(00:00:01) High noon Central Standard Time central daylight time my goodness we changed over the weekend. Hope you set your clock ahead. Bob Potter along with Joanne slavin from the University of Minnesota and we'll be talking in this hour about the role of nutrition in exercise look first to bit at the weather with generally clear skies around the area temperatures in the 50s primarily. It's all due to a high pressure Ridge over Minnesota, which is moving very slowly Eastward through tomorrow that will continue the weather the sunny dry weather that we have been enjoying for the past few days temperatures will be mostly in the 60s today except for some 50 degree readings in the Arrowhead Country easterly winds along Lake Superior will keep the temperatures on the cool side along the North Shore tonight clear weather with some clouds are possible in the extreme South lows upper 20s North East to the 30s in the west and south tomorrow will be another pleasant day with highs in the 60s, maybe even reaching. To the 70s in parts of Southwestern, Minnesota 58 at last report in Minneapolis. St. Paul Duluth superior 46 Hibbing 51 Rochester 55. St. Cloud 57, Worthington 54 Fargo-Moorhead 58 Sioux Falls 56 in Houghton, Michigan 44 in Ironwood 49. We all with the arrival of the warm weather. Everybody seems to be getting out and enjoying the outdoor activities joggers and the bikers are crowding the Lakes area in the Minneapolis. St. Paul area. You see them on the county roads everywhere else softball teams are starting to practice even the totally sedentary Like Yours Truly begin to think about a possible round of golf nutrition and diet plays as important a role in athletics and physical activity as you can imagine and the more vigorous the exercise. The more important. It is our guest is known as Joanne slavin an extension nutritionist at the University of Minnesota among other things. She is the co-author of an article about food and bicycling that appeared in a recent issue of a publication called American Wheelman will open the phone lines in just a couple of minutes for your questions about this topic as well. Joanne I take it that you must be a bicyclist yourself. That's right. I'm fairly serious bicyclist. Most of the bicycling I've done is touring long-distance touring, but I've also entered some citizen races in the Twin Cities area if you pumped up the air in your tires yet. Oh, yes, I've been riding for at least a month and we are set up to ride inside to with rollers so we can ride throughout the winter. Have you been out a fair amount already then? Oh, yes most the last few weekends out both Saturday and Sunday. Yeah, how how do you prepare for that? As far as as far as your diet is concerned. Well, I think the biggest problem I have and probably most people have is not gaining weight over the winter when you're not active. So I think for people that don't aren't very serious athletes. If you exercise two to three times a week, the most important thing is not to gain a lot of extra weight. So I just eat I try to eat a balanced diet selecting foods from the basic for and stick with that and just make sure that I don't gain a lot of extra weight. How would you say the diet of the tremendously active person the athlete if you will differs from the rest of us, obviously they are able to eat more food, but they eat different kinds of foods or what I guess what we would recommend they do and watching a lot of competitive athletes would be to eat more carbohydrates. That is the primary fuel source for activity. So what we would do is suggest that they keep the foundations of the diet. They have selecting foods from the basic for and really not increase the protein or fat content of their diet appreciably but increase good carbohydrate sources like starches. This would be unrefined grains and other grain sources and also fruits and vegetables. What is the importance of additional carbohydrate? Well, if you're an in athletics, you want to get carbohydrate in the diet, especially if you're training every day to replenish your glycogen stores glycogen is a storage form of carbohydrates in the body and you can store this glucose in the form of glycogen in your muscles and your liver and as your glycogen gets depleted during exercise your performance decreases, so It's a very interested in doing anything. They can to get as much glycogen. They can enter their muscles. Is it possible to build that level of glycogen up by eating a large amount of Cairo carbohydrates right before exercise or day or so before exercise? This is an area of research that people have been interested in a long for a long time because if there is a benefit of having more glycogen and the traditional method of glycogen loading loading this carbohydrate into your muscles was to go through this one week routine where you would deplete your muscle, then you would super compensate and not exercise for a few days kind of like storing it up in the bank. So you'd be ready for a big event, but there's been a lot of discussion whether this is useful for just your normal athlete and there's also been discussion because with the glycogen you also store water in your muscle, so it gives you a heavy feeling and some people wonder whether this is good and if we should recommend this for younger people and who this is really appropriate for So I think the the most recent data on carbohydrate loading and what we would recommend is that people should just go out and exercise every day and then come home and eat like a diet containing about 75 70 percent carbohydrate very high carbohydrate diet. And this will continually replenish the glycogen stores and load them up as much as possible is is a diet 7075 percent carbohydrate rather different from the traditional American diet. Definitely the traditional American diet right now is probably 50% carbohydrate or less the diet continues to get higher in fat. It used we would recommend about 30 to 35 percent and most people in this country probably taken 40 to 45 percent of their calories from fat. So the athletes diet were recommending is probably a healthier diet that probably the rest of us should adapt also now, what were those sources of carbohydrates you mentioned the very briefly a second ago, but could you elaborate a little bit? Well, there are different. You can get it from simple sugars. And this is what people usually think of as carbohydrates fruits soft drinks juices all would Supply simple sugars. And this can be this if you want to load in glycogen. It doesn't really matter where you get the carbohydrate you can use this but we would recommend you you take in a balance of carbohydrates. So therefore you'd want to take in a lot more starches to and this would be like spaghetti and Breads and any unrefined and refined enriched grains potatoes potatoes would be good any High starchy vegetable rice crackers. You can just eat as much of that as you like Joanne slavin extension nutritionist from the University of Minnesota is with us today, and we're talking about nutrition in the role of exercise and we invite your calls about the subject in Minneapolis Saint Paul. The telephone number is two two seven six thousand 2276 thousand we have Having a lot of telephone numbers this week. And if you have been calling