Horrible… I feel like shit – both, mentally and physically. To make my bitching and complaining more constructive, let’s look at the numbers:
To say that I am disappointed is an understatement. Alright, sentimental things aside – what exactly happened?
Monday->Tuesday->Wednesday-> Thursday – four days I’ve been a good boy. All I was eating was meat and salads. I set caloric intake to 1,500 calories/day, which I kept up with from Monday until Thursday. The reason for cutting calories was my body weight measurement on Monday – 75.4 kg. This number made me upset because it’s been three weeks and I’ve lost only 1 kg. I got mad, so I cut the calories down to 1,500.
It wasn’t easy. I started having serious cravings on Thursday. They became very profound later in the evening, however I managed not to slip off the diet. The following day – on Friday, I slipped. I was binging on donuts, pizzas and chocolates… It was ridiculous and disgusting. Enough! The next morning I woke up feeling like shit. I went straight to the lake, to do the ice dip and refresh. Of course I got pretty cold and it took me about two hours to bring my core temperature back to norm. I then fasted until 2 pm.
Right before going to the gym I thought I would have a bid of oatmeal. I thought that I needed it to get a bit of energy. I binged again… I couldn’t stop eating. Started with oatmeal and ended up with a full box of donuts at 7-Eleven. Unbelievable…
What did I learn?
1,500 calories/day is tough. I can comfortably endure about three days of it. Anything longer and I get into the red zone – playing with fire. What if strategically introduced the refeed? Every fourth day – 1,500 calories of carbs. I will do three days of low carbs at 1,500 calories/day, then one day of refeed – 2,500 calories of complex carbohydrates. The following day 1,500 of carbs. Then back to three days of 1,500 cals low carb.
This is the experiment. I am looking for something sustainable, that will work for ME.
SELF-CONTROL, MENTAL FATIGUE & EGO DEPLETION
Why is it so much harder to resist temptations and control cravings later in the day vs mornings? I have no problems skipping breakfast, even when I am hungry, but it’s almost impossible to resist the binge in the evening. Why and is it something that I can change?
As always, the first place to search for the answers is science:
“A number of hypotheses on the mechanisms of mental fatigue origin (including self-control) have been proposed. Some of these hypotheses argue that during prolonged mental exercise, self-control resources are exhausted activities of executive function and decision-making are impaired, and inhibiting processes appear in the brain”, ().
Reference: Terentjeviene, A., Maciuleviciene, E., Vadopalas, K., Mickeviciene, D., Karanauskiene, D., & Valanciene, D. et al. (2018). Prefrontal Cortex Activity Predicts Mental Fatigue in Young and Elderly Men During a 2 h “Go/NoGo” Task. Frontiers In Neuroscience, 12. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2018.00620
Self-control appeared to deteriorate over time from repeated exertions, such as decision-making. Just as the brain and body are muscles that can wear out with excessive use, self-control and willpower are also subject to exhaustion. As we make decision after decision, we drain our ability to control our impulses. Experiments have shown the interrelationship between decision fatigue and ego depletion, whereby a person’s ability for self-control against impulses decreases in the face of decision fatigue.
Ego depletion refers to the idea that self-control or willpower draws upon a limited pool of mental resources that can be used up. When the energy for mental activity is low, self-control is typically impaired, which would be considered a state of ego depletion. In particular, experiencing a state of ego depletion impairs the ability to control oneself. This is interesting… I get the idea, however my question is: How do I replenish the “ego energy pool”? Let’s dig deeper.
“The role of glucose as a specific form of energy needed for self-control has been explored by researchers. Glucose, a sugar found in many foods, is the primary fuel for the body and the brain. Multiple experiments have connected self-control depletion to reduced blood glucose, and suggested that self-control performance could be replenished by consuming glucose.” What this means is that by eating something sweet, I increase my chances of resisting that donut in the evening.
“Several recent experiments have found that resource depletion effects can be reversed by simply tasting (but not swallowing or consuming) sweet beverages, which can have rewarding properties. Others have suggested that the taste of sugar (but not artificial sweetener) has psycho-physiological signaling effects.”
What are the implications of ego fatigue on people who diet?
There was an experiment that demonstrated how ego depletion is particularly relevant when considering chronic dieters compared to non-dieters. Chronic dieters constantly work at resisting their cravings and limiting their food intake. Scientists showed that the task of regulating food intake could be undermined in the face of tempting snacks, especially when the individual was experiencing a state of ego depletion. Both dieters and non-dieters attempted to suppress their emotional responses while watching a movie. Afterwards, participants were required to consume ice cream in order to engage in a taste-test. “The major finding was that dieters who suppressed their emotional responses to the movie experienced more ego depletion than those who were not required to suppress their emotions. Additionally, those individuals subsequently ate much more ice cream in the taste-testing task. Non-dieters did not show the same self-regulatory failures as dieters in these tasks. Therefore, it seems that the act of dieting itself is a form of resource expenditure. Dieters spend so much energy trying to limit their food intake, but these efforts are likely to be undermined when faced with overwhelming temptation.”
This makes perfect sense. You might spend all day diligently sticking to your diet. You eat a healthy breakfast and lunch, and even resist the sweet snacks that a coworker brings into the office. That night, as you arrive home from work, you find that your resolve has grown weak and you no longer have the self-control to stick to your diet. Because you have expended so much mental energy throughout the day resisting the urge to indulge, you have reached a state of ego depletion by dinner time. Instead of eating the healthy meal you planned, you order take-out from your favorite fast-food restaurant and spend the evening watching TV and snacking on chips. Exhausting self-control on unrelated tasks might then make it more difficult to say no when temptation strikes.
Ego-Depletion Prevention
Back to my question – What can I do about it? How can I use this knowledge to make my weight-loss easier?
Positive Mood!“In a recent experiment, it was shown that inducing a positive mood can buffer the impairing effects of ego depletion on subsequent performance. Positive mood was induced by getting individuals to watch comedy videos or by giving them a surprise gift. Positive mood seemed to allow people to recover faster from ego depletion and furthermore, improved their ability to self-regulate.” Positive attitude is just a way to counteract ego depletion after a person is depleted. In some studies, ego depleted participants who had their moods boosted by watching comedy films actually performed just as well on self-control tasks as non-ego depleted participants.
Prioritize Sleep. Sleep resets your self-control and provides you with the mental energy needed to have willpower throughout the day. Similarly, lack of sleep makes self-control more difficult. Think about how much harder it is to resist junk food when you’re sleep deprived than when you have a good night’s rest.
Food. Early studies on ego-depletion suggested that the whole mechanism of ego-depletion is based on glucose: self-control or decision-making uses up glucose and after a while the shortage of glucose leads to ego-depletion. These studies found, for example, that ego-depletion could be reversed if people drank lemonade with sugar during challenging tasks. This suggested that effortful thinking uses up glucose. Other, more recent studies show that merely rinsing one’s mouth with a glucose drink is enough to strengthen self-control. In these studies, participants did not swallow the drink; merely rinsing the mouth also did not increase blood glucose. The likely explanation is that carbohydrates, even if merely sensed and not swallowed, activate dopamine pathways in striatum, a brain region associated with rewards. So carbohydrates probably reverse ego-depletion because they increase people’s motivation and not because of their metabolic effects.
So food is crucial for restoring ego strength, and carbohydrates play the leading role. When it comes to carbohydrates, there are two basic types: simple and complex. Simple Carbs for Ego Strength. If glucose drinks reduce ego-depletion because they activate brain reward circuits, then simple carbohydrates should work better because their sweet taste is more rewarding. In short, it means that probably it is best to use foods that get their sweetness from fruits, honey, or table sugar. Yet, don’t rely on foods that get their sweet taste from artificial sweeteners —studies mentioned just above found that mouth rinses with artificial sweeteners had no effect.
What Will I do Differently?
1,500 calories/day (low carb <100g) x 3 days
Refeed every 4-th day: 2,500 calories (high carbohydrate day 300g+/no fat)
Sleep more: 9 hr min. Whenever have cravings – take a nap
Whenever find it hard to resist temptations – try rinsing the mouth with Gatorade (or similar)
On Monday night I was eating plain, cold, boiled chicken breast. It tasted so good that I realized that my taste receptors had changed. I was really tasting and enjoying raw vegetables – the same way, as before I went off the track with my weight gain. Moreover I realized that I haven’t had a single thought about fatty or sweet (junk) foods. I had carbohydrates cravings, but I wasn’t thinking about donuts and cakes, I was really craving plain oatmeal or pearl barley.
Entire week I felt sloppy. Both my mood and athletic performance got a toll. I felt apathetic to any kind of exercise. I had to drag myself to the gym almost every day. It was hard to stay focused at work.
