The Rat-Race Diet

You've just finished the annual physical and you're eager to get back to work. Your doctor, though, is about to launch into his yearly speech about your lifestyle--how you work too hard, don't eat sensibly enough, worry too much, overindulge. You also know what he'll suggest: a diet regimen that will probably read like something the ayatollah cooked up.

Wouldn't it be nice, you think, if some good doctor somewhere came up with a nutritional plan that acknowledged that most of us live in the real world?

Voilà! I offer you the Rat-Race Diet, based on the principle that you shouldn't have to feel bad just because you're living well. Yes, it still makes sense to moderate your indulgences and reduce your stresses--but since we live in an imperfect world and no doctor's prescription is going to change that fact, it does make sense to adapt the diet to the person, rather than the other way around. After all, unless you're seriously ill, you shouldn't have to ransom your entire lifestyle to feel healthy.

But first, some background. Whenever you rev up your body's engines to perform heroically--in times of high pressure, low sleep, prolonged work or play--you burn up the ration of vitamins and nutrients the body needs to work efficiently. It's also just at those pressure points that you may rely on various substances to help you make it through. Unfortunately, those substances--alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, marijuana, tranquilizers, narcotics, amphetamines, even antihistamines--make major withdrawals from your vitamin stores. Those depletions, significant in the best of times, make for a double whammy when you're under a lot of tension. When stress is burning up your reserves, you've got to make sure you take enough extra on board to compensate.

Stress depletes an alphabet of vitamins--A,B,C,D and E--but the main problems come with the B-complex and C vitamins. Those are particularly depleted by a stressful lifestyle. When we're in balance, they work like additives in a finely tuned engine. The B vitamins help keep nerves running in smooth synchrony. Without enough of them, we get anxious, depressed, irritable, fatigued and sometimes suffer memory lapses--the classic symptoms of stress burnout. And--let's face it--the human organism hasn't spent three billion years evolving from swamp ooze in order to be depressed, grouchy and tired all the time. Vitamin C also helps us deal with stress by strengthening the body's immune system, as well as by destroying toxins produced in the body.

If you're burning it at both ends, chances are you're also reducing your mineral stores. Studies show that a person under stress burns up far greater amounts of zinc, calcium, iron, magnesium, molybdenum, potassium and sulphur than his nonstressed counterpart.

With that in mind, then, I've designed the following series of meals and snacks to help keep you running at your best under the demands of the real world.

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Suppose it's salary-review time again and you've got the big meeting with the top brass this afternoon. You want to be alert but calm, clearheaded and steady. Lost your copy of Eat to Win? Don't worry--try the

[recipe_title]Salary-Review Salad[/recipe_title]

You'll probably find this under the name of chef's salad at your local restaurant, but it should include

[recipe]Lettuce greens[/recipe]

[recipe]Egg (protein gives sustained energy release)[/recipe]

[recipe]Turkey (high in the amino acid tryptophan)[/recipe]

[recipe]Tomatoes, green peppers or broccoli (high in vitamin C)[/recipe]

[recipe]Cheese (protein, for sustained energy release; calcium)[/recipe]

[recipe]Yellow vegetables (good source of vitamin A)[/recipe]

The Salary Review Salad, eaten about an hour before the big meeting, will give you maximum levels of energy and alertness for several hours. The principle here is "Less is more": Your faculties will be sharpest if your body doesn't have to work overtime to digest a heavy starch meal. Likewise, avoid refined sugars, the junk food that sends your blood sugar soaring and then crashing with a thud.

If there's a longer, sustained period of grueling work ahead, the same principle applies: When you need the most out of your engine, run it clean. You need more than one recipe, so try the more general

Down-to-the-Deadline Plan

Go for high proteins and low fats here: lean meats, chicken and fish. Don't overcook the meats--when you're under stress, that's just when you need every microgram of vitamin and mineral content. Supplement these high-protein foods with moderate amounts of vegetables and a lesser amount of fruits. Until you meet that important deadline, try to avoid sugar, caffeine and simple carbohydrates--cakes, cookies, candy--which create energy peaks and valleys, the last things you need when you're under creative pressure. The high protein and low fat of the Down-to-the-Deadline Plan have a natural time-release effect that keeps your energy level continuously high until you finish the job.

