Kaitlyn Kenna Smith, PricePlow content creator and Powerhouse Mentality podcast host, discusses CrossFit training, nutrition myths, favorite brands, and content creation on Episode #223 of the PricePlow Podcast.
Episode #223 of the PricePlow Podcast brings one of PricePlow's own to the mic: Kaitlyn Kenna Smith, content creator for PricePlow and Bevlab, the face behind PricePlow's TikTok, and host of the Powerhouse Mentality podcast. If you've watched PricePlow's supplement and energy drink content on social, there's a good chance Kaitlyn's behind a lot of it.
In this episode, Mike and Ben dig into Kaitlyn's full story: from a teenager who turned to running to escape a difficult home life to an aspiring professional CrossFit athlete eating over 3,000 calories a day and training twice daily. She's open about recovering from an eating disorder, why the 1,200-calorie recommendation harms active women, and how she coaches clients to focus on habits and biofeedback over scale weight.
The conversation also covers creatine's well-earned mainstream moment, the rise of functional ingredients in energy drinks, what 1st Phorm gets right about community, and why in-person events matter more than follower counts.
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https://blog.priceplow.com/podcast/kaitlyn-kenna-smith-223
Video: Kaitlyn Kenna Smith of Powerhouse Mentality on CrossFit, Nutrition, and Content Creation
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:23:44 — 80.6MB)
Detailed Show Notes: Kaitlyn Kenna Smith of Powerhouse Mentality
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0:00 - Introductions
Mike and Ben welcome Kaitlyn Kenna Smith, a content creator for PricePlow and Bevlab who also runs PricePlow's TikTok account. She introduces herself as a wife, dog mom, aspiring professional CrossFit athlete, and host of the Powerhouse Mentality podcast, which she launched back in 2021. She recently relocated from Florida to North Carolina, and she arrived ready with a Ghost Raspberry Cream energy drink in hand while Mike cracked open a C4 sent over by Doss Cunningham.
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2:45 - From Last Picked in Gym Class to CrossFit Athlete
Kaitlyn traces her fitness origins to age 14, when running became an escape from a difficult home situation involving her father's addiction. That led to basketball, lifting, and personal training at 18 at a gym in New York. Social media's dietary dogma fueled a serious eating disorder during college while she was studying nutrition. CrossFit entered the picture around 2020 during COVID gym closures, and two years ago she committed fully to competing at an elite level.
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7:15 - Breaking the 1,200-Calorie Myth for Active Women
The 1,200-calorie recommendation keeps circling back in women's fitness spaces, and Kaitlyn's coaching experience reveals how rarely it's followed accurately. Most of her female clients aren't actually hitting that number because they track loosely and end up binging at night from deprivation. Those who do sustain it often end up with crashed hormones and stalled metabolisms. Her fix: add 100 calories at a time, week by week, until clients realize they're getting leaner and performing better, not heavier.
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10:45 - Hydration Basics and the Double Session Advantage
A recurring pattern in coaching: people reach for caffeine when they actually need water. Mike references a study on mild dehydration and worsened mood in women, and Kaitlyn confirms that simply drinking a gallon of water daily can feel transformative for new clients. The conversation shifts to training structure: both Kaitlyn and Ben find two shorter daily sessions outperform a single long grind because each session can be properly fueled and fully recovered from before the next.
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19:15 - Kaitlyn's CrossFit Macros
Kaitlyn's current intake sits around 3,100 calories, 180 to 190 grams of protein, 425 to 450 grams of carbs, and 70 to 80 grams of fat for a roughly 128-pound athlete in twice-daily training. She arrived at these numbers through trial and error, not a formula. Food sources include egg whites, chicken, lean steak, post-workout whey protein, and a Ninja Creami protein shake most nights. She's working back toward this target after recovering from surgery three weeks prior.
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22:30 - Scale Weight, Biofeedback, and Coaching Real People
For new clients, Kaitlyn starts at bodyweight multiplied by 10 to 12 and then refines using biofeedback: sleep quality, energy levels, digestion, and recovery. Scale coaching goes two ways depending on the person: daily weigh-ins to desensitize clients to the natural fluctuation, or no scale at all for 90 days to focus purely on building consistent habits. Her own coach used the daily approach after her eating disorder to show her how much the number moves for reasons beyond diet.
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27:30 - Women's Hormones and Lifestyle Variables
Kaitlyn's view on hormone dysfunction, including PCOS: stress is the primary driver because it triggers inflammation, and chronic inflammation disrupts hormones. She's dealt with a large ovarian cyst and elevated cortisol while maintaining body composition, which she credits to consistent habits. Ben's perspective backs her up: most people who claim they can't control their hormones haven't controlled sleep, food intake, hydration, or stress, making it nearly impossible to know what's actually driving the problem.
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31:30 - Creatine, Gummies, and Making Supplements Accessible
Insider debates about optimal creatine delivery miss the bigger picture. Ben's parents only take creatine because it comes in flavored gummies from Vitamin Shoppe. Kaitlyn's mom won't touch a powder. Consistent suboptimal creatine beats never starting at all, and creatine's move into mainstream delivery formats grows the entire category. The trio also marks the "I told you so" moment: after years defending creatine against conspiracy theories and steroid comparisons, the ingredient has finally gone fully mainstream.
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38:30 - Functional Ingredients, Delivery Systems, and a Health-First Shift
Kaitlyn tracks several industry trends: new delivery formats like gummies, protein bars now featuring creatine and Cognizin® (like MOSH bars), and probiotics appearing in everything from sodas to daily supplements. Beyond formats, she notices a cultural shift: her family members now ask what to take to "be healthier" rather than to drop 15 pounds fast. Ben sees the same thing in run clubs and community fitness replacing crash-diet culture, which makes the industry a more satisfying place to work.
