Runners have long favored pastas, breads, and rice in their diet, relying on them to provide a steady supply of high-energy carbohydrates. However, for many years it was too easy to select processed white grains, primarily because such foods dominated supermarket shelves. These refined grains have a high glycemic index, especially when combined with sugar in cakes, cookies, and the like.
In other words, your body converts them rapidly to glucose. The result could be an energy rush, followed by a crash as insulin rushes into your blood to dispose of the carbs. Not a good formula for runners.
Now there are many more choices, and nutrition-savvy athletes are switching to whole grains. For example, you can buy pastas made from red and green lentils rather than refined white flour. Brown rice is easy to find, and much tastier than white rice once you adapt to its nutty flavor and chewy texture. Other ancient whole grains are turning up on store shelves with increasing frequency. Some of these include quinoa (high in protein), teff (a favorite of those super-fast Ethiopian runners), freekeh, and einkorn.
At the beginning of cross-country running, in England in the 1860s, British athletes enjoyed a steaming bowl of porridge (oatmeal) for breakfast before their hare and hounds competitions. With modern-day milling and other manufacturing, this once-hearty breakfast changed to a soggy, mushy concoction. Today porridge is making a comeback in the form of whole-grain oatmeal. Sure, it requires a little more cooking time, but the payoff is worth the wait.
While refined grains like white rice cook faster than their whole-grain counterparts, they can’t compete on the nutrition front. Whole grains include the bran (packed with fiber), the germ (vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants), and the endosperm (mostly starch). The refined white grain contains only the endosperm, or starch. That makes it a high-glycemic source of carbohydrate energy, but a poor source of everything else.
Whole grains get high marks for their ability to extend athletic endurance. This follows from the slowness with which they’re digested, which means they deliver a steady stream of energy to the blood and muscles. No wonder they are favored by many runners, especially marathoners, who have come to rely on whole grains as a high-test fuel for the long run.
Burn more calories coming and going: Impressive new research from Tufts University in early 2017 brought more reasons to eat whole grains. In a well-controlled study, researchers fed subjects either eight hundred calories of refined grains or eight hundred calories of whole grains daily. Those on the whole-grain diet gained an additional forty or more calories a day of basic metabolic burn. In addition, they eliminated an extra fifty-plus calories daily, thanks to the high fiber content of whole grains.
All told, the change in energy balance was worth about a five-pound weight loss over the course of a year, according to the investigators. In this particular study, the Tufts researchers didn’t even measure the nutritional benefits of whole grains. They didn’t have to. That has been so well established, it’s a given.
When I asked about this, they responded quickly. “We should also remember that whole grains in the diet are associated with lower cancer rates, so they’re good for long-term health,” said the head investigator.
Lose even more weight: Other studies have also shown that whole grains can contribute to weight-loss efforts. A study in Public Health Nutrition found that people who consume at least three servings a day of whole grains have a lower BMI (body mass index) and less belly fat than subjects eating fewer whole grains. Increased belly fat (also called visceral fat) is a leading indicator of the so-called metabolic diseases, including diabetes, that often result from overweight and obesity.
Beat heart disease and cancer: In 2016 BMJ, a medical journal, reported that a review of studies linking whole-grain consumption and mortality produced striking results. Those who ate three one-ounce portions of whole grains per day were rewarded by a 22 percent lower risk of death from cardiovascular diseases. Whole grains also lowered death rates from cancer. A separate investigation of seventeen thousand Spanish adults documented a lower risk of heart disease over ten years. The benefit was strongest in those who had the highest ratio of whole grains to total carbs in their diet.