Drink more water Please! (Updated)

When reading this article, please also refer to 

my most recent article about "Low Salt Diets" and ill health

Drink, drink, drink!

That's the message we hear time and time again from the sports fitness industry and the commercial interests that have a vested interest in promoting the sales of bottled water and sports drinks. They tell us that the key to health and longevity is to drink more water, but is this really true?

The problem is, when dealing with people face-to-face about their health is I just can not see a connection between how much water one drinks and health. The opposite might be the case: The more water one drinks, the more likely there are chronic health issues like lack of energy, weight gain, weak bones, aching joints and muscles and so on. How could this be? The following is some informed, healthy speculation:

The answer may be to do with distortion of the delicate salt balance within each cell. There are 12 "Cell Salts" found inside the cell (Referred to as the "salts of Schussler"): Sodium phosphate, sodium, sulphate, sodium chloride, potassium phosphate, potassium sulphate, potassium chloride, calcium phosphate, calcium sulphate, calcium fluoride, iron phosphate and silicon dioxide.

Too little of any of these salts, or an imbalance, and the health of the cell is compromised and this shows as failing energy and eventual ill health of all descriptions.

The modern diet lacks most of these salts while supplying enormous amounts of sodium chloride. Tissue salts are lost daily through the urine, sweat and the shedding of skin and hair. If one drinks lots of water, especially if it is distilled, precious tissue salts are flushed out of the system. Some medications, like blood pressure diuretics, accelerate this loss of tissue salts.

Water Follows Salt

If there is insufficient of any of the 12 tissue salts in the cells, the cell reduces its water content to maintain as near a healthy salt electrolyte balance as it can in these less than perfect circumstances. If there is anexcess of any of the 12 salts in relation to the others, the excess is discarded while those in short supply are retained to ensure the correct concentration is retained within the cells. This explains why the percentage hydration of the body tends to decline with age: The desperate attempts of the body to maintain a viable salt balance.

The graphs associated with this article are of people of differing age, gender, fitness and health. These are the results of "bioelectrical impedance analysis" (BIA) which allows us to work out the ratios of fat, muscle, bone and water in the body. With age, the percent water in the cells tends to decline from a healthy 60+% to 50% or even lower. But this need not be the inevitable result of ageing, as these charts indicate. Tissue dehydration is more closely associated with a diet that is deficient in the tissue salts, inactivity and ill health than age. Incidentally, all of the people graphed with tissue water 60% or greater have undergone a course of tissue salt therapy.

The answer, to me, is to have a diet that is rich in salts, as opposed to industrially processed foods that tend to be soaked in sodium chloride alone. This pretty much equates to the traditional diets of native societies as one would find in places like Samoa and Okinawa prior to the destructive influence of Western food processing. For most of us, a course in supplementing tissue salts would appear to be warranted, especially as we get older. Get this right and the water issue pretty much takes care of itself.

So, how much water should one drink to be healthy? The answer is different for each person because so much depends on size (volume), metabolism, temperature, humidity, type of activity, duration and so on. A general of thumb is to drink sufficient water daily to be peeing 3-6 times a day while not having to get up in the middle of the night due to a bursting bladder.

Footnote:

You can now easily monitor subtle changes in body composition (And therefore your overall state of health) and you can do this at home. All you need is a body composition analyser - The 

Salter 9106. These personal weighing scales with body composition analysis technology costs less than $100. They are remarkably accurate and consistent and use a technology that cost almost $5,000 for just a few years ago. Such is the progress of technology.

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Junior doctors win free drinks case - A good example of the brainwashing of impressionable youth

A row over whether junior doctors should get $250,000 worth of free drinks a year has damaged their relationship with the Canterbury District Health Board, their association says.

The Resident Doctors' Association (RDA), representing 460 Canterbury junior doctors, took a case against the board for failing to consult before withdrawing pre-packaged drinks from the free meals doctors are entitled to.

The association said it was important for busy doctors to keep well hydrated.
For the entire article, please go here....
____________________________________
Gary:

The water bottling companies have been very effective over the last decade or so with their slick marketing campaigns to have us all drinking their water from our fresh water springs.  In so doing, they have managed to create mountains of plastic rubbish.

