Stalking Points Memo: Lindsey Vonn, vegan marathoners, Med diet strikes again

#1 “Serious patience”                          

From Details Magazine:

“Golf is different. You need to have serious patience. It’s like a long chess match. To be honest, before Tiger, I probably wouldn’t have said    that I didn’t understand the sport very well. But now, even standing there as a spectator, it’s brutal. Four days of extreme mental pressure. You’re grinding, you’re working, you’re fighting. That’s the same in my sport – but mine only takes two minutes.” Lindsey Vonn

#2 “Gatorade Mobile Game Referred to Water as ‘the Enemy’ ”

From ABC News:

“The campaign, which ran most of last year, featured a mobile game app called Bolt!, starring Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt. Gamers navigated a Bolt avatar going through an obstacle course and picking up bottles of Gatorade along the way to make him go faster and avoiding drops of water that would make him go slower.

“Nancy Huehnergarth, a food activist and blogger for civileats.com, stumbled across a short video describing the game and marketing campaign on Interactive Advertising Bureau’s website, where it had won an IAB Mixx award for mobile marketing.

“Huehnergarth said when she first saw the video, her jaw dropped.

“The video said the goal of the game was to ‘drive home the message that Gatorade is better than water.’ That was just unbelievable to me,” she said. …

“Michael Jacobson, the executive director of the consumer advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest, said he also thought the marketing campaign was misleading.

I think the basic strategy is to make people think they will become better athletes if they drink Gatorade, but the average consumer’s health and wallet would be better off if they stuck with water. …

AND:

“Water is by far the best way to replenish fluids in the body after exercise as long as you’re not doing a long workout under extreme conditions like very hot weather,” said Felicia Stoler, who is a fellow at the American College of Sports Medicine, as well as a registered dietitian. “For the average person who is doing an average workout, water is the best choice.”

Gatorade better than this???

#3 Thirty bananas a day!

From: The Telegraph: “Vegans powered by raw food complete year of daily marathons”

“A couple in their 60s have finished running a marathon each day, every day, for the past year. The pair ate up to 30 bananas each a day as they completed a trek of almost 10,000 miles around Australia. The couple, both raw vegans from New Zealand, ended their journey with an extra marathon to their home in Melbourne at 5am on New Year’s Day to set the world record.

“Janette Murray-Wakelin, 64, and Alan Murray, 68, rose at 4 am each day and ran 366 consecutive marathons with no days off, covering almost 10,000 miles as they ran around the Australia mainland and the island state of Tasmania. …

“The couple’s standard day involved rising at 4am and eating 10 bananas, a grapefruit, and a date smoothie for breakfast, then another 10 bananas at 8am, a green smoothie at 9am, a fruit salad at the 19-mile mark, three oranges at the 23-mile mark, before finishing at 4pm and eating an avocado, vegetable juice and a salad for dinner.

Memo to marathoners: don’t slip on discarded peels.

From their site runningrawaroundaustralia.com: “Our typical daily menu may include:

* On rising and before a short (15km) training run: 10oz pure spring water, 1 banana

* Breakfast and after short run: Green smoothie (fruit, greens & water), 5+ bananas

* Lunch: Either 20+ mandarines, 10+ oranges, 1 melon, 1 pineapple, 5+ bananas and/or other fruits

*Dinner: Either a large green salad with savoury fruits; tomato, cucumber, courgette, capsicum etc. or a large fruit smoothie, or 1 large fruit such as a melon, papaya, pineapple etc.

* Snacks: Any fruit or a freshly squeezed fruit or vegetable juice
Before a long (15+km) training run: 20oz water, 10oz fruit smoothie, 2-5 bananas

During a long (20+km) training run: water, dates

After a long (20+km) run: Breakfast plus extra fruit especially bananas

#4  “Mediterranean Diet Alone May Lower Diabetes Risk”

From: Web MD:

Adults at risk for heart disease who eat a Mediterranean diet rich in olive oil can lower their chances of developing diabetes, even without restricting calories or boosting exercise, new research suggests.

In the study, Spanish researchers followed more than 3,500 older adults at high risk of heart disease. The researchers assigned them to one of three groups: a Mediterranean diet with extra-virgin olive oil, a Mediterranean diet supplemented with mixed nuts, or a low-fat diet, which served as the comparison. They did not get special instructions on losing weight or increasing their physical activity.

A Mediterranean diet focuses on fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fish, besides the olive oil. Those in the nut group were allowed about an ounce a day of walnuts, almonds and hazelnuts. Those in the olive oil group were allowed a little more than three tablespoons daily.

The researchers followed the men and women, aged 55 to 80, for about four years, between 2003 and 2010. During the follow-up, 80 in the olive oil group developed type 2 diabetes, while 92 in the nuts group and 101 in the comparison diet group did.

After adjusting for other factors affecting diabetes risk, the researchers found those in the olive oil group reduced diabetes risk by about 40 percent compared to the comparison diet group. Those in the nuts group reduced risk by 18 percent, which was not statistically significant.

The new research, published online Jan. 7 in the Annals of Internal Medicine, is good news, said Dr. Christine Laine, editor-in-chief of the journal and an associate professor of medicine at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia.

The study “suggests it is possible to reduce the risk of diabetes by changing the composition of your diet. It is another piece of evidence that the Mediterranean diet has health benefits,” said Laine, who was not involved in the research.

She hopes the findings don’t discourage people from diet and exercise. Excess weight is a risk factor for type 2 diabetes, she said, and diet and exercise can help control weight. Adding diet and exercise to the Mediterranean diet could theoretically reduce the diabetes risk even more, she noted.