Eyesight, Sporting Achievements and Culture
TRIBEathlon Podcast
Episode 35: Claire Fudge works with athletes to optimise their nutrition for performance and is a competitive Ironman athlete herself; she describes nutrition as the '4th Discipline' and works with a wide range of athletes including pro's, age groupers, dancers, triathletes, ultra-runners and cyclists, as well as helping athletes with eating disorders.
I wanted to chat to Claire to understand how we can use our approach to nutrition to improve our performance, how we can all improve our health through our diet as well as debunk some of the food myths that are out there.
Recent Health Matters
Last week was the end of an era for me; I’ve been wearing glasses for 15 years, until I let a cycling mad South African fire a laser into my eyes last week.
Life without glasses is taking a little getting used to but the reason I am sharing this with you is that I can’t recommend London Vision Clinic highly enough. They were amazing, and I have taken a number of lessons away from the experience to use for our business.
Laser eye surgery is quite a scary thing (it was for me anyway) so the way they approach it is so important, and they do an incredible job. They aren’t the cheapest, but if someone is going to laser my eyes, I want it to be done by the best in the business, and they certainly gave me that impression.
If you want to learn more about it, they have a guide to the different treatments and a guide to the procedure. Alternatively, if you want to take over where I left off, you can still buy the iconic ‘Charlie Reading Glasses’ on Amazon here!
TED Talk I’ve found Interesting
When you look at sporting achievements over the last decades, it seems like humans have gotten faster, better and stronger in nearly every way. Yet as David Epstein points out in his delightfully counter-intuitive talk Are athletes really getting faster, better and stronger?, we might want to lay off the self-congratulation. Many factors are at play in shattering athletic records, and the development of our natural talents is just one of them. A really interesting watch.
Podcast I’ve Been Listening To
Michael Phelps and Grant Hackett are two legends of the swimming world, so when paired together and interviewed by Tim Ferriss it makes for a brilliant podcast.
They talk about competing, overcoming adversity, must-read books, dealing with depression and much more. It is fascinating to hear 2 athletes at the very top of their game; Phelps being probably the greatest swimmer of all time with an astonishing 28 Olympic medals, and Hackett with 26 gold at Olympic, Commonwealth, and World Championships levels, talk about the mental lows they went through and their approach to success.
What I’ve Been Watching
I don’t watch many TV series but having travelled South East Asia myself, I was compelled to watch The Serpent on iPlayer. It tells the true story of the crimes of serial killer, Charles Sobhraj, who murdered young tourists between 1975–1976 in Thailand and other areas popular with the hippie backpacking culture at the time. It would be a great story if it were fiction, but he fact that it is true just makes it even more enthralling.
Quote of the Week
‘A fit body, a calm mind, a house full of love. These things cannot be bought – they must be earned.’
- Naval Ravikant
Finance Theme I’ve Been Considering
One element of the culture we have built at Efficient Portfolio is ‘constant and never-ending improvement’. On 2nd March 2021 we were officially awarded our BS 8577 certification, making us one of a small but growing group of financial planning firms in the UK to have achieved this prestigious award. British Standards, in this case the BS 8577, are designed to assess and award financial planning firms who can demonstrate that they have the operational framework in place to deliver a first-class service to their clients.
We are incredibly proud to have been awarded this accolade, especially to have achieved it during the global pandemic, as it demonstrates that the business we have built operates at the highest possible level. It really is testament to the efforts of the EP team that have allowed us to achieve this, so a huge thanks and congratulations goes out to them.
