It’s Not Talent — It’s What You’re Eating: Kelsey Poulter on Performance Nutrition That Works

THE RUNNING EFFECT PODCAST

Dominic Schlueter

Running, Sports

4.8 • 686 Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What happens when you combine deep science with real-world results—and package it all in a way that actually makes sense to young athletes?

You get Kelsey Poulter.

In today’s episode, we’re joined by the founder of Next Level Athletes, a sports nutrition expert who has quickly become one of the most trusted voices in the performance space. With a background in Exercise Physiology and a skyrocketing online presence that’s grown from 2,000 to over 450,000 followers in just over a year, Kelsey is proof that authenticity, clarity, and results still win.

Kelsey is on a mission to help athletes—from high school hopefuls to pros in the MLB—turn food into a performanceweapon. She believes nutrition is wildly underutilized in sports and calls it the “separator” that most athletes are missing.

Kelsey likes to talk about how elite outcomes require elite actions—often the boring, consistent ones no one wants to talk about. In this episode she dives into the real difference between eating for general health and eating for performance, why sugar and carbs are absolutely essential for athletes, and how to rethink popular nutrition trends like skipping breakfast, cutting out food groups, or obsessing over seed oils.

Whether you’re a coach, a parent, or an athlete chasing your potential, this episode is packed with perspective-shifting advice that can help you level up—without losing your mind.

Tap into the Kelsey Poulter Special.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	One of the big ones is it's not even just about nutrition, but it's just like the idea,
0:08.0	and we have different posts surrounding it, but the idea that average actions will provide
0:14.6	average results and elite actions will provide elite results. And so a lot of people, like the athletes who get
0:23.8	do the most boring work is usually the most elite athletes because that boring work is what
0:30.7	is required to become elite. Kelsey Poulter, welcome to the Running Effect podcast, a pleasure and privilege to say those words.
0:41.1	How are you doing this morning?
0:42.2	I'm so good.
0:43.2	I'm excited to be here, Dom.
0:44.9	So many things we could dive into and so many things we will dive into.
0:48.4	But I think just a base question to get us started, who are you?
0:52.4	And what is it that you do? If you're in the grocery store
0:55.8	or you run into someone and they're like, hey, what do you do for a living? What do you, what's your
0:59.6	calling and mission in life? What would you reply with? Yeah, my name, obvious is Kelsey Poulter.
1:04.7	I am the owner, founder and owner of next level athletes. It's a business where we help
1:10.6	high level high school collegiate and even professional
1:14.4	athletes double up their game with nutrition.
1:17.9	It's nutrition is something that is wildly underutilized in the sports world.
1:23.7	And it's going to quickly become the standard, but I call it a separator right now and we yeah
1:30.9	we work with athletes through different different programs to help them make what they're doing
1:36.9	actually count so I love it we started talking a few months ago and started discussing doing an
1:43.5	episode with each other.
1:44.6	I could be wrong on this, although I don't think I am. I think back in earlier this year,
	...

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