$250,000 per year of your and my taxation money to supply doctors in just one health region with bottled water!  

Death by water

"A Californian woman has died after taking part in a water-drinking contest, but why is too much water dangerous? We are regularly advised to drink more water: it clears skin, reduces tiredness and aids concentration. But the death of a woman in the US after taking part in a water-drinking contest shows you can have too much of a good thing."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6263029.stm

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Gary comments:

While this story is a little dated the message is as relevant today as it was when it first came out.  Whenever there is money to made from a health message, such as "Drink more water" or "Eat 99% fat free" we must be careful to filter what is really healthy within the message from the distortions created by profit-driven marketeers.  We can also extend this filter to include advocacy organisations that receive much of their funding from commercial interests, such as asthma drug manufacturers, anti-arthritis drugs or sun-screen.

These commercial pressures may cause guidelines to be skewed to far over to the side of excess of prescription and be a cause of resistance to change or moderation in the face of mounting evidence such as that "Less is More".

Water is essential for life as is fat, protein, sugar, vitamin C and iron to name just a few; but too much of any of these health-giving items and they can become a lethal poison.   One of the base principles of health prescrition is to give the minumum dose that gives the maximum benefit.  Commercial interests should not play any part in the decision making process to determine what is optimal for a therapy or health measure, such as advising how much water one needs to drink to be healthy.

Just how much water does a person need to be healthy?  Very little, from my experience.  For some, its a few cups a day; for others it may be several liters.  A disproportionate number of the the people who consult me about chronic health issues drink far more water than they need to be healthy.  

The best way to work out how much water you need each day is best done by measuring hydration each day, including before and after exercise, using a set of Salter 9106 scales.  I am selling these scales at almost 50% the price they are sold in most stores.  This is because I want my clients to have these so that they can share their body composition details with me no matter where they live, thus enabling me to give them meaningful advice and guidance.

For more information about hydration, please read my articles here.

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More information about how to interpret the Salter 9106 Body Composition Scales

When using your Salter 9106 body composition

 scales, you have to programme it for age, gender and height.  And you have to decide if you are an athletic or sedentary person.  How do you know if you are an athlete or a couch potato?

Another interesting observation is that the

 percentages often add up to more than 100%.

I contacted Robert Gates, the design and technical manager of Homedics, the company that designed the Salter scales and sought his advice.

Athlete mode:
Gates: "The standard fitness level uses an equation that is derived from a typical group of individuals - i.e. tending to be relatively inactive. This equation was found to tend to overestimate body fat levels for individuals with a more athletic body composition. Therefore athlete mode was developed to enable the user to tailor the equation used to their fitness level."

Gary: The most important point about this is to choose one mode and then stick to it.  The equations are a compromise for simplicity of programming.  Get too complicated and you would have to use a device that is hooked up to a computer.

Once you are in athlete or sedentary mode, the machine is incredibly accurate - accurate to 0.1% which is astonishing.

The percentages:
Gates: "The percentages are expressed as a percentage of the overall body weight. You may note that the figures do not add up to 100% necessarily - this is because muscle contains water and therefore there is some overlap with the body water percentage."

Gary: There appears to be a near direct relationship between water and muscle percents and health.  The higher they are, the healthier the person.  Men and women are doing very well if above 60% water and 40% muscle.  Regardless of age.  Mind you it is harder to achieve as one gets older; but not at all impossible.  With age we lose muscle, we get fatter and we dry out. Medications seem to accelerate these.  Measures that reverse or slow these processes of weakening, fattening and drying out could be regarded as being anti-ageing strategies.

Can you beat 73%?

The record so far for water is 73% achieved by a 28 year old male who is representing New Zealand at the World Mountain Running Championships in Switzerland.  He has been consulting me, so is in excellent health and good running form - of course!

Fat has little water in it, so a person with more fat tends to have less overall water.  Women tend to have more fat than men and less muscle so their water content tends to be lower.  As a man or woman improves their diet and exercise, fat percent should drop, muscle increase and water percent will go up.  Tissue salt therapy appears to assist tissue hydration.

