Years ago when I started running, we were not allowed to drink before or during runs (more on hydration next week), and the philosophy for nutrition was explained as “if the fire is hot enough it doesn’t matter what the fuel”, or as long as you were training hard you could eat whatever you wanted. Times have changed, and our thinking about nutrition has also evolved. Like your training around running, it’s important to have good day to day and long term, SMART, nutrition goals.

Going back to the last few weeks and dividing your fitness goals into three broad categories might help also with coming to specific nutrition goals. If your goal is overall health and fitness, then perhaps your nutrition goal is also related to improving or maintaining a high level of nutritional health. For overall health with nutrition, there are still many arguments around the optimal composition of the diet for health (fat, carbohydrate, and protein, and probably even more important the type of fat and carbohydrate) as well as optimal intake of specific vitamins and minerals and other antioxidants. However, the evidence is very clear that those whose diets have a lot of fruits and vegetables (five or more servings a day) are significantly healthier than those who don’t.  In fact eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, along with being active, not smoking, being at a healthy weight and perhaps drinking a modest amount of alcohol puts your risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and cancer at less than one-third (and for diabetes perhaps less than one-tenth) than of those who do not have these behaviors.

If your goal is to use this race as a means to lose weight, then the nutrition side is still critical, but it is through looking at calorie side of things. In all the weight loss studies that have looked carefully, people lose weight because they take in fewer calories than they burn off. Some diets make you less hungry and are perhaps easier to stick to, and some people think that those who have more fat in their belly or who have pre-diabetes might do better on a lower carbohydrate diet, but this is still argued among the experts. I would suggest as you train and try to lose weight you keep a couple of things in mind, regardless of the diet you chose. First is to try to understand as well as possible how many calories your body is using in a day (more on this next week). Then look to a small calorie deficit of 500 calories a day or less, which adds up to less than a pound a week of weight loss. As you are training, this should also give you enough energy to continue to train without being too tired. I would caution that a low carbohydrate diet is not the best while training because the muscle needs carbohydrate to perform optimally.

If you are training to reach a personal record, then nutrition specifics (what you eat and when) will be a key component. As you might know, optimal carbohydrate intake during training, just prior to the race, and during the race is important. There is also some very interesting evidence that during training protein intake after training might be very important to muscle recovery. There are good plans on many web sites, including runnersworld.com.

There is also the option to have an individual consult with a sports dietitian, and through Kaiser Permanente, we offer performance nutrition counseling services for adolescents, teens, and adults. For more information including cost, contact our sports dietitian Michael Koons, MS, RD, CSCS at 303-850-2003. This service is open to members and nonmembers. And, if you want detailed info about nutrition strategies you can tune into our live webinar on April 7, 12 -1:30pm.  Register by visiting kpwebinar.org

Finally, a few key tips from my colleagues including other athletes who are also dietitians, Michael Koons, Jacque Maldonado, and Amy Bayer.

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