Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard | Nourish your body (and your mind)

With a first victory against the reigning Olympic champion, but two defeats which excluded her from the podium, judoka Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard returned with a “bittersweet” feeling from the last World Championships in the United Arab Emirates, on May 22.

Enough to light the competitive fire of the woman who still occupies first place in the world in the under 63 kg category, less than two months before the Paris Olympic Games.

“It made me happy, but it makes me want to work even more to get that medal,” confided the 29-year-old athlete upon his return to the dojo, a week later. She was preparing to review the videos of her clashes with her trainer Antoine Valois-Fortier.

“I’m still looking forward to getting my hands dirty in the coming weeks to be ready for the Games. »

“Bittersweet”, “hand in the dough”: the use of these cooking terms was unintentional, but perhaps not a complete coincidence either for the woman who is about to launch a recipe book at the end of the month.

Nourishing your body: how nutrition ultimately allowed me to perform at the Tokyo 2020 Games contains much more than a collection of the Tokyo bronze medalist’s favorite recipes.

Beauchemin-Pinard invites readers to discover her journey in a weight category sport through which she developed a love-hate relationship with food. Without taboos, she reveals the challenges she overcame as a teenager.

“I want to raise awareness about eating disorders,” said the woman who will be celebrating her 30th birthday.^e birthday June 26. “I’m not just talking about that, but that’s what I address at the beginning of the book through my personal story. »

Read Simon Drouin’s article on the personal story of Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard

In parallel with her roller coaster journey, Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard explains the “basics of nutrition” as she learned them, but supported by scientific references. The book was also revised and prefaced by Catherine Naulleau, her long-time nutritionist who accompanied the Canadian team to four Olympic Games.

A segment is devoted to sports nutrition: “I try to show how we can eat well without imposing too restrictive diets, how to find a certain balance in all that. This part is for everyone. »

More specific, but very enlightening, the following section revolves around sports with weight categories, such as judo and combat sports, but also weightlifting and certain rowing classes. “Relationship with the scale”, “weigh days” and dehydration techniques are entitled to their own chapter.

“Few books talk about how to properly dehydrate,” underlined the athlete from Saint-Hubert, on the South Shore.

“I think people are just afraid to approach it. It’s almost taboo. Some say: ah, it’s dangerous, you shouldn’t do that! Okay, it’s not the healthiest thing in the world, but athletes will still do it! Why not educate them on the subject? »

Hard head

Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard has a lot of ideas. Or she has a “hard head”, as she mentioned in her first interview at The Press in the spring of 2016, when this book project began to germinate! Its title was already found.

“When I was dieting a lot, it felt like I was training to eat. I wanted to burn calories so I could eat. When it’s quite the opposite: you have to eat to be able to move. So “feed your body” to accomplish the things you do in life, whether intellectual or physical. »

After her first Olympics, she went through a “descent into hell”. To return to the weight category she was clinging to (57 kg), she had to lose 11 kg in the space of a month. Torture, with the unhealthy restrictions that such a radical reduction implied.

With the help of her nutritionist at the time (Alexia de Macar) and a specialist psychologist (Jodie Richardson), the judoka herself came to the conclusion that she would be much happier – and more efficient – ​​in playing in the under 63 kg category.

She took advantage of the forced pandemic break to dust off her recipe book project, devoting two to three hours a day to it. She wanted to finish it before the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, before realizing she would run out of time.

“It took me several years to feel comfortable in my relationship with food. As Alexia has often told me, I am a bit of a success story when it comes to eating disorders. I didn’t stop my sport completely to resolve them. I recognized my problem in time, went to get help and fixed it. This is why I want to share my story so much. »

She thought she would take advantage of the post-Olympic break to finish her book, but the requests for a bronze medalist kept her too busy. After this “fleeting popularity”, she experienced what she describes as “a little burnout”. The fear of “not being good enough” made her cry “deep sobs” at night. She reached out to a psychologist, which allowed her to rebuild her life.

A silver medal at the 2022 World Championships convinced her to continue competing at least until Paris. And there was this book, which the chartered professional accountant had no intention of letting go of.

She first sent her manuscript to half a dozen publishers. Without success. In the fall of 2023, it attempted one last relaunch. At worst, she would publish it on her own. Just before Christmas, Éditions Crescendo! gave him a positive response. In January, she remade the 50 selected recipes, the final result of which she photographed herself.

“My boyfriend helped me a lot! On weeknights, I would send him the recipes and he would make them before I got home from practice. In the end, he was a little disgusted. He told me: we’re going to eat cold again! »

Despite his schedule as a high-level judoka, Beauchemin-Pinard did all the work from A to Z.

Is she proud of the result? “I’m going to be proud when it’s published, when it’s read,” she reflected out loud. Because I still have this fear: will people like it? »