What do you do if you are going to do a long race and don’t like the nutrition that is provided on the course or just want to carry your own? One solution is to use concentrated bottles. When I ran the Paris marathon last year, I used concentrated bottles to pack in 5+ hours of nutrition into 3, 10 oz bottles. I have also had a lot of triathletes use concentrated bottles on the bike or run to allow them to have enough fuel until they get to their special needs bags where they can pick up more concentrated bottles for the second half of their race. This post will describe what concentrated bottles are, how to decide if you want to use them, and how to configure them.

Before I get into the nitty-gritty of concentrated bottles I have to mention a caveat: You MUST practice with concentrated bottles before using them in a race! If you don’t know how to use them, or if you haven’t practiced them, they can very easily go wrong leaving you on the side of the road or in a porta-potty with GI distress. Now. . . on to the topic!

What are concentrated bottles? Concentrated bottles allow you to fit a certain amount of nutrition into a smaller container than what is called for on the label. In order to make concentrated bottles, you have to be using a powdered formula.

Are concentrated bottles right for me? They can be if you have time to practice them, have a way to dilute the concentrated bottles (additional water available on the course), you need to carry a lot of nutrition with you, and you have a powdered fuel you like and knows will not cause you GI distress.

How do you setup and use concentrated bottles? Here is an example: We are working with Suzie who is training for a marathon in Europe. She does not like what will be available as on-course nutrition. Suzie does not have anyone supporting her who can hand her bottles of nutrition during the race. She needs to carry all of her nutrition with her. Suzie will be running with a belt that contains 4, 10 oz bottles. She plans on finishing around 5 hours. She has a powdered drink she has used for a long time that has 45 grams of carbohyrdate per 2 scoops. She needs about 45 grams of carbohydrate per hour (2 scoops per hour). Suzie has decided she wants to use concentrated bottles for her race and fit 5 hours of nutrition into 3 bottles, leaving the 4th bottle for water to dilute the concentrated formula.

Based on this information, we know Suzie needs to fit 10 scoops into 3 bottles. I would put 3 scoops into two of the bottles and four scoops into the third. Then, you can top off with water and mix. This can take some practice and may require you to mix the concentrated mix for each bottle in a container other than the bottle then pour it into the bottle. If you do this, you need to be sure the final mixed solution will fit into the bottle.

Once Suzie has the bottles mixed, she can begin practicing with them. This means carrying them on her long runs and determining how much water she needs to take in with each drink from the concentrated bottle. What I have found is that it is two to three sips of water for every sip from the concentrated bottle. This means that you also need to stop at aid stations and re-fill the 4th bottle with water. As concentrated bottles are emptied, you can fill them with water which results in fewer stops at aid stations. During her runs, Suzie also monitors how much she drinks. She knows that to get 45 grams of carbohydrates our of the first two bottles, she needs to drink 2/3 of a bottle. To get 45 grams of the last bottle, she needs to drink half (the last bottle has 4 scoops in it). If she starts with the bottles that have 3 scoops each, she would follow this schedule: Hour 1, she drinks 2/3 of the first bottle. Hour 2, she finishes bottle 1 and drinks 1/3 of the second bottle. Hour 3, she finishes the second bottle. Hour 4, she drinks 1/2 of the third bottle. Hour 5, she finishes the third concentrated bottle. This gives her all the nutrition she needs to finish the race in 3 bottles she can carry with her. If the bottles do not have marks on them indicating 1/3, 1/2, and 2/3, you can mark them using a permanent marker.

You can use this same methodology on a long bike. Just determine how many carbohydrates you need per hour, how many carbohydrates are in your preferred fuel, the size and number of bottles you will carry, and go from there.

Concentrated bottles are a great tool to have available when you need them. Just remember to practice, practice, practice with them to be sure they will work on race day.

Sarah Seppa, my current fabulous intern from the University of Houston Dietetic Internship, wrote this blog about using real food during endurance and ultra-endurance training and racing. Thanks Sarah!

An Ironman triathlon takes a long time to complete, 11 to 16 hours for most athletes, give or take.  100-mile races take even longer, over 24 hours in most cases.  These athletes are burning calories at a extreme rate, and there is really no way to replace all the calories burned during the event, but nutrition is needed along the way to help fuel the athlete as they go the distance.  Endurance athletes are familiar with consuming supplements throughout their races such as sports drinks, gels, bars, and other engineered products, designed to deliver specific amounts of nutrients in a form that is easy to consume on the go.  But as endurance events get longer, over 5-6 hours, some athletes begin to look for something different.

