The Games We Play
When you are underfuelled but will do anything to show that you aren’t
Read Time: 10 minutes
Author: Jamie Scott
It is a common pattern. Someone posts their workout meals with pride - perfect timing, appropriate carbs, maybe even calculated to body weight. They're trying. They understand that fuelling matters.
Except that perfect meal or snack is often an island in an ocean of underfuelling. That single session and how it was perfectly fuelled gets all the attention while the daily deficit continues, the rules get more strict, and the resistance to change grows.
I see this constantly in individuals who've come from a history of restriction. Often women. Often very intelligent, educated people who understand nutrition - at least intellectually. Oftentimes nutrition professionals themselves. And the pattern is always the same: token fuelling (typically in the context of a workout/training session) masking continued restriction, and dressed up in seemingly valid rules and endless questions.
Let's take a look at what's actually happening.
Performance That Performs Nothing
Let’s use the example of an individual undertaking athletic training (perhaps even training for an event), 5-6 sessions per week. They're eating 4-5g carbohydrate per kilogram body weight daily when their training outputs demand at least 6-7g/kg. That's at least 50-75g short every single day.
But they'll show the one meal where they got it right. The pre-workout feed that hit 1g/kg body weight. Look, they're fuelling! They get it!
And of course, this is great, and I don’t ever want to give the impression that this effort should be diminished. But when zooming out and looking at the bigger picture, this is display is performative compliance. One well-fuelled session doesn't compensate for ongoing and systematic underfuelling.
It's like claiming you're managing your finances well because you put €20 in savings while spending €100 more than you earn daily. The selective focus allows them to maintain an identity as "someone who fuels properly" without actually eating enough.
Rules That Uphold Restriction
Remember, these individuals often come from a background of dietary restriction and disordered eating. Pay attention to the rules they create around fuelling their training. They're often advanced sports nutrition rules and practices, but applied arbitrarily and almost always out of context for the individual:
“I only need to fuel sessions over 90 minutes.”
”I don’t need carbs for short interval sessions.”
”I don’t to eat during strength training sessions.”
”I don’t need to fuel morning sessions if I eat breakfast straight after.”
”I don’t fuel evening workouts because I’ll eat dinner after.”
”It’s a recovery day, so I don’t need to eat as much today.”
These rules aren't based on the individual’s actual context. They're permission structures designed to restrict energy intake while still appearing reasonable. “I do fuel my training sessions!” [caveat: as long as they are over a certain duration]
Here's the reality: when you're systematically underfuelling, every session matters to your overall energy availability. If you're eating enough overall (truly enough), then yes, you can be more selective and apply more advanced techniques, such as periodised nutrition, carb cycling, etc.
But when you're running a daily deficit while training 5-6 days per week, all sessions need fuel.
These rules around fuelling serve another purpose: they maintain control.
For those with a history of dietary restriction that was severe enough to cause the loss of their menstrual cycle, food is maintained as a primary control mechanism. These arbitrary and decontextualised rules around when to eat and how much create feelings of control and safety. Letting them go feels like losing structure entirely. But these rules ultimately aren't protecting individuals - they're perpetuating the problem.
The Question Cascade
This question cascade is a revealing pattern. As a Nutritionist/Coach, I might have identified the underfuelling issue and have suggested practical solutions: foods with a higher carb density, increased eating frequency, use highly palatable foods and sports products to bypass satiety (lollies, gels, etc.), and drinking carbs rather than eating them.
Then the questions begin.
“But which drink?”
”How much exactly?”
”When should I have it?”
”What if it upsets my stomach?”
”Won’t that spike my blood glucose/insulin/cortisol?”
One question after another after another. Each sounding reasonable in isolation. And don’t get me wrong - asking questions is to be encouraged.
But taken together, they form a pattern: endless information-seeking designed to delay action.
This pattern is particularly striking when it is observed in those people with nutrition qualifications or significant training experience. These are professionals, coaches, and experienced athletes who already know the answers (or they know how to find them). The same person who can cite studies about carbohydrate needs suddenly has endless questions about basic implementation. The same person who says they understand energy balance claims they don't know how to eat more.
Knowledge gets applied when it supports current behaviour and questioned when it challenges it. It's not that they don't know enough. Knowing isn't the problem. They know that the very specific and detailed answers they seek matter less than just starting.
The questions aren't seeking new information or understanding. They already have this. Through these questions, they're managing their cognitive dissonance (the bypassing of the rules which are enforcing the lastest form of restriction, whilst understanding - intellectually - that they need to keep progressing their fuelling).
The questions create the appearance of engagement in the coaching process without requiring behaviour change. They're buying time, seeking permission to continue as-is, or searching for reassurance that they don't really need to change.
