The Code: A Guide to Health and Human Performance

Amanda Theodore is training for the 2028 Olympic Trials marathon with Pop-Tarts before most runs and a hard lesson about what happens when athletes eat too little instead of too much.
 
Amanda joins Dr. Andrew Fix for a conversation about marathon training that moves well past splits and mileage logs. She talks openly about the eating disorder she developed at Duke, the femoral neck stress fracture that followed, and why she waited until she had recovered from disordered eating before starting her path toward becoming a sports dietitian. What does recovery actually look like when your sport depends on discipline around eating? For Amanda, it means dropping the all-or-nothing mindset entirely. Dessert most days, a gluten-free Pop Tart before runs, a four-to-one carb-to-protein shake after them. The science stays in place. The rigidity does not.
 
She and Dr. Fix dig into why under-fueling carries far greater risk than over-fueling, especially for young athletes still figuring out what their bodies need, and why disordered eating patterns often hide behind the language of discipline. Amanda shares how routine bloodwork caught low ferritin levels early in her marathon buildup and how she scaled back training for three weeks rather than push through it. The two also trade notes on the unglamorous habits that keep athletes healthy enough to show up on race day, the warm-ups, cool-downs, and few minutes of mobility work on the living room floor. As Amanda puts it, getting to the start line healthy is sometimes the harder win.
 
Quotes
"If you feel like you need help, you need help." (11:20 | Amanda Theodore)
"It's really hard to overeat as an athlete, and it's really easy to undereat, and the consequences of undereating are much greater than the consequences of overeating." (39:51 | Amanda Theodore)
"When you're talking about overeating and under-eating, I think society pushes a lot of weight with that. But how are your labs looking?" (44:13 | Amanda Theodore)
"You can't just have a supplement and expect that it's going to fix everything." (50:13 | Amanda Theodore)
"If you have a goal, don't let anybody tell you that you can't do it." (51:30 | Amanda Theodore)
 
Links
 
Connect with Amanda Theodore:
Follow Amanda on Instagram
Tracksmith Stamata: Team Biographies
 
Amanda Theodore is an elite marathon runner and dietetics graduate student living and training in Colorado. After competing for Duke University and Florida State University in college, she set new goals at the marathon distance, running a personal best of 2:34 at the 2025 Boston Marathon. She has since qualified for the 2028 US Olympic Trials in the marathon and competes for Tracksmith Stamata. She is passionate about nutrition, with her perspective having been shaped by years of learning how proper fueling and recovery can contribute to a sustainable and fulfilling athletic career. 
 
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From behind the wheel on a travel day fueled by too little sleep and too much airport food, Dr. Andrew Fix breaks down what it takes to protect your training, nutrition, and sanity when travel throws your routine into chaos.
 
Two flights, two little ones, and a 2 a.m. wake-up call set the stage for a candid look at what happens when the ideal routine falls apart under the weight of travel. Andrew shares how he and his wife handled beer, pizza, and broken sleep without spiraling, and why he refuses to let his wearable data dictate his mood the morning after a rough travel day. Consistency on the road might be the workouts you squeeze in, the food choices you make at the airport, or how fast you get back to normal once you land.
 
Between packed protein shakes, two gym sessions squeezed in while visiting family, and an honest take on why he won't stress over a bad recovery score, Andrew makes the case for intuitive movement and eating over rigid rules. He closes with a challenge worth sitting with before your next trip. Are you planning your travel around your goals, or only your itinerary?
 
Quotes
"Ate some things that I don't eat every single day, some sweets and whatnot. Had a bunch of pizza last night .I'm not overly concerned about that because we're gonna get back here, we're gonna get back on track." (03:42 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
“Try to maintain some semblance of a schedule from a fitness perspective. We went for a walk or two and didn't just completely sit around, which is so easy to do when you're home, you're visiting family, you're spending time hanging and talking with relatives.” (04:17 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
"I'm guessing if I look at my watch app or my Oura Ring app, it's gonna probably tell me that my sleep was low, that my recovery is low. What I'm just gonna try not to do, not that I shouldn't pay attention to that, is I'm just gonna try not to get concerned about it, get worried about it." (05:33 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
"Can you pack some high fiber, high protein snacks and stay hydrated? That's gonna go a long way to keeping you on track with your goals when it comes to traveling and navigating the food." (07:33 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
"You don't need to make your trip all about the fitness or all about the food or anything like that. You just need to intuitively eat, intuitively move." (08:28 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
 
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Mental performance coach Stacy Ingram reveals why teen athletes with the most talent still hit a wall when they haven't trained the mental side.
 
