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Alot of the time you will hear what nutrients are shown to be lacking when following a plant based or vegetarian diet. News flash "normal diets " are generally always lacking in nutrients for any given population too and often unhealthy in other ways like highly processed foods. Don't get me wrong, you can follow a plant based diet full of highly processed foods too, it's not an automatic pass into being a health and well being guru . No matter what dietary regime you follow for what ever reasons, it can be healthy and meet all your needs if your mindful and informed. Get advise and take into account your specific needs. Then get after it. https://www.facebook.com/HamishJohnstoneNutrition/ 
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Kia ora whanau, I know, how dare I do a meat less version of a boil up....oh and no dough boys....whats wrong with this fella . To be honest alot. But that is a different story for a different day haha. So you can go back to your tried and true boil up, this is for the vegetarains , plant based folks and those wanting to have a good kai but keep the calories lower. Ingredients: any root veges you like ( potato, kumara, pumpkin, carrot) water cress ( if you cant get any spinach with more pepper added) vege stock liquid smoke Method to the madness: chop up your root veges chunky and throw in your stew pot , chuck on your water cress (till about 2/3-3/4 full) , cover the lot with vege stock. Bring to the boil, stirring occasionally. Turn it to a simmer and chuck on a lid after about 30-50 min the veges should be softening up . Add a small amount of liquid smoke.....it doesnt take much of this stuff to get the right flavour. leave for another 30 min or so. Season to taste. and serve. It gets better tasting on each reheat and it freezes well, so cook up a big batch and freeze some, so when you short on time and need a good nutritious kai you can just reheat one of these baby's. Chur   OK, so I love Pancakes and I love pizza so I try and incorporate different versions of these into my diet and into my training. So here is a vegan friendly version that does not consist of odd or hard to find ingredients that you can whip together in no time and they are pretty YUM too. Yee har.
What you need: 2 cups of plain flour 2 cups of fortified soy milk (cause B vitamins OK, may need more just to get it to a good pancake batter consistency) 4 very level Tablespoons of baking powder 2 Tablespoons of sugar (carbs for your muscles OK) 2 Tablespoons of oil (what ever you got OK) A wee bit of salt to taste (1/4 teaspoon) 1/2 a cup of pea protein ( optional or put some good protein option on ya pancake after) Whack all the dry stuff in a big bowl, dig a little hole on the middle and put all the liquid stuff in, then mix her up! Heat up a non stick pan , maybe a lil oil before each pancake. If you want to get specific use a 1/2 cup measure for each pancake. Should make about 10 solid sized pancakes and they come in around 25gm carb and 10 gm protein per pancake. This is a great option straight after training to kick start refueling your muscles glycogen stores and is a great amount of protein to begin that muscle repair and building after a tough session. Alternatively take some for a long training session or to get ready for a training session if you don't want to stomach something heavy, they're low fibre so easy on the gut. I make them and save some for the next day! They have passed the kids taste test too. Smashed out the scrambled curry tofu on toast for breakfast this morning. On some mint as whole grain toast. Lots of veg in there. My legs have taken a hammering over last few days and this breakie is just what was need to help recover while keeping my nutrient intake good.......the views alright too 😎😁 piha you litle beauty   Ok, following on from my previous post where time is short and you want to pack in some nutrients and eat well but keep it vegetarian or vegan. I have my latest go to breakfasts aside from Muesli.
Scrambled Tofu on toast I think I originally had this at Huia cafe after a morning run and it was amazing. SO I gave it a go at home and was suprised how easy it was to put together and as someone who is training alot it is a great way to make sure you are getting good levels of protein through the day starting with Breakfast! Now you can spice it up how you want and again like the other recipes I have shared you can jam all your fav veges in there to make it more nutritionally dense .....if you are training hard this is important to help fortify your immune system.
So this one is your regular smoothie. nothing fancy but great if you dont want anything heavy in your stomach because you have a double training day or because your just not much of a breakfast person. I use the same base ingredients and add bits and pieces in at different times depending how I feel or what I think I might need more of like seeds, nuts, peanut butter
 Sometimes Life is busy! But you want to get those important nutrients in after your training. Maybe you have trained late and do not have time for dinner. I often find myself in these kind of situations. You want a meal but you do not want to spend valuable time cooking for an hour. Well here are a couple of quick go to meals.