some other numbers you want to talk about exercise and diet. This is the number two two seven six thousand in Minneapolis. St. Paul toll-free within the state of Minnesota. The number is 1-866-560-4440. Five two nine seven zero zero and if you're listening in one of the surrounding states The Dakotas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan or maybe up in Thunder Bay call us in the Twin Cities at area code 612 2276 thousand. What about water during exercise? Is it a good idea to take on water before and during or after? When should you drink? I think you should drink all the time when you're exercising and this is probably the most important nutrient if people say What's the difference between the diet of athletic and non-athletic people people that exercise a lot need to take in a lot more water and this if you are decide you're going to go out on a hundred mile bike ride on a very hot day. You should before you go out drink more water than you think you need. And while you're out drink as much water as you convinced yourself you can get in and when you get done drink a lot of water because your thirst isn't really a good indicator of how much water you've lost and really the best way to do it is if you're out doing something very strenuous is to weigh yourself when you go out in the morning and come in at night and it's possible people have been known to you know, it's 10 up to 10 pounds. You could lose her even more and you have to replace that. Water and you almost have to force yourself to drink that much. How about fluids from other sources than water fruit juice. For example pop. What about that? That would be fine, except if you're out exercising very strenuously. You don't want a real concentrated source of calories. So most drinks. There are a lot of commercial drinks that are available for athletes and they're fairly dilute sources and what they we would suggest if you want to drink fruit juice to dilute it down like 1 to 2, so it's not as concentrated source of electrolytes and glucose and then you could get in more fluid that way we have someone on the line with a question for you Joanne slavin. So let's go to our caller. Hi, you're on the (00:10:12) air. Yes. Hello. I'd like to ask her opinion about the Earth hritik conditions that I'm beginning to find in myself and the arthritic Foundation poopoo. Any idea of diet to control it or to subdue it. I want to eat well to prevent getting any worse. Now. What are your views on that? I think arthritis is a (00:10:43) difficult thing to talk about because there really isn't good data that diet does affect it. But a lot of people do feel that it certainly must have an effect in that exercise has an effect to but I think that they're they're probably basing that on the fact that there is not good data to support that certain diet ingredients would cause arthritis or (00:11:02) alleviated there are books of people that claim that certain following a diet can one man in particular had said that he was that gardening and all that kind of I'm very active life on a very particular diet. I think that's possible. (00:11:23) I think it's always a problem with nutritional studies that if an individual, you know, if they think they have an effect from a diet or an activity then they certainly should go with that. But when we do studies, it's really hard to show that in a population. So, you know, I think if people feel that a diet is good for them. Certainly should stick with that but there's really no good data. (00:11:44) Yeah, it's alright. Thank you. (00:11:45) Thank you for calling 22276 thousand is the telephone number. If you have a question about diet and nutrition particularly as it as it relates to exercise and physical activity awful lot of joggers and bikers out around the area and presumably must be a little bit curious about what kinds of foods and liquids you should be consuming and taking on as you begin your training program for the summer 2276 thousand is the phone number to call and Joanne slavin will attempt to answer your question outside the Minneapolis st. Paul area the toll-free number within the state of Minnesota is one eight hundred six five two 9700. Well, we wait for another call Joanne. Let me ask you about salt pills are those are good idea. I think a lot of coaches recommend those and they make intuitive sense because when you're out exercising and it's hot, you can tell that you're losing salt. I mean your skin the your sweat is salty. So people think they should take in salt tablets, but actually they should be most concerned about taking in water that that water balance is the critical matter here in the salt. Our diets are already very high in salt. We the requirement of soda for sodium sodium is very low so we can easily get that sodium back in our next diet. We could use a little more salt at the table which most of us already do anyway, so we would never recommend salt tablets. It's just not a good idea. And you say that you should take on more water than your thirst would call for I think that's probably true because when you're really exercising hard and you've been sweating a lot, you just not that thirsty or hungry or just mostly tired and you almost have to force yourself to drink. I think that the idea of weighing yourself is a good way to get a good idea of how much you're losing because certain people do sweat a lot more than other people and it depends of course on the environmental conditions to if it's a very hot day you can lose a significant amount of water. We have a number of people with questions on the telephone. So let's go back to the phones. Hello. You're on the air. Hello. Yes. Go ahead, (00:13:55) please. Okay. My son is 11 years old and he's he's very active Prague spring stock on you know, different kinds of sport and he just recently joined a traveling soccer team and I'm wondering what kind of you know food I should give him before he go out play or you know, generally what Type of food, I should say anymore and I just bring some punches or correlates to the field when you play soccer, but the way you know, you're saying is it better there just to bring cold water incident those, you know, pulling or (00:14:32) whatever. Hmm, I think with 11 year old kid, it's you can he may be really hungry if he's been playing soccer a lot. So I guess I would recommend just the balanced diet and then more of carbohydrates that he would like and a lot of kids. We don't like to recommend candy and junk food. But if you do exercise a lot you can get away with eating foods that are of lower nutrient density than we would normally recommend and I think the idea with the Kool-Aid if this was after he's done exercising at the end of the soccer game, it might be perfectly fine. And again, it's a matter of tolerances with nutrition and Athletics. Some people can't eat anything or drink anything. It just makes them sick before. During or after another people seem to tolerate Kool-Aid all the way through so if he can adapt to this, that's fine. Okay. Thank you for calling. Let's move on to our next listener with a question. Go ahead, please. (00:15:30) Hi. My name is Lori, and I was wondering if you've ever heard of the Cambridge diet. (00:15:36) Yes, I just talked about the Cambridge diet this morning on the