Talent gets an athlete to the starting line, but mental toughness is what decides who's still standing at the finish. Dr. Andrew Fix sits down with Stacy, founder of Catalyst Mental Performance, to explore why so many young athletes build their entire mindset around results and what happens when injury, a slump, or the end of a season pulls that identity out from under them.
 
Ingram breaks down her IGNITE framework and explains why the difference between coaching and therapy matters more than most people realize. She and Fix dig into a question worth sitting with: what actually happens in your brain and body when the pressure is highest, and are you training for that moment or just hoping to survive it?
 
From free throw lines to final exams to high pressure moments at work, the conversation makes a compelling case that nervous system regulation and self-talk are skills, not personality traits. Ingram also gets honest about the gap between wanting to change and being ready to do the work, and what parents and coaches can do to spot the difference.
 
Whether you coach athletes, raise one, or just want to perform better under your own version of pressure, this episode offers a practical look at what separates those who thrive under pressure from those who crumble.
 
Quotes
"Without the sport or like a big job you might have had or a career, if you don't know who you are as a person, you take that away and all of a sudden you have this huge gap of confidence because what made you you, at least in your mind, is gone." (12:54 | Stacy Ingram)
"Therapy is really all about sort of how did you get here and looking a little bit more backwards, where coaching is all about how do like you're here, no matter how you got here, how do we move you forward?" (20:01 | Stacy Ingram)
"We often aren't playing our best game when we're only focused on the score. And again, it doesn't mean we don't always want to win. Of course we want to win. But we want to do the things that give us the best chance." (34:37 | Stacy Ingram)
"If you do nothing or implement nothing I teach you, nothing will change." (49:36 | Stacy Ingram)
"Being intentional about our actions and our life instead of just letting things happen to us, kind of guiding that path and how we do that ourselves intentionally versus letting other people pick and choose it for us." (54:23 | Stacy Ingram)
Connect with Stacy Ingram:Visit the Catalyst Mental Performance Website
Follow the Catalyst Mental Performance on Facebook
Stacy Ingram is a dedicated Mental Toughness coach specializing in empowering young
athletes and performers to overcome the invisible barriers that often hinder their performance. With a focus on the mental side of the game, her programs are designed to equip athletes and performers with the cognitive tools and resilience needed for success both in sports/the arts and in everyday life.
Programs are also available for teams, coaches, and parents. In addition, she coaches
business leaders in Peak Performance, Team Dynamics, Change Management, Leadership,
Culture, and more.
In addition to Stacy's 30-year business career, she has specialized training in Mindset
Coaching, Positive Psychology, the High Sensitivity Trait, Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), Positive Intelligence (PQ), Neurofeedback and Hypnotherapy.
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Dr. Andrew Fix pushed his body through a full HYROX simulation in the Colorado heat and walked away with a hard lesson about pacing that every first-timer needs to hear before race day.
 
What happens when a plan built on paper meets an actual clock, real heat, and eight stations back-to-back? Andrew found out firsthand at a HYROX simulation held with the team from CrossFit Falcon View. He went out too fast on the ski erg, a decision that cost him on the run that followed, and the pattern repeated throughout the event. Running makes up the majority of HYROX, and it rarely happens on fresh legs, so Andrew breaks down why compromised running deserves a real spot in training plans rather than an afterthought.
 
Fueling gets its own moment too. A single gel packet, taken with intention rather than panic, made a measurable difference in how he handled the back half of the event. Preparing for something he'd never done before came down to one move. Run the simulation, feel the heart rate spike, and test the fueling strategy before it counts on race day.
 
He also gets honest about the discomfort of pushing into unfamiliar territory and admits the experience left him humbled about what he thought he knew going in. HYROX rewards people who compete against their own benchmark rather than the person next to them. His finishing time now becomes a marker to measure against and learn from, not a number to chase blindly. For anyone eyeing a HYROX event this year, this episode offers a real look at what preparation actually demands.
 
Quotes
"Make sure you do a simulation. Get yourself prepared for what the actual race environment is going to feel like rather than showing up on race day." (13:25 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
"You need to practice fueling on some of these longer runs because you're going to have to fuel on these race days." (14:07 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
“You're comparing yourself against your own thing. It doesn't have to be you competing with other people. It's you competing with you.” (16:18 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
"No matter how fit you are, this can still make you feel extremely exhausted." (16:51 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
"It's all part of the learning curve and pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone and doing something that challenges you at the end of the day." (17:10 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
 
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Dr. Andrew Fix once called HYROX dumb, so why did he sign up for the hardest fitness competition of his life anyway?
 