Vegan/vegetarian Pizza Just using a wholemeal wrap , with a topping of pizza sauce (or tomato sauce) then throwing some spinach (frozen) , tomato, onion, capsicum, mushroom and a protein (tofu, beans, meat replacement) . Putting all these ingredients together the cooking at about 220 degrees for 15 minutes.....and you have a nutritious meal, thats taken less than 30 minutes and has protein, a good Carbohydrate and lots of much needed nutrients, vitamins and minerals. (Aprox 40gm Carbohydrate and 20gm protein and stacks of vitamins and minerals) Vegan/vegetarian nachoes Simply a can of mexican beans, a can of chopped tomatoes and a handful of nachoes and some vegetables. Heat the beans and tomatoes in a microwave or on the stove then put half the amount on the handful of nachoes...grill for 5 minutes, throw your diced vegetables on could be mushrooms, corn, purple onion. and eat. The meal should take 15 minutes to make and again a good quick go to source of vitamins, carbohydrates, proteins. (once again about 40gm Carbohydrate and around 20gm Protein and depending on vege/salsa topping stacked with goodness)  I have been asked to run in the Auckland Marathon to help raise money for Diabetes Auckland. I did not hesitate to accept this request. It was never a goal of mine to enter the marathon distance this year but for such a great cause how could I not. I have started a charity page, the link is at the bottom of this Blog, alot more information on the link too. The thing is I have worked as a diabetes dietitian for some time, my first clinical job was in diabetes out patient clinic for waitemata DHB, I loved the patients that I would see and work with. I still see many clients with Diabetes and it can be rewarding work. Two of the highlights of my work to date has been 1) helping with diabetes Aucklands youth camps, to see young kids with Type 1 diabetes realising in a safe environment that they did not have the barriers that they may have perceived and being able to share their stories with other youth and families was amazing. 2) I have been able to help with Riding on Insulin for a few years and again see families and youth with Type 1 diabetes grow and learn.
SO please if you can support Diabetes Auckland and the good work they do, I would be grateful. I will run the full marathon, you just help me help them! https://aucklandmarathon2018.everydayhero.com/nz/hamish-runs-for-diabetes-nz  It was a Sunday and it was time for me to get out and complete my long run. I had been busy at work in New lynn finalising different things for the week ahead. I usually carry everything I need in the back of my ute keeping all my stinky running and training gear very separate from the cab. Today I was running out of time I really wanted my run to be about 30km, so I grabbed all my gear, got changed and sorted out what nutrition I may need to take. Lately it has been pretty cold so I haven't needed much hydration (lower sweat rates) during runs and have been able to get away with not taking much fluid. However I knew for a 30km run I was probably going to need some decent carbohydrate during it, to get the most out of the training......I was a bit unprepared. I found one Gel floating around the cab! Maybe I could get away with this. Time was really running short. So I threw the gel in my pocket and took off from the office. Everything was going great. At about the one hour mark. I started to feel it, I know that feeling, that ebbing of energy, but I was only about 12 km into the run.... I didn't want to use my only gel just yet. Then I thought I could just go into the gas station further up the road to replenish, as a dietitian I would be able to put something together from the servo offerings. Then I remembered I had taken all my bank cards out of my cell phone case so they didn't get sweaty ! DOH. SO I had my gel and continued on. Needless to say I really started to feel the lack of energy by the half marathon mark. I got back to my office with 30k under the belt having consumed one gel. So my next best thing to do now was REALLY make sure I got good Post training recovery nutrition in ASAP. The first 60-90 minutes after exercising is when the body will be most effective at replacing muscle glycogen and facilitating muscle repair through protein uptake. SO I jogged to the supermarket. Now what to get fast?. I am a vegan so it cuts out a lot of handy options I could have grabbed like low fat creamed rice!, a lean meat option from the deli and some bread, 330ml of flavoured milk.... But I ended up looking at the chocolate soy milk , 500ml of this would give me 44gm Carbohydrate and 15gm protein in liquid form, fantastic. Plus it tastes great. Bonus it would help with rehydrating. Sometimes you cant always be prepared but if you know what you need you can still make do in most situations. Getting that post training nutrtition in means helping to make sure my body is adapting how I need it to and keeping me in good shape going into the next training week.