Tip: A rapid and unexplained drop in lean muscle and water percents may be the first indicators of a serious illness, including undiagnosed cancer.  If you notice a rapid loss of lean weight that is associated with unusual fatigue or pain it would be wise to consult a doctor - just in case.  It could be a life saver.

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I pee often during the night - am I drinking too much water?

I have been reading your article under the "Active Elements Therapy" - Drink more water - I am in the habit of drinking a large quantity of water and I pee often as well as during the night. I do not have or add any salt to my diet - do I understand that I am doing it all wrong ? The water I drink is pure rain water from the tank and as we live by the sea I thought there would be sufficient natural salt in the water. I also eat a lot of salt water fish. Does this help ? I will be very interested in your reply. "D"

Please go here to read the full post

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I pee often during the night - am I drinking too much water?

I have been reading your article under the "Active Elements Therapy" - Drink more water - I am in the habit of drinking a large quantity of water and I pee often as well as during the night. I do not have or add any salt to my diet - do I understand that I am doing it all wrong ? The water I drink is pure rain water from the tank and as we live by the sea I thought there would be sufficient natural salt in the water. I also eat a lot of salt water fish. Does this help ? I will be very interested in your reply.

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Nutrition Advice for Endurance Athletes

Nutrition Advice for Athetes

The following advice is gleaned from various presentations I have made on athletic conditioning.

• Let's start with what some “experts” recommend: “Here are some examples of foods that make good pre-competition meals:”
• White toast with margarine, honey and banana
• Muffins or crumpets with jam and margarine
• Creamed rice and tinned fruit in syrup
• Pancakes with yogurt and tinned fruit in syrup
• Pancakes, sugar or maple syrup and tinned fruit
• Spaghetti on white toast, with margarine
  Low-fibre cereal e.g. rice bubbles with milk and tinned fruit
• For those people who tend to be nervous before an event, a liquid meal replacement may be better tolerated than solid food.

In my opinion, these are very unhealthy guidelines that will do nothing to enhance the performance of the athlete on the day and may, over the long term, cause serious health problems including gum disease, tooth loss, digestive disorders, arthritis, dementia, heart disease, cancer and diabetes. A diet that is saturated with refined flour and sugars along with accompanying preservatives, colourings, trans-fatty acids and the rest do no good at all.

Energy sources during exercise

For all practical purposes, there are just two energy sources during exercise:

Fats – unlimited supply
Carbohydrates (CHO) – about 1.5 hours

As exercise intensity increases, so does the proportion of carbohydrate used - Intense exercise rapidly depletes these limited CHO stores

Signs of CHO depletion

• Fatigue
• Aching, heavy legs
• Difficulty changing gear
• Yawning, lack of concentration
• Bad temper
• Hypothermia
  

Conserve CHO stores by

• Training fat usage
• Replenishing CHO as you go
• Low intensity, steady-state pacing
  

General dietary recommendations for athletes

• Reduce intake of processed carbohydrates, including honey and sugar
• Reduce intake of processed grains, especially white flour
• Reduce potato consumption
• Reduce intake of highly processed foods
• Reduce intake of hard animal fats
• Reduce intake of carbonated drinks
• Reduce fruit juice consumption
  Reduce or eliminate reliance on caffeine drinks
• Eat more leafy greens and coloured veges
• Choose whole grain foods
• Eat more nuts
• Consume more quality oils
  Eat fish 2-3 times per week
• Eat marmite/vegemite daily
• Eat more raw fruit including berries

Supplementing
By following a healthy diet as outlined, a moderate approach to supplementation is all that is required to maintain optimum health and physical performance. There is no need to go overboard with supplementation. There is good evidence for adding the following extras to your healthy diet, if you feel so inclined:

Glucosamine and chondroitin powder - This will help protect your joints during periods of high wear and tear.Buy the powder – not the pills - these are over-priced and supply insufficient ingredients to be effective
Omega 3 oil - Such as flaxseed, olive and fish oil has a long list of health benefits that grows by the day and proving essential for athletes. During periods of low exposure to the sun such as during winter, or when confined indoors, such as when in hospital, have additional vitamin D in the form of 1-2 teaspoons of cod liver oil per day (Cod liver oil is a rich source of vitamin D).
Multi Vitamins - Principally the water soluble ones including vitamin E, vitamin C and all of the B group
Multi mineral - Chelated minerals are generally the most readily absorbed. Our soils and the foods that are grown in them are insufficient to meet daily needs of minerals, especially for athletes. An athletes needs more, the most important being magnesium and calcium.

