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.

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.