Episode #149: Stranded In The Airport – Eating On The Run?

Hey folks, this is Ben Greenfield coming to you at about 2:30am from the Seattle airport. I just came in from the Hawaii 70.3 Triathlon and happened to miss my flight back home to Spokane. So as I lay here on the hard floor of the airport trying to get a little bit of shut eye, I realized that there is absolutely no way that I'm going to be recording the podcast to tomorrow morning, as is my usual M.O. from the home office. And so I am providing you today with a replay of a podcast that I did with the folks over at the Marathon Training Academy. Now, don't stop listening if you don't run marathons because this is actually a very good bit of information for anybody who wants to know more speaking specifically about what to be eating before and after workouts, specifically in this case, things like cardio workouts. We talk a lot about breakfast, about sports supplements, about low carb diets. We talk about diets for building and maintaining lean mass, losing weights while preparing for or losing weight while preparing for things like marathons and runs and how to control hunger pangs. There's a lot that we'll be going over in today's podcast and this is, of course, kind of an unconventional podcast from bettyrefieldfitness.com there will be no special announcements and no special music. We're just going to jump right in to the podcast. And again, this is a replay of an interview that I did with the folks over at the Marathon Training Academy. And by the way, I promise that next week we will be back to the regular podcast format. I have a lot of really great interviews that I've been conducting with guests that you've been in and ask me to interview. So I'll be releasing those over the next few weeks and until then, enjoy this podcast. Be sure you do head over to BenGreenfulFitness.com and check out some of the recent articles and videos that have actually been stirring up quite a bit of comments and discussion. And let me know if you have any questions, feedback or comments about what you hear today by leaving them on the show. Notes for this episode, episode number 149 and BenGreenfieldFitness.com enjoy.

All right, we are on the podcast today with Ben Greenfield. He is a nutrition and fitness expert and a triathlete and and also has a popular podcast called the Get Fit Guy. And Ben has come on the show to let us ask him some nutrition questions. So we're excited about it and we're going to jump right into it. So I Have the first question, and this involves breakfast before a long run. And this question is from Rachel, and she says, I usually get my run in first thing in the morning. What should I eat and drink, if anything, before I head out the door? Something quick, nutritious, and easy on the stomach. I usually try to make breakfast the biggest meal of the day, but that's hard right before a run. Should I split it up and do half before and half after the run? I need some help. So, Ben, what would you say about eating breakfast before a long run?

Cool. Great question. That was from Sarah.

Did you say Rachel?

Rachel. Okay, cool. Great question, Rachel. Well, before you head out for a run, like in the morning, what's going on in your body is you've got lots of storage carbohydrate on board. Still, some people think you burn through it all when you're sleeping. And basically you have two places on your body that you store carbohydrate. You store it in your liver and you store it in your muscles. And you pretty much only burn through the stuff that's in your liver while you're asleep. So you've still got a good 1000-1500 calories of carbohydrate on board to burn through when you roll out of bed in the morning. That's assuming, of course, you ate dinner and you weren't on some weird fasting protocol all day long the day before. But that being said, that means that you can technically roll out of bed, start running, and within about five to 10 minutes, your body's going to be starting to shuttle some of that carbohydrate, that storage carbohydrate, out of muscle tissue and around in your bloodstream, where your blood sugar goes up a little bit, delivers some glucose to your brain, basically begin to make you able to use that carbohydrate. So getting out of bed and just heading out on the run is fine. Now, depending on the distance of the run, the storage calories that you do have on board will start to run out. Let's say that you're running for. But let's say you got a long one planned. You're going two hours, and once you get about 60 to 90 minutes in, you'll start to run a little bit low on that carbohydrate. And at that point, you would benefit from having some carbohydrate with you like a gel or some other type of sports supplement that you can take with you. And as a matter of fact, you'll be a lot more comfortable if you start taking in your carbohydrate before you reach that point, I think we've all reached the point where the blood sugar gets a little low and it always seems like you got to eat everything in sight to dig yourself out of that hole. So it's better not to let yourself get there. But ultimately, before you, before you head out, if you want to eat something, just a quick digesting carbohydrate is fine. Research doesn't show that there's any difference between eating a sweet carbohydrate or non sweet carbohydrate. So what I mean by that is a banana would just be as good as a sports gel, would be as good as if your stomach tolerates it, a bowl of oatmeal. So basically just a carbohydrate is fine. Stay away from the rocky style steak and eggs, though. No eggs in a blender. That's going to take about four or five hours to digest. And unless you're running real slow, you'll get some GI distress with that.

That's just nasty. Anyway, drinking an egg like that.

Yeah, it's macho though, you know, it.

Makes you look good if anyone's watching. I guess that's right. The next question does relate to what you were talking about here. It's about real food versus energy bars before a long run. And Maris asks, she says, what is the best fuel food before a long run or marathon? Which should I prefer on a long run? Real food like bread, legumes, corn, or energy bars and gels.

