Winner of AJC Peachtree past a healthy promoter of Waffle House

Gayle Barron won the first AJC Peachtree Road Race 40 years ago, won it four more times and won the Boston Marathon.

She is a member of the Georgia and Atlanta sports halls of fame, a paragon of fitness. So who better than Barron to tout the potential health benefits of a breakfast at — wait for it — Waffle House?

"I'm trying to say that, 'Look, if you are on a diet and you want to eat healthy, there are healthy things you can eat at Waffle House,' " Barron said, "because nobody thinks there is."

In particular, Barron plugs her favorite meal — grilled chicken, steamed hash browns and scrambled eggs. Barron says she first tried it 10 years ago, when her running group went to a Waffle House one morning for a post-run breakfast.

Since then, she has eaten at the chain — she lives close to a Waffle House on Atlanta Road off of I-285 — as often as three times a week.

She likes the marinated chicken breast so much she asked the company to send it to her home by the case.

She has eaten at Waffle House since her childhood, when the original Waffle House in Avondale Estates was a couple doors down from her parents' furniture store.

Said Barron, "It's fast, it's easy, the people are friendly."

Barron has been the Atlanta-based company's health and fitness spokeswoman since 2006, a year after it became a sponsor of the Peachtree. The offer to represent the company developed from a conversation Barron had with executives After hearing about her taste for the grilled chicken, Barron said, they invited her to spread the word on behalf of Waffle House.

Mostly, Barron makes appearances at road races, where her running fame endures.

"She's kind of trying to promote a healthy lifestyle," Waffle House spokeswoman Kelly Thrasher said. "You can still eat out and still eat healthy."

Of course, you don't necessarily have to. On the Waffle House Web site home page, for example, there are pictures of its trademark waffle supporting a scoop of butter, a bacon cheeseburger with hash browns covered in cheese, and a T-bone steak with hash browns and toast. The bacon cheeseburger plate does include lettuce, onion and tomato.

Barron herself indulges in hash browns "smothered and covered" — with onions and cheese.

"They're just hometown cooking and it's gone well for them," Barron said.

How best to describe the stance of Michael Eriksen, professor and director of the Georgia State University Institute of Public Health, regarding a restaurant chain that sells 2.5 waffles per second but touts health and fitness?

Would it be to say that he waffles?

He likes that nothing is deep fried and that the meals are prepared in front of customers. He regularly takes his two boys there.

However, "Waffle House can do better in having more salads and fruits and healthier choices available in addition to their traditional menu," he said.

Barron, who runs 15-20 miles a week, will run her 31st Peachtree Saturday, decked out in the company colors. She will also be at the pre-race expo at the InterContinental Hotel, where the plan is to offer not waffles, but grilled chicken samples.

Said Barron, "I've never heard anybody say they didn't like it."

How many calories?

Waffle House's grilled chicken dinner, made Gayle Barron's way with steamed hash browns and scrambled eggs, costs $6.50 and, more importantly, contains about 630 calories and 21 grams of fat, according to registered dietician Cristina Caro. (Waffle House does not publish nutritional data of its food, and only provided information about the chicken.) As Caro sees it, the fat content isn't bad, nor are the calories. She does think the protein — about 39 grams in two eggs and two 3-ounce pieces of chicken — is high, given her daily recommendation for about 49 grams.

Caro patronizes Waffle House and said "there's nothing wrong with going to Waffle House" on occasion. Were she to go for breakfast, she might get a scrambled egg sandwich and maybe hash browns, with onions and peppers.