Kassidy Johnson RDN on the Fear of Weight Gain & Competing While Unsponsored

" I believed that what it took to get back to where I was year before was I needed to lose weight, so kinda overnight did a whole 180—was restricting food, was counting calories, just kind of trying to lose weight. But it was all under the guise of being dedicated to my sport," shares Kassidy Johnson, now a Division 1 collegiate sports dietitian. 

Johnson is not only a helping collegiate athletes fuel adequately and navigate their fear of weight gain, she's also training and competing at high level of sport as an unsponsored athlete. She's currently training for, and will soon compete in, the US National Track Championships. She recently ran an 800m PR of 2:00.7 after, as she put it, "significant weight gain" post-college. 

We talked with Johnson about: 

• Working full time in collegiate sports while also training and competing at track meets
• How she knew she wasn't ready to be done running and competing, even when her NCAA eligibility was up and she had no sponsor
• Her experience in sports in high school, and how a basketball injury triggered what would become years of disordered eating and chronic injuries, while also eventually studying nutrition in college as a student athlete
• Finding a master's program in dietetics that also allowed her to continue running
• Why she came back to sports nutrition as a specialty, and what she loves helping athletes navigate 
• The fear of weight gain that plagues so many athletes/sports (and, our general culture around "health")
• Nutrition trends she's seeing in college athletics
• and, of course, bicab. 

Follow Kassidy Johnson on Instagram @KassidyJeane. 

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