Dr. Andrew Fix records this episode from the parking lot of REI's Denver flagship, prepping for a Run Denver Day event, and uses the moment to talk through his decision to race HYROX this November. He breaks down what the competition actually involves: eight one-kilometer runs split by eight functional stations, sled pushes, wall balls, rowing, and more, all standardized across every city in the world. That global consistency is part of what has turned HYROX into one of the fastest-growing fitness competitions anywhere, but Andrew spends most of the episode on something bigger than the race itself.
 
What happens to your training when nothing is on the calendar? He argues that a real goal, with a real race date attached, changes the entire relationship between effort and motivation. He's honest about the parts of HYROX that make him nervous, including how his legs will hold up during the final wall ball station, and he treats that uncertainty as useful rather than something to avoid. Stress and discomfort, he says, are the stimulus for growth.
 
So what's your version of HYROX? Andrew makes the case that the specific challenge matters far less than the fact of having one. A half marathon, a 14er hike, a dance recital, a fitness show. The finish line matters less than the discipline required to get there and the person you become along the way.
 
Quotes
"We all benefit from having some sort of a goal, some sort of a thing on the calendar." (04:17 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
"It doesn't matter what the thing is. What matters is that when we have something that's on the calendar, it gives us something to work towards. It gives us a light at the end of the tunnel and it gives us a why." (05:07 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
"When we can train with purpose or train on purpose for something, it keeps us motivated." (05:24 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
"Get out there and do the thing. Put yourself in a scenario that makes you a little bit uncomfortable because we know that stress and discomfort is the stimulus for growth." (15:04 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
"The real benefits can come from the journey of how you got there." (15:36 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
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Running won't outrun your trauma, and therapist Don Harris explains why the fastest people at the finish line are often the ones still carrying the most weight.
 
Don Harris has built a practice and a run club around the same idea: movement helps, but connection does the deeper work. As a therapist who works with both teenagers and adults, he's learned that the question "What's wrong with you?" rarely gets anyone anywhere. "What happened to you?" does. That shift shows up everywhere in this conversation, from how he counsels students to how he built Embrace the Pace, the Denver run club he founded around self-love, wellness, community, and movement rather than pace times.
 
What happens when you stop treating exercise as an escape hatch and start treating it as one piece of a bigger picture? Don and Andrew dig into that question from a few angles, comparing the pull of running with others against the clarity that comes from running alone, and asking why the best ideas seem to show up mid-run. If you had to shop around for a therapist the way you'd shop for any other provider, would you settle for the first opening on the schedule, or would you hold out for someone you actually connect with?
 
The conversation closes on Embrace the Pace's upcoming Run for Denver Day, a free community event on July 20th built to bring Denver's run club scene and wider wellness community together in one place, no matter your club or your pace.
 
Quotes
"Life happened to you. And because life happened to you in a certain way, you're navigating it in the way that you navigate it." (18:41 | Don Harris)
"When are you going to stop running from it and start running towards it? Because it's going to continue to chase you because our body stores everything, whether we acknowledge it or not, whether we talk about it or not, our body is storing all the experiences that happens to us. And while we're running from things, more experiences are happening to us. And so then it becomes the question of do you want to live a heavy life or a light life?" (21:24 | Don Harris)
"Don't just go to a therapist just because they're a therapist. It's 80% connection, relationship rapport, 20% modality of whatever that therapist is using. It doesn't matter how good the therapist is, whatever they specialize in, can you connect with them?" (23:47 | Don Harris)
"This version of yourself has value. It has meaning, it is worth something. And I say when you know your worth, then you add tax to that." (53:31 | Don Harris)
"I always tell people we start and end at the same place, no matter how fast you get there... The pace doesn't matter. You got up, you moved your body, you accomplished something. That is a win." (54:20 | Don Harris)
Links
 
Connect with Don Harris:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamdondreharris/ 
 
Embrace the Pace: https://www.instagram.com/embracethepace.runclub/ 
 
DonDre 'Don' Harris, MSW, SWC, is a trauma-informed therapist, school social worker, and community leader passionate about helping people reconnect with themselves and others. Drawing from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), mindfulness, and strengths-based approaches, he creates spaces where authenticity, healing, and growth can thrive. 
Outside of the therapy room, Don is an ultrarunner and founder of Embrace the Pace: Run Club, where he uses movement as a tool for building community, resilience, and belonging. He believes that every mile, like every step in healing, is an opportunity to embrace the journey rather than rush the destination. Through his work, Don is committed to making mental health and the outdoors more accessible, inclusive, and transformative for all.
 