radio. So it's very popular. (00:15:42) I was just wondering if that's you know, if it's really bad or if it is okay or what (00:15:47) tell us what the Cambridge diet is. First of all for those who may be unfamiliar with it. The Cambridge diet is it's a 330 calorie per day diet and what it's made up of is it's a high protein but it does include some carbohydrate and it also is supplement with supplemented with vitamins and minerals. So it is a complete diet and the the original formulation was done by some researchers in Britain. So for a 330 calorie diet, it's probably one of the best formulations you could come up with so I don't really have any problems with what's in it. I guess my big problem is if you look at their original data that they do get a significant weight loss people that go on the Cambridge diet lose a lot of weight and this has been found. I think there are more than a million people on this diet in this country right now and people do Wait, but as they found and as people will find here. They really can't keep that weight off 95% of their patients had regained that weight by the end of the year. So it's one of those things it will take weight off. But the only way you can continue to keep that weight off is to stay on a very low calorie intake like that. Most people don't want to stay on a purified diet for year after year. They initial or they finally have to get back to a normal eating pattern and eating with friends. So it's like any fad diet. We don't like to recommend it because it doesn't promote any kind of permanent change in your activity or you're eating and that's what it takes to have a sustained weight loss. Okay, that clears up your question on the Cambridge diet. We have another listener with another question. Go ahead please you're on the (00:17:24) air. Yes. I have a question on sugars and I'm wondering if the body recognizes a difference between sucrose and fructose and even maltose. Does it make a (00:17:34) difference? That's very confusing to people because I think they're all these different sugars and they don't mean very much the what they're called. But what we usually think of as table sugar or white sugar is sucrose and sucrose is a disaccharide. So it has two pieces in it. And one of them is glucose which is like the energy we talked about before for muscle work and the other sugar simple sugar that's in table sugar is fructose. And what happens in the body is your body has to convert all these sugars into glucose. So fructose will go in as fructose, but it has to be converted to glucose. So really there's no not much difference between sugars how your body metabolizes them. There's some data like for diabetics, perhaps they fructose would be a better choice, but for healthy adults where you get the sugar whether you get it from honey, which is high in fructose or table sugar or orange juice. I mean, it's basically going to be Inverted to glucose in your body another caller with a question for Joanne slavin. Go ahead, please you're on the air. (00:18:44) Hello. I like to lift weights and I'm a vegetarian and my question is concerning protein intake. I wonder if you might be able to comment on the use of powdered protein supplements in your diet. And also if you need to increase your protein intake on the days that you lift. (00:19:05) I guess what I'd ask you first is what kind of vegetarian are you are you a lacto-ovo? I mean do you take in milk and eggs? That's right. Okay. Well, I don't think that this is my personal opinion, but I don't think that you would need protein supplements. If you drink a lot of milk eat eggs and eat cheese because I think most statistics show that our diet for the average American Consumer contains two to three times more protein than we need. So even if you're building you think well, I'm building muscle. So I need protein and that's really not true that your body can build up. It needs carbohydrate and energy to build up those muscles, but you really don't need a lot more protein than the basic American Consumer. So what you could do is sit down and calculate how much you're getting in your diet. And if you're drinking a lot of milk and cheese and eggs, I would guess that you're getting more than enough. All right. Thank you for calling 20 minutes past the hour Joanne slavin with us and we're talking about diet and nutrition particularly as it relates to exercise. We have more listeners on the line. Go ahead please you're next. (00:20:09) Yes. I've lost about 15 pounds in the last year just by exercising Anna. What I feel is a low carbohydrate diet and I'm wondering I'm thinking probably losing about another five more pounds and I'd like to build back up and muscle tone staying on this diet. Would I eventually gain weight again after I've lost enough fat or are or what (00:20:33) you intend to stay on this diet, or maybe you better explain that once (00:20:36) more I've just cut down in my carbohydrates basically and I've lost weight have lost 15 pounds saying about the last year and I think maybe about another five pounds to be about as far as I'd want to go down but then getting back up and starting to build muscle and muscle tone will I gain weight? (00:20:54) That's probably true. I mean it's it's that's one of the problems with people saying I'm really lost some weight and I'm glad because if you're building up muscle muscle weighs more than fat so people have been known to exercise and then gain weight and then they get upset because they weigh more but actually personally I feel that I would rather have good muscle tone and way five extra pounds. So I think that's a if you're if you're real set on weighing 160 or whatever you way and then you start exercising you may gain weight, but it would be better way to have so I don't think I'd be as concerned about the actual weight gain, but at one thing I'd like to point out that probably the way you're losing weight is what we would most recommend for people to increase exercise and make small changes in their diet to cut down on calories. More listeners with questions about diet and nutrition go ahead please you're on the air. (00:21:45) Yes. I wanted to know if you felt that saunas or beneficial after strenuous exercise or if you got that they dehydrated the muscles too (00:21:52) much. Hmm. That's interesting because I think it's one of those personal things. I really like to take saunas after strenuous exercise and I'm not sure there's any data that that it's good for you. I think most people like it. It feels good in their psychological advantages. So we assume it's good, but whether there's any bad things about a sauna obviously it has to dehydrate you because you're sweating and losing water but you know the thing to do is to replace that water and then it shouldn't be any problem. We'll move on to another listener with a question. Go ahead please (00:22:27) yes. I have a question about diet with ulcers. I have an author and I'm real confused about some of the information that's filtered down to me about things. They should be eating and and changes new things that have been discovered in how to treat an ulcer through a diet and that the old patterns of lots of milk products and Bland Foods is not necessarily true anymore. And I'm wondering if you have any information on