Hi, Friends & Fellow Runners:
As far back as 400 B.C., Hippocrates, the father of
modern medical practice, was urging his fellow citizens of Greece to “let food
be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food.”
We’ve come a long way since then – mostly in the wrong direction. Arguably, the food we eat today causes more
illness and disease than it cures.
Obesity has reached epidemic proportions, and diabetes has come out of
nowhere in the last generation to rank with heart disease, cancer and stroke as
a major cause of death in our society.
The question at the heart of this message has to do with
whether, as a serious or soon-to-be runner, you truly want your fridge to be
your medicine chest, and vice-versa. If
you do, then consider obeying these “Ten Commandments of Good Eating” which I’ve
cobbled together, tested out and benefited from over the years:
1. Because
you can no longer trust the processed food industry to put your health ahead of
its profits, protect yourself by learning to read food labels and by
concentrating your food dollar on the perimeter walls of your supermarket
(rather than on its interior shelves).
Along that perimeter you’ll find the products that should dominate your
diet – fresh vegetables and fruits, lean poultry and fish, low-fat dairy, and whole-grain
breads.
2. To
the extent you can, buy foods that are certified organic and locally
grown. And look for descriptions such as
free-range and grass-fed.
3. Eat
five meals a day, instead of three (while avoiding, of course, any unnecessary
increase in caloric intake.) Try never
to go without food for more than three hours while awake.
4. Get
serious about breakfast. It’s the day’s
most important meal. Think steel-cut oatmeal,
natural fruit juice, pancakes, eggs, whole-grain cereal with bananas, fruit and
yogurt smoothies, etc. And wean yourself
away from the nutritional travesties that pass for breakfast items at fast food
drive-ins or convenience stores. You
might also try eating breakfast at home, instead of in your car or at your
desk. Wouldn’t that be something?
5. Include
in your morning and afternoon snacks one or another of the following (in order
of potential benefit): nuts, fruit, plain yogurt with real berries, instant
oatmeal, or a whole-grain bagel with natural peanut butter.
6. Avoid
certain foods like the plague. In this
category are such processed items as cold cuts, hot dogs and sausages;
fat-drenched products like pastries and other rich desserts; and breads and
pasta made from white flour.
7. Keep
yourself properly hydrated. This means
that, as a runner, you must drink a lot more than your couch-bound
cousins. As previously noted, our
favourite rule of thumb, and one that has stood the test of time, is to drink
daily a quantity of water that is the equal, in ounces, to half your weight in
pounds. And add an additional 20 ounces
(500 millilitres) for each hour that you run or exercise on a particular
day.
8. Appreciate
that colas and other soda drinks have no redeeming social value. They offer you the worst of Hobson’s
choices. The regular varieties give you,
in a single can, appreciably more sugar than your body should have in its system at
any one time, while the diet versions give you a potent mix of nutritionally
useless chemicals. Stay clear of both.
9. Take
supplements. Among the most beneficial
of them, for runners, is greens powder, which contains an abundance of vitamins
and cell-protecting anti-oxidants that are needed to sustain training and
recovery. Then there is plant-based protein powder,
which aids in muscle recovery, boosts strength gains in response to training,
and helps to maintain a healthy immune function. Rounding out the list of key supplements for
runners are vitamin D, which strengthens bones and lowers stress-fracture risk,
and Omega 3 fish oil, which reduces inflammation in the body and improves blood
flow to muscles during exercise.
10. Always bear
in mind that healthy eating is as much a case of the foods you eat as the
nutrients you consume. Carbohydrates
from an orange are significantly better than those from potato chips. The same is true of protein from skinless
white chicken vs. a Macdonald’s hamburger, and fats from fish and nuts vs. a
Baskin Robbins banana split.
That’s all for now,
people. Take care, stay well and, above
all, keep moving.
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