The 5 rules listed in that article were:

1. Season to Taste
2. Utilize the advice of others
3. Create your own recipes
4. Shop for the best
5. Utilize your local farms

I agree with all of those (further description is provided in the article itself) and thought I’d add my own list of 5 tips that we also implement:

1. Make enough for leftovers. That way you can bring a good meal to work with you for lunch without having to worry about running out to spend too much money on junk that doesn’t even taste very good.
2. Make use of the crock pot. Letting something slow cook throughout the day is an easy way to have dinner ready when you get home without a lot of fuss, and if your crock pot is big enough it can provide a few meals worth of food. That beats the heck out of getting home from a run at 7:30 or 8:00 at night and then having to start cooking.
3. Make your own stock. Whenever I grill or roast a whole chicken, we’ll toss the bones into the crockpot along with whatever veggies aren’t looking so good in the fridge and that we wouldn’t really want to eat anymore and make a good stock that night, and then we turn that stock into soup the next day. 1 meal quickly turns into 2 different meals with plenty of leftovers. If we haven’t roasted a bird in a while and waited too long to eat the vegetables in the fridge, a vegetable stock beats merely adding to the compost pile.
4. Make your own bread. Why spend $3 or $4 for a loaf of bread that you have to go out to get? We have a dough recipe that we spend 15 minutes stirring up on the weekend (it’s left wet so no kneading required, just a few minutes of stirring.) Then, whenever we want a loaf of bread, we just cut a hunk of dough out, let it warm up and rise on a pan, and then bake it for a half hour. So, when making a loaf, you are looking at 5 minutes of work and about an hour total time and you have fresh bread whenever you want it for about 15 cents a loaf, if that.
5. Make your own croutons. We’ll often make an extra loaf ahead of time and let it get stale; all our croutons for our salads are always home made and much tastier that the junk you can buy at the store. It’s like small pieces of garlic bread for making our dinner salads that much tastier.

Granted, my tips pretty much all relate and build upon one another, and there are only 2 people in our household currently so it isn’t a gigantic production to produce extra food for lunches. If you have kids or roommates, then you may not have quite as much left as we tend to.

Still, it’s good advice and what we do in our kitchen.

What are your tips? Add them here, and if enough get dropped perhaps I’ll compile them into a report. When you are done, click through to the ProGrade Blog and leave your tips there, as well; they’re choosing the best tip they receive to get any of their products for free.

Since I’ve never had them before, it seemed like a good idea during one of my long runs.

Here’s my video review where I go through my experience with them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsHN4yI-h10

According to the packaging, Gu Chomps are a wonder food.

• They have Amino Acids for added focus, rippin’ energy, and speedy recovery.
• They have Vitamin C + E, those mighty antioxidantts that combat tissue breakdown.
• They have sodium and potassium to restore electrolyte balance.
• They have an exclusive blend of complex and simple carbohydrates.

So on the back of the package it says that this packet will fuel between 1½ to 2 hours of activity if you hydrate along the way. Each packet is 60 grams and comes with about 8 of the chomps inside of it, which is 2 servings. Altogether that comes to about 90 calories, with 100mg of sodium, 80mg of potassium and 46 total carbohydrates. (That’s for both servings. Not just for one.)

My run took me about a 2 hours and 40 minutes, so I definitely got my 1½ to 2 hours of energy out of it. I didn’t have any trouble whatsoever. They gave me plenty of energy. I drank a little bit over a liter of water throughout the course of the run, and probably about 2 liters of water total between during the run and right afterwards.

I felt pretty good the entire way. They tasted all right. This was the Orange (no caffeine) flavor so taste-wise, I thought they were fine.

Chewiness-wise, they were okay when I was taking one at a time. At one point I took 2 of them and that was just a little bit too much. So if you do try them, I’d recommend only having 1 chomp at a time as you’re running. Just take one every once in a while and you’ll be fine.

One of the things that I really didn’t like about them was that there’s no real easy way to get into the package. As you can kind of see in the video above I wound up having to bite it open. I had sweaty hands and there’s no notch at the top or bottom to make it easy to tear open, and I wasn’t able to get it open using the flap on the back.

That can be pretty easily gotten around just by cutting it before you start your run or race, but I didn’t notice that before the run and all in all it would be a little better if there was an easier way to get into it by default.

Whether I would use these again, I’m not really sure. I think for the amount of benefit that they’ve given me, I don’t know if I could justify the price when there’s much cheaper alternatives available. But I didn’t have any problems with them, so if I saw these along the edge of a race course I certainly wouldn’t hesitate to grab a package.

Have you tried the Gu Chomps before? If so, what did you think? And if you haven’t tried them, then what’s your preferred alternative, if you have one? Leave a comment below and let me know.

(Download: MP4 – Buy Gu Chomps at: Amazon)

If you are as busy as I tend to be, you might not get home until relatively late in the evening either, which means that your last meal of the day might be uncomfortably close to when you go to bed.

For myself, it’s not uncommon for me to get home at 7:30 or 8:00 in the evening and then have to start cooking.

One of the types of dishes that I like to eat on the evenings I do get home later is a 1-dish salad since they are quick to put together and don’t sit heavily in my stomach.

Here’s a delicious recipe from an eBook I got over at Prograde Nutrition that’s pretty good:

Roasted Red Pepper Chicken and Avocado Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 medium ripe avocado, peeled, pitted and sliced
• 1 tsp. lemon juice
• 1 bag (10 oz.) torn romaine lettuce (about 10 cups)
• 2 cups shredded cooked chicken
• 1 medium tomato, cut into wedges
• 1 small cucumber, sliced
• 1/4 of a medium Vidalia or Walla Walla onion, chopped
• ½ cup Red Pepper
• ½ cup Light or Fat-free Italian Dressing
• ¼ cup Parmesan Cheese

Directions:

1. Toss avocados with lemon juice in large salad bowl.
2. Add lettuce, chicken, tomatoes, cucumbers and onions; mix lightly.
3. Add dressing; toss to coat.
4. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese.
5. Serve immediately.

So, it’s a relatively straightforward recipe, although I’ll admit I didn’t follow it exactly.

First, I rarely measure things when I cook, I just throw things into a bowl or onto plates until I have enough food for what I expect I’ll want to eat.

I also don’t buy bags of romaine lettuce…I just get whatevers available at the farm stand or farmer’s market (if they’re open) or else whatever’s on sale from local farmers at the grocery store.

Second, for the cooked chicken, I just grilled it with a light coating of olive oil and then sliced it rather than shredding it, but that’s just because it takes less time. I imagine if I wanted to make this vegetarian and/or didn’t want to spend the time grilling the chicken that it would taste just as well by throwing some black beans or edamame on the salad.

Does that sound good to you?

If so, you might want to check out the recipe book I got it from. They have 197 recipes that are all supposed to be quick, tasty and healthy. I haven’t gotten too far into it yet, but the ebook is only $4.95 and the couple that I have tried have been good.

Check it out here: http://runtowin.getprograde.com/prograderecipebook.html

Eat Well,
    – Blaine

Hours on the roads, quick stops at restaurants, and bad hotel food served to captive audiences can easily lend itself to a “not quite right” feeling in your gut even a week after you get home and back to your normal diet.

There are a few tactics you can follow to improve matters, though.

First, bring a canteen with you and refill it with water regularly. If you have to, even bottled water beats drinking nothing but soda or coffee, but the more water you can drink the better off you will be no matter where you are.

Second, bring some fresh fruit with you or stop and buy some when you get where you are going. Apples and bananas can travel well, especially if you are driving.

Third, have plenty of healthy snacks to get you through your day.

I was at a seminar last week that had the usual bland and not particularly healthy food easily available at the hotel. There were a few restaurants around the hotel, but none within quick walking distance so the hotel had it made.

Thankfully, I had a barrel of pretzels, a few different types of dried fruit and nut mixes, and my trusty canteen to get me through most of the days so that I wasn’t starving come meal times and could take the time to find some better options for at least a few of the meals.

Normally I’d have made some beef jerky or apple leathers to bring with me as well but I hadn’t had time before the conference so I had to make do.

What are your strategies for when you are eating on the go?

(Photo Credit: Nemo’s Great Uncle)

Of course, that just meant we had to try to recreate the dish at home. (I will state, by the way, that despite her always saying how much she dislikes eggplant, she always enjoys the dishes I make with it, so I think the statement is unfounded.)

Imam was originally a Turkish dish that was adopted by the Greeks. The full name is actually Ιμάμ Μπαϊλντί (Imam Baildi or Imam Bayildi), and there are a few stories about a fainting priest that gives it its name. Some say he fainted when he saw how much olive oil was used, and others claim he fainted at the wonderful taste.

Either way, our Imam didn’t taste like what we had in Greece. It tasted very good, and I’ll make it again, but wasn’t exactly the same thing. I cooked it the same way I always try something new…we found a few recipes online, I read them over, and then I went and tried what I could to see what would come out based on the general trends in the different recipes.