Once the work's done, you know (don't you?) that you should go home and get some sleep. But where's the fun in that? It feels more natural to go out and celebrate. Suppose, though (for the sake of this article), that you had dutifully gone home to sleep. You knew you needed some Zs, but your body wasn't cooperating. Sleep problems may be one of the first signs that you've gotten yourself into a high-tension cycle. Since insomnia is often caused by tension, the nutrients mentioned earlier to give energy also help restore the balance the body needs for a sound, restful sleep. On the theory that one of the least interesting things to do in a bed is to lie awake all night in it alone, here's my

[recipe_title]Guaranteed Crash-Out Cocktail[/recipe_title]

[recipe]One hour before bed, mix[/recipe]

[recipe]1 cup fresh pineapple[/recipe]

[recipe]1 cup yogurt (room temperature)[/recipe]

[recipe]500 mg. of the B vitamin inositol[/recipe]

Yogurt is very high in tryptophan--an amino acid that helps induce sleep. (Tryptophan, which is present in all dairy products, is the reason warm milk helps some people sleep.) The yogurt is also high in calcium, conducive to good sleep. My practice has shown inositol to be a natural, safe sleeping aid. It's a good idea to take 500 mg. of it sometime during the day, as well as the 500 in this recipe.

Don't eat a lot before bedtime. When your system is busy digesting, it keeps you from falling asleep easily and makes it hard to bound out of bed in the morning.

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It's no secret that many of the things that we enjoy most take a toll on our bodies' reserves. Take alcohol, for instance:

Years of arduous medical research have shown that whenever the human animal gets into a serious wrestling match with alcohol, alcohol wins. However, the human animal tends to forget that between times, which is why we occasionally end up needing a little help the morning after. The good news here is that reasonable attention to vitamins and minerals can take the sting out of the morning after. But first, the short course I call Hangover 101.

When your body metabolizes alcohol, your kidneys sluice a tremendous volume of water through themselves to flush out the alcohol from the blood--the familiar "straightened pipes" we all know so well. This dehydration is why your morning mouth tastes as if a gopher slept in it and why drinking a pitcher of water before you hit the sack will reduce hangover.

But with the water go both the watersoluble vitamins--B1, B6 and B12, folic acid and vitamin C--and minerals. Those elements are vital to nervous-system functioning, and their depletion can contribute to a hangover. That's why heavy drinkers can be susceptible to anxiety, fatigue, insomnia, low energy, irritability, depression and mental confusion. Vitamin loss also lowers the drinker's resistance to colds, flu and other infections making the rounds.

You don't have to drink to great excess to feel those effects--three predinner cocktails can leave you feeling tired and ill the next day. But they don't have to. Moderate drinking is fine if you're careful to replace those lost vitamins and minerals, which is the idea behind the

"I can't believe I drank the whole thing"

[recipe_title]Hangover Breakfast[/recipe_title]

[recipe]Totter to the kitchen--quietly. Blend 1 egg[/recipe]

[recipe]4 ozs. orange juice[/recipe]

[recipe]8 ozs. yogurt[/recipe]

[recipe]1 banana[/recipe]

[recipe]Handful of almonds or sesame seeds[/recipe]

[recipe]2 tablespoons wheat germ[/recipe]

[recipe]100 mg. vitamin B1[/recipe]

[recipe]3 grams vitamin C[/recipe]

The depletions caused by alcohol can also be caused by the caffeine contained in coffee, tea and chocolate. Caffeine acts as a diuretic and may cause the kidneys to flush vitamin and mineral reserves.

That loss, in addition to the stimulation of caffeine itself, accounts for a wide range of bad effects on the nervous system, including "coffee nerves," inability to concentrate and sleep problems. But you can undo a lot of the damage. Whether you're a two-cups-before-you-open-your-eyes kind of coffee drinker or you just down a cup or two at work, you can use a (continued on page 195)Rat-Race Diet(continued from page 116) little extra vitamin help. With the next cup, choose an item from the

[recipe_title]Calm-the-Java-Jitters Menu[/recipe_title]

[recipe]Peanut-raisin mix (high in B vitamins)[/recipe]

[recipe]Bran muffins with lots of apricots or raisins (B vitamins)[/recipe]

[recipe]Fresh orange slices or strawberries (high in C)[/recipe]

Of course, many people would prefer to have a cigarette with their coffee. The Surgeon General has determined that 98 percent of all smokers' eyes glaze over when they read the warning labels on cigarette packs. That's not to make light of the findings on smoking but to state the obvious: A lot of people now do, and will continue to, smoke.

What those people may not have heard is just how smoking depletes the body's vitamin reserves--and how that can be counteracted. Normally, such vitamins as B1, B6 and C lubricate the human engine--particularly the nervous system--keeping it ticking smoothly and efficiently. If you don't mind your Bs and Cs, you get anxious, irritable, jumpy--that's what "smokers' nerves" and "nic fits" are all about. Smoking an average cigarette uses up 25 mg. of vitamin C. That means a two-pack-a-day habit uses up 1000 mg.--more vitamin C than most of us take in during a day. That creeping loss kicks off an insidious cycle. The worse it gets, the more people feel they need to smoke. The result is a cumulative deficit cycle that looks like the Reagan budget.

