‘Vegging out’ eats at marathoner

By Adam Cohen and Dr. Stephen Prescott Comments 0
Published: November 18, 2008

Adam’s training journal

When I gave up eating meat, one of the reasons I did so was to help offset my couch-potatoesque lifestyle. Happily, in recent years, I’ve pretty much left the sofa behind, trading hours glued to the tube for daily runs and occasional trips to the gym.

My particular passion has become the marathon, and at any given time I’m likely to be training for — or have just completed — a 26.2-mile race. Often, though, I notice that my energy levels lag, particularly late in the day.

Obviously, a certain amount of drain is to be expected from logging 40 or 50 miles a week. But I’ve begun wondering whether my vegetarian diet is compatible with long-distance running.

Given my exercise regimen, am I doing myself more harm than good by "vegging out”?

Doctor’s prescription

It should come as no surprise that a vegetarian diet has many health benefits. In a long-term study of the relationship between diet and health, researchers at the Loma Linda University in California found that vegetarians have lower rates of heart disease and nearly every type of cancer, including lung, stomach, pancreas, colon, bladder and breast. Most striking of all, vegetarians in the study lived about three years longer than meat eaters.

That said, your demanding exercise routine brings with it a unique set of nutritional requirements. In particular, endurance athletes require more protein — roughly 0.5 to 0.7 grams per pound of body weight — than their sedentary counterparts to repair small tears in muscle fibers caused by exercise. That means a 150-pound runner should consume about 75 to 105 grams a day.

As long as you pay close attention to your diet, it’s possible to hit this target by eating (and drinking) a variety of soy and dairy products, beans, whole grains, legumes and nuts. Add peanut butter or hummus to your bread and chick peas to a salad. Snack on yogurt instead of cookies. Choose whole grains whenever possible. And meat substitutes such as soy burgers typically add about 10 grams of protein per serving.

Finally, consider supplements for nutrients that are hard to get without eating meat: vitamin B12, iron, zinc and omega-3 fatty acids.

If you’re careful, there’s no reason you can’t have your tofu and run, too. Or, in the words of legendary nutritionist Bart Simpson, don’t have a cow, man.

If you have questions for Dr. Stephen Prescott, please e-mail them to OMRF-President@omrf.org. Prescott, a physician and medical researcher, is president of the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. Adam Cohen, a veteran marathoner and fitness writer, is general counsel and vice president of public affairs for OMRF and also serves as legal counsel to the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon.