A Balanced Diet for a Balanced Hurdler

I remember walking into a sandwich shop once during the spring of my sophomore year in college. I had come to pick up an order I had called in – a cheesesteak with mushrooms and fried onions. I walked up to the counter and the man on the other side – a Mexican in his early thirties with a thick accent – handed me the bag with my sandwich in it and asked, “You wan’ strawb’rries on ‘at?” I looked at him, not sure if I had heard him right. “Strawberries?” “You order cheese-eak right?” “Yeah, yeah, cheesesteak. With mushrooms and fried onions. That’s me.” “You wan’ no strawb’rries on ‘at?” I scrunched my face into a frown. What was he talking about? Why on earth would I want strawberries on a cheesesteak? Then he smiled. A sly grin. Then I finally got the joke. He was saying cheesecake, not cheesesteak. And I had to laugh at myself. I had been clowned.

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Yes, I was an athlete in training ordering a greasy Philly cheesesteak in the middle of track season. But that’s kind of how things were back then.  My teammates and I didn’t know a whole heck of a lot about nutrition. Our mindset was, as long as we worked hard on the track and in the weight room, we “earned” the right to eat however we wanted. Besides, we needed the extra fuel for the demanding workouts we did every day. Knowledge about diet and nutrition has come a long way since those days of the mid-1980’s. Now, it is widely acknowledged not only among medical people but also among average Joes and Janes that a proper diet plan that incorporates the right kinds of foods in the right amounts and at the right times of day is an integral component in any serious athlete’s training regimen. This trend toward gaining a nutritional edge has led many athletes to not only eat properly, but to also take various dietary supplements that can serve to speed up their recovery time between workouts and provide them with extra energy to get through a long, grueling season. In some cases the supplement intake borders on the illegal, and has even crossed that line. So the questions regarding diet are many. What are the “right” foods? When are best times of day to eat the heaviest meals? What does it mean to have a “balanced” diet? How necessary are supplements? What are the right supplements? Should fast food and junk snacks be eliminated entirely? To address these questions and others, I called upon my wife Joy, a nutrition expert who majored in biology during her college days, to provide some insight. Joy shed much light on the approach a hurdler should take to eating healthily and intelligently to maximize performance on the track. In the following interview, I’ll refer to myself as “The Hurdle Magazine” (THM) and to my wife as “McGill” so that it doesn’t sound like I’m talking to myself.

