The Endurance Diet

I recently read The Endurance Diet by Matt Fitzgerald, after winning a copy of the book by commenting on this blog post.  The linked post does a fantastic job at describing the overall premise of the book, so I won't repeat all of it, but I liked the book a lot because the commonalities that Fitzgerald found among diets of elite endurance athletes describes how I eat, and also describes how I came about this way of eating.  So basically, I felt validated in my dietary practices!  Fitzgerald also mentions that often a shift in eating patterns precedes some break-through performances for athletes, and I personally experienced this by PRing in everything after I stopped being a vegetarian (tidbit: the book mentions that very few elite athletes practice exclusionary diets such as vegan, vegetarian, low-carb, Paleo, etc. and based on Fitzgerald's research he notes that these types of diets aren't good ideas for recreational athletes either).  I can't say for certain that my dietary changes were responsible for my performance gains, and I certainly don't think they were the only thing that helped me improve, but I am also sure not going back to vegetarianism.

I tried Fitzgerald's diet quality scoring system from the book for a couple of days, but I quickly learned that I am too much of a perfectionist to use it and remain normal.  It assigns numerical ratings to foods -- positive values for high quality foods and negative values for low quality foods (refer to the chart in this article).  Points also change based on the number of servings from the category you've consumed that day (e.g., serving one may be +2 but serving four may be -1).  I found myself trying to arrange for the highest daily score one could possibly get (+35, by the way), and not wanting to eat anything with a negative value that would deduct points from my total.  I disliked some of the categorizations for foods I eat a lot of, particularly almond milk being classified as a high-quality processed food -- meaning if I have 3 cups, which I often do in a day, the third cup is a -1 value (but if I were drinking dairy milk the third dairy serving would be +1, and I just don't buy that almond milk is less healthy than dairy milk). 

The premise of the scoring system is really good though, especially for someone who wants to eat high quality fuel for athletic performance, and I love the emphasis on what you should eat to help your body, as opposed to eating plans that focus on what you should avoid.  I personally do much better when focusing on nutrient-dense foods as opposed to thinking about "bad" foods I shouldn't have.  The system showed me that I am most apt to fall short in the dairy category, as I rarely hit 3 dairy servings in a day.  I learned that I eat more fruit than one really needs (hello 6-8 daily servings) -- but lucky for me, fruits and vegetables never get negative values no matter how much you eat of them (this also makes so much sense)!  I also started adding a cup of green tea to my days to hit another high-quality beverage (you know, since almond milk doesn't count -- can you tell I'm bitter about that one, bahaha!?), so even though my dietary practices weren't by any means in dire need of work, I still improved them through this experience.

I noticed that really the only time I eat refined grains (white flour, white rice, etc.) or much refined sugar is when I eat out, which is mainly just when traveling.  If restaurants have whole grain options, I get them, but most don't.  We eat dinners at home during the week, I pack food to take to work every day, and I only buy whole grains (and avoid buying desserts).  At home, if I eat anything with a negative value it most likely comes from the "high quality processed" category, as the first serving in that category is +1, the second 0, and the third -1.  So if I have a glass of almond milk, a scoop of whey protein, and a protein bar in a day (or those 3 cups of almond milk!), I would get a -1 in that category.

I've been focusing more on using spices for anti-inflammatory benefits (cinnamon in my coffee and oatmeal, cloves on my sweet potatoes, turmeric and cumin on roasted veggies, basil and oregano on pasta, chives and parsley on potatoes, garlic in everything, etc.).  Anytime I sprinkle cumin on my lunch at work at least one person comes in to tell me how good my lunch smells -- I seriously think I could put cumin on cardboard and it would smell delicious!  I also sprinkle nutritional yeast on most of my crock pot meals and omelets, for its immune-boosting properties. 

While I eat sweets occasionally, my current cravings lean more towards nut butters, nuts, fruit, smoothies, cereal, and trail mix.  Generally if I find myself wanting desserts I realize I really just need more calories, especially dense carbs and fats (I am not sure why it took me until the last year to realize this!).  Fitzgerald notes that occasional low-quality foods have a place in everyone's diet, because if you try to restrict and limit foods it often leads to feelings of deprivation and later over-eating on them (not to mention the social and celebratory roles that food plays in our lives).  The main issue comes when you're eating a lot of low-quality foods that are displacing high-quality foods from your diet.

I am a lazy cook, so all of my homemade meals and snacks are super easy to prepare!  Mostly I throw food on baking sheets and into the oven with some olive oil or coconut oil (both high quality fats!) and seasonings, or throw ingredients into the slow cooker.  I always make extra so I can microwave the leftovers!  Potatoes and sweet potatoes are also very easy to prepare in the microwave, and eggs are also a go-to.  My go-to snacks are fruit, nuts, hard-boiled eggs, string cheese, homemade trail mix, and homemade protein bars. 

As I mentioned, I like learning more about the eating habits of other runners -- tell me more about yours!