I slipped into a minor binge (overeating) before bed on Friday night around 10 pm. Later I learned that people tend to be the hungriest around 10 pm mark. This is due to increased hormone level – Ghrelin – the hunger hormone. If you diet and severely restrict your caloric intake, try to go to bed sooner than later. If you stay up late – there is a great chance that you will end up by the fridge, binging on carbs.
My blood sugar levels are back down to the norm. This week was the first time when I saw 4.9-4.9 mmol/l on my glucometer. That’s GREAT! I am back to the levels, where I used to be a year ago. Three weeks ago my fasting blood sugar was well above 5 mmol/l. 5.5-6.5 was not unusual to see.
This week I was craving fatty foods. On my “refeed day” I went for a large fatty steak. I felt very good afterward. The energy came back and overall condition had improved.
DIET: WHAT’S IMPORTANT? WHAT’S NOT?
CALORIE IS A CALORIE
ENERGY BALANCE: TO LOSE WEIGHT, YOU NEED TO CONSUME LESS THAN YOU EXPAND
The amount of food consumed is a determinant factor to how much weight we gain or lose. Yes, different food sources have different energy contents. There are a lot of factors that determine how the food is being digested and absorbed. Nevertheless it all comes to a simple equation: if you eat less than you expand – you lose weight. If you eat more than you expand you will inevitably gain weight. It’s that simple.
Having a monotone diet that consists of a few ingredients is very helpful for weight loss. It also makes it easier to manage your calorie intake.
99% of professional athletes don’t count calories. They have their daily protein component, which contribution to energy supply is minimal. Also, protein does not convert into fat. Athletes know that on a daily basis they need to consume about 500g of plain cooked chicken breasts. As for the carbs – athletes know that to maintain their weight, they need to eat approximately 2 or 3 cups of oatmeal (dry weight). The rest are fats: one or two handfuls of nuts or one avocado.
The study suggests the following: “We conclude that a calorie is a calorie. From a purely thermodynamic point of view, this is clear because the human body or, indeed, any living organism cannot create or destroy energy but can only convert energy from one form to another.”
Tip: measure/weight the food you cook, when it’s raw (dry weight).
BREAKFAST IS NOT THE MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY
Should we eat breakfast or not? If you don’t feel particularly hungry in the morning, and the hunger shifts to the second part of the day – distribute your meal consumption accordingly. Hormone Ghrelin (hunger hormone) reaches its peak concentration in the body around 10 pm. That’s why most of us experience carbohydrate cravings in the late evening. On the other hand – its lowest levels are in the morning, around 8 am. If you really feel that you are hungry and need to have breakfast – go for it. However, if you wake up and don’t feel particularly hungry – it’s totally okay to skip it.
Scientists came to a conclusion that the more food options you have – the most like you to overeat. In other words, the more different kinds of foods you have in your fridge – the more like you are to consume more energy than your body needs. This is especially relevant for those who try to lose weight. Minimize the variety of foods in your fridge.
THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT CONSUMING LOW GI FOODS ARE MORE SUPERIOR TO WEIGHT LOSS TO EATING HIGH GI PRODUCTS.
Every human body is different and unique, therefore we all have different blood sugar responses to the same foods that we eat. There are low of “Low GI” diets, proponents of which claim that consuming foods that have low glycemic response better for weight loss. People get really anal about GIs, and claim that the foods which have GI over 70 to be “bad”. There is so much histeria around SUGAR. Is it true? Do you really think that you can’t get fat by eating brown rice or pearl barley (low GI)?
“The average weight loss was 1.5 kg on a low-GI diet and 1.6 kg on a high-GI diet. To conclude, there is no evidence at present that low-GI foods are superior to high-GI foods in regard to long-term body weight control.”, (Raben, 2002).
What about cardiovascular diseases caused by high GI foods? There was a study, that concluded:
“There is currently no evidence available regarding the effect of low GI diets on cardiovascular disease events. Moreover, there is currently no convincing evidence that low GI diets have a clear beneficial effect on blood lipids or blood pressure parameters.”, (Clar, C 2017)
“…making dietary recommendations based on GI may be misleading, especially since low GI does not always mean high nutritional value, and high GI foods, such as potato, may have other healthful qualities including low energy density and a high satiety rating. Thus, focusing on overall dietary quality and promoting the healthful aspects of the diet (e.g., dietary fiber and fruit and vegetable intake) may be a better approach to help reduce chronic disease risk.”, (Vega-López, 2018)
Also, the same study concluded that: “…compared low and high GI diets with moderate or high carbohydrate content and reported no differences in weight loss by GI or carbohydrate content of the diets. This study further assessed metabolic adaptation 12 months after the weight loss period, and suggested no differences in weight regain based on GI during the weight loss phase.”, (Vega-López, 2018).
What if we were to eat high GI foods mixed with the ones that cause lower spike in insulin? Potatoes, especially mashed potatoes, are known to result in high glycaemic responses. However, we rarely eat potatoes on it’s own and such meals are typically accompanied by other foods. Scientists tried to answer the question: How glycaemic responses to a mashed potato meal changed when a high-fat food, a high-protein food (chicken breast) and/or salad were added to the meal? Good question, isn’t it? Here is what they found:
“We conclude that both fat and protein have an independent decreasing effect on the glycaemic responses to mashed potatoes in healthy subjects. The estimation of the GI of a mixed meal by calculation is imprecise when the meal contains fat and/or protein.”
When we speak about weight loss – It doesn’t matter whether you eat foods which are low or high on the glycemic index scale.
The weight of our bodys don’t change from eliminating one product or another. It changes from the energy balance of foods we consume vs energy we expand.
EATING MORE FREQUENTLY DOES NOT “SPEED UP METABOLISM”
There is a notion that in order to “speed up” your metabolism, you need to increase the frequency of your meals. Hence, if we eat less frequent – our metabolism slows down. That is simply not true. Let’s see what the research says:
“… recent prospective research has demonstrated a significant increase in disease risk with a high meal frequency (≥6 meals/day) as compared to a low meal frequency (1⁻2 meals/day).”
“The use of the IF diet effectively improves glucose metabolism in patients with type 2 diabetes… The positive effect of the IF diet has also been documented in obese and diabetic people. The reduced amount of food consumed when using the IF diet results in a decrease in body weight. It also improves glucose metabolism and increases the sensitivity of tissues to insulin by increasing the B cells of the pancreatic islets.”
Two-three meals a day – is the most optimum frequency for health and body weight maintenance.
EATING LATE IN THE EVENING IS NOT BAD
People say that eating after 6 pm is bad for your health. Why so? People say that our bodies don’t spend as much energy as they do during the day. Because of it, most of the food that we eat before going to sleep – will convert to fat. Sounds interesting. Is it true? How much energy our bodies consume during sleep vs active periods during the day?
“In a subgroup of 40 normal lean subjects the mean ratio of overnight metabolic rate (Overnight MR): BMR was 0.95 (range 0.85 – 1.02, s.d. 0.04). The mean ratio of lowest sleeping metabolic rate (Lowest SMR): BMR was 0.88 (range 0.83 – 0.96, s.d. 0.04). Ratios of Overnight MR: BMR were not significantly affected by different levels of exercise on the preceding day. “, (Goldberg GR, 1988).
When you sleep, your metabolic rate is 4% lower vs when you are awake. What this means is that if you were to burn 2,000 calories /day while awake, while at sleep, your energy expenditure will go down only by 80 calories!
Are large dinners associated with excess weight, and does eating a smaller dinner achieve greater weight loss? Great question! Here is what the science says:
“The meta-analysis of intervention trials showed no difference in weight change between small and large dinner groups (-0·89 kg; 95 % CI -2·52, 0·75, P=0·29)… Recommendations to reduce evening intake for weight loss cannot be substantiated by clinical evidence, and more well-controlled intervention trials are needed.
In other words – it doesn’t matter when you eat, as long as you stay within your optimal caloric intake.
THE HIGHER QUALITY OF YOUR LIFE – THE BETTER FORM AND HEALTH YOU CAN OBTAIN.
It will be harder to lose weight for people who constantly stress about money. The more financially and socially stable you are – the fitter you can get. There are exceptions.
What I learned after Week 2 of weight loss?
Energy consumption during the first week was ridiculously low, so I made a conscious effort to eat more the next week. I ate approximately 2,800 calories more, which equals to more than one full day worth of food.
The day after “refeed” day, I felt really hungry upon awakening. It even hurt a bit in my stomach. That’s good! I believe it’s due to improved metabolism caused by high carb intake the day before. I endured the cravings and went back on to the low carb track.
Blood sugar levels typically spike one day after refeed. That’s odd. I would expect to see elevated blood sugars immediately, on the next day, but it doesn’t work that way. The spike happens on the second day, after refeed and then gradually declines at the speed of about 0.2 mmol/l a day.
