Survival of the Fittest

[Whole artichokes: more trouble than they’re worth, but look how pretty! Photo by sheeshoo.]

I am no chef. That, my friends, is an understatement. I do bake on occasion, but my specialties are artery-thickening and insulin-spiking cheesy potatoes and spaghetti pie, recipes handed down to me through generations of hearty Midwestern folk. I improve the former by substituting real cheese when the recipe calls for Velveeta, but any way you slice it, I wouldn’t get hired at Clean Eating magazine.

That’s not so say I don’t own healthy cookbooks. In fact, I buy myself ridiculously good cookbooks like The Healthy Hedonist, Super Natural Cooking and Simply in Season. I just don’t open them.

But I do care about eating in a way that supports my health and fitness goals. Especially since I started keeping a combination food-and-fitness journal seven weeks ago. (My journal is embarrassingly titled — not by me — I Will Get Fit This Time! It’s even written on the spine, I suspect so you can’t hide the evidence under stickers, though I plan to try.)

While I’ve kept a fitness journal before, this is the first time I’ve ever tracked my food intake. I’m not bothering with quantities or calories — I’m just looking for patterns and pitfalls. And my, my, my do they jump off the page.

The first day, I had leftover pad thai chicken for breakfast. After writing it down, I was like, “I really don’t want to do that again.” Because now, forever and ever, chicken pad thai is written in my food journal as what I had for breakfast that day. Perfectionists hate that mess.

To eat healthy but avoid cooking, I have placed my focus on food combining. There’s no other way to put it, as my efforts extend only as far as mashing different foods together. Today’s lunch was a prime example — see the “recipe” below.

Lazy, Healthy, Delicious, Easy Tuna Salad

Slap together the following ingredients while simultaneously explaining to your puppy that paper is not a good snack choice for her. (Or you, for that matter.) Combine with mixed greens or spinach. Eat.

Pumpkin seeds: Also known as pepitas (which I will obviously be calling them from now on), punkin seeds are an anti-inflammatory food and a good source of zinc and magnesium (which in turn is good for muscle building if you’re a dude because it keeps your testosterone levels up — not sure if women experience the same anabolic benefit, but can’t hurt to try). On a related note, did you ever see the Flavor of Love episode where Pumpkin spits in New York’s face? Me, neither. But that was disgusting, wasn’t it?

Canned artichoke hearts: Another anti-inflammatory food, artichokes are also high in fiber (which slows the rush of sugar into the bloodstream).

Cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil: An excellent source of good fats (the kind that actually help you lose fat), olive oil is yet another fabulous anti-inflammatory food. Do you detect a theme? And by “detect” I mean “Are you conscious?” Subtlety isn’t my strong suit.

Canned tuna fish in water: Because of its good fats, tuna is also anti-inflammatory food. And, it’s high in complete protein, so it’s great for building muscle. But since tuna is also high in mercury, it’s best to limit it to occasional consumption. Not to mention a friend told me recently that bluefin tuna is now extinct due to overfishing (if that’s the case, what exactly did I just eat?). While that seems to be an overstatement, things do seem to be heading that direction. Anyone have ideas for easy substitutes? Is there such a thing as canned antibiotic-free chicken?

Disclaimer: The foods listed above have a much more extensive nutrient profile than I’ve outlined here. If you want to find out more, consult sites such as www.whfoods.com or www.nutritiondata.com.

REGARDING MY EMPHASIS ON ANTI-INFLAMMATORY FOODS, I’m currently (finally) reading UltraMetabolism by functional medicine doc Mark Hyman, MD, and I’m finding it so, so interesting. And, as the smartest things tend to be, full of common sense. I’m going to devote an entire post to inflammation, so for now I’ll just say that eating with an eye toward eradicating inflammation has done wonders for my recovery time between workouts.

If you want more on the topic now now now, see “Fighting Inflammation” from the July/August 2004 issue of Experience Life, or check out the second in the six-part article series Hyman is writing for us, available in this month’s issue.

SHARING IS CARING:

• What is your favorite food-combining “recipe”?
• Any advice on making food prep insanely simple?
• Have you ever kept a food journal? If so, what was your experience?
• Whaddaya know about inflammation?

[From left to right: what a tendon is supposed to look like; one with tendinitis; one with tendinosis. Credit: Vicky Earle]

Did you know that most athletes who believe they’re plagued by tendinitis (also spelled tendonitis) actually have tendinosis (also spelled tendonosis)? Stupid athletes.

Just kidding — in many instances, a doctor or physical therapist misdiagnosed the problem, and that misdiagnosis can mean wasted treatment time, prolonged pain and lost sports seasons. Stupid doctors. (Kidding again!)

But there are some pretty important distinctions. Tendinitis involves inflammation of the tendon, doesn’t last longer than a couple weeks and heals just as fast, while tendinosis involves degeneration and can go on and on (and on), until you’re able to stimulate collagen regeneration in the injured area.

As far as treatment options go, while tendinitis responds well to ice, rest and anti-inflammatories to treat the inflammation, tendinosis does better with therapeutic exercises — mainly of the eccentric, or negative, variety.

Had I known that five years ago, I might have had a less irritating relationship with my knees. Some of the same strengthening therapies would have held true, but I wasted an awful lot of time treating inflammation that wasn’t there.

The differences between the conditions, as well as some of the best treatment options, are covered in more depth in the May Experience Life article “Tendon Trouble,” which, if you’ve ever struggled with a case of tennis elbow or runner’s knee that you can’t shake, is worth a read.

I also really like this article at Runnersweb.com. Some highlights:

• At least 25 percent of athletes treated for knee problems at major sports clinics are typically diagnosed with tendonitis, but there is strong evidence that the majority of athletes diagnosed with tendonitis are not really suffering from the disorder.
• The “tendonitis plague” may actually be a severe outbreak of tendonosis, not tendonitis.
• A reasonable course of therapy for tendonitis, an inflammatory condition, would involve the use of anti-inflammatory drugs; in fact, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications have become the mainstay of treatment for so-called “overuse” injuries to tendons. The trouble is that there is evidence that anti-inflammatory drugs can actually have a negative impact on the progress of tendonosis, in effect retarding the healing process.
• It is clear that a tendon [suffering from tendinosis] needs to be mechanically stimulated in order to begin the process of activating its fibroblasts and synthesizing significant quantities of new collagen fibers; complete rest would prevent this from happening.
• One tried-and-true treatment for tendinosis involves the deliberate, eccentric loading of a painful tendon and its muscle, a process which seems to accelerate strengthening of both the tendon and its associated sinew.

In other words, rather than endlessly icing, resting and popping anti-inflammatories, those of us with suspiciously long-lasting “tendinitis” might be better served by adjusting our routines and doing eccentric exercises to stimulate healing.