Supplementation is recommended for those in heavy training or when recovering from ill health and I also recommend a daily nutrient-packed Super Smoothie.

Nutrition during endurance training sessions (longer than 2 hours)

• Learn to consume fluid sufficient to match fluid losses - Not too much and not too little. (1 Kg weight loss measured immediately after exercise = 1 liter of water).
• Train your system to use body fat during training by exercising once a week for longer than 1.5 hours without consuming any CHO and by having a diet that is low in refined CHO.
• Practice eating on the run 1x/wk and during morning sessions so that your stomach gets used to the sensation, if your competition demands eating and drinking on the run.
• Experiment with a cut down Super Smoothie. Keep it cool and out of the sun. Better still - make it up as you go.
• During a very long session, try stopping partway, have a few sandwiches, if you need to then continue on.

Example: Auckland to Wellington non-stop road race (Early 1970’s)
There was a direct relationship between competitors’ placings and daily calorie consumption. The lowest and most inconsistent calorie consumers did not finish or came well behind. It was won by Max Telford. Max consumed up to 14,000 calories/day. Max’s primary source of calories was Sustagen liquid meals which is similar to the Super Smoothie but not quite as good!

Nutrition during endurance competition (longer than 2 hours)
Note: You should have practiced this many times in training to ensure you can get through competition without suffering digestive upsets.

• The harder and more violent the exercise, the less fluids and solids it is possible to consume without digestive distress.
• Experiment with formulations and concentrations in training to settle on what works for you.
• Last three days prior to competition may include some extra carbohydrates, but remains essentially your healthy diet.
• Do not eat any heavy foods within 3 hours of running
  Have a Super Smoothie and/or sandwiches >1 hr before competition and another cut down Super Smoothie 15 minutes before starting. Cut down Super Smoothie every 1hr of running.
• Go easy while stomach contents settle – especially if running on a downhill
  ½ hr rest with food & liquid every 3 hrs – But don’t get cold and seize up!
  

If you hit the “wall”:

• Get extra carbohydrates on board
• Glucose drink
• Super Smoothie
• Hot, sweet cup of tea
• Rest ½ hour and/or do an extended period of power walking or other less strenuous exercise while energy levels are restored
• Check that you are not dehydrated/over hydrated?
• Are there signs of hypothermia/hyperthermia (Refer to my E-Book on Hypothermia and Sport)?
• Are you going too hard and depleting glycogen stores too fast?

My Blog and E-Publications have heaps of additional and detailed information about nutrition for sports and general health. Search for them (include the archives) and have a good read. The E-Book, Training for a Marathon by Lorraine Moller and me is probably the best start. If your question remains unanswered, then you will just have to send me an email and I will do the best I can to assist.

How do I determine how much and what to drink while training for a marathon?

Hi Gary, i"m a first timer doing the marathon (Rotorua) having trouble with the fluids, how much is too much, how much is too little? On my longer training days would a camel back be the answer as I run in the country, nowhere to get water on the way, my last long run [2hrs] came back feeling sick, light headed , not great, obviously not enough fluid, water or sports drink? your advice would be grateful.
Cheers Anon.
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Gary Moller comments:
The first thing to do is to have a method of feedback to determine if, in fact you are getting dehydrated and to determine your needs.

Weigh yourself immediately before you run and immediately after. What you have lost in weight is water. So, if you lost a Kg then that equates to 1 liter of water. Drink 1 1/2 liters over the next hour or so to make it up. Weighing regularly before and after runs gives you an idea of how much you are losing on a typical run (depending on factors like, temperature, humidity and pace, of course!) and therefore how much to drink during a run.

Learn to listen to your body signals. The weighing will help you to become sensitive to your body. Thirst is very useful - as long as you know how to listen carefully and respond early. Most people have no idea how to listen and therefore must resort to rote formulas for fluid consumption which I detest.