that. (00:23:00) I think the information you have is probably correct traditionally, maybe 20 years ago people thought well milk is a good buffer. So they would give people with an ulcer High milk diets or these sippy diets that were high in cream and that's about all they got and they got no spices and very bland diet which is milk in it. And I don't think there's really good data that suggested that diet work. Very well. So I think Physicians have loosened up on that and I would my impression is that diets for people with ulcers or more individualized now for what people can tolerate there still a lot of spices you can't have and there are certain restrictions, but they are definitely away from that milk type diet. If you tried calling in a little while ago and got a busy signal you might try again. I do see that we have a liner to open Minneapolis st. Paul area. Number two two seven six thousand. If you have a question about diet and nutrition specifically as it relates to exercise and Athletics, but we'll take other kinds of nutrition calls as well to to 76 thousand in the Twin Cities area outside Minneapolis. St. Paul inside the state of Minnesota toll-free 1-800 6-5 to 9700 and in the surrounding states call us in the Twin Cities at area code 612 2276 thousand another listener of the question. Go ahead please (00:24:23) yes about a year ago. I was rather astonished to hear that many of these women who are long-distance Runners and doing a large amount of exercise and losing the fat layer actually are not having their menstrual periods anymore. It's So hormonal status needs that fat layer to hold the hormones and after talking to a few people I found this was very common knowledge when people who have young girls in sports such as swimming or ballerinas that they don't menstruate and this is concerned me. I'm in the health field. They've shown that people with menstrual periods that are irregular and so on are at higher risk of breast cancer and so on and I'm wondering if there's anything being done to enhance the diet of these young women in these sports that would keep their fat layer on them. So that their hormonal status could continue to be normal while they're involved in these Sports, especially these very young girls going through puberty young swimmers in the young ballerinas. (00:25:32) Well, that's an interesting question. I think something that I've been involved with recently. There's an Institute in town. It's it's interested in studying this Question and I think everyone assumes in most data that was available traditionally said that it was a factor of low body fat that people were a mentor react because of the low body fat and the study that's going on in town. This is with women that are Marathon serious Runners. There's a group of researchers that are following these women and what they want to look at is diet and running like a running record how much these people run and percent body fat but their initial data suggests that it's not just body fat there have to be other factors involved here that some people are very low body fat and still are not amenorrhea cos Theta problem with young girls is something that that's another thing they're interested in looking into because there's really no data on that. This is an area that's just opening up the effects of exercise on active women. How is that going to affect them? Because a lot of these women on this study are interested in becoming pregnant and have not been able to so they are curious whether they have to stop running. Or if there's a certain amount of running they can do and still maintain normal hormonal function. Slightly related to that Joanne how about the wisdom of different kinds of vitamins and other supplements for the very Physically Active? I guess the way the way we what we would suggest is that if you eat a balanced diet, which is somewhat of a vague term, you can get all the vitamins and minerals you need but then everyone says but I don't eat a balanced diet and that's probably true. Most people don't so then we have problems whether we should recommend supplements. I was surprised on that survey. We did on cyclists. A lot of people didn't report eating that much but they still reported getting almost all the the nutrients they need it they got more than enough of all the vitamins and the minerals except for iron and the big problem. There was women getting enough iron. They were only getting about half as much as they needed which is about the average in this population. So that might be something you'd want to supplement women should probably consult their doctor and have some appropriate blood work done so they can come up and see whether they need more iron, but other nutritional supplements. We really don't recommend we seemed generally to do pretty well just as he is, huh? I think unless you Make extremely poor food choices. There are there's a lot more nutrients in our basic food supply than most of us would even know about and a lot of alarmist say that our foods have lost all nutrients and we can't get vitamins and minerals from our food and this just isn't true at all. Well, we have more listeners with questions. So let's go back to the phones. Hello. You're on the air (00:28:18) guess what would be the best way to prepare for several days of heavy exercise like a long bike trip? (00:28:26) Well, definitely. The best thing to do would be to bike every day for months ahead of time if you could do that, but then most people don't have the time or the inclination. So they they know that a big bike trip is coming up and they better get going. So I think the best thing to do is to get on your bike and ride that's going to help you more than anything. And then again if you're overweight you that's definitely going to cause a problem but if your normal weight person and you haven't been biking there really isn't any food that that's going to help you out a lot. I guess what? I would do is start eating more carbohydrates three or four days before and go out and bike as much as I could deplete those glycogen stores and then Super saturate them as much as possible with glycogen and that should help you some another listener with a question for Joanne slavin. Go ahead, please you're on the air. (00:29:16) Yes. I have a question concerning running. I run and I am not really sure about the best time to run. I find that I don't really have too much energy if I try to run before meal but afterwards even if I wait 60 or 90 minutes, I usually get stomach cramps and I'm wondering if there are any foods that are more or less likely to cause these cramps or if there's any kind of exercise you can suggest it will prevent the cramps. (00:29:38) I think that most evidence suggests that you don't want to exercise. Probably you should wait three to four hours after eating to exercise. That's the ideal situation. But there are certain foods that are worse carbohydrates would be the best because they're digested the quickest and you'd probably want to cut down you wouldn't want to eat a high fat meal or a meal high in protein that would cause more problems. So I would probably I think it's a problem too because I know when I go home, I never know if it's better to exercise first and then eat or eat and it seems like whenever I eat I don't