Fueling Through Injury: Nutrition, Body Image, and Getting Back on the Bike with Shira Evans

What do you actually eat when your body is healing — and you're not allowed to move?

That's the question Shira Evans, RD, CSSD, found herself living through after a significant cycling accident left her with a concussion, road rash, and a scapula broken in two places. As a sports dietitian who specializes in REDs and disordered eating in athletes, she knew exactly what to do nutritionally — but navigating the mental health piece, the unsolicited body comments, and the slow, humbling process of returning to sport? That was a whole other conversation.

Shira is a registered dietitian and board-certified specialist in sports dietetics based in Oregon. She's a lifelong athlete, Boston Marathon qualifier, and cross-country cyclist who works virtually with athletes and active individuals throughout the US. She specializes in sports performance nutrition, REDs, and disordered eating and eating disorders in athletes — including gender-affirming nutrition support for non-binary and trans athletes. She is also a Lane 9 Directory dietitian.

Chapters

[00:04:00] How Shira got into sports nutrition — and why she created her own path

[00:06:00] Her sports nutrition philosophy: finding the gray space when everything feels black and white

[00:09:00] Cycling across the country — twice — and why the bike unlocked a different kind of adventure

[00:11:00] The accident: concussion, broken scapula, and road rash — what happened and what came next

[00:12:00] Unsolicited body comments: navigating them in real time and the parallel to athletes with REDs

[00:18:00] Why injury increases energy needs — and why that's hard to honor when you're not moving

[00:21:00] What eating actually looked like: 3 meals, 4–5 snacks, and the pre-breakfast snack strategy

[00:25:00] Starting sports psych and ERP to get comfortable being near her bike again