Here in lies the problem.  When running, swimming, or cycling, your nervous system is in sympathetic or “fight and flight” mode.  Your blood vessels leading to your limbs are dilated, carrying nutrients and oxygen to your hard working muscles.  When you eat, your nervous system switches modes, to parasympathetic or “rest and digest”.  Blood rushes to your stomach and intestines to help you process the food that you have just eaten.  When you eat and exercise at the same time it is very difficult to digest food because your nervous system doesn’t know what to do, thus resulting in stomach cramps and other symptoms of gastrointestinal distress.  The key is to find foods that satisfy your hunger but digest easily so you can utilize the food for energy as soon as possible, avoiding an upset stomach.

Foods that are easiest to digest are carbohydrates.  As luck would have it, carbs are the preferred source of energy for your muscles.  By talking to athletes and reading a few discussion forums, it was unanimously clear that these quick digesting carbohydrates are the foods that endurance athletes competing in endurance and ultra-endurance distance events prefer.  Here are a few ideas:

• Potatoes or Yams
• Bananas and other lower fiber fruit
• Pretzels
• Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
• Crackers
• Dates and other dried fruit
• Rice Balls
• Cookies

Switching up flavors is also important.  Athletes often report “flavor fatigue” or the feeling of nausea at the very thought of having one sip or bite of the food or drink they brought with them.  One way to avoid flavor fatigue is to use foods that have a variety of different flavors: sweet, salty, savory, and sour.  That being said, it is important to be practice with the foods you plan to race with. You should also be cautious of the food provided at the aid stations in longer races.  Your gut needs training to consume food on the go, and you need to know which foods work for you and which foods don’t.  Only grab foods from the aid stations if you know they are tried and true.

So you have satisfied your hunger, but do real foods work as well as engineered foods for endurance?  A recent research study done at Louisiana State University comparing raisins to sport jellybeans in prolonged cycling, suggest that they do.  The study found that when equal caloric values of raisins and sport jellybeans were consumed in two different trials, there were no significant differences in endurance performance for time, power, blood glucose levels, or rate of perceived exertion.  In addition, the athletes preferred the raisins, as measured on a hedonic scale.  This is cool news!  More research is definitely needed comparing the use of real foods and supplements during intense activity.

If you are considering an Ironman or an ultra marathon, consider working real food into your race nutrition plan.  It will prevent you from getting hungry, experiencing “flavor fatigue” and might just add a little more enjoyment to your competition.

If you are racing a fall marathon – Chicago, Marine Corps, NY, etc. – now is the time to start planning and practicing your race nutrition. You want to have a nailed down nutrition plan for race day that you KNOW WILL WORK.  How do you put together a marathon race nutrition plan? Well. . . .

You start by deciding if you want to use the on course nutrition or if you want to carry your own. If you want to use the on course nutrition, you need to look on the website and see what flavor of the product they will have. If they have lemon-lime and you can’t stand lemon-lime, then you need to make an alternate plan. You also have to recognize your position in the pack. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for races to run out of on-course nutrition for those in the back of the pack. (If this is you, I would strongly suggest having some nutrition with you for the second half of the race just for insurance. You can either carry it with you from the start or get a handup from your support crew along the route.) If you are OK with all aspects of the on-course nutrition product you want to get it and start practicing to be sure that your GI system likes it and you really, really like the flavor.

If you want to carry your own, you need to pick the product and start practicing with it now. That way, you know it works. If it doesn’t, you have time to try something else.

The second step is to determine how much you can consume while running. I usually start people between 45 and 60 grams of carbohydrate per hour.  A product with a mix of glucose, fructose and sucrose allows your body to absorb more which can allow you to take in more fuel (which can lead to an improved performance). If you start out at 50 grams and have stomach problems, go for less or change product. If you do not have any problems, you can try going up 5 – 10 grams per hour. The key is to get in enough fuel you have a great run while avoiding GI distress. The grams of carbohydrates can come from any source you like – sports drink, gels, blocks, beans, etc. However, I would not recommend mixing sports drink with other sources (gels, blocks, beans). If you are going to take carbs in a non-sports drink form, use water (not sports drink) to dilute them. Using sports drink to dilute them can lead to the dreaded GI distress because it puts too many carbohydrates into your stomach at once.

That is the basic way of developing a marathon race nutrition plan. It also works for half-marathons.

If you have questions, let me know. Otherwise, have a great race!