It's a great question. You know, this question pops up a lot nowadays because of the whole paleo diet thing. And, you know, everybody wants to go out and eat, you know, more or less like a caveman, right? But the problem with eating real food while you're running is that a lot of choices for real food. You know, let's say some of the common things that people grab like dried fruit and dates and figs and you know, even, even some forms of vegetables, you know, you mentioned corn and carrots. I've seen people grab those, you know, chomping down a few bananas, lots of that stuff, tends to have fiber in it that draws water into your colon. And so whereas it's fine for about 30 to 60 minutes, once you start to get up to 90 minutes, two hours, more than two hours, you really risk some gastric distress. You risk some gas, some bloating, possibly even some leakage, for lack of a better word, when you're fueling with that type of real Food during your run. That's why a lot of times, even though they're not the healthiest thing on the planet from a nutrition standpoint, these engineered foods like. Like bars that are jam packed with lots of calories and not much fiber, like a power bar or a goo or a sport gel or even a sport drink that's got a little bit more of the sugar concentrate in it. These type of things are really designed to be consumed during activity without causing GI distress, and they're the best choices. And for me, as somebody who likes to prioritize real food as much as possible, I don't like to tell people to go out and eat engineered packaged food all the time. But the one time that it really comes in handy is when you don't want a lot of fiber on board. Now, if I could say one other thing is that research doesn't show any difference between solid or liquid. So there's really not a difference in absorption or comfort with a bar versus a goo versus, say, like a flask with some concentrated liquid fuel in it, you know, like a Gatorade or some people mix those powders even more strong than that. So it's ultimately kind of what you like, what keeps you entertained while you're out there running.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Okay.

Okay. The next question is about gels, beans, and sports drinks. And it's sent in by Lisa, and she says, how can I fuel during long runs? I have tried gels, and I find I actually get hungry. So. So how frequently should I take gels? Am I better off with sports drinks or gels, beans or combination? What is the best way to help me maintain my energy during the run?

Great question. I coach marathoners, and I see a huge range of nutrition intake among people, both guys and girls, in terms of what they can tolerate and what they actually need to keep their blood sugar levels from dropping? One girl who I. Who recently did well, she did Chicago, and I had her on about 200 calories an hour in Chicago. She did about a 248 over there, but just felt her blood sugar levels dropping almost too low than we wanted them to drop, even though she was doing a gel every half hour at about the 20 mile mark or so. So then we did Phoenix, and she did Phoenix in. It was 250 and change, but we bumped up the calories. So then she was taking a gel every 25 minutes, and she still, at that same mark, got the low blood sugar. So next race will be taken in a gel every 20 minutes. That's 300 calories an hour. You know, if you're getting the entire gel into your system.

Right.

And you know, whereas on paper or in the laboratory, that seems like a lot for a female to be consuming per hour during a run. That's what we found we actually need. So usually if I were to just paint with a broad brush, I find that for a marathon based distance to really feel great the entire time, Girls need about 200 to 250 calories an hour. Guys need about 250 to 300 calories an hour. And that's just basically like a gel based carbohydrate.

This lady in question, she's a six hour marathoner. So even you know she's going to be out there a long time. Would that make any difference as far as her calories per hour or mile intake?

Yeah. You know, I notice among the ironman triathletes that I coach, we're always up towards the higher end of that calorie intake because you're going into the run hungry. Right. You've just gotten off the bike for 112 miles, so you have a lot fewer carbohydrates on board. And she would kind of fall into that category. Even though she's not burning as many calories per hour as somebody who's going to run it in say like three hours, she's out there for a long period of time. So once she gets up to about two and a half, three hours, she may find that she has to bump it up to even close to a gel every 15, maybe every 20 minutes. So we're looking at 300, 400 calories an hour to keep her from bonking. And it's really genetically variable. You know, some people have high metabolisms, some people burn more carbohydrates, some people burn more fat. But one of the things that she should be doing is, especially if she plans on being out there for a long period of time, she should be practicing in some of her training sessions, just seeing what she can tolerate. And then the other thing, that kind of flip side of it is you can train your body to use a little bit less carbohydrate and rely on carbohydrates a little bit less during activity. If you throw in a few sessions where you just kind of push through the discomfort and the feelings of like you're going to bonk and just kind of get yourself to burn fat as a fuel. So you throw in a few, for lack of a better word, fasted run sessions where you're Just kind of getting used to running on fat. And you can lower your carbohydrate needs just a little bit that way.

Okay, so your main advice would be to practice during her training for her marathon to try to work out that formula for her body so that she knows what to do on race day.

Yeah, if I were her, what I'd be doing is a combination. Let's say she's running four times a week, do a couple of sessions that are kind of in the morning without much fuel. So you're training your body to run on fat as a fuel, and then throw in a session on the weekends where you're practicing your fueling, and that way you're kind of getting the best of both worlds.

Okay, that makes sense. I have a question on the three phases of Gatorade, and Rob asks this question. He says, I'm wondering if I should buy into the hype with the whole three phases of Gatorade. One before the long run, two during, and three for afterwards. Or if I'm okay going with regular old Gatorade.