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THM: What does it mean to have a “balanced” diet – not for an athlete necessarily, but for anyone? McGill: To have a balanced diet means that you need to eat all the foods that will provide all the vitamins and nutrients that your body needs. In order to do that, you need to eat a variety of foods. Lean meats, leafy green vegetables, whole grains, protein with beans, nuts, eggs. THM: So what does it mean for an athlete to have a balanced diet? McGill: It means the same as it does for anyone else, but an athlete’s body may need some extra energy at certain times. I always say, trust your body. Your body usually lets you know, by fatigue or whatever, that you need the extra energy. You still need to eat a variety of foods. A lot of athletes think they need extra this extra that – extra protein, but that’s really not the case. Studies have been done that show that unless you’re a distance runner, you actually don’t need extra protein. But even for distance runners, it’s not that much extra. So if you eat a balanced diet, you’re going to get enough protein. The key is variety, and don’t skip meals. Listen to your body. When it’s getting tired from extra energy expenditure, eat more. Don’t ignore body signals. But don’t just load up on protein, because when you do that, you’re neglecting to eat something else you need, like the leafy greens or whole grains. THM: What should an athlete who practices around 3:30 every day eat for breakfast? McGill: Lean meats, whole grains – you need things that will provide long-term energy. Complex carbohydrates do that. They give you long-term energy, unlike simple sugars and simple carbohydrates, which give you an energy spike for a little while but then you go back down. THM: Excuse the dumb question, but what’s the difference between a complex carbohydrate and a simple sugar? McGill: Think of it this way: oatmeal is a complex carb, and Froot Loops are a simple sugar. Simple sugars just have plain white sugar. Complex stuff comes from whole grains. It takes longer for your body to break it down, so the energy it gives lasts longer, keeps you less hungry. THM: And what about orange juice and other fruit juices to go along with your breakfast? McGill: Fruit juices are fine. They’re not bad, but don’t overdo them. You need the fiber that’s in fruit, so don’t think that drinking fruit juices replaces eating fruit. THM: In our fast-paced world where people have to get off to work or school early in the morning, breakfast is often minimal or people don’t eat breakfast at all. Why, in your opinion, is eating breakfast important? McGill: Breakfast is important because your body needs that beginning energy. “Breakfast” means breaking your fast. You’ve been fasting while you’ve been sleeping. Breakfast is the beginning of you stocking up your energy bank for the day. If you start off and don’t eat breakfast, you won’t have energy to draw from for the rest of the day. Your workouts will suffer as a result. Our bodies are machines. A lot of people don’t like to think of it that way, but they are. The body is a machine that needs constant fuel. If you’re an athlete doing demanding workouts, you have to keep fueling the machine. You can’t make withdrawals from the bank if there’s no money there. THM: Okay, now talk about lunch. What kinds of foods should an athlete eat for lunch? McGill: You’ll want to get in some leafy greens at lunch because you won’t be eating any for breakfast. Put a bean sprout on a sandwich, or spinach leaves, instead of lettuce. Lettuce doesn’t have very many vitamins or anything. It’s kind of useless. Even rabbits prefer romaine lettuce to the iceberg lettuce that we usually put on sandwiches. That’s because the iceberg lettuce doesn’t do anything. THM: And how much time should you leave between lunch and practice? McGill: I’d say leave at least an hour from the end of lunch to the beginning of practice. That gives you enough time to digest the food and still have it there to use for fuel. THM: Of the three meals – breakfast, lunch, and dinner – which would you say is the most important? McGill: Breakfast and lunch are the most important meals. Dinner not quite as much. It should be the lightest meal. Dinner being the biggest meal is common in our country, but that wasn’t always the case. When we were an agrarian society, people had huge breakfasts and huge lunches and very small dinners. Modern society has changed; we’re not all living on a farm, we’re not all together anymore during the day, so dinner has become the only family meal. So we eat extremely heavily at night and then go to bed. That’s not good. THM: Okay so let’s say I’m a track athlete and I have a long meet coming up this weekend and I’m gonna be at the track basically all day. What kinds of food should I pack? McGill: You want lots of hydration. Drink the Gatorade and similar sports drinks because you’ll need the extra electrolytes. Eat the energy bars. This is a day when you can do that. Try to tend toward the ones that are healthier, like Kashi, because they have grains and extra stuff that you need. Again, listen to your body. Don’t think that eating something is going to make you heavy for your race. Go ahead and eat if you’re hungry, drink if you’re thirsty. But eat smartly. Go with trail mixes. Fruit. Bananas are very good. They provide potassium. You need potassium because it helps with cramps. THM: Talk to me now about the benefits of supplements. Supplement intake seems to be a big trend in athletes’ training these days. McGill: Really, you don’t need anything more than a daily multivitamin. Get your nutrition from foods, not from supplements. The danger with supplements is you’re going to get too much of something. You’re creating an imbalance. The body is a mechanism that doesn’t do well if it gets too little of something, and doesn’t do well if it gets too much of something. When you put in too much of something, you’re poisoning yourself. You’re forcing your body to work to get rid of it. That’s why the balanced diet is important. THM: What about the idea of supplements being taken to enhance performance? Do you buy that? McGill: A vitamin supplement isn’t going to enhance performance. The supplements athletes are getting busted for – what are they? Are they supplements? They call them supplements. A-Rod was supposedly taking “supplements,” but you don’t test positive for a supplement. So my question is, exactly what are these supplements they’re taking? THM: So what are your thoughts on drinks like Red Bull and those 5-hour energy shots? McGill: Terrible idea, terrible idea. First of all, they have caffeine. Red Bull has lots of sugar. Simple sugar and caffeine. Caffeine makes you dehydrated. You do not want that. You’ll get a burst of energy that is very short-lived and then you will plummet. You will feel god-awful. It also prevents you from eating like you need to because you feel like you’re getting the energy you need, but you’re not. So you plummet because this stuff fooled your body into thinking it’s fine when it’s not. THM: I know of many athletes who are fans of the midnight snack, but I’m guessing that’s not a good idea? McGill: It’s okay to eat a snack before bed, but keep it on the lighter side. If your body’s giving you hungry signals, go ahead and eat a little something. There’s no rule against it. Don’t force yourself not to eat; just keep it light. A piece of fruit. Or whole grain crackers with a little bit of cheese. THM: What about a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? McGill: No, that’s too heavy. THM: What are your thoughts on cheeseburgers, subs? What about getting your protein that way? McGill: That kind of food is okay on occasion. Every once in a long while. Just don’t eat it all the time because it’s just not good for you. Lean meat is better because it has lesser fat content. You only need a certain amount of fat. Eat more protein, less fat. The body wants to store the fat; it’s harder to break down. THM: One last question. I’ve heard it said that athletes should drink as many as eight glasses of water per day. That sounds rather impossible, and I imagine you would be going to the bathroom all day drinking that much water. How much water do you think an athlete should drink? McGill: You don’t need eight glasses. There’s water content in juices, milk. That’s part of your water content. If you’re training heavily, you need to go with the Gatorade and not just water. Your body will let you know if it’s thirsty. Drink when you’re thirsty. And yes, try to get ahead with your fluid intake if you know you’re training hard, but don’t drink so much that your stomach is sloshing, because then you’re not going to be able to function. You also have to consider time of year and where you live. In the summer in the South, drink up! In the winter in the North, not so much.

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For Further Reading:

Benardot, Dan. Nutrition for Serious Athletes. Champaign: Human Kinetics, 2000. Print. Cormier, Nicole. The Everything Guide to Nutrition. Avon: Adams Media, 2011. Print. Rau, Dana Meachen. Sports Nutrition for Teen Athletes. North Mankato: Capstone Press, 2012. Print. Remedios, Robert dos. Power Training: Build Bigger, Stronger Muscles through Performance-based Conditioning. New York: Rodale Inc., 2007. Print.

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