If you are suffering nausea and light-headedness after a long run, it could be worthwhile to purchase a blood pressure and heart rate monitor and take regular readings to determine what is happening to heart rate and blood pressure before and after a run. If you do so, then write to me with the reults to assist interpretation. Read these giudelines here for a good explanation about blood pressure.

When we lived in Putaruru all of our long Sunday runs with our Dad were in the forests of Tokoroa and the Mamaku. It was 2-3 hours before breakfast with no fluids. While this was tough I can assure you that I am still alive and in excellent health! My kidneys are fine. It seems the body does adapt if given the right nudging and time. In my sister Lorraine's case, being able to run very fast for 2.5 hours in heat and humidity with little more than a cup of water along the way was essential for winning an Olympic marathon medal in stinking hot Barcelona.

However, getting deathly dehydrated is probably not necessary in training for most and drinking a liter or so of water along the way is a good idea especially if the runner is a heavy sweater and the conditions warm.

I am not keen on carrying water when running. The risk of leg injury is high enough as it is and adding a Kg or two more onto the legs is adding to that risk. It is better to plan the course so that there is a drink station, like a tap or bottle along the way. This could be done by doing a couple of laps of a course from where the car is parked, or planting a bottle of water at the 1/2 way mark before you commence the run.

I do not recommend using a sports drink or similar when training. Water is best. You are using your long runs to stress your body's energy reserves and swigging sweet liquid is not going to allow this to happen. The sports drinks should be reserved for the actual race - not in training. However; if you are going to be running at pace, then you must ensure that you can tolerate sweet electrolyte drinks. Practice drinking your sports drink during some of your short, fast runs and see if it stays down. I have found that water is best when running; whereas sports drinks are fine for sports like cycling where there is less problems with jiggling and jostling of the gut. I prefer to make my own using Balance Elite but any of the commercial powders are fine. I have even taken to adding a teaspoon of Balance Glutamine to the mix to assist stamina and recovery and it seems to work. Read my e-book about training for a marathon which has plenty of training information.

When mixing your drinks, err on the dilute side. If the weather is hot and humid, then you need more liquid and less of the sugary stuff. If it is cold and wet, then you need less water and more of the sugars. If you are running very fast, then you may only tolerate a little fluid in your gut which is why having a good tolerance of dehydration is important for elite runners; whereas when running very slow, or walking, you should have no trouble drinking and your main risk might be death from drinking too much.

During the marathon, there are more than enough drink stations by the organisers so there is no need to carry your own. Run light. Drink early and listen to your body signals and respond accordingly.

The zen of running

GRASSHOPPER, BE YOUR SELF. AND NEVER FEAR THUS TO BE NAKED TO THE EYES OF OTHERS. YET, KNOW THAT MAN SO OFTEN MASKS HIMSELF. THAT WHAT IS SIMPLE IS RARELY UNDERSTOOD. THE DUST OF TRUTH SWIRLS, AND SEEKS ITS OWN CRACKS OF ENTRY. AND A TREE FALLING IN THE FOREST, WITHOUT EARS TO HEAR, MAKES NO SOUND. YET IT FALLS - Master Po from the original Kung Fu TV series.
I get a nasty headache whenever I hear some expert advising athletes that they must eat so many grams of this and that per hour and drink xyz Mls of water with various ingredients added to make it completely indigestible.

Sure there are some basic rules of thumb for how much to eat and drink on a run or ride and in certain conditions; but this this is almost as bad as trying to paint a masterpiece by numbers. Training and competing are as much an art as it is a science. Gosh! Why don't we just turn off our senses and hook oursleves up to intravenous drips, open the tap, turn up the iPod and run mindloessly until we drop!

Even though I have worked my way through the academics of sports nutrition (An excruciating experience) I have never gotten off on measuring how many grams of this and so many mls of that - I have always gone by the philosophy of learning to listen to my body and this is what I teach athletes to do. This is something I learned early on from my sister, Lorraine, who applied the concept with artful precision to have lasting success when running marathons very fast in extremes of weather.