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What happens to your identity the day you can no longer do the thing you built it on?
 
Dr. Andrew Fix reflects on a recent 5K to explore a question most people avoid. Are you measuring your worth against a version of yourself that no longer exists? He breaks down why running a race and comparing the result to an old personal record ignores everything that has changed along the way, from injuries and surgeries to the demands of raising a family. A little perspective changes the whole picture.
 
The conversation moves beyond running into something bigger. Why do so many people introduce themselves through a job title or a sport they used to play? Dr. Fix shares an analogy he loves, building your identity on a single role or activity is like standing on a football. It feels solid until the moment it isn't.
 
He also calls out a pattern he sees constantly in his practice. People say they used to play softball or throw the ball with their kids, but their shoulder or knee stops them now. Is that really the injury talking, or is it easier to hide behind an old identity than to do the work required to reclaim it?
 
This episode is a challenge to stop living through who you were and start paying attention to who you're becoming. What would change if you answered "What do you do?" with something other than your job?
 
Quotes
"Are you still living in the past, holding on to the things that you used to do and the person that you used to be? Or are you focused on who you are today and the person that you're becoming?" (00:34 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
"We should lead with who we are and what we're becoming now. And we should also not try to have our identity wrapped up necessarily in the things that we do." (04:07 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
"If you try to build your life foundation on top of a football, like on a football, that is a very wobbly foundation to try and stand on." (04:27 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
"If your identity is wrapped up in I am this thing that I do, I am a football player, then that's going to be a very difficult thing when that is stripped away from you, however that happens." (05:32 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
"That's also one of these same things where you're holding on to an identity of something that you're not, in a way, potentially because you're afraid of the truth." (07:28 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
 
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Ben Braverman dropped from 240 pounds and a couple of prescriptions to a sub-3:40 marathon, and he says the real transformation happened somewhere between his ears.
 
Ben joins Dr. Andrew Fix to talk about what actually changes when someone moves from the far end of the wellness spectrum toward something closer to optimization. His story starts with running for beginners in its truest form: a guy on a treadmill who couldn't run a mile, slowly building toward a marathon a few years later. The physical numbers are real: weight loss, a faster marathon, and blood pressure readings that finally started moving in the right direction. But Ben keeps circling back to something harder to quantify. He calls it mental clarity, the sense that decisions got easier, stress got more manageable, and his work and relationships improved almost as a side effect of taking care of his body.
 
What does it actually feel like to operate without a constant mental fog? And how much of that fog do most people simply accept as normal because they've never known anything else?
 
The two also dig into why personal growth rarely moves in a straight line. Ben's second year of running was slower than his first, and a coach's advice to celebrate small wins kept him moving forward when the personal records stopped coming. Andrew frames health less as a finish line and more as seasons of pushing and pulling back, a pattern borrowed from how elite athletes train and recover. Underneath all of it sits one quiet but stubborn idea: consistency, not intensity, is what actually moves people from the left side of the spectrum to the right. The conversation touches on nutrition, sleep, and the discomfort that seems to accompany any real change, landing on a simple idea: the gap between feeling okay and feeling genuinely well might be smaller than most people think.
 
Quotes
"For someone that's never really felt fit, you're always a little tired because you're eating poorly. You're always a little fatigued." (16:07 | Ben Braverman)
"You don't need to be running forty, fifty, sixty miles a week, lifting four to five times a week, cold plunging five times a week, hot yoga three times a week…If you get out there and you run for 30 minutes four times a week, and getting some resistance training two times a week, you probably will see changes if you're on that left side of the spectrum." (23:41 | Ben Braverman)
"If you don't have a coach, you should. I would give it a shot. If you're trying to get faster or just trying to accomplish something, it's helpful to have that expert." (50:42 | Ben Braverman)
“I feel like I process stress better. And I think that's a byproduct of mental clarity. Being able to process the down days." (43:41 | Ben Braverman)
"If you know somebody that's struggling with fitness, like I was on the left side of the spectrum, send them this pod, because you can transform even much later in life." (53:55 | Ben Braverman)
Connect with Ben Braverman:
Connect with Ben on LinkedIn 
The In Good Order Podcast with Ben Braverman
 
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The real test of motivation begins in the morning when life gives you another reason to quit.
 
