Nutrition, from a different angle.....

**This will be a longer post... I feel it is worth it though**

The subject of nutrition comes up very often for endurance athletes. What to eat, how much, when, etc. The caloric numbers are out there, the ratios are out there, but for most, I believe that it is deeper than the numbers. Not all calories are created equal, timing is important, etc.

One of the perks of many hours of endurance training is eating mindless calories. My question, mainly for myself was, when does this become a bad thing? For myself, I found out this past year when I stopped working out as much. I was so used to being able to eat any calories just to get calories for so long that I had conditioned myself. I had been reinforcing the behavior for so long that I was wired to continue that way when I needed to stop and change.

I began thinking, wow, I can see where this gets out of control for people. I preach consistency, reinforcing good technique and good habits, until it becomes habit to a client. Then they no longer have to "think" about it, it just is. This is very clearly done with food, unfortunately it seems to be heading the wrong "reinforcing" way for most. I think we all *know* this to a certain degree, but why don't we change the behavior?

Obviously it is hard to change a behavior once it is learned. It takes work to override it, and then create a new behavior. I have read diet books, I have read sports nutrition books, etc. If you can follow the guidelines, most diets will get you to where you want to be. Most sports nutrition books will get you to race day fueled properly. But once you can't follow the diet anymore mentally, or race day comes and goes, what habit do we go back to and why? This is what was plaguing me.

I wanted to go a little further into the mindset of eating instead of educating myself even more on the diet guidelines. Many problems with my athletes training can be fixed if we fix their mindset, so I wanted to see what was out there on the food side of this thought process.

One of the better books out there that I have ran across so far that deals specifically with this is "The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite" by David A. Kessler, MD. David was a former FDA commissioner. I'll try to just touch on a couple of points on this book, there are too many and I could type all night. In the book he meets up with top scientists, physicians, and food industry insiders uncovering the facts about how we have lost control over our eating habits. Very, very, eye opening to hear how the food industry gets us to not only eat way more than we ever should, but also get us to keep coming back repeatedly, for more. Americans used to consume no more than the food they needed to burn. Overweight people were rare and typically stood apart from the rest of the population. Most can agree that scenario is flipped in many communities. Overweight seems to be more the norm. Going out to dinner, or stopping at McDonalds was a rare treat before, it is now the norm.

They food industry spends tons of money to alter our food to create a experience that wires your brain to want more. They also put much effort into marketing to create a trigger, even when your body may not actually need food. Most food companies start by making the food more processed. It is cheaper and can be manipulated for flavor much easier that way. As stated by one food consultant in the book, "by eliminating the need to chew, modern food processing techniques allow us to eat faster. When you're eating these things, you've had 500, 600, 700, 800, 900 calories before you know it. Literally, before you know it" Chewing allows your brain to send the signal it is full. When you eliminate the need to chew as much, you can eat much more, and quickly hit the brains reward centers. The main ingredients that hit the brains reward centers in food is sugar, fat, and salt.

The title of Chapter 3 of the book is simple "sugar, fat, salt make us eat more sugar, fat, salt." The most palatable foods contain these 3 ingredients, and the food industries job is to find the right amount that keeps us coming back for more. What is more shocking is how most of the foods are pre-packaged with a combination of these 3 things in them already, and then once they are shipped to their final location to be served, more is added on once cooked. So even when you think you are ordering something healthy, most of the time you would be shocked to see what was really in it, and what its caloric value was. From a high level food industry exec, "higher sugar, fat and salt make you want to eat more. It gives food a high hedonic value, which gives pleasure, so they try to bring as much into the equation as possible."

It is mind boggling how they can load hundreds of calories into one small food object. Much research has come to the conclusion that sugar, fat, and salt are reinforcing. They reinforce the desire to keep eating. One scientist interviewed who had conducted extensive research on animals found that the breaking point at which the animals will no longer work to get fat and sugar, will no longer work for the "reward", is slightly lower than the breaking point for cocaine." Adding foods rich in sugar, fat, and salt in our mouths stimulates neurons in our brains, and the more you add these, the more neurons fire. This makes the message to eat stronger. The stimulations that happen, produce rewarding effects similar to the rewarding effects that drugs provide. In the short term, highly palatable foods make us feel better, like drugs will. No wonder its so hard to change many peoples eating patters. It seems to me it would be almost as hard as getting a drug addict to not only get clean, but change their patterns after to stay clean.

So, think about that the next time you are trying to clean up your diet, and either lose weight or perform better. Before you go mindlessly into another diet, evaluate your relationship with food, and try to change how your look at food. Try to change your thinking to using food for fuel versus food for pure pleasure. Your "diet" may go much better this time around if you can rewire your brain to think differently about it and create different reinforcing behavior patterns. And, do your research on what you are eating in order to make better choices when eating out. And yes, that might mean you have to get used to more "bland" foods or get really good with spices :)