I see direct correlation between carbohydrate cravings and blood sugar levels. The lower it gets – the more I begin to think of bread and simple sugars. Sometimes I even have food dreams in my sleep. I assume that we can use glucometer to schedule refeeds. Depending on a lot of factors, particularly the activity level – some people will be able to deplete their glycogen stores faster than the others. Once the muscle and liver glycogen is low – we begin to see a drop in blood sugar levels. Theoretically, we can schedule carbohydrate refeeds every time the person drops 0.6-0.8 mmol/l. Once the number reached – refeed.
Refeed Days
Three days of minimum/no carbs were easy. In fact, my carbohydrate cravings were much more manageable than the week before. I almost didn’t have any. Anyways, I had a day of refeed on Wednesday, as planned.
My approach was simple – eat a lot of carbohydrates, as much as you want. Create a caloric spike with carbs only. No limitations, whatsoever. The only rule was to choose carbs with minimal fat content. If I were to buy a loaf of bread, I would pick one with the lowest fat content. Same for cookies, rice cakes and all sorts of simple carbs I ate that day. Fat – was the only macronutrient that I was searching for on the back of the packaging. This did not workout very well…
After the second workout of the day, which was strength training, I felt particularly hungry. Started with about 150g of oatmeal (dry weight), then it went on and on. Five flatbreads plus a bag of marshmallows. Simple carbs, pure sugar, but no fat – should be fine, right? Wrong. Once you begin eating sweet junk food, there is no stopping. I ate way more than I should’ve and felt sick that evening. This taught me a lesson:
Refeed Days also should be controlled and have boundaries.
What this means is that even on refeed days, I got to stick to a specific number of carbs I consume. Something like 400-500g of carbs, the rest is protein. For each person this number will be different. Also, not to mention that if you don’t feel that you crave carbohydrates that much – there is no reason to stuff yourself with oatmeal. Postpone the refeed day to tomorrow or day after tomorrow.
Carbohydrate Alternating Diet – THE THEORY
There are many names for this method of getting rid of subcutaneous fat. But the meaning is always the same – “floating” calorie intake. For several days in a row, you get the minimum calorie content practically by minimising/eliminating carbohydrates in your diet (eat mainly proteins).
All this time, your fat is actively burning as a source of energy, however at the same time your body slows down metabolism due to lack of energy. After a few days, you arrange a “belly party” by adding a lot of carbohydrates to your diet in order to speed up the metabolism and improve your well-being. After saturation, you go into negative territory again. This alternation of “starvation” and “global gluttony” allows you to burn subcutaneous fat more efficiently than the traditional low-carb diet.
This is a modified version of the regular low-carb diet. It’s very simple: constant manipulation with the amount of carbohydrates consumed. First, you consume low carbs -> fat burns + metabolism slows down. Then you consume a LOT of carbohydrates = no fat burns + metabolism accelerates. Why does this work so well? Because you get all the pros and you minimize the cons. PROS – the lack of carbohydrates is necessary for weight loss. CONS is a slowdown of metabolism (slowing down fat burning).
In the body, everything is CONNECTED and LOGICAL. There is a basic energy source that is very cheap and therefore best suited for conversion to energy. It’s called CARBOHYDRATES stored as GLYCOGEN in the muscles and liver cells. And there are emergency sources of energy, which are very expensive and therefore consumed last (when there are no carbohydrates anymore). IT IS PROTEINS and FATS. Including those that are stored under the skin. Alternation depletes glycogen stores and thus forces you to use fat (you lose weight). A few days without carbohydrates maximally deplete glycogen stores (the body begins to burn fat). In response to low energy consumption your body turns on the emergency response – slow down of metabolism and fat burning. This is when we start “carb loading” or “refeed”. Having filled the muscles and liver with glycogen for a day or two, we block the “dangerous ricochet” of our metabolism. After stabilization, we again go low carb for several days, after which we introduce the refeed back again. Two steps forward, one step back. We move up and down, in a rhythm, alternating between lack and excess.
On the first day of restriction of carbohydrates, the body loses its glycogen reserves, on the second (third) day with restriction of carbohydrates, the body begins to burn fat, on the following days, while maintaining a low level of carbohydrate consumption, anti-stress adaptation to hunger is turned on, which is aimed at maintaining weight (slow down of thyroid gland hormones, increased secretion of catabolic hormones, decreased insulin secretion, slowing down the conversion of fat into energy, etc.) In general, if you do not add carbohydrates at this time, you can greatly slow down or even completely stop the process of fat burning.
Example:
1-5 DAYS = LOW CARB (2-4 grams of protein + 0-1 grams of carbohydrates per 1 kg of weight)
1-2 DAYS = CARB LOAD (1-2 grams of protein + 3-5 grams of carbohydrates per 1 kg)
REPEAT
The cycle is repeated many times. The result in theory should be as follows: weight is reduced due to body fat loss, while the percentage of muscle tissue remains the same. For the first couple of low/no carb days, the body switches to self-sufficiency and begins to use the most convenient fuel – its own glycogen. Having quickly depleted its reserves in the liver and muscles, it starts the breakdown of fat and by the end of the second day it accelerates fat burn to its maximum. However, you cannot continue in this way forever, otherwise metabolism will slow down greatly in a couple of days as well as the process of losing fat. This happens because the body perceives the situation of carbohydrate deficiency as life-threatening and tries to preserve the “necessary” fat reserves by burning the less valuable – muscle tissue. Therefore, when you are on a “starvation” diet, the weight first drops sharply, and then suddenly freezes for a long time. But if you spur the metabolism on the 5th or 6th day with an additional infusion of carbohydrates, the body continues to consume the existing fat, and the carbohydrates eaten go to replenish glycogen stores.
A four or five day cycle of a carbohydrate alternating diet can and should be modified to fit your unique lifestyle and body. Many people successfully modify this pattern, for example: low carb for five days in a row, from Monday to Friday, and then load with carbohydrates on the weekends. You must experiment to find the most optimal schedule for you.
This diet can be very effective. Actually, as it is not surprising, but the driest I was from using this diet. BUT it requires a VERY INDIVIDUAL SETUP! It is very easy to be wrong. THIS IS A VERY DIFFICULT DIET BECAUSE YOU NEED TO CHOOSE TWO THINGS INDIVIDUALLY:
NUMBER of LOW CARB DAYS (by day)
SIZE of “CARB LOAD” (by days and by quantity)
First, the number of days may be too many or too few. For some people 3-4 days of low carb may actively slow down metabolism, so they will need to start eating carbohydrates. Other people can sit on a “starvation diet” for a week, continuing to actively burn fat. If you give those folks a lot of carbohydrates in this case, then the process of fat burning will completely stop.
Second, the “carbohydrate load” may be too large or too small. It is generally enough for one person to just eat a large portion of rice for breakfast and his/hers metabolism will go back up to the same rate as before the diet. However, others need to stuff themselves with a lot of food for two days to accomplish the same result. It also matters which carbs you eat: “fast or slow”, complex or simple. Because of so many different factors – it is very difficult to find your perfect ratio of days and amounts. You got to be in tune with your body. In an experimental way you need:
Choose number of days without carbohydrates
Select the size of the “carb load”
I can’t tell you the exact numbers. You need to experiment and watch the result. I can only give rough guidelines with which I would start these experiments. For beginners, I would try 2 days without carbs + 1 day refeed. I assess how I feel and look in the mirror. If you feel good (there is no muscle weakness), then I would increase the duration of low/no carb to 3 days + 1 day of carb load. I would work in this mode for 1-2 weeks, observing my feelings and reflection in the mirror.
FEEL GOOD = you can extend the low carb (add days) FEEL BAD = reduce low-carb days or increase the load (amount and/or days) THE MIRROR SHOWS PROGRESS = don’t change anything THE MIRROR DOES NOT SHOW PROGRESS = you need to change the unloading and/or loading
Ideally, you should choose such a balance of low-carb days and refeeds, so that you lose weight in the mirror, and you feel good (metabolism does not slow down). Somewhere for 50% of people it will be about 4 days of low-carb + 1 day refeed. Moreover, on the day of carb loading, it may make sense to only eat in the first half of the day and fast for the rest of the day.
It also makes sense to experiment with the GI of the carbohydrates you use during loading. You can try eating simple carbohydrates (sweeter) or complex carbohydrates (oats, rice, buckwheat etc.) depending on the duration of the load. In theory, complex carbohydrates are better on the diet, in practice I have noticed that if you have a short “window” for intake (for example, only the first half of one day), then simple carbohydrates work better. Experiment.
*If hungry, you can add breast or fish (animal protein source)
STAGE 2: CARB LOADING – REFEED (1 day)
Oatmeal (200g)
Buckwheat or Rice (300g)
Unlimited protein and fiber
On this day, we get an excess of carbohydrates. I gave an example with oatmeal and rice. This is not a dogma, but just an option. Perhaps you like pasta or bread more. Or maybe even honey. On this day, you can experiment with carbohydrates. BUT remember that this is not a day to indulge in binge eating. Carbohydrates are not for pleasure. It is primarily a tool to prevent a slowdown in metabolism. Therefore, you choose products not in terms of taste, but in terms of effectiveness for further fat burning.
