it’s our responsibility to be educating athletes on what our background and education is. But then that’s when that trust component comes in big. Because even if you have all the letters and the alphabet soup after your name and you are the expert.
If this other person over here has a million followers and they say things confidently and you’re bought into them, you’re going to listen to them. So it’s, you know, one, realizing I can’t help everybody and that I’m not, I’m just not going to win all the time. And that I’m going to be there for the people that want to hear and want to listen. I’m going to try to still like turn some people to that maybe are on the dark side of things. I’m going to try to say like, Hey, look over here. But my responsibility at end of the day is to my, my athletes.
You know, ⁓ I do have like a wider social media audience and I’m hoping that I’m helping some people out there too. ⁓ But just making sure that I am first and foremost helping my athletes, soar through the noise is my goal. ⁓ And a lot of times it might just be addressing like, hey, what did you hear or what did you see that you liked from that? Or what are your questions from that? And then trying to connect it to something that again, isn’t my message and my plan, but is more tied to what it is that they care about and what want to know about.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, I remember when I first started posting on social media, I tried to convince everybody about my ways or my methods or whatever it may be. ⁓ And it’s draining. It’s exhausting to try to do that. Yeah. And have you gotten any backlash for what you post? Because I remember making, I did one video one time about the protein shakes that we make for recovery for our guys. And people lost their minds that I was using muscle milk protein powder. Right? Have you experienced anything like that?
Jess Isaacs:
Constantly constantly like anytime
I mention any kind of like sugar or sports drink or anything that comes in a package I’ve got a slew of comments. I mean, hey, thank you for your engagement. Thank you for your views Thank you for your likes and comments. You are helping me You’re not hurting me and I might counter some of their points if I feel like they’re coming to the table to want to discuss it but a lot of people are coming just to like Pair it off whatever that they’ve heard someone else say and I’m like this
Again, I’ll just leave the comments there. I only ever really delete anything or block someone if they’re just being nasty and just insulting or whatever. ⁓ Otherwise, people are welcome to have their opinions and people are welcome to not listen to me. I don’t need everybody to listen. I need the ones that want the information to listen. But otherwise, if that’s what you believe and you think that everybody should be eating meat and liver on a cutting board for every meal, then do you.
do you? If that makes you happy, do you? I’m never going to tell people like you have to do this, you have to do that. I tell everybody, listen, like even like if I make something and even if the coach wants them to have full compliance, I’m going to say, look, you are the owner of your body. You decide what goes in your body, what doesn’t go in your body. I’m just going to provide it for you and tell you the whys and answer your questions and tell you, you know, and, and, know that I’m supporting you and helping you achieve whatever outcome it is you’re trying to achieve. But I’m never going to tell you like you have to do this. You choose, you choose. You’re an adult or you’re
Connor Agnew:
Mm-hmm.
Jess Isaacs:
You’re the owner of your body.
Connor Agnew:
Hmm. And you know, it’s just, you can’t save everybody, you know, and again, too, that’s one thing I see that my fiance experiences. My arguments are mostly with other strength coaches, you know, about, and I’ll have no problem arguing with them or I guess trying to convince each other of each other’s sides because we have the background. But I’ve never seen a profession where more people come up because everybody has to eat every single day. There’s no, there’s no getting around it. And so they will just come up to her and just make the most ridiculous statements I’ve ever heard in my life.
Jess Isaacs:
Right.
Connor Agnew:
And she just stays so positive with it. She’s like, well, that’s great. You know, I’m so fantastic that it’s working for you. And I like lose my mind. I can’t handle it if somebody were to do that to me.
Jess Isaacs:
You’re like, how did you
not? You’re like, you just, I’m tired. I’m tired. I’m really tired. I’ve done this too many times. I’m tired.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, we were just at a wedding this past weekend and I had probably about two, three people come up to me asking about lifting questions and then nobody was asking her questions this time. And I was like, what’s going on? Like usually you get bombarded and she was like, I haven’t told a single person I’m a dietician here. I was like, that’s a great idea.
Jess Isaacs:
Yeah. Yes.
Yes. There was a thing going around like, just tell people you’re an accountant. I’m an accountant. Nobody wants to know. Nobody wants to talk about that. Yeah.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, there you go. Yeah.
