Fiercely Fueled

There's no shortage of fitness advice online, but how do you separate what's helpful from what's just noise? In this coach chat, Joni and Bela dive into some of the biggest questions they're seeing from athletes and the trends taking over social media. From caffeine and fasted training to comparison, genetics, programming, and the mental side of lifting, this episode is packed with practical takea...

Making weight is one of the most talked about and least understood parts of powerlifting. In this episode, Coach Pia is joined by sports scientist and researcher Gaby Muller to unpack the latest evidence on gut cuts, water cuts, carbohydrate intake, and competition day fueling. Together they separate evidence from tradition, explain why many popular weight-cutting strategies may not be backed by s...

Still avoiding carbs before your workout? You could be leaving strength, performance, and recovery on the table. In this episode, Coach Joni and Coach Bela make the case for why carbohydrates deserve a permanent place in every athlete's nutrition plan. They break down the science behind pre, intra, and post-workout fueling, explain why training fasted isn't always the badge of honor it's made out...

What happens when a successful corporate career no longer feels aligned with the life you want to live? In this special episode of the Fiercely Fueled Nutrition Podcast, Pia joins one of Fiercely Fueled's own athletes, Erla Guðmundsdóttir, as a guest on her podcast for a candid conversation about health, strength, nutrition, and the life-changing power of resistance training.   Pia shares her jour...

In this Research Roundup episode of the Fiercely Fueled Nutrition Podcast, we dive into the long-standing gaps in women's sports science and why female athletes have been consistently underserved in research, coaching, and performance conversations. From hormone fluctuations and menstrual cycle myths to underrepresentation in clinical studies, this episode unpacks how outdated research models have...

In this episode of the Fiercely Fueled Nutrition Podcast, Coach Pia sits down with powerlifter, coach, TEDx speaker, and author Solana Lewis to talk about how strength training can completely transform your life. From competing for over a decade to coaching women of all ages and backgrounds, Solana shares why powerlifting is about so much more than numbers on a barbell.    Together, they dive into...

In this episode of the Fiercely Fueled Nutrition Podcast, Coach Joni sits down with powerlifting coach and United In Strength founder Dennise Bacolas to talk about strength, community, and creating spaces where women feel truly welcome in sport.   Dennise shares her journey from struggling with fitness and body image to discovering powerlifting and falling in love with what the body can do instead...

In this episode of the Fiercely Fueled Nutrition Podcast, Coaches Joni and Bela talk about how summer can challenge your nutrition, training, recovery, and routines. Between vacations, cookouts, lake days, alcohol, late nights, and nonstop "summer body" messaging, it can feel easy to lose consistency or fall into all-or-nothing thinking. They break down how to balance physique goals with performan...

In this episode of the Fiercely Fueled Nutrition Podcast, Coaches Joni and Pia break down one of the most overcomplicated topics in fitness nutrition: hydration and electrolytes. Listen in as they unpack what electrolytes actually do, whether carbs are necessary for hydration, and why social media often makes hydration far more confusing than it needs to be. They explain how carbohydrates can help...

In this episode of the Fiercely Fueled Nutrition Podcast, Coach Bela explores a topic many athletes quietly struggle with: when being an athlete stops being something you do and starts feeling like who you are. Drawing from her own lifelong experience in sports and training, Bela unpacks both sides of athlete identity. On one hand, it can build structure, confidence, discipline, and a strong sense...

In this episode of the Fiercely Fueled Nutrition Podcast, Coaches Joni and Bela talk about what they wish they had done differently when they first started training and how those early choices around food and recovery can shape everything that follows.   They reflect on their own experiences with dieting, chasing smaller bodies, and following low carb trends that ultimately hurt performance. Bela...

In this episode of the Fiercely Fueled Nutrition Podcast, Coach Pia sits down with Dr. Nathan Dailey, a physical therapist who works with powerlifters through the RTS network, to talk about what it really takes to return to lifting after an injury.   Nathan shares his path from endurance sports into powerlifting and how he found his way to the RTS "Emerging Strategies" approach. From there, the co...

In this episode of the Fiercely Fueled Nutrition Podcast, Coach Pia gets real about what it actually looks like to feel stronger, more confident, and more at home in your body, especially in your 40s.   After a recent reel of hers went viral, Pia found herself at the center of some harsh (and very telling) online reactions. Instead of brushing it off, she uses it as a jumping-off point to unpack t...

