Eating and running (and eating again)

Oh my goodness gracious. This is very disappointing to see this on Huffington post – I am used to seeing much better articles.

Click here for the link to the article which got me ranting

A number of studies have shown increased performance in subsequent workouts in athletes who refuel right after the previous workout.  The sports ‘nutrition’ companies like Gatorade and Powerbar have pounced on this opportunity to sell “recovery drinks” (bars, shakes, etc) to us semi-slovenly masses of rec athletes.  And sadly, articles like this Huffington post article, written by a “Professional Fitness and Weight Loss coach, writer, and public speaker” (not sure of his exact educational qualifications, but I’m guessing perhaps they didn’t involve a background in hard science?) just add fuel to the fire of this myth.  I’d be interested to know whether he has ever been sponsored by one of these companies.

A few things to know about this issue.

• First, if you go for a 1/2 hour walk, you might burn 150-200 calories at most.  Many of these “nutrition products” have 200-400 calories.
• The research done showing that post-exercise “refueling” is important was done on athletes doing two very intense workouts quite close together. This probably applies to 1% of the people reading this article.
• Read about “glycogen-depleted training”.  There is more and more evidence that training when glycogen depleted increases one’s ability to burn fat, which is the critical metabolic skill for endurance athletes.  So running on empty is often a good thing, not a bad thing, for athletes.
• There is NO REASON to think or say that the timing of intake is so critical it requires a shake rather than real foods. Real foods win every time, including in this case.
• The vast majority of recreational athletes are active because they are trying to stay healthy, feel well, and control their weight.  Advising an athlete to stuff a protein shake down her maw right after each workout, even if she is not hungry, might make sense.  For instance if she is at tri camp. just did a hard run and is heading out on the bike in a few hours.  But it makes no sense if she just went for a jog, isn’t hungry, and isn’t going to jog again for a day or two.

No wonder we live in such a fat society when we have someone (who is supposed to be an expert) promoting calorically dense, liquid food choices (liquid calories are proven to be the worst for those trying to control weight – likely because they add lots of calories without filling you up for long) to the masses of recreational athletes.

My advice if you’re a normal rec athlete like me, and not in the runup to Rio:

• Eat when you’re hungry
• Don’t eat right before you run, especially if you’re doing a harder run.
• Avoid artificial foodstuffs (always eat whole foods if possible).
• Take in the majority of your calories from plants.

On the off chance you just did a hard workout this morning, and are planning to race this evening, please go ahead and follow Dave Smith’s advice to eat right away.  Although I would still advise avoiding the protein shake, and instead eating some real food.