Yeah. And you know, the one thing too, that I would like to let strength coaches know, and I guess that I think is like one of the most annoying parts of the profession. I don’t know if you can relate to this, but people almost viewing you as the food police, like, you know, if they eat something, they’re like, ⁓ you know, Jessica is not going to be happy about this one. You know, it’s just like, again, I don’t really care. Like I’m not in if my mental energy is so consumed with, know,
our head coach having fries with as a side instead of broccoli. I’m probably gonna be a pretty miserable person at the end of
Jess Isaacs:
I have a sign that says, not the food police, like a little like name sign, but also, yes, I mean, all the time. And I will make a point, like if I’m out with people that might think that way, to like order something that they wouldn’t think that I would eat so that it’s like, no, look, I’m over here having a piece of cake with you, you know, or something like that. ⁓ I think that that’s kind of a little bit disarming in some ways, but yeah, there’s sometimes where like, I’ll be just be eating yogurt and people are like, ⁓ look at you eating healthy again. Like it’s fucking yogurt. Like, what?
Connor Agnew:
There you go.
Yum.
No,
Jess Isaacs:
Yeah. They do. They do. Yeah.
Connor Agnew:
no, no, but it’s just crazy because people attach the human being to the profession all the time and it’s just no need for it whatsoever. Okay, well on day one you meet with an athlete, you know, can you take me through what your initial consultation process looks like and what are the things that you’re typically looking at?
Jess Isaacs:
It depends on if they’re like a private client that I’m seeing for like a certain amount of sessions or if they’re a new athlete at a team that I’m working with, because if they’re a new athlete at a team I’m working with, I might be asking a lot of questions that have nothing to do with nutrition. Again, just because I’m building that relationship. Like I remember one rookie player that I got for the Clippers, the first time we met, I took him grocery shopping and we talked about food and fashion.
We did, or not food, music, music and fashion. And I just let him fill up the cart with whatever he want. I was picking up the tab on the company card and ⁓ eventually of like 30, 45 minutes into the shopping trip, he started asking me like, do you think this is a good choice? Should I do this or that? And so that was, that was the goal there was to build a relationship. But a lot of it is I want to know, I want to know where you’re coming to me from.
I want to know what your relationship with food is like. I want to know what the relationship with your body is like. I want to know what you normally do. I want to know who influences you. want to know, you know, did you, if you were a basketball player, AAU games, were you driving through McDonald’s? Like what, were you using to fuel? Because if I’m, I’ve got to meet you where you’re at. And so I have to know where you’re at first. I have to know where you’re at. Do you know what a carb is? Do you know what protein is? Do you know what fat is? Most
Believe it or not, don’t know. Like that was a shocker to me is that if I say like, what’s protein? ⁓ it’s crickets a lot of times, or they might be able to say like chicken, but they might not be able to name off much more than that, right? So I have to kind of start there. And then it’s understanding, all right, what are our goals? You what’s important to you? What are you trying to get out of this? Is it something, and what’s the most pressing, you know? Cause then we have to pick and choose what we’re gonna prioritize.
can’t prioritize you wanting to put on muscle, lose weight, get faster, get stronger all at the same time, right? I have to pick which one. And I might say, hey, look, based on those things you just said to me, those four things, I think that building muscle is going to be the most effective. So if we fuel towards building muscle, we’re probably going to reduce some body fat. We’re going to get stronger. You know, if we are fueling effectively, we might also…
get faster because we’re fueling effectively. So let’s put our eggs in that basket. And then I might look at, all right, what are we currently doing and see, okay, the biggest gap is that we’re only eating two meals a day. Cool. Let’s add a third one in or we’re eating three meals a day, but like one of them, have no protein out or no carbs at like, let’s just make a change there. So I’m looking at, you know, the macro level and then we’re going to just pick.
one little thing to work on to start off with. And hopefully, ideally, strategically, it’s gonna be something that I know that they’re gonna see or feel something from. And so that that little change or little tweak is gonna then get them buy into one to do more things that maybe they can’t see and feel. You might be not gonna see and feel that when you’re taking vitamins that you feel any different, right? But I know that vitamins on the backend of things are working to help your biological processes. So, but I wanna start with something like.
