Carbs and Fat

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Originally Posted by Owlie

First, how's your protein intake?
biochemistry nerd:
Carbs (especially simple ones) are rapidly burned off; there are a lot more steps needed to convert fat into usable fuel. There's a reason all those gels and things are essentially sugar and flavoring. ;) If you don't have enough when you need them, you start converting amino acids (from muscle) to glucose--muscle and many other tissues can use fat and its breakdown products for fuel, but your brain and red blood cells are pretty much dependent on glucose.

/biochem nerd

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I get 90-130 grams a day between chicken breasts, eggs, non-fat dairy, and nuts (for the most part). I do try to spread this out through the day so I am not getting all of it all at once. Now, lunch does tend to be my smallest meal, but I do have a snack with protein (either a bar or something like nuts and raisins) before working out to help my blood sugar levels. It may be that I am eating too close to the workout and it isn't really available until too late...I hadn't thought of that before.

My dinners have become larger since trying to hit those calorie targets, it might be better to have a much larger lunch and have dinner be the small meal of the day as long as it has a reasonable amount of protein...

This may well be more related to timing...

90 to 130 is a big range. 90 wouldn't be enough for me on the training schedule you're keeping. My understanding is it's only hard on your kidneys if you're not using the amino acids to build or repair muscle. But I'll defer to those with more knowledge of the subject.

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Originally Posted by OakLeaf

90 to 130 is a big range. 90 wouldn't be enough for me on the training schedule you're keeping. My understanding is it's only hard on your kidneys if you're not using the amino acids to build or repair muscle. But I'll defer to those with more knowledge of the subject.

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Personally I prefer the 130, the dietician wanted me to pull it back to 90 (some formula related to my weight). I've not been really successful with that so it is more like 110-130. Considering the kind of workouts we've had in class, it may well be that I needed 130 on those days.

The class is over for now, there will be a similar class starting in June that I will likely take - hopefully with the same instructor - he has quite the no-nonsense approach that I like. It ensures I get off the bike at least two days of the week and at $15 it is certainly affordable for a member. They have a couple of high intensity free classes that I will check out between now and then.

Our trainer is helping me change my usual workout to incorporate elements of the metabolic training into my usual fitness library so, for at least the next month, my training will be a combination of the old routine and elements of the new - with increasing riding if it ever should stop raining and warm up.

Added: I've been doing some reading, and there appears to be several studied opinions out there about the best amount of protein if you are working to build muscle. It also appears to be a myth that high protein consumption has any effect on the kidneys other than to make them work harder to remove the excess nitrogen - so not harmless but neither does it cause kidney damage. I may stick to her suggested 90 grams on non-metabolic training days and bump it up to one gram per pound of body weight on days I do metabolic training. That might be a good middle ground...

Sometimes, it helps to look at your protein sources too. Quality protein is not always animal sourced and the quality of protein and fiber you can get from vegetables and quality grains can be very, very positive for your workouts and your body.

Carbs are not evil as long as they are from non-processed foods. :) So, increasing quality carbohydrates will also benefit your workouts and help insure that your workouts don't result in losing muscle.

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Originally Posted by Raindrop

Sometimes, it helps to look at your protein sources too. Quality protein is not always animal sourced and the quality of protein and fiber you can get from vegetables and quality grains can be very, very positive for your workouts and your body.

Carbs are not evil as long as they are from non-processed foods. :) So, increasing quality carbohydrates will also benefit your workouts and help insure that your workouts don't result in losing muscle.

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Thanks Raindrop - I have been working at getting more and a greater variety of veggies in my diet. I DO think that I need to make dinner my smallest meal of the day and have larger lunches/pm snacks to assure my body has the fuel it needs for my late afternoon/very early evening workouts and rides. My carb sources are typically pretty good - but of course there isn't a "perfect" diet, and I do think it is important we mix it up - something that I am better at saying than doing...

