Healthy living tips?

If you think healthy living means choosing food according to how many calories it has and how many kilometers you’ll need to walk or run to burn all those calories off, then you’ve probably been receiving the City2Surf count-down emails too.    

If you haven’t, then let me tell you all about them.  I’ve received two count-down emails from the City2Surf organisers now; one at six weeks to go and one at five weeks to go.  And within the email there’s a section titled ‘Healthy living tips’, because “If you are in training for the City2Surf [a 14k run from the City to Bondi Beach], it’s important to combine your exercise regime with healthy eating habits.” 

Trouble is, everyone, and I mean everyone seems to think of health in terms of losing weight these days.  After reading their emails I think the City2Surf organisers are no exception.  Just to get it out of my system and make me feel a little better I’ve summarised the tips as follows. 

1. You eat roasts on Sunday?!  Oh My God that means you eat THREE tubs of margarine a year!  I mean I know you think you’ve eaten a roast, but really it’s just like eating margarine, so we may as well call it margarine.  And that means you’ll have to walk a gazillion kilometers every year to get rid of all that margarine.   
2. You drink regular milk?  Gasp!  Why would you drink regular milk when you can drink skinny milk which means you can eat chocolate as well!  The calories are the same you know? 
3. You’re planning on drinking that milk-shake?  You know you’re gonna have to run another gazillion kilometers to get rid of the calories in that?

I really hate when people pretend to talk about food in terms of exercising and being healthy.  Real healthy eating tips for exercising aren’t about losing weight, they’re about ensuring you’ve got enough energy to run, and you’re hydrated enough to run, and you’re eating enough of the right food to recover after you’ve run.