Let’s add some carbs before training. my gosh, you feel great during training because you ate carbs. Wow, that’s huge. Now let’s talk about this next thing.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, I certainly can’t say that my joints and brain health feel a lot better because of my Omega-3s, but I do know that they assist in the long run. How do you approach working with athletes who are a little bit more resistant to change? Because I know all our athletes here have to meet with our dietician. They 100 % have to ⁓ just do initial consultation because it’s one of those things where I know ultimately this can be more beneficial for you. But some certainly are kind of stuck in their ways a little bit. They resist change. So how do you work?
Jess Isaacs:
Right. Right.
It’s a slow burn sometimes. It might be like trying to figure out who they are connected with or look up to on the team as well. And then try to get buy-in with that. Like if I know that someone on the team is a leader and that they look up to that person, then I might already be working with that leader, but put in a little bit more effort to let them see what I’m doing with that leader. And then hopefully that leader will then talk a little bit about this and that. And then they’ll see like, might like, for instance, I do something like beat shots.
And not all the athletes like the beat shots, but the beat shots help with endurance. They help with if they’re going to high altitude with being able to, ⁓ you know, get oxygen to the places we need get oxygen so that we can have longer, you know, more stamina. ⁓ so they might think that it’s crap and I’m not going to make them do it, but then I might like go around and be like, it’s shot o’clock and like hype up the athletes that are taking to be like, yes, whatever. And just silly things, whatever I can to just kind of like show, like, I’m not here to be again, to be the bad cop. I’m here to help you.
⁓ But then also make sure that I’m spending time, I’m showing about practices so that they get some face time, they get some familiarity. It’s not just, have to go schedule an appointment with Jessica to see Jessica sort of thing. That I see Jessica in the weight room, I see Jessica in the training room, I see Jessica at practice, I see Jessica in the snack room, you know, so that I know she’s around so that when I do have that question or when I am ready to be like this and that, you know, I’ll get something or get somewhere with them.
The social media aspect has been huge for me when it comes with the collegiate athletes. All my athletes follow me. ⁓ And then a lot of times it generates conversations. Sometimes they might be really focused on whatever they have that day when they’re in the building and they might not be wanting to talk to me about these other things. But then they go home and they’re sitting in bed at night and they scroll through and they see a video that I’m talking about creatine and I might get a DM from them or I might get a question from them the next day about, Jess, talk to me about creatine. Should I be taking creatine? So just finding different pathways I think and finding.
how they like to be reached, you this generation of kids, you know, I have an 18 year old, they’re the anxious generation. They don’t know how to communicate, they are scared of everything, they are, they’re not, it takes a little bit more effort to reach them, I feel like. And so I just have to constantly adapt and shift and ⁓ be flexible to meet them where they’re at and then try to, you know, create that relationship.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, there’s actually some research that came out recently that showed that this generation 100 % has a different attention span and they struggle and if you can’t grab their attention quickly, they’re not going to listen to you. And so it’s ultimately something where you have to adjust to them. You know, they’re not going to adjust to you. And all of sudden go back to reading newspapers and, know, basically doing what we thought was
positive behaviors at the time. You have to find ways to make it work. Social media, certainly for myself, has been huge too, because we get to talk about those things. We get to just slowly address topics and take them down one by one. Then we also, I’ll have athletes send me reels of other workouts and they’ll be like, hey, would we ever do something like this?
about 90 % of the time it’s like, no, you know, because exactly. But, you know, but then sometimes it’s even worked out where I said, okay, if you really want to spend your extra time doing this, then you can come into the weight room and it just builds an even better relationship from there. Yup. And so what are the most, I don’t necessarily want to say errors, but maybe let’s say areas of improvement for athletes. What are the most common ones that you typically see, especially with collegiate athletes?
Jess Isaacs:
No, that’s just shiny.
100%, yep, gotta adapt.
It’s most times just not eating enough. I mean, really, for most of us, it’s just not eating enough. I mean, if there’s a timing factor, there’s the quality of the diet as well. But a lot of times the biggest gaps were just not eating enough. Most athletes are skipping breakfast or if they’re coming in for morning lift or morning practice, they might be grabbing something really quick. You know, they just rolled out of bed, they got on their scooter, they came over, they’ve been awake all of 15 minutes and they certainly haven’t eaten anything, let alone drank any water. That’s the other part, hydration.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah.
