Little Experiment

[cajunthunder]

Saturday morning I decided to try having a more substantial carb breakfast before working out with my trainer. I had a pack of instant oatmeal (no real stuff in the house - and yea I know oatmeal is waaaay down the road), added cream, a pat of butter and a sprinkle of Splenda - and with that I had 3 pieces of bacon. I had no trouble working out with her for 50 minutes, then doing 53 minutes of cardio. Felt great afterwards - no crash, no cravings.

Well I decided to restart Induction yesterday (hoping to get back some control), and this morning I had a small/thin ribeye steak and some sauteed mushrooms for breakfast. I did 35 minutes of cardio and was already tired, so my workout with her was torture. I even got a tad nauseated at one point. I felt like crap, tired crap.. and I had carb cravings when I finished, but the odd thing was, my craving was for romaine lettuce leaves - go figure! :confused

I am trying so hard to figure out what is going on with my body and I am just getting more and more confused and frustrated. :sadblinky

:help

[Iapetus999]

That's the problem with introducing carbs too quickly...now your body is like "hey where are my carbies??" :anger

I've done the same kind of "experiments" with carbs before workouts and I've found that I can't really do it. If you want to try some additional carbs you could add some strawberries or blueberries the night before and see if it helps your workout.
The thing with workouts is that you need to be consistent as much as possible so your body is prepared. If you experiment do it one step at a time. I did find that I needed more carbs to have a good workout but it's easy to go overboard. :raving

[cajunthunder]

That's the problem with introducing carbs too quickly...now your body is like "hey where are my carbies??" :anger

I've done the same kind of "experiments" with carbs before workouts and I've found that I can't really do it. If you want to try some additional carbs you could add some strawberries or blueberries the night before and see if it helps your workout.
The thing with workouts is that you need to be consistent as much as possible so your body is prepared. If you experiment do it one step at a time. I did find that I needed more carbs to have a good workout but it's easy to go overboard. :raving

Well I didn't go over my normal net carbs for that day, only that I had more of them at one meal. I have eaten a lot of veggies in one meal that came close to the same net carb total as the oatmeal, so I can't imagine that it would be a shock to my system, but who knows.

Now a question - how does eating the berries the night before help your workout that would happen 12-14 hours later? Wouldn't those have already gone through your system? :confused

Thanks!

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[Iapetus999]

When you eat low glycemic-index foods by definition they take a lot longer to enter the system.
What happens is as you digest them it is converted to glycogen which is stored in muscles. Then when you work out you use this energy.
Remember absorption of food doesn't occur until food leaves the stomach so a quick snack won't do anything for you.
Also by using the stored glycogen in your muscles instead of blood sugar you will promote fat burning as well.

Now if you eat more carbs than the muscles can store that's when you start adding fat.

So the idea is to store up a little the night before then burn it the next day.
Remember as always YMMV so it's worth a little experimenting.
(your mileage may vary)

[cajunthunder]

Thank you for the info and help Iap! I will try having some berries the night before and see if that will work.

I sometimes feel like a walking science experiment! :yes But I guess that's the only way to find out what works best!

Thanks again!

[Tommy]

Hiyya:

Great advice from Iapetus999. I just wanted to add that while experimenting, if you are going to eat carbs previous to a workout plain oatmeal is a great choice. Oatmeal has good complex carbs.

And as you see eating most of your carbs in the morning will be burned out later in the day.

As for fruit, fruit has good natural carbs and I try to eat 2 pieces per day. But remember that fruit is a simple carb and is healthy for you but as far as exercising goes fruit helps your liver and not necessarly your muscles.