Food For Thought & Runners

On Thursday 11^th March, Dani and I headed to the Center City Philadelphia Runner store to hear a talk led by Nancy Clark, one of America’s leading sports nutritionists and author of the book “Nancy Clark’s Food Guide for Marathoners”. Small in stature and huge in personality, she answered every question posed and gave some great insights and ideas. Her key ideas were:

1. Think of your body as a vehicle and figure out how much fuel it needs to get you through the day.

This was done through some simple arithmetic that I’ll try and explain. Start with your target body weight in pounds and multiply it by 10. This is the number of calories the body will need in one day to survive with no exercise. To account for the everyday energy the body uses during the day (carrying groceries, luggage or children, walking to and from the car, loading a new pack of paper into the photocopier), add 50% of this total. If it’s a running day, add 100 calories for each mile you run.

Using myself as an example:

Target weight is 200lb

Calories needed daily to exist is 200 x 10 = 2000 Calories

Add 50% for Daily activity (Stripping wallpaper, walking to the South Philly Taproom etc) = 3000 Calories

If I were to run to FDR Park and back (my 6 Mile route), I’d add 600 Calories, making my daily calorific requirement 3600 Calories. Easy peasy.

2. Eat the same size meal, 4 times Daily.

Nancy recommended that we should be eating 4 times a day, every 4 hours, with each meal giving us a quarter of our body’s daily need. So if my body needs 3600 Calories, I should be eating 900 calories for breakfast, 900 at Lunch, Nancy introduced the concept of 2^nd Lunch (also 900 calories) and then 900 calories for Dinner. She explained that the regular eating pattern and second lunch prevents lows and food cravings (notably when you get home from work and you’re starving).

3. The food break during a long run should be a reward, something to look forward to.

If you don’t like GU or Shot Bloks, then don’t eat them. You can replenish your body’s needs to the same extent with Gummy Bears, Nuts, Tootsie Rolls, Dried Fruit, M&M’s, Pretzel, Twizzlers. She apologised to the storeowner for any impact on sales.

4. Figure out how much water the body sweats so you know how much you need to replenish.

Simply, weigh yourself naked. Go run for an hour and weigh yourself naked again. Every pound you lose is a pint (16oz) of liquid. Use this number to evaluate how much you should be taking with you and drinking on the longer runs. On this point she also added that it is important to train your intestines as to what they can expect, as well as your muscles. If we go to Paris and are drinking water or Powerade at each of the 5k intervals, and we haven’t been doing the same in training, our bodies will react badly.

5. You should be peeing every two hours.

If you’re peeing less frequently, increase your water intake. Water in juices, coffee, lettuce, yogurt etc counts too!

6. Electrolytes = Sodium

You shouldn’t be drinking a sports drink unless you’re exercising – a Gatorade from Wawa with lunch is just adding extra salt to your diet.

Dani and I picked up her book and would definitely recommend it. She really seems to grasp that people have lives outside of running and that it’s difficult to balance hectic schedules with training. We’re definitely going to give the 4 hour, second lunch plan a go and Dani’s excited that she can give up the GU in favor of something her body likes.

On the way out, Dani asked Ross (the Philadelphia Runner co-owner) if he’d heard from Mizuno about the running shoe sponsorship for Tom Coyne. He responded, “Who is Tom Coyne?” I guess he’s a Jeopardy fan too!