 So 8 weeks ago, I DNF’d the Tarawera 100 miler pulling the pin at 102km. Roughly 18 hours running. I had been training for 10 weeks and hadn't run for the year previous. To make matters worse I possibly was the most disorganised for a run I had been…..like I can be disorganised but it verged on ridiculous for that run. I wont go into it much but what little chance I had of smashing it I undercut with bad prep.
Coming into the ROF I had another 8 weeks training under my belt so was already in a better position. This time I decided I would make sure I did all the little things I often didn’t before a run. So I forced myself to get an earlier night (last race I had less than 4 hours sleep 2 nights in a row). I got to registration earlier in the day dropped in my drop bags (although I did leave my race bib there and had to go back and get it doh! Luckily Ali Squadrun co comander and coach had seen it and gently reminded me that I may need it for my run). I got to the earlier race briefing and managed to make a vegetarian tiki masala nom for dinner then back at my tent, I organised all my stuff before I jumped in bed and laid it all out like I see other runners do in their pictures ( maybe I am a proper ultra runner when I do that?) . Last race I didn't have much sleep, no breakfast ,couldn't find much needed vaseline and made it to the start line seconds before start after running across a field to get there! Morning of: This time my alarm goes off at 3am, I get up, get dressed (wow this being prepared makes things WAY smoother in the morning, must do it again) Jesus this thermal long sleeve top is tight! Feel like I should be a mime doing interpretive dance right now. No time to change it. I probably should have checked that before, ah well. I have some toast and a coffee and walk down to the start ! Feeling incredibly accomplished at being on time and having had breakfast hahaha I am thinking wow what am I capable of with sleep, breakfast and being on time…..its a good day so far and it’s not even 4am! The mighty Chateau is bustling with nervous excitement and has a giant Goat to boot ( I do not think we are allowed to actually boot him). We have a karakia then are told wave one goes first then wave two….I ask they guy next to me what’s this waves business he tells me wave one is fast runners, wave 2 slow runners. I figure I am in the middle, so wait for wave one to end to slip to front of the next…..but its actually just one wave of continuous runners so I jump aboard the train and we are off. This is it, head light on and we are running. 4AM everything lit by headlamps, the air is crisp and we soon hit single trail with an ebbing pace which I keep telling myself is a good thing because I have a long way to go but I just want to fly. I decide to try do a facebook live stream from my phone so I can enter the competition worth 2Grand where you tag #ROF but I can not figure out how to do it while I am running single track in the dark! Arghhh I will try later. It doesn’t take long to hit the first hut and I’m slowly falling into a rhythm and the trail is starting to thin out. I'm getting a little warm so try to roll up my sleeves to my elbow but this thermal only makes it halfway up my forearms, its sucking my will to live! ahh it will do. I decide to chuck on my play list that I meticulously made the night before the race, to keep me revved up. But my headphones have only one side working and its coming in and out so sounds like I am listening to my favourite band while deaf in one ear and they're performing on the other side of a motorway! Wel...jungle…got...games…..everything…..how….names….to the…..shananana…. I listen to it like that for way to long for any sane person, then my headphones just die, part of me with it, I had the most epic play list ever…..I ponder how many of the songs I can sing and what order I would have listened to them. I am just going to have to entertain myself then.! God damn it that play list was the business too. I start singing (in my head). Even my mind voice needs lessons. Why did my headphones forsake me! Now the suns coming up and the pastel colours over the volcanic terrain is insane! For some reason I think of vanilla and I decide I want a vanilla Gel, they’re in the side pocket of my vest and I keep trying to open the zip , but my hands feel strangely numb….they're not working properly any more…..weird as its not that cold. Whats going on with these hands then. I look down at them. I nearly run straight off the trail in shock! They have doubled in size….generally I have monster banana hands any way, but that Thermal top is so tight all the fluid in my body has pooled in my hands leaving me a lumbering husk of a man with sausage fingers. ! I try to make a fist….its impossible and painful. I pull the thermal down try to stretch the sleeve to let blood flow occur and keep moving, intermittently making fists to check and see if the swellings going down….its not but its not getting worse, I have scissors in my pack and I may have to cut the sleeves off. Will I have to cut my hands and let the fluid seep out to releave the pressure? Its too soon to make that call. I will see how it pans out. I have an ultra to run. Soon I am running along board walks and can see the beautiful cascade falls in the distance, another hut goes by, then the