[Sportsandrec] Intro and Sports Nutrition Related Question

[Ryan Carsey]

Hi,

My name is Ryan. I thought I would introduce myself, and follow up
with a question about sports nutrition.

Since the age of 16, I have been big in to distance running. I haven't
run in a race over a 5K yet, but I am currently training to run in a
Marathon. I have plenty of milage under my belt, and plan to run in
races of various distances to build up to the Marathon. Some day, I
hope to run in the Boston Marathon, and perhaps participate in
ultra-distance races, which are races over the 26.2 mile distance of
the Marathon. I love seeing how far I can go.

More recently, I have made an effort to make better nutritional
habits, and the results are astounding. I used to think it didn't
matter what I ate, because being an endurance athlete meant I would
burn off whatever I ate anyway. Now that I eat more whole grain foods,
fruits, vegetables, less red meat, etc., as well as making more of an
effort to stay hydrated throughout the day, I have so much more energy
before, during and after my runs. I've found I don't usually feel
exhausted for very long after high interval speed workouts, thus I can
push myself a lot harder than I used to.

My question isn't about what foods are good to eat or when, but more
specifically, how I can tell how many calories I am taking in. I have
read some books in regards to sports nutrition, and they don't seem to
tell you how you know this. At least one or two encourage the reader
to look at food labels to obtain this information, which as of now I
can't do, because I don't have any bar code reader or scanner. Just
about all of these books strongly encourage distance runners to keep
track of the calories they eat. So, to those of you coaches,
experienced runners and endurance athletes, or anyone who has a
background with sports nutrition, what advice do you have? Is there a
formula that applies to each food group? Or, is there a book(s) that
you know of that can be of help?

Thanks in advance, and I'm looking forward to becoming more involved
with this group.

Ryan