MH: Give us a little information about your background, for the people who don't know you.
Matt Lovell: Here's my bio straight from my website.
Matt began his interest in sports at an early age starting Karate at twelve. These interests led to a life-time obsession with all things training, nutritional and health related. After gaining his instructors qualification in Karate, he went onto coach fitness at his local amateur boxing club.
After completing a degree in Political Philosophy at Bristol, Matt couldn’t keep away from the health and fitness arena and qualified as a personal trainer; eventually running his own company in the City. This led to developing his other passion: nutrition. Matt undertook a further three years of study at the Institute of Optimum Nutrition.
He went on to spend time on Harley Street, specializing in elite sports, female hormonal health and body composition management. The contacts he made through this work led to a spell, working as nutritionist with Millwall football club during which time they made the play-off for the Premiership and also qualified for the FA cup final.
In 2002 Matt started working with the England Rugby Team and was part of Clive Woodward’s team that lifted the World Cup in 2003. He continues in the same role working with the England team and was a member of the team who against all the odds reached the final of the 2007 Rugby World Cup. Matt is the Sports Nutritionist for London Wasps, London Irish, Saracens and Leicester Rugby Clubs.
Matt currently runs his own elite performance based company. This is aimed at elite athletes and corporations and includes all levels of health related performance. He has written the popular Fat Loss Program ‘Four Week Fat Loss’ and ‘Regenerate’ a muscle building anabolic program
More recently Matt has been asked to lead the Loughborough site English track and field team into the 2012 Olympics – co running the nutrition program with Glenn Kearney.
MH: What influenced you to take up the career you have?
Lovell: My mother because she cooked me food when she got back from work, and talked to me. My father, an acupunturist and healer, showed me the power of food, herbs and the mind in terms of healing the body. Oh...and Bruce Lee.
MH: What type of athletes/competitors do you work with?
Lovell: Fifty percent of them are elite rugby players. But, I also work with those that are into triathlons, golf, track and field...to boxing – basically all kinds of athletes, both professional and recreational. I’ll also work with your grandma if she needs help!
MH: If you could sum up your Nutritional Philosophy in a couple sentences, what would that be?
Lovell: If it were a cake, it'd be made from a paleo spong with special biochemistry icing!
MH: Having said that, would a Pale- Type Nutritional Template be in order for most athletes?
Lovell: Yes, I think this is the best way to go for athletes and general health. What you do by embracing the paleo principles, is to cut out all the crap that most people eat all the time – plus increase the nutrient density of all the foods you consume. I really like the ‘hunter gatherer’ mentality too. Work for your food, earn your feeds by training hard and intensively. The whole under-eating and over-eating also goes with the paleo territory. We know under-eating and training increases adaptation. Plus, when you over feed, all kinds of good things happen hormonally...if you combine this with training. The low carb approach, which results from choosing paleo foods, also assists improved body composition. So, you get it all really - increased health, hormonal profile and body composition!
MH: If carbohydrate loading and sugary pre-training drinks aren't the answer, then where would a competitor get energy for their sport. Basically, your stance on carbohydrates and athletes.
Lovell: Right. This is where I would defer to the biochemistry icing on the cake. So I do like the low carb approach – but you can get this way wrong if you over stress this at the expense of carb loading strategies closer to and during the event. What you want is fat-adapted athletes, with maximum carbohydrate stores – right before the event. So, I would add back in healthy carbs on top of the paleo base. I'd also use sports drinks with special sugar mixes, vitargo, aminos, kreb cycle stuff, lactate buffering stuff – all that and more in and around events, games, matches and bouts.
What you have to do when considering all this is to know which systems are letting you down. It could be central fatigue, peripheral fatigue, lack of substrate (carbs) – and brain energy. Then, put the protocols into place according to the individual, their position and requirements.
MH: Do many athletes come to see you for advice with anabolics?
Lovell: No, if they did, I’d tell them to get off. I have to be squeaky clean in my job, as the athletes I work with are hounded by the drug testers. For some reason, people think we’re up to no good. It’s just that my nutritional programs are so effective! I do, however, look at hormones and natural ways to enhance and balance hormone levels. With older and non-drug tested clients, I'd look to balance hormone levels with herbs, nutrients, glandular and bio identical hormones. I should stress that all of this is checked and signed off by a doctor I work closely with - Dr. Serrano.
If I had a £1 for every adrenal stressed client – well, I’d buy you a pint!