Okay. I think what he's referring to is the new Gatorade. There's this new Gatorade. It's called the Gatorade G series sports drink. And what they did with that is they made, like, three different types of Gatorade. And you take one before and then one during and one after. And the idea is that technically you need protein after you finish working out. And research has shown that a nice ratio of protein to be taking in after workout is about a 4 to 1 ratio of carbohydrate to protein. So they make one type of Gatorade that has protein in it, and then they make another type that is for before you head out. And it's basically like a gel. Like all these three things come together. And then the one that you take in during is basically just traditional Gatorade. So what Gatorade has done is they've marketed science. You know, a nice little package. You pick it up, you take in your gel right before you head out to bump up your blood sugar a little bit. You take in your Gatorade during training to keep your blood sugar levels elevated. And then you take in your Gatorade that has protein added into it after to help your muscles repair and recover and also help to replenish storage energy. It's a cool concept. You're basically overpaying for it, in a sense, to get it all packaged together. I mean, you could do just as well eating half a banana before you Head out eating your gel while you're out there on your run and then eating chicken and some brown rice when you get back. And you'd save yourself a considerable amount of money. But Gatorade has just kind of packaged it all into one convenient package where you take your, I think they call it their prime is their pre and then perform is their post or their during and then they have something like protein for their after kind of. The weird thing about it though is even though Gatorade is kind of bragging that they've really gone after science with this whole new three phase drink package you can get from them, their post workout beverage is a one to one protein to carbohydrate ratio. So basically they've kind of like broken all the rules and chosen a ratio that research shows is not anywhere near as good as a 4 to 1 ratio. So it's kind of, it's kind of weird that they've gone after the science but at the same time kind of mess things up.

So if you want something like that for convenience, go for it. But you can do the same thing at home if you're willing to do the real food.

Yeah, exactly.

Alright, so now we're going to get into some diet questions and this question is about low carb diets. Somebody we forget who sent the question in but the person asked, I've lost a lot of weight on the Atkins diet. Is this and other high protein low carb diets compatible with running long distance? Should I add more carbs to be prepared for race day?

This is an interesting question because it really depends on the person's history. The reason I say that is if I'm coaching, let's say a really lean person and they come to me and they want to go on a low carb diet, I can also or almost guarantee that they're going to get an over training injury or they're going to get sick a lot because they're not taking in enough carbohydrate to actually keep their immune system functioning or actually keep their muscles firing in a proper pattern to keep them from injury. Now if somebody who's not lean comes and wants to go on a low carb diet, then it's a situation where I know they have enough storage energy on board on their body. They've got enough adipose tissue or fat to be able to burn. It's going to be a little bit uncomfortable for them. If they're used to constantly feeding on carbohydrate, it usually takes about one to two weeks to kind of get over the blah feeling that you get when you switch to a low carb diet. But that person can typically do it and stay pretty healthy and not really risk over training because of the process of something called gluconeogenesis, which is basically just the process of turning your own storage fat into glucose. So you can basically turn your storage fat into carbohydrate. Burn that on a low carb diet. Assuming you have enough fat, you'll be okay. You don't have much risk there. But if you're lean, you got to be real careful with the low carb diet. I don't have many lean people who successfully do a low carb diet without getting injured or sick. The only thing you really got to be careful of, if you do kind of fall into the category of a person who's got some extra fat to burn, you're a little bit overweight, you want to lose weight, you're going to switch to a low carb diet. I'd recommend that you cycle your carbohydrates. And what I mean by that is on your higher activity days, like on the day that you have your long run or maybe your hard intervals day, do bump up the carbohydrate intake a little bit. It will give you a higher quality workout. You'll get less of a chance of depressing your immune system from long term carbohydrate depletion. And you also kind of give yourself a mental break. You're able to stick to a low carb type of diet a lot longer when you inject these carbohydrate refeeding type of days to bump your energy levels back up. So it's very, very difficult to just straight up go low carb and maintain that for more than a month without something breaking or the wheels falling off somewhere.

Would you recommend increasing that carb intake like the night before their long run or their race to kind of prime the body with extra carbs for that?

Yeah. There's two ways to do it. It kind of depends on the time of day that you're going to work out. I sometimes will use a low carb diet when I'm really trying to lean up. Like if I'm coming off the off season into the race season. And for me, because I tend to be like a late afternoon evening type of exerciser, my refeed day starts in the morning with breakfast. I switch to a higher carbohydrate breakfast. Instead of having protein eggs cooked in coconut butter, or have like a couple of whole grain waffles and eat those until I'm super full in the morning to really soak up a bunch of carbohydrate, you know, And I'm not running or doing a workout for another four to six hours. So it kind of depends if your workout really starts in the morning. Yeah, you're definitely going to want to. Want to get the fueling in the day before.

Okay, this next question kind of relates to this whole topic, and it's about building and maintaining lean mass. And Brian asks, can you tell me the proper diet to follow for someone who's interested in maintaining and even building lean mass while at the same time fueling properly to train for a half marathon?

Yeah, it's kind of difficult. And this falls into the same type of science that you'd use for like a build muscle, burn fat type of approach. And the idea is that they've done research studies on people who have tried to go on a low calorie diet or be at a calorie deficit so that they could lose fat but also build muscle at the same time. And the only populations in research studies that have been observed to be able to burn fat and build muscle simultaneously are people who went on a diet, but at the same time that they went on a diet, they did weightlifting. And they've actually seen people go on as low as 8,800cal a day and still put on muscle during their weight loss phase because they were lifting weights. There's just something very special about resistance training, the type of hormonal response to that that really can help you build muscle and burn fat at the same time. So you definitely want to be lifting weights. In most of the studies, they were doing it three days a week for anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes. So I would definitely include that in the program. And you can absolutely train cardio and resistance training at the same time. You don't have to do like a four week weightlifting phase and then a four week marathoning phase. I generally recommend that people who are training for a primary sport focus on that primary sport first in their workouts. So, for example, all the triathletes that I coach know that they have to do their swimming, biking, or running workouts for the day before they do any type of weightlifting. And the people who I have trying to build muscle know that they're supposed to do their weightlifting during the day before they go out and do any of their cardio intervals or their sports or anything like that. Does that make sense?

