If you fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

-Steve Prefontaine

Its Not What You Eat But How You Eat It

Many people are weary of anything billed as a “diet”.  Either they don’t like the idea of the fanaticism of the diets members, or its strictness, or even the idea of having to eat something different than they do now.

Many of us know we need to do something to be healthier, but we just cant bring ourselves to adopt a “diet”.  This is a post for for those people.

The term diet has gotten some negative connotations.  In truth, a diet is any pattern of eating behavior.  Eating fried chicken for every meal is one type of diet.  Eating nothing but carrots is another.  All of us are on diets right now, some healthy, some not.

The first thing to come to grips with is that in order to adopt a more healthy lifestyle, you need to stop thinking of dieting in terms of stopping and starting, but rather in changing.  Many people are afraid to “start” a diet for fear of failure.  This should change.  When you feel you can no longer continue to eat a certain way, then change.  Think of it as the plug and chug method but with food.  If it works, use it, if it doesn’t, change it.

Instead of offering advice and giving you rules on exact foods to eat, we are offering you a diet plan that is more fool-proof.  There are two guidelines to follow, but they are not rules so there is no need to worry about breaking them, only to keep them in mind.

Restrict Saturated and Trans Fats. Simple enough, right?  If there was only one thing you needed to pay attention to, this would be it. What are Saturated and Trans fats?  Saturated fats are found in all animal products, coconut oil, and some nuts.  Basically they are solid at room temperature.  Trans fats are unsaturated fats- or fats that are liquid at room temperature- where hydrogen atoms have been artificially added to make the fat solid.  You may have heard the term Partially Hydrogenated and this is what it refers to.  Hydrogenated means added hydrogen.  This is by far the most destructive substance in every-day foods.

You can easily avoid them by minimizing eating fried foods, cut out margarine, and eat leaner meats or fish.  You don’t have to stop eating these foods, but just keep an eye on any label that lists the Saturated Fat % in double digits.

Limit the Sweets. This is a big one too.  Too much sugar can cause diabetes and weight gain.  Actually, there is one loophole in this rule.  If you have to have some sweets then eat them as a reward.  After any sort of cardio workout, the muscles have used some of their energy stores, and those need to be topped off.  The  best way to do this is to consume a sweet food right after the workout.  Chocolate milk is one of my favorites.  So the next time you are feigning for some candy, just go for a quick jog, or bike ride, or swim or walk or hike, then enjoy.

THE CRUX OF THE WHOLE DIET IS PORTION CONTROL. If you pay attention to the above rules, then the basis of the whole diet is to restrict your portions.  Try to eat more frequent and smaller meals.  Basically, you can eat what you want, but just eat less of it.  Another loophole, and one that justifies the workout habits of many people, is to think of working out as a way to burn off the excess calories you consume.  Many people run 5k and 10k races to counteract the empty calories in sweets, beer, or other foods they enjoy.

Try to think of your health in the following hierarchy:

Healthiest lifestyle- Slim and active. This person eats a diet with good fats, without bad fats.  They keep a slim healthy weight and they workout to keep it there.

Average Healthy Person- A little husky but active. Great goal for the normal person.  There has been recent research showing that its not what you look like on the outside (chunkiness) but whats on the inside.  If you are overweight, but you bike or swim regularly, then you are at a much lower risk of cardiovascular diseases than a skinny sedentary person.  This person would have a pretty good diet, and balances any unhealthy vices with healthy exercise.

Unhealthy- Slim but inactive.  This person may have the benefits of a good metabolism or good eating habits, but their inactivity means their cardiovascular system is weaker even than the overweight exerciser.

Unhealthiest Lifestyle-Overweight and inactive.  This person is at the greatest risk for cardiovascular diseases.

An easy way to check your progress on the diet, if you want to lose weight, is to check your weight.  Once a week, in the morning, right after you wake up, drink a glass of water and weigh yourself.  This is close to your base hydrated weight.

If you find yourself gaining weight, double check by weighing yourself again the next morning and either add a few extra minutes of exercise, or just cut out a little bit of some of the meals to help bring this number down.

If you find yourself losing more weight than you want, then you get to eat more, or if you want, cut down on your exercise.

You should try to aim for about 5 pounds +/- your goal weight and stay in that range.

Happy eating!

