Food For Sport
People who have a medical problem e.g. diabetes, or are allergic to nuts need to diet carefully. People who are overweight, or who think that they are, often go on a diet too. But this will not solve their problem. The only long term solution to a being overweight is to change your lifestyle by eating less or exercising more, or both.
The food industry spends hundreds of millions of pounds each year trying to persuade us to buy sports drinks and dietary supplements – multivitamins, amino acids etc. and. They rake in countless millions of pounds from folk like us, who are conned by their advertisements.
There are some supplements that may help us to run faster. They are all banned! Many supplements are “legal.” They do not make us run faster, but they certainly make the manufacturers richer. There are a few exceptions. For example iron supplements can help, if tests have shown that we are anaemic. (Anaemia may affect one in ten female endurance runners.)
If you enjoy a mixed diet, including plenty of fruit and vegetables every day, then you do not need to worry about diet. If you eat mainly crisps, chips and fried food, and drink a lot of sugary fizzy drinks, then you are asking for trouble and need to change your eating habits.
The manufacturers persuade us to waste good money on sugary sports drinks like Lucozade, to give us energy. This is a complete waste of money. If you eat plenty of food like potatoes, cereals, bread, pasta and rice, which contain non sugary-carbohydrate, then you will store enough carbohydrate to give you two hours worth of non-stop fast running. This will last for at least a half marathon. If you modify a car to carry twice as much petrol as a normal car it will not go faster. In fact the extra weight will make it slower. All you need to do is to keep your fuel supply topped up by eating plenty of carbohydrates at meal times and eating a suitable food like a banana or a jam butty soon after you finish a race or a training session. Be warned however that it takes up to 3 hours for the body to convert carbohydrate to fuel. So you should not be eating food before you race or train. Undigested food in your intestine is just extra weight for no benefit.
Martin Hyman 25/1/04
An Interesting Article
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Certainly true Scotia, there's no real proof that energy drinks will help over a short race period. I have however used Lucozade pouches/coupled with jelly babies for long endurance/mountain races like the KIMM, LAMM and Salomon X. They can give you an instant kick of energy, when things are starting to spin. Obviously this may be the placebo effect...you'll have to ask a sport nutritionist, but i swear by it.
I've never really conisdered this for O-ing till last w/e....Hardcore Classic in Spain....really hot...won in 90mins....i felt dehydrated after 20mins, and would definitly have benefitted from having a camelback with some energy drink....i was really suffering by the end and was half an hour down!...
We'll thats some more food for thought...
I've never really conisdered this for O-ing till last w/e....Hardcore Classic in Spain....really hot...won in 90mins....i felt dehydrated after 20mins, and would definitly have benefitted from having a camelback with some energy drink....i was really suffering by the end and was half an hour down!...
We'll thats some more food for thought...
Tetley and its Golden Farce.
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Nails - diehard
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You're both right. Scotia (Martins) article is about general nutrition. I reckon you can do better than the standard diet he proposes, but not much better and you certainly can do a *lot* worse. I find disentangling the valuable information from the salespitch impossible. I've taken to eating during classic races over the last few years, and I certainly think it helps.
Graeme
Graeme
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graeme - god
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I've been known to do that too, on long fell races, though i tend to use the little pocket on the inside of running shorts....(not sure what its designed for...a key?....can anyone enlighten me?) ....don't forget to take them out if you don't use them though, or there will be a sticky mess when you take them out the wash!!!
Tetley and its Golden Farce.
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Nails - diehard
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