Thirty years ago, before the first wave of the running boom, men apparently had almost no interest in nutrition. That was something for women to worry about—whether through reading recipes or shopping for the family or preparing meals. Men simply didn’t care about these kinds of things.
By coincidence, the running boom coincided with the health and nutrition boom and the rise in feminism. Now men have to care about food, whether they want to or not. They often shop at the grocery store and prepare meals for themselves and their children.
Fortunately, many of today’s men, especially runners, care very much about their diets. They understand that men, more than women, are ravaged by heart disease and other illnesses linked to diet as well as other lifestyle factors (like exercise). They also know that diet makes a difference in performance—both how they feel throughout the day and week and how they race on weekends. This chapter addresses many of the nutrition issues that are most important to men and provides tips to help male readers make even better food and cooking decisions.
“I don’t worry about my diet,” says one high-ranking male triathlete. “I’m sure I get what I need,” he continues, “because I eat a lot.” But, like so many other men, he may not be adequately fueling his performance and health with this “garbagedisposal” eating method. Men often think that they are free of any special dietary concerns and sometimes don’t realize that their diets do make a difference. Diet can affect a man’s running and his sexual performance. It can determine the length of his life span and reduce his risk of getting diseases such as prostate cancer. Here are 10 things that every man should do to improve his diet.
1. Eat your way to better sex. Many runners enjoy a better sex life than sedentary folks. Reports suggest that regular exercise improves self-image, which boosts sexual desire and enjoyment.
But an athlete can also tell you that sex is often the last thing on his mind. This can happenbecause of lower male hormone levels that occur following exhaustive workouts. Training for two hours a day (or, for that matter, training for 40 minutes after a long, stressful day in the office) may not only squelch your desire but it can also lead to weight loss, which can further lower testosterone levels. So check your training mileage, track your sleep and fatigue levels, and make sure that you keep your weight steady by eating frequently—five to six small meals a day, if necessary.
Though no food is a proven aphrodisiac, the mineral zinc, found in oysters, meats, and whole grains, is essential for sperm production and male sexual functioning. (In rare situations, low zinc intake may contribute to impotence.) Adequate vitamin C intake may also contribute to healthy sperm cell production.
2. Take care of your prostate. One in 10 men will get cancer of the prostate—the small gland situated just below the bladder, responsible for producing seminal fluid. Risk factors include family history and race (African-Americans have a 40 percent greater risk than whites do), but accumulating research suggests that diet plays a part, too. Eating a high-fat diet, particularly when the fat comes from animal products, can greatly increase your risk.
Other research shows that certain foods may protect the prostate. Japanese men, for example, have a much lower prostate cancer risk than Europeans. This may be attributable to the popularity in Japan of soybean-based foods such as tofu. Soybeans contain isoflavones, which have been shown to protect against cancer; other beans such as lentils and peas also contain cancer-fighting isoflavones.
Studies have shown that endurance training of about two hours a day breaks down muscle tissue that is then used for energy by working muscles, particularly when stores of glycogen (a complex carbohydrate that your body uses for quick energy) have run low. Because of this, some endurance athletes see a drop in body weight and a loss of muscle over a few months of heavy training.
3. Knock out stress. A hectic lifestyle means stress, and stress can mean health problems. Studies show that emotional stress can lead to higher levels of artery-clogging low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, increasing the risk of heart disease in men. Stress can also aggravate asthma symptoms and a host of digestive problems. Fending off all these ravages of stress requires a comprehensive approach. You need to monitor your sleep patterns and the amount of tension-busting free time you give yourself.
Also, be sure that you get plenty of fiber and keep your alcohol and caffeine intake to a moderate level. (Too little fiber and too much caffeine both can cause digestive problems.) Eating plenty of fresh vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and fiberfilled breakfast cereals will help you get the recommended 25 grams of dietary fiber a day.
4. Avoid muscle loss. Okay, so you aren’t bodybuilding’s Mr. Universe. As a runner, you wouldn’t want to be. Yet heavy-duty marathon training can lead to muscle tissue loss, and that isn’t good either.
Eating sufficient calories, carbohydrates, and protein daily will help stave off this wasting. You need anywhere from 450 to 600 grams of carbohydrates a day. This means eating more than 12 servings of grains and at least 4 servings each of vegetables and fruits daily. Endurance training pushes protein needs to 25 to 50 percent more than the Daily Value, or 70 to 90 grams total a day. You can meet this requirement with regular servings of fish, beans, cooked grains, poultry, and other lean meats.
Studies show that reading comprehension and math computations falter in people who go without eating for four or more hours, whereas eating every three hours or so may enhance cognition by fueling the brain with a steady supply of carbohydrate energy.