Jess Isaacs:
can’t get these kids to hydrate or eat. But a lot of times, you know, when you have a student athlete, they have a busy schedule. They have a lot. ⁓ And between team activities and school activities, and if they’re doing any extracurriculars, it’s a lot. you know, really finding, sitting down with them. And for me, it’s like identifying what does your day look like and what does…
Monday look like versus Wednesday versus Friday. And where are your opportunities to fuel and how can we flex to that? If it’s like, hey, I’m not eating because I go right from here into a three hour class in lab where I can’t eat and then the dining hall is closed at this time. And then we have to talk about, all right, what can you take from the fueling station? And it’s simple things that seem like a yeah, duh, but these are kids. They’re kids that are used to having somebody help them. They’re used to having someone do it for them or remind them or whatever.
they still need a little bit of handholding. And certainly I wanna graduate them out of needing that handholding and understand how to do things themselves. But I might have to kind of fill a little bit of that gap and help them along the way with just some very like, yeah, basic things of like, let’s pack a protein bar or a FairLife or whatever, throw it in our bag and take it to class.
Hey, one more of the dining facility today. You’ve got time, box up an extra meal, take it back, put it in your fridge so that when you come back from training, getting up shots up later tonight, you have something in there and you don’t have to door dash or skip food or just eat a bag of Takis instead. So a lot of times it’s just, it’s finding those, identifying those gaps and filling them and then getting them to eat. Some athletes are just used to never eating before training or games. They might feel like that’s their thing.
And so, finding ways like, all right, can we try it liquid then? If it’s a form of a sports drink or something else, that works for me too. And then we can train the stomach just like we can train any muscle. So let’s baby step it. But yeah, I think that’s the biggest one is not eating enough, then it’s timing, certainly quality, but quality I think is across the board for a lot of people. Hydration is a big one. think just like not understanding hydration. I see a lot of athletes that just think like,
They can just take gobs and gobs of electrolytes and not drink fluid. And like that’s gonna get them hydrated and that’s not how it works. And then, or thinking supplements take place of the diet or that supplements alone are going to do something. Like supplements aren’t a band-aid, unfortunately. And if you aren’t doing the basic things, like I love creatine, but if you’re not eating enough and you’re not eating enough protein to begin with, you’re not really gonna get all that benefit from the creatine, even though creatine’s a great supplement.
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, I love to ⁓ say to our athletes, I’m not going to hold your hand. Right. And I say that all the time. And then it’s funny because I quite literally, I’m like, grabbed their hand. I’m like, Mike, I know you got class tomorrow for eight hours. So what are we going to grab from the field station here? And I’m like, that’s a great pick. Yes. Yeah. So I do it all the time, but it’s totally understandable because like you said, again, you have to adapt to the people, know, especially if you want to make some room for growth. So I appreciate that perspective.
Jess Isaacs:
and then you hold your hand.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Have to. You have to.
Connor Agnew:
Now you’ve posted a lot of fun recipes before. I’ve really liked your liquid IV slushies, right? And those things are fun. And I think it’s very exciting and it does get people engaged with the actual nutrition aspect. Where do you get your inspiration for these ideas? And then can you kind of name another couple of fun things that you’ve done just to get people excited about the nutrition piece.
Jess Isaacs:
Yeah, I mean, a lot of times, you know, I’m not like the one, like, I’m not the mastermind behind a lot of things. I’m just the one putting it out there, right? Or I might be putting a spin on something. Some of the, some of the recipes were my recipes, like the cinnamon toast crunch one is mine. And I came up with like a coffee, like a not a decaf non-coffee, but coffee flavored ⁓ protein smoothie. But those might just come from like,
boredom in time, but also it might come from other people that are doing it at other places. even I’ve had some, I had a student worker of mine that made ⁓ a slushie with like two different colors for a particular game day. ⁓ And so that actually came from her, inspired by her. I did adapt the recipe a little bit, but they come from different places. But also just, think when you have something new and exciting, even if it’s not like…
not recreating the wheel or anything like that. think that gets athletes engaged because you know, it gets monotonous, right? You you come in, you have this, you have your protein shake afterwards. And then when I can have something that’s a little bit exciting, that also gets the guys and girls that are like less likely to buy in, it gets them a little bit like, what’s that? You know, they might get interested and that might be a segue into other things. But yeah, the recipes, they come from different places. And I am not used to be much of a recipe and like.
pushing those sorts of things, but those kind of videos do well. I mean, what I have found is that people want, we talked about the black and white and it’s not black and white, nutrition’s not black and white, but sometimes people just want to be told like, what exactly should I do? Like which products exactly? know, like just tell me, I know you said that I need to have carbs and simple carbs and even fruit snacks, but what brand? know, and I had always been like, I didn’t want to do that because I didn’t want to like pigeonhole and like some,
Connor Agnew:
hand holding. Yeah.
