TIART: Nutrition for Running

The Runners' Lounge topic for the week is all about eating. You'd probably expect me to talk about vegetables and yogurt and smoothies with spinach or something healthy like that. Instead, I'd like to spend some time talking about Fringe Nutrition. Never heard of it? That's because I just created that term to feel good about the Hot Pocket Calzone I am having for lunch.

Fringe nutrition is the midway point between total nutrition fanatic and total fast food junkie. This is the realm that I live in. My justification is that too much of a good thing can easily become a bad thing. If I started down the slippery slope of proper nutrition than I would have to cut out my Grilled Burger with grilled onions, fries and a drink. But, I also know that I could be the next contestant on the biggest loser if I ate those fabulous burgers all the time (I probably would have a coronary before I got to the point where anyone would thing Biggest Loser, but it gets the point across.) So listed below is my compromise.

Nutritional Smoothie- Spinach, fruit, milk or juice, ice (if your spinach is frozen do you still have to add ice?) Gets your daily portion of greens and fruit out of the way.
Fringe Smoothie-Fruit, juice, maybe a little milk, scoop of ice cream, meal supplement mix. Looks great, tastes good. Daily dose of the ice cream food group, fruit and dairy

Nutritional Dinner-Veggie burger or turkey burger, salad and something else that is in the nutrition category, water or skim milk
Fringe Dinner-Grilled Hamburger (not fried), lettuce and tomato on hamburger, fries (baked if there is time, if not then patted really good) and some baked beans (again not fried or even refried), powerade to drink

See how easy that is. I didn't go all the way over to the veggie burger, but I did grill the hamburger and used baked beans (again no frying) because baking and grilling are much better than frying.

The day before a race I just make sure that I add in another meal so that I get the proper carbs. I've found that there is no substitute for Girl Scout Cookies. I make sure that I have at least one or two the night before and maybe one on the way to the race.

Fringe eating is a good alternative for people who would like to claim that they have improved their nutrition since they started running without completely going cold turkey on all the tastier things.