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Welcome to Issue 23 of my Newsletter.

In tournament football, there has to be a winner.

That is part of what makes major tournaments so compelling.

Every match carries consequence.
Every goal matters.
Every mistake is magnified.
Every decision is analysed.
Every result becomes a story.

But sport is not always fair in the way it distributes outcomes.

A team can prepare well and lose.

A team can play poorly and win.

A player can follow the plan and still underperform.

A practitioner can do excellent work and still be part of an unsuccessful campaign.

That can be hard to sit with.

Especially in performance environments, where so much attention is placed on results.

Win, and the preparation looks right.

Lose, and people start asking what went wrong.

But when it comes to nutrition support, and applied practice more broadly, we need to be careful.

Because a losing outcome does not automatically mean the nutrition intervention failed.

Outcomes matter, but they are not always clean feedback

Of course, outcomes matter.

Sport is not an abstract exercise.

The goal is to perform.
To compete.
To recover.
To be ready.
To win where possible.

Nutrition support should contribute to those outcomes.

But the match result is not a clean measure of whether the nutrition intervention worked.

Football matches are influenced by many things.

Tactical decisions.
Technical execution.
Opposition quality.
Selection.
Injuries.
Travel.
Fatigue.
Refereeing decisions.
Weather.
Psychology.
Momentum.
Individual errors.
Luck.
Finishing quality.
Defensive organisation.
Game state.
Penalties.
The random bounce of a ball.

Nutrition is part of the performance system.

But it is not the whole system.

So if a team loses, it does not automatically follow that the nutrition plan was wrong.

And if a team wins, it does not automatically prove that the nutrition plan was right.

This is an important distinction for practitioners.

Because if we confuse outcome with causation, we can learn the wrong lesson.

The trap of “my intervention didn’t work”

Practitioners can be hard on themselves.

That is not always a bad thing.

Reflection matters.
Accountability matters.
Professional standards matter.
Honest review matters.

But there is a difference between reflection and over-attribution.

After an unsuccessful outcome, it is easy to think:

My intervention did not work.

Or worse:

I am not a good practitioner.

That may sometimes be true.

Sometimes the plan was wrong.
Sometimes the assessment was incomplete.
Sometimes the advice was unrealistic.
Sometimes the communication was poor.
Sometimes the intervention was not followed.
Sometimes the practitioner missed something important.

We should be honest about that.

But sometimes, the intervention did exactly what it was supposed to do.

It improved fuelling.
It supported recovery.
It reduced gastrointestinal risk.
It helped the athlete feel more prepared.
It improved consistency.
It supported training quality.
It reduced uncertainty.
It created a better food environment.
It helped the player arrive at the match ready.

And the team still lost.

That does not necessarily mean the intervention failed.

It may mean the intervention worked, but the outcome was determined by other factors.

Nutrition is usually a contributing factor, not the deciding factor

In sport, nutrition is rarely the single deciding factor.

It is usually a contributing factor.

That does not make it unimportant.

Quite the opposite.

Good nutrition support can help athletes train better, recover better, adapt better, tolerate competition demands, reduce avoidable problems, and arrive prepared.

But it does not guarantee the result.

A well-fuelled player can still miss a chance.

A well-recovered team can still be tactically outplayed.

A well-hydrated athlete can still make a poor decision under pressure.

A carefully planned strategy can still be disrupted by injury, travel, illness, selection, or opposition quality.

That is why we need to be careful with the language of “worked” and “didn’t work”.

The better question is not simply:

Did we win?

The better question is:

Did the intervention improve the thing it was designed to improve?

That is where meaningful evaluation begins.

What was the intervention supposed to do?

Before judging whether an intervention worked, we need to know what it was intended to influence.

Was the goal to improve match-day fuelling?

Reduce gastrointestinal discomfort?

Improve recovery between fixtures?

Support body composition maintenance?

Increase energy availability?

Improve hydration status?

Support training quality?

Improve adherence?

Reduce decision fatigue?

Create consistency in a difficult environment?

Improve confidence?

Support readiness for the next performance?

Each of these outcomes can be evaluated more meaningfully than the match result alone.

For example, if the goal was to reduce gastrointestinal problems and the player tolerated the match well, that part of the intervention may have worked even if the team lost.

If the goal was to improve carbohydrate availability for repeated high-intensity work, and the player completed the match with better perceived energy, that is useful feedback.

If the goal was to improve recovery between matches, then the relevant indicators may include appetite, soreness, energy, sleep, training readiness, and performance markers in the next session.

The match result matters.

But it is not the only outcome.

And it may not be the most appropriate outcome for evaluating the nutrition intervention.

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Figure 23. Outcome Is Not the Same as Causation. A match result is influenced by many factors. Nutrition support should be evaluated against the outcomes it was designed to influence, not only the final score.

Winning can hide poor practice

There is another side to this.

