Triathlon nutrition: Patrick Holford impressions
March 7th, 2007 by Nikola Tosic
Last Friday I was completely exhausted from spending 5 hours in Dept. of Home Affairs, doing two training sessions and organizing things for my new Belgian roommate. But I made an extra effort and sacrificed few hours of rest to check out Patrick Holford at MTN Science Center, Century City, Cape Town.
Nicola lended me her car and I was late for the seminar only about 20mins. Just in front of the Science Center there was a Vida e Caffe so I could not resist getting a Mocha which was sort of blasphemy when I entered the Patrick Holford lecture - late and making noise late with a chocolate coffee drink in my hand.
Patrick Holford is a very commercial media person. He sells gazillions of books, has all kinds of famous friends, does an incredible amount of namedropping (from Nobel prize winners to TV stars) and is to nutrition what Brad Pitt is to movies - a megasuperstar. I can forgive all the product placements in his lectures and books because the most important message he gives across is to be healthy and have a good life. And he seams to know what he is talking about. At least much more than the other nutrition superstars. Of course, like with anything, you have to figure out what works for you.
I can not even try to write down all the information he has given. There are tons and tons of various stuff he poured out. He surely is a living encyclopedia, a human supercomputer that stores all possible information, makes interesting connections between that information, and - most importantly - has an amazing talent to explain it to an everyday person.
Majority of the audience were 30+ overweight women but this does not mean that what he says is not related to endurance sports, triathlon or even extreme ultra distance multisport training.
Here are just few ideas I picked up, or actually confirmed:
Sun damage
I will surely write an article about it later on… Triathletes spend an enormous amount of time in the sun. Especially in Cape Town some of us swim in the open pool and I even notice people running without their shirts. A little bit of sun is good, a lot of sun is a disaster. Protect yourself. Holford suggests a cream with vitamins A and E. I would add as much as protective clothing as possible and a very strong sun block. More about this will come.
kCal vs GI vs GL
This is probably already known to you, if not through literature than from experience. That kCal measurement is quite useless and that also GI is semi useless but the combination of both through GL starts to make some sense.
Stimulants and high GI
Most important aspect of training is recovery - body needs to regenerate. Coffee and high GI are obstructing this. They also make you less sensitive to both stimulants and sugar. Extreme of lack of sensitivity is drinking 5 coffees a day and being sleepy and Diabetes Type 2. When it comes to triathlon the more sensitive to caffeine and to sugar the better, especially in longer races, you will be able to react better to your nutrition and you will have less ups and downs.
Butter and quinoa
I eat quiona when I can find it. You can just boil it a bit and add some stuff for flavor and thats it. And I know that butter is actually an ok thing to eat. Patrick confirmed both. Butter is a good source of MCT, the only kind of fat that can be utilized during exercise almost as fast as carbonhydrates. I actually know some triathletes that use butter and tibetan salt mixture during Ironman racing. However, before you start overdoing the butter, keep in mind its processed product and comes from animals. When Patrick mentions butter he means real pure butter, not the stuff you buy in a supermarket packet in plastic, full of steroids, and made from milk from cows that hardly ever see sun or eat grass. Everything natural is great. Processed is far from great. Hence natural butter is a very good source of energy while processed butter is a good source of toxins.
Vitamin B complex
I can not remember how many times he said its important for everything.
NNT
Numbers needed to be treated. Check it out here…
In any case check him out as additional part of education to your nutrition self-education - you will surely learn something useful…
