Getting emotional about food • September 27, 2006 | 9:32 a.m.

I am seeing food in a completely different way now that Madelyn Fernstrom from “Today” and Liz Applegate from Runner’s World magazine have set me straight on its true purpose: fuel for the body. You need a certain amount of carbs, protein, and fat, in order for your body to function optimally. This is not very different from a car needing oil, fluids, and gas to run smoothly. I don’t know why it took me over four decades to understand this, but now that I do, I’ve changed my eating habits for the better. I am drinking way more water than I ever have, and I am eating fruits, vegetables, and proteins in larger quantities than ever before.

I don’t want to suggest that the story ends there and that my new leaf is permanently glued right side up. The car analogy is working for me at the moment, but I know that there are some powerful emotions tied up in food and this is where the analogy falls apart. None of the cars I’ve ever owned have gotten emotional about gas and oil. But food for me has been at the heart of many different emotions. I almost salivate when I ogle the extraordinary coconut cream pie at my favorite restaurant. And I experience comfort, pleasure, satisfaction, and even pride when I eye my gorgeous Thanksgiving meal the moment before my guests begin to devour it.

And I can’t forget the negative emotions — the revulsion, disgust, and even the pain — I felt during a brief period when bananas caused blisters in my mouth.  Negative emotions associated with food can be particularly difficult to forget. When I was 10, I watched a Burt Reynolds movie, while struggling through a stomach virus. To this day, I can’t watch that movie without feeling slightly queasy.

So there are two masters to serve when it comes to food: my body and my brain, or at least the part of my brain driving my emotions. I need to please both to win my battle with food.  If I do what is right for my body and tell my brain to stay out of it, it will be very disappointed and most likely direct me to the nearest Dairy Queen in protest. On the other hand, if I give my brain what it desires, I will struggle to eat the right foods — in the right quantities — for my body.

Of course, this is battle many of us have to contend with every single day. But for those of us who are long-distance runners, there are additional dietary considerations. We need more complex carbs and lean protein to give us sustained energy during long runs and to help repair our muscles afterwards.

You can think of this as a game albeit with some pretty silly rules. My game looks something like this:

There are two beasts to feed:

1. The brain, which wants what it wants.
2. The body, which needs carbohydrates to create the energy needed for running.

If you give both beasts exactly what they crave, you will be obese and die of heart disease. Here are the rules of the game today (they change frequently):

• You must maintain a ratio of 50 percent carbs, 25 percent protein and 25 percent fat or you will not run as well as you could, according to Madelyn Fernstrom’s book, “The Runner’s Diet: The Ultimate Eating Plan That Will Make Every Runner (and Walker) Leaner, Faster, and Fitter.”
• You must not exceed your maximum caloric intake on any given day. Consequence again is obesity.
• You must keep your sugar intake in check because it’s bad for you. (My rule: each person will have one or two). Consequences are cancer, failing memory, and heart disease, if you believe the bad press.
• You must have eight or more glasses of water a day. Consequences are difficult long runs due to dehydration and shriveled, drying, old, leather-like skin … or so they say.
• You must eat fruits and veggies or will suffer a lack of energy and not get up the hills or finish the long runs.
• You must cut back on caffeine. In my game, I think both of my beasts are addicted to coffee. When I want another cup of joe, I am never to sure if it’s physical or mental.

In trying to satisfy these rules over the last week, I’ve found that low-fat cheese is much like eating a substance meant for sneaker production. I’ve also found that my brain is persistent and annoying when walking past a Mister Softee ice cream truck. I hear comments from inside my head sounding like “Go ahead, the cones are small, there’s protein in ice cream, isn’t there? Don’t be so joyless, girl, it’s only a little ice cream for God’s sake.”  Unlike my mind, my body remains mute at the moment when I am cheating it out of the fuel it needs. It is silent and doesn’t complain at all. Until later, that is, when it refuses to keep running or stay awake when I need it.  So I have to remember that the effects of my bad food decisions are not immediate, but I’ll eventually feel them.

Obviously, the solution is to eat foods that taste good and are healthy. Maybe it’s not that difficult and I am making a bigger deal out of this than I should. I can’t really say since I’ve never tried very hard to find these foods before. I have a few in my collection and am building my repertoire daily.  I still hate lima beans and peas, and I don’t intend to even try changing those long-standing prejudices. But I have recently discovered tofu and am serving two vegetables at my dinner table instead of one, thanks to Liz Applegate’s good advice. Who knows, maybe I’ll even get adventurous at some point and try a spinach shake.

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