Here is how I prepared it:

Ingredients

• 2 Eggplants
• 2 Tomatoes
• 3 Cloves of Garlin
• 1 Onion
• A little Salt
• A fair bit of Oregano & Thyme
• More Olive Oil than anybody should consume in one sitting

Procedure

1. Chop the stems off of the eggplants, cut in half lengthwise, and slice a flat spot onto the rounded (skin) side of each half. Slit the eggplant lengthwise without breaking the skin on the bottom. Sprinkle the flesh side of the eggplant in salt and put them aside in a colander to let the juices drain out a bit.
2. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees (approximately – I put ours at 400 which is probably about 350 in other ovens.) Chop the garlic, tomatoes and onion. Preheat some olive oil in a skillet.
3. After the eggplants have been sitting aside for 15-20 minutes (longer if you plan ahead, 30 minutes is how long I usually leave the eggplant to drain but I was hungry tonight) put them in the skillet flesh side down until they are a golden brown, which should take 4 or 5 minutes. Put them aside on a paper towel to drain.
4. Put some more olive oil in the skillet, and add the onions, then the garlic, then the tomatoes. Don’t let them burn, stir regularly, and mix in the seasonings. Stir regularly but otherwise keep it covered. Get a baking dish prepared and cover the bottom with water – our 9×13 dish needed 1/3 to 1/2 of a cup.
5. Put the eggplant in the baking dish skin side down, add a little more olive oil, and then coat with the tomato/garlic sauce. Cover and bake for 45 or 50 minutes.

Today, I’m going to share a few of the meals that I consumed in the week leading up to the race that allowed me to successfully navigate the 50 mile course.

Early in the week, we took a trip to the Valley of Fire. Beautiful place! Walking around there all day was hungry work, but thankfully we packed some sandwiches that we made in our room before heading out.

It’s important to relax now and then, which is surprisingly difficult to do in the daylight ambience of The Venetian in the middle of the night. Thankfully, I had an Italian beer to help me wash down an excellent pasta dish.

Walking around Vegas can be very tiring, though. There are a lot of people, nothing is near anything else, and if you follow the signs to get where you want to be then you’ll take pretty much the longest route possible that passes as many slot machines as they can bring you near. We were pretty tired by the time we found this Creperie in fake Paris.

Our original plans were to do a hash run on New Years Day, but instead we met some friends at the Egg Works. As it was lunch time, I decided to try one of their Burgers. I don’t think that Erin thought that I’d be able to fit it in my mouth.

She was wrong.

Sometimes, though, a burger just isn’t going to do it. Especially when you’ve been walking around in Vegas. Thankfully, there was a goldfish handy…

(Full Size Images: Flickr)

Yesterday, I ran 50 miles. At once. Yeah, strange thing to do, but it seemed like a good way to finish off a vacation.

At a very rough estimate, I probably burned around 5500 calories or so in the 8 hours that that took. Here is everything that I consumed before and during the race:

Pre-Race

• 1 banana (105 calories)
• 2 wheat rolls (~85 calories ea / ~170 calories)

Breakfast total: 275 calories

Race

• (Lots of) Water (0 calories)
• 2 pouches of Hornet Juice – start & @ mile 19 (60 calories ea / 120 calories)
• 12(ish) cups (2oz to 6oz) of Heed (100 calories per 16 ounces / ~300 calories)
• ~70 Black Forest Gummi Bears (120 calories per 17 bears / ~500 calories)
• 6 Crank Gels (150 calories ea / 900 calories)
• 12 pretzels (24 calories ea / 288 calories)

Race Total: 2108 calories

Consumption Strategy

In all, I consumed less than 2400 calories, which gives me at least a 3000 calorie deficit by the end of the race. That would explain why I’ve been so hungry for the past day or so, I guess.

My general strategy was to eat what I had available for breakfast, and to make sure that I had plenty of water during the run. I wanted to eat gummi bears regularly throughout the run every 15-30 minutes and a gel packet every 45-60 minutes. Since Heed was available, I took a cup of that at most of the aid stations, being careful to space out my gel packets and my Heed consumption since I didn’t think those would mix too well. I also grabbed a few pretzels from the aid station tables on 4 separate occasions, 3 at a time.

I also started with a water bottle full of Hornet Juice which I refilled at mile 19. I meant to refill my sandwich baggy of gummy bears at mile 36, but I got busy reapplying sunscreen and forgot to grab them. I only ran out of water once, but I knew that there was an aid station coming up within a quarter mile so that worked out fine. I did dump quite a bit of water on the ground, though, because “1/3 to half full” apparently meant “so full you can’t screw on the top” to most of the volunteers at the marathon aid stations. That was fine, though, better too much than too little.

This strategy kept me going. The majority of the calorie consumption came early in the race, since there was way I was going to be able to process everything late in the run and I knew I wouldn’t be able to take in as many calories as I was using. I just thought it would be interesting to find the specific deficit, especially since I could still remember everything I ate during the race and thought to jot it down.

Specific details on the race will be going up over the next few days, including plenty of pictures. I carried my cell phone with me and snapped photos of (almost) all of the 50 milers as well as plenty of the beautiful surroundings that are to be found at Lake Mead, although I did not get any photos of the coyotes. (They sounded like they were just on the other side of the hill that I was running around, although they were actually across a river that was on the other side of it.) The crows didn’t excite me enough when they came visiting late in the race for me to take the energy to get the camera out.

Scientists in the Laboratory of Sleep and Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of California conducted a test on 61 people who went through a series of physical and mental exercises to set a baseline first thing in the morning.

That afternoon, they split the subjects into 3 groups before running them through all of the tests again.

The first group took a 2 hour nap, and had better motor skills and improved perception during the tests than either of the other two groups. They scored better than both groups by a very large margin in the verbal tests.

The second group took a placebo. They didn’t do as well as those that had taken a nap, but still did marginally better than those who took a caffeine pill.

The last group took a 200mg caffeine pill, and they reported feeling the most alert and awake.

It seems to me that like most drugs, caffeine dims your mental and physical capabilities while making you feel smarter and faster than you really are. That seems dangerous enough to me to reinforce my elimination of caffeine from my diet (as if the increased chance of going blind and having horrible headaches weren’t enough.)

I would be interested in seeing further studies, though. I’d like to know how effective a shorter nap can be, and I’d also like to see how more physically demanding activities are affected. I know that in general when I take a mid-day nap at work, I’m usually limited to about 20-25 minutes or else I won’t have time to eat, and I am always interested how different activities will affect my training.

This is a case where anecdotal evidence isn’t really all that worthwhile.

(The Study: Behavioural Brain Research – Photo: Refracted Moments™ – Hat Tip: Life Hacker)

• Time Required: ~20-25 minutes
• Cooking Time: ~15 minutes
• Ingredients:
  1. Swordfish Steak(s)
  2. Olive Oil
  3. Salt & Pepper
  4. Fresh Parsley
  5. Lemon (or Lemon Juice)

Preparation is simple. Just wash off the swordfish with running water, pat it dry with a paper towel, and then salt & pepper each side. Start heating up some olive oil in a frying pan over medium-high (more towards the medium end.)

Coat both sides of the swordfish in olive oil before putting it in the pan. For those of you who are real enterprising, you can coat the fish over the pan and use what drizzles off as the olive oil you heat in the first place. Just put the swordfish on a plate next to the stove while you wait for the oil to heat up.

Once the oil is heated, make a note of the time and put the sword fish into the pan. Cover and let it cook for 5 minutes, then turn the fish and let it cook another 5 minutes. Turn the swordfish one more time, and if it is beginning to flake then you can turn the heat down, but you’ll want it to cook for another 5 minutes. That’s 15 minutes total, turning twice.

After the swordfish first goes onto the frying pan, start up a smaller amount of olive oil in a little pan. Crush some garlic and mix it in over high heat with the olive oil to allow it to cook a bit.

Wash and chop some parsley (removing the stems) and mix that in with the garlic and olive oil. This will take about 10 minutes total or a little less, so if the garlic is starting to brown then turn the heat down. Mix in some lemon juice (fresh squeezed is best but poured works fine.)

Once the fish is done cooking (it will flake easily with a fork) then put it on your plate and drizzle your lemon juice mixture over it. Use any excess on whatever vegetables or starch you decide to cook along with it.

This is a relatively quick recipe that keeps you busy the entire time you are cooking, so I recommend serving it alongside of items that don’t require much attention once you begin them and that take more than 20 minutes to cook. Egg noodles would work, but rice is better, and the acorn squash (which takes about an hour to cook) was excellent. I’d bet that asparagus would also be great, but it isn’t in season right now.

You’ll note that I don’t have any measurements included. Just eyeball it. I rarely measure anything unless I’m making dough.

(Photo Credit: Spring Dew)

Table of contents for Jeff Galloway Clinic

1. Jeff Galloway speaks at the Maine Running Company
2. Jeff Galloway Clinic » Building Endurance
3. Jeff Galloway Clinic » The Magic Mile
4. Jeff Galloway Clinic » Running Faster
5. Jeff Galloway Clinic » The Run-Walk-Run Method
6. Jeff Galloway Clinic » Food & Training
7. Jeff Galloway Clinic » Audience Questions

Jeff Galloway recently came into the Maine Running Company to share his experiences with us. All of my notes from the clinic will be linked at the bottom of this article as they are available.

