How sports drinks work and when to use them

Water, of course, is what your body needs to function. During periods of intense exercise, when the body evacuates fluids containing minerals and nutrients, sports drinks are useful to restore energy supply and electrolytes.

Exercise, of course, causes runners to burn energy and to sweat – which includes water and electrolytes like sodium and potassium. Whereas, a runner can easily replace fluids lost in 45 minutes of exercise by drinking about 2 to 3 cups of water, muscles still need energy from carbohydrates.

** In one hour of continuous exercise glycogen is significantly depleted. **

** In 90 minutes to 120 minutes of exercise glycogen is completely exhausted. **

Sports drinks like Gatorade and PowerAde contain water, sugar, and electrolytes that help replace what is lost during intense exercise. Drinking these during long runs and after regular and long runs will keep your body fortified with important nutrients.

Carbohydrate drinks and food supplements are filled with sugar but not meant to replenish glycogen stores during exercise. These drinks are good for carb loading, but because the sugar in these drinks is slower to digest, it may cause an upset stomach should you consume immediately before or during exercise.

Race day nutrition

Pre-game Warm-up

Well, OK.

· Eat 2 to 4 hours prior to the race. That means waking up pretty early considering that most races start in early morning and that you need time to get to the race site.

· Eat hi-carb, but light: bagel with jam, Gatorade, banana, rice (maybe also a cup of Joe)

· Drink about 16 oz. Of water prior to the race

GAME ON!

· Drink water and sports drinks throughout the race. There should be tables with both all along the way.

· If race officials offer bagel bites, orange wedges, or the like along the way. Eat them. Orange wedges are quick delivery energy boosts. Bagels will sustain you for a few miles.

· Eat Gu and chase it down with water to avoid upset stomach and to facilitate processing

Game Over

· Drink lots of fluids, especially sports drinks, to restore depleted nutrients and glycogen

· ASAP: restore glycogen by consuming whatever carbs greet you at the finish line. Often there are bananas awaiting you. In New York, there are quite accommodating hot dog vendors, which normally I would avoid, but by the end of a marathon, I’d eat the dirty shoe off an armadillo.

Nutrition do’s and don’ts that you ALREADY KNOW!

Don’t

· Indulge in fats and salts - avoid these.

· Skip meals – it’ll mess with your glycogen stores.

· Stuff yourself. You’ll get constipated. Oy!

· Eat too much of one food – especially dairy. You will be flatulent and crapulent.

· Overdo caffeine and alcohol. As diuretics, they’ll steal your water. You’ll screw the pooch.

· Eat too much gassy foods (please!). It’ll suck for you and me. If you don’t heed this warning, your runs will be, well, the runs.

Do

· Eat a variety of carbs - rice, pasta, bread, cereal, bagels, fruits

· Keep meals and snack times regular. Your colon will appreciate this. If your meals are regular, you will be too!

· Try carb supplements like GNC and Gatorade

· Simplify. It may be easier to take a multivitamin instead of a medicine cabinet fill of pills. Add this to your diet. And make sure those pills are legal.

· Forget counting calories. ¼ plate is protein, the rest with veggies and bread.

· Have a few healthy snacks during the day.

· Be a vegetarian once a week. This will expose you to healthy foods, fortify you with nutrients and blow out your beef-filled colon.

SWEET TIPS!If you eat carbs 90 minutes prior to long run, your body will rely less on carbs and use more fat. So bagel up!

You wanna piece of me?

CARBS

Carbohydrates are the body’s main source of energy. If food is fuel, carbs are the octane.

Despite the carbs’ bad reputation and society’s faddish tendencies toward protein-only diets, this will be the most important component to your diet. In fact, I believe carbs has gotten a bad rap. While it is indisputable that a high-carbohydrate diet leads to obesity, such a notion assumes (1) a sedentary lifestyle, and (2) an over-indulgence of carbohydrates.

Carbohydrates are consumed expressly to be burned. Burning calories and intense exercise requires greater levels of energy. Greater levels of energy require greater consumption of carbohydrates.

If the couch is your high-endurance treadmill, then a diet with fewer carbs is entirely appropriate. Unless the carbs are burned, the body, efficient as it is, will store them (You didn’t know that being a fat ass was a sign of efficiency, did you?)

There are two kinds of carbohydrates:

Simple Carbohydrates are digested quickly and supply the body a quick energy rush. Simple Carbohydrates should NOT be your source of energy. They are good for a cocker spaniel explosion of energy, but these carbs will not sustain you. They are not forbidden to eat, but your foundation of energy should be complex carbohydrates. Examples of simple carbs include honey, white sugar, brown sugar, syrup, fruit juices, milk and yogurt.

Complex Carbohydrates digest slower and release energy over a longer period of time. They also contain nutrients and some fiber. Complex carbohydrates should represent most of your carb consumption. Examples of complex carbs include grains, cereals, fruits, vegetables, beans, breads, brown rice, and potatoes.

When consumed, carbohydrates are converted into blood sugar – or glucose –which is stored as glycogen in the muscles. This is the main source of energy for exercising muscles. It is the energy that is depleted first (followed by fats). After 20 minutes of exercise, the body burns a combination of carbs and fat. Most people don’t exercise long enough to burn significant amounts of fat in a single workout.