MH: Is it your belief that someone can effectively manipulate their hormones for an anabolic effect, like The Anabolic Diet by Dr. Mauro Di Pasquale?
Lovell: Yes, Pasquale is an excellent read. He’s one of those guys who lead the way in terms of nutrition, supplementation and the like. Increasingly, even the mainstream nutritionists and academics are realizing you need to manipulate macro nutrients just like training plans so the body doesn't stagnate.
MH: Where do most athletes go wrong in regards to nutrition?
Lovell: They eat like normal people and they eat too many grains. They under eat the correct fats, they are deficient in zinc, magnesium, b-vitamins and they don’t have the right balance of bacteria in their guts. They under recover and don’t eat enough vegetables. Wow, the list goes on...
I would say 80 percent of the guys I test are deficient in all the areas above…
MH: How important are essential fatty acids and fish oils to human nutrition?
Lovell: Well, the answer is in the question...they are essential! And I would say pandemically deficient. The key thing with these fats is you need them all in the right balance. It’s easy to go overboard on EPA and DHA and forget about GLA, and even AA. You can give yourself GLA deficiency if you over supplement fish oils – you need to protect the oils as well with enough vitamin E and other antioxidants. You need to be careful when using these and I would always get an RBC fatty acid test done at least once per year to see how your fats are coming along.
The other thing to remember when doing these tests are: they're only as good as the population group they're measured against. If you're still showing deficiency compared to a load of college students, then you’d better get on the case and address this.
These fats influence every cellular function! Because the cells are made from fat, having the wrong balance will alter cellular function. Additionally inflammation pathways are controlled through these fats and athletes, especially contact sport athletes, need these fats for recovery and repair.
On inflammation – a quick point – you do need some, so don’t overdo the anti-inflammatories too close to the workout, as it’ll blunt adaptation. It’ll make you feel better the next day, but across a few weeks you won't adapt as well as someone who takes them later in the day. As a result of this, I’d use GLA, AA, and sats earlier and EPA, DHA later in the day after the body has begun to heal itself.
MH: If you could think of one thing out there in the world of nutrition that's overblown, what would it be?
Lovell: Supplementation. It’s weird because we need them, but the supplement companies hype them up so much that it gives sport supplements a bad name. Supplements don’t work unless you eat clean either. A lot of people want the ‘magic bullet’ – but there isn’t one!
MH: Do you have any BASIC ideas for someone with no background in nutrition?
Lovell: If it’s on television, don’t eat it. If it’s in a brightly colored box, don’t eat it! If a tiger tells you it’s good to eat, don’t eat it! Eat like your Grandma told you!
Eat foods as close to nature as possible – eat foods which would spoil if you left them out for two to three days.
That’s only going to be true for a little while longer though.
I heard someone recently left a MD burger in the office of their friend as a joke to smell the place out...three years later they moved out, and it was still there in one piece! That is dead food dude.
MH: Supplements can be confusing to most competitors out there, how important are supplements in today’s world?
Lovell: Very – I know this from 1000’s of tests I’ve run over the years. It's not just from instinct and reading about modern food processing. I know this from symptoms and how they improve once you correct imbalances. But, don’t over use supplements until you’ve built your paleo cake. I have various protocols which I use and the basic one includes, a multivitamin, some good oils – and some pro biotics. Then, we wait and see what else is needed once things are cleaned up a bit in the diet.
MH: What is your stance on the various types of testing out there (hormonal, allergy, etc) for athletes?
Lovell: Sometimes people over test and it’s a waste of money. I’ll only do a test if I think it’ll change my management of a client’s nutrition. That being said, for the elite guys it’s got to be done. At that level, you need to find out all the little things which can be out of balance, because it’s all about the one to two percent benefits you can bring to them through your work.
Having run so many tests, I can now work through symptoms when dealing with the basic clean up. Detailed symptom questionnaires correlate really well with testing – and the other thing to remember is even if a test says NO – I’ll still treat symptoms! As long as the client is not into BS.
That’s because a test is only as good as the population group you are comparing to and the ranges you’ve chosen to be optimal. I work on different ranges, optimal ranges for all the tests I use.
One of the most effective tests I’ve found is the adrenal / thyroid function test – and looking at cortisol / T levels in relation to stress, training and health.
Allergy test wise – it’s a minefield – as even if you come back clear on an IGG or IGA test – skin prick or whatever, you can still be INTOLERANT – to particular foods. The leading allergy clinics in the World still use elimination diets to identify trigger foods and intolerances.
MH- How can someone get in touch with you or follow your work?