APPLY FOR COACHING https://10tkto34p7j.typeform.com/to/aI4uHZgU      In this episode of The Fiercely Fueled Nutrition Podcast, Coach Pia hosts Clarice Tighe in a recorded "office hour" style episode discussing major frustrations in strength sports, especially the lack of regulation in powerlifting and fitness coaching and the risks of unqualified coaches giving programming, nutrition, or psycholog...

In this episode of The Fiercely Fueled Nutrition Podcast, Coach Joni and Coach Bela discuss the rapid rise of AI-generated social media accounts in the fitness space. They discuss how AI content is becoming difficult to detect and frequently targets midlife women with menopause/perimenopause weight-loss and muscle-gain claims, and how it can worsen comparison and body-image pressures. Listen in as...

Today on the Fiercely Fueled Nutrition Podcast, we have a special crossover episode recorded with Ross Leppala on The Intentional Athlete. In this episode, Coach Pia is interviewed about how strength training and powerlifting transformed her life. Pia recounts starting as a journalist and aspiring war photographer, moving into banking for financial stability, and later becoming pre-diabetic after...

In this episode of the Fiercely Field Nutrition Podcast, Coach Pia welcomes Winnie Abramson, a photographer and long-time powerlifter, to discuss her decade-plus in the sport, starting after CrossFit and competing in over 35 meets across federations including USAPL, USPA, and Powerlifting America, plus serving as a USAPL referee and making Masters national teams and Masters Worlds in 2022. Winnie...

Get ready for a special "side quest" episode of the Fiercely Fueled Nutrition Podcast, inspired by real conversations from team coaching calls. Clients often bring up powerlifting coaching concerns that go beyond nutrition, so Coaches Pia and Joni dive into the most common red flags they see in coaching relationships, especially in today's unregulated online coaching world. Listen in as they break...

In this episode of the Fiercely Fueled Nutrition Podcast, Coaches Joni and Bella discuss how social media trends shape fitness and nutrition choices. Listen in as they myth-bust several trends such as "fiber maxing," "potassium maxing" for a more chiseled face, and overhydration risks. They also review beetroot concentrate, the viral post-workout Blizzard vs chicken-and-rice claim, not seasoning f...

This episode of the Fiercely Fueled Nutrition Podcast takes a closer look at the culture of strength sports and the nutrition advice athletes are actually getting behind the scenes. Coach Pia sits down with nutrition coach Shania Radke to talk about everything from coaching culture and social media trends to the realities of weight cuts. Together, they unpack how extreme advice spreads online, why...

In this episode of the Fiercely Fueled Nutrition Podcast, Coach Joni and Coach Bela break down something many performance athletes overlook: how you fuel around your workouts can make or break your results.   They explain why most nutrition advice is built for general gym-goers (and often men), and why athletes need a more intentional approach. If you've ever felt nauseous, sluggish, or "off" befo...

In this episode of the Fiercely Fueled Nutrition Podcast, Coach Pia interviews Jared Maynard, a physical therapist, strength coach, and powerlifter from Canada, who shares his harrowing journey of battling a life-threatening condition, HLH (Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis). Jared discusses how his lifelong commitment to strength training unexpectedly fortified him during his critical illness, a...

In this episode of the Fiercely Fueled Nutrition Podcast, Coach Pia welcomes back two-time IPF World Champion, Ross Leppala, to dive deeper into the mental aspects of strength training and powerlifting. They discuss a range of topics, including the importance of internal versus external validation, the challenges of maintaining discipline as one ages, and the profound impact of intentional trainin...

In this episode of the Fiercely Fueled Nutrition Podcast, Coach Pia and Coach Bela take a deep dive into the challenges and misconceptions around dieting and nutrition coaching. Listen in as the discuss the journey of clients who have suffered from poor dietary advice and how they were able to relearn and reshape their nutrition for better performance and overall well-being. Also covered is the da...

In this episode of the Fiercely Fueled Nutrition Podcast, the topic is on overcoming the biggest challenge many individuals face: execution. Coach Pia discusses the common struggle of sticking to goals and offers practical tips on improving execution and time management. Learn about prioritizing tasks, understanding energy leaks, and managing time efficiently using strategies like time blocking, s...