Jess Isaacs:
places aren’t going to have access to these things or some stores aren’t going to have this. I don’t want to tell you, you can have this product when really you can have these 25 products that are all going to feel that same purpose. But that’s what people want. People want, people want that a lot of times is just being told exactly what to do.
Connor Agnew:
yeah, it’s the exact same thing. You know, I can post a video about the theory of strength building versus sports specific training. Right. And that will, you know, get maybe a thousand views and then on a, okay, this is my exact workout today. It’s a hundred thousand. It’s like, thanks. Can’t wait to try this out. And I’m like, all right, go right ahead. No, but, I do, I do appreciate you switching it up seriously because you know, what I notice is we’ll bring things out like our shakes that we make. It’s custom shakes for them based off of body composition goals.
Jess Isaacs:
Cool. Great.
Connor Agnew:
You know different flavors every time that we make them in the first week Everybody’s like these are amazing like I could have these all the time and then you hit like February in a basketball season and they’re in like they’re literally like coach. I have to drink this shake today I’m like, yeah, I mean, I’m sorry, but you needed for the recovery. I was like, yeah, absolutely So there’s a big big part of switching it up And one thing that I’ve noticed too is actually giving the athletes choices like when we you know versus saying okay Today’s shake is gonna be strawberry banana or chocolate peanut butter or whatever it may be
Jess Isaacs:
Flavor fatigue for sure, yeah.
Connor Agnew:
actually just riding on a whiteboard or having one side, okay, you get to pick whichever one you want. That has like completely revolutionized it for us. It’s made them a lot more excited about it just because they have a little bit more autonomy. You can actually pick what they want for that day.
Jess Isaacs:
totally buy in when you can do that, when you have the manpower and the ability to do that for sure. ⁓ A lot of times too, I’ll just have, I’ll pick like two or three recipes and I’ll have like two or three different options and you pick which one you want. And then we try to pay attention to like, which ones are they taking more? But again, it changes, know, it might be everybody loves tropical one day and the next day nobody wants tropical. ⁓ That might be because they’re tired of the flavor or they just didn’t look good because somebody else made them today and they looked runny or whatever. So there’s so many different variables there.
Connor Agnew:
Mm-hmm.
Jess Isaacs:
⁓ you know, and I will try, I’ll try to just be like, you know, if you don’t like this, let’s talk about option B C D, you know, and so that pick one of them. If you don’t want this movie, cool. Go to the fueling station and grab one of, you know, a chocolate milk and a whatever, ⁓
Connor Agnew:
Yeah, I appreciate you saying it’s different with people who make them differently too, right? Because I remember one time I literally told the athletes, I was like, yeah, Tess made these shakes today. And they’re like, they’re so good. Like I love them. And I was like, I actually made them. I just know for a fact you prefer when they’re made by Tess. All right. So I got you. Yeah. I like to get devious every once in a while. So ⁓ well, Jessica, I really do appreciate your time. Seriously, it’s fantastic to meet you and hear more about what you do. And I really appreciate the perspectives that you gave us.
Jess Isaacs:
Let’s go, tricky tricky.
Connor Agnew:
If somebody wanted to follow you on your social media or look into your services that you provide, what would be the best way to do that?
Jess Isaacs:
Likewise, thank you so much for having me. It’s been a lot of fun. You can find me on Instagram and TikTok, but more present on Instagram for sure. Jessica the Sports RD, RD for Registered Dietitian. ⁓ Website’s the same, jessicathesportsrd.com. I’ve got ⁓ handouts and courses and things like that there. Then what else? Email, jessicathesportsrd.com.
Connor Agnew:
There you go. Very consistent.
like it. It makes it lot easier. Awesome. Well, Jessica, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
Jess Isaacs:
Yeah, easy.
Thank you so much for having me. Take care.