When someone intelligent and educated asks question after question about basic implementation (again, especially when they work in this space themselves), they're not confused. They're resistant.
The Fullness Factor
The claim of already being so full almost always follows the recommendation to increase intake. And yes, sometimes it's physically true - chronic underfuelling suppresses appetite and reduces stomach capacity. But oftentimes the fullness is more psychological than physical.
You can tell the difference by their response to specific suggestions. If someone struggles with solid food but embraces liquid carbs or easily digestible options, the issue was genuine stomach capacity. If they resist every suggested option, however - carb drinks are too sweet, gels are too processed, lollies are "junk" - the issue is mostly psychological.
Watch what gets rejected and why. Often, the easiest solutions get dismissed immediately: "Lollies aren't real food. I prefer whole food sources."
There's a moral hierarchy still being applied. Perhaps originally it was “all carbs are bad”, but now it looks more like certain carbs are "good" while others remain "bad". Individuals have learned to regulate their restriction by only eating the "good" ones (perhaps understanding that there are only so many whole carbs one can eat, so it becomes self-limiting to an extent). The restriction has become woven into their sense of self: disciplined, controlled, clean.
But when you're systematically underfuelling your training, nutritional purity is costing you performance and health. A sports drink during training isn't junk food when your body desperately needs the carbohydrate. Context matters more than your food hierarchy.
The Social Element
There's often social reinforcement that goes unacknowledged. Individuals often won’t fuel their training when they are with others who seemingly set the social standard and whose judgement they fear. If it's not common practice in their particular group, even when their own individual context demands it, they do not want to be seen fueling when others aren't.
I’ve seen this particulary in cycling circles, where men and women of a certain vintage claim that all you need is water for rides spanning multiple hours - especially if you have some weight to lose anyway. The culture in these individuals and groups doesn't normalise fuelling early and frequently, and there will be anything from comments made about why someone is eating, to their body weight and appearance, to a refusal to stop.
The fear of judgment among individuals embedded in these social groups is real and reinforces restriction even when they intellectually know better.
The Cost Remains the Same
Every session in deficit digs a slightly deeper hole. Perhaps not ones as deep as one might have been previously in (which itself can perpetuate the problem - “this isn’t so bad, I’ve been worse.”
Performance still plateaus because you're not adapting to training, you're just surviving it. Sleep still suffers due to the low level stress.
Hormonal function remains compromised. If you've lost your period from previous underfuelling, you might find yourself with a wonky anovulatory cycle and teetering on the edge of losing it altogether once again.
Your relationship with food stays dysfunctional. Every meal remains a negotiation. Restriction has shifted from total to fuelling is only permissable when tagged to certain types of training sessions of certain durations. And perhaps in certain company (but not others).
Sports nutrition stays in the "threat" category rather than becoming a neutral tool.
And perhaps most significantly: the pattern self-perpetuates. Underfuelling impairs performance, which creates more stress, which reinforces the need for control, which maintains the restriction.
What Needs to Happen
These rules need to be recognised for what they are: restriction dressed up as rationalisation. If you're underfueling overall, every session needs support.
The self-determined food hierarchy needs to collapse. Context determines appropriateness, not your arbitrary standards.
The identity shift needs to happen. You're not "disciplined" and fuelled by “determination” because you eat less than you need. The discipline is in fuelling adequately even when it feels uncomfortable.
And the reality needs acknowledgment: if you're asking questions instead of acting, showing one good meal while maintaining overall restriction, clinging to rules that minimise intake - you're still restricting. The package looks different but the pattern is the same.
The Harder Truth
This pattern persists because the restriction served a purpose. Control when other things felt uncontrollable. Clear rules in an uncertain world.
Letting it go isn't just about eating more carbohydrate. It's about losing a coping mechanism, no matter how maladaptive it actually is. That's why the resistance is so strong even when someone intellectually understands what needs to change.
If this is you, you probably need support beyond information. A coach who calls out the patterns (with empathy, of course, who won't accept the performance of compliance while the underlying restriction continues. A psychologist who understands disordered eating and exercise dependence.
Because you can keep asking questions, maintaining rules, and showing the one good meal while maintaining the overall deficit.
Or you can acknowledge the pattern, accept it's no longer serving you, and do the uncomfortable work of actually changing. Not performatively. Actually changing
Stop hiding behind rules that protect restriction. Start fuelling your training. All of it. Properly. Even when it's uncomfortable. Even when it challenges your identity. Even when it feels like too much.
Because the alternative is staying exactly where you are, playing games with yourself while calling it progress.
You already know this. You just need to stop pretending you don't.
