**The Magic of Peak Week Coffee & Poop**

Some of you who have worked with me for a while will know exactly what this title means and its probably given you a little laugh and some hilarious flash backs, however I promise this section of the newsletter is remaining educational, even if I have just written poo in the title!
I believe that the success of every peek is down to the ability to control 2 things, digestion and fullness.

fullness comes down to many things, knowing the amount of carbs a persons physique can take (usually a lot less that you think) the types of carb and distribution of these throughout the day. But more often than not fullness is down to hydration and sodium levels, think about it, water is what transports glycogen to the muscle so cutting water would mean the glycogen wouldn’t get to the muscle leaving you looking flat adding carbs still going flat and then having digestive issues.

When using diuretics we want to push out the water held sub q (between skin and muscle) and keep water held intra muscularly keeping you looking full, so water and salt will help do this. Knowing the difference between when a physique needs carbs and when a physique needs water and/or salt is so important here and comes with experience most people will moan their flat because all they want is food but be scared to drink water or add salt for fear of holding water and this just is not the case.

Digestion is always going to be person dependant but what we always want to avoid is a bloated and uncomfortable look on stage. we also want to take into account hormone cycles here if someone is due on around show time then we want to be even more conservative with volume of food going in show day. hormones can also effect the ability to digest food and for some can cause constipation so this is also something we want to take into account. for a client with poor digestion or easily suffers with bloating we may choose to front load (carbs go in beginning of peak week then taper down) with a client who goes flat very quick and digests quickly back loading may be preferable (loading carbs back end of peak week) and for some clients we can reverse in there really is no one size fits all approach and as a coach you have to be willing to react to the physique thats in front of you as things can change quick and things like, travel, heat, and stress levels can all affect this.

So where does the coffee come in? quite simple, show day morning (pictured) a double expresso in the morning of “proper coffee” (not instant or decaf) will help get things moving so to speak and maybe a short walk there. obviously we don’t want to be causing excess stress on the legs and we want to keep off the feet but if your not on til the afternoon a quick 5-10min walk to get your stomach moving could work super well in your favour. emptying the bowels show day morning is a must to keep the waist as tight as possible and a few coffees could help that.

So yes on show day in particular I will ask you a lot how much have you drank and how much have you pooped, but trust me there is method to the madness!

Molly x