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43:45 - Why Kaitlyn Loves 1st Phorm
Kaitlyn's loyalty to 1st Phorm goes back to 2016, when their protein was one of the first that didn't upset her stomach and the community welcomed her during a rough stretch with her eating disorder. The care has stayed genuine since. They've also cleaned up the formula: no gums where most proteins carry 16-plus ingredients, which matters to her sensitive digestive system. Their Summer Smash event, handwritten notes, and consistent attention to creators all deliver on what Andy Frisella preaches on the MF CEO podcast.
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49:00 - Industry Events and the Unexpected Reach of Content
In-person events like Summer Smash and the Arnold Sports Festival refuel creators who otherwise spend most of their time talking to a camera alone. Kaitlyn says meeting people who tell her the content changed something for them makes the grind worth it. Mike connects this to the strange power of offhand comments: his Grains of Paradise article influenced a formulator's dosing decisions years later, and the creator had no idea anyone was reading. Small things land harder than the "main thesis."
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57:15 - Misinformation, Nuance, and Short-Form Limitations
Kaitlyn received a comment claiming carbonated water destroys kidneys. Ben spent a weekend tracking down a claim that 70% of creatine users experience side effects, a stat he couldn't verify from any legitimate source. Both wrestle with the same question: does fact-checking rage bait amplify it? The harder problem is nuance in short form. Mike's framing lands well here: even magnesium oxide "works" for something, just probably not for your specific purpose. That kind of context almost never survives a 90-second reel.
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1:04:45 - CrossFit Competition Structure and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome
The CrossFit Open runs three weeks each spring: workouts drop Thursday, athletes submit a scored video by Monday, and the top 10% advance to quarterfinals. Kaitlyn made quarterfinals in 2026 and is targeting semifinals for 2027, with a fall qualifier for Fittest of the Coast as a stepping stone. She also manages Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a severe hypermobility condition that creates instability under heavy load and in gymnastics movements. She herniated a disc two years ago on a GHD and has worked through knee-tracking issues since.
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1:10:30 - Kaitlyn's Supplement Stack
Kaitlyn's current daily stack: D3/K2, omega-3s, digestive enzymes on larger meals, probiotics via 1st Phorm Greens (seven years running), a standard multivitamin, one energy drink, whey protein post-workout and in a nightly Ninja Creami, and two to four scoops of electrolytes daily (500mg sodium, 200mg potassium, 50mg magnesium per scoop). Creatine is a "maybe" she's planning to experiment with. She keeps things simple by design, building in only what she knows makes a difference.
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1:13:00 - Iron, Ferritin, and Lactoferrin for Female Athletes
Mike brings up iron given Kaitlyn's history of anemia and her difficulty tolerating traditional iron supplements, which made her dizzy. He's a fan of Lactoferrin for female athletes because the research suggests it can support iron homeostasis better than simply adding more elemental iron, which sometimes just runs into an inflamed, dysfunctional system. Mike suggests she get blood work first to check ferritin, and the two agree it's worth experimenting with after results are in.
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1:16:00 - Energy Drink Favorites and a Market Gap
Kaitlyn's rotation: Ghost Raspberry Cream (#1), 3D Energy (cucumber melon and raspberry sorbet), Gorilla Mind (red gummy fish, rainbow sherbet, root beer, and a new fruit punch she planned to review later that day), and 1st Phorm Energy's new non-carbonated lemonades, which she warns go down dangerously easy. Her wish for the market: a 16-oz can with under 150mg caffeine plus real functional ingredients. CBUM Energy is close but too small at 12 oz, and Mike notes Doss Cunningham flagged the exact same gap in Episode #222.
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1:18:15 - The Powerhouse Mentality Podcast
Kaitlyn launched the Powerhouse Mentality podcast in 2021 primarily as a solo outlet to sharpen her speaking voice and share her story of mental toughness, eating disorder recovery, and building discipline. It now has over 300 episodes. In the past year and a half she's shifted toward guest interviews to bring in more perspectives, covering everything from supplement industry insights to broader life lessons. You can find it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Find her other PricePlow-related content at the handles below.
Where to Follow and Learn More
Connect with Kaitlyn Kenna Smith
- Instagram: @ThePowerhouseMentality
- Instagram/TikTok: @KaitlynKennaFitness
- The Powerhouse Mentality on Spotify
- The Powerhouse Mentality on YouTube
- PricePlow on TikTok (@PricePlow)
Resources Mentioned
- Kaitlyn + Victoria: Powerhouse Mentality Episode (YouTube)
- Kaitlyn + Victoria: Powerhouse Mentality Episode (Spotify)
- Episode #222: Doss Cunningham on C4, Nutrabolt, and What's Next
- Iron and Women: How effera® Lactoferrin Supports Every Stage of Your Life
- effera® Lactoferrin: Full Ingredient Overview
Products Discussed
- Ghost Energy at PricePlow
- Gorilla Mind Energy at PricePlow
- 3D Energy at PricePlow
- 1st Phorm Energy at PricePlow
Kaitlyn, thanks for joining us and sharing such an honest look at where you've come from and where you're going. The CrossFit community and the broader supplement space are better with voices like yours in it.
As always, thanks to Perfect Shaker for sponsoring the PricePlow Podcast. If you haven't seen their shaker cups yet, check them out at PricePlow.com/perfect-shaker -- and for the full story behind the brand, check out Darren Thompson: Inside PerfectShaker in Episode #209.
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