Yes.

Yeah, that's good. Thank you.

All right.

I got the next one and it's, let me see here. Do metabolisms react differently to specific diets?

Yes. I've talked about this a lot over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com that people have generally three different types of metabolisms. You tend to be a protein type, a carb type, or a mixed type. And depending on which type you are, you're going to respond differently to carbohydrates, protein, or fat. For example, I'm a protein type and I eat typical day. I'm eating 30 to 40% protein, 30 to 40% fat, 30 to 40% carbohydrate. And I know those ratios based on a really comprehensive questionnaire that I did called metabolic typing. I actually interviewed the guy who does that questionnaire over on my podcast, and my wife eats about 50 to 60% carbohydrate, 20 to 25% protein, 20 to 25% fat, because she is a carbohydrate type and she feels better energy levels based on that. And so, yes, depending on your metabolism, you may be a high carb, a high protein, or mixed type. And it's very easy to assess through questionnaires, just a series of questions that you answer that ask you things like what type of foods you crave, how you feel after eating certain types of food, foods what you like, what you don't like. And it's one of those deals where you answer the question based off the first thing that comes to mind. And it's typically very accurate. And man, I feel a lot better than when I was eating a higher proportion of carbohydrate.

I think that would be really helpful for a lot of people because some people, when we get into our section on the weight loss questions, they seem to be think they eat a pretty healthy diet, but they seem to be stuck as far as their goals, their weight loss, and maybe it is related to their metabolism and they're just not having the right ratio like you're talking about.

Yep, yep, absolutely.

This next question is from Denise, and she wants to know if there's any special requirements for vegetarians during marathon training.

Yes, I coach a couple of vegetarians and we have to be very careful with two things. One is the fats and one is the proteins. Vegetarians tend to be chronic carboholics. They eat a lot of fruits, a lot of potatoes, a lot of whole grain type of products, and tend to really neglect the fats and the protein. So if you neglect your protein, you get inadequate muscle recovery and repair, and you can get an Immune system depression. And if you neglect fats, then you tend to lose a lot of focus. You can basically depress your brain function. They did a study over at Oxford University on vegetarians and found that due to a lack of vitamin B12, many of them had poor memory function. And it's really one of those things where if you've chosen to be a vegetarian or vegan, you better be willing to really pay a lot closer attention to your fueling needs than if you were actually doing things like eating eggs and steak and dairy and things of that nature. So protein combining is important, meaning that you need to be able to, for example, combine rice with peas to get a whole protein. Or you could combine like a bread with a nut, like a sprouted grain bread with an almond butter. You could combine something like a quinoa or an amaranth or a millet, or even like a barley or a rye or a wheat with some type of nut source. So basically, the idea is that most of the food sources that you're taking in have incomplete protein profiles and you have to mix them with another source. So be sure that you're really familiar with the concept of protein combining. And then also really go after things like extra virgin olive oil, flaxseed oil, throw some hemp oil in, or get your hands on, like, some vegan type of protein powder. Prioritize things like avocados, olives, healthy fats, lots of seeds and nuts. Make sure that you're getting your hands on those and not just on the whole grains, potatoes, vegetables, and fruits that vegetarians tend to choose more often.

Okay, thanks.

Good stuff. All right, now we're going to move into the weight loss section here. And I'll say that again. Now we're going to move into the weight loss questions. And I have the first one. Is losing weight while preparing for a marathon doable? Can runners lose weight and not have it affect their training negatively? What is the best way to drop a few pounds and still train? Well.

Rewind your. Whatever you're listening to this on. And listen to the part where I talked about cycling your carbohydrates. That's really one of the only ways to do it, because you got to have fuel on board to fuel your long runs and have them be productive. And not just like death marches where you feel like you're starving the whole time, but you also have to go through those periods of calorie deficit and carbohydrate deficit in order to get your body to tap into its storage fat. So if you're going to lose weight during a marathon, you need to have days in which you are low carbohydrate, low calorie, and then your heavier training days in which you're higher carbohydrate, higher calorie. And one of the little tricks that I really encourage people to do is something called intermittent fasting. And it works really well, especially if you're training. The way that you do it is you eat dinner and then try not to eat anything for two hours before you go to bed. So you sleep all night, you wake up, get out of bed in the morning, and if you have a little bit of coffee, it can accelerate the fat burning process a little bit. What you do is you get up and you do an exercise session, just like an easy kind of fat burning cardio based exercise session. For me, it's like about a 45 to 60 minute easy bike ride, typically on the indoor trainer in my office while I review the news for the day and I have a cup of coffee before that. For some people, it's a nice easy walk or jog outside, but you can really watch the fat just get stripped away when you're doing something like that. And you can still be training while you do it. The flip side is don't go out and do like your hill repeats or your long run in a fasted state. That's where you really got to be careful. Unless you've got a protocol going where you literally have one workout during the week where you're pushing yourself just a little bit harder in a fasted state, don't make a habit out of doing your hard workouts in a fasted state because you'll train yourself to go slow. Yeah, that's good.