climb up the amazing cascades the beauty of the falls distracts from the quad burning of the climb, then more climbing with less distraction up toward the road and I see a sign that the aid station isn't far written on it “ first leg done, see that wasnt hard was it , just 2 more legs to go “ love the puppet master. It actually has me laughing out loud. Chris Townley is a funny guy. And then I hear a laughing from the road above I look up and I couldn't tell but I think chris was sitting having a laugh at us all reacting to the sign! Gold! I've made the first aid station as I try to reload up my bag with my sausage fingers discreetly without horrifying anyone who may witness the marshmellow man hands fumbling gu gels as quick as he can, its comical, its entertaining me. Leg 2: It is running down hill on road for a bit and I am weary of smashing my knees too bad, at 86kg with a few kg in my back pack, I know I am putting a lot of stress on them and I need them good for a bit more yet! I decide this is a good place to try that facebook live business again after a few minutes of bumbling around everything but Facebook live, I give up on it I am feeling like this should be easy and I am just not getting it! I will try later. So I facebook call my wife instead, to say hey, that I love her and that I just finished leg one. Soon enough we turn left into bush and are flying along I find a good rhythm and decide to pull out my poles to conserve my knees and legs as much as possible for the far more runnable 3rd leg. I am looking at my watch and its telling me my pace so far is good enough to get in before dark, yusss, that's the goal I set myself, get in within 14 hours Ring of fire has 3 different ribbons for the mens 72 finish, under 10 hours gold, before dark volcanic red and within 20 hours blue. I came out 6 weeks ago and had a go at the course and it took me 18 and a half hours self supported, but I am sure I can do 14! I've had 4 more weeks training since then, so surely I can do it! Surely! I have a habit of thinking I will do way better than I actually do, but I lOVE the push to try. Plus I always have the back up or contingency goals. This race it was goal 1) Finish before dark. 2) Finish before 20 hour cut off 3) Finish after cut off. Only way not to is be physically pulled from course! In the description of the course this second leg is described as the second hardest. I actually think it is the hardest, not just because we hit it with a solid volcanic half marathon on the legs , but it is soul sapping going through the volcanic valleys, through the desert region. Each valley seems to get bigger and bigger and the will wanes. And each time you get to the top the wind is intense. We are lucky we have great weather, this section will be absolutely brutal with some higher winds and rain. It is through this section that my over all pace slips , making it look a lot tougher to get in before dark. But it is also this section where I seem to pass a lot of people especially in the relentless steep climbs and descents. All that rock hopping on the coast and running up Piha road in training has paid dividends. Finally I see a bus on a road and know that Tukino Aid station is only a few km away! 3rd Leg: I dont hang about long at the Aid station, load up some more Gu Gels scull back 500ml fluid, fill up both my soft flasks, put on my squad run cap and shades and I'm off my watch says about 9 hrs and 45 minutes. Another down hill from the aid station and I am feeling good, relay runners intermittently fly by. Its relatively flat and the terrain is very runnable and I can see I am pulling my over all pace back in! Yuss I think I can make before dark if I can sustain this for the whole leg…...but anything can happen. Once again I fall into a good rhythm, my hands have finally gone back to they're natural gorilla hand state I can finally start waving at trampers as I pass by without them thinking I have the foams hands on from a League game. Strangely this makes me feel pretty good. I can feel a few niggly blisters going on, my face is feeling a little burnt and wind burnt but my legs overall are holding up. I am running in Hoka oneone speed goat 2’s and they have really helped my legs stay fresh. They have felt amazing on the climbs and great grip and cushion while I smashed rocky descents! I am pretty stoked with their first outing on an ultra for me. Before long I pass the last hut and know its only another 15ish km to go, 15 fast becomes 10 and I have been passed by some speedier 72ker runners, hauling my 86kg plus pack weight means I'm usually not the fastest gazelle in the pack on the flats. I get into feeling a little flat now and start concentraing on how tired my legs , so I pull my glad bag from my pocket, in it is a note I wrote the night before “pain is temporary, glory is forever , MOVE” yusss sir. I move. I catch a glimpse of the chateau its so close but so far and it disappears again. The last few km of any race I have been in is tough,this is no different its like my body knows the end is close so just wants to stop and have a nap, its a constant mental battle. I've slotted in behind another 72ker who is keeping a good pace, I know he doesn't want me to pass and to be honest I don't know if I have it in me. We run together silently. Soon we are told … you've got