This morning’s notes are about what Jeff had to say about nutrition and how to eat to fuel your training.

Food & Training

“People tend to over-record their exercise and under-record their calorie intake…Imagine that!”

Fat is a very efficient source of fuel, but it can be a little too abundant of a fuel source that involves carrying around extra weight, which means that you will require more fuel to begin with.

At it’s very core, fat is a survival mechanism. We are programmed to add a little fat every year from age 25 on. This set-point mechanism allows us to more easily survive a famine, but in the modern age if you can avoid adding fat weight as you age then you are ahead of the game. The average person should be adding around 3 or 4 pounds of fat per year to their frame.

If you don’t believe in the the set-point mechanism, Jeff suggests that you just go to Disney World or your local Wal-Mart and look around.

You will not burn any fat for the first 15 minutes of your run. As you run between 15 and 45 minutes, your body slowly transitions into using fat as its principle source of fuel, until at about 45 minutes when it begins using almost exclusively fat.

If you are consistent in your training and you do multiple 60-70 minute runs every week then you will become very efficient at burning fat around the clock. If you stop for a few weeks then your body will stop burning fat so efficiently because it will no longer need to.

Jeff recommends that you use FitDay.com to get a regular report about your calorie intake, nutrient deficits, etc. It will give you a good reality check about whether or not you are working as hard as you think that you are and whether you are eating too much or too little food given your level of exercise.

Jeff also recommends that you use a step counter or a pedometer to count the number of steps that you walk every day. Your goal should for a minimum of 10,000 steps per day, and the distance doesn’t matter. His clients see more of a benefit to losing weight by adding walking steps rather than running steps as they are less likely to become as hungry as a result of the extra exercise.

After you finish running, you should always try to eat something within 20 to 30 minutes. The latest research that Jeff has seen suggests eating about 200-300 calories immediately following your long run that is made up of 80% simple carbs and 20% protein. This will best aid you in recovering your spent muscle glycogen. You should also continue to eat throughout the day to restore most of the calories that you burned, but that 200-300 calories will do the most good within half an hour of your workout.

(Event Photos)

Table of contents for 2nd Maine Cross Country Clinic

1. 2^nd Annual Maine Coach & Athlete Cross Country Clinic (Part I: Injury Prevention and Treatment)
2. 2^nd Annual Maine Coach & Athlete Cross Country Clinic (Part II: Nutrition Basics & Fueling for Performance)
3. 2^nd Annual Maine Coach & Athlete Cross Country Clinic (Part III: Biomechanics & Footwear)
4. 2^nd Annual Maine Coach & Athlete Cross Country Clinic (Part IV: Meet the Athletes)
5. 2^nd Annual Maine Coach & Athlete Cross Country Clinic (Part V: The Athlete’s Panel)

The 2^nd annual Maine Coach and Athlete Cross Country Clinic was on August 18th, 2008 at the University of Southern Maine. This is the second part of my reporting on the clinic; the first part was about injury prevention and treatment. This part covers the presentation on nutrition and fueling.

Nutrition Basics & Fueling for Performance

The second presentation of the night was presented by Karen Hodge Knapton from Whole Health Consulting, who covered what a basic and healthy diet should consist of for an athlete.

“You cannot expect to start the season without a healthy diet.”

It takes months to prepare the body through healthy eating, and you can not concentrate solely on race day. To that effect, you need to be aware of the 6 basic nutrients that make up your diet.

1. Water
2. Vitamins
3. Minerals
4. Carbohydrates
5. Protein
6. Fats

Water is the most important nutrient in your diet, and is second only to Oxygen for keeping you alive. Without water, we would die within 3 days. How much water we need as individuals is going to vary, but for most athletes they can get by on 90 to 120 ounces per day. That 90-120 oz includes the water that is to be found in the foods you eat, so you don’t have to drink it all from the tap. Dehydration is a cumulative effect, and it takes days to dehydrate or to rehydrate your body, so you need to pay attention to getting enough into your system. Extra care should be placed on drinking water before, during and after exercise.

Vitamins & Minerals will come mostly from 9 to 13 servings of fruits and vegetables each day. You should strive for around 2 and a half cups of vegetables and 2 cups of fruit, which in the grand scheme of things is not really very much but is still more than the average American diet. One of the side effects of training is that your immune system is going to be compromised, and restoring the vitamins and minerals will help it recover. Try not to rely upon supplements for your vitamins and minerals, though, because they are no going to contain fiber (which will exercise your internal organs) and they will not contain phytochemicals (which ward off degenerative diseases.)

Carbohydrates should be the backbone of an athlete’s diet, with between 6 and 13 servings per day coming from mostly whole grains. Carbs are the only thing to fuel working muscles, and are needed to refill the glycogen stores in your body. Glycogen is the only fuel that your brain can utilize, so it is especially important for student athletes to get enough carbohydrates in order to not only finish their workouts but to be able to pay attention in class.

Protein should be only 12% to 15% of your diet, which is only somewhere between 5 or 7 or 12 grams total. Protein is necessary to repair, maintain and promote muscle growth, but your body can’t store protein so only a small amount is necessary. Excess protein is excreted through your urine or is stored in your body as fat. There is a lot of wear and tear on your internal systems in order to break down and process any excess protein, so you don’t want to eat a lot of it at any given time. That small amount of protein can be plant based if necessary; it does not have to come from an animal.

Fats are important because they help your body to absorb vitamins and minerals.

Getting all 6 essential nutrients in each meal is not very difficult to do, but it requires a small amount of planning and preparation. If you only grab whatever is easily to hand, then the balance in your diet is going to get all out of whack and will make it more difficult for you to get through your day.

It is especially important to leave enough time in the morning for breakfast. If you do not eat breakfast, then you are going to bonk in practice and you will not be able to get your work load in.

“The only thing that makes you faster is hard work.”

Supplementation has its place, but is no substitute for working out and will not be a miracle cure. A sound basic diet, on the other hand, will allow you to do the hard work that is necessary to improve.

If you are taking supplements, then it can be more difficult to determine how well hydrated you are because they can discolor your urine and make it more difficult to monitor your output. The best way to determine how much water you need is to monitor your sweat rate by weighing yourself before and after working out to see how much water weight you lose during the workout.

Your tolerance to coffee or other sources of caffeine are going to be very individualized, so you will need to see what sorts of effects it can have on you through trial and error if you plan on including caffeine in your diet. There have literally been thousands of research studies done, so you can find relevant research to back up just about any result that you might find through your trial and error.

I do not believe that eating healthy is all that difficult, nor does it have to be very inconvenient or expensive. With a little planning ahead, you can easily provide yourself with plenty of healthy snacks, meals and leftovers with which to fuel yourself.

I actually think that eating healthy can be easier when you are busy because a small amount of time up front can prevent you from wasting a lot of time throughout the week.

You will not have to worry about going out to a restaurant or fast food establishment for your lunches, you will not have to go to the grocery store every day or two to get the staples that you need to prepare dinner, and you won’t have to waste time by going out to eat when you don’t have anything to cook.

In my household, we are the definition of being busy. I work full time, run part time, and am trying to start a home business. My wife goes to law school full time, works part time and spends almost all of her free time studying. My cat, well she mostly just alternates between sleeping and running around like a mad-woman, although she does her best to help my wife study (as long as the books are not in my wife’s lap that is.)

My wife constantly tells me that we need to eat healthier, and every time I have to remind her that I am perfectly content with the healthy content of my diet. The difference between our two diets are that I have more of an opportunity to snack throughout the day. Our dinners are the same, our lunches are usually similar, and if anything she eats a healthier breakfast than I do.

Dinner

I cook most of our meals, and when I cook our meals tend to be a bit healthier than when she does. Every week, we usually eat some sort of fish or other seafood once or twice, eat a vegetarian meal at least once, and try to mix up our chicken, pork and beef throughout the week. Many of our meals include some sort of pasta, rice or quinoa.

Throughout the week, we keep a list of the meals that we are going to prepare that week, and what we want to eat the next week. Individual meals may change for which day we are actually going to cook them on, but by having our list we can make sure that we have everything we need to make those meals on our one shopping trip each week.

Lunch

When I am preparing dinner, I usually cook for 6 to 10 people unless we are eating fish. This provides ample leftovers for lunches throughout the week. My wife eats a normal portion, I usually eat 2 normal portions, and the rest feeds us for lunch. When we make something like quiche or ghoulash, we will freeze some of it for later meals.

It used to be that if we ran out of leftovers and I didn’t have time to go go home for lunch and needed to buy it, then I would go to one of the local delis or butcher shops for a sandwich where they slice my meat and cheese and bake my bread locally.

These days, I can’t afford the time for that, mostly because I usually run at lunch time. The fastest and cheapest meal that I can get is a double egg and sausage sandwich on an english muffin at a small deli on the way back to work that only costs a couple of dollars, which is cheaper than driving home for lunch right now given the price of gas and the poor mileage of the vehicle I’m currently commuting in.

My wife will usually get soup pretty cheaply at the law school on days that we don’t have anything prepared, although she usually gets dibs on any leftovers because she has less time than I do to stop.

