Sports Bars and Other Goop

Sports bars or energy bars didn’t exist in their current incarnation until 1986. Now one company alone, Powerfood, makers of the market-leading PowerBar, has yearly sales of more than $30 million. Should you add to its new-found wealth?
You’ve probably seen these things. They weigh a few ounces, come in a shiny wrapper, and for the most part, don’t taste all that great. So why are so many sold? Several reasons, many having to do with great marketing. The main useful reason is that they provide a couple of hundred of easily digestible calories that your body can use almost immediately for energy.
An increasing number of runners find a use for these products in their busy lives. Runners usually eat these bars within 90 minutes of a run when they’re dragging and want something to eat before their run that won’t bother them during the run. These bars certainly fit that bill. Runners also eat them soon after a hard or long workout, when they want to get something in their system to speed recovery but can’t yet stomach “real” food. Some runners also eat hunks of them on long runs, although the new energy gels are supplanting this use. And for people on the go, they’re easy to carry and eat at any time.
No runner needs an energy bar, however. After all, Frank Shorter had already won his second Olympic Marathon medal 10 years before the first energy bar was sold. As an example, a Malt-Nut PowerBar contains 225 calories, with 83 percent of them from carbohydrate, 10 percent of calories from protein, and 7 percent from fat. It sells for about $1.30. Eaten together, a bagel and a banana contain 275 calories, with 84 percent of them from carbs and 8 percent each from protein and fat. They taste better than energy bars to most people, are just as convenient, and cost about half as much.

Putting It All Together

Worrying about this percentage of carbohydrates and that percentage of fats sounds like a lot of work. How can you reasonably eat this way without taking a calculator with you on every trip to the kitchen? And what about when you eat out? Relax. The key to a good runner’s diet isn’t math, but making the right food choices. After all, a meal of butter, beef jerky, and cola can supply you with the right amounts of carbohydrate, protein, and fat, but it’s a disaster nutritionally.
Concentrate on getting the number of servings for each food type that I’ve emphasized. The percentages will take care of themselves if you focus on a variety of wholesome carbohydrates, fruits and vegetables, low-fat dairy products, lean cuts of meat, and legumes. Here’s a tip: carbohydrates, such as whole grains, vegetables, and beans, should cover most of the space on your dinner plate. Protein should be the accompaniment, not the centerpiece that many people make it. This guideline is true both at home and when you eat out.
Following these guidelines requires a big change in eating habits for many people. Two good books on eating for athletes are the Sports Nutrition Guidebook by Nancy Clark, Human Kinetics, 1996, and Power Foods by Liz Applegate, Rodale Press, 1994. It can also help to consult a registered dietitian. Registered dietitians have the initials R.D. after their names. Contact the local branch of the American Dietetic Association to find one in your area.

The Skinny on Fat

Many of us are all too familiar with fat, but fat isn’t all bad. With nine calories in a gram, or more than twice the amount of a gram of carbohydrate or protein, it’s a concentrated energy source. It’s what your body burns at low levels of activity, such as when you’re sitting at a desk or walking easily. Fat supplies and transports some vitamins, helps to maintain nerve fibers and cell membranes, insulates you from the cold, and cushions internal organs.
In a good diet, 20 to 25 percent of your calories come from fat. This amount is less than most Americans eat—the average is 37 percent of calories from fat. Eating too much fat means that you’re not getting the carbs you need to restock your muscles from run to run. It’s also bad for your health because a high fat intake has been linked to heart disease and some cancers. And extra fat from your diet is easily stored as extra fat on you. If you emphasize getting 60 to 65 percent of your calories from carbohydrates, with plenty of fruits and vegetables in the mix, it will be easier to get your fat intake into the 20 to 25 percent range. Choosing lean cuts of protein, such as white chicken meat instead of a greasy cheese steak sub, also helps.

Where’s the Beef for the Runners?

Protein is in every part of your body, from muscles to hair. Protein from your diet helps to build and repair muscles and regulate hormones. If you don’t get enough protein, you’ll recover from injuries and infections more slowly. One gram of protein contains four calories.
About 15 percent of your calories should come from protein. That’s less than most people eat. The recommended amount of protein means two to three servings each day, with a serving size being as small as two ounces of chicken or two teaspoons of peanut butter. Chow down on a half-pounder at your favorite burger place and right there you’ve exceeded your protein needs for the day. A good guideline to follow is that your servings of protein should be no bigger than a deck of cards. So for most people, getting 15 percent of their calories from protein is going to mean eating less protein than they’re used to. The exceptions are people who restrict their protein intake because they think that it’s good nutrition to exist on nothing but bagels, salads, and rice cakes. That’s taking things too far the other way. What’s wrong with eating too much protein? It means that you’re probably falling short in your carb intake. This shortfall could hurt your running because protein supplies a very small percentage of the energy for your running. Also, unless you choose carefully, the protein that you eat might come in a high-fat package, such as a marbled T-bone steak. Eating extra protein doesn’t build bigger muscles any more than eating pig’s feet helps you to grow extra toes. Extra protein that you eat mainly gives you very expensive urine.

