January/February weight management challenge

[SadieKate]

"Is it better to exercise fed or fasted?"

http://community.active.com/blogs/Na...-fed-or-fasted

Thanks for this link! Calories and time of day is interesting. My weekday workouts are 5:45am and 6 am. I don't have to eat before cross training, but spinning without calories just sends me spinning.

[maillotpois]

Yeah I would never go for a ride or do intervals without food. But my husband commutes into the city several times a week (maybe 15 - 18 miles each way) and he NEVER eats anything before he leaves the house. I would fall off the Golden Gate Bridge if I did that. I think he keeps the intensity relatively low for his commute in and really works on the way home, but still. Whatever. Men.

[azfiddle]

I am a big fan of Nancy Clark's approach, and have two of her books.

The Carmichael Training Systems Coaches have a similar guideline about eating before exercise. Ideally, they suggest you have a big meal about 3-4 hours before a workout. Clearly, that isn't always possible, and the closer you are to the start, the smaller the meal should be, say a bagel or a banana if it is just half an hour before. They recommend mainly carbs shortly before/during the ride. Also, the half hour or so after you finish the workout is a good time to replenish your energy- the muscles continue to gather energy as if you were still working.

You can store enough glycogen for an hour or two of exercise, but after that you need to eat 100-200 calories an hour to refuel. Carmichael coaches suggested eating about an hour into the effort.

Personally, I'm usually good with just water for up to 15-20 miles (a little more than an hour) unless I haven't eaten for a while. I've followed that guideline of eating 100-200 cal/hour on long rides/ events and have never bonked.

[Owlie]

I know that if I don't eat within two hours of getting up (I can go longer if sleep-deprived, but that gets into other things), I'll end up with a splitting headache by 4pm. And that's without exercising! I can't do fasted workouts. No way.
DBF, on the other hand, can go 25 miles without eating breakfast, and on somewhat longer rides on relatively little.

I can do 15 miles in decent (not too hot, not too cold) weather on breakfast alone, with water on the bike. Anything longer than that (or in hot or cold weather), I need to eat.

Anelia, I'm like you. If I eat before 7, I'm hungry before bed!

[salsabike]

Bob Seebohar is another very well-thought-of person in the field. An example of his approach:

http://firebreatherfitness.com/coach...gInTheZone.pdf

[Triskeliongirl]

I have noticed on our club rides, that many of the overweight women are eating way more than need on the bike. I am bringing this up, because I know we all read articles and training books, but many are geared for the 20 something racer. If this is you, then by all means follow those recommendations. But if you are like me, a middle aged women who rides her bike for fitness and fun, by all means eat adequate food for your activity level, but if you are trying to lose weight, allow yourself to burn off your stored body fat, by being mindful of how much on the bike nutrition you really need. I am talking about the gal who shows up for a 30 mile club ride, with her pockets stuffed to the brim with gels and candy bars. I want to shout at her: You don't need that much food to ride 30 miles! You have your stored body fat! I don't because it doesn't seem my place. I am only posting here for those of you that have been 'stuck' for some time to consider it it applies to you. I will also say that sometimes you need to train your body to run on stored fat, so you will feel bad at first until your fat burning enzymes are expressed, so give it time, and perhaps try to gradually cut down how much you eat on the bike if you think this applies to you.

[klesko]

146 this morning. That article on leptin was really good and all the other discussion and articles are great too. I realized that when I gained weight through stress eating when my sister was in hospice, I messed up my hormone levels. I have terrible chocolate and carb cravings. However, I have cut down on my carbs and banned sugar and feel much better this week. Now I plan to work on portions and I should be fine. Thanks all!

[Catrin]

135.2

[Crankin]

106.8
A little bit in the wrong direction, but I've been all over the place in the last week. It's really hard for me to not eat a lot of fruit and some bread. Mostly, I've learned a few things:
Eating vegetables at breakfast helps. I can usually have one apple, without any ill effects. Having a piece of whole wheat bread with nut butter as a snack in the late afternoon usually works, too.
I am not as disciplined as DH.

Mr. Crankin: 151.8

[goldfinch]

Funny, I am exactly where Crankin is, 106.8.

I appear to still be losing weight, even though I was maintaining at around 110. I'm fine with that. My calories in for the week averaged 1480 a day, so I guess I may be burning more than that. Calories out is very difficult to estimate.

[Giulianna23]

196.3

[Veronica]

Here's an interesting post on Nerdfitness about a guy who lost some 128 pounds in 10 months. He's chronicled his weight loss monthly with pictures - pretty inspiring.

Veronica

[Gypsy]

164.6 (up?!)

Actually, I think it's because I've been hitting the gym hard this week, so I guess it's to be expected, but it's definitely not in the right direction.

[Triskeliongirl]

I tried to update this post with a better link, but it looks like its not longer editable, so here goes:


http://www.leangains.com/2010/09/fas...nsitivity.html

I do perform fasted cardio. I started after
reading this paper: Physiol 588.21 (2010) pp 4289–4302 4289: Training in the fasted state improves glucose tolerance during fat-rich diet. Karen Van Proeyen1, Karolina Szlufcik1, Henri Nielens2, Koen Pelgrim1, Louise Deldicque3,Matthijs Hesselink4, Paul P. Van Veldhoven5 and Peter Hespel1

To me one of the most impressive aspects of the study was that the fasted exercisers had a 30% increase in transport of Glut4 receptors to the cell surface. I am a mild type I diabetic. While I have good insulin sensitivity, since I undersecrete insulin anything I can do to boost the action of the insulin I have makes a big difference. But I don't mean a 3 hour bike ride. Every morning before work, after just a cup of espresso, I go to the gym, and do a 35 minute workout on the arc trainer that my HRM and the machine say burns about 310 calories. Then I shower and eat. But if I am going to do a 3 hour bike ride, than I always eat a high protein breakfast like 2 turkey sausages, and then drink muscle milk lite on the bike. I do eat a low carb/high protein diet to manage my diabetes.

For the women that asked about hypoglyemia, try it in a gym, and bring your glucose monitor. That is what I did, and found I had no problem with my blood sugar readings. In fact, I find my blood sugar always goes up when I exercise since at least in the beginning glycogen is metabolized to glucose.

I do find this 'trick' is useful in my battery of weight control/blood sugar controls. I also incorporte this into an intermittent fasting (IF) protocol. For me it means I don't snack after dinner, and then delay breakfast until after my morning workout. The article I cite above is discussed a this link in more popular language, a site dedicated to the IF protocol that I follow: http://www.leangains.com/2010/05/ear...-training.html

[Susan Otcenas]

Here's an interesting post on Nerdfitness about a guy who lost some 128 pounds in 10 months. He's chronicled his weight loss monthly with pictures - pretty inspiring.

Veronica

THAT was super inspirational. My favorite quote: “Don’t sacrifice what you really want for what you want right now.”