By now you understand that the goal is to deplete your glycogen stores, to initiate the fat burn. Experimentally, I found a few ways to speed up glycogen depletion:
HIT. Any sorts of sprints: running, on bike, swimming. Short bursts of energy at all out efforts.
Weight training. Heavy weights + supersets
Swimming. At least 30 minutes
Cold water immersion
Metabolic Adaptation
ON AVERAGE, THE HUMAN BODY BURNS ABOUT 30 CALORIES PER KILOGRAM OF BODY WEIGHT.
Let’s say, you weigh 75 kilograms. To maintain your body weight, you eat approximately 2,250 calories/day (30 cal x 1 kg). One day you decide to lose weight.
You set your caloric intake to 1,100 calories per day, creating about 1,150 cal/day energy deficit. In a short period of time you lost 10 kilograms. Wooo Hoooo! Right? Let’s see what happened to your metabolism. Now your body weight is 65 kg. 65kg x 30 cal = 1,950 calories / day to maintain. Your body now requires less energy to maintain essential functions. As your body’s weight decreases – the energy consumption decreases as well. This is the law of physics. What happens if you decide to maintain caloric intake of 1,100 cal / day? Your body regulates hormones in a way, so you start expanding less energy. Protein synthesis decreases or stops completely. You don’t build new muscle tissue, and at the high risk of destroying the muscles that you’ve already got. Resynthesis of glycogen also decreases because carbohydrate sources are minimal. Certain bodily processes either stop and slow down, so your body becomes more efficient and uses energy. This is called – Adaptation. Your body adapts to femen in order to survive. You lose any motivation for physical activity. If you used to go to the gym 4-5 times a week, now you train lighter or even skip one-two training sessions. You might also notice that you feel less emotional. Jokes are not so funny anymore. You become careless. Your libido drops. You don’t want to have sex, you just don’t care.
What I will do differently:
Refeed days are planned and controlled
Complex carbs are preferred on refeed days
No fat on refeed days
Supplement with protein to feel more full and lower insulin response
Alright, back to my weight loss. Below is the report for the first week of “dieting”.
My goal for the first week and thereafter was to lose 1 kg. To accomplish that, I started the first week simple – with typical “cut your calories” + “cut your carbs”. Right of the bet, I set my daily caloric intake in the following way:
2,500 calories/day:
50% Protein (313g)
15% Carbs (94g)
35% Fat (97g)
I pre-cooked my meals on Sunday and set the intentions straight. I packed a sh*t load of chicken breasts in several containers and brought them to the office fridge. I didn’t cook anything for carbs and decided just to eat lots of salads, broccoli and brussels sprouts. I thought that would cover my daily carb allowance. For fat, I ate a lot of nuts, a few avocados, olive and coconut oils. I also tracked everything I ate in MyFitnessPal app. Results are below.
What I learned after Week 1 of weight loss?
Unbelievable! What an insight… Whole week I lived on little over 1,100 calories a day. I expected myself to perform well in both sport and work. What an idiot! On day six, on Friday I gave into the binge and felt guilty afterward. I blamed myself for no reason. I realize now that it’s a miracle that I lasted that long at this level of energy intake. Six days on 1,100 calories…
Alright, what’s my total weekly energy deficit? Assuming that my basal metabolic rate is around 2,200 calories /day (standard for male my age and weight), I should’ve eaten AT LEAST 15,400 calories a week (2,200×7). This does not include any activity, just to keep my heart beating and maintain normal functions of my body. In reality I consumed 8,169 calories, which is almost twice less of the bare minimum. A 1,000 calories /day energy deficit. Unbelievable! And then I blame myself for craving sweet and salty foods…
HEALTHY EATING AND EATING FOR WEIGHT LOSS ARE NOT THE SAME
Bloating & Water Retention
If you eat too little and push your body with exercise – you might retain water. If you don’t know how to deal with it properly, it can fuel an emotional firestorm of anger and frustration. Look, The fat you lose through proper dieting can be obscured – both on the scale and in the mirror – by additional water that your body is holding on to. The fat loss only becomes visible when the excess fluid is flushed out of the body, creating the illusion of extreme fat loss over very short periods.
First of all – CALM DOWN! This is expected. Stay focused.
During the “Minnesota Starvation Experiment” scientists made an interesting discovery that came from this study. Weight loss progressed in a nice, linear fashion in the beginning. Men lost about 2 pounds per week, every week. After some time, though, it became erratic and unpredictable. Body weight would remain stagnant for several weeks followed by overnight “bursts” of large amounts of weight loss (3+ pounds). Of course, it’s physically impossible to burn several pounds of fat overnight. Water retention.
What was happening is the men were steadily losing fat even when their weight wasn’t changing because as they lost more fat, they held more water. This only became obvious once the excess water was expelled, which gave the appearance of very rapid weight loss. Apparently this is such a well-known fact, that bodybuilders even came up with a name for it – the “whoosh effect.”
It gets more interesting. Listen to this: “… a 2,300-calorie meal was served to celebrate the half-way mark of the experiment … many of the men woke up several times to pee that night and, in the morning, were several pounds lighter than the day before.” Scientists found that a reliable trigger for the “whoosh effect” was a dramatic increase in caloric intake.Bodybuilders who dieted down to a super-lean level (7% body fat and below for men, 16% and below for women) also experienced something similar after doing a refeed day.
Why? Cortisol.
Prolonged calorie deficit dramatically raises cortisol levels. This causes quite a few unwanted effects in the body, including bloating and increased water retention.
COMBINATION OF LITTLE FOOD AND A LOT OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITY RAISE CORTISOL LEVELS, WHICH SPIKE WATER RETENTION IN THE BODY.
Refeeds and cheat meals lower cortisol levels, which explains the large expulsions of water. A few tips for reducing water retention:
Don’t cut your calories too aggressively. Literature suggest: 20 to 25% calorie deficit.
Don’t do hours and hours of cardio every week.
Implement refeed days or cheat meals to give your mind and body a break.
Basically, to drain the excessive amount of water, you need to lower the levels of Cortisol in your body. You need to calm your body down and show it that you’re not planning to starve yourself to death.
Stinky Sweat
On day five of my diet I noticed a particularly strong smell of my sweat. Interesting, I wondered what made the change? People call this type of smell an ammonia smell. In short – this was a red flag that my diet did not keep up with my energy needs.
Your body normally metabolizes carbohydrates to create the fuel it requires for exercise, but if you’re exercising hard and don’t have enough carbs to meet your body’s needs, your system will switch over to protein metabolism. That’s easy for understanding. Most of the people, when they start dieting, go too hard too soon. They either cut their caloric intake too much and/or cut the food group completely (typically carbs). This is exactly what I did: brought my carb intake to bare minimum (under 100g /day) AND slashed my calories too much (~1,000 calories deficit /day).
My diet consisted mostly of proteins (43%) and fats (33%). When your body breaks down protein, ammonia is one of the byproducts. Normally your liver would convert that ammonia into urea, and your kidneys would dispel in the form of urine. “… if you’re starved of carbs and using protein for most of your energy, your liver may not be able to handle all the ammonia your body produces. In those instances, your sweat becomes the vehicle through which your body jettisons all of the extra ammonia in your system.”, (Time, 2020)
This is most common among people who eat low-carb and high-protein diets, or people who are over-exercisers, like ultra marathoners. I fit both descriptions… The big takeaway here is that if you’re smelling ammonia in sweat, something’s wrong. I did exactly what my sports doctor suggested – added more carbohydrates to my diet. Also, if upping carbs did not help, there might be problems with your liver or kidneys.
What adjustments will I make?
Implement two “carb loading days”. That’s it. I won’t up my calorie intake just yet. I know it’s ridiculously low, however before I up the energy, I want to see how I will feel with two days of carb loading days. What will my Week 2 look like?
As I said, I will keep my caloric intake at 2,500 calories /day
The first thing that will happen when you cut your food intake, your body will activate the sympathetic response. You might feel more energetic and more focused than typical. Your body is in a fight or flight response, so you can go find and kill that mammoth. I noticed these changes in my own experience. Despite the fact that I was eating less, I felt more focused, and energized. This made me think that dieting could be a great tool not only to lose weight but to endure hard times in our lives. Final exams, deadlines, stressful life situations – diet or fasting can help to maintain the energy and stay sharp.