5. Re-energize after you run. Whether you run in the morning or squeeze your miles in later, what you eat afterward may determine the quality of your next workout and your energy level for the rest of the day. During training, glycogen stores diminish. Rebuilding these stores soon after exercise is crucial, as that’s when muscles are their hungriest.
Munching on a carbohydrate-rich food is a good idea, but studies suggest that a combination of carbohydrates and protein about 30 minutes after hard running can rebuild glycogen stores better than carbohydrates alone. This combo may also speed muscle recovery. Based on these studies, you should consume 80 to 100 grams of carbohydrates and 15 to 40 grams of protein after exercising. This is equivalent to eating either a tuna sandwich with a banana and an apple, or a hefty bowl of breakfast cereal with skim milk and sliced strawberries.
6. Go easy on the booze. You have probably heard that drinking some alcohol is good. That’s true. Men who consume modest amounts of alcohol—one or two drinks daily—have a lower risk of heart disease, the leading cause of death in men. The drink of choice is red wine because it contains phenolic substances, which prevent LDL cholesterol from getting stuck on artery walls.
But too much alcohol can interfere with carbohydrate metabolism. Alcohol also adversely affects vitamins (particularly the B vitamins, such as B6 and thiamin) and minerals in the body by accelerating both their breakdown and their rate of loss in the urine. And alcohol, because it’s a diuretic (like coffee and tea), can shortchange performance by increasing water loss from the body. Therefore, if you do drink, keep it to one or two drinks per day.
7. Eat steadily throughout the day. With your busy schedule, occasionally skipping breakfast or missing lunch is inevitable. But this will drag your performance down—both at the job and during your workout. Attempting to run on an empty stomach may also squash your performance during long workouts, since going without food for four or more hours begins to eat away at glycogen stores.
Try to eat something every three hours to stay at peak energy levels. Take along easy-to-tote foods such as sports bars, dried fruit, pretzels, and sports drinks for an energizing snack, whether you’re at work or motoring down the freeway.
8. Become acquainted with your kitchen. Men often go for take-out food rather than prepare their own meals, but this can bump up fat intake and leave out performance-boosting carbohydrates. Fixing your own meals allows you to choose the ingredients so that you can keep meals low in fat and loaded with vitamins and minerals.
Look for jarred pasta sauces, canned black beans, and frozen, vegetable-filled potpies.
Studies of elderly people have shown that immune response improves with vitamin and mineral supplementation. So stay well by eating a variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean protein sources. If you don’t routinely eat the nutrient-packed foods that you know you should, consider taking a multivitamin and mineral supplement that provides 100 percent of the Daily Value of key vitamins and minerals.
9. Try new foods. Like cross-training, cross-eating adds needed variety to your life—in this case, nutritional variety. Men frequently eat fewer food items than women. Existing on a few dietary staples like bagels, bananas, and sports bars may leave you short on the fiber, vitamins, and minerals that are crucial for health and performance. You can expand your nutrient repertoire by trying a new food each week, or by getting in the habit of sampling new grains or pasta dishes at your local gourmet deli. Go for more variety at each meal by, for example, including two steamed vegetables and two grain foods (like rice and whole-grain bread) instead of a single source of each. Having more foods at each meal will also help control portion sizes, which may keep you from overloading on fat or sodium from one particular food.
10. Strengthen your immunity. Staying healthy means building a strong immune system. Exercise can help boost the number of germ-fighting cells in the body, and eating the right foods helps, too. Adequate intake of protein, zinc, iron, and vitamins C and E, to name a few, is critical for a strong immune system. For example, too little zinc depresses the number of immune cells, which are needed to fight off bacterial infections.
Men, here’s the bottom line: If we want to live a long, healthy, vibrant life, we have to pay attention to what we eat. And the best way to do this, I believe, is to take advantage of all the foods available to us. Meat and potatoes (heaped with butter) may have worked for the dawn-to-dusk farm workers of a century ago, but they don’t make sense any longer, at least not in large quantities.
It makes a lot more sense to graze on four or five modest meals a day than to gorge on two or three. It makes more sense to eat baked or broiled fish or poultry than fat-laden red meats. It makes more sense to consume a variety of fruits and vegetables than lots of cheeses and sauces. In general, the more different kinds of foods in your diet, the healthier that diet is.
Runners, of course, can never wander too far from the best carbohydrate food groups: grains and cereals. Bread, rice, and pasta are low-fat foods that provide fast energy, fiber, and a host of B vitamins. If you can build a diet around these key foods and supplement it with a wide sampling of fruits and vegetables, you’ll have a nutrition foundation that will lead to great health, energy, and longevity.