Lionel Sanders insists RED-S injury is ‘blessing’ in disguise as new diet is drawn up

IRONMAN superstar Lionel Sanders insists his enforced four-month lay-off with a fractured sacrum will prove a blessing in disguise as he seeks long-term answers to the dietary-related puzzle which has blighted his health over the last year or so.  

Out of action since winning the IRONMAN 70.3 at St George in May, the 37-year-old Canadian won’t be in peak form in time for the IRONMAN World Championship showdown in Nice after picking up his third bone fracture injury in just 14 months.

Charting his recovery through a series of YouTube VLOGs – the latest of which is embedded into this story below – Sanders believes those fitness issues have all come as a result of the same nutritional condition, medically known as Relative Energy Deficiency, or RED-S.

Balancing act

Concerned that he had suffered a fractured rib and two fractures of the sacrum, Sanders sought specialist advice to determine whether there was a common cause behind his issues – which also included periods of poor sleep and feeling unwell.

RED-S is a condition relatively common among athletes where their calorie intake is not sufficient to balance out the demands of their heavy training. It can lead to poor post-workout recovery and increased risk of fractures at specific weak points.  

While disappointed to have missed out on the IRONMAN World Championship, Sanders is now using his time out of competition to prepare for the future, with a delicately balanced diet already being adhered to as he seeks to find solutions to RED-S.

“This has been a blessing getting injured from the standpoint of it’s allowing me to cultivate new habits that will be integral to me training well when I do get back to full tilt training,” he said. “Right now, I’m still at a very reduced quantity of training, so it’s allowing me to develop habits that are going to allow me to eventually consume 7,000 calories a day. This is now the path toward being able to do that consistently. 

“From not really doing these basic and fundamental things very well in the past, it means I have not been able to string more than four or five months of training together in a while now. Three fractures in 14 months, how could you possibly be stringing training together with three fractures in 14 months? 

“So, therefore, when you do figure out how to string some training together, you just need to be thorough. If my body needs muscle to perform better, and to do these demands that I ask of it, then I’m going to give it the inputs to build that muscle, which I’ve not done in a decade.” 

Lionel Sanders [Photo credit: Getty Images for IRONMAN]

More memes please!

Currently looking to pack away upwards of 6,200 calories every 24 hours, this will eventually rise to 7,000 once back in full competition, with a menu of high-protein meals, snacks and drinks consumed regularly from 7.30am through to 7pm daily. 

His recovery process has certainly caused something of a stir online, with some fans teasing him with humorous memes focused on his food-eating exploits. But that is something he is happy to put up with… so long as they continue to be funny!!!

“As an athlete, this is an absolute fundamental piece of the puzzle here,” he said. “I have every symptom of RED-S, every single symptom. I have quite low testosterone, quite low iron, quite low thyroid hormones and low estrogen. I have the blood work to back that up, including metabolic distress. I sleep like s**t, feel like s**t. You know, those are all symptoms that are more rooted in nutrition.

“I don’t mind if people have a bit of fun with this. No, I’m all for it. I think Triathlon is boring for the most part. And the more fun we have, the better. So make memes please. Give as many negative comments and make as much fun of me as you possibly can. I was shown some of the memes, and there were some good ones. There were some funny ones. Keep it up. 

“I’m not preaching anything, I don’t care. I’m telling you my experience, I’ve done it for 15 years. I’ve had ups and downs, I’ve had stress fractures, I’ve had injuries, I’ve had bad training periods, really good training periods, I’ve had bad races, really good races. And with certainty, there is a correlation between my eating quantity (how many calories) and those ups and downs.”