exercise. So I usually try and go home and just have some water or some kind of liquid and some kind of Highly some carbohydrate and then wait an hour and exercise but it is a problem deciding when is the best time and I think it's definitely the problem of Tolerance is to some people can eat a huge meal and go out and exercise and not have the problem. So you almost have to adapt it to yourself. Old afternoon nap will kill off the exercise urge to I'm afraid that's definitely true. We have more listeners with questions. Go ahead please you're on the air. (00:30:46) Thank you. I was wondering if you could tell me a good source of general information on beginning a basic Nutrition Fitness program after an inactive winter. It's you know, you don't want to overdo it and strain muscles and kill yourself in it. So if you could be help help me in that aspect. (00:31:03) Okay. I for just a general nutrition text and there's a little bit of exercise and exercise information. I would recommend Jane Brody's nutrition book. I think as a general introduction to nutrition that would give people a good sound Basics, but there's a lot of books out recently that really aren't that bad either the Richard Simmons diet. He seems to his sources seem to be quite good and he promotes exercise and that might not be such a bad place to start and if you're just into stretching exercises most there are really a lot of books on the market. Jane Fonda's new book something like that would probably be fine. We do have a few more telephone lines open in Minneapolis. St. Paul. The phone number is two two seven six thousand 2276 thousand if you have a question about nutrition and exercise outside Minneapolis st. Paul 1-800-662-2386 to go ahead please (00:32:03) thank you. I questioned Joanne's advocating drinking pop and other sugar-based liquids because of some of the studies that have been done. The sugar does create a burst of high energy, but when that artificial energy is depleted the body then has an extremely low energy level. I don't think this artificial stimulation is healthy. Could you comment on this? (00:32:25) Well, maybe I would ask what studies you're referring to first, (00:32:29) I believe. Although I'm not sure if my source I believe I read in Scientific American Republic magazine. (00:32:36) Hmm. Well, I think that's true that that you do have this response to taking in in sugar mean the there will be a secretion of insulin and sometimes if you take in a lot of sugar your body will overreact and secrete too much insulin and then you could temporarily have a low blood glucose level and I think this is something that you know, this is not our preferred energy source, we would rather people would eat better nutritional sources and you know, I don't recommend pop at all personally. I don't drink it but I think if you're out exercising and if you look at some of these people that are riding like hundred miles, they just can't get in enough calories and at that stage of the game when they're exercising like that. I don't have any problems with people eating that kind of food. I think it's true. If you know as you say it's not one of the best sources of calories that we would recommend but if you need calories it is a Source of calories, but then the other thing is that most of us probably don't need calories. If you look at most of the general population, we wouldn't want to recommend a food like that which is of such low nutrient density. Our next caller is waiting. Go ahead please you're on the (00:33:46) air. Yes. I was wondering about the sodium content and bottled mineral Waters like the label say low sodium and no added sodium and are they good for low sodium diets and are they any different from the sodium content and tap water? In any significant way, (00:34:06) I would think the only way you could tell would be to call up the manufacturer and get a value because the sodium content of water even varies within the state. I think it's higher in Duluth than it is in Twin Cities and it would depend on if you have a well it might be higher. So if you're really concerned about sodium and you're trying to cut back on it, I would get that information before I would buy the water because it's likely that you know, unless they give you a value that really isn't of any use. I mean low compared to what I mean water isn't a big source of sodium anyway, so I don't think I would buy it without getting that information. All right. We have another caller. Go ahead please you're on the (00:34:44) air. Hello. I have a question about how the iron requirement for women was determined. I am a firm believer that nature provides and you seem to think that we can get all the nutrients we require from our daily diet. It seems rather odd that women can't get enough iron from a normal diet. (00:35:03) I think they could that's I think they could if they made good food choices because if I looked at the diets of these women that I had surveyed one thing, you know, I'm not down on being a vegetarian but meat is a good source of iron and a lot of the women that were on this survey were vegetarian so they weren't getting that source of iron but there are other good sources of iron that they could have looked out, you know looked into and included in their diet and they weren't including whole grains or different vegetables that have some iron or raisins. I mean, there are the amounts of iron in the diet if you choose decent foods will Add up so I think you can get that in a normal diet. But I think the other problem we have with women is women just keep eating less and less as they're less active and they're down to the point where they're eating a thousand calories and to get that much iron in 18 milligrams of iron is almost impossible to get in a thousand calories. The other thing to think about their to is that the 18 milligrams. This is the RDA which is the recommended dietary allowance. So it's allowance not a requirement and when they set these up they set these very high. So 98% of the population should have requirements lower 18 milligrams per day or lower. So the requirement for iron is is not 18 milligrams per day. So therefore people do in just a lot less than this and don't develop iron deficiency problems. So, you know, I think you can get enough iron from your food. Let's take another listener with a question. Go ahead (00:36:39) please. Yes. I was wondering about training. I'm in training for a 10-mile race. It's going to be in about two weeks and I've never trained for anything like this before and I did get some suggestions from this woman. And so what I've been doing what she told me was like alternating days long rides and short rides. It's a bike race. And so I was wondering like I don't know how to taper off or what kind of foods to eat towards the end like right before the day of the race. So do you have any suggestions for how to end it like that? (00:37:09) I think that's a real problem because I think traditionally people would taper off in the last two days. They wouldn't do very much and they would just eat a lot and then Super compensate these stores of glycogen. So I think it depends on how long is it a very long race or is it just a short? Excuse me and mile? Yeah, that's fairly short. So Let me think. It's I guess what I would