Book Excerpt from Healthy Running, Step by Step

PROBLEM #1: Runners Don't See the Big Picture
Some runners hate the gym but love to stretch. Some hate both stretching and weight training. And most seem to think that because they work out so much, they can eat whatever they like.

Too often I meet runners who fall in love with running but pick and choose from the other aspects of training that they need to keep them running injury-free. This is especially true for those not focused on performance, who don't necessarily care whether they get on the podium because they just run for the love of it.

Well, the fact is that runners can't just run-and they can't cherry-pick. To keep your running injury-free, stay healthy, and protect against common running injuries that can sideline you for a while or end your running career, and alter your lifestyle, you have to do all the things that you may not like doing, such as stretching, lifting weights, eating better, and correcting your running mechanics. These four training variables-structural integrity, metabolic efficiency, nutritional optimization, and running technique- are no secret, because the healthiest, most successful athletes do them. I've come to call them the Four Pillars of Health and Performance.

Over the years, as I scrutinized the most successful athletic programs anywhere-for example, USC football, the Los Angeles Lakers, and, most of all, Bob Kersee's track and field group-it has become clear that they were successful year after year because they stayed focused on all of the Four Pillars. Ignore any of them for too long, and you will run into problems.

For instance, if you don't improve your structural integrity-the strength and flexibility of joints, bones, muscles, and connective tissue-you will be unable to perform correct running mechanics, and eventually overburden your body as it struggles to withstand excessive forces. If you don't pay attention to your metabolic efficiency-particularly the ability to use fat as a major fuel source for running-you will fatigue early in your workout and risk injury, as your deteriorating muscle function causes you to suffer strains and sprains. Ditto if you don't optimize your nutrition to support your training and recovery efforts. And the best-trained and -fed runner can still wreck his joints without adopting the proper running technique.

Bottom line: You can't run in isolation or train just some of the Four Pillars and expect not to break down. You have to pay some attention to each of these key areas of training. Ideally, you work them simultaneously.

The Real Reason Wheat is Toxic >> The Healthy Home Economist

by The Healthy Home Economist

The stories became far too frequent to ignore.

Emails from folks with allergic or digestive issues to wheat in the United States experienced no symptoms whatsoever when they tried eating pasta on vacation in Italy.

Confused parents wondering why wheat consumption sometimes triggered autoimmune reactions in their children but not at other times.

In my own home, I've long pondered why my husband can eat the wheat I prepare at home, but he experiences negative digestive effects eating even a single roll in a restaurant.

There is clearly something going on with wheat that is not well known by the general public. It goes far and beyond organic versus nonorganic, gluten or hybridization because even conventional wheat triggers no symptoms for some who eat wheat in other parts of the world.