Wheat free fuelling for exercise

With my husband currently undergoing very aggressive treatment for cancer I thought that the least I could do would be to do a run in aid of cancer research. So on September 16 I will be running 10km for The Terry Fox Foundation. This is a worldwide run and to date over $400 million dollars has been raised for a really amazing foundation. Read the story of Terry Fox and you can't fail to be amazed and touched, and this is what drives people to all turn out on the same day for a fun run yet with a vitally important purpose.

And of course on other runs, which can be much longer than 10km, then taking on some fluid and food is recommended, though not always followed, I just can't perfect the eating while running thing.

You may be wondering what doing a fundraising run has to do with wheat allergies, but in fact it has a lot to do with it. Namely what do I eat or drink for sports fuel while I'm training. Obviously with a 10km run I can get away with no "in run" fuelling, but I'll need to chug some serious fluid and nosh some nutrient dense calories when I finish.

So what is about at the moment for people with wheat & gluten problems? Well surprisingly there are quite a few products on the market that people with a wheat allergy or intolerance or coeliac (celiac) disease can use during or after sports activities.

We recently tested some Jigsaw Bars that Jigsaw Health sent to us. And we liked them, if you'd like to read just how much we liked them click here for our review.

But what else is there? Our food for sport page also has a few other products that we've tried in the past, however they are not all wheat & gluten free. Some contain oats, so coeliacs beware.

Plus we've recently been trying Ultima Replenisher, Clif Shot Bloks and Sharkies. All of which are gluten free, with Sharkies taking the time to also label their pack 'wheat free' as well as 'gluten free'.

And do they work? Well if you have a wheat allergy or coeliac disease and you exercise hard you'll want to replenish your energy levels during exercise and also afterwards. We will have full reviews of these products coming in the future, but suffice it to say, so far we've found that they do what they say, although you might possibly do just as well with jelly beans which are cheaper.

I am also very pleased to note that using the Ultima drink after a long run cut my leg pain during the following night (my strange version of "long run day bedtime cramp") from horrible to just a few twinges the very first time I tried it.

So there are a lot of sports products available for people with wheat allergy or intolerance or coeliac disease. Manufacturers of sports products seem to appreciate that wheat isn't a necessary additive for sports performance bars, chews and drinks. Well a lot of them have anyway.

But despite all the products on the market for during and after exercise, my favourite pre-exercise food is always going to be the good old banana.