do is I would the biggest thing to do is train. I mean get in as much training as you can and the idea of having a hard day and then not so bad day is a good idea. Most people recommend that but I think the a few days before I would really start loading up on carbohydrates. I would go out and exercise a lot and then eat a lot of unrefined starches and other carbohydrates and then probably the day before taper off and not work as hard. So you'll have as much energy as possible the day of the ride. We have more listeners with questions about diet and nutrition particularly as relates to exercise. Joanne slavin is with us an extension nutritionist from the University of Minnesota. Go ahead please you're on the (00:38:15) air. Hi. I was wondering I'm 13. I'm just entering my teenage years and I you know, I don't have an acne problem really but my diets and everything, but I still have, you know pounds and my face and everything, you know with things just as hearing now and then, you know from ashes and I've tried just about every problem or every Facial thing that's on the market today and none of them really seem to work. Is there any you know thing you could recommend that would help. I mean (00:38:52) that's a real problem. The the I think traditionally people have said, okay, it's it's chocolate and it's fat and they've restricted those things from the diet. And I don't think there's very good evidence that diet per se would affect it and they can't prove that but I guess what I would recommend I would keep away from foods like that and try and I would get some exercise in and I would try and increase fruits and vegetables and whole grains and try and eat the best diet. I could I would go out and buy a nutrition text find out as much as I could about nutrition and try to improve my diet. So then I would feel for myself that I've done all I can buy diet. I don't know if there's really any difference for you know, like topical things you put on your skin. I don't I really don't know anything about that. All right. We'll move along to someone else with the question. Go ahead and please you're on the air. (00:39:42) Hi there. I've got a problem with big overweight and wanting to get you know into a some physical activities where I can lose it like it get an activity right now. I'm beside myself because I'm not big. I just want to know how to go about it because while I'm in my mid late 30s, and I've been approaching. @h, we're just, you know dangerous just to go out there and just started running right off the bat and okay. (00:40:09) Well, I would first of all I guess I would recommend Consulting with a doctor just to make sure you don't have any health problems because if you have any major health problems, they may just say, you know that you can't exercise but I think unless you have something serious and they say go ahead I would start walking. I think that's something most people can do and it's I think exercise is one of those things that's really easy not to do it. Like if you let yourself not do it. You'll never do it. So you almost have to force yourself. Have your parking place so far away that you have to walk or know that you have to walk places because if there's a purpose in the walking and you have to walk then you'll do it. So I would definitely start out walking. There's one there's a little calculation you can make what you want to do is subtract your age from 220. So let's say let's say that you're well for an example of 50 year old person would subtract that off and they would have 170 then and multiply that times 0.75 and you get a hundred and twenty eight and what that is is what the pulse rate you shouldn't exceed. So if you're out walking you can do that same calculation for yourself take subtract your age from 220. So let's say you're 30. I'm 30 35 subtract that off and multiply times 0.75 and you don't want your pulse rate to go over that so you should go out and exercise and try and get it up near that. But not much over. So you want to get this you don't want to really stress yourself. That's not a good idea. You just want to give your heart work so you can work into this gradually and I think one thing is a lot of people go out and they start jogging and they hate it and they quit so they start to far along the line. So it's probably better to start with walking and activities like that. And if then if you're successful with that, you can move up to more strenuous activities. We have more listeners with questions. Go ahead please you're (00:42:05) next. You said that people don't need vitamin supplements. And I've always felt the same way if they eat right and I'm curious about the Fortified foods such as breakfast cereals which claimed to have a hundred percent of many of the vitamins that you need. And obviously you don't need a hundred percent at one meal. So isn't the similar to taking vitamins in a way (00:42:26) it's really basically the same thing it's a way people are interesting. They want like nutritional insurance. And this is a lot of the ways vitamins are sold because most people feel guilty about the way they eat. They think I don't eat as well as I should and I maybe have nutritional deficiency. So I want this nutritional insurance. So they go out and buy a vitamin that'll make sure they get it or they take in these fortified cereals, but it's essentially you are getting the same thing to cereal companies they buy the vitamins and they just add them into the cereal. 17 minutes before the hour Joanne slavin is with us and we're taking your questions. We have another caller. Go ahead please you're next. (00:43:05) Is there any relationship between nutrition and the tightness of your muscles? It seems like I'm having a lot of trouble with muscle pulls and that kind of (00:43:15) thing. I'm sure there is because you know what you eat has an effect on what your body is, but it's not. I think it's more important is what you're doing. Is it from running or stretching or what's what's the activity that's causing (00:43:31) it. I like a jogging or tennis or something any activity of fast movement like that where I never used to have this kind of problem before (00:43:42) are you are you doing something regularly? Are you doing this like once a week or not that (00:43:46) regularly usually about that that line? (00:43:49) Yeah. Yeah. I think one thing that's important that if you only we recommend try and get people to exercise at least three times a week because if they don't do at least that much there's it's very likely they will get muscle pulse. But the big problem with that is to go out and warm up first because I've always found the only thing I get muscle pulls from a softball and that's because I just stand around and talk and then get up and bat and then have to run and then it seems like because I'm not warmed up. I have more of a problem. They are okay. All right. Thank you for calling hope we manage to clear up some questions today about exercise nutrition and we have time for more calls. Go ahead please you're next (00:44:28) and there's an increasing amount of discussion about the negative effects of foods that are grown or made with synthetic chemicals, like beef grown with hormones or vegetables with synthetic fertilizers, and I was wondering if you could comment