Vitamins also have a more direct role. Certain vitamins may even help protect us against lung cancer and other cigarette-related illnesses. More than half of all human cancer--including lung cancer--starts in epithelial tissue, the cells lining most of our organs and glands. That tissue needs vitamin A to develop normally; without enough, it starts showing precancerous changes. Some recent research suggests that vitamin A may protect directly against the effects of certain carcinogens.

The ideal food for smokers would have ample doses of vitamins A, B complex, C, E and beta-carotene, as well as a load of zinc, which helps strengthen our immune system. By no small coincidence, those are just the ingredients in the

[recipe_title]No-Lose Nicotine Nosh[/recipe_title]

[recipe]Dried apricots (high in vitamin A)[/recipe]

[recipe]Dried pineapple (vitamin C)[/recipe]

[recipe]Sunflower seeds (zinc and vitamin E)[/recipe]

[recipe]Pumpkin seeds (zinc)[/recipe]

Keep a bowl of this mix in your desk, and next time you reach for a smoke, do your cells a favor and help yourself to a few good handfuls.

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Many of the patients I see in my practice complain of a general loss of interest in sex or, sometimes, trouble getting or keeping an erection. That can happen to young guys who have no history of problems but who've become so anxious and tired that they're just too distracted to be interested in sex. It's the ultimate downside risk, one of the most insidious tolls you can pay if you travel in the fast lane.

A lack of vitamins can turn our sex drive way down. For a lot of men, the problem disappears when they start the solid antistress regimen I outline here. Then again, when the male animal starts acting more like a vegetable, the answer may well be mineral. I've seen in my own practice that both impotence and lowered libido can respond almost immediately to magnesium supplements.

With my male patients, I've become convinced that the single most essential mineral for healthy male sexual function is zinc. The prostate gland and its secretions have some of the strongest concentrations of zinc in the body. Low zinc is thought by some to result not only in decreased potency but also in the production of non-motile, useless sperm. High zinc content is what gives oysters their reputation as aphrodisiacs. Zinc also strengthens the body's immune system, to help keep our resistance to colds, flu and infections high. As you might guess by now, these minerals are just the ones that tend to get wasted by the indulgences of a hard-driving lifestyle, and that can have its effects in the bedroom. (Why do you think the Government calls them "vital strategic minerals"?) Well, if hoarding them makes sense for Uncle Sam, it makes sense for all of us. We can all boost our inventory of zinc and other minerals so that when we need them, we've got them. But before you head out to gnaw on galvanized nails, try

[recipe_title]The Aphrodisiac Dinner[/recipe_title]

1/2 lb. medium-rare liver; don't overcook. (If liver turns your stomach, try lightly cooked fish, high in vitamin E.)

Sautéed mushrooms

Sweet potatoes (vitamins A, C and E)

Asparagus or broccoli (more vitamin E)

Since we're on the subject, there's a more indirect way a rigorous lifestyle can take its toll on your sex life. Hundreds of drugs prescribed to help us cope with high-stress conditions are notorious for causing impotence. The most commonly prescribed drugs for blood pressure, nerves and ulcers all can have this side effect. Check this possibility with your doctor if you take any of them.

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So the bottom line is that you don't have to move to an ashram, start running 40 miles every morning or go macrobiotic to stay healthy. Of course, if you want to, great; help yourself. But if not, what you can do is arm yourself through your food with the proper nutritional support you need for the stresses of your lifestyle. By making your diet work for you, you can get the extra nutritional support you need to survive--even flourish--in the fast lane.

One other thing: Don't make the mistake of thinking that you're getting enough vitamins and minerals if you're getting the Government-approved R.D.A. (recommended dietary allowance) or the obsolete M.D.R. (minimum daily requirement). The Government scientists say that those levels provide enough nutrients to keep you healthy. Granted, you won't get scurvy or rickets if you stick to the R.D.A., but beyond that, I believe that those standards are pretty useless. In the best of times, we need significantly higher levels of nutrients to really boost our health and make us feel great. And the harder your work and play, the more you have to increase the vitamins and nutrients to give your body a fighting chance.

Ask your pharmacist for a chart showing the optimal and maximum daily levels of vitamins and minerals. Start with the lowest listed optimal level. Stay at that for at least one week, then gradually increase the dosage by weekly 50 percent increments. For example, start with 500mg. of vitamin C. Each week, increase your daily dosage by half: 500mg., 750mg., 1000mg. or the nearest approximate dosage level--but don't exceed the maximum. And be patient--it may take weeks or months before you feel the full improvement in your health. But then, think of all the partying you can do in the meantime....

"When the male animal starts acting more like a vegetable, the answer may well be mineral."