Motivation, drive, and aging all meet in one honest question. What keeps you moving when your body feels different, the news is hard, or the next step feels heavier than usual? In this episode of The Code, Dr. Andrew Fix reflects on a conversation with a client who felt discouraged after receiving difficult medical updates, and that conversation led to a larger discussion about resilience and the deeper reasons we keep showing up for our health.
 
Andrew talks about the difference between outside pressure and internal drive. A coach, a goal, or a desired outcome can help for a while, but lasting motivation usually comes from something more personal. Maybe you want to stay active with your kids or grandkids. Maybe you want to travel with your spouse. Maybe you want to age with strength, independence, and energy. What reason feels strong enough to bring you back on the days you would rather stop?
 
This episode reframes exercise as part of protecting quality of life. Strength, mobility, reaction time, muscle mass, and resilience all shape how fully we get to live as we age. Healthspan matters as much as lifespan, and progress can be small without being meaningless. The goal is to keep taking the next step toward the life you still want to participate in.
 
Quotes
“What is there as your guiding light, your true north on your compass? What keeps you motivated to wake up the next day and keep going?” (02:02 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
“If you can find what we call an internal motivator, something that is within you, something that you are interested in, something that you want, as opposed to something external…That's what's going to help you get there.” (03:17 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
“I ask you to come back to deeper meaning, what is the why? What is the purpose that you're doing this for?” (07:20 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
“We're not trying to reach the top of the staircase in one step. We're just trying to reach the next step. And the next step in the next step.” (10:59 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
“Whatever you have to do today that is challenging you, I hope you think deep about what motivates you to keep going and use that encouragement to help you push through.” (11:18 | Dr. Andrew Fix)
 
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Red and near-infrared light may be the most underestimated recovery tool in your environment, and the science behind what it actually does inside your cells is far more compelling than the wellness industry gives it credit for.
 
Scott Chaverri didn't set out to build one of the leading red light therapy companies in the country. He was a burnt-out caregiver looking for anything that would help him sleep and function after two years of watching his son fight cancer. He found red light therapy in 2017 and noticed real changes. When the price of adding more panels shocked him, he decided to build his own. Mito Red Light did a million dollars in sales its first year.
 
The science behind photobiomodulation is worth understanding. Red and near-infrared wavelengths penetrate several centimeters into the body and act directly on the mitochondria, accelerating ATP production and triggering downstream effects that include better circulation, reduced inflammation, and a meaningful boost in cellular melatonin. A study on elite female basketball players found serum melatonin levels rose 67% after a single 30-minute session, which lines up with the number one piece of feedback Mito receives from customers: better sleep. Scott's broader argument reframes the whole conversation too. Modern humans spend roughly 93% of their time indoors, and much of what red light therapy accomplishes is correcting a light deficiency most people don't know they have. For the biohacking crowd chasing marginal gains, that reframe matters.
 
Dr. Fix brings a clinician's perspective throughout, connecting photobiomodulation to the laser and dry needling work at PhysioRoom and asking the questions practitioners actually want answered: dosing, distance, timing, device selection, and when a panel outperforms a mask. The episode also gets into the single biggest reason people return their devices without ever giving them a real shot, and it has nothing to do with the technology.
 
Quotes
“Modern humans have very indoor lifestyles and they're sunlight deficient." (08:44 | Scott Chaverri)
"If the cells have more energy at their disposal, they can do their jobs better. And so theoretically, any cell that has mitochondria, which is every cell in the human body except red blood cells, has the potential to benefit from exposure to these wavelengths of light due to that increased ATP production." (11:36 | Scott Chaverri)
"We're spending 93% of our time indoors. And so when they correct the deficiency, they notice that they're feeling better, they sleep better, whatever the case is." (09:01 | Scott Chaverri)
"We just giving it a little bit more energy so it can do its job. It knows what to do. Just have to give it what it needs." (21:50 | Scott Chaverri)
"The sun rises. We're meant to get copious amounts of red and infrared light at dawn. It's the reason why the sky is red at sunrise and sunset, because that's the only wavelengths that are reaching us. And so that is like the signal to wake up." (1:01:40 | Scott Chaverri)
Connect with Scott Chaverri:
Visit The Mito Red Light Website 
Red Light Therapy (@mitoredlightofficial)
 
Scott worked for several Fortune 500 companies, in the business services, medical device, financial services and ecommerce industries. Having dealt with health challenges in childhood and early adulthood, Scott has always been passionate about all things health and wellness. Constantly learning, tinkering and evolving, his goal is to build Mito Red Light Inc into a preeminent health and wellness company empowering people with tools and information to optimize their performance and maximize their health spans.  
 
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