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Welcome to Issue 24 of My Newsletter.

Last week, I wrote about why losing does not automatically mean the nutrition intervention failed.

This week, it is worth looking at the other side of the same problem.

Because winning does not automatically mean the strategy worked either.

The World Cup continues to entertain, and as always with tournament football, every result becomes a story.

A team wins, and the preparation looks right.
A team loses, and the preparation is questioned.
A player scores, and their routine is praised.
A player underperforms, and people start looking for explanations.

That is understandable.

Sport is built around outcomes.

But outcomes can mislead us.

A positive result can make a poor process look better than it was.

A win can hide problems that still need attention.

A good performance can occur despite a flawed strategy, not because of it.

And if practitioners are not careful, success can become just as misleading as failure.

Winning is not proof

In sport, winning matters.

No one involved in performance support should pretend otherwise.

The goal is to help athletes and teams prepare, perform, recover, and compete.

But a win is not proof that every part of the preparation was effective.

Football is influenced by many factors.

Tactics.
Technical execution.
Opposition quality.
Selection.
Fitness.
Injuries.
Substitutions.
Refereeing decisions.
Momentum.
Psychology.
Weather.
Travel.
Luck.
A single moment of brilliance.
A single mistake from the opposition.

Nutrition support may have contributed to the outcome.

But it may not have caused the outcome.

A team can win while poorly fuelled.

A player can score despite sleeping badly.

An athlete can perform well despite a nutrition strategy that was incomplete, unnecessary, or poorly followed.

A client can lose weight in a given week despite using a plan that is unsustainable.

A runner can have one good race despite a fuelling approach that may fail under different conditions.

A gym-goer can see short-term body composition change despite adopting habits that are unlikely to support long-term progress.

This is why practitioners need to be careful with positive feedback.

Success feels good.

But it still needs interpretation.

The danger of over-crediting the intervention

When an outcome is positive, it is tempting to credit the thing we changed.

We increased carbohydrate intake, and the athlete played well.

We added a supplement, and the player felt better.

We changed meal timing, and the team won.

We adjusted hydration, and the athlete reported improved energy.

We reduced carbohydrate, and body weight dropped.

We introduced a recovery shake, and soreness seemed lower.

Any of those changes may have helped.

But they may not be the full explanation.

Sometimes the outcome improved because of the intervention.

Sometimes it improved because of other factors.

Sometimes the athlete was more rested.
Sometimes the opposition was weaker.
Sometimes training load was lower.
Sometimes motivation was higher.
Sometimes the athlete simply had a good day.
Sometimes the measurement was noisy.
Sometimes body weight changed because of fluid, glycogen, gut content, or normal variation.
Sometimes the intervention was implemented alongside several other changes.
Sometimes the result was random.

This does not mean the intervention was useless.

It means we should avoid claiming too much too soon.

A positive outcome is a signal.

It is not always proof.

Short-term outcomes can be especially misleading

This is particularly important when we judge interventions over very short timeframes.

A single match.
A single race.
A single weigh-in.
A single training session.
A single week of body composition change.
A single subjective report of energy or recovery.

These observations matter.

But they can be noisy.

In football, one match can turn on a moment.

In endurance sport, one race can be shaped by weather, pacing, course conditions, gut tolerance, competition, or psychology.

In strength training, one session can be affected by sleep, stress, readiness, caffeine, motivation, or technical execution.

In fat loss, one week of scale weight can be influenced by carbohydrate intake, sodium, hydration, menstrual cycle, bowel movements, inflammation, travel, and normal biological variation.

If we overinterpret short-term positive outcomes, we risk keeping a strategy that only appeared to work.

Worse, we may become more confident in the wrong thing.

When success reinforces poor practice

Success can reinforce poor practice because it reduces the pressure to review.

When the outcome is negative, people naturally ask questions.

What went wrong?
What needs to change?
What did we miss?
How do we improve?

But when the outcome is positive, review can become superficial.

We won, so the plan must have been good.
The athlete felt better, so the supplement must have worked.
The scale went down, so the diet must be right.
The session improved, so the fuelling strategy must be correct.

This is where practitioners can get trapped.

They keep doing something because the outcome was positive, even if the process was weak.

They repeat a strategy because it coincided with success, not because it clearly contributed to it.

They mistake correlation for causation.

Over time, this can create false confidence.

And false confidence is dangerous because it stops learning.

The same issue applies outside elite sport

This is not just a football problem.

It happens in almost every area of applied nutrition.

A client loses weight in the first week of a diet and assumes the strategy is perfect.

But perhaps the change was mostly water, glycogen, reduced gut content, or a temporary reduction in food variety.

An athlete performs well after trying a new supplement and assumes the supplement was decisive.

But perhaps they were better rested, better prepared, more motivated, or simply more confident.