Metabolic Adaptations [4th-5th day]
When experiencing reduced energy intake, you body takes over and does two things:
Reduce Energy Expenditure
Once Food Available – Regain Fat ASAP
Hormones regulate our body’s energy expenditure. For example, hormone Leptin drops 50% on the 3rd-4th day of dieting and continues to decline gradually over the course of weight loss. This hormone is being produced by your fat cells, therefore the more body fat you’ve got, the greater concentration of it is in your body. This is a satiety hormone, which regulates your hunger. The fatter you are – the less hungry you should be (in theory). The lesser body fast you have – the lesser Leptin concentration, hence you feel hungrier. Got it?
Weight loss is a great stress for your body. In response to stress, you will have elevated stress hormones like Cortisol. As a result of this – your blood sugar level will also rise. Add to this cardio exercises, stress at work, lack of sleep and your brain will become resistant to Leptin – satiety hormone. You will easily overeat, because you don’t feel full anymore.
This all leads to reduced metabolic rate. This is how your body adapts. It doesn’t care that you need six pack abs or want to look great for a wedding. The one thing that your body cares about is to survive at all costs.
Also, it’s worth mentioning that your body can do extraordinary things to conserve energy. It can turn on and off your emotions because they use up to 20% of the energy. Someone will tell you a joke, but you will react with a poker face. You will feel indifferent to dramatic movies during which you used to cry before. Forget about sex – no libido. Your body canal also turns that function off. Spontaneous activity decreases. Your movements will become much slower and predictable. The lower your body fat levels – the worse these symptoms can get. Your brain can even control how far you see, to decrease the amount of incoming information. This will save energy to process this information.
You can’t fool your body. Once you start dreaming about food – you’ve reached the bottom.
After a long run on Saturday morning, I decided not to have breakfast. Why? Because I over ate the night before, so I thought I would give my body a break. I ran 21 km that morning, which put me in about 1200 to 1400 calories deficit. Despite such a large expenditure, I was surprised to note that I wasn’t feeling hungry. It was more of a habit, I realized, do you have a large meal after a hard workout. I scanned my body and asked myself: Am I really hungry? The answer was – no. So why do I eat, if I am not hungry? Of course there is a lot to do emotional eating and behavior patterns, however I will leave it for the next conversation.
I finished my run at 9 AM in the morning and haven’t eaten anything the entire day. The urge to put something in my mouse came up several times, however it wasn’t hunger. It felt weird not to have eaten for the entire day. Before bed I had about a handful of almonds, a bag of carrots and half a glass of wine. I thought to myself that I might spiral in uncontrollable binge the next day. The body will take its back – as I thought.
It didn’t. I felt like I could go the second day with no eating. In fact I started liking this sense of emptiness and lightness. I got worried that I could develop some sort of eating disorder like anorexia.
I was a little agitated and short tempered. I didn’t feel tired or lethargic. I had enough energy to do some easy 10 km run and a 60, 90 minute bike session. I continued training twice a day, as usual, but the hunger wasn’t there. I thought that my body was cleaning up itself on the inside. The next day, despite not being particularly hungry, I ate right before bed. I overeat. I felt bloated and ashamed.
The next day I decided to repeat my experimentation with fasting. I haven’t had any food from the time I woke up until 4 PM in the afternoon. I went for an 80 minutes bike session that morning. I was expecting to feel weak and tired, however I ended up doing several hard intervals, averaging 200+ Watts. I knew that I was in an energy deficit, however I felt great both mentally and physically. I thought to myself: “This is great! I want to feel like this all the time.”
I have no problems fasting for 20 hours, but I do struggle to stop once I’ve started.
Row with calf raises is to improve mid back strength and calf strength simultaneously. Mid back strength is important for posture in endurance sports especially towards the end of a race – helps maintain the position of the rib cage for optimal diaphragm excursion. And the calf muscles, especially the soleus (which is trained with the knee bent) is very important for running. The soleus excepts the load of the body at initial contact and pushes off the ground during terminal stance while running.
How?
Raise up on toes and squeeze calf muscles in this position 3 sets of 10
Step-up with High Knee Combo (part I)
Why?
Focus of the exercise is to build quad strength and work on control/balance for the running form during the step-up/down down portion. The knee should cross over the toes when stepping up to emphasize the use of the quads. The high knee portion of the exercise is to focus on improving stability in the hip flexors which are very important in all aspects of triathlon, but specially in running they help to pull the leg through during the swing phase of gait and stabilize the spine when the foot is about to hit the ground.
How?
3 sets of 10 Use an 8-10″ step
Farmer’s Carry
Why?
The purpose of this exercise is to work on controlling and building strength in the running form position: mid back, core, glutes, and hip flexors.
How?
4x80s (40s heel to toe and 40s march) Aim to hold an 18kg and 16kg KB in each hand (weight should be different in each hand) Switch after every pass
What is emotion? According to the Oxford English Dictionary its: “a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others”. There are hundreds of emotions that human can possibly experience and this is the list of the most basic ones:
Anger
Sadness
Fear
Enjoyment
Love
Surprise
Disgust
Shame
Anyone can become angry – that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not easy.
Aristotle
As Aristotle learned, there is nothing wrong with being emotional. It becomes a problem when people are inappropriate with expressing their emotions. People who mastered the skill of managing own emotions and feelings, as well as other people’s feelings are more likely to be effective in their lives. Folks that cannot control their emotional lives constantly fight inner battles that drain their energy and negatively impact their ability to focus and think clearly.
According toPeter Salovey and John Mayer, Emotional Intelligence is the ability to:
Recognize, understand and manage our own emotions. Self-awareness is the pillar of EI. The ability to monitor feelings inn a given moment is essential to self-understanding and managing responses.
Recognize, understand and influence the emotions of others
Motivate ourselves and persist in the face of frustrations
Control impulse and delay gratification
Regulate the mood and keep distress from harming our ability to think clearly
Recognize emotions in others
Handling relationships
Emotions in the body
Every emotion has its impact on our bodies on physiological level, whether we recognize it or not. The more mindful and self-aware person is, the more sensitive one to the impact of emotion onto the body. Modern technologies allow researchers to study how the body reacts to the basic emotions.
Anger. Blood rushes to our hands, making us ready to attack. Heart rate rumps up, adrenaline gets released into the blood stream, making us feel strong and ready for action.
Fear. Blood fills large muscles, such as legs, chest, back muscles, making our bodies ready to run or fight. This is why in the state of strong fear, our fingers and toes might feel cold as the blood went into the muscles.
Happiness. Doesn’t bring noticeable changes in the body, however increases available energy and brain activity.
Love. Activates the parasympathetic nervous system and sets us into relaxed, euphoric and calm state.
Surprise. Raises our eyebrows and widens the eye pupils to allow more light into retina.
Disgust. Either taste or smell will change our facial expression by lifting up the upper lip and wrinkling the nose.
Sadness. Causes a drop in energy levels and enthusiasm towards life.
Mother Nature equipped you with two kinds of processors (brains): rational and emotional. Throughout the evolution, emotional one was the first to develop, followed by the thinking brain. They’re in the constant battle with one another, the battle of head and heart.
The thinking brain. One of the greatest nature’s gifts we were given is neocortex. Its located It’s a “thinking” brain that allows us to think about our feeling and ideas. Without it we won’t get to experience love and parent-child connection.
The feeling brain. Small part of the brain is dedicated to Amygdala. Withoutit we would loose recognition of feeling, as well as feelings about feelings. Our lives would seem meaningless, without the need to compete or cooperate.
Amygdala and neocortex are at the the hardware that runs our emotional intelligence. They both are designed not to just process incoming information from our sensors, but to also store it for future use. Strong emotions and experiences, particularly negative ones are being picked up and stored in amygdala. The stronger and more intense the experience, the longer it will be stored in the brain. Amygdala constantly scans the environment for events and experiences, constantly comparing them to the ones it has stored in the memory from the past. In case or reoccurring situation, it makes sure we react to it, exactly the way we did in the past, trying to keep us safe. When it comes to live or die situation, amygdala works faster that a flash, not giving us a chance to rationalize and think about what actions to take.
Neocortex on another hand allows us to make sense of the information we receive and lets us to choose how to respond to it. Speed is the weakness of it as it takes longer to processes information. Did you become sad after your dog died? Did you feel happy winning a competition? Did you get angry over the comment someone made about you at work? Neocortex is at work.
Self-awareness
Being aware of your own feelings and emotions is the keystone of emotional intelligence. Self-awareness is the skill that if developed, allow you activate your neocortex to monitor the emotion. It lets you to step back and and gain control over what is happening. The only way to becoming more intelligent emotionally is through self-awareness.
Self-awareness means being aware of your mood and thoughts about your mood.
After you recognized the emotional sensation, once you registered it with your neocortex, you gain control over it by deciding to change your outlook, therefore your mood.
There are three types approaches commonly used by people to manage their emotional lives:
Self-aware. These people are aware of their moods as they’re having them. They are typically in good psychological health and tend to have a positive attitude towards life. They are able to get out of bad mood easier.