this 2.5km to go, go get it. Its up lifting and he picks up the pace so do I and I stay with him. More glimpses of the chateau and with less than a km to go a couple of guys see my running buddy pass, then as I approach they say” are you going to run him down ?...I reply man it would seem mean plus I don't think I can. And then I think Come on Hamish lets go , I get an adrenaline kick and I let fly, up past him, finally, onto the road a lil zig zag and I am there running into the finish line to see coach Ali from Squadrun who gives me a big hug and my Volcanic red before dark medal. Officially finishing in 13 hours 18 minutes. Then I get a another hug from Coach Kerry. I am stoked and I am spent. It was an amazing adventure on an epic new Ultra in a place I love. As the adrenaline wears off and fatigue sets in I creep off back to my tent for a curry and coke and to rest my legs. Note: a roof top tent with ladder access was exciting till the day after the ultra and climbing in and out involved contortions and weight placement very unique on smashed post Ultra legs. ere to edit.  So I had finally managed to do what felt like a good solid week of running. I had clocked up a total of 62km and my long run on the sunday had been 26km on trail. It felt good. But at this stage I realised I needed to really make sure I was hydrating right. The days were hot and I was sweating alot out on the trail. The Long run days were the ones to trial anything I was going to do on race day, so I needed to start. After consulting some of my text books and looking at the current research out. I figured water alone would not be enough for long training days and not for the event itself which can take any where between 8 and a half to 15 hours of running. So I opted for a powdered electrolyte drink, that I could make up at home. Next I needed to figure out my sweat rate . So during the week when I ran , I weighed myself, then ran for an hour, then when home, weighed myself again. What I found was for me, at that time of year in that heat, I would lose about 1kg weight. This equates to about 1 litre of fluid. So roughly my sweat rate was 1 litre per hour. So this is what I needed to replace to prevent dehydrating to much. It doesn't take much dehydration to effect performance so its something I really wanted to stay on top of. With the loss of fluid through sweat comes the loss of electrolytes. This is why over long runs its a good idea to use an electrolyte drink. Trialling theses drinks during long runs is important, to make sure your stomach will not get upset and that the flavour wont become un-palatable over time.
The bonus of using an electrolyte drink is it has Carbohydrates . And this can contribute to your overall need for carbohydrate during those long runs. Its a double whammy. I didn't get a chance in week 4 to try out my hydration strategy because I went away with my oldest daughters for a 3 day weekend ( I did surf a lot though so put that down as cross training) . In week 4 I managed to run a total of 19.5km, well under what the plan had set out. But its extremely tricky training with work commitments and family commitments. Training for any endurance event means lots of hours by your self. Like most sport its a selfish pursuit and sometimes the training has to give a little while you delicately balance life. Its about here That Ill throw in these additional bits of info , My wife had also entered the 34km Hillary event with no running background at all. On top of this, we have 2 babies (under 1 and a half years) and 4 older kids. Both me and my wife are self employed. Life is busy......there was always going to be compromises in the training. Week 5 came round , and although I went up north to celebrate My fathers birthday , I managed to run 74km total with a long run of 40km on trail. I managed to use my strategy , I carried a bottle and had a back pack with a bladder that could hold 3 litres. I re fuelled at a Tap around half way through my run. I didn't fade or collapse , so I deemed it a success. Ill also add in here, I saw this training as an opportunity to reduce my weight. At the start of training I had weighed about 95kg. Which I didn't mind, but my surfboard was no longer holding me above water and a few of my favourite jeans were a lil tight! Plus something I noted was if your lighter you can run faster to a point. Plus it has a lot less impact on your joints. Now by week 5 I was 87.6kg! I had my hydration sorted, My long runs were going well and my weight had come down. Th Hillary was looking achievable at this point. Going into week 6 of training, life was getting even busier as it was only 2 weeks till xmas . I only ran twice that week one 18km run mid week and my biggest run ever at that point of 46km ! I did run out of fluid on the 46km, so I drank out of the streams. My time for the 46km was good. Things were going well and xmas was coming. I was injury free and running that 46km was a huge psychological boost for myself. I really felt like I could run this 80km event. It was time for me to get on top of my nutrition for the long runs and the race . My next blog will cover my nutrition strategies. |
HamishQualified Dietitian, Sport Dietitian. Specialising in Sport and Diabetes and Health. Archives
June 2022
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