A team wins after changing the pre-match meal and assumes the meal was the reason.

But perhaps the tactical plan, opposition, selection, and match dynamics mattered far more.

A recreational athlete has one great training session after increasing carbohydrate and assumes they have found the answer.

But perhaps training load, sleep, caffeine, mood, or recovery status also changed.

A practitioner receives positive feedback and assumes the intervention is robust.

But perhaps the person liked the novelty, expected it to work, or changed several behaviours at once.

Positive outcomes are useful.

But they still need careful interpretation.

Process matters when things go well too

The point is not to be cynical about success.

The point is to review success with the same professionalism we bring to failure.

After a positive outcome, ask:

What did we intend to influence?
Was the intervention implemented as planned?
What actually changed?
What else changed at the same time?
Was the outcome meaningful or just noticeable?
Is the change likely to persist?
Would we expect the same result under different conditions?
What should we continue, adjust, or stop?

This is how practitioners avoid being fooled by good results.

A win should not shut down reflection.

It should sharpen it.

Because if something worked, we want to understand why.

And if something merely coincided with success, we do not want to over-credit it.

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Figure 24. Success Still Needs Interpreting. Positive outcomes can be influenced by many factors. A win, good performance, or short-term improvement should prompt process review, not automatic confirmation.

The goal is not scepticism for its own sake

It is important to be clear.

I am not suggesting that practitioners should dismiss positive outcomes.

That would be just as unhelpful as overinterpreting them.

If an intervention appears to improve fuelling, recovery, hydration, body composition, energy, adherence, confidence, or performance readiness, that matters.

We should pay attention.

But we should ask better questions.

Was the outcome expected?
Was the mechanism plausible?
Was the response consistent?
Was the change large enough to matter?
Was it repeated?
Was it supported by other indicators?
Was it sustainable?
Did the person actually follow the intervention?
Did anything else explain the result?

This is not negativity.

It is disciplined interpretation.

A longer-term view protects better practice

In most areas of nutrition, the longer-term pattern matters more than a single observation.

One match does not prove a strategy.

One weigh-in does not prove a diet.

One good session does not prove a fuelling plan.

One race does not prove a supplement.

One week does not prove a body composition approach.

We need patterns.

Repeated observations.
Consistent implementation.
Relevant indicators.
Athlete feedback.
Objective data where available.
Practical outcomes.
Contextual review.

The longer the pattern, the more confidence we can build.

Not perfect certainty.

But better confidence.

This is especially important for practitioners working with goals such as fat loss, performance improvement, recovery, injury return, energy availability, or long-term habit change.

The question is not simply:

Did it work today?

The better question is:

Is this strategy helping the person move in the right direction over time, in a way that is sustainable, appropriate, and aligned with the goal?

That is a much more useful standard.

What this means for practitioners

Good practitioners learn from success without being seduced by it.

They enjoy the win.

They recognise progress.

They celebrate useful change.

But they still review the process.

They know that a positive result can be meaningful, misleading, or incomplete.

They understand that nutrition is one part of a larger system.

They avoid claiming too much from too little data.

And they remain willing to adjust even when things seem to be going well.

That last point matters.

Sometimes a strategy is producing results but at a cost.

A weight-loss approach may be reducing scale weight but harming training quality, mood, sleep, or relationship with food.

A fuelling strategy may improve one session but create gastrointestinal issues in competition.

A supplement may increase confidence but distract from more important fundamentals.

A rigid plan may deliver short-term compliance but reduce long-term autonomy.

A strategy can appear successful in one dimension while creating problems elsewhere.

This is why outcome review should always ask:

What else is happening?

Applied Practice Takeaways

When an intervention appears to work, ask:

1. What exactly improved?​
Be specific. Was it performance, readiness, recovery, body composition, adherence, confidence, symptoms, or something else?

2. Was the improvement likely caused by the intervention?​
Consider what else changed: training load, sleep, stress, opposition, motivation, measurement error, environment, or normal variation.

3. Is the outcome meaningful and repeatable?​
A single positive result is useful feedback, but stronger confidence comes from repeated patterns.

4. Did the strategy create any trade-offs?​
Short-term improvement may come at a cost to health, adherence, performance, autonomy, or sustainability.

5. Should we continue, adjust, or simply keep observing?​
Success does not always mean “do more of the same.” Sometimes it means hold steady, monitor, and avoid unnecessary change.

The practical point

Losing does not automatically mean the intervention failed.

But winning does not automatically mean the strategy worked.

Both outcomes need interpretation.

Good practitioners do not overreact to failure or become complacent with success.

They review the process, examine the context, consider alternative explanations, and look for patterns over time.

The result matters.

But the result is not the whole story.

And if we want to become better practitioners, we need to learn from both losing and winning with the same level of care.

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To better practice,
​Dr Laurent Bannock