Two of the most important factors in determining your running success have to do with what’s on your mind and what’s in your stomach. In the previous chapter, we addressed how to manage your mind-set to become a runner. In the next section, we’ll address how to eat like a runner.
If you don’t have the proper amount and kind of fuel in your stomach, you’ll feel sluggish when you exercise, or you might end up sidelined with GI distress and forced to make some unwanted pit stops during your workout.
But as we all know, exercise and eating are much more intimately related than that.
Some lucky people start working out and find that their sustainable eating habits naturally evolve to complement their new exercise routines. They find that the more they move, the less they crave junk foods and the less prone they are to overeating. But for many others, it’s more complicated and more challenging to strike the right balance. In some cases, it’s necessary for a person to change eating habits and shed pounds before even starting to exercise. Others struggle to balance cutting calories while increasing the amount that they move.
No matter where you are, it’s critical to develop eating habits that support your running. That may require some hard work. And you might find that the work you do at the table is more mentally and emotionally taxing than anything you do on the road. Exercise happens in a separate dimension and setting, often removed from your everyday life. But eating is something that’s tightly woven into every day, often in situations that may have led to unhealthy habits in the past.
In the next section, you’ll find all the tools you need to lose weight and learn to eat like a runner. You’ll learn what and how much to eat; how to navigate the grocery store; and how to shed unwanted pounds, avoid diet disasters, and get back on the wagon if you get derailed—something that happens to everyone. Plus, you’ll find out everything you need to stay energized on the run without ending up with an upset stomach.