We have looked at what the nutritional guidelines of the beginning and average athlete are in the previous post, Nutritional Needs of the Neoathlete.  While these are excellent guidelines for most athletes to follow throughout the day, there are some more specific guidelines to follow if you participate in an ultra-endurance sport.

How does the daily macro nutrient intake differ?

Is it necessary to take in specific types of food before during and after exercise?

What types of foods should these be?

When and how much of should I eat during an ultra event?

These are a few of the questions that I want to address, and answer for you in this post.  There are many different types of performance foods out there as well as guidelines to follow for the intake of these foods.  I am going to take a bit of a unique approach, the ultra approach, in giving you my recommendations for Ultra-nutrition based upon my experiences.  I encourage you to try them and adopt them if they work for you.

How does the macro nutrient intake differ?  Macro nutrients (fats, carbohydrates and proteins) are what fuel us through our day.  For your average or beginning athlete, you are exercising upwards of around an hour a day.  In addition to their normal daily calorie intake, they may add another 300-600 calories.  Most likely these calories come from a sports drink and maybe some protein powder.

The Ultra-athlete, however, requires a different tactic.  Since they are working out for perhaps 2-4+ hours a day, they must look at their daily nutrition in terms of before workout, during workout, and after workout, in addition to those times when there is no workout on the immediate horizon.

The ultra approach:

Try to eat 5-6 smaller meals during the day.  Either your 3 main meals with substantial snacks, or just 5-6 meals of  around 400-600 calories; based upon how many calories you need to maintain your weight. Cut out as much processed sugar, hydrogenated fats (also called trans fats), and saturated fats as is humanly possible.  Add healthy oils like olive oil and flax seed oil.  Try to maintain a macro nutrient ratio between 40-50% carbs, and 25-30% fat and 25-30% protein.  Good between meal snacks can and should include mixed nuts with dried fruit, fruit like apples, bananas and oranges, an energy bar, a protein shake, a salad, etc.  You  get the idea.

Is it necessary to take in specific types of food before, during, and after exercise, and what types of foods should these be?  Short answer, yes and a balanced food intake.  When you put your body through multiple hours and perhaps multiple workouts a day, every day, you body and immune system is going to be working overtime to try and make any repairs it can and to restock as much fuel as it can before your next workout.

To make this easier for your body to do, and to give it the fuel it needs to do this as quickly and efficiently as possible, it is necessary to take some extra steps beyond what the average athlete would do.

The ultra approach:

Believe it or not, I am recommending that you learn to run right after eating.  I am NOT talking about eating a large meal and then doing hill repeats.  I recommend trying to take in about 200-300 calories within 30 minutes of a run. This should be mostly a carbohydrate source with some protein.  Adding a little protein can help prevent muscle damage, and the carbs help by keeping some fuel ready as the muscles will start to need it.  Some fat is OK too.  A banana and mixed nuts or oatmeal with peanut butter are a couple of my favorites.

Learning to run after eating will help your body learn to digest while you run, and it also helps to keep your speed down in the beginning of a run so that you can warm-up properly.  More importantly though, it helps you get more used to ingesting foods while you run.  The normal go-to foods of gels and chews may work if you are only running for a few hours.  But you are going to want something more substantial while you run.  You will burn 500-600 calories an hour while your run, so learning to digest more calories will help to offset this.

During a run, some trail mix with chocolate candies, m&m’s, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, energy bars, bananas, Ensure, smoothies, or even cheese can be eaten to help with the demand your muscles are making for more fuel.  Aim for eating around 200-300 calories in the beginning and try to add more calories each run until you feel comfortable eating 400-500 calories.  I want to make a couple important points here.  Do NOT try to follow a strict schedule of calorie replacement/hour.  Don’t try to eat, for example, 200 calories every 30 minutes.  Also, dont try this for your shorter runs.  If you bike, substitute bike for run, but I am talking about your saturday long runs where you may be out for 3,4,5 or 6 hours; or whenever your long runs are.

You will find that sometimes you will just not be hungry.  In fact, if you are running hard in a race, you may not feel like eating at all.  This is normal.  In this case, try eating 200-300 calories every hour to hour and a half, but if your stomach feels queasy, don’t push it, slow down until you can stomach the food.  In fact, I recommend eating only when you feel hungry, and you will learn what the feeling of hunger is when running.  Also, shoot for taking in not just carbs, and in this case, very simple carbs are the best, but also a good amount of protein and fat, which should be no problem because you will be craving fat anyway.  The foods listed above are good examples but feel free to experiment!