Carbohydrates for runners

Carbohydrates, or just carbs to most runners, are your body’s main source of energy for aerobic exercise. One gram of carbohydrate contains four calories. Your body converts the carbohydrates you eat into glucose, a simple sugar. Glucose is then either used immediately by your body for energy or converted to glycogen, which, is the fuel stored in the muscles that power your running. When runners “bonk” or “hit The Wall” and have to slow dramatically, they’ve run out of carbohydrates.

Carbohydrates are classified as either complex or simple. This classification has to do not with how philosophical they are, but with how they’re constructed chemically. Complex carbohydrates are starches, such as grains, and simple carbohydrates are sugars, such as the fructose found in fruits. Common food sources of carbohydrates include fruits, vegetables, pasta, rice, bread products, cereals, and jellies. You should aim for 60 to 65 percent of your calories to come from carbohydrates. This amount will keep your muscles well-fueled so that you’ll be able to meet your training goals. A high-carb diet chosen from the right sources also means that you’re more likely to be getting all of the nutrients that you need because fruits, vegetables, and grains are packed with vitamins and minerals.

Most of the carbohydrates that you eat should be either fruits and vegetables or complex carbs such as pasta. Aim for this level of carbohydrate intake each day:

• 10 to 12 servings of grains (one serving equals a slice of bread, half a cup of cooked pasta, half a bagel, or one ounce of cereal)
• 5 to 7 servings of fruit (one serving equals a medium-sized piece of fruit, half a grapefruit, or four ounces of juice)
• 4 to 5 servings of vegetables (one serving equals one cup raw vegetables or half a cup cooked)

If these amounts seem like a lot, keep in mind how small one serving is. If you pour yourself a decent-sized bowl of cereal, that’s probably three or four servings right there. Complete your breakfast with half a banana on your cereal, a slice of toast, and a small glass of juice, and you’re already past 5 servings for the day. And that’s not counting the carbs in the milk that you put on your cereal.

But aren’t starches going to make you fat? No. Starches are complex carbohydrates. They contain four calories per gram, just like the carbohydrates found in fruit and vegetables. If you gain weight from eating a lot of starches, that’s from eating more calories than you burn, not because of anything inherently fattening about starches. The reason that people think that starches are fattening is that they’re often eaten with high-fat foods that contain a lot of extra calories. You butter your bread, fry your potatoes, or have pizza with sausage and extra cheese.
This kind of misunderstanding shows that it’s important to make sure that what you think is a high-carb food really is. When you have a thick crust pizza loaded with veggies, that’s high-carb. But when you have the thin crust meat lover’s special, more than half of the calories are coming from fat. Other supposed high-carb foods that are usually high in fat include muffins, granola, and macaroni and cheese.

The Real Runner’s Diet

If runners’ diets seem strange to most folks, that’s because most people don’t eat as most nutritionists advise. That’s another way of saying that the best diet for runners is the one that everyone should eat. This diet should be low in fat and include a moderate amount of lean, high-quality protein; the majority of calories should come from carbohydrates, especially in the form of fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains. More than sedentary people, runners gravitate toward this type of diet because it makes them feel better.
As you become fitter, you become more in touch with your body and with how it feels when you put certain things in it.
I mean this both in the short term—those slices of bacon just don’t seem to taste as good right after a morning run—and long term, as you learn how some foods fuel your running better than others. Although your diet is important to your overall health, it’s not the key to your running; your training is. No amount of dietary manipulation is going to make up for miles logged. A good diet is important because it will allow you to get the most out of your running, not because it’s going to make you a better runner.
That statement may seem as though I’m splitting hairs, but I’m not. I’ve heard a lot of runners before races talk about how they’ve been eating such and such and not eating such and such, so they know that they’ll do well in the race. Then I hear how much they’ve been running (usually not much), and it’s obvious that they think they can eat their way to peak performance.
That’s a classic American belief—if we just take the right pill, we can avoid having to do the real work—but a unfounded one. A bad diet will probably get in the way of your running, but the most that a good diet will do for you is allow you to reap the results of the training that you do. That said, let’s look at the three main sources of calories in everyone’s diet: carbohydrates, protein, and fat.

Do Running Nuts Live on Berries?

As I’ve said, one of the questions that I’m asked most frequently has to do with whether my knees bother me because of all those miles. Probably the second most popular question I hear is, “You eat that?” This question comes about when I’m doing something as innocent as having a cup of coffee. It also happens if I’m enjoying a doughnut, putting cream cheese on a bagel, or having a glass of wine with dinner. Somewhere along the way, most people got the notion that being a runner means living off of the twigs and nuts that you gather out of your backyard. When running first achieved mass popularity in the ’70s, the sport was seen as part of a new movement for Americans who had decided that it was time to take charge of their health. So in the public mind running became associated with health food stores, megavitamin doses, and drinking nothing but carrot juice and purified water.
I think that’s too bad. Not because running can’t be an incredibly big step toward taking control of your health. No, the problem is that people who are new to running have been led to believe that starting an exercise program also means a simultaneous radical change in your diet. That’s not true, and it saddens me that some people might view running as off-putting because of this image.
That doesn’t mean that being a runner means eating whatever you want. Yes, I’m as wellknown in some circles for my legendary consumption of junk food as I am for my marathon victories. And as I’ve hinted, I still like to indulge myself occasionally. Eating is one of the major pleasures of life, and who doesn’t like to live a little now and then? But as you become fitter through your running, you’re probably going to be motivated to make changes in other parts of your life that will improve your health, such as getting more sleep and eating better. Running can help you to acquire an appreciation for simpler, heartier foods, which usually fuel you better and don’t bother you as much when you run. The upshot is this: Most runners find that they feel better if they make a few simple, healthful changes in their diets. But that doesn’t have to entail shopping only at the local organic produce shop. As most long-time runners will tell you, one of the great things about running is that all those miles often mean eating more and not gaining weight.

