VLOG 01: Return to Run | Fueling for Running | It's My Birthday!

This is a new format!  Come along on a run with me as we talk through fueling strategies and hydration.  We will also review what I am doing to get back into running safely and injury free. 

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Transcript:  

00:00
All right. Let's talk about fueling for running. What should we do pre-workout? What do we need to take? What should we hydrate with? I'm going to show you what I'm doing today for my short Zone 2 run.

00:14
So you guys have probably seen me do this a million times already, but I have my filtered water. I'm going to hydrate using my magnesium right here.

00:28
We're going to add a quarter teaspoon of Himalayan sea salt, which will give me around 600 mg of sodium.

00:44
I'm just going to be doing a 20 or 30-minute run. Usually, I'll run for 20 to 25 minutes and then walk for another 5 or 10. I'm just getting back into running after a long break, so we're taking it slow and easy. I'm running 3 to 4 times a week, 20 to 30 minutes at a time.

01:09
Really easy Zone 1 or Zone 2, super slow paces. Yeah, especially compared to what I used to run. My paces are typically between 12 minutes per mile, which is my Zone 2, and 10 minutes per mile, which actually gets me into the threshold. I don’t need a ton of fuel because I'm running super slow, so I aim for about 30g of carbohydrates.

01:38
The general rule of thumb when training is about a gram of carbohydrate per minute of work up to two hours before training. For some of my more seasoned athletes, and even for my husband, who is just incredible, if they're training for more than 90 to 120 minutes, they'll take in close to 100 to 120g of carbohydrates a couple of hours before they train.

02:13
That’s usually a combination of food and liquid carbohydrates and calories. For me today, I'm going to be using food items. I still have to drop my son off at school this morning, so that gives me enough time to digest.

02:31
This morning, you can see here I’ve got some prunes. These are going to give me about 25g of carbohydrates. For every couple of prunes, there's fiber in there as well. Again, I have some time before I actually train, so I'm not super worried about it. Another option I occasionally use is dates.

02:55
These also have roughly around 30g of carbohydrates per serving. My little one here, they're already pitted, which is nice, and they're a little dried out. They’re so sweet, like candy.

03:20
All right. Let’s do school drop-off and then head out for a run.

03:50
I am officially 42. Happy birthday to me! So it's 7 a.m., about 80 degrees outside, and 90% humidity. We're out here, running. Happy birthday to me!

04:08
My first introduction to running was, of course, in the military. I went in at 17. I had never really run before, but I ran throughout my military career, being a decently good runner. I did well on my tests, and even after I got out of the military, I got into doing some sprint triathlons and continued to run. I wasn’t very strong then, so maybe about six years ago, I kind of shifted focus.

04:47
I had kind of lost the joy of running and really shifted into lifting. I don't regret that because I'm a lot stronger now than I used to be, but I regret losing some of that cardiovascular fitness I had.

05:05
As I'm now starting to get into what is potentially the latter half of my life, I’m noticing that things are just not as easy as they should be. I know a lot of that has to do with being so deconditioned, not just for running. Now I'm at a point where I feel like I'm deconditioning for life.

05:26
Maybe you feel this too, but at this age, I feel like this is really when your sense of mortality really creeps up on you.

06:01
We are now making a return to running, taking it super easy. All Zone 1, Zone 2, 20 minutes at a time. We're going to add 10% a week. I’m really just trying to get my lower body conditioned, get my lungs working again, and then hopefully at some point, add some volume and speed.

06:39
Recently, I did a VO2 max test, which measures the amount of oxygen you consume when you're training at different intensities. It also measures your max VO2. My results were not great—I was sitting at about 38. While that might be okay compared to the general population, I’d really like to see my VO2 max exceed 45. That would put me on par for excellent cardiovascular health.

07:15
Now, I will tell you that VO2 max does have a large genetic component, and I come from a family that is largely morbidly obese by choice. The thing that probably saved me in my young life was my mother's genetics. She was Korean, very petite, very thin. But when I tell you that I grew up in a family that just ate and ate disgustingly awful food, that was totally the norm for me as a kid.

07:51
It’s true. And so, for me to be a dietitian, that says a lot.

08:11
I was slower than I wanted to be, but that's okay because I kept my heart rate in Zone 2. So I'm not going to be mad about it. I kept the heart rate under 165, and I could sustain that. So that’s a win for conditioning.