Our coach encouraged me to re-do the Bod Pd session, certainly my Friday results didn't help my team any in the body fat loss challenge :o

So, I re-did it this morning at the same time as the very first one, and wearing the exact same thing. Apparently time of day matters a great deal - or they have re-calibrated the unit. I am not the first one in the group to have had unexpected results or to have re-done the test.

I've still lost a bit of muscle,which has to be nutrition, but my body fat percentage was considerably lower than Friday - almost 8%, and 3.5% lower than the first one. So, I get to actually help my team out instead of hurting it ;)

Thanks to all for helping me think through this entire protein/carb/fat balance over the weekend. That give and take helped me to really think about it in conjunction with my internet research rather than just obsessing over the results. I am staying inside my dietitian's guidelines but tweaking the timing of when I eat - and bumping up the protein for hard days.

Catrin, my experience has been that I burn muscle when my body isn't saturated with calories during workouts. ONLY during workouts though. If I'm riding, I've got two bottles of Gu Brew or Accelerade and 2 gels. I'll have a snack before. Basically I fuel for the specific ride and eat my normal pseudo paleo diet(keeping wheat in the diet in preparation for abundance of wheat on my ride this summer). My PT suggests 300 calories per hours of riding at least, and more if you're riding harder.

I shall have to check out the bod pod. Was it expensive?

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Originally Posted by Reesha

Catrin, my experience has been that I burn muscle when my body isn't saturated with calories during workouts. ONLY during workouts though. If I'm riding, I've got two bottles of Gu Brew or Accelerade and 2 gels. I'll have a snack before. Basically I fuel for the specific ride and eat my normal pseudo paleo diet(keeping wheat in the diet in preparation for abundance of wheat on my ride this summer). My PT suggests 300 calories per hours of riding at least, and more if you're riding harder.

I shall have to check out the bod pod. Was it expensive?

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I think this is the problem - not fueling enough prior to an intensive workout session - for a "normal" weights session I think my usual approach is fine - but I've really kicked up the intensity over the last 2 months in the attempt to build muscle and lose body fat... I know how to fuel for riding, but the increasing intensity of my workouts really has changed things.

Thankfully the bod pod did not cost me anything - it was part of a team body-fat loss challenge at my gym that included 2 group training sessions a week (for 10 weeks), and 2 bod pod sessions - all for the sum of $15 :) My gym charges members $45 for 1 session (we get one free session a year) so depending on the facility it doesn't really seem all that expensive.

They also do VO2? max testing, which would be interesting as it shows at what point we change from burning fat to carbs for fuel - but I can't justify a $100 test just for the sake of curiosity. It isn't like I will ever race!

I guess the carb thing your dietician said still makes sense for me if I take into account calories over the whole day and not per meal. Surrounding any 2 hour workout aerobic intensity or over, I'm taking in carbs like crazy. 2 gus, 2 bottles accelerade, a PBJ or banana before... That gets my percentage of carbs per day into the 40-50% range, where without those, it's down near 30%. Sometimes even closer to 20-25%. I don't feel good when I get 50% of calories from carbs in a meal. I try to limit my carb intake per meal to under 25g unless it's right before a massive ride.

I agree - she wants me to get 2 servings of whole grains per meal...and to me that sounds a bit much for someone prone to insulin resistance. I think the new calorie targets are good and I will keep those - and I have lost weight, (though I fear it was from the decrease of muscle combined with the decrease in body fat).

I get my regular A1C test next week, which will provide information as well regarding how well this is actually working for my body.

I have not really tried to consume 2 servings of whole grains per meal as she recommended - just one serving and the rest of my carbs have come from vegetables and fruit. At the end of the day I wind up with an average of 45-50% carbs - but most days I am active and some of that is from workout/ride fueling. Looking back at my log I see that most rest days my carb intake drops to 35-43% on average...

My former trainer once told me that the nutritional aspect of trying to build muscle was an entirely different game - and this certainly proves how right he was!