Snacking

Eating every 2 to 4 hours is important, so I tend to snack throughout the entire day. It is also the only way for me to get anything done because I am always hungry. To start with, I always bring a banana to work with me, and often bring an apple as well.

Any time that we eat carrots at dinner, which is at least 3 or 4 times per week, then I will slice up a few extra and put them into baggies to snack on at work. They stay fresh cut up in the fridge for at least 2 or 3 days, so the trick is just remembering to throw a baggie of them in my lunch bag in the morning.

My desk drawer also has a 5 gallon tub of pretzels and a 2 pound container of either almonds or mixed nuts that I snack from throughout the day.

My favorite snacks that I eat throughout the day are all home made and cheap. I have a food dehydrator, and make apple leather and jerky on a regular basis. I normally use beef these days, but I taught myself to make jerky using deer meat that my uncle provided. Hopefully he manages to shoot another one next Autumn. I have tried making fruit crisps, but haven’t quite perfected that.

I also make my own protein/energy bars, which may not last as long as store-bought ones but I can get through a batch in about a week or 10 days so it doesn’t really matter. They are healthier than the ones that you buy prepackaged because I don’t use any preservatives, and the raw ingredients are much less expensive per bar than anything from the name brands. Tastes better, too. If you do have trouble eating them before they go stale, then bring them to a group run and they’ll disappear pretty quickly.

How long does all of this take?

When we shop, we tend to buy in bulk. We buy eggs by the 5 dozen (although I probably eat 85% of them), always have plenty of flour and oats on hand, and I go through pretzels and nuts fast enough that it makes sense to snack directly out of the huge containers rather than paying for just a box or bag at a time.

Once per week, we buy the perishable goods or anything that we might need for that weeks meals. Every couple of weeks we go to the local butcher and stock up on whatever is on sale, so other than fish most of our meat comes from out of our freezer. Since we know approximately when we are going to eat something, we’ll pull it out a day or a day in a half in advance so that it can slowly thaw in the refrigerator.

Many of our meals involve multiple vegetables, even our sandwiches and wraps.

When we cook, we prepare extra because it usually doesn’t take much more time to cook for the week than it does for the meal. For example, a cup or two of quinoa will only take about 12 minutes to cook, whereas half of a cup will take 10 minutes.

I will usually do anything that involves long bake times, such as a turkey or ham, on the weekends. I will also take the opportunity to cook any protein bars or bake any bread while the oven is still hot. Baking your own bread isn’t that time consuming and can be much tastier than what you buy in the store. Tends to last longer, too. It can be difficult to get the dough to rise in the winter, though, since we keep our house at 55 degrees.

Anything that I make in the dehydrator takes very little effort to prepare, but takes a lot of time. It will take between 5 and 15 minutes to prepare the apple leathers or to slice up the jerky, and then it will take another 5 minutes to take it out of the dehydrator when it is done. So 20 minutes of labor tops, plus 8 to 12 hours where we just make sure that we will be home and let the dehydrator do its thing. (The jerky also takes 12-24 hours to marinade in the refrigerator, although we don’t need to be home for that.)

If you want to eat healthier, the first thing to do is just plan ahead a little. I may not know what I’m cooking for dinner each specific night, but I have a list of meals for the week before I go to the grocery store (with the exception of the fish, which depends upon what is available and is spur of the moment.) Having a grocery list makes shopping faster, only having to go once means less driving around, and having plenty of leftovers to reheat means more meals are ready to go in less time, both for lunch and dinner.

So quit worrying about how busy you are and how unhealthy your diet is. Find some cheap, fresh snacks and then start planning your meals ahead of time.

My trusty How to Cook Everything book didn’t actually contain anything for barramundi, so I had to improvise. I did all right, because the following recipe is not only fast, but it is very tasty!

1. Set a frying pan to heating with a bit of extra virgin olive oil in it and then prepare any grain or vegetable you want to eat with your fish. They’ll take longer to cook than the fish will.
2. Wash the fish and then pat dry with paper towels.
3. Score the top of the fish 2 or 3 times with a knife without cutting all the way through the filet. I’ve found with other fish that it helps the meat cook more evenly.
4. Season with a little crushed pepper and salt. Don’t overdo it.
5. Being careful not to splash yourself, set the fillets in the heated frying pan.
6. After a few minutes, flip the fillets over.
7. After a few more minutes, the barramundi flesh should flake a bit and it should be cooked through if you separate a fillet into halves.

That’s it, very easy. The entire meal took all of about 12 minutes to prepare and cook, including side dishes. If you were reheating left overs for side dishes, it would probably only take 7 or 8 minutes total.

For those that are interested, barramundi tastes a bit like sea bass but is a river fish. The fish tends to be hermaphroditic, and will usually begin life as a male and then become a female after a spawning season. The barramundi is typically 11-15 pounds, but can grow to be up to 2 meters in length and about 130 pounds. Because of their life cycle, the larger fish are almost always female.

(Photo & Info Credit: Wikipedia)

Table of contents for Food (January)

1. Make Your Own Protein Bars
2. Add Quinoa To Your Diet
3. 50 Recipes for Protein Shakes
4. Two Easy Chicken Recipes

In a continuing collaboration with Scott over at Straight to the Bar, we wrote about food and recipes for the month of January. I’d like to finish the month up by offering a few of my favorite chicken recipes.

Chicken is a great source of protein because it contains all of the essential amino acids in the correct proportions required by the human body for optimum growth of lean tissue. If you have a local butcher or farm, it might be worth investigating the possibility of purchasing your chicken through them rather than getting prepackaged chicken at the grocery store.

In my experience, buying chicken from the farm or the butcher yields a bird that has not been injected with water to make it appear plumper (or to add to the weight before purchase!) I prefer the taste of fresher chicken, although it cooks faster and can become dried out easier if you aren’t careful while you are cooking.

Here are 2 of my favorite chicken recipes, which are both quick and easy to prepare. I recommend warming up a good loaf of bread to serve alongside of either meal.

Chicken & Caper Linguine

The first dish I would like to describe is a chicken and caper dish. You can substitute scallops or shrimp for the chicken pretty easily. I have not had much luck substituting with tofu and haven’t bothered continuing to try.

Ingredients:

• 1 large or 2 small boneless skinless chicken breasts
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)
• Linguine
• 1 or 2 cloves of garlic
• Spices to taste (I like pepper and basil)
• Capers

Heat up a small amount of olive oil in a skillet and start a pasta pot full of water to boil. While the oil is heating up, cut the chicken into short strips or cubes and then add it to the frying pan. Chop or mince the garlic and let that cook along with the chicken. The chicken should be cooked through around the same time as the water begins boiling.

While the linguine is cooking, add the capers and seasonings to the chicken and oil. The oil is going to be a sauce, so you may want to add a small amount more. Once the linguine is done cooking, drain the water and then mix in the chicken and caper sauce.

Total preparation and cooking time: Less than 20 minutes.

If you are cooking with scallops, then you will not need much oil until they are cooked through and will need to drain some of the sea water from them before adding the garlic or capers.

Lemon Pepper Chicken Parm

The second chicken dish that I enjoy cooking is chicken parmesan. I like to make mine taste a little lemony, which provides a nice counterpoint to the red sauce.

Ingredients:

• 1 to 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• Spaghetti or Linguine
• Lemon Juice
• Lemon Pepper seasoning
• Pasta Sauce
• Mozzarella Cheese
• Parmesan Cheese (a brick, not the pre-grated junk)
• 1 or 2 carrots
• Bread Crumbs

Preheat the oven to 350° to 375°. Clean the chicken breasts and cut off any extra fat; it isn’t needed to flavor the chicken. Pound it flat using a meat mallet to tenderize the chicken. If you have large chicken breasts, you may want to slice them down the center.

Prepare a bowl with lemon juice (or freshly squeezed lemon) and a paper bag full of bread crumbs and lemon pepper seasoning (or lemon zest and ground pepper.) Coat the chicken with lemon juice and shake inside the bag to coat with bread crumbs. Cook for 18 to 22 minutes.

While the chicken is cooking, peel and chop up a carrot and cook in a small sauce pan with the pasta sauce. I recommend Classico Spicy Red Pepper sauce, but any sauce that is more of a sauce and less a paste will do. Set a pot of water to boil.

About 3 to 5 minutes before the chicken is ready to be taken out, start cooking your pasta. After the chicken has been cooking for 18 to 22 minutes, pull it out and make sure it is cooked through. Coat the top of the chicken with pasta sauce (I recommend leaving the carrots in the sauce and not putting them on the chicken) and further season the sauce on top of the chicken with your lemon pepper or lemon zest and ground pepper. Cover with some grated parmesan and mozzarella cheese and cook for another 3 to 5 minutes. The cheese should be well melted around the same time that the pasta is ready to be drained and served.

Total preparation and cooking time: About 30 minutes

Table of contents for Food (January)

1. Make Your Own Protein Bars
2. Add Quinoa To Your Diet
3. 50 Recipes for Protein Shakes
4. Two Easy Chicken Recipes

In a continuing collaboration with Scott over at Straight to the Bar, we will be writing about food and recipes for the month of January. This week, Scott shares 50 protein shake recipes that you can make at home.

