TEAMPLAYR SPOTLIGHT: Gavin Mole, EatTrainPerform

In youth sports, athletes often focus on rigorous training regimens and specialized coaching to enhance their performance. However, one vital aspect that is frequently overlooked is nutrition. Recognizing the significance of a well-balanced diet for athletes, Gavin Mole, a former player, veteran soccer coach and licensed sports nutritionist, founded EatTrainPerform—a program aimed at educating athletes, parents, and sports organizations on the crucial role nutrition plays in optimizing performance.

In our latest TEAMPLAYR SPOTLIGHT, we delve into Gavin's soccer background and his journey from playing in England to coaching in the United States. We explore how his personal experiences and health challenges ultimately led him to pursue a career as a sports nutritionist. Gavin shares his perspective on the importance of nutrition for athletes and reveals his human-centered and flexible approach to fueling growth and performance. Furthermore, he elaborates on his company, EatTrainPerform, outlining the various programs and workshops designed to empower athletes with knowledge and practical tools to adopt a performance-focused diet.

Players, parents, and coaches - you don’t want to miss this one. Keep reading to hear what Gavin has to say. 

Note that the following interview was conducted in person and the following text has been edited for conciseness and clarity.

Tell us about your soccer background and how you got connected with North Texas soccer.

Yeah, so I played in England for a while, up to a good level. Then when I was about 21, I basically couldn’t play anymore and kind of had to re-evaluate. So, I stopped playing and I was actually a bit depressed about it.

Fortunately, one of my mates was coaching camps in America and invited me out to come coach some camps and have a bit of fun. I was like “yea, sure why not?!” So, we ended up in Flower Mound for a year of coaching camps for the MLS.

From there, I went back home for a year to get my coaching qualifications. Then spent the next few years bouncing back and forth between coaching in the states and going back to England to continue my licensing courses and go to school.

It was a lot of fun – I got to spend time in cities like Chicago and Cincinnati. By the way, a lot of people talk down on Cincinnati, but I loved it!

After a while, I went back home, and wasn’t really planning on coming back. 

I’d started working for Manchester City and was about to be sent to China as part of their project to help grow the game there – but that kept getting pushed out. Then, I found out I had Celiac’s disease, a disease that makes you sensitive to gluten. That was obviously going to make eating and living in China very difficult.

So, I’d reached out to my friend at Liverpool to see if he could get me a visa to come back to the States. They brought me in, and I’ve been here ever since.

So, how’s your experience in North Texas been?

That was in 2016, and I’ve just started to get used to the North Texas platform (and how crazy it is). But, I’ve coached in multiple states and Texas is by far the most passionate.

When I came over initially with Liverpool, I coached a bunch of different teams primarily on the boys side. It was a really good experience and I owe a lot to them. Eventually I moved over to Sting SC as the Sports Performance Director. So, in addition to coaching my teams, I was running sports nutrition and performance workshops and building material for the club.

I was at Sting for 3 years, and now in the last few weeks have moved to Dallas Surf as the Juniors Director, in charge of U8-U12 age groups.

You’ve obviously got a long coaching resume. Talk to us about your education and training as a sport nutritionist.

I’ve been involved in sports nutrition and fitness forever. That’s all I’ve ever really done. As I mentioned earlier, I’d been going back and forth to England for additional qualifications and degrees. So, in addition to my UEFA B coaching license, I have degrees in both Sports Coaching and Sports Exercise Science, which focuses on nutrition, biomechanics, and strength and conditioning.

On top of my undergraduate degrees, I’ve just finished my postgraduate from the Institute of Sports Nutrition. So, through those qualifications, I’m a licensed sports nutritionist through the British Dietetics Association.

 Why is nutrition so critical for an athlete?

I’d say the best way to describe it is that, especially in North Texas, everybody has a trainer for something.

You have your team training for your skills. You have extra private training for more skills. Then maybe you have a strength and conditioning trainer to improve your strength or speed or agility… and yet, everybody overlooks the fact that none of that works unless you’re eating correctly.

All of those things are affected by what you’re putting into your body.

Every professional organization has sports nutritionists on staff.

Now, traditionally in some of the organizations I’ve worked in they were very strict about what you could eat and what you couldn’t.

My approach is more flexible, more human first. I try not to encourage people to make big changes right away and actually focus on just fueling the growth of the athlete.

Even outside of performance on the pitch, I believe it’s essential that our kids understand how to build and follow a healthy diet. That’s a lifelong skill.

You’re obviously very passionate about this – so passionate that you’ve built a program to help educate athletes, their parents, and sports organizations on the importance of nutrition. Can you tell us more?

Definitely. So, my company is called EatTrainPerform, and really it’s just like it sounds. We’re teaching people to eat the correct way, so that when you train, you can perform at your best.

The program is structured around a nutritional pyramid for athletes. At the base of the pyramid, we focus on energy availability to make sure the athlete has enough fuel for the work. A large part of that is ensuring that the right foods are available at the right times. We all live busy lives, so we also talk about how to integrate a quality, performance focused diet into a busy schedule.

From there, we offer a variety of programs whether it’s educating about how specific types of foods impact your body or performance or specialized programs such as nutrition for female athletes, and so on.

I’m sure some of the parents reading this are thinking – “no way this works for my kid, it’s already hard enough to get them to eat anything other than pizza.” What advice do you have for them to help their athlete follow a more performance focused diet?

Well, my main advice is probably contrary to what people would think I’m going to say… 

Let them eat what they want to eat.

It’s important to teach kids that there are no “good” or “bad” foods. One of the biggest problems we have as nutritionists today, is all of the social media fear mongering we have telling everyone that every food they find in the grocery store is unhealthy, with no science or data to back it up.

When I do my workshops, people are usually surprised when I recommend Gummy Bears as fuel for soccer players or drinking chocolate milk after a game for recovery.

I’d also say, don’t make food a reward for this or that. Kids need to understand their own hunger signals, they need to know when they're full and when they need to eat. That’s how they grow and learn how to manage their own diet.

So, without going into too much detail, that’d be my main advice.

You’ve given us some teasers, but can you talk more about what kinds of programs EatTrainPerform is offering to the community?

We offer a number of options. Our primary offering though is a group workshop. Whether for a group of players, coaches or parents, we run an in-person session where we provide an overview of what a performance-based nutrition plan looks like and discuss the function each type of food performs for an athlete.

It’s not just a classroom lecture either, each workshop has multiple activities where participants get some hands-on learning experience.

For those that prefer to learn on their own, we’re also going to release an eBook to get people started with the basics.

Then, those who want to dive deeper can sign up for our monthly membership, where we provide educational videos, Q&As, recipes, social media graphics you can share, and more.

All of the material is interactive, reusable, and very affordable… and we’ve got more coming!

Where can people find you and keep up with EatTrainPerform?

Our website is www.eattrainperform.us … and on social media feel free to add me on Facebook at Gavin Mole.

Gavin, thanks so much for joining us today. I think our readers are really going to enjoy this one. 

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