This next question kind of is the same type of thing. We just got tons of questions about weight loss. And I think a lot of people go into their marathon training thinking they're going to just magically drop the pounds and they find that they're so hungry they end up eating more and they either, you know, don't lose weight or they actually gain weight. And Sandy says, I want to lose weight. And I know running is the best calorie blaster, but it's so hard to cut calories while I'm training because I'm starving hungry. And she goes on to say that she ran several races last year, but she didn't lose any weight. She says, what should I do differently? How can I balance training and a ravenous appetite and have a healthy diet?

Well, first of all, definitely do Pay attention to some of the carbohydrate cycling stuff I talked about. The next thing is that because people who tend to train a lot tend to have more ravenous appetites post exercise, you can get hungrier. Take advantage of the fact that right after you work out, your body is in this state where it's less likely to take things like cheat foods and carbohydrates and turn them into fat. Those type of foods are a lot more likely to get sucked up into the muscles and used as storage energy. So take that time to have whatever it's going to be, like your Snickers bar or your little bowl of ice cream or whatever it is that you tend to be craving typically, like later on in the day or at night. Take that in after your workout when you're a little bit more bulletproof to especially like carbohydrates and higher calorie foods. And then also consider supplementing with things that can help stabilize the blood sugar and keep your appetite under control. For example, cinnamon is a great supplement to have around and use a lot. It stabilizes the blood sugar, it can control the appetite. I'll add cinnamon a lot of times to, for example, like a protein powder smoothie or a bowl of oatmeal in the morning. I'll occasionally even put it in a wrap or something like that. The other thing that you can use, some other supplements that are out there, vanadium is one, chromium is another. There's one called Gymnaera Sylvestere which is really good for carbohydrate cravings. Sounds kind of nasty, but you can literally break the capsules open, put them on your tongue. It'll make a brownie taste like chalk. So for people who really crave carbohydrates, it kind of shuts down your ability to enjoy sugar.

That's what I mean.

I'm the one that works really well. I'd stay away from some of the extreme stuff like the high caffeine, ephedra based stuff, hydroxy cut and all that type of stuff that can just throw your central nervous system out of whack and make you produce a bunch of adrenaline and feel like you drank four cups of coffee. But some of this stuff that's just supposed to stabilize insulin or stabilize blood sugar can really help out with appetite cravings. And it's stuff that works well to take about 30 to 60 minutes prior to a main meal. In full disclosure, I do run a supplements based website and one of our highest selling supplements because it's really Good for this is called thermo factor. And you just pop one before lunch and one before dinner, and it really reduces your appetite for carbohydrates or your craving for carbohydrates. And that's got a lot of those things in it like vanadium and chromium and it's got like a bitter orange extract in it and some of the things that just make it a little bit easier not to eat. Lots of sugar.

That sounds like it'll be really helpful for a lot of people.

Yeah.

What's that web address?

That is over at my coaching website, which is pacificfit.net Pacific like the ocean. Fitlikefitness.net.

I heard you mention cinnamon, Ben. I had to ask it. Have you ever taken the cinnamon challenge?

I don't know. What is that?

It's really simple. Just take a spoonful of cinnamon and just eat it without coughing and pukes.

I think I've done that on accident when I forget to stir it into my oatmeal. But I've never actually done it intentionally. No. It sounds unpleasant.

All right, so now we're going to ask some food questions. What foods help speed recovery and decrease muscle soreness and inflammation?

I don't know if the, the listeners have heard of omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids before, but omega 6 fatty acids are the type of fatty acids that are found in vegetable oils. You'll get them in a lot of processed foods. Some nuts even are pretty high in omega 6 fatty acids. And those are pro inflammatory, meaning that they actually help out with inflammation. And whereas that's a good thing to a certain extent, most of us eat way too many omega 6 fatty acids. You know, we get canola oil and vegetable oil when we go and eat out at the restaurants. Most foods that come in packages or containers have lots of vegetable oil added to them. Crackers, chips, cookies, things like that. All of those are really high in pro inflammatory compounds. So the two most inflammatory things you could be consuming are those omega 6 fatty acids and then sugar. So we're talking about like whatever white bread, cookies, cake, candy, stuff like that. So I would stay away from that stuff. And then the stuff that would help to speed up recovery and decrease inflammation would be, first of all, omega 3 fatty acids. So those would be found in like, fish oil is really high in omega 3 fatty acids. Flaxseed oil is really high in omega 3 fatty acids. Hemp seeds and hemp oil, flax seeds, chia seeds, lots of those type of things. Really high in omega 3 fatty acids. So I would include those. I would include something called proteolytic enzymes. Another supplement to look at if you go over to PacificFit.net, one that I take every day, I literally just got back from a run and popped eight of these. It's called Recover Ease, and it's got enzymes in it that actually were first discovered by surgeons who were giving them to their patients to recover faster from surgery. But they're called proteolytic enzymes. And you can find them naturally in meat, in pineapple, and in papaya. Those are three of the highest sources of them. But if you want to get like, you know, the equivalent of choking down a few pineapples and just take it in pill form, something like a recoveries, proteolytic enzymes would be good. The other thing I would recommend would be a whole amino acid. So whereas like a protein powder, like a whey or a casein protein powder is gonna have amino acids floating around in it. You can also get amino acids that are super high absorbed in like a capsule or a powder form. And I'm gonna warn you that amino acids tend to be kind of expensive because they're expensive for people to make. But I guarantee if you were to be taking like a fish oil, an omega 3 fatty acid source like that, if you were to be taking a proteolytic enzyme, and if you were to be taking a whole amino acid in like a powder or a capsule form, you would notice a big decrease in soreness. And all of those you could take literally like 30 to 60 minutes after a workout.

