Balancing a Gluten Free Diet

I admit that with all the high fat days I’ve had lately I’ve felt a niggle of concern for how I will balance my diet later in my training plan when I switch from endurance work to more speed sessions. If I'm having trouble keeping my daily fat percentage below 30% what will I do when I when I'm looking to keep it below 20%? Like I've said before, fat is fine to fuel long slow runs, but fast runs and races need more carbohydrates. And getting enough complex carbohydrates is a common problem for Celiacs. Of course fruits and vegetables are great sources of gluten free complex carbohydrates without the fat, but aside from corn and potatoes, I would have to eat enormous quantities to provide enough calories to support my training.

Apparently the secret is sports drinks and pizza. I knew that my Sponser sport drink had a good 50g of carbohydrates and no fat, but I was really surprised that my portion of frozen gluten free pizza had over 65g of carbohydrates but only 7.5 grams of fat. This was a surprise because many gluten free products have a lot more fat that their traditional wheat based counterparts. For example, a normal slice of wholegrain bread has about 1g of fat, whereas a slice of gluten free brown bread has 5g of fat. The added fat helps to hold the gluten free product together and make it taste better. So while my two slices of gluten free brown bread provide 30g of carbohydrate (about 55% of calories), they also have 10 grams of fat (or 41% of calories). Which is why I was pleasantly surprised by the nutritional profile of the gluten free pizza I had last night. Proof that all foods can have a place in a healthy diet!

The Score:

Calories:	Protein:	Carbs:	Fat:	Alcohol:	Fibre:
1979.25	84.93g	277.89g	50.25g	8.0g	28.21g
	17%	56%	23%	3%
Calories burned through exercise:		691

What I ate:

Time	Item	Amount
09:30	Vitamins - Centrum Advance A to Zinc, 400iu of Vitamin E, 1000iu Vitamin D3 and 500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 each
	Cold water	200mL
	Mattesson's Turkey rashers	3 rashers
	Gluten Free fruit muesli	70g
	Alpro Soy milk	120mL
	Sainsbury's pressed apple and cherry juice	200mL
10:30	Black Tea	500mL
11:30	Raspberry and Echinacea tea	250mL
14:15	New Covent Garden Pea and Ham Soup	300g
	Genius brown bread	2 slices
	one slice with Sun Pat Peanut butter	14g
	and Honey	7g
14:45	Green Tea	250mL
15:45	Workout - resistance training + 28 minute run
	Sponser Isotonic sportdrink, fruit mix	about 58g
	in water	750mL
17:30	Sponser Protein Snack bar	1 bar
19:45	DS frozen gluten free mozzarella and tomato deep pan pizza	1/2 pizza
	with Sainsbury's Be Good to Yourself thick cut ham slices	46g
	and Dole pineapple slices in juice	46g
20:15	Lindt Excellence 70% cocoa dark chocolate	20g
	Graham's Port	50mL
22:30	Ellactiva Chocolate Calcium Chew	1 chew
	500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 pill

Plus 500 to 1500mL of cold water sipped from a water bottle throughout the day.