What should you be eating after exercise or a race?  This is a much easier question to answer.  You want to follow the same approach laid out in the post, Nutritional Needs of the Neoathlete, but with a bit of a twist.

The ultra approach:

Try to focus on replacing whatever caloric deficit you have within the time frame of the length of the workout.  This sounds complicated, so let me just give you an example:

• You ran for 10 hours, burning about 550 calories/hour
• You ate, on average, 400 calories/hour while running
• 10 hours of running times 550 calories equals 5,500 calories burned while running
• You replaced a total of 4,000 calories while running (10 hours times 400)
• That leaves 1,500  calories that need to be replaced post run over the course of 10 hours, which is not all that bad

So, you want to eat about 300-400 calories of simple carbs, good protein and fat, within 30 minutes.  That leaves us with 1100-1200 calories that you have around 9.5 hours to replace.  You will want to just average that out and add it to the meals you would be eating in this time anyway.  The difference here is that you will want to focus on the frequency of the meals.  Even if you do not feel hungry, you must try to eat every 2-3 hours, and try to replace some of the lost calories.

You body will be working overtime to repair what has been done to it, and your immune system might also be suppressed.  The best way to maximize a quick recovery is to eat early and often.  Eat lots of fruits and vegetables.  Dont forget the protein.  Fat is your friend.  After the initial 30 minutes switch to more complex carbs or unprocessed carbs like fruits.  A good rule of thumb when in doubt is to avoid the “3 Whites”.  This would be white sugar, white flour, and white fat(shortening).  This should also be your rule during normal nutrition hours.

Well, we now have a complete picture of how to eat to fuel performance and health as an Ultra-endurance athlete.  I encourage you to experiment on your own with what foods and intervals work best for you.  These are only guidelines that we at Growstonger.com feel are great starting points to help each of you reach your maxium potential and to push yourselves to growstonger everyday.  Happy eating everyone!!

Seeing as how I have just finished a run, and that I am now waiting for my food to finish coking, I think this would be an appropriate time to discuss post exercise nutrition. There are several different schools of thought on this, at least from my own personal experience.

First we must separate the exercising reader into 2 groups:

* The strength and anaerobic exerciser
* The aerobic exerciser

It seems almost like a stereotypical scene, the body builder loading up with protein shakes. It seems to be common knowledge that the weight-bearing stress plus calories (especially protein) equals increased muscle mass. However, among the more cardio-focused public, nutrition is less of an exact issue. Or at least, that is what we’ve been toldJust to clarify, I am referring to endurance athletes, be they runners, cyclists, cross-country skiers, swimmers, or anything else. Many new to these sports may be starting them as part of a weight-loss program. They figure that the point of the exercise is to burn calories, and if they replace them after a workout, its not helping their weight-loss. This can be true, but only to a point.

Depending on a myriad of factors, including: sex, body size, metabolism, age; the average amount of calories burned/person/hour is around 500 for a sport like running, give or take 100. According to, thefitnesscalculator.com, a 140lb man, running for 30 miles burned around 2740 calories. Spread out over 5 hours and that equates to around 550 calories/hour. This may or may not seem like a lot, and depending on how much you are running, you might not worry about eating after you run; but here is where you may fall into a bad situation.

If you exercise every other day, you most likely dont have anything to worry about. You will refuel your muscles and body during that rest day and be able to recover before your next workout. If you exercise everyday, or multiple times a day, post exercise is critical to not developing any deficits.

You may not think about it, but the body’s two principle sources of fuel for the muscles are fat and glycogen, glycogen far and away being the preferred source in most cases. Under extreme circumstances, when glycogen is depleted, the body will have to break down its own muscles to get at their carbohydrate stores, but at this point you should be more concerned with how you are going to walk up and down stairs for the next week!

After a run, your body is going to be depleted in its glycogen stores, and a little of its fat stores. Your body will burn fat with the glycogen, and there is a saying that ‘Fat burns in a carbohydrate fire’ which means that you will only be able to metabolize fat while you have carbohydrate (glycogen) do burn too. In order to facilitate recovery, theres a narrow window to start to replenish these stores most effectively.

