Food intolerances and running

There’s a lot in the media at the moment about food allergies, but what they are generally referring to are not allergies at all but intolerances.

Allergies, such as an allergy to nuts, are much more serious and can even lead to death, whereas an intolerance is much milder, but still very inconvenient. These include yeast and dairy, conditions that many of us suffer from but still don’t realise.

Many runners suffer from the infamous ‘runner’s trots’, a condition that is pretty self-explanatory and a sure way of ruining a good training session or race. How many times though have you put it down to a dodgy curry or a bad piece of meat? You could actually be suffering from intolerance to a particular food group that over a period of time (and often as you get fitter) exhibits itself in the most frustrating manner.

Take for example intolerance to dairy (lactose) products. Here, one of us has developed a particularly nasty aversion to milk, cheese, yoghurt and the like, which over the years he put down to simply being a vegetarian.

His symptoms need little explanation suffice to say that many a race was ruined before he found out what the problem was. Now he’s on a dairy free diet and every race and training run can be approached without first finding out where the nearest toilets are located.

So how can you find out if you have a problem? The two easiest ways are firstly to visit your doctor and get details of a specialist in this area. You can do various tests during which intolerances can be ascertained fairly quickly.

The alternative is to go on a detox programme. This sounds a lot worse than it is! It’s basically drinking a prune juice based liquid for a few days or taking a series of plant extract pills to cleanse your system. You then add back in various foods into your diet until one of them causes a reaction. You’d be surprised how many runners do have a problem, whether it’s lactose, yeast or even fruit intolerances.