“Woke up this morning, you got a blue moon in your eyes.” – A3 “Woke Up This Morning”
When I was a kid I had the great misfortune of having to go to a Catholic school. The biggest problem with all of it was that I was taught by nuns. For those who didn’t have this experience, let me enlighten you. Nuns, in my opinion, are unattractive dykes who couldn’t get laid even by a guy desperate for drug money. If you think I’m being too harsh, believe me when I tell you that I watered that last statement down. Needless to say, I hate these sadistic bitches. I would have called them sadistic cunts, but some women take offense to the “c-word.” Early on, around first or second grade (which I remember like it was yesterday), one of these daughters of Jesus was teaching the class oral hygiene. It was funny because most of these nuns had the breath of an oxidation pond. But I digress. She said in order to get your teeth clean, you should always use a hard toothbrush, and always brush until you bleed. Being a kid who always followed instruction, I did just that. From the time I was 8 until the time I was 20 (quick math: 12 years), if I didn’t bleed when I spat, I kept brushing. It wasn’t until a dentist got a hold of me at 20. He said if my gums eroded anymore, they’d have to graft. He introduced me to a soft toothbrush, and showed me the correct way to brush. I told you that to tell you this. All too often we hang on to truths that we believe are helping us. For instance, when I was a kid, there was a great product available. It came in a 32-ounce glass bottle and it only had one flavor, lemon lime. It was called Stokely’s Gatorade. Back then it was made with cane sugar and it had a fair amount of electrolytes. That was back in 1974. I remember after each day of practicing football in the southern Louisiana heat, I would drag my ass a block over from the practice field to Bellina’s. It was a little convenience store owned by an Italian family in my hometown. I’d get myself a bottle for 35 cents. It was the perfect recovery drink. But not anymore. As with most good things, it got bastardized. At some point bigger companies bought the original product. Pepsi ended up owning it. The product became watered down…literally. It lost most of its electrolytes and gained something even worse, corn syrup (or fructose, as it’s commonly called). The reason I bring any of this up is because of a phone conversation I had with my buddy Jon the other day. I’ve mentioned him before in this blog. He and I played high school football together. He now lives in Florida with his wife and kid. He’s on the eve of doing his first full Ironman. Jon had read the blog I had done a while back on electrolytes. He decided to look into some of the products I had mentioned. I asked Jon what he was using. He said Gatorade. He seemed shocked when I told him a margarita had more electrolytes than Gatorade. He then corrected me and said, “I’m using G2.” This is Gatorade saying they put less sugar in. But guess what folks, it’s still high in sugar. Trust me, if a drink tastes anything like Kool-aid, you’re not doing yourself any favors. A full Ironman will probably take Jon the better part of 15 hours to complete. He would have developed stomach distress long before he finished, which would have probably ended his event with a DNF, nullifying the months and years of hard work to get to that one event. Just thinking out loud for you readers, I will do a blog soon on the effects of sugar on athletic competition, not to mention the effects it has on obesity.