I was working with a new client the other day who brought in a food log he had been keeping. As we reviewed it, I becamed alarmed at his sodium intake. It was sky high – between 3,000 and 4,000 mg per day! The current recommendation is 1,500 mg per day (however, athletes typically need a bit more, but not necessarily that much more). When we started looking at where the sodium was coming from, we discovered it was from the meats. Not the lunchmeats, but from the regular chicken breast, turkey breast, etc. he was eating. What’s up with that?

The meat industry engages in a practice called “plumping.” Sounds not so bad right? Not so fast. Plumping is the practice of injecting saltwater, chicken broth, or other water + flavor concotions into meat. This helps make the meat harder to dry out when you cook it, but raises the sodium content. And . . . .you are paying meat prices for saltwater! Yes. . . you are paying $3 or $4 or more per pound for saltwater. Up to 15% of the chicken you purchase can be saltwater! You could be spending up to $1.50 per package for saltwater! Plumping can increase the sodium content of your chicken by up to 500%! Can you tell this makes me mad?

Meats that are “plumped” can still be labeled as “all natural” so you can not necessarily trust the larger print on the label. What do you do? You have to read the nutrition facts pannel, the ingredient list, and the fine print. For example, if chicken has more than 70 mg of sodium per 4 oz serving, it has been “plumped.” Chicken does have up to 4% retained water, so that is normal. If there is an ingredient label, look for “saline solution” or “sodium” or other flavorings. Somewhere on the label it should say, in tiny print, “up to 15% saltwater” if it has been plumped.

It is for each of us to decide if we want our meat “plumped” or un-plumped. I prefer mine un-plumped, thank you very much. I do not need or want the extra sodium. I like to add my own seasonings. And, I don’t understand why I need to pay meat prices for saltwater. What about you?

One of my first blog posts was on using low-fat chocolate milk as a recovery drink. Looks like the research is continuing to show it as a great recovery meal. This blog/newsletter was written by my latest intern Nicole Impero. Thanks Nicole! She graduates from the University of Houston Dietetic Internship today. Good luck Nicole!

The advertisements for sports drinks like Gatorade make a convincing case that you need the additional nutrients included. However, a recent University of Texas study suggests that for post-workout recovery, chocolate milk may be your best choice. This study, conducted by UT kinesiology and health education expert Dr. John Ivy, argues that low-fat chocolate milk provides a superior balance of carbohydrates, fat, and protein as compared to sports drinks. According to Ivy, these benefits included an increase in oxygen uptake, an increase in muscle mass and reduction in fat, and increase in power and speed in their exercise routines. Best of all, the benefits were seen by amateurs as well as professional cyclists. The research participants followed a regimen of 90 minutes of moderate cycling interspersed with 10 minutes of high-intensity cycling, and then recovered for 30 minutes before drinking 8 oz of the low-fat beverage, which is pretty intense for most of us. However, these results are convincing. Why not think about a glass of chocolate milk for your post-workout recovery instead of more sports drinks?

References:

Randall, Kay. (2011, June 22.) “Chocolate milk gives athletes leg-up after exercise, says University of Texas Austin study.” Retrieved from < http://www.utexas.edu/news/2011/06/22/milk_studies/ >

This week’s postwas written by my first dietetic intern – Christine  Scarcello. Thanks Christine!

Protein is an important nutrient for our bodies, and as an athlete it is crucial to eat the right amount of protein. Too much or too little of this nutrient can be detrimental to performance gains.

As an athlete, the majority of fuel comes from carbohydrates, which is why we’re all familiar with pasta parties and “carb loading” in the week or days leading up to a big race. Carbohydrates stored as energy are being burned during endurance exercise, while very little protein is used for fuel. However, protein is used in other ways.

During exercise, muscle synthesis (or the creation or repair of muscle) is postponed. Athletic activity works muscles and causes damage to the muscle, yet they are unable to repair or synthesize themselves until exercise has ended. Research from Montana State University has purported, for example, that running for an hour may reduce muscle protein production in the liver by 20%; other research from the Journal of Physiology report that longer duration and greater exercise intensity further suppresses the body’s ability to repair itself. The body is able to play “catch-up” after exercise has ended, which is why it is important to get a post-workout meal that contains an adequate amount of protein.