08:42
All right, we're cooling down now. Let’s talk carbohydrates. A lot of people are afraid of carbohydrates, and I don’t think there’s any good reason for that. When we take in carbohydrates, especially fast-digesting ones to fuel moderate to high-intensity exercise, those carbohydrates break down into sugar, giving you glucose in the bloodstream.

09:10
That glucose gets delivered to the working muscle to provide fuel. It goes to produce ATP so that you can perform at your best. But people are always like, “Oh, you can't have carbohydrates. Sugar, insulin, blah blah blah.” Well, when you time your carbohydrates correctly and get the right amount, you’re not really using insulin for delivery of that glucose into the cell. You’re not storing it as body fat. You actually use a protein transporter during physical activity—it's called GLUT4 if you want to look it up—to deliver that carbohydrate into the muscle tissue.

09:52
Another benefit of consuming some carbohydrate is that if it’s hot and you're consuming sodium, water, and electrolytes, having that carbohydrate helps with the delivery of those solutes and fluids into the muscle cell, helping you stay hydrated. I think a lot of people forget that. So you have all these liquid oral rehydration solutions that people take, and they're like, "Oh, I can't have the sugar."

10:22
Oh, my battery died. Rookie mistake. So, what I was saying was that people drink these liquid rehydration solutions, but they don't want the sugar in them. Well, the reality is that if you don't need the sugar, then you probably don't need the liquid rehydration solution either. If you're not outside in the heat, sweating, working out, and training, then it’s unlikely you need to add a ton more sodium to your diet.

10:52
Let’s continue the conversation around carbohydrates and how to consume them properly, especially in a pre-workout window.

11:13
I'm having a snack. I've been on calls and meetings all day. Love what I do, but sometimes I hate being chained to my desk.

11:24
I’m batting a thousand right now. My battery totally died again, but we're home, showered, cleaned up, and working.

11:58
So, I just want to continue the conversation from earlier. If you are not working in the heat, not training once or twice a day, not wearing heavy gear, and not spending a good bit of time outside in the heat, then you probably don’t need to be drinking oral rehydration solutions.

12:38
You can salt your food normally and drink the recommended amount of water throughout the day that you need. Generally, for a sedentary person, you need to be getting at least half your body weight in ounces of water, and then you can go up a little bit from there.

13:17
One thing to keep in mind is that electrolytes power a lot of things in the body. When we talk about carbohydrate intake for training, the general rule of thumb is about a gram of carbohydrate per minute of work up to two hours prior to a training session.

13:38
Sometimes, yes, that can mean 100g of carbohydrates in a meal. It’s not unusual, especially for some of my larger athletes, to take in that much carbohydrate two hours before they train. When we get into a training session, especially events lasting 90 minutes or more, there will need to be additional carbohydrates during that session because you will run through everything you ingested during that 90 to 120 minutes.

14:17
We want to stay ahead when fueling for workouts. We don’t want to wait until we hit the wall and are about to bonk before we start taking in additional carbohydrates. We want to time that a little better. If I'm training for two hours or more, I might start ingesting my first round of carbohydrates when I step off or give myself at least 30 minutes before I start taking them in. Then, I’ll use strategies like taking in a certain amount of carbohydrates every 15 minutes during the endurance event.

14:56
Stop being afraid of carbohydrates. Stop following these low-carbohydrate diets. Stop listening to guys who walk the grocery store aisle shirtless. These are not methods you should use if you're trying to improve your performance, build conditioning, or stay in a severe calorie deficit. Going low carb is not helpful.

15:23
What typically happens is if you increase the volume of work you’re doing and decrease the calories you’re taking in, especially if you’re following that arbitrary 500-calorie deficit, you’ll run into symptoms of low energy availability. This means you don’t have enough calories coming in to support physical activity and biological health.

15:52
This is where we start to see issues with fatigue, increased risk of injury, decreased motivation to train, and if it goes on too long, there will be further detrimental downstream effects. We want to avoid that.

16:08
What I’m doing, and what I typically recommend for my athletes, is to focus on conditioning, performance, and keeping your metabolism healthy. When you’re in a position to enter a calorie deficit and still feel like you’re making progress on your performance goals, then we’ll explore that avenue. But we’re definitely not going to do that by eliminating an essential part of your diet, namely carbohydrates.

16:35
We want to fuel smartly and intentionally, and we don’t want to follow just any random influencer on the internet. Make sure you are informed.

16:56
All right. That’s my rant for this week. We’ll see you in the next video.