What about cherries, cherry juice? Do you recommend that to decrease inflammation?

Yeah, antioxidants can be pretty helpful too. That's something I didn't talk about, but thanks for bringing that up. Antioxidants, what those do is they can shut down or what's called scavenge free radicals. When you breathe in oxygen, you make energy out of oxygen. Your body can kick some extra electrons off in the process. And all those extra electrons circulating around in your bloodstream, they're unpaired. And they're called free radicals. And if they're in excess, they. They can damage some of the cell walls, they can slow down cellular metabolism, they can slow down recovery, they can cause inflammation. And that's why using antioxidants in moderation is good. The flip side to that is that if you're using antioxidants all the time and using a lot of them, it's bad because your body never learns how to fight off free radicals. So you lose a lot of the benefits of exercise, which is basically to teach your body how to recover from the stress of exercise and grow stronger. So what I have people do is only really use like antioxidant based supplements on really hard workout days and not use them the rest of the time.

That's a great tip because I think someone would think, oh, this is good, so let's do it all the time and maybe decrease the benefits of it.

Then don't go get a keg of cherry juice. Not exactly.

Oh man, it's pretty tart. It's hard to take anyway. The question is asked a lot, what are the best foods to eat the night before a long runner marathon, like for dinner? And should the runner focus on carbohydrates, protein, or some sort of ratio mix is best.

What you want to get is you want, ideally, if you're not a vegetarian, you want to pick like some type of meat that has good iron content, like a dark meat, like a dark turkey, dark fish, grass fed beef, something of that nature. And make sure that you chew it really well. Pre digestion can begin in the mouth. So chew your protein really, really well so that you digest it faster because it can take a while to digest. And if your marathon starts at 7am and you're eating at 6.30pm, you want to give yourself every extra advantage that you can. So choose a protein like that. And we're looking at right around 6 to 8 ounces for a girl, 8 to 10 ounces for a guy. And I know that I am not including vegetarians among that, but we'll get to that in a second. Next thing is choose some type of whole grain source that's easily digested but that's also pretty high in nutrients. So a low nutrient grain source would be like white rice, which is just sugar. A high nutrient whole grain source would be quinoa, which I mentioned before. That's a really great source. It's also got a lot of amino acids and proteins in it. So that's a great choice for vegetarians. Pre rice the night before. You can mix like nuts and seeds in with that if you want some extra protein if you're vegetarian. Otherwise if you're not and you're having meat, you could just have like a side of quinoa. You could also do like a brown rice or like a whole grain spaghetti noodle, something like that. But generally in the range of about 400 calories or so of that carbohydrate for girls and closer to about 600 for guys. And try and choose a nutrient dense carbohydrate, a healthy whole grain, or like a quinoa amaranth, millet type of carbohydrate. You're kind of going down the more non agricultural paleo type of route. Go for sweet potatoes, yams, even like a baked potato. All those are really great starch sources as well. And then try and include also a vegetable that's high in iron. So we would say, for example, like a bed of spinach and kale, a dark leafy green, a cruciferous like broccoli or brussels sprouts would also be good. But choose vegetables that are really dark. And then also try and choose something dark for dessert, like dark chocolate, like a pomegranate, something with pomegranate. Not a pomegranate martini. Save that for apple rice. But like, you can do like pomegranate seeds. You could do typically dark chocolate or pomegranates is what I go after, really. And then like a glass of red wine is okay. If you need to settle your nerves a little bit, that'd be fine. It's not going to really mess up your race to do something like that.

Well, I could definitely get into the dark chocolate.

Yep. Dark chocolate, red wine, piece of grass fed beef, a couple of sweet potatoes. I mean, that's magical for me, the night before race, as long as I can get it in at least 12 hours, you know, before, so it's not still sitting in my stomach.

Sounds good.

Yeah.

Angie and I are gonna run the Little Rock marathon. She's doing the full and I'm doing the half on March 6th. So I'm gonna be sure to chew my food really thoroughly the night before.

Yeah, do like 20, 25 chews. It works really well.

Yeah, I'll definitely think of you when I do that.

Yes.

And I'm gonna eat a lot of dark chocolate.

Be careful. Chocolate is a carminative, which means that it can give you gas, so be conservative.

Thanks for the warning.

All right, this next question comes from Autumn. She says, if you had to pick three foods to stay away from because they hinder your performance the most, what would they be?

