As runners we are often told, “I am sure you can eat whatever you want, you run so much.”
To some extent, especially for younger runners with their high-burning engines, this is true. Any calories into the body will not spend a second hiding abs or piling onto hips or butts. However, this is not necessarily the case for adult runners, and it really underscores a problem of obesity in our country, even amongst runners.
Personally, I know I do not eat the best. Part of the nature of my present existence is travel and lots of it. For example, I have not spent a weekend at home since 2009. I am usually gone for at least three, sometimes four, days a week. It is extremely hard to eat healthy when you are eating food on the road (or at race expos, etc.). Throw in the cravings after a marathon or an ultra, and it becomes even more difficult to eat properly. Even when you try to at least eat decent, you may not be doing even close to the best you could.
I have been touting to many people that while running long distance is a wonderful way for many people who are overweight to lose unwanted pounds initially, it is not necessarily the best way to keep losing weight, unless you pay attention to calories in and calories out. Studies have shown that we greatly overestimate how many calories we burn in exercise and grossly underestimate how many calories we eat.
Perfect example: in a marathon race this past weekend, I burned approximately 3,500 calories (I am a 175 lb male who did a 3:21 training run—for those wishing to check my math.). Afterward, I had a foot long sub of the variety I eat almost exclusively while I am on the road.
However, just a few days before, my friend, Jennifer, sent me a link to the Worst Lunch Sandwiches in America. Lo and behold, my standard sub was on the list. I knew it wasn’t the healthiest choice in America, but I never thought it contained—get ready—1160 calories, 43 grams of fat and 3320mg of sodium! A little under 1/3 of all the calories I burned in a marathon were consumed by this one sandwich. Let’s not even add the chips or drink I had, or the other three meals and snacks I consumed while flying home.
Herein lies the greatest problem. Many would say I earned this reward, and I would have to agree. But I also know I will go back to training very soon, and will be home for a few days eating better. So many runners, especially those new beginners who wish to simply finish a marathon, will complete their task of having lost some weight during the training and then immediately slip back into obese standards. They figure that the marathon will just keep burning calories as they celebrate their victory for the next week or so.
A personal trainer once told me, “Abs begin in the kitchen,” and it could not be a truer statement. Exercise is fantastic for the body, but it is only part of the equation. In fact, I would venture to say that what we put into our bodies means much more to our overall fitness than what we do to and with our bodies in exercise.
Should you not treat yourself to the occasional goodie? Hell, no. I cannot possibly be that big of a hypocrite. Plus, life is a tough ride, so one should treat themselves to many things that make them happy. However, do so in moderation and be equipped with the facts. Know what you are putting in there and make a concerted effort to treat your body right.
And as I have always answered when people say to me “You can eat whatever you want”:
Perhaps, but would you put crappy gasoline in a Ferrari?
Dane Rauschenberg is the author of See Dane Run, which recounts his 2006 feat of running an official marathon every weekend of the year in a different North American city. Running Matters is his weekly blog for Blue Ridge Outdoors.