I set out at 14 years old to do everything right to be bigger, stronger, and healthier. I read everything I could find on diet, exercise, and supplementation. Got disciplined, consistent, and completely convinced I had it figured out. A year later I was exercising three times a day, and still thinking I needed to lean out a little more. This is the story of the athlete nutrition mistakes that nearly destroyed me, and why that experience has shaped everything I do as a coach today.

TW: This episode includes an honest discussion of disordered eating and eating disorders. If this is a sensitive topic for you, please take care of yourself first. Support is available through the National Eating Disorders Association helpline at 1-800-931-2237.

When Discipline Becomes the Problem in Athlete Nutrition

Most athletes are told that discipline is the answer. Work harder. Be more consistent. Control what you can control. That messaging is not wrong on its own, but without the right information behind it, discipline becomes a weapon you use against yourself.

That is exactly what happened to me. I was disciplined about cutting fat out of my diet because I had read that fat was the enemy. Disciplined about exercising multiple times a day because I believed that more effort always meant more results. Disciplined about controlling everything I put in my body, down to the gram. What I did not understand at 14 was that I was being incredibly disciplined about doing the wrong things.

The athlete nutrition mistakes I made were not born out of laziness or not caring. They came from caring too much, with no one to point me toward credible information.

How Misinformation Online Nearly Broke Me

The internet is a dangerous place for a young athlete trying to figure out nutrition. At 14 I did not know how to find peer-reviewed studies or academic sources. I did not know how to identify credible experts from people who just sounded confident online. So I read everything I could find and implemented all of it, convinced I was building something.

What I was actually building was the perfect storm. Bad information, a difficult period in my life that made controlling food feel like a solution, and zero guidance from someone who actually knew what they were talking about. Over time I slipped into anorexia without realizing it was happening. My calorie intake dropped. I dropped my fat intake. My training volume went up. And somehow, every time I looked in the mirror, I thought I could probably still lose a little more.

That is the most sinister part of disordered eating. You do not know it is happening. The body dysmorphia that comes with it warps what you see so completely that the people around you are alarmed and you are still thinking you look pretty good. Teachers at school would comment on how thin I looked. My dad would tell me I needed to eat more. I brushed all of it off because I was convinced they just did not understand my journey.

The Moment Something Finally Clicked

It was not a dramatic intervention that changed things. It was a scale at a doctor’s office.

I had not weighed myself in about a year. When I stepped on that scale and saw 116 pounds staring back at me, something cut through the noise in a way that nothing else had. Even I knew that number was not right. And in that moment I made a decision that has stayed with me ever since.

If my relationship with food had gotten me to this place, it could also get me out.

I sat down with a nutritionist who helped me undo some of the damage, starting with the belief that fat was something to fear. Over the next six months I put on roughly 45 pounds and worked my way back to being healthy. More importantly I rebuilt the way I understood food, training, and what the body actually needs to perform.

Where Athletes Get it Wrong

The nutrition industry is full of extremes. Elimination diets, secret silver bullets, and influencers telling you that one specific food group is the reason you cannot shed the weight or hit your performance goals. None of it holds up under actual science.

You should never be following a diet you cannot sustain over the course of your life. Cutting out entire macronutrients, whether that is fat, carbs, or protein, is not a long-term solution. It is a recipe for frustration, burnout, and in some cases, a much darker outcome.

Why I Went to School for Dietetics

When I was 15 years old, sitting on the other side of that experience, I made a decision. If I could help even one person avoid going through what I went through, I was going to do it. That decision led me to pursue nutrition seriously, go to school for a degree in dietetics, and keep studying it to this day.

The athlete nutrition mistakes I made were not unique to me. Across 250 plus clinics and thousands of athletes and coaches trained since starting Hybrid Cheer in 2021, the same patterns show up everywhere. Cheerleaders under-fueling and calling it discipline. Coaches who do not have the nutritional foundation to guide their teams. Young people finding information online that sounds credible and applying it in ways that quietly work against them.

That is why nutrition is not a side topic at Hybrid. It is foundational. You cannot build an elite athlete on a broken foundation, and nutrition is one of the pillars that everything else gets built on top of. The skills, the technique, the performance under pressure: all of it depends on how well you are fueling and recovering.

Helping Cheerleaders and Athletes with Nutrition

This episode also marks the beginning of something new. A full nutrition series is coming to this podcast, built from the ground up to give athletes and coaches the foundation they actually need. Real science, real application, and a healthy relationship with food that lasts.

For more information and resources about eating disorders, please visit: https://www.allianceforeatingdisorders.com/