You know, alcohol would be one to be really careful with. You know, like, I'm actually, I'm taking my wife out in the town tonight as a Valentine's Day. And yeah, we'll probably have a couple of martinis. And I'm not planning on working out at all today because I know those are going to dump my testosterone levels down into the ditch. For both guys and girls, alcohol can really inhibit recovery and reduce your ability to train the next day. So I'd be real careful with alcohol only in moderation. A few glasses of red wine here and if you're going to go out and, and get more wild than that, it'd be best to really avoid doing training the next day or just plan something easy like a yoga class. Next thing would be sugar. I already mentioned that it's pro inflammatory. So that would be something else that you really want to stay away from. I'm not talking about like sugar, like the type of sugar you'd find in a yam. I'm talking about just like straight up processed, nutrient stripped sugar. So like for example, eating lots of things that have high fructose corn syrup in them. So that would be another example of something that's going to hinder performance. The last thing that I would say, gosh, I don't want to kick this horse to death, but it's just so important. That would again be the omega 6 fatty acids. I'd really limit your vegetable oil. So basically if you were to look at it this way, like for all of kind of your cold cooking, salads, salad dressings, things like that, use an olive oil or a flax oil and for all of your hot cooking, use something like a coconut oil or like butter and just stay away from vegetable oils, period. And you'll do a lot better job shutting down inflammation and decreasing soreness and increasing recovery. So stay away from vegetable oils, sugar and alcohol. Those would be the top three to avoid, especially the night before a long run.

This next question comes from Ryan and he says how often should we eat for optimum energy and an efficient metabolism? I'm currently eating every three hours, five meals a day, with 12 hours between meal number five and number one.

You know, I used to kind of be on board and by follow all the other nutritionists who said eat like a squirrel graze, eat every one and a half to three hours, whatever. But having gotten smarter and looked through all the research that's out there and finally decided to go and see for myself if this stuff was true, the fact is that there's not a single study out there that shows that you get any additional benefit once you go above three meals a day. So if you eat fewer than three meals a day, you can decrease metabolism a little bit. But once you get up to three meals or more, that's about as high as you're going to spark your metabolism as far as research is concerned. So what that comes down to is basically whatever works for you. As long as you're eating at least three times a day, whatever works for you. So when I found that out, I mean, I used to eat at. I'd eat like breakfast around 7, I'd have a snack at 10, I'd have a snack at noon, I'd have a snack at 10. Two, I'd have a snack at five, I'd eat dinner at seven, maybe a little dessert at eight. And so I was eating like seven or eight times a day. Now I basically do breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner. I'm basically eating four times a day. Occasionally there'll be something after dinner like I'll do a little chocolate protein powder or something like that before bed. But there's really no need to eat more than three times a day unless you feel like it probably gives you.

A lot more time in your day too, and you don't have to worry about eating so often.

Yeah, it does. And you feel less guilty too if you skip a meal knowing that really there's no evidence that it does anything in terms of your metabolism. You know, if you are the type of person who has a really high metabolism and skipping meals or skipping snacks makes you really hungry and you know that you're going to cheat a lot more when you do that, then it may be beneficial for you to eat frequently and not let your blood sugar levels get too low. If it's a matter of you basically doing lots of cheating and overeating if you let yourself get hungry, but otherwise you really don't have to worry about eating more than three times a day.

Would that also apply to someone who has trouble with blood sugar stability? Would they be better off eating more frequently and not letting their blood sugar levels drop?

It's kind of a caveat because to a certain extent, yeah, if you're pre diabetic, you don't want to let yourself get hypoglycemic. But there's some people that are just used to cutting constantly tapping into carbohydrate for energy. And frankly, some people just need to learn how to burn their own fat as a fuel. And that's uncomfortable. And sometimes it means that you're a little hungry, sometimes it means you're a little bit hypoglycemic. But carbohydrates are the one thing that we can live without because our body can make them out of protein and fat. So you don't have to eat carbohydrate. And as long as you know that you're able to go for a while without eating and that you're not doing it because. Because you're addicted to sugar, then it'd be okay to kind of keep yourself from getting hypoglycemic too often. But if you're struggling with weight and one of the things you're doing is grazing all the time, I guarantee you're probably going to notice a difference in your ability to burn fat if you quit grazing all the time.

Okay, that sounds good. Thank you.

So concerning supplements, Bob asks, is there a runner's cocktail of vitamin supplements? I'm looking for a secret injury prevention formula.

You know, not according to research, but I can tell you what I do. I take a greens supplement. So there's tons of different ones out there. I take one called Ener Prime. But basically a greens supplement just mixes typically a bunch of superfoods like spirulina and algae. Sometimes there's some Chinese adaptogens in there to control stress. So you get some mushroom extracts, basically just like a ton of stuff. Green supplements are usually a little more expensive because there's so many things in them. But that's one thing. Next thing we already talked about would be a fish oil. Next thing you'd want to include are those enzymes and the amino acids that I talked about. And then there's a couple other things that work really well that I take and that I recommend. One would be something called coenzyme Q10. It's part of the cell that's responsible for taking oxygen and turning it into energy. And it's a really, really great thing for runners to be taking. So I'd be taking some type of coenzyme Q10, for example, like Hammer Nutrition makes one called Race Caps. And let me think if there's anything else that I would throw in there. So you got a greens of fish oil. Oh, I'm sorry. Two big ones, Big ones that are cheap to get and easy to get your hands on. Vitamin D and magnesium are the last two I'd throw in there. Get yourself on at least 500 milligrams of magnesium a day. Get yourself on a good. I take 5,000 of vitamin D a day, but at least 2,000 of vitamin D a day and you'd be in a real, real good place. So that's what I do.