Would you know it! - Humans have two little known sensory feedback systems that outperform the best of modern rechnology hands down - one is called thirst and the other is called hunger. "Now, little Grasshopper, listen to your body". This is something the modern urbanised human has long forgotten and since replaced with fancy machines, mathematical formula and white-coated experts. Thirst and hunger are extremely sensitive mechanisms that tell us what to do well before there is a decline in performance - if only we would sensitise our minds and listen and respond early enough to the subtle signals.

Listening to our very own in-built feedback systems has served us well since time began, enabling man to survive and even fluorish on next to nothing in the harshest environments. Our problem today is that we are forgetting how to use them.

Soggy Body Syndrome

Wayne Wrote:
the runner had extremely painful cramps through her body she described as more painful than breaking her arm, she lost all bodily functions, was vomiting for two days, I would say she was very lucky to have recovered, I've since spoken to her about more realistic fluid requirements for the marathon, she would have needed about a litre and a half of water provided it wasn't overly hot and even then another half a litre would have taken care of that a pinch of sea salt in a litre of water would have taken care of her salt needs. from sweat loss.

She was given the advice from non runners who thought they knew what they were talking about that she needed to drink plenty of water before the marathon, she started drinking copious amounts of water the night before the marathon, and in the morning before the marathon, she then proceeded to drink from every drink station until about two thirds or the way around she was unable to continue running , she was hospitalised for at least a day as a result, as you will be aware, it caused hyponatremia, diluted the salts in her body and flooded her cells with excess water causing loss of ability to maintain exercise or in the end even stand.
___________________________

Gary Moller Comments:
What Wayne describes here is the condition that I like to call "soggy body syndrome". It has been the biggest killer of runners and multisports athletes over recent years. It is rare in front runners simply because they are working too hard to swallow liters of water, are sweating heavily and are not out on the course long enough to do too much damage. It is the people who are towards the back of the field who are most at risk.

Prevention is as simple as drinking only as much as you need to replace most of what is being lost during an event. This means listening to your body and responding to its thirst signals. The advice that you often hear from "experts" and the sports water companies that thirst sensations happen too late to prevent dehydration is mostly rubbish - sure that may be the case for people who have not yet learned to listen to their bodies properly. Good athletes are good listeners; they learn through training to listen and respond early, sensitively and appropriately to the many signals that their bodies are sending all the time, including thirst. Those athletes who are not yet at one with their bodies can get some outside feedback assistance with learning by using some scales to weigh themselves before and after training and competition. This way they can calculate their exact fluid needs. 1kg of weight loss from an exercise session equals 1 liter of water which means needing to drink about 1 liter of water during a similar workout in the furure; depending, as well, on temperature and humidity.

Drink too much and you will slow down: Drink far too much and you will probably die.

Winning marathoners train for the conditions they expect to encounter, often including being able to tolerate extreme dehydration.
Hyponatraemia is easily confused with heat stroke and heat exhaustion and the treatment for each are very different (More about these in a future posting). Mass participation events should have medical and first aid personnel who have been trained to recognise and manage these. What I will say in the meantime is this condition is difficult to treat and requires immediate expert medical attention. Do not take any chances by doing a wait and see - get medical help if there is any suggestions of hyponatraemia.

Which sports drink is best?

Hello Gary:
I figure you'd have a very good idea of what are good energy drinks and which are just sugar water.....
I've recently begun running (well, jogging actually) and I'm trying to figure out what's a good sports drink to replenish the electrolytes I'm losing. I can't keep Gatorade down, never have been able to and I'm not sure why....
My goal is to finish a 5K this year - I know that's not very far, but because of my arthritis this will be a huge accomplishment for me. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Thanks for your time!

Shimmies, USA
___________________________
Gary Moller comments:

Shimmies, if you troll through my websites you will discover that I am not much of a promoter of sports drinks, especially the gels which are little more than excessively over-priced concentrated corn syrup in most cases.

• Electrolytes are best built up over months and even years, by a diet that is rich in leafy vegetables, organ meats like liver and broths made from stewing bones and gristle. You may also consider a multi mineral supplement that has magnesium in it. Nutralife Calcium Complete is a good one to consider.
• Even if you are sweating heavily, a properly nourished and acclimatised body can go for several days without suffering ill effects of electrolyte depletion. Train for the conditions that you expect to be competing in and you can drink plain water.
• Plain water is best, especially over short distances. Far too many people have trouble with keeping down electrolyte drinks, or avoiding digestive upset when exercising hard. Do not get sucked in by commercially flavoured drinks studies that try to convince you that their product is better.
• Read Training for a Marathon and take special note about how to make better use of your natural stores of energy.

