To Carbo-load or Not

Seems you can’t open a newspaper or magazine or turn on the TV these days without seeing Tim Noakes.  He is quite the guru of Sports Medicine in SA and is well-respected as an academic. My friend, Bridgette, a runner, swore that his book, The Lore of Running, was like her bible.

How disconcerting then for ordinary folk, that he does a complete about-turn on what he has been preaching for so many years. I may be mistaken but I think that he coined the term “carbo-loading” before a big race. You would be hard-pressed to find a table at an Italian restaurant on the eve of the Two Oceans Marathon or the Cape Argus Cycle tour, as everyone indulged in pasta.

Now he is going on national television and saying that he was wrong and that we should be eating more protein and fat. He is even going so far as to say that we should take his book and tear out the chapter he wrote on nutrition.

Because I have high cholesterol I have cut down on red meat and dairy products and I generally eat and live a healthy lifestyle. But sometimes it’s hard to keep track of what healthy is. One minute butter is in and margarine is out, the next it’s food-combining or high protein diets and then butter is out and margarine is in. Then there are the foods that cause cancer (or not) and the foods that are approved by the Heart Foundation and so on.

At the end of the day I think we should listen to our bodies, keep the balance and use common sense.  

Missing Out?

I had a little chuckle when I read my friend Kate’s wall post on her Face book page: “Being in Cape Town and not doing the Argus is a bit like being alone on New Year’s Eve”. Our neighbours opposite were doing it, other friends have been hard at training, and we had friends from Johannesburg around for “carbo-loading” on Saturday evening. Actually, we had tried to book a restaurant, but every Italian place and a few others, was fully booked. Eventually we settled on take-outs and had a very pleasant, early evening.

Not being a cyclist, though, it seems to me that you have to be a little crazy to want to spend so many hours on a bike. Granted the scenery is amongst the best in the world but there are easier ways to see it. It’s great though, that we have this “largest timed cycling event in the world” right here in our city. It far outweighs any inconvenience related to closed roads, fully booked restaurants and bike talk and manoeuvring around schedules.

Yesterday afternoon as I was walking around the shops, I kept over-hearing snippets of conversation – everyone seemed to be talking about the race – on their cell phones or over coffee. I heard some of the blood, sweat and tears that went into the race. So I guess it is a bit like being alone while everyone is having a big party. We might have to start a support group next year...