Eating Healthy

One of my favorite seasons is starting… football season! That means watching our high school football team probably embarrass themselves almost every Friday night and going to Iowa State games almost every Saturday!  It also means delicious and unhealthy food.

As a runner, proper nutrition is very important. Runners need a lot of carbs, proteins, vitamins, and fats. The healthier you eat the better your runs go. After tailgating on Saturday, I ended up eating 4 cupcakes, half a bag of chips, and a lot more other unhealthy food. After a day eating like that, my run felt ten times worse than they normally are. I STRONGLY recommend NOT eating like that ever! I will definitely work on eating healthier this football season, because no matter how good grandma’s cupcakes are, eating four of them is just too much.  

I think what I hate the most is when people are in sports and they miss a meal. You burn a lot of calories exercising and you need at least three meals to get the nutrition your body needs. I don’t like it when people use the excuse “I don’t have time” or “I’m not hungry,” because your body needs the energy you get from food and you can’t get a good run in when you feel exhausted. Everyone is busy, but that doesn’t mean you have to miss meals. Try cooking your meals in advance and putting them in the freezer if you know you’re going to be busy and keep sandwich meat and salad in your fridge.  Sandwiches and salads are good and fast meals to eat.  Also never miss breakfast, it’s the most important meal of the day! If you wake up late just grab a couple of granola bars to take with you.

Try to stay away from pop. From my own experiences, drinking a bunch of pop the night before a run, makes the run a lot worse. Pop dehydrates you and has absolutely nothing good in it. I decided to challenge myself to not drink pop during the summer a couple of years ago and now I think pop is really gross and I don’t drink it at all. I highly encourage you to stop drinking pop for a couple of months and after a while you won’t even miss it.

Just because pop, cupcakes, chips, and other sweets are not very healthy, doesn’t mean you can’t eat them. Try to eat smaller portions of the unhealthy food you love and make sure you are getting proper nutrition, which includes getting at least three meals a day.