Arthritis
If you have any form of joint arthritis, be it osteo or rheumatoid in nature, follow these general rules of thumb when running or walking:

• Vary the terrain and surfaces. Undulating off-road trails are best that require constant changing of pace, stride length and which challenge the reflexes.
• Do rhythmic calisthenic-type exercises that take the joints through their full range of motion. Conversly, avoid repetitive exercise, like shuffle running that does not take the joints through their range of motion.
• Do speed work on grass, regardless of fitness, at least once weekly with emphasis on increasing stride length and mobility.
• Get your vitamin D levels tested [25(OH)D]. If below a measure of 50, then get daily sunlight until measures exceed 50. Vitamin D is essential for strong bones and a stable immune system.
• Consume daily joint food. It is beneficial for rheumatoid as well as osteoarthritic conditions.
• Take a multi mineral that includes calcium and magnesium as per my earlier advice.
• Take additional Omega3 oils as both natural anti-inflammatories and for joint health.

Was it the barley sugar?

"How much sugar wud switch your body from running on body fat to runnning on sugar. for example would a single barley suger during a marathon switch ones body to suger as fuel???? the reason that I asked is because I was given a barley sugar just before the 20km hill I was going fine until then just over that hill I crashed and burned, the barley sugar was great to suck going up the hill but was it my undoing??"
- Anon
_______________________________

World class runners go at a pace so fast that it is
next toimpossible to take in carbohydrates and
only a few cups of water, so they train for this.

Dear Anon,
Sorry, Mate; but you can't blame the barley sugar for the crash and burn act. It was probably the 8 week build-up to the marathon that was your undoing.

Your inquiry raises a few interesting points that I will try to cover:

1. Do at least 12 weeks training before a marathon, preferably the best part of a year. Each week, at least one run should be long and slow and completed without sustenance other than water. Follow the guidelines in the "Training for a Marathon" e-pub. Have a diet that is low in refined carbohydrates (whole grains and unprocessed carbos are essential). It will take at least 12 weeks of this kind of training to adapt; and you will notice with delight that you can go longer and faster during these long runs without getting irresistible carbo-cravings.
2. Doing what is recommended in (1) will help your body conserve its internal carbohydrate stores during a race like a marathon, enabling you to run longer and faster before hitting the wall. While there is no "switch" between fat and carbohydrate metabolism (Useage is in terms of ratio, rather than just one or the other), there does come a critical point in body carbohydrate store depletion where the body and brain appear to do a sudden drop in performance - the wall. this can feel a bit like throwing a switch.
3. When you are running really hard, it is almost impossible to take in anything other than the smallest quanity carbohydrate without suffering disabling stomach upsets. This is why the training as outlined above (1) is so important. The only other way to avoid hitting the wall is to run much slower and to eat and drink as you go. But, the more you take in, the slower you must go and that means a long time out on the road, which can be just as hard as trying to go fast.
4. Trying to eat and drink, including sucking a barley sugar, when going at anything other than a slow pace also causes interference with breathing and running rhythm. This can force the runner ever so slightly into oxygen debt. This hastens the hitting the wall.

So Anon, when you felt yourself seizing up, the best thing you could have done was to slow right down and take on a dozen or so barley sugars, wait for the sugar to infuse the body and hope. However; with the lack of training, other metabolic problems compound the seizing up, such as the nervous system itself running out of gas (the muscles go into a kind of rigor mortis).

With regards to the barley sugars, there is an additional issue:
If you are breathing heavily, jostling and being distracted there is a serious risk of inhaling the barley sugar and chocking to death. This is why responsible coaches ban chewing gum and sweets during training and competition. Barley sugars are fine if only walking slowly; but not if the pace is brisk and definitely not if running. The better choice is a sugary drink and soft caramel bars.

However, Anon, if you start training now (you are allowed 10 days rest) you will find that everything is so much less complicated when you run your next marathon.