If you’re already conscious about your post-workout snack or meal, that is great. It is important to refuel those muscles once you stop exercising so that your body can start repairing and replenishing lost protein stores or muscle structure. Yet one mistake I see all too often is an excessive amount of protein intake, and – just like the famous saying – this can be “too much of a good thing.” Excess protein that isn’t used in muscle synthesis ends up with one of two fates: it is either stored – just like excess carbohydrates or fats –as body fat, or it will be excreted as ammonia in our urine. 

Research indicates that our bodies cannot use more than 2-2.5 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight (g/kg BW) in one day. (To determine your weight in kg, divide your weight in pounds by 2.2.) Many athletes or very active people only need 1.6-1.8 g/kg BW per day. Robert Wolfe, PhD, a noted clinical investigator and protein expert, says that the most effective amount of protein at any one time is 20-35 grams (or roughly 3-5 ounces of meat).

This is further supported by research that shows a significant amount of urea is produced when an excess of 40 grams of protein is consumed at once. The high production of urea indicates that the protein wasn’t being utilized in the body (for muscle repair) but broken down into ammonia and excreted. Consuming more protein than what can be used in the body can also have potential problems, such as muscle breakdown and dehydration, which will affect your performance gains.

Planning your protein intake and sticking to a few basic guidelines is an easy way to ensure you’re getting what you need for peak performance:

1. Eat several small meals per day that consist of both protein and carbohydrates. This will not only prepare you for workouts, but it will also help with muscle repair and warding off too much muscle breakdown during your training.

2. Always eat protein and carbohydrate for a post-workout meal. Your body needs both of these nutrients to initiate muscle synthesis that is necessary to replenish lost glycogen in your muscle and repair any muscle tissue damage. The standard rule of thumb is to consume one gram of protein for every 3 to 4 grams of carbohydrate in a post-workout meal.

3. Eat amounts of protein within the 20-35 gram range at a single time, and don’t exceed that amount. Instead of drinking one large protein shake containing 60 grams of protein after your workout, drink half of that amount and save the other half for another meal or snack during the day.

Breakfast the morning of a race can be a challenge. Nerves are going. Stomach is queasy. You are checking all of your gear for what seems like (and may be) the millionth time. And, I’m saying you need to eat some breakfast, too. Yup, breakfast. Breakfast the morning of the race is important to top off your tank, give you energy for your race, and keep you from getting hungry.

What you have for breakfast and when you have breakfast depends on your race. The shorter the race, the closer to the event you can have the meal and the meal can be smaller. The longer the event the more time between the meal and the event and the more fuel you need to put in the tank. The more food, the more transit time you need to allow.

If you are racing a 5K, 10K or a sprint triathlon for example, you could have a small bagel or toast with peanut butter a couple of hours before the event. You don’t need a lot of extra energy for these events because they are short.

If you are racing a marathon or half Ironman, you may need or want more – a larger bagel with peanut butter and an egg or two or a big bowl of oatmeal about two to three hours prior to the event.

If you are racing a full Ironman, most racers get up at 2AM, eat, then go back to bed and try to sleep. I have heard “breakfast” ranging from a full American breakfast to a couple of Slim Fasts. Then, once you get up an start getting ready, sip on some sports drink while you get ready and get to the race site.

When you start training, you also want to start practice your breakfast routine. You want to find out what your stomach does and does not like. You also want to start working on the timing. How long does it take for that meal to clear your stomach? Are you having to stop and find a bathroom? Do you want that to happen race day? You want to find something you know your stomach will be happy with when you add the nerves of race morning on top of it.

If you have a favorite pre-race meal, I’d like to hear about it!

The triathlon and running season is heating up here in Houston and around the country. If you are competing or doing races of any significant length this year, you need to plan how you will fuel your body during the event. What you do depends on the length of the event. For a 5K you may carry nothing or just a bottle of water. For a longer race, however, you may need to think about what your body needs and how you are going to get it.

Different athletes have different likes and dislikes when it comes to sports foods. Some like to go all liquid, some like to make their own fruit leather with chia seeds to use. Whatever you decide to do, I would encourage you to Keep It Simple!

When I ran the Paris marathon last year, one of my client’s friends showed up with probably a dozen baggies pinned to her waist. Each baggie had different things in them (gummy bears, gum drops, jelly beans, etc.) and was used at different parts of the race. I kjnow of triathletes who have two drinks, a couple of types of gels, and blocks they use during their race. That is WAY to much for my brain to think about during a race. 

In longer distance races, keeping it simple makes your race day much simpler. You have less things to pack and locate on race morning. And, you have less things to think about during the race.

For most of us, there seems to be a point in the race where we cannot think very well. Keeping it simple means fewer things that you have to think about executing during the race. If you have one sports drink and one other type of fuel (blocks or gels), and you know that every 10 minutes you take a drink of sports drink and every hour you take a gel, that is a lot easier to think about while racing than having to remember every 10 minutes drink from bottle one, every 20 minutes take a gel, every 30 minutes take a drink from bottle 2, etc. Which fueling strategy would you want to follow?

Remember when planning your race nutrition to find a couple of fuels you like and plan to keep it simple!

It is heating up out there – both the weather and racing!  When planning your race nutrition and hydration, it is important to keep these two items separate.

The first item is fuel. When you plan your race nutrition, there is a certain number of calories or grams of carbohydrates per hour that you aim for. This is usually 60 grams of carbohydrates (or 240 calories) or .45 grams of carbohydrate for every pound of body weight. You have to try this out and see what works for you and your GI tract.

The second item is hydration. To get an idea of how much fluid you need per hour, you can conduct a sweat trial. This gives you an idea of the fluid ounces of water you need per hour to stay hydrated.

When you train and race, these items are often combined in the form of liquid nutrition or sports drinks. However, it is important to remember that these are really two separate things. Although you do get liquid calories in sports drinks and you also get water, you may not want to consume all of your water with calories. Here is an example:

Joe needs 60 grams of carbohydrates per hour for his race nutrition and 40 oz of water. He plans on racing for an hour and has three water bottles each of which holds 24 oz (a total of 72 oz). In order to make both his nutrition and hydration work, he could mix 30 grams of carbohydrates from a powdered sports drink in each of two sports bottles. After adding the powdered sports drink, he adds 18 oz of water (what the bottle will hold in water after putting in the powdered sports drink). He fills the third bottle with water.  This gives him his 60 grams of carbohydrates (3o grams of carbohydrates per bottle) and a total of 60 oz of water (18+18+24).

The other reason for thinking of nutrition and fluid separately is to be able to scale your hyrdation based on the condiditons. If you are racing on a cooler day, you may need less water. On a hotter day, you may need more water. Joe knows that no matter what he needs to drink those two bottles of sports drink to get his nutrition, and he can drink more or less water based on the temperature and humidity.

As you plan your training and race nutrition and  hydration, remember that although they often seem to be the same, they really are separate things that you have to think about executing based on what you need for carbohydrates and fluid.

We are entering the training season for a lot of endurance and ultra-endurance events. A couple of key ways athletes can improve their performance is to get their pre- and post-race nutrition nailed down. Knowing what you are going to eat in the couple of days before and immediately after a race can help reduce your stress levels going into the race and keep you GI tract happy.

Pre-Race

Pre-race fueling includes the couple of days before the race. Start now trying out foods to find what works for you before your workouts. This becomes more important as the workouts become longer. Planning your pre-workout/pre-race nutrition helps in a couple of ways. First, you find out ahead of time what your body likes. If you are traveling to your race and will not have access to a kitchen, find out the local restaurants and try to duplicate similar foods at home. Second, when you find something that works, it becomes one less thing that you have to think about – “what am I going to eat the days before the race?”

When testing out your pre-workout/pre-race meals, remember to eat, tweak, and repeat. After you have eaten that meal note how you feel after eating it and after your workout. Some find it helpful to keep a log so they know what they did – just like a training log. If your body was not happy with that meal, you did not have a good performance, or think you can perform better, tweak the meal and repeat the process.

Post-Race

Practicing your post-workout/post-race fueling is also important. Research has shown that having a recovery meal within 30 minutes of finishing your workout helps prepare you for your next workout. (Note: this is important if your workout is 60 to 90 minutes or longer or you are working out again the same or next day). Having a recovery meal immediately after your race will help you feel better that day and in the days following.

Think about what your race site is like. How soon can you get to your recovery meal (remember if you are doing a triathlon, you can’t get in until the last bike is in). Or, will you have a support crew who can keep your recovery meal for you? Does it need refrigeration and if so is it available?

Start trying different recovery meals and find one that works for you. You can use low-fat chocolate milk or any of the commercially available recovery drinks. I prefer liquids because they are quickly absorbed and most athletes prefer that to something solid immediately after working out. Again, eat that recovery meal, see how you feel, tweak, and repeat.

Summary

There is not a magic pre- or post-workout or race meal. You have to find what works for you and your body. That is why this is a process of. . . eat, tweak, and repeat!