Going vegan or going hungry?

An apple a day keeps the doctor away...

Last blog post received so many interesting comments that I wanted to continue a little bit more on the nutrition thread. During the Christmas break, I stumbled upon a few programs on BBC tv. The one program was about the benefits of vegan lifestyle, and the other was about how fasting for 24-72 hours every now and then can be beneficial for your health. The indications were so strong that I got really curious about both. But I also have some questions that I haven't found the answers to.

Fasting
Now let's start with this one, since I do in fact have some experience with this. Three times, during 2014 and 2015, I completed a three-day juice program. At that time, I did it mainly for weight management, but now I have learned that the benefits are so much more. In fact, the 2016 Nobel Prize winner in medicine and physiology, Yoshinori Ohsumi, got the prize exactly because of his research showing the benefits of hunger on the renewal of human cells.  The bottom line of the story is that when we go hungry (less than 500 kcal a day) for 1-3 days, the growth of new cells in our body slows down, and instead the body starts repairing existing cells. For a person with high cholesterol and blood pressure, such a diet can reduce the values to normal, even just after fasting once (then you have to do it every now and then to keep the good effect). Even for healthy people, this process is documented to slow down aging, and it might cancel or postpone the risk of serious diseases.
  
Vegan diet
The benefits of vegan diet seem to be very comparable to the benefits of fasting. Animal protein is one of the foremost promoter of the growth of new cells in our bodies. The production of new cells is good when we are young, but as we get older it also means quicker aging. Vegans, in average, not only live longer, but they also age better. Meaning that they stay healthy and young looking until very old age. Vegans are also in average slimmer, they almost never suffer from heart strokes, and there is a lower occurrence of cancer among them.

The benefits of going hungry or going vegan seem to be endless. And since benefits of both methods seem pretty similar, we can probably choose which one we would like to apply, if any. If the idea of going hungry a day or three every now and then (it is really not that difficult) seems doable, perhaps that is easier for you than to change your whole diet. Or perhaps anyways you have reduced animal products quite a lot, and the way to a vegan lifestyle is not so long. I must admit that I got inspired to try another juice program; I'm starting already on Monday!

Now, let us be more critical. Of course if you compare vegan lifestyle or periodic fasting to "normal" unhealthy eating habits (yes, unfortunately normal - meaning average - eating habits are unhealthy), the benefits are huge. But what if you are, like me, a person who is quite careful about what you eat, and avoid unhealthy fats, sugar, white flour, starch, prefabricated foods, and fried foods? What if your diet already contains a lot of vegetables and otherwise consists of fruit, lean meats, whole grains and nuts? Unfortunately I could not find any studies that compare such a life style with that of a vegan. One of the arguments used by vegan sites is that our ancestors did not eat meat or animal products. But we live longer today than our ancestors, and our brains have evolved a lot since their times. Could this be due to animal products? And how about athletes who want to improve running form or body strength? Are we not dependent on muscle growth?

I am sure both "sides" of the debate can give convincing answers to my questions one way or the other. While I was thinking about these things, I ended up watching another program on Norwegian NRK tv, this time, about areas in Europe where people live longer and stay healthier than the average European. Now, these places had very little in common in their diets. Toulouse in France (lots of duck, blue cheese and red wine), Iceland (almost no vegetables, lots of dried meat, fresh fish), and a small place in Italy (lots of olive oil, vegetables and fresh made pasta). The conclusion of the researchers was that there might be some components in these diets that are balancing out each other. However, they had one thing in common: almost no industrially processed foods.

What seems to be sure is that average European diet nowadays contains too much meat and animal products, and too much processed or prefabricated food. So, even if you don't want to go vegetarian or vegan, cutting down on meats and animal products is definitely a good idea. Avoiding processed and prefabricated foods (instant soups, sauces, cereal, packed snacks, etc) is probably even more important. Fasting a day or three, a few times a year, especially on resting days when you are not planning heavy exercise, can also be a good component to add to your routine.

For myself, I am inclined to continue with my dairy-free diet. I am enjoying it more and more, and it is surprisingly easy. I feel light and energized, and my form is actually improving. I have also discovered how much calcium there is in green vegetables, especially kale! I have calculated that I get more than enough of calcium without any dairy. So I was probably getting too much calcium earlier. That might also be a slow down of form, I have read. On top of my dairy-free diet, I am eating more fish and less meat, and I have almost stopped eating chicken. A couple of times a year, like after Christmas and after summer holidays, I might do a three-day juice program, to balance the effects of junk food and too much wine ;-)

Say yes to new adventures! (Better an "oops" than a "what if"...)

New year, new nutrition experiments

No milk today, it wasn't always so... (Herman's Hermits)

I am probably more than average curious about nutrition and willing to experiment with new things. And I am perhaps quite easy to convince to try out various theories if they sound reasonable and not so difficult to follow. So, for the last couple of weeks, I have introduced two changes in my eating habits:

1. I have cut out all dietary supplement pills containing vitamins, minerals, anti oxidants, etc.
2. I have cut out milk, cheese, butter, and all other dairy products (things made of milk).

Why?

During my training towards Amsterdam marathon, I had added quite a bit of dietary supplements to my daily diet, to stay out of injuries and to keep healthy. I continued with these supplements also after Amsterdam, and I even increased them as I kept feeling exhausted a long while after the race. However, my form improvement still did not come as expected, and by chance I stumbled upon some articles recommending to avoid vitamins, anti oxidants, in form of supplementary pills. The point seems to be the following: all of these supplements that are good for you in general, might be stopping your form from improving, because they are simply helping your body too much. During hard exercise nasty substances accumulate in the muscles, and our body gets in better shape by working to get rid of these substances. If a lot of dietary supplements help the body in this work, then the form improvement might not be as much as it could be.