There is a well-established ratio of carbs to protein, 4:1, that allows the most efficient re-absorption of carbs into the muscles. There are some specifically formulated sports drinks with this ratio, but there are other options as well. Chocolate milk and chocolate soymilk are both good choices as they have protein and some sugar (think 4:1) and there is a new study pointing to milk as a recovery drink (see references at the end of article for all studies). Other choices could be smoothies with added protein, or protein shakes with added glucose. You could also just eat a balanced meal at this point if you are near a meal-time.

Whatever your choice, you want to focus on eating about 300-400 calories within an immediate 30 minute window, and then to replenish any remaining calories you have as a deficit, during the remaining time after the workout, that you took to workout. This sounds a little complicated, but it is recommeded as a good guideline by Joe Friel, author of the Triathletes Training Bible, and coauthor of The Paleo Diet for Athletes, so let me just give you an example:

* You run for a total of 1.5 hours
* You burned around 750 calories (your deficit)
* During the 30 minutes post-run, you ate 350 calories
* That leaves 400 net calories that you still need to replace
* You ran for 1.5 hours, so you need to replace the calories you burned within 1.5 hours after your workout, you ate 350 in the first and crucial 30 minutes, so you have 400 more calories, and 1 more hour to go
* During that last hour you have to replace those 400 calories in order to relieve the deficit and facilitate maximum recovery

Again, to sum up, you ran for 1.5 hours and burned 750 calories, so you have 1.5 hours after your run to replace those 750 calories most effectively. You consumed 300-400 calories within 30 minutes, and the rest during the remaining hour after that.

If you ran for 2 hours, you would have a 2 hours to replace what you burned, and again, would eat 300-400 calories within 30 minutes of the run.

Now, the consequences of not following or not being able to follow these guidelines are not especially drastic. If you can only take in calories in the 30 minute window, that would be the main point to follow. If there are other unforeseen circumstances that prevent you from eating right after a workout, its not like your body will suddenly just fall apart. However, when you have a workload in training that is quite intense, say:

* Running every day of the week, week after week
* You are doing a lot of mileage building
* You are doing a lot of speed work
* You workout multiple times a day

then you may notice that you will be more tired and sluggish after repeated sessions of not eating right. Its not that you will be punished for not following these guidelines, but that you can reach a higher potential by trying to maximize every factor of your workouts.

Dieters, you should follow the guidelines of the 30-minute window(eating 300-400 calories withing 30 minutes of working out)for any exercise that lasts over about an hour, and then you dont have to focus on the rest of the calories you would have to eat during any remaining time as you are trying to lose weight. However, dont skimp on protein, you want to lost fat, not muscle!!

Following these guidelines hopefully we all can be happier and healthier, and can all work towards growing stronger!!

http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/sports-nutrition-glycogen-levels-need-be-replenished-post-exercise-67

http://sportsmedicine.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=sportsmedicine&cdn=health&tm=21&f=00&su=p284.9.336.ip_p736.8.336.ip_&tt=2&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi%3Fcmd%3DRetrieve%26db%3Dpubmed%26dopt%3DAbstract%26 list_uids%3D12235033%26query_hl%3D15%26itool%3Dpubmed_docsum

http://cme.medscape.com/viewarticle/524370

So you want to bulk up, what do you do? The first thing that probably comes to mind is to eat more protein. Whether it’s natural or supplemental through steaks or shakes, it’s true, you will want more protein. But can you “overdose” on your protein intake? Is it possible to eat too much protein?

The answer is yes, over time your body will respond to the elevated protein intake. The responses can be damaging and harmful. There isn’t, unfortunately, a definite answer on how much protein one should eat for three main reasons.

First, everyone’s body metabolizes protein at a slightly different rate. Second, larger more muscular people require more protein to maintain their size. And third, someone who exercises on a regular basis burns more calories and needs more protein. Proteins are large organic compounds made of amino acids arranged in a linear chain. Muscle, hair, and skin are all mainly made up of protein (3).

When talking about energy, each gram of protein contains 4 calories. To give you an idea of how much protein common foods contain, a McDonald’s hamburger has 13 grams of protein and a Wendy’s grilled chicken sandwich has 27 grams of protein. The general recommended daily intake of protein is about 53 grams. Take into consideration this value is for everyone, regardless of their age, weight, or metabolism. This is based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Now if you’re working out and trying to gain weight, you may want a diet that is double or triple the calorie and protein intake.