Winning can make poor practice look better than it was.

A team might win despite poor fuelling.
An athlete might perform well despite poor recovery.
A player might get away with a poor match-day routine.
A supplement might be credited for a performance it did not cause.
A practitioner might assume the plan was effective because the result was positive.

This is just as risky.

If losing can make us over-blame the intervention, winning can make us over-credit it.

Both are forms of poor reasoning.

In practice, we need to learn from outcomes without being fooled by them.

That means reviewing the process, not just the result.

What was planned?
What was implemented?
What actually happened?
What changed?
What did the athlete report?
What objective or practical indicators were available?
What else might explain the outcome?
What should we keep, adjust, or stop?

That is how practitioners improve.

Not by reacting emotionally to winning or losing, but by interpreting outcomes carefully.

“It’s not you, it’s them” — sometimes

There is also a human side to this.

Sometimes, a nutrition intervention does not produce the intended outcome because the athlete, client, or team did not implement it.

That does not automatically mean they are at fault.

There may have been good reasons.

The plan may have been too complicated.
The timing may not have worked.
Food may not have been available.
The athlete may not have understood the purpose.
The strategy may not have fitted their routine.
They may have been anxious, tired, distracted, or overloaded.
They may not have trusted the plan.
The environment may have made adherence difficult.

In those cases, the practitioner still has something to learn.

But it is not always a failure of knowledge.

Sometimes the science was appropriate, but the implementation failed.

Sometimes the plan was sound, but the context blocked it.

Sometimes the athlete chose differently.

Sometimes the team environment did not support the behaviour.

Sometimes the intervention needed better communication, not better physiology.

This is why we should avoid both extremes.

Do not blame the athlete too quickly.

But do not blame yourself automatically either.

Instead, ask:

What actually happened between the recommendation and the outcome?

That is often where the answer sits.

The importance of process evaluation

Good practitioners evaluate process as well as outcome.

Outcome asks:

What happened?

Process asks:

How did it happen?

Did the athlete follow the plan?
Was the plan realistic?
Was the food available?
Was the timing practical?
Was the message understood?
Were there barriers?
Was the intervention matched to the problem?
Did the athlete respond as expected?
What changed between plan and execution?

This matters because two identical outcomes can have very different explanations.

An athlete may underperform because they were poorly fuelled.

Or they may underperform despite being well fuelled because of tactical, technical, psychological, or opposition-related factors.

A client may fail to lose body fat because the plan was inappropriate.

Or they may fail because the plan was appropriate but not implemented consistently.

A team may recover poorly because nutrition support was inadequate.

Or because travel, sleep, fixture congestion, emotional stress, or training load overwhelmed the recovery window.

Without process evaluation, we are guessing.

And guessing can lead us to change the wrong thing.

What this means for practitioners

One of the marks of a developing practitioner is learning how to separate:

What I controlled​
from
​What I influenced​
from
​What I did not control at all.

Nutrition practitioners rarely control the final outcome.

They influence parts of the system.

That influence can be meaningful.

But it is still influence, not control.

This is especially true in sport, where performance emerges from many interacting factors.

The practitioner’s responsibility is to do good work within their area of influence.

Understand the problem.
Use the evidence well.
Consider the context.
Communicate clearly.
Support implementation.
Monitor the response.
Review honestly.
Adjust appropriately.

That is what professionalism looks like.

Not guaranteeing success.

Supporting better preparation, better decisions, and better performance conditions.

Applied Practice Takeaways

When reviewing an intervention after an unsuccessful outcome, ask:

1. What was the intervention designed to influence?​
Do not evaluate a nutrition strategy only against the final score or overall result.

2. Was the intervention implemented as intended?​
A plan cannot be judged fairly if it was not followed, understood, available, or practical.

3. What other factors may have influenced the outcome?​
Sport performance is multifactorial. Nutrition is important, but it is rarely the only variable.

4. What process indicators can we review?​
Look at fuelling, recovery, symptoms, readiness, adherence, confidence, and feedback from the athlete or team.

5. What should change next time?​
Keep what worked, adjust what did not, and avoid overreacting to the result alone.

The practical point

Losing does not automatically mean the nutrition intervention failed.

Winning does not automatically mean it worked.

The result matters, but it is not the whole story.

Good practitioners learn to review outcomes carefully, interpret causation cautiously, and evaluate the process honestly.

Sometimes the intervention needs to change.

Sometimes the implementation needs to improve.

Sometimes the context got in the way.

Sometimes the athlete or team did not follow the plan.

And sometimes, you did good work in a system where the final result was shaped by factors beyond your control.

That is not an excuse.

It is reality.

The job is not to take credit for every win or blame for every loss.

The job is to keep improving the decisions, processes, and support that give athletes the best possible chance to perform.

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To better practice,
​Dr Laurent Bannock