Along with the 50 recipes, he offers some advice for making substitutions and has a list of tips for how to make the shakes. For example, you can add frozen fruit to add flavor and to thicken the shake. Is the shake too thick? Add some water (slowly) to thin it out a little.

If you are tired of just mixing up some protein powder with milk or water and calling it good, then take a look through Scott’s list of 50 recipes and see if there are any there that you already have the ingredients for.

Table of contents for Food (January)

1. Make Your Own Protein Bars
2. Add Quinoa To Your Diet
3. 50 Recipes for Protein Shakes
4. Two Easy Chicken Recipes

In a continuing collaboration with Scott over at Straight to the Bar, we will be writing about food and recipes for the month of January. This week, I would like to recommend that you add quinoa to your diet. It has become a staple in our household over the past few months.

Quinoa is very similar to rice and cous cous, it has similar properties to them, and you can cook and prepare it in the same fashion. It has a slightly nuttier flavor, but tastes quite similar as well. Quinoa is not actually a grain, however, because it does not come from grass. It is also more nutritious and easier to digest than most grains, is high in magnesium and iron and is made up of between 12-18% protein with a balanced set of essential amino acids. It is gluten free and is a good source of dietary fiber and phosphorus. On top of the nutritional value, it cooks very fast and is easy to prepare.

My uncle pays an arm and a leg for single serving boxes of quinoa from a health food store, but my wife and I buy it cheap in our local grocery store. They have it in the bulk organic foods section, where we can get it by the pound.

Before cooking the quinoa, you will probably want to rinse it off due to the high levels of sapponin that coats the outside of the seed. The sapponin gives the quinoa a bitter taste and can be mildly toxic, which prevents birds and insects from bothering with it so that it does not require any unnatural pesticides. Most quinoa sold commercially in North America has been processed to remove the coating of sapponin for you, but it only takes a minute to rinse.

Once it has been rinsed, toss a cup of quinoa into a cup to two cups of water, bring to a boil, and then lower the heat to simmer until the water has been absorbed. Depending upon how much water you use, it can take as little as 10 minutes to completely cook. You can cook it with a little olive oil and basil to have a side dish ready to serve, or you can get a little more exotic and prepare it according to some of the following recipes.

I had never heard of quinoa before last September, when Scott posted a video about a dish made with quinoa:

My wife and I don’t actually eat it as a snack, and we have never followed that recipe perfectly. We just throw whatever we have available together and make a salad, which tastes very good as a bed for haddock or as a side dish. They Call Me Mommy has a similar recipe to make apricot quinoa.

Christina Lucy included a recipe over at The Outdoor Journey for making stuffed bell peppers, which tastes very good. I have made the stuffed peppers a couple of times already since seeing that article.

To make the stuffed peppers, preheat your oven to 350° while you cook the quinoa. Halve the peppers lengthwise and remove the seeds, and then boil them for a couple of minutes. Chop whatever veggies you want to use in the stuffing and combine them with egg whites, herbs, cheese, and the quinoa in a bowl. You may want to chop up tomato, carrot, beans, celery, or anything that needs eating in the fridge. Sprinkle in some bread crumbs, mix everything together, and then spoon the mixture into the pepper halves. Bake for 20 minutes or so.

As you can tell, I’m anything but exact when I cook, but you can get the exact recipes that inspired my quinoa meals by clicking on the links. You can substitute quinoa for most recipes that you already know that use rice or cous cous, and there are a plethora of recipes that you can find online by just looking for them in your favorite search engine.

Do you have any recipes that I should try in the near future?

(Photo Credit: Francisca Ulloa)

Table of contents for Food (January)

1. Make Your Own Protein Bars
2. Add Quinoa To Your Diet
3. 50 Recipes for Protein Shakes
4. Two Easy Chicken Recipes

In a continuing collaboration with Scott over at Straight to the Bar, we will be writing about food and recipes for the month of January. This week, Scott shares a method for making your own protein bars out of a few simple ingredients.

Scott’s recipe calls for equal amounts of peanut butter, protein powder and flour. You mix them together in a bowl or food processor to create a dough-like substance, spread it in a pan, and freeze it. Once frozen, you can cut it into individual bars and then pop it back in the freezer. That’s all there is to it!

You can mix and match different additives to enhance the flavor, or swap the flour out for something like ground oats.

I will be giving this recipe a try, but I have to admit that this probably won’t work as a mainstay for me. I have plenty of healthy foods available at home to eat after a workout, and the only time I eat energy or protein bars are when I’m working out away from home (which is 50-90% of the time depending upon the week.) A frozen treat isn’t ideal, and I would like to find a cheaper alternative. I don’t mind the simple recipe, but protein powder around here costs 80 cents to a dollar per scoop when bought in a 5 gallon bucket, and a cup of powder will be at least 4 or 5 scoops I would imagine.

You can see Scott’s recipe here:

Here’s a video that Kent made of a very similar recipe (he includes butter, splenda and vanilla syrup):

Do you have any home-made energy bar recipes that are worth sharing?

A Clean Engine Runs Better

My recent experience with body detoxification and complete nutrition

I decided late last Summer to look at training and my health in a new way. With my favorite running season (cross country) and my 46^th birthday rolling rapidly towards me on the calendar, I knew that I didn’t want to leave anything on the trails this autumn…It was time to try some new approaches, abandon a few habits, sacrifice a little and train harder.

The first big change I made, and the one described herein, was to finally take the advice of a health and wellness mentor of mine (Mike Senechal, NMT) and order the Isagenix 9-day cleanse program through him. Mike had lobbied me for two years to do it and I wish I had acted right away…The results were astounding and served as the catalyst for what was one of the best competitive seasons of my career!

Here’s what I’m going to share with you:

• Why you should cleanse
• How it works
• My cleansing experience
• The importance of clean food
• The protein factor
• How to get started

This is a short overview to deliver some basic information and hopefully give you something to think about as you plan your next meal!

Why you should cleanse

Anyone living on Earth has been exposed to toxins and contaminants through our sullied environment. Depending on where you grew up, your body harbors a legacy load of metals and contaminants. In addition, the food you’ve been eating through the years has progressively gotten worse. The food grown for us has less nutrient value and more contaminants and pesticides than ever before. Food coloring, sugar substitutes, preservatives, antibiotics, hormones…The list of questionable additives that our bodies cannot recognize and use goes on and on.

For more information about legacy chemicals and the daily offensive against our bodies, read this National Geographic article that grabbed my attention a couple of years ago:

http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0610/feature4/index.html

How it Works

The cleansing program works on many levels and I’m not going to pretend I understand enough about it to go into the science in detail with you. As a thoughtful eater and a non-meat consumer since 1987, I can tell you the ingredients list on each product passed my layman’s inspection.

Here’s a little pseudo-science you can choose to believe, research on your own or laugh off: many toxins and compounds the body cannot recognize are stored in fat, especially if there’s an onslaught of contaminants in a short time frame. In my opinion, this is why people who drink a lot of diet sodas can still get fat. The sugar substitutes are recognized as contaminants by the body. Again, that is just me saying that off the top of my head, but you won’t catch me drinking that stuff. Contaminants also put the body under stress, which, you guessed it, generates a fat storage response.

A cleansing program that sheds fat, while maintaining proper nutrition, will safely reduce the level of contaminants in your body and give you a cleaner platform for a fresh start. Another component of the Isagenix Cleanse is the effect the ingredients have on releasing, for lack of a better word, the ‘plaque’ that can build up in your digestive system. This can amount to a lot of weight in some people.

You can learn more by watching this video at: http://www.drspeaksout.com

My Cleansing Experience

I started my program on Labor Day 2007. The first 2 days were my pre-cleanse where I gave up a couple of my eating vices (coffee and beer). I started drinking the protein shakes. The cleansing on the 3^rd and 4^th days seemed pretty easy. In fact, I felt good enough to go to the track on the 4^th day and surprised myself with a strong performance. By the 5^th day, I had already lost 8 pounds! The next 5 days I went back on the shakes and snacks and one “sensible” meal. I had some incredible runs and some where I felt under fueled, but I wouldn’t classify any of the days a true hardship. After losing 11 pounds, I didn’t even finish out the last day and saved the remaining cleansing tonic for after a particularly nasty trip to Baltimore.

The 12^th day I went to the track for 6 x 800m and felt very strong. Three weeks earlier, I worked my way down to 2:35 on the last interval. On this day, I started with 2:35s and worked down to a 2:23 with juice left to spare. My racing has gone to a new level, especially for my age. Less weight = Greater VO₂ Max.

The Importance of Clean Food

It’s pretty scary when you look at the ingredients of much of the food we trust. Believe it or not, corporations aren’t really looking out for your best interest as a consumer. I’ve already told you what I think about diet soda, which is certainly one of the biggest nutritional swindles in history. I can’t go into details or this will get too long, so I’ll just suggest that you really think hard about what’s in that next nacho chip, dollop of ranch dressing, chicken wing or even that conventionally grown apple.