on that. (00:44:42) Okay. Um, I think for like if you think of getting to the the animals what they what you're probably referring to her the growth stimulants that animals are given and what these are antibiotics that essentially get the animal to Market sooner because they they affect the animals gut microflora. So the animal doesn't have to compete with the microbes for energy. So I would think that that should have very little effect on the actual composition of the beef. The whole idea is to bring the product to the market quicker and therefore less expensively. There are there are some differences though than you know in feeding animals you can affect the composition but I don't think there's a real effect with the the antibiotics that are given the plant issue is something that's really open for discussion. A lot of people disagree on that. A lot of people feel like a carrot is a carrot. So if it needs potassium out of the soil, it takes it and if it can't get it it doesn't grow so it This certain amount of nutrients certain people feel real strongly that they want organic vegetables. And this is fine. But they you know, if they do want those it's going to cost more because you know, that's there's going to be a lot of losses because of bugs and stuff. So, I don't know that's an issue that I find there's a lot of controversy on and it's more of a personal feeling. Does that bother you that artificial fertilizers are used? I don't think it really has that much effect on the plant. That's my opinion. We move on to another listener with a question. Go ahead please you're on the air. (00:46:17) Yes. Excuse me. I was wondering if you had read the book called fit or fat. I can't think of the author right now. But have you read (00:46:26) that? I haven't read it. I've had a couple people refer to it. I think I have some pieces out of (00:46:32) it. Well, my question is that he argues that in order to when you actor sighs. You should exercise major muscles for instance the thighs And that most other exercise that don't emphasize major major muscles are not as beneficial. He said that you burn more calories and he argues for instance. He did an experiment where a woman was on a bicycle and she they strapped her arms down. And before they did this experiment. They measured her body fat in particular areas of her body. And then after she had done this for several weeks, they measured her body fat content distributed throughout the body and they found that the fat had been burned off in her upper portion of the upper portion of her body, even though she had been exercising with her legs. (00:47:26) Okay, I think that the one thing you have to think about at the beginning is what you're exercising for. I mean if you're exercising to decrease your body fat or increase your muscle or increased cardiovascular fitness, I mean, there's different reasons people exercise, but in the case of that I think women are just notorious for being fat on the bottom. I mean, they just a lot of them they'll lose fat on the top and they just don't lose it in the thigh. So, I don't know if that's a real good experiment. I think any woman that you no matter how they exercise is going to maintain the fat on the thighs longer than anywhere else. It's about 12 minutes before the hour and Joanne slavin with us, and we're taking your calls about nutrition particularly as relates to exercise. Go ahead please you're next. (00:48:12) My son broke his leg about a week ago and you'll be in a cast for our various cast for about three months and I was wondering if there's any special food or vitamins that he should take to help men the bones stronger or build up the muscle. (00:48:27) Does he like to drink milk or does he eat dairy products? That would be probably the thing we would recommend just because the calcium and if he didn't like dairy products are the best source of calcium in the diet. So if you didn't like those we might perhaps recommend a supplement of calcium because that's the important mineral for mending those bones. But if you can get a lot of milk and cheese into them that you know, that should solve that problem and kids are you know, they meant fairly well anyway, (00:48:57) okay. Thank you very (00:48:58) much. All right. Thanks for calling. Go ahead please you're next. (00:49:02) I'm hung of eating in right and exciting. Does it take to get back in shape after time from that exercising a (00:49:08) lot and unfortunately takes a long time. It's a People don't realize that you lose it very quickly and you can go right back down to base 0 and you have to work up again. So it's really important to keep exercising not even taking a week off for two weeks is bad. So if if you haven't been exercising all winter, you may be back to where you were last June before you are exercising its kind of discouraging, isn't it? It definitely is. Okay. Well, we'll see what is on the mind of our next listener. Go ahead, (00:49:39) please. Hello. Could you give me some advice on what foods are good for a cyclist to eat during a vigorous rides of like two hours or (00:49:48) more? I find it depends on how people like to ride to I think fruit is really popular with people and it's a good choice because it's high in carbohydrate. It's high in water and it contains a lot of potassium which is a electrolyte that a lot of bicyclists are interested in getting so fruit is like would probably be your first choice. There's some problems with people that are serious cyclists. They don't like to sit and peel an orange or peel a banana. It's a problem but I think bananas and apples are probably the best choice. Another thing. A lot of people eat are like trail mix has raisins that kind of thing dried fruits that seems to work out well too and then beverages but fairly dilute beverages. I don't think I would recommend, you know regular juice or Coke or anything like that. That's but then again it's a personal tolerance thing and it depends on how hard you're riding. If you're just riding around town. There's really no reason you should have to eat, you know, if it's just a two or three hour ride you can certainly get enough. Not going to lose that much energy that you can't get it back right away at the end. Why do they object-- to peeling bananas or oranges? Well, if you're riding it's hard to be Lenore. I just want to get out. You know, Racers are people that are serious cyclists don't want to take don't take the time to eat. All right. I thought maybe there was something in the peeling that didn't like her hands. Yeah. All right. We have another caller. Go ahead, please. (00:51:15) Hello. I'm calling regarding the difference between sucrose and fructose in terms of how quickly they will raise your blood glucose level. And also I have read that fructose is known also to promote atherosclerosis. Is there any truth to (00:51:33) that? I haven't read that information. So, you know that may be something I've missed but I don't think it's something that's well accepted. (00:51:44) How about just in terms of the rate at which they are absorbed into the bloodstream and if a person wants to use one or the other sweetener before some athletic event, (00:51:56) I would say that either sucrose or fructose are going to be absorbed fairly quickly. And I don't think there