Blindsided By Beverages

Take a couple of seconds to think about your run routine:

You go out for a run of 30-to-60 minutes, which may or may not include a warm-up or cool-down. You come back to the house, drop your soggy shoes and socks at the door, and amble to the kitchen. Once you hit the kitchen you make a beeline for the refrigerator. You open the door, grab a bottle, can or glass of something cold and wet, and slug it down.

Quick - how many calories did you just take in? Even the most anal-retentive runner, the one who counts every calorie of solid food which crosses their lips, can be blindsided by beverages.

Yes, rehydration is necessary after a bout of running. However, we can - mindlessly - take in more calories over the course of sixty seconds than we burned off in the previous ten minutes. When you start to think about it, it's not all that difficult to see why some runners have difficulty losing those last few pounds. You know the ones - those five pounds which can slow you down by 20 seconds a mile.

That's a minute for a 5K. Closer to ten minutes for a marathon. Ask any marathoner who's come "just that close" to a Boston qualifying time what they would sacrifice for ten minutes. Some might mention a pound of flesh, but it's a little closer to five. Naturally, the issue is one of portion control. When I was the age of my oldest grandchild the largest size soda at the major fast food resturant was the smallest size now; same for the french fries.

And when you look closely at a bottle of the most popular "thirst quencher," you find that the 20-ounce bottle represents not one, but two and-a-half servings. And 130 calories go down the hatch quickly. Very quickly.

I am not saying that sports drinks are bad. What I am saying is that we need to pay close attention to what we eat and drink as part of our training...and I consider recovery as important as any training session on the schedule. There are sports drinks on the market which have more trash than treasure, more empty calories than nutritive value. Some drink manufacturers make claims which can hardly be substantiated and usually come with provisos in small print. Personally, I'm too old to read small print. If I can't read it I probably should not drink it.

When it comes to recovering from the run, I will be the first to say this - slow is best.

Slow down. Read the label. And if you can't read it you probably shouldn't eat or drink what is inside it.

Ask Coach: Pre-Workout Snacking

What is a good pre-workout snack? I tried some Raisinets before a recent workout, but wanted to get your opinion.

Take this as a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do; nutrition is one of my weaker areas, & something which I constantly strive to improve. I think something a little less “simple sugary” – a banana or a slice of whole-grain or rye (see the article below!) toast with peanut butter & jelly (or honey!) – will stave off hunger, provide beneficial fats/protein, & not die out on you at 7 p.m.

Through the spring & early summer I had a serious fling with the mini Clif Bars, they have 100 calories per bar, & are loaded with fiber & good (natural) nuts, grains/soy, fruit. But they were so good I probably took in too many calories - a couple of hundred calories of snacking a day is fine; a couple of hundred calories of snacking three or four times a day on top of meals can do some damage. I probably took in more calories than I thought I was burning in my workouts.

Without looking at the nutritional data – if you’re looking at nutritional data to justify your snack, it’s probably not worth putting in your body, anyway - there are natural sugars in the raisins, caffeine in the chocolate…and God knows what other chemicals from the processing. So, two out of three are not bad; better than Little Debbie cakes. There was a time I would scarf on one or two of them (Oatmeal, Devils’ Food, Raisin…all evil!) a couple of hours before a track workout. Most of the time I found the short-term sugar rush was NOT worth the crash which occurred on the last set of the workout.

While I'm in the mood to talk about hunger suppression and bread, I saw this article the other day (Isaksson H, Fredriksson H, Andersson R, Olsson J and Åman P (2009), Effect of rye bread breakfasts on subjective hunger and satiety: a randomized controlled trial. Nutrition Journal 2009, 8:39, August) and thought it rather interesting:

Several studies report that dietary fiber promotes the feeling of satiety & suppresses hunger. However, results for cereal fiber from rye are essentially lacking. The researchers investigated subjective appetite during eight hours after intake of iso-caloric rye bread breakfasts varying in rye dietary fiber composition & content.

The first part of the study compared the satiating effect of iso-caloric bread breakfasts including different milling fractions of rye (bran, intermediate fraction (B4) & sifted flour). The second part investigated the dose-response effect of rye bran & intermediate rye fraction, each providing 5 or 8 grams of dietary fiber per iso-caloric bread breakfast. Both study parts used a wheat bread breakfast as reference & a randomised, within-subject comparison design. Appetite (hunger, satiety & desire to eat) was rated regularly from just before breakfast at 8:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. Amount, type & timing of food & drink intake were standardized during the study period.

The milling fractions study showed each of the rye breakfasts resulted in a suppressed appetite during the time period before lunch (8:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.) compared with the wheat reference bread breakfast. At a comparison between the rye bread breakfasts the one with rye bran induced the strongest effect on satiety. In the afternoon the effect from all three rye bread breakfasts could still be seen as a decreased hunger & desire to eat compared to the wheat reference bread breakfast.