Finding the Right Amount

The best way to find out how much protein you should be eating is to talk to a doctor or a nutritionist. Tell them your target weight and include how much you’re working out. If you are lifting weights, tell the doctor or nutritionist what type of workout you’re doing and for how long the workout lasts. They will be able to recommend a diet that includes the correct amount of protein to fit your needs. In general, if you are building muscle, it’s recommended that you eat one gram of protein per pound that you weigh, each day. So, if you weigh 190 lbs, you should eat about 190 grams of protein a day (3). That may seem like a lot of protein, but it’s necessary when building muscle. For someone who isn’t trying to build muscle, it’s recommended that they multiply their weight by .37. This is the number of grams of protein they should be eating each day (3).

Research has shown that people who are doing endurance training or heavy resistance exercise benefit from additional protein. Weight lifters and runners could benefit from 1.5 to 2 grams of protein per pound a day (3). Their meals should, however, still maintain the recommended 10% to 20% total calories from protein a day. This means they are eating more food in general, not just protein (3).

If you eat more than 2 grams of protein per pound a day, you may or may not see the effects of the additional protein. First off, that’s a lot of protein to be eating. If the fact that you’re constantly sitting at a table eating meat or drinking protein shakes doesn’t deter you from cutting back on protein, maybe the potential health hazards will.

Excess Protein Can Be Harmful

Research suggests that increased amounts of protein in a diet can lead to an accelerated decline in kidney function. This becomes a problem as people age as their kidneys already are less effective an efficient. Another problem from too much protein revolves around calcium. When your body digests protein, it releases acids that neutralize with calcium and other basic agents in the blood. Calcium that is being used to neutralize protein acids cannot be used to aid other structures, like bone (3).

Protein that isn’t being used is turned into sugar. Fortunately, this sugar is absorbed into the blood stream slowly. Rather than sugar from carbohydrates where sugar is absorbed into the blood stream more quickly. Lingering sugar in the blood stream that isn’t used is converted into fat and stored (3). This is why so many people are on a high protein diet. They can eat plenty of protein while little of it is stored in fat. This is how they lose weight.

There are many different ways to obtain your protein. Protein is found in meat, vegetables, milk, soy, and in supplements like protein bars and shakes. Not all protein is the same (3). Whey protein is a favorite among weight lifters because it’s one of the best designer proteins to help build muscle. It is usually taken as a shake before of after workouts to provide the body with a quick supply of protein and energy to repair torn muscle during a workout.

Soy Protein Isn’t Ideal

Soy protein, on the other hand, isn’t a preferred protein for building muscle but rather for good health. Protein from milk, casein, has been shown to help increase muscle strength more than some other types of protein. Milk, however, takes longer to digest so don’t expect to get a days worth of protein from milk. The most common type of protein comes from meat, red meat and white meat; the cow and chicken. Meat protein contains all the amino acids required by the body while some supplements only have a few (3). Vegetables also only contain a few of the amino acids not produced in the body. Nevertheless, their other nutritional values shouldn’t be overlooked because they don’t contain as much protein as meat (3).

It’s debatable on how much protein should be consumed in one sitting. Some believe almost all the protein you eat is utilized. Others think the body can only metabolize and use a specific number of grams of protein in one sitting.

As you can see, the amount of protein someone needs is dependent on several variables including age, weight, target weight, metabolism, and hours spent working out. Take all these factors into consideration to determine how much protein is right for you. In general, it’s safe to assume that eating more protein each day while working out will help build mass, increase strength, and gain weight as long as it’s the right type of protein. Meats and whey protein, as well as other designer proteins, are the best candidates to meet those mass, strength, and weight goals.

As long as you’re smart about how much protein you are eating, you won’t need to worry about kidney problems associated with the metabolism of protein. Don’t, however, think that by just eating more protein you will get bigger and stronger. Weight training and a balanced diet are key factors in gaining strength along with eating enough protein. Hopefully you are now more knowledgeable about protein it’s effects on the body. This little molecule does so much in our bodies; it’s about time it got some attention.

References:

1 Russell, Robert. “Nutrition.” How Much Protein Do You Need? 7 Nov 2006 http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.com/articles

2 Dolson, Laura. “Protein: How Much Protein You Need, What It’s For, Can You Eat Too Much?” Protein: How Much Do You Need. 7 Nov 2006 http://lowcarbdiets.about.com

3 “Protein.” Protein: Moving Closer to Center Stage . Harvard School of Public Health. 6 Nov 2006 http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/protein.html