The Protein Factor

As I mentioned earlier, I haven’t eaten meat or chicken for 20 years. I made up for this lack of protein in my diet by being a glutton for everything else. Now that I’m gobbling down protein shakes, organic peanut butter, organic eggs, hemp seed, sunflower seeds, and almonds, my muscles recover fast and I’m getting leaner and stronger every day. My weight has stayed steady since the last day of the cleansing program. I continue to lose a little soft stuff here and there and gain muscle where I’m doing some extra work. I see now that I wasn’t eating properly (for a competitive runner) for two decades. Don’t let this happen to you!

How to get Started

I think everyone should do a nutritional cleanse at some point. I was so impressed with the effectiveness of the products and the results I achieved that I got involved with the company as a part-time associate. In this capacity I distribute the products and “coach” people through their program. I’ve now coached 11 people (7 runners) to lose a total of 97 pounds. It’s not just about losing the weight though. As I coach you through the program, I’ll contact you every day to talk about how you’re feeling and give you tips. It’s a great learning experience for both of us and it’s a lot of fun. This is an avocation for me.

Don’t be suspicious or worried (like I was) about the network marketing distribution model that Isagenix uses. There’s no pressure to keep buying product and no one will solicit you. I’ve been as impressed with the company’s ethics as I am with the products.

I hope this has been helpful in demystifying the Isagenix cleansing program for you. I’ll be glad to answer questions here at Run to Win or you can call or email me directly:

Pete Bottomley
207.807.1133
peteb@coastofmaine.com

(Editor’s Note: Pete is a teammate of mine and has been very happy with his results, as have our other teammates I’ve spoken with that he has coached through this program. I have not gone through the process, however, so any questions about the program will be redirected to Pete.)

Generally speaking, your body is only able to process so much of any particular nutrient at any given time. There are also certain substances that will help your body to absorb vitamins and minerals, and others that will block your body from absorbing them. For example, having vitamin D in your system can help your body absorb calcium, while caffeinated coffee or tea can interfere with the process.

Be sure to talk to your doctor if you are taking any sorts of prescription medications or have any medical work coming up; excessive vitamins and minerals can sometimes have an averse reaction or cause problems that your doctor will be able to warn you about.

If you are going to take any sort of supplement, then you should take it with a meal. If you are going to take a multivitamin, then you should take any other vitamins at a different time of the day. For example, my wife takes a multivitamin with breakfast, and vitamin C with dinner. If she took the vitamin C with breakfast, then her body would be unable to absorb most of it. If you have a pill splitter, you can take part of a pill at different times of the day.

If you can, try to get as many of your vitamins and minerals as you can through the foods that you eat. If you eat regularly throughout the day and include plenty of fruits and vegetables, then you probably do not need to supplement.

Table of contents for Hornet Juice

1. What is hornet juice, and how can it help athletic performance?

I was recently contacted by Rina Ward to sample and review Hornet Juice, a powdered drink that is supposed to boost athletic performance. For all of the buzz about Hornet Juice, I did not really know all that much about it. There are two websites that the company maintains. At HornetJuice.com, you can purchase the product, and at Vaam-Power.com you can learn a bit more about what it is and how it works.

First, hornet juice is not your typical energy drink. Unlike Gatorade or Gu or other products of that nature, hornet juice does not actually replenish the fuel in your body as your work out. You could mix it with those products to get that sort of an effect, but that is not the purpose of taking it. The idea behind hornet juice is that it helps your body to metabolize fat for energy rather than glycogen. Theoretically, this would cause your glycogen stores to last longer, provide you with more readily available fuel than you might otherwise have during endurance exercise, and will help you burn off fat if you are currently trying to lose weight.

Despite the name, Hornet Juice does not contain any substances that are actually harvested from live hornets. It is not even juice; it is a powdered mixture that you shake into your water bottle. The idea for Hornet Juice comes from the Giant Japanese Hornet (Vespa Mandarinia), which can fly 50 to 100 kilometers per day despite being unable to eat any solid foods. The hornet kills other insects, and grinds up their bodies into a “meatball” that it feeds to young larvae. The larvae then secrete a protein solution that the adults consume. The ingredients in Hornet Juice are synthesized versions of the amino acids that are present in the solution created by the young hornets.

The concept does not sound completely preposterous, but it is hard to believe the claims made by the company. There are quite a few happy customer testimonials included on the websites, and Hornet Juice is known to have been used by at least a few Olympians. I recently read a positive product review by Thomas Bubendorfer over at Complete Running.

The website has a pretty good FAQ Page if you are interested in reading more about the product. The price ranges from $2.25/serving to $1.70/serving depending upon the quantity that you order, which while not cheap does put it at in the range of what you can expect to pay for most sports drinks.

If you are interested in the hornets themselves, I found this video on their site that is pretty interesting. It does not discuss the drink at all, but you can see where the inspiration came from:

I will write a review of the product itself once I have had a chance to sample it on a couple of long runs. Have you ever used Vaam (an earlier product available in Japan based on the same principles) or Hornet Juice? How did it work out for you?

Please Note: This is a sponsored post.

Photo by
Refracted Moments™

I especially found the second panel funny, where the addiction level is pointed out. Take a look at the the strip, and let me know what you think. Am I the only person that finds this humorous?

You can find it at:

First, my credentials. I have run more marathons than Mark, and not quite as many as Steve. I’ve run all of my marathons faster than either of them, owing largely to my age and the fact that I am only a 5 or 6 years removed from averaging 85-100 miles per week throughout the course of a year. My goals tend to be a little different than what they might put down as well; depending upon how my next few year’s of training and racing go I would not be surprised if my barely attainable goals move down towards a trials qualifier.

I never began fueling during a marathon until number 4 or 5. My first Boston Qualifier was based solely upon water during the run. Even now, the vast majority of my training runs are done not only without mid-run fueling but usually without mid-run water. I will go up to 20 miles without water, although I prefer not to go over around 16 miles if I can’t get a drink along the way. I never drink gatorade while working out; I save it for before or after the run (usually after). In that respect, I tend to side with Mark; it is good to get the body used to doing without.

About two months before each marathon, I will start taking gels with me on my longer runs to get my body used to using them again. For a twenty to twenty five mile run I will usually have only 1 or 2 gel packs. My body can let me know if it has decided that it doesn’t like what I am using over the previous 4 or 5 months since the last marathon, and it lets my body know that good things are coming.

My diet the week before a race is pretty similar to my diet for the rest of the year. I will tend towards eating some sort of pasta dishes in the day or two before a race, but I eat pasta between 4 and 6 nights per week anyway. What and how I eat the morning of a race depends upon what time the race is at; fueling for New York or Boston is much different than fueling for San Antonio or Mystic Places.

During the race, I will consume between 4 and 6 gel packs starting at around mile 4. My goal is to consume a gel pack around every 30 minutes or so (about every 4 to 5 miles) as I am coming up on a water station. Gel without water is going to do more harm than good. My goal is to replenish as much of the fuel that I am using as possible. I also take a sip of water or a full cup of water every water station, depending upon thirst. I do not bother taking any more gel once I reach mile 22. My body will not have time to process and make use of the gel after that point and it will just make me have to go to the bathroom when I finish.

Since I have come up with this strategy, I have stopped hitting the wall and I have felt great after my races. What would you prefer to run? A 3:08 marathon, hurting a little in the later stages of the race, and having trouble walking for the next few days? Or a completely miserable 3:40:37 that takes you out for a week and leaves you naseous and unable to sleep for two days?

For myself, I enjoy being able to run at an easy and comfortable pace, come in under 3 hours, and be recovered within a day or two. When I ran the New York City Marathon last year, I ran negative splits. I had a lot of fun. I ran 2:51 and change. And when I finished, I felt like I had just finished a leisurely long run. My buddy’s cousin couldn’t even tell that I had run earlier in the day. The next day I was able to walk around New York City without any trouble at all. What is not to love about that? I could probably run a fast marathon without gel packs, but what happens after a race is almost as important as what happens during it.

Another argument that I have with Mark’s position is that I have absolutely no interest in burning fat. I want to burn fuel in the most efficient way possible, and I don’t have any fat to lose. I have a 5.5% body fat, and maintain a healthy weight when I exercise. If I stop exercising for any length of time, I shed weight like it is going out of style and not only look awful but get sick easier. I strive for a calorie-neutral day every day, whether I am running a marathon or taking a stroll through a park with my wife.

What is your take? Do you prefer to run your long races without refueling? Do you just stick to water? Or do you know what your body likes and do whatever is best for you, whether it be ingesting gel or chewing on salt tablets?

Our bodies don’t like to be without food, but we can’t process a lot of calories at one time. If you think about it, you probably spent a third of the day without food when you wake up in the morning. Assuming that you don’t eat right before you go to bed and sleep for 7 or 8 hours, you can easily have gone 8 to 10 hours without ingesting anything.

Breaking your fast tells your body that it is time to get your metabolism moving again. It can handle taking an 8 hour break from food when you are sleeping, but you should never go more than 5 hours without food when you are awake (eating something every 2 to 3 hours is even better). By eating as soon as you wake up (or shortly after you wake up if you can’t eat first thing) your body will speed up your metabolism and you will have an extra few hours of burning fat and calories.