Engulfed. These people feel overwhelmed by their emotions and feel helpless in taking control over them. They’re not aware of how and what they feel and makes them loose perspective over the situation.
Accepting. These people are aware of their feelings and they accept them. However they don’t try to change the way they feel. In case of being in a bad mood, they simply accept the condition they’re in and doing nothing to get out of unpleasant feeling.
Alexithymia
This is a condition which described by phycologists as inability to identify and express or describe one’s feelings. People with such condition are unable to speak clearly and openly about their feelings, not because they don’t want, but because they simply don’t know how they feel feel at the first place. When they experience strong emotions, they often feel overwhelmed and try to escape that feeling as soon as possible.
Inability to prioritize
There are people that have no sense of priority. They get lost in every small detail, and everything seems equally important to them. The main cause of it is poor self-awareness. Person don’t know what he feels about the decisions he makes.
Strong emotions have significant impact on our health. Negative emotions and toxic relationships are strongly correlated with chronic diseases. The ones who learned to manage their emotional lives calmly and mindfully are on the path of living more healthy lives.
By properly managing our emotional lives, we can not only cure decease, but prevent it from occurring at the first place.
We all know know how important strong immune system for our well-being. It defends us against viruses, bacteria and cancer. There is been shown a strong link between the central nervous and immune systems as well as correlation between stress and its harmful impact on our immune resistance.
Toxic Emotions
No doubts, emotions impact out bodies physically. A lot of surgeons report that if the person scheduled for surgery, comes to the procedure panicked and scared that day, they bleed much more than people who came in calm. Anxiety and panic increases the blood pressure, causing serious complications during the surgery. People who experience chronic anxiety, long periods of sadness and pessimism, hostilities, suspiciousness – are in the risk of doubling such disease as: asthma, arthritis, headaches, heart disease. Smoking and eating fast food equally decrease your chances of living a long healthy life. Therefore being a pessimist is no better that being a smoker.
Anxiety
One of the most harmful emotions for your body. The right amount of anxiety can help us to prepare for upcoming danger, however when if becomes chronic, it ramps up the stress levels causing medical problems. Anxiety weaken the immune system, making you more susceptible to catching such viruses as flu or herpes. Studies has shown that people who rated their stress levels moderate or high, were 47% more likely to get sick – direct evidence that stress and anxiety weakens the immune system. In additions to lowered immune response, anxiety harms the cardiovascular system, making people more susceptible to heart disease.
Depression
As mentioned before, depression harms your body. In a study of 100 patients who had their bone marrow transplanted, 12 of the 13 who were depressed died within the first year of the surgery. 34 of the remaining 87 were still alive two years later. Also, in patients with kidney failure, those who were diagnosed with serious depression were most likely to die within two years. Therefore depression impede medical recovery and dramatically increases the risk of death. Depression predicts how long we live.
It’s clear that anger, anxiety, chronic stress and depression shorten our lives. Optimism on another hand, can not only speed up the recovery from a major surgery, but also reverse certain medical conditions. 122 men who had their first heart attack, were evaluated on wether they were more of an optimists or pessimists. After 8 years, 21 men out of 25 most pessimistic ones had died vs 6 out of 25 most optimistic. One way to explain such positive impact of optimism on our bodies is that pessimism essentially leads to depression, which lowers the immune system, greatly reducing our chances to fight disease.
Value of Relationships
Social isolation – a sense that you have no one to share your private feelings with or have a close connection – double the chances of sickness and death. Just let it sink in, feeling lonely, lost and isolated kills you at the same speed as smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity and lack of exercise. In fact, smoking has less negative impact than social isolation. In the study of a 100 bone marrow transplant patients, the ones that felt they had support from their friends and family, had 54% more chance of surviving than people who were left alone. Another study, that was done on 752 middle-age Swedish men, who were born in 1933 went through a free medical exam, then retested seven years later. 41 of them had died. The others who reported highly stressful lives and lack of emotional support had 3 times greater chances of mortality in the following years. Men who reported having meaningful connections in their lives – wife, close friends – showed no correlation between high stress and death rate. By simply having someone to talk to, to ask for help or advice, protected them from life’s trauma and deadly effect of stress.
Stressful life events are associated with high mortality in middle aged men. Men with adequate emotional support seem to be protected.
Rosengren, A (1993, October 30)
By learning basic emotional intelligence skills and how to manage upsetting feelings – anger, anxiety, depression, pessimism, social isolation and loneliness – we get the power to prevent disease. If you are facing a medical condition and battling disease, it is crucial to keep the positive attitude and have emotional support from close friends and family, as in some cases it predicts you live or die.
References:
Rosengren, A., Orth-Gomér, K., Wedel, H., & Wilhelmsen, L. (1993, October 30). Stressful life events, social support, and mortality in men born in 1933. Retrieved December 25, 2018, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8251807
Students who are anxious, angry or depressed don’t learn. People who experience these feelings don’t absorb information efficiently, struggling with remembering information and solving complex problems.
Marshmallow challenge
In 1960, psychologist Walter Mischel performed a study on impulse control and its impact on our lives. The experiment was done on 4-years old kids who were placed in a room with two marshmallows in front of them. The rules were simple: if the kid could wait until they get a good to go, they can eat both treats, but if they can’t wait, they can have only one marshmallow – right then. After the challenge those kids were tracked as they were graduating high school. Those who were patient enough and resisted a temptation to have a treat right that second, showed to be more socially competent, personally effective and able to better cope with the life’s challenges and frustrations. They were less likely to regress under stress, they embraced the challenges and had things done, regardless to complexity of the task. They were less likely to give up in the face of difficulties, they showed to be more confident, trustworthy and initiative. Those kids were able to delay gratification in pursuit of their goals. On the opposite side, the kids that couldn’t resist the impulse and ate the treat were more likely to shy away from social interactions, they were more likely to get upset and frustrated when things didn’t go as wanted. They also showed the tendencies to think bad about themselves, saying they are unworthy or “not enough”. They would often overreact to situations in life and would easily get into the argument or fight.
Goal-directed self-imposed delay of gratification is perhaps the essence of emotional self regulation: the ability to deny impulse in the service of goal, wether it be building a business, solving an algebra equation, or resisting temptation to eat the marshmallow.
Walter Mischel
This experiment shows how important emotional intelligence in determining how well or how poorly people are able to use their mental capacities.
Mental performance
Worry and anxiety have damaging effect on mental performance of any kind. Even slight mood changes will impact your thinking abilities. The number of worries that people report before or during an important exam, is a great predictor of how poorly they will do on it. Worrying is essentially drains your mental energy, leaving you empty to perform an important task.
Good moods – improve the ability to think. People that are feeling good, find it easier to solve complex problems. A good laugh is extremely beneficial, especially when it comes to solving creative problems.
Hope has been found to give students a great advantage in performing good in schools and then later in their jobs. Students that hold hope for performing good, set themselves higher goals and work harder on them. Hope does not only mean seeing everything through the rose glasses and believing everything will be good, but believing you have both the will and the way to accomplish your goals. Having hope helps to push through anxiety and depression when faced difficulties or challenges. People with hope are less anxious and experience less emotional challenges.
Optimism is similar to hope in a way that it focuses on thought that things will turn out well, despite setbacks. Optimistic people respond to challenges by formulating plan of action, reaching out for help and advice, they see a challenge as the opportunity. Pessimists feel themselves as victims, assuming there is nothing they can do and often do nothing about the problem. Self-efficacy – is the belief that one has mastery over the event of one’s life and can meet challenges as they come up. People’s beliefs about their abilities have profound effect on those abilities. People with a sense of self-efficacy bounce back from set-backs more easily, they thinks in terms of how can I handle the problems, instead of worrying about what con go wrong.
The flow state
Hundreds of rock climbers, surgeons, soccer and basketball players, engineers and mangers described being in the state of flow, when they outdid themselves at the chosen activity. The ability to enter the “zone” is emotional intelligence at its best. Attention becomes so narrow and focused that you loose the sense of time. There is no worrying or anxiety in a state of flow. People are completely absorbed in the task at hand.
There are few ways to enter the flow state:
Intentionally focus a sharp attention on the task. A highly concentrated state is the essence of flow
Have the task that slightly higher than your ability
If there is too little demand, you get bored. If there is too much for you to handle, you get anxious. Flow occurs in that small zone between boredom and anxiety. Intense concentration is the key.
Three main pillars of good health are: nutrition, exercise and sleep. This post discusses the importance of sleep, why you are experiencing difficulties falling/staying asleep and how to fix it.