would be a maybe fructose would be a little faster because it doesn't have to be broken down but I don't think there would be a very significant difference in both of those sources should be available fairly quickly. They would be cleared from the stomach soon and then be available for absorption. Okay, thank you for calling we have another listener with a question. Go ahead (00:52:22) please hi. I have a problem with side effects when I run which seemed to be especially aggravated if I stopped have a drink of water while I'm running. I'm just wondering if there's any correlation between that and side eggs or any other comment you might have on this problem and eating before and after running. (00:52:40) That's one of the big reasons. I don't run. I always could side X2 and I'm not really sure why you get those a lot of times. I've always thought it was just because I'm depleted the glucose stores and I just there's a buildup of lactic acid and it's kind of because of that and I'm not really sure if that's the reason the water I think water can cause cramps just because you know, a lot of people find that that it causes problems to drink water, but if you're running for any long distance, you know, it's just not smart not to drink especially if it's warm out. So you almost have to adapt a lot of times do I think people as they train more? Get away from the problems with cramps and side aches. It's a matter of training more. Seven minutes before one o'clock. We have a few minutes left to chat with Joanne slavin. And if you have a question two, two seven six thousand the phone number in the Twin Cities. We have a few lines open and we may be able to may be able to get you on we have another caller. Go ahead, please you're on the (00:53:42) air, you know when you were a baby and maybe didn't get enough milk recital. With rickets. Is there any way of getting rid of them (00:53:49) getting rid of rickets? (00:53:51) Yeah. (00:53:53) Well, I don't know if there's any way of getting rid of them. It's really not a problem anymore because with supplemental vitamin D. There's not much of it around its kind of a historical nutrition disease. Okay, let's take our next caller rather quickly. Go ahead please you're on the air. (00:54:10) Okay? Hi. I have a question and something interesting first the interesting thing Eddy merckx the bicycle racer carried a bag of raw oatmeal when racing and would just nibble on it all the time. There's a carbohydrate source. And then the question is I have read that water plants water hyacinths in particular tend to absorb everything that's in the water and a pollutants or whatever and I was curious about edible plants carrots and so on now do they absorb what's in the soil, you know, whatever it is, or do they just take what they need to grow? (00:54:53) I would really should refer you to my agronomist friends because I'm really not sure about that. My impression is that you know, a certain Care at has a certain composition and if it's not there it won't absorb it. But if there are other things in the soil, I think it could potentially be absorbed. That would be my my guess on that but there are other places he could check for I wouldn't offend Tasha. Yeah, you could call the University. There's a Horticultural answer line and they could help you at that with that question. Okay. We'll move on to our next listener. Go ahead. (00:55:26) Please comment on the running and I found that it's really yeah by breathing the proper way. It usually takes care of. (00:55:37) So, what would you consider proper just harder or (00:55:40) Earth with the using the whole diaphragm that okay, and that should take care of it. So you had a problem to then someone told me that they went to. (00:55:50) Okay good. All right. Thanks for calling. We'll take our next listener. Go ahead please you're on the air. (00:55:55) Yeah, I'm real curious as to what kind of a diet of Runner or somebody who's really exercising should be on whether it's a natural diet or a diet of some processed foods or vitamins and various other additives which a person could take to boost their bodily functions. (00:56:16) Okay, I would going back to the the idea of having a really high carbohydrate diet. I think if you're a runner and you exercise a lot anybody who exercises a lot you want to get it high in carbohydrates and this would be fairly unrefined and and some fruits and vegetables. So I don't think there's anything wrong with the interesting thing is if you exercise a lot you can get away with eating a lot of these empty calorie type foods processed foods so you can certainly get away with it whether you want to or not as probably a personal decision how you feel about that. There's nothing I mean our Say if there's no problem with our food supply not being safe. It's more a question of personal choice. Okay. Let's see if we can fit a few more in before one o'clock. Go ahead, please you're on the air. (00:57:02) Yes. I play racquetball three times a week. I'm 46 and by you to play in the morning. I happened to be hypoglycemic also, and I wonder what you would suggest I eat before I play and how long before I play I should (00:57:15) eat. I think most people say three to four hours, you know before you can should eat a meal but eating snacks. You can probably go up a lot closer to when you're playing do you have problems do you eat breakfast now or do you not eat breakfast before (00:57:31) playing a lot of protein? (00:57:33) Yeah, I guess that's not a real good choice because that takes a long time for that to clear. We probably would recommend High carbohydrates toast pancakes things like that might be a better choice in Juice rather than proteins or high fat meals. Okay. Thank you for calling. I think we have time for one more. Go ahead, please you're on the air. (00:57:52) Yes. I have question. I'm 33 years old and about 20 pounds overweight and I would like to plan my first pregnancy for about a year to get pregnant about a year from now and I'd like to know what kinds of exercise programs I should be working into to get them to Optimal shape for being pregnant at a fairly late age and for staying in shape throughout the pregnancy. I'm now doing an aerobic dance class. I find well, it helps improve my circulation and I can move and I and things like that, but I'm far from being in (00:58:24) shape. Mmm. Well, I think that would be a good thing to stay with the aerobic dance, and then maybe get into walking or running because it's important that if you can try and lose that weight before pregnancy, you might have a better outcome. It's we don't recommend people losing weight during pregnancy, and it's good to start out at normal weight. So it sounds like you should incorporate something else. So running might be, you know, you may not like that, but just walking or bicycling is a good activity for people that don't like to run a lot of people tolerate that a lot better. Well Joanne sleeve, and I want to thank you very much for coming in. It's been a fast hour and an interesting hour, and I know that we've enjoyed having you and hearing your advice to people about nutrition and exercise and Athletics. I see there's still some people on the lines. However, you couldn't get to everyone but perhaps you'll have a chance another time.