If you just get up and go about your day, you will quickly use up what little energy stores your body still has and will be tired and famished by the time you have lunch. You will then eat more than you need to at lunch time to compensate, and your body will not be able to process all of the calories that you just ingested.

I have never had trouble eating first thing in the morning, thankfully. I tend to eat a small breakfast as soon as I wake up, and then another one an hour or two later. I snack throughout the morning until lunch (carrot sticks, pretzels, peanuts, beef jerky, apple leather, almonds, etc) and then will usually snack throughout the afternoon until dinner. I do not tend to eat much after dinner; I might have a small snack an hour before I go to bed, but then again I might not.

Scientists offer several explanations as to why we may not notice calories from some beverages. A drink’s rapid passage through the mouth provides less time for signals to trigger the brain you are eating. Compared to beverages, solid food seems to provide more of a feeling of fullness, which signals the brain to stop eating. Thick liquids (like smoothies and shakes) provide considerably more fullness signals than thin liquids, such as soft drinks, fruit drinks, and sweetened tea and coffee. As portion sizes of calorie-dense beverages increase, it is easier to gulp down larger amounts than to eat larger portions of solid foods. Finally, some researchers suggest that there may be a psychological component, too. Many of us consider beverages a separate category that does not “count” in the same way as solid food.

This all makes sense to me. If you are concerned with weight loss, then you should be replacing almost all of your soda intake with water, and the majority of your fruit drinks with water as well. If you are not going to feel any more satiated after drinking beverages with more calories, then you need to consider what you are consuming and what your goals are.

Even when you are not trying to lose weight, it makes sense to try to drink more water than other types of beverages. I rely on my body to tell me how hungry that I am and how much I should be consuming, and now I have yet one more reason to stick to water throughout my day. Drinking a gallon+ of water every day is probably one of the reasons that I have managed to maintain such a steady weight over the past 6 or 7 years. Specifically, my weight was within a 5 pound span for almost the entire year.

Attaining and maintaining a healthy weight should be something that anybody who hopes to compete in any sport should strive to maintain, and being able to rely upon your body to tell you when it has had enough to eat certainly makes that easier. What are your drinking habits like? Do you carry a water bottle everywhere? Or do you drink soda or sports drinks all day?

Table of contents for Books (February)

1. Inspirational Running Books
2. Health and Fitness Books
3. Nutrition Books
4. A book on Bending

In a collaborative effort with Scott over at Straight to the Bar, we will be writing about books throughout the month of February. This week I would like to talk about the diet and (mostly) nutrition books that line my shelves.

For athletes, the best book that I have read that deals with the nutritional requirements of athletes is Eat Smart, Play Hard by Liz Applegate. Most books about nutrition have a chapter or two of actual content, and the majority of the book is meant for skimming either because it just plain is not interesting or relevant or it is full of recipes. The recipes can be important, but they are not really meant for line by line reading.

The first time that I read this book, I read it cover to cover, and the second time I read the first two thirds over. The book is divided into three sections: the basics, the food, and the meal plans. There are recipes sprinkled throughout the book, but the general idea is centered more upon creating a healthy balance that will support an active lifestyle. The meal plans are blueprints to help complete different athletic endeavors, such as being a weekend basketball player, getting out on the greens for a day or a weekend, to riding a century or running a marathon.

This is the first relevant book that I have read on nutrition, because it does not worry about whether you want to lose weight or not. It tackles nutrition from the viewpoint about what sorts of fuel your body needs to perform specific tasks, and assumes that you will get to and maintain a healthy weight. Along with supplemental research that I have read about over the past few years, I base most of my nutritional philosphy off of what I read in this book. It helps that I was already eating a diet that was conducive to my levels of activity; this book just helped me to fine tune the little things.

I used to work out in Mike Foley’s gym, the author of Eat to be Fit. I like Mike a lot, and I think that his nutritional counselling services are top notch (based upon friends who have used his services; I never have personally). That being said, I did not find his book very relevant to myself. I think that it would be a good book if your goal was weight loss, but my goals are usually to put on pounds if I am thinking about changes in my weight. If I want to lose weight, I just need to stop running for a week or two. This book also does not answer the why of doing something; it operates under the assumption that the reader is looking for an expert’s advice on what works, and will take it on faith that following that advice will work. For a lot of people, knowing why something works does not interest them. For myself, I need to know how my body works and how and why it will react to different fuels under different circumstances.

I did get some good tidbits from the book, and had the advantage of being able to ask the author about the science and research behind some of it. I certainly recommend this one to anybody who is undertaking new levels of fitness in an effort to lose weight and live a healthier lifestyle. It does a good job of helping you add exercise and better nutrition into your life in a safe and effective manner. For somebody who is already in decent shape and is looking for a competitive edge, though, the material is lacking.

My wife introduced me to How to Cook Everything, which is not really a nutrition book. However, it lists recipes for almost anything that you might want to prepare. Once you have an idea of what you might want, you can just peruse the index and find something interesting. I usually use the recipes in this book as a base to experiment off of, and find it handy for ideas on how to prepare something that I have never made before. The book is very large and quite cumbersome, so make sure you find some shelf space near your kitchen and have somewhere you can leave it open to reference it.

As for diet books in general, I tend to recommend that people avoid the diets that restrict carbohydrates. The Atkins and South Beach diets tend to favor people that are not very active; I believe that if you follow the Atkins diet exactly that it even recommends that you do not exercise during the initial break in period. While eating too many sugars and carbohydrates can be detrimental to your waistline, if you lead an active lifestyle then you will not have enough energy or fuel to get yourself through your days. Those diets are really meant for people who sit behind a desk all day and on a couch all night. I realize that that is a broad generalization, but I would not be able get by on a diet skewed so much away from breads, pastas, and fruits. That being said, I do recommend looking at cookbooks for those sorts of diets because as individual meals throughout the week you can usually find some very good additions.

What are your favorite diet and nutrition books? What has worked for you? What hasn’t? What should I look at in the future?

Photo by Refracted Moments™

Eliminating caffeine from my diet was not the be-all and end-all solution to all of my problems. It was only a piece of the puzzle. I just feel that nothing but good has happened as a result of my dietary change, and I do think that it was the largest part of getting my migraine problem under control. Rather than clusters of 6-30 migraines in a few month span a few times per year, I now get maybe one or two migraines every year. When I do get migraines now, they are far less severe than they used to be and rarely require me to halt everything in my life for a day or two. In college, I avoided the problem of staying awake to study by going to bed early and getting sleep rather than cramming for a test.

When I talk about the matter with folk that I know, my recommendation is always to try eliminating it from their diet for 30 days. Commit to having no caffeine for 30 days, and if you do not feel that things have improved then go back to consuming it. By committing to 30 days, you will get past the withdrawal symptom hump and will start to notice the benefits of not having it in your system constantly. You will also have kept up the habit of not consuming caffeine for long enough to keep it going if you choose to do so. Once you make 30 days, the rest is easy. Having that hard 30 day set of time, you can keep telling yourself only 2 more weeks, only 10 more days, and finally, you can tell yourself you don’t need it anymore.

Blaine, we have a bunch of folks that are getting ready to get into their longer runs on Team HM Express (teamhmexpress.blogspot.com). Do you have any articles on hydration and nutrition while running over (x) miles?
[...] This is primarily for folks training for a half marathon. Thanks!

My advice on hydration is always the same, because I always hydrate the same whether my goal race is a 5k, a marathon, or I am in my off season and just lifting some weights. I very rarely have more than a week or so off at any given point unless I am sick, and then I drink even more water in an effort to drown whatever has me down. If it is true that thirsty people feel more pain, then you will want to be sure to keep well hydrated any time that you are getting ready for a good workout or race.

My thoughts on drinking water are to always drink as much as you can manage in any given day. You should never rely on thirst as an indicator of how hydrated you are. While hyponatremia is certainly more dangerous than being dehydrated, I eat constantly throughout the day and am not worried in the least about it. A well balanced diet will easily make it so that you never have to worry about it. When I get up in the morning, I usually have a glass or two of water or juice with my first breakfast. I try to always keep a water bottle handy, specifically a 32 ounce nalgene bottle or two.

On days that I do not work out, I will probably drink between one half and three quarters of the water bottle while I am at work. If I am planning on working out after work, I will make sure that I get through the entire water bottle. If I worked out before work (or at lunch time) then I will usually drink at least one and a half bottles worth, sometimes two. When I am lifting weights in the morning, I will usually drink about a full water bottle’s worth, and then will continue drinking a few more throughout the day.

In the evenings, my hydration is not quite as steady. I will have at least a few glasses of some beverage throughout the night before I go to bed. That might be water, tea, beer, milk, or wine. Usually, it is a combination, especially if I am drinking milk or wine. (The milk is always a protein shake, and only when it follows a workout.) I used to keep a glass of water by the bed so that I could sip throughout the night, but that was before I began drinking so much during the day. Now, I just get a glass if I happen to get up during the night. At least a few times during the week I will have to get up to urinate in the evening, but it is a small price to pay. Now I no longer have to worry about the cat knocking the glass over, either.