Which doctor you should avoid?

In general, avoid doctors who do the following:

• Propose that you stop running as the final solution
• Treat only your symptoms, rather than looking for the cause of your problem
  
• Say they don’t have much experience working with athletes
  
• Don’t look at surgery as a last resort

Of course, most insurance plans are going to require a referral to see a specialist, so you might have to have an initial meeting with someone who acts this way. But once you get to a specialist, make sure that he or she thinks differently. What types of specialists should runners see? That depends on your injury. Foot and lower leg injuries can be treated by orthopedists or osteopaths (I’ll say more about them in a minute), but they’re most often treated by podiatrists. Podiatrists have the initials D.P.M. (doctor of podiatric medicine) following their name. Podiatrists complete four years of training at a college of podiatric medicine and a residency. They are licensed to perform surgery and prescribe medicine.
Podiatrists focus not only on feet, but also on problems elsewhere that are caused by feet. This focus makes them among the runner’s best medical friends, because so many running injuries are caused by faulty feet. A podiatrist can determine whether factors such as overpronation or weak arches are contributing to problems in your biomechanics and setting you up for injury. These types of structural problems in the feet are often treated with orthotics.
Podiatrists are the best professionals to see to determine if you need orthotics, and they’re trained to cast the devices for you. Knee injuries are most often treated by orthopedists, although some knee problems are caused by problems in your feet and can therefore be addressed by podiatrists. Orthopedists are medical doctors (M.D.s) who treat injuries to bones, muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Orthopedists have a reputation for performing surgery, and although a good sports medicine orthopedist will always favor more conservative treatment first, many runners are leery of seeing orthopedists for this reason.
Running injuries above the knee are also often treated by orthopedists. Another good type of doctor to see for these ailments is an osteopath. Like M.D.s, osteopaths (D.O.s) are licensed to practice all branches of medicine, prescribe medication, and perform surgery. In general, they’re trained to view the body more systematically, so they’re likely to look at a runner’s injury from the standpoint of unearthing the root cause rather than just treating the symptoms.
Each of these three specialties has a professional sports medicine organization:

• The American Academy of Podiatric Sports Medicine (301) 424-7440
  
• The American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine (708) 292-4900
• The American Osteopathic Academy of Sports Medicine (608) 831-4400

I’m not saying that these are the only types of medical professionals that runners can benefit from seeing. Chiropractors (D.C.s), physiatrists (M.D.s trained similarly to osteopaths), physical therapists (P.T.s), and others can also be helpful. But podiatrists, orthopedists, and osteopaths are usually going to be the first ones to see for most common running injuries.

How to pick the right doctor for your running injury?

When should you see a doctor for a running injury? Most injuries, especially the softtissue overuse injuries, don’t need medical attention, especially if you treat them right from the start. When an injury drags on, or when you keep running on it and you get injured elsewhere, you start entering the gray area of when to get help. Certainly, any runner whose injury interferes with normal, daily activity for more than a week without improvement should seek medical help.
If your injury is a problem only when you run, then when and how soon to see a doctor is up to you. If your self-care routine doesn’t seem to be working, then you should probably see a doctor who might be able to diagnose and treat the underlying cause.
Runners can be pretty stubborn in their self-reliance, but sometimes you just have to bite the medical bullet and admit that your problem isn’t getting better on its own. Deciding to go to the doctor often comes down to how willing you are to put up with the lack of enjoyment that your running injury is causing you. You should also see a doctor if you repeatedly get injured in the same small part of your body. This type of injury means that you have an underlying weakness or structural deformity. A good sports medicine doctor will be able to get to the root of the problem so that the area won’t plague you throughout your running career.
Notice that I said a sports medicine doctor. Fortunately, the last 20 years of the fitness boom have produced a growth in the number of sports medicine doctors, who specialize in treating athletes. These doctors have the training, experience, and mindset to look at your injury as you do—an interruption of your body’s normal way of operating that needs to be treated at its root, not just for its symptoms. How do you find a good sports medicine doctor? As always, word of mouth from other runners is the best way. Some doctors belong to professional organizations for sports medicine doctors, but not all. Also, the American Running and Fitness Association maintains a listing of more than 5,000 of these professionals throughout the country. To find one in your area, call (800) 776-ARFA.