I don't know if it's true. As with most of dietary advice, this might be debated. Also, research about nutrition is very difficult to compare to your habits, since there are so many components of a diet that play a role. What I know is that I do eat pretty varied and healthy, with lots of vegetables of all sorts,  so anyway I should be getting enough of all these vitamins and minerals in my food. That's why I decided to give it a try for a couple of months to see if I see any change. I am still taking a spoon of fish oil every morning, though. And red beet powder before competitions...

And what's the deal with milk and dairy? This is something that came up quite unexpectedly. During a run, I was complaining to my friend Mats (the first guy from Bergen to climb Mount Everest, so his advice definitely counts!) that I was experiencing lack of form improvement although my energy was back and I was training properly. He explained to me that he and a few others had gotten huge benefits from cutting out all dairy products. He was so sweet to run at my speed almost throughout the whole run, and explained to me in detail a lot of things he had read, presentations he had watched and lectures he had listened to. At first the idea seemed very scary. I don't normally drink milk really, but I do eat a lot of yogurt and cheese. How to continue my normal diet without these things?

Fortunately there are a lot of substitutes available in normal supermarkets.  And they all taste just like the real thing, sometimes even better. As a nice side effect, they are really low on calories! I have tried out a few different brands and tastes, and in the pictures you see the products that I like the most. For me it works fine to continue to eat and drink as before, by simply replacing, milk, yogurt, cheese, and sour cream with these products. For those who live in Norway, you can find them at Rema1000 and Meny stores.

The story about milk and dairy seems to be that they have an inflammatory effect on the body. As runners, we get already quite a bit of inflammation in our joints and tendons from running, and dairy products make it harder for our body to repair this. This is why dairy is pointed to by many doctors as something that causes or worsens diseases like arthritis. It also promotes cell growth, which is good when you are young, but speeds up aging as you get older. And of course cell growth also applies to bad cells, like tumors. Again, these findings are very difficult to compare to your own diet, because medical tests objects are usually people who did not have a healthy diet to begin with. But I found the indications strong enough to give it a try.

Have I noticed any changes? I fact I have! But I cannot be sure that these are entirely due to the diet. I have been feeling less tired and much more energetic, and I can take more training than before without getting exhausted. But this can also be because we had a Christmas break and I had a lot of opportunity to rest and sleep between the sessions. But I have also noticed that my stomach feels more comfortable compared to before. Not that I ever noticed problems with dairy products before. But now that they are gone, I keep finding myself thinking how pleasant and relaxed my "insides" feel.  Since the change is anyway so easy to follow, I will give this a couple of months' try and see if this is something I want to make into a permanent change. After all:

How will you know if it's the right decision, if you never make it?

Happy new year!

Hopes don't work if you don't.

It is strange what kind of a psychological effect the new year's has on us. We feel it's time to assess the year that has gone and to make wishes for the year to come. For myself, I already performed this act about a month ago. The end of the down period after Amsterdam marathon was the turning point of the training year for me. I reviewed the goals and hopes of 2016, I set new goals and hopes for 2017, and I already started working on those at the end of November.

One thing that characterized 2016 for me, in terms of training, is street running. Most of my running was done on flatter asphalt or gravel surfaces. I have also accumulated the most running kilometers during a year: 2150 km this year, compared to 1400 km last year, and 1200 km in 2014. Now, this is pretty interesting. Everywhere we read that your basic running form is directly correlated to the number of kilometers run. It is also logical to think that the danger of injury is also related to the mileage. However,  I think neither is entirely true. At the end of 2014, I think I was in better shape in the sense that I could run a 5k faster than I think I can now. I was also clearly better at uphills. And I got seriously injured at the beginning of  2015, due to the training done in 2014. The mistake I was making then, I think, is that I was running too fast at every training. I was also doing quite a bit of fast intervals on the track field, and sprinting (20 km/h) on the treadmill. With the result that my form improved quickly, but I also got injured quickly.

I am honestly not sad for my injury. It taught me to be patient and to work more systematic towards my goals. I have a lot more endurance now for longer races. So my goal for 2017 is to combine all of the above, and train more varied. Less street running kilometers, more biking, swimming and climbing kilometers, and more hours of training in total. Take into account heart rate zones, have more zone 1 sessions, and more threshold / sweet spot sessions. And this is in fact the only goal I want to set. Because in 2016, what I mentioned as hopes came true, but what I mentioned as goals became unimportant and forgotten.

The three hopes for 2016 were Bergen City haft marathon, Bergen Fjellmaraton, and Amsterdam marathon. All of them finished, which is really more than I dared to expect. The three goals were a new record for Stoltzekleiven, 5 kg weight reduction, and being able to perform chin-ups. None of them happened. I didn't even participate at Stoltzeklevien, which was just a couple of weeks before Amsterdam, I didn't dare to diet during the heavy running period around Amsterdam, and I wasn't motivated for the chins without the weight reduction. What seemed so important, and indeed doable, at the beginning of 2016, became less and less important and interesting as the things that seemed less possible became more and more realistic to achieve. So I simply move these not achieved goals to the list of hopes for this year :-)

For 2017, again, I have also some scary hopes. But I am still not sure whether or not I want to go for all of them. The intensive training period before and the fatigue and form loss after Amsterdam still makes me hesitant to go for another long endurance race. I keep changing my mind every second day. I think I will have to wait until I can start serious bike training and see how good (or even more importantly: safe!) I feel on a bike before I can make up my mind for sure. But some steps on the road are already taken. Frank and I bought new bikes in November. So we're in it together. If we are. I'll let you know.

Happy new year!