The 3-Legged Stool of Marathon Nutrition: Carbohydrates, Fats and Proteins

Uh, I love, etc., etc.

The body gets energy from three sources: carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. You should have a balanced blend of the three.

A healthy diet rule of thumb includes:

55-60% of calories come from carbohydrates

25-30% of calories come from fats

15-20% of calories come from proteins

Understanding calories in your marathon diet

Too cute

It is important to remember: Don’t try to train on your existing diet – unless you’re already eating too much – because the more exercise you do, the more fuel your body needs. It is actually OK and a good idea to increase food –namely carbohydrates (more on that below) -- intake when training because your body needs more fuel.
The more you exercise – the more miles you run – the more fuel (food) your body needs. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends 2000 calories a day for an “average” person.“Average” in this blog means “sedentary,” “slothful,” and “couch-potatoey.” As a runner, your diet will need to adapt.

An unscientific, but pretty useful measurement of your caloric benchmark (I just made up this term) is to take your weight and multiply it by 13.

A runner of, say, 210 lbs. – and this is not to suggest I know anyone of such prodigious dimension – would need to consume 2,730 calories a day to maintain this weight.

* Note, I’m not suggesting that this is a healthy weight or that 2,730 calories a day is ideal It is a suggested training caloric intake.

210 lbs x 13 = 2,730 calories

A conservative estimate of the calories burned in one mile of running is 100 calories. The actual number of burned calories is adjusted depending on the speed at which the mile is run and how hefty is the runner. Therefore, a runner clocking five miles a day burns 500 calories. Arguably, the hypothetical runner would need to consume roughly 500 more calories a day.

Taking the USDA’s recommended caloric intake of 2000 calories, the preferred target for a 5-mile-a-day runner is 2,500 calories a day. Of course, the more miles one runs the greater the caloric demand.

All said, appreciate the fact that you are pushing your body harder. Accordingly, it will need more fuel.

Now, the question you should ask your inner runner is, can I stand to lose a few pounds? Do I really need to maintain the caloric intake that supports these love handles, chicken arms and double chin? Maybe the 2,500-ish range is appropriate for you anyway.

Marathon training Food (get it?) for thought

Food might very well be represented simply as carbohydrates, proteins, and fats: the basic food categories that allow your body to function.

If we thought of food with as much passion and obsession as we do with, say, gasoline or nuclear fission, it would be much easier to treat cuisine with the same benign desire as we have for cardboard.

Of course, such a fantasy ride as this exists only in some make-believe, twisted Disney World of nutrition hell. After all, I am a Louisianan. Were my world to consist of anything less than grease, salt, and alcohol (our basic food categories), the world would hellish indeed.

We live in the real world, and few people I want to associate with think in such terms. But the valid point is this, especially with regard to marathon training: to achieve greatness – and your goal, whatever it might be, is greatness – you need to think differently AND rise to the occasion.

Because nutrition is such an important part of marathoning, and because it is indeed fuel, understanding the value of what you put into your body, and how it affects your body is a very relevant point.

In this marathon endeavor food is fuel. You might have to eat more. You might have to eat something that popular fad diets eschew. You will need to supply your body with the tools it needs to carry you to new heights, and this, friends and neighbors, begins with food. Well, a lot of prayer and cussing first, but certainly food.

Hey Marine Corps, New York and Atlanta runners -- are you carbo loading yet?

Everything that is ever learned about dieting and nutrition teaches the young eater that indulgence of any food is a bad thing. Indulgence makes us nauseous; it gives us cramps while swimming; and, most importantly, it causes us to be fat.

However, as a dashing marathoner, the runner – young and old – will need saddlebags of energy to sustain the 26.2 miles of marathon famine and want. It is then necessary for an eater to prepare for feats of endurance by storing lots of energy: energy in the form of glycogen, which is begat from glucose, which is begat from complex carbohydrates, which is begat from the stuffing of thine face with bagels, cereal, bananas, pasta, and others of the “White” food group (Have you noticed that most everything you eat that is white is a carbohydrate? OK, minus the bacon fat. But you get the point.)

Carb loading throws everything you know about dieting on its ear. It is the process of consuming large amounts of carbs before intense exercise. In our case, it is preparation for the long runs and the race itself.

Carb load 2 to 3 days before a long run and two weeks before the big race consume complex carbs 2 hours before, and again within 30 minutes of a long race.

Carbs – Going Without

Carbohydrates are the easiest, most accessible form of energy for the body. The other forms – fats and proteins – require more hydration to process, robbing the body necessary fluids for other body functions. Stated simply, if you chose to ignore carbohydrates, you will be protein and fat overloaded, dehydrated, constipated, and annoyingly dyspeptic. Not to mention, you will have less energy to burn.

Because the body craves carbohydrates for intense exercise, going without carbs before a race will cause the runner to move less efficiently and perhaps a little sluggishly. Even a moderate race like a 10-K will cause a carb-depleted body to be tired, lethargic, and irritable.

So, Atlanta, Marine Corps and New York Marathoners -- or even if you're still training and preparing for the weekend long run -- if you're not seriously storing energy now for the big miles, you're journey will begin with a 1/4 tank of fuel. So carbo up!