Good night’s sleep helps you to:
Fit back into your favorite jeans. It helps you to maintain healthybody weight. There is a strong correlation between poor sleep and obesity. By poor sleep I mean less than 6 hours a night. In short, not adequate amount of sleep messes up our hormonal systems. Ghrelin and leptin are being affected which causes us to overeat;
Keep your heart and circulatory system healthy;
Be happy, positive and energized. Poor sleep = depression, anxiety, bad mood and negative emotions. Doesn’t sound too appealing to me;
Stay cancer-free. Especially strong correlation has been shown between poor sleep and breast cancer;
Have a strong immune system;
Detoxify and cleanse your body. During the day we accumulate all kinds of toxins in our bodies and brains. A good quality sleep activates a system for removing waste: theglymphatic system. This system is 60% more productive when we sleep than when we are awake. (some studies shown that it work better by simply sleeping on your side);
When you don’t sleep properly, you don’t work properly.
According to the most recent (October 10, 2018) survey done by Statistics Bureau of Canada, there is a correlation between poor sleep, stress and mental health:
How much do I need to sleep?
Enough. You should be sleeping just enough, not more or less. Every person is different, so is the need of sleep.
Sleep needs change over lifetime and as we get older, the need of sleep is declining.
Are you actually sleepy or fatigued?
Sleepiness and fatigue are different things and its important to be able to differ one from another, as the treatment is not the same.
In describing fatigue, I will use the phone battery analogy. When the battery is low, your phone lets you know that its time to recharge it by turning the icon red or putting the exclamation point next to it. Unfortunately our bodies are not equipped with such feature, so we have to use other senses to determine what’s going on. When you’re fatigued – your body’s energy is low, it might feel like your strength was drained away. You can try to go to bed, but you won’t fall asleep. This is the red light your body gives you.Fatigue can be caused by million of things. Iron deficiency, Anemia, Low T, Depression are only few possible reasons.
Falling asleep during the presentation at work, while driving, when trying to read your favorite book? You are sleepy and you need to get some rest. Sometimes you can compensate for the reduced sleep quality by quantity. A nap of an extra hour of sleep in the morning could be very helpful here. However you can’t always fix the sleepiness by just sleeping more. You need to get to the root cause of the issue, and most likely it lays in the sleep quality.
“Sleep Deprivation Impairs Ability to Interpret Facial Expressions”, Blue, A. (2017, March 22)
Sleep Stages
You sleep consists of three stages: light sleep, deep sleep and dream sleep.
Light Sleep. It is the foundational stage and works like a bridge between being awake and dead asleep. You spend about half of your sleep in this stage.
2. Deep Sleep. This stage occurs at the first half of the night. This is the most restorative sleep and it makes you feel rested in the morning. Not to mention, the precious growth hormone is produced in this stage. Growth hormone injections are widely used by bodybuilders chasing muscle growth. You can get your dose of it without needles and pills – get a gooood night rest.
“Both sleep and exercise induce the release of human growth hormone. Experts estimate that as much as 75% of human growth hormone is released during sleep. The major period of HGH release occurs during the first period of Stage 3 sleep stage (Deep sleep) during the night, about an hour after you first fall asleep. Deep sleep is the most restorative all stages of sleep. During this stage of sleep, HGH is released and works to restore and rebuild your body and muscles from the stresses of the day”, (Tuck Sleep, 18 Feb. 2018).
3. Dream Sleep (REM). This is where you dream. It comes in 20-40 minutes cycles 4-5 times a night. The longest and deepest cycle usually comes in the second part of the night or right before your alarm goes off. Still the purpose of this stage is poorly understood, however some studies has shown the links between memory processing, attention, concentration, mood, etc.
“These are the first data to show that an extended bedtime in mildly sleepy healthy adults, which resulted in increased sleep time and reduced sleepiness, reduces pain sensitivity”,Roehrs, T (Dec 1, 2012)
Circadian Rhythms
I bet you heard this term before and have a general idea of what this is, so I am not gonna go into depth into it. I’ll just say that its a basic built-in mechanism in your body that dictates pretty much everything you do, including when you get sleepy or awake without a watch or signals from the outside environment. It’s easy to brake your circadian rhythm and as a result your sleep.
Major things that brake your circadian rhythm:
Jet lag. When you travel across different time zones, day and night cues outside the window confuse your circadian rhythm which causes a lot of unpleasant symptoms.
Some of the symptoms are:
Sleepiness and difficulty sleeping;
Digestive problems;
Mental fog & reduced motivation;
Impaired concentration.
It’s not easy to recover from jet lag and it takes time, for ones more, for others less. There are some jet lag calculators that based on your location, sleep schedule and the destination you travel to, can give you and estimate of how long it should take for you to recover your circadian rhythm.
I used Jet Lag Rooster. It is free and it provides you with the sleep plan to follow upon arriving to your destination or a few days before departure to smoothen the transition. For example, traveling from Toronto, Canada to Kiev, Ukraine I will be crossing 6 time zones. According to calculator I will need around 5 days to readjust. To minimize negative effects of jet lag I will take proactive approach and begin readjusting my sleep schedule 2 days before departing.
Let’s look at the guidelines provided by the calculator:
Light ideal means try to get as much light as possible. Spend time outside in sunlight (even if it’s cloudy) or near a bright window. If it’s dark out, seek bright artificial light, preferably from a portable light box. Intermittent light works, but try to stay in light for as long as convenient.
Dark ideal means avoid as much light as possible. Your bedroom must be DARK, really dark. Turn off all the electronics and close curtains, or wear a sleep mask..
Sleep ideal means that sleep is ideal during this period. On days with no suggested sleep times, sleep as needed.
Beginning 2 days before departure I will be shifting my bed time 30 minutes earlier than the night before and waking up 30 minutes earlier respectively. It is important to get yourself exposed to the bright light for at least 3 hours right after awakening. When arrived, I’ll be going to bed at my normal times, from 9 pm to 5 am, but I’ll be playing with light and darkness, tweaking my body’s exposure to it. The first morning in Ukraine I wake up at 5 am and restricting my body’s light exposure to 2 hours, until 7 am. My second night of sleep begins again at 9 pm, but instead of limiting my light exposure for 2 hours, the next morning, I’ll reduce it to 1 hour, which will be followed by 3 hours of bright light. My bed time doesn’t change on the third night either. The only thing that changes is that I am not limiting my light exposure after awakening and allowing myself to have at least 3 hours of bright light from the moment I woke up.
Thats it! Only by the third night after departure I sleep like a baby, waking up energized and refreshed.
Few tips for the time of travel:
Drink a lot of water(no tea, no coffee, no alcohol!);
Eat healthy, nutritionally rich food (a lot of fruits and vegetables). Plane food is far from ideal, so will be best to bring your own food in a sealed container;
Make sure to take ear plugs and an eye mask with you;
Take a contrast shower upon arrival to refresh your nervous system;
If feeling really sleepy, it is ok to take a short, 20-30 minutes, nap at the new place;
2. Shift work.
Firefighters, police officers, doctors, nurses, paramedics, factory workers, and office cleaning staff have in common one thing – broken circadian rhythm. You probably didn’t know, but shift work in United States considered a sleep disorder! and even has its own diagnosis code: 307.45. According to National Sleep Foundation, the symptoms of shift work disorder include:
Excessive sleepiness when you need to be awake, alert, and productive;
Insomnia, or the inability to sleep when you need to. This can mean trouble falling asleep, or waking up before you’ve slept sufficiently;
Sleep that feels unrefreshing or insufficient;
Difficulty concentrating;
Lack of energy;
Irritability or depression;
Difficulty with personal relationships.
It is simple to say that you need to stay away from shift work. However I understand that people not always choose to work nights and working shifts is the only way to make the living. If you one of those people, here are some tips to reduce the harm that shift work does to your body:
Try not to work a number of night shifts in a row. If possible, limit night shifts and schedule days off in between;
Avoid frequently rotating shifts. If you can’t, it’s easier to adjust to a schedule that rotates from day shift to evening to night rather than the reverse order;
Keep your workplace brightly lighted to promote alertness;
Limit caffeine;
Avoid bright light on the way home from work. Try wearing dark sunglasses and a hat to shield yourself from sunlight;
Ask those around you to limit phone calls, visitors and noise level during your sleep;
Buy yourself blackout blinds or heavy curtains to block sunlight when you sleep during the day.
Sleep Hygiene
The bed is for sex and sleep
Now you know what sleep stages are, what ruins your sleep, and you understand why sleep is so important to your well-being. Next I will teach you how to get the mosts out of your sleep without drugs, shamans, or crazy expensive piece of technology. I will explain how to implement the knowledge about sleep you already have and give you guidelines with actions to take in order to sleep like a baby.
Sleep hygiene is the act of implementing and controlling different practices and habits in order to have good nighttime sleep quality. You can’t control every aspect of your sleep, but there are certain things that you can, and certainly have to.
