Four Rules For Exercise Nutrition
The following is an excerpt from Author Michael Easter’s 2% Newsletter:
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I was recently at an REI when I came upon the store’s sports nutrition section. Picture four aisles packed with all kinds of bars and powders and gels emblazoned with all sorts of descriptors and claims about “energy” and “performance.” Sports nutrition is a $43 billion industry. But most research suggests that popular performance foods aren’t any better at improving exercise performance than many of the everyday foods you probably have in your pantry right now.
Today we’ll cover four rules that can help you think smarter about sports nutrition. They'll help you figure out the best food for your next long run, ruck, hike, or bike ride.
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For exercise efforts lasting between two and four hours, most studies suggest that you should just take in water, a simple processed carbohydrate like sugar, and maybe some salt. That’s according to Jose Antonio, editor-in-chief of the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. This research is why most sports nutrition products are basically just candy dressed up with salt and vitamins and marketing language.
For example, Honey Stinger Waffles took a classic Dutch cookie, called a stroopwafel, added some salt to it, and sold it in packaging that says something or other about “fuel to push harder and farther.” Clif, Boba, and Pro Bars are all basically just a weird oatmeal cookie mechanically compressed into a rectangle. “Hydration mixes” are essentially powdered Kool-Aid with extra salt. Those gel packet things are, well, they’re in a world of their own.
There isn’t much scientific evidence (that the sports nutrition industry hasn’t paid for) that suggests sports nutrition products are any better for performance than eating “normal” food. For example, one study found that cyclists performed just as well when they fueled an intense ride with raisins compared to sports gels. Another study found that any liquid with salt in it can hydrate us well—even pickle juice. All foods, really, are “energy foods” because they contain energy in the form of calories.
Sports nutrition bars and gels are convenient, which is nice. But because they probably don’t give us a unique boost in performance and usually taste somewhere between a candy bar leftover from Halloween 2019 and a flip-flop, I’ve found an option I like far more.
My favorite endurance food was first created in 1901. That year the food writer Julia David Chandler announced a new recipe in the Boston Cooking School Magazine of Culinary Science and Domestic Economics. She wrote:
“Try making sandwiches…of three very thin layers of bread and two of filling, one of peanut paste, whatever brand you prefer, and currant or crab-apple jelly for the other. The combination is delicious.”
Chandler was on to something. But it wasn’t until World War II that the peanut butter and jelly sandwich became an American classic. All three ingredients were adopted by the U.S. military; soldier rations included bread, Welch’s concord grape jelly, and canned peanut butter.
The PB&J works well as exercise fuel. But it’s not unique. Many of your favorite foods can work as fuel for your next big exercise session. The following four rules for endurance nutrition can guide you into finding your own perfect food for your next long run, ruck, hike, or bike ride.
Rule 1: It should be easy to digest
In everyday life, it’s probably healthier to limit ultraprocessed foods that contain ingredients like added sugar and refined flour. But, somewhat counterintuitively, ultraprocessed foods work best for fueling exercise.
When you exercise hard, your body prioritizes powering your muscles and puts processes like digestion on the back burner. That helps you run or ruck or ride or hike faster, but it also gives your gut fewer resources to extract energy from food inside it.
Ultraprocessed foods have been processed beforehand, so breaking them down takes minimal effort by your stomach. If a food doesn’t require much digestion, your body can immediately start to absorb and use the nutrients from it, and that’s going to improve your performance more than anything. (This is exactly why most sports nutrition products are basically just sugar and other easy-to-digest components.)
Foods that are unprocessed—i.e., “whole” foods—are generally harder to draw energy from. During exercise, they end up sitting in your stomach because your body isn’t devoting resources to digesting hard-to-digest foods. This can cause an upset stomach.
A standard PB&J—white bread, jam, smooth PB—is highly processed. And it has a couple of other qualities that make it ideal. Which brings us to Rule 2 …
Rule 2: It should be carby and salty
A basic PB&J contains about 350 calories and 16, 45, and 11 grams of fat, carbs, and protein, respectively.
That’s roughly equivalent to a ProBar (an energy bar that occupied a lot of space on the REI shelf) with its 380 calories, 20 grams of fat, 43 grams of carbohydrates, and 11 grams of protein.
Your body can use and process carbs quicker than fats or proteins. So, in general, most people will do best fueling a tough endurance workout with a snack that is mostly carbohydrates and relatively lower in fat and protein.
The PB&J is also a bit salty. That delivers electrolytes, which we lose when we sweat. The sandwich, surprisingly, contains more vitamins than many energy bars. White bread is fortified with all sorts of vitamins and minerals humans need to thrive (the government started fortifying staple foods in the 1920s to reduce malnutrition and it was and still is one of the greatest public health campaigns ever.)
If you want to know how much you should eat on a hike or run, a good formula goes like this:
Take your body weight, multiply it by 0.6, then multiply it by your mileage. Only use this for efforts over five miles (any shorter and you’ll be fine with whatever you last ate). So, for example, let’s say I was planning to do a 10-mile hike and I weighed 150 pounds.
I’d take my weight of 150 and multiply it by 0.6. That would give me 90. Then I’d take 90 and multiply it by 10, my mileage. That would give me 900 calories. That’s how much I’d want to eat to fully replace my lost calories. (Note: If I was trying to lose weight, I’d probably want to eat less than 900 to help put me into a caloric deficit).
I learned that formula from Trevor Kashey. He was featured in my book, The Comfort Crisis. He’s used that formula with champion endurance athletes. (He’s also the best if you need personal nutrition coaching.)
Rule 3: It should taste good
A few years back, I did a 24-hour unsupported endurance event. An exercise physiologist estimated I’d burn 15,000 calories during the effort. Trying to fill even a fraction of that gap with energy bars sounded nearly as grueling as the competition itself.
Enter the PB&J. I made hulking 700-calorie, 30-gram protein sandwiches. While my fellow competitors choked down their dry, saccharine performance bars and gels, I enjoyed a childhood staple.
Eating a food you enjoy during a hard hike or run can give you a nice psychological tailwind. This is why some of the best endurance athletes in the world lean on normal foods. Fanta orange soda and paninis, for example, are a favorite of Tour de France riders during the race.
I ate my final sandwich at the end of the event. My body was so in need of calories that the sandwich felt like one of the great meals of my life. I can promise you that no one has ever said, “Wow, this Tri-Berry Gu gel is one of the best things I’ve ever eaten.”
Rule 4: It should be affordable
Those aforementioned 700-calorie PB&Js I made for that long endurance event cost about a quarter each. The average energy bar is between six to 15 times more expensive per calorie. I would have spent three figures packing food for my 24-hour event.
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All in all, it’s not that sports nutrition foods are “bad.” Food is food. But if you explore a bit, you might find options out there that are simpler, cheaper, tastier, and more accessible.
If you’ve got a wacky food you love eating on long runs or hikes, send it my way. I’d love to hear about it. I once met a champion ultrarunner who would eat mashed potatoes during his races. “I keep a Ziplock of them in my pocket then bite off a corner of the bag and squeeze them into my mouth,” he told me.