Now I did have a question about vitamin D supplementation because, you know, it's pretty much in the news everywhere. You need to be taking the vitamin D is the best form, the D3 or the D6. And then she also asks, since it's a fat soluble vitamin. How do you avoid toxic levels in your liver?

You definitely want the D3, which is called cholecalciferol. And the idea behind D3 is that it is used for a ton of different processes in the body, from your immune system to your hormone formation, your testosterone formation, cellular metabolism. It's like one of the most important things you could be taking. And I do blood tests on a lot of the athletes that I work with and I have yet to test any of them who aren't deficient in vitamin D. Endurance athletes, any of them. So the idea is that, yeah, it's a fat soluble vitamin. However, studies have shown that you need upwards of about 600,000 international units of vitamin D to reach toxicity. The current recommendations for it are 600 international units. Most, like alternative medicine physicians or people like myself, recommend anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 international units. And I've seen nothing but positive benefits from that. Very easy to go out and pay 30 or 40 bucks at your local lab or even over on my website, grab a vitamin D blood test and you can immediately find out if your levels are below 45 and you're an athlete. You should bump it up. If your levels are getting up around 80, sure, back it off. You don't need to take that much, but you still got to take a ton of it to get up to toxicity levels. And the current recommendations are incredibly conservative, disappointingly conservative in terms of vitamin D. And the last thing in terms of vitamin D is a lot of the capsules that are out there. A lot of them use oil from genetically modified soy. And a lot of them have to be broken down in your digestive tract before the vitamin D actually gets to your liver and is metabolized to its active form. So I recommend you use something like a spray. I use a vitamin D spray. I put four, four or five sprays underneath my tongue every morning. And it's basically a molecular form of vitamin D. It's absorbed instantly. Like as soon as I spray it underneath my tongue, I hold it for 20 seconds and it's in my bloodstream right away because it completely bypasses the digestive system. So that's a really good way to get your vitamin D in. And if you're really, really concerned about toxicity, just test yourself every five or six months to make sure that you're not getting super high levels vitamin D3. But I have yet to see that happen in anybody.

That's a great tip. I know since we talked to you last time, that was one supplement I really bumped up was the vitamin D. So that's been really helpful.

Awesome.

She has a few more gray hairs since the last time we talked, so.

I don't know if that's not caused by vitamin D toxicity. Thanks a lot.

Okay, I have the last question and it's about loading up on electrolytes. Is it possible to load up on electrolytes during the week before a marathon to reduce the chances of cramps and the later stages of the race through the use of a supplement or concentrate? And that's from Sam?

Yeah, it is. And actually I recommend it. I always, especially for a hot weather race. You'll see me salting my food typically about five days out, putting effervescent electrolyte tabs in like my water that I drink. Like I'll take like a noon tab or an electrolyte tab and put that in there. So. Yeah, absolutely. You can get your body to store more sodium just like you can get to store more carbohydrate by carbohydrate loading. Be careful, especially if you're predisposed to high blood pressure. Most people consume a lot of sodium anyways if they're consuming a lot of packaged foods. The fact is, if you are eating healthy and you're eating lots of real food, raw vegetables, salads, stuff like that, kind of shopping around the perimeter of the grocery store, not eating lots of stuff out of boxes, could be that you're not storing away quite as much sodium as you could. And while that's healthy, for the most part, long term during marathon week, you could definitely give yourself a hand up by throwing a little bit more down the hatch. So, yeah, absolutely. Bumping up your daily sodium intake to closer to like 2000, 2500 MG around in that range can help out for sure.

And if you're taking the magnesium supplement, should you bump that up the weight? The weak race. To me, if you are taking a magnesium supplement, should you bump that up the week of the race too?

Yeah, I mean, like you allude to with that question, sodium chloride, table salt isn't the only mineral that you need. You need calcium, magnesium, potassium, and a bunch of other little minerals. So ideally you're taking some type of supplement that has all the minerals in it. And yes, you can bump that up during race week, but just make sure that you experiment a little bit because one side effect of taking in too much magnesium, as I mentioned earlier, I think is loose stool. So make sure that you're not taking in more than you've experimented with in the past. Or you could have a nasty surprise on race day.

I heard from a listener who was running comrades actually in South Africa and he decided that he was going to take some magnesium supplements race morning, not realizing that side effect. And he said he had to use every port a pot along the way and get creative in some places too. So it was pretty miserable.

Yeah, I'm sure that made for an eventful race.

Well, Ben, we appreciate you coming on the podcast and can you tell everybody where they can find you online?

Yeah, my pleasure to come on the podcast. I really enjoy talking with you guys. A good place to go. Just to start, we mentioned that PacificFit.net is my coaching website and then BenGreenfieldFitness.com is my blog and I always have tons of free videos. Put out a newsletter a few times a week with lots of interesting information and do videos, audios. I try and keep people entertained with stuff that they hopefully are not hearing. A lot of other places I do a lot of reading, a lot of research and basically keep you up to speed on everything pertaining to performance, nutrition and fat loss. So BenGreenfieldFitness.com would be a great place to go.

Excellent.

Sounds great. Thank you Ben.

Well, thank you guys.

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