"While running 70 miles a week is preferable to never breaking a sweat in one's lifetime, unless you adhere to a perfectly compensatory diet crafted and monitored by sports nutritionists, high-volume exercise, year after year, is surprisingly bad for the body. Consistent, intense exercise significantly increases the generation of free radicals, which, in turn, cause cellular damage and amplify the chances of developing cancer and heart disease. Due to this unfortunate side effect, high-mileage runners don't live any longer than sedentary folk, so says my doctor, and if I want to continue living like I do - running as much as I want, staying fashionably thin year round and eating for taste rather than for nutrient content - I better get on board with a supplement regimen, however expensive, that can compensate for my unhealthy lifestyle.
"Unhealthy lifestyle? Wasn't I the paragon of health? Earlier the morning of my appointment, I had run 11 miles and eaten an energy bar, which, albeit, I chased down with 20 ounces of Diet Coke. But couldn't I afford a little carbonated aspartame in an otherwise routine diet of sports and engineered sports nutrition?
"Apparently not. The negative consequences of a 10-year exercise addiction were starting to show - and none too prettily, according to lab work. If I wanted to continue to train like I do, it was going to cost me - $228.27 a month, to be exact."
...
"Despite my supplement habit, a balanced diet is the best way to counter the overproduction of free radicals due to too much training. But how do you follow a balanced diet as an endurance athlete? Or, if you're like me and can't seem to eat enough of the green stuff, min chocolate chip ice cream aside, how do you supplement to offset a less than ideal diet?"
A few observations:
- This was in a triathlon magazine
- Even when doctors recognize that there is too much of a good thing, they prescribe supplements
- People do not want to give up their lifestyle
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