In the dose-response study both levels of rye bran & the lower level of intermediate rye fraction resulted in an increased satiety before lunch compared with the wheat reference bread breakfast. Neither the variation in composition between the milling fractions nor the different doses resulted in significant differences in any of the appetite ratings when compared with one another.

The results show rye bread can be used to decrease hunger feelings both before & after lunch when included in a breakfast meal. Rye bran induces a stronger effect on satiety than the other two rye fractions used when served in iso-caloric portions.

Comfortably Numb

I vaguely recall a tale of my father's, from a period of time when he was a police officer in a small town in southwest New Mexico. He still is there, living the life of a comfortably-retired civil servant. The term above was not exactly the last words spoken during a cuff and stuff episode outside of a hometown watering hole...there was one more word there.

The chapeau in question above only reinforces something I find rather strange. How is it that athletes in the pool or on the bike can wear Spandex, but if the average Joe Paper Lunch Bag decides to wear the same type attire his masculinity is called into question? How much of that 1980's-big-hair-glam-rock influenced this attitude? I realize it's not a universal thing, only an American thing. My European friends see nothing wrong with Speedos, Lycra bike shorts or tight-fitting attire when working out. As for me, I'd rather have you mocking me behind my back as I'm blasting down the road on my triathlon bike at 20-something miles per hour, rather than meet your seal of approval and have to deal with chafing and other discomfort. So there.
Find a need and fill it. Sounds like my day job. Unfortunately, the recommended intervention (while worthwhile) seems a little too big. Then again, I remember seeing a Dave Matthews Band video a couple of years ago; the protagonist got up in the morning and went out into the world, giving a hug to everyone he encountered. Looked a little too silly at first. However, after long stretches of short chats with my wife (She tends to buy into this kind of solution set; I tend to raise the b.s. flag after five minutes.) this might be an idea whose time has come.

There are certain questions that should never be answered. Some calculations should never be made. However, the best one I've heard, for want of a better term, would be best called beer mileage. A friend looked at the calorie content of the typical 12-ounce American beer and figured it to average right around 100 calories, more or less. So, in order to burn off 100 calories, she figured the average person would have to run at least one mile. So, running a ten-kilometer (6.213712 miles) race would burn off the calories taken in by a six-pack of American beer. I guess, if you took this analogy further, you could say a 12-pack would equal a half-marathon's worth of running, and a case of beer would require you to get out and do a marathon. Of course, the catch is doing the mileage before the intake. Yes, you have to earn your beer, friends. You get to be comfortably numb after you do the work.
It doesn't work as well the other way around; drink the beer, then do the distance. I've seen what folks look like trying to run after doing a beer. Twice. One can per quarter mile. Not a pretty sight.

World Dominance Thwarted By Lack Of Thumbs

(Editor's note: Lengthy period of silence placed here.)

There was an article about three months ago; some researcher had developed a means of understanding dog barks with a certain degree of accuracy. I am not buying it. If anyone tells me they can tell what my dog is saying when he barks, I'm going to offer them another beer and then kick them out the door. Well, edit that...I'm going to keep the beer.
There are days when I feel like I can tell exactly what my dog is thinking about...then there are days when I can narrow it down to three things: food, walks, and space on the couch. However, IMHO it's gazing through a glass darkly. If Rubin had opposable thumbs and human speech, however, the world would be a much more dangerous place...I know he's try to take over as supreme ruler and stern, unwavering-but-beneficient master of the world as soon as he could. I can see it in his eyes, especially when I've informed him there are no dog biscuits available and he will have to suck it up and drive on.

Res Ipsa Loquitur.

My American Express bill came in yesterday afternoon, or at least the dispute notification I lost. That's going to take care of my stimulus check. Well, I'll have enough left to buy a round of beer when we go to the Crescent City Classic in New Orleans. My friend mentioned the other weekend about beer mileage; I guess the average American beer, 12-ounces, has 82 calories...which is (at the least) equal to the number of calories an adult burns running a mile. So, she thinks, a 6.2-mile race warrants the consumption of a six-pack of beer. Wow, that means a marathon is worth (at least) a case.

Yeah, I know it's not a healthy point of view for an athlete. If you do something foolish once every six months it's not so bad. Just make certain one foolish thing (like a beer mile, or rehydrating with a beer for each mile you ran) is not compounded with another, like driving a car or operating heavy machinery. While there aren't many of us who will run a 5K, slug down too many beers and then think hey, perhaps I should cut down that dead tree in the backyard, there are folks who would do exactly that. I know. I usually get to read the synopsis of their accident report each Friday. Makes ya shudder to think.