I always try to drink plenty of water (and eat) in the hours leading up to a workout. I would rather be over-fueled than under-fueled. Whenever possible, try to drink water during the workout as well. This is especially important when your workout’s duration is more than 45 minutes or an hour. No matter how much you drink during the workout, always rehydrate yourself after a workout or race. Your body needs the water in order to repair muscle damage, and that is how you become stronger and faster.

One benefit of drinking this much water is that you will feel full more often, and your body will be able to break down and process the food that you eat more readily. It will be easier to lose weight when you drink a lot of water. If you weigh yourself daily, as I do, then be sure to weigh yourself first thing in the morning and to empty your bladder first. Don’t worry about one day that is way up or way down from the days around it; your weekly average is a much better gauge of how much weight you are gaining or losing. Your weight throughout the day is going to swing by as much as 4 or 5 pounds depending upon how much you eat and drink and how much you sweat.

Be aware, though, that if you try to keep yourself hydrated with soda that you will undoubtedly gain weight that you do not want. If you do convince yourself that you must have a soda or coffee, try to avoid the caffeine. Ignoring my own personal reasons for hating the substance and any nutritional problems it can cause, it will make you urinate more often and can leave you less hydrated than you began with if you drink enough of it. If you follow my advice, you will be visiting the bathroom often enough already. I recommend sticking to water as often as you can. Sugar water such as juice and Gatorade has its place, but as long as you eat well there is no need to drink them on a regular basis throughout the day.

So are you worried about hydration? The best way to sum up my thoughts on how to hydrate is to just carry a water bottle with you throughout the day. If it is still pretty full when you get home every day, then set up a timer and take a sip every so many minutes until you get used to drinking from it constantly. Your health will likely improve, you will not get dehydrated as easily, and you will realize a much great benefit from your workouts.

I do not think that nutrition is as important as proper hydration, but it can also make a big difference. I will share my thoughts on the other half of Wes’s question later in the week.

• 1 or 2 tilapia filets per person
• 1 or 2 beaten eggs (depending upon quantity of tilapia filets being prepared)
• Bread crumbs and seasonings (to taste)
• Cheese
• Toothpicks

See? Not much to it. I used bread crumbs, basil, and cayenne pepper, but you can bread the fish with whatever you want. I had American cheese available, but next time I will make sure that I have montery jack on hand. I only needed one egg and could have easily coated a couple of pounds of fish, but I only had 3 filets (about 0.75 lbs).

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven – prepare the filets while you wait for the oven to heat up to 375�.
2. Clean the filets – assuming that you did not catch the fish yourself, rinsing them off should be fine.
3. Mix bread crumbs and seasonings – just dump them onto a plate and shake or stir them up to mix them well.
4. Coat and bread the filets – coat the filets with a beaten egg (or two) and then bread with your mixture of crumbs and seasonings.
5. Top with cheese and roll – put slices of cheese (or shredded cheese, I suppose) on top of the tilapia filets and then roll them up. Keep them from unrolling by sticking toothpicks into them.
6. Bake for 25-30 minutes – the filets will probably take at least 25 minutes to cook; keep an eye on them and try to get them out of the oven with half of an hour.

I served the tilapia filets over rice with some mixed vegetables on the side. It took me about 10 minutes total to prepare everything, including the rice and vegetables, and about 30 minutes for it all to cook. I try to have seafood at least once or twice a week, and this is a quick and easy meal that I will definately be making again.

Even with food, you still need to be careful not to take too much at a time. Last year, I came into the possession of Morning Glory Drugs. I have not even bothered to break the seal. There is no way that my body could ever process 5000% of my daily B₆. If you are silly enough to try taking something like that, then you are going to wind up sending the majority of it out of your body through your urine. Many people can also have allergic reactions if they take too many vitamins over a period of time. If you are getting all of your vitamins through your food, then you are much less likely to have that sort of a problem.

If you are having trouble getting enough of a particular vitamin in your diet then it might make sense to take a daily multivitamin. If you have a pill splitter, then you should cut the vitamin in half and take half in the morning with breakfast and half in the evening with dinner. You can also get fortified foods and beverages, such as orange juice fortified with calcium. Now that I can no longer drink milk, I have to be mindful that I get enough calcium from other sources.

Protein shakes and supplements of that sort are also great for gaining weight and fueling your muscle mass. They can really aid in getting ready for a tough workout or recovering from one. If you do drink protein shakes, however, do not use them as a meal replacement. They are meant to be used in addition to your normal diet; if you are trying to lose weight then it may make sense to lay off of them. One protein shake can contain an entire meal’s worth of calories.

Any time you plan what is going to go into your body, always consider your diet first and foremost. A well balanced diet will provide the vast majority of what your body needs to be successful in any type of athletic endeavor. Once you have a balanced diet, then you can try taking vitamins and supplements. Vitamins should always be taken with a meal to aid in absorbing as much as you can. Supplements such as protein shakes should never replace a meal and should be considered extra calories on top of your normal diet.

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“Early humans sought energy-dense food with high levels of fats, starches and sugars. We are genetically programmed to find foods with these qualities appealing. However, highly energy-dense Western diets have had many of the flavor and micronutrients processed out of them. The artificial replacements in starchy, fatty and sugary foods make them over-palatable and easy to eat quickly.” But too much processed food results in an excess energy intake deficient in micronutrients, producing a state of “malnutrition”, which in turn sees the body react to a “famine stress” by storing fat around the upper body.

I would not be at all surprised to find out that fast foods are actually addicting based on the way that we have evolved to survive. However, I still think that their claim that diet and exercise are not enough is not necessarily accurate. On a global scale, it may be difficult to get people to eat well and to move around, but working out and eating well very obviously works on an individual level.

If evolution is at play here, it may be trying to thin out the population since we are getting dangerously close to requiring more resources than we have available. I personally do not find it very difficult to eat well and exercise often, and am always encouraging the people that I meet to improve their own lives no matter what kind of shape they are in. Small changes to their lifestyle can be easy to make, and have a cumulative effect that makes it easier the longer that you try.

Our bodies like eating well, and respond well to it. I think that the bigger culprit is a society where exercise is not mandatory. If we had the same fast food options available as we do now, but most jobs involved some sort of manual labor such as farming or construction, then I doubt that obesity would be such a problem. People would work off some of the energy they get from the fast food, and probably would not eat as much of it to begin with. I know that as I became more active when I was younger, I tolerated fast food a lot less. My body insisted upon a better diet and told me what it wanted. I was eating fairly well before I started to study nutrition and what I ate, and with a little education I now eat very well.

If you had a particularly good workout during the day, and you do not eat enough after your workout, then you may have trouble sleeping because of hunger pangs. Perhaps you worked out after dinner, or you worked out twice but only had a small dinner after the second workout. If you are not able to have two small meals after your workout, and your sleep is suffering, you should try getting up and having something light before going back to bed.

Another example of when you may want to eat a little extra is when you are not feeling well the day before. Yesterday I did not eat much, and when I sat down to dinner I was feeling a little nauseous and could not eat much. I was not sleeping well at all, so I had a bagel with cream cheese at 3:30 in the morning. I slept like a baby for the next 3 hours after that, and when I woke up I had another bagel and then went out for my ten mile run. I doubt that I would have had the energy had I only had a small breakfast right before the run. The run was at least more enjoyable.

Give the old midnight snack a try and see if it works for you.

For active people, though, you do want something in your stomach when you go to sleep. Not a full course meal, obviously; there’s no need for that. But a light snack such as a piece of bread or an apple an hour or 30 minutes before going to sleep can lead to better sleep and can make it easier to get up in the morning. If I do not eat before going to bed, I tend to wake up with stomach cramps in the middle of the night. If I try to run in the morning without eating first, I won’t get a mile before I will be completely exhausted.

Your mileage may vary with this tip. Everybody’s body is different, and your body may not like eating right before you go to sleep. There is only one way to find out, though, and it is a good thing to know.

1. Mix the bread crumbs, cayenne pepper, black pepper, and onion salt on a plate.
2. Wash the catfish filets and coat in flour.
3. Wipe the coated catfish through the egg.
4. Coat the catfish with the breading mix.
5. Grill over low heat. Turn over after 3 or 4 minutes.

Making use of a paper bag to coat the catfish with the flour can save a little time. Once you wash off the catfish, just drop it in the bag of flour, shake a little, and pull it out.

When you are done cooking it, the catfish should have a nice crunchy breading on the outside, and soft tender meat on the inside.

You can tell when the catfish is done cooking by seeing if it will flake when you touch it with a fork. This is easier to check if you leave a few small patches unbreaded.

The burger, which was introduced at Gateway’s December 10th sale, consists of a thick and juicy burger topped with sharp cheddar cheese and two slices of bacon. The burger is then placed in between each side of a Krispy Kreme Original Glazed doughnut.

Apparently, this is becoming an annual tradition. They have been introducing a new concession each year for the past few years. The first was a hot dog with all hte fixin’s in 2004, and last year was a bratwurst with swiss cheese. I think that the burger with a doughnut bun is a bit over the top, and I can not imagine that that tastes good. Of course, I do not like sweet food. I bet it sells well, though, which is certainly their goal.