Make your bedroom DARK, really dark. Eliminate any light sources, that include cell phones, laptops, tablets, TV, even that crack under your door and digital clock etc. I suggest that you don’t keep any electronic devices in your bedroom and leave them in the kitchen. Also limit your light exposure close to bed time by keeping your environment dim. We all need to sleep in the dark;
2. Invest in your bedding and buy the nicest things you can afford. Go wild and creative with your bedroom setup, keeping the goal in mind: to make your bed as comfortable as possible. You should love your bed;
3. Wear less. Ideally I suggest to sleep naked. Let your body breath;
4. Expose yourself to green spaces and nature. According to the most recent research:
“We found that spending time in, or living close to, natural green spaces is associated with diverse and significant health benefits. It reduces the risk of type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, premature death, and preterm birth, and increases sleep duration”, (University of East Anglia. 2018, July 6).
5. The bed is for sex and sleep. Only! Not for watching Netflix, not for working on your laptop, not for talking on the phone or scrolling the Instagram feed. Sleep and sex. Period;
6. No pets in the bedroom. I love my dog, but when it comes to sleeping, he knows he’s not allowed in the bedroom;
7. Avoid stimulants. Cut down on tea and coffee in the second part of the day. Eliminate nicotine and alcohol. If you can’t get rid of it completely, reduce consumption to minimum before bed time. My experience shows that as little as one glass of red wine before bed ramps up my resting heart rate by 5-8 beats, making me feel like crap in the morning. If you wear Fitbit or similar HR tracker, do the wine experiment yourself and measure your RHR before and after wine consumption. I promise you will be surprised;
8. Stop eating two-three hours before bed time. In addition, foods rich in protein tend to keep you up at night, while high GI (glycemic index) foods could shorten time to fall asleep. Some foods contain high amount of melatonin and have potential of promoting good night’s rest. Some of those foods are:
Walnuts;
Tart cherries;
Game meat;
Chickpeas;
Kale;
Chamomile and passionflower teas;
9. Exercise. It’s good to exercise any time during the day, but particularly morning exercise in the bright light promotes the positive effect on sleep. Be consistent with your morning exercises and you will be sleeping like never before. Also try some relaxing exercises like meditation, breathing, gentle yoga;
10. Reduce your core temperature. The ideal temperature for falling asleep is in the mid-60 degrees Fahrenheit – between 60 and 67 degrees. Find the temperature that works best for you.
“The body’s core temperature needs to drop by about two to three degrees to initiate sleep. If our core temperature is too high, the brain cannot easily make the switch from being awake to being asleep, or create the best quality sleep”, (REDDY, S. 2016, February 24).
Final tip. If you can’t fall asleep for 20-30 minutes, get up and do some slow, quiet activity until you feel sleepy. The more you try to force your sleep, the more stressed you get which certainly won’t help you. Even resting without sleeping is good for you., it’s not the waste of time.
If 10 stepsI outlined above seem like too much work, let me remind you of what sleep deprivation does to your body:
It makes you fat;
It leads to heart failure;
It may cause breast cancer.
Should I continue? I think thats enough to start putting a bit more effort into improving your sleep and implementing tips I shared with you.
What’s the single most important advice for achieving quality, refreshing sleep?
Pick a wake up time and stick with it
Train yourself, every morning, regardless of day of the week, waking up at the same time. If you chose your wake up time to be 6:00 am, no matter what happens in your life, you still wake up at 6:00 am sharp. There is no good or bad wake up time. Every person is different, some are larks, others are nights owls. We all also need different amounts of sleep. Don’t take the magazine article that says everyone should be sleeping not less than 8 or 9 hours, as a dogma. Those numbers are averages and you should be sleeping not more or less than your body requires.
Napping
To begin with, I am not a huge fan of napping from the approach that people use it to make up for lost night’s sleep. I think that adding naps reduce your drive to sleep at night. So the excessive amount of naps leads to inability to fall asleep later at night. However napping can be okay if done wisely.
“A nap is not meant to make up for lost sleep when the sleeper had the opportunity to sleep, but didn’t”, (Winter, W. C. 2018).
But let’s say it’s a lunch time and you feel really sleepy and you think you desperately need to catch a little snooze to make it through the day. Do it! But do it’s best if you do it earlier in the day, rather than closer to the bed time.
“An early nap adds to the previous night of sleep, but a late nap subtracts from the upcoming night of sleep”, (Winter, W. C. 2018).
Naturally we all feel a little sleepiness after lunchtime. Researchers believe that this is not only a great time to nap, but also an evolutionary mechanism. Duration of your nap is really important. Ideally you want to keep it short, not longer than 20-30 minutes. Keeping it this short will give you a boost of energy without making you feel dull, fuzzy or even having a headache. In addition, the nap should always follow a schedule. It means that if you decide to include it in your days, it has to be taken at the same every time you take it. A quiet, dark place, where you won’t be disturbed is ideal. Get comfortable, hug your favorite pillow, maybe even put a blanket over, set the timer for 25 minutes and fall into the world of dreams.
Snoring & Apnea
You definitely have a friend or relative that snores like a train at night. One third of people over 30 snore.
Sleep apnea syndrome is when an airways are closing off and you’re not getting enough oxygen. Our brains are highly dependent on oxygen and using as much as 20% of your body’s oxygen. How much oxygen your brain is getting has a strong correlation with how much sleep you’re getting. Sleep apnea disturbs your breathing, giving your brain a choice to make: stay asleep and let the suffocating continue or wake up and catch some breath. Guess which option your brain will choose?
If you ignoring your snoring, you essentially sacrificing your sleep quality and as a result shortening you life. Sleep apnea is killing you slowly by causing:
High blood pressure;
Weight gain;
Hight blood sugar/diabetes;
Mood disorders, depression;
Increased risk for heart attack and heart failure;
Stroke;
If you noticed you wake up every morning with a headache, you pee much more at night than during the day, consult with your doctor as you might be experiencing the sleep apnea.
Restless Legs Syndrome
According to National Advisory Neurological Disorders and Stroke Council (NANDSC):
“Restless legs syndrome (RLS), also called Willis-Ekbom Disease, causes unpleasant or uncomfortable sensations in the legs and an irresistible urge to move them”, (NINDS, May, 2017).
The legs are not the problem here – the brain is. There is a lot to do with your hormones, specifically with dopamine. Dopamine is not only important when it comes to pleasure, but it also plays a huge role in keeping you awake. It has the opposite effect to melatonin and promotes the muscle activity, keeping you alert. This is a serious condition and has to be treated by professional, so go to the doctors as soon as you start suspecting the symptoms.
Narcolepsy
According to Winter (2018):
Narcolepsy is a condition of excessive daytime sleepiness in which the individual loses the ability to properly stabilize his wakefulness.
In other words, people with this condition can quickly fall asleep or experience some aspect of sleep while being fully awake and conscious. Here are some symptoms of narcolepsy:
Excessive daytime sleepiness and sudden sleep attacks;
Hallucinations as you are falling asleep or waking up;
“Cataplexy” – suddenly becoming weak when experiencing strong emotions;
“Sleep paralysis” – awakening and being conscious, but maintaining the paralysis;
Disrupted nighttime sleep.
There are some medications that reduce sleepiness and cataplexy attacks. Xyrem is commonly used and most effective drug for curing this condition.
Conclusion
Sleep is a skill and it takes years to master it. Every person deals with sleep problems from time to time and its important to have tools and tricks to be able to take care of yourself before the problem gets worse. This post touched on some basics of sleep that every health conscious person should be educated on. It provided you with some insight into your own sleep and gave you some ideas of how to increase the quality of your night’s rest. There are thousands of books and articles on web, that go more into depth of the science of sleep. But before you dig deeper, nail your basics.
Roehrs, T. A., Harris, E., Randall, S., & Roth, T. (2012). Pain sensitivity and recovery from mild chronic sleep loss. Sleep, 35(12), 1667-72. doi:10.5665/sleep.2240
Long-Term Low-Carbohydrate, High-Fat Diet Impairs Performance and Subjective Well-Being in a World-Class Vegetarian Long-Distance Triathlete
The aim of this case study was to report on the performance outcomes and subjective assessments of long-term low-carbohydrate, high-fat (LCHF) diet in a world-class long-distance triathlete who had been suffering from gastrointestinal distress in Ironman competition. The lacto-ovo vegetarian athlete (age = 39 years; height = 179 cm; usual racing body mass = 75 kg; sum of seven skinfolds = 36 mm) changed his usual high carbohydrate (CHO) availability diet to an LCHF diet for 32 weeks (∼95% compliance). He participated in three professional races while on the LCHF diet, but acutely restored CHO availability by consuming CHO in the preevent meals and during the race as advised. The athlete had his worst-ever half-Ironman performance after 21 weeks on the LCHF diet (18th). After 24 weeks on LCHF, he had his second worst-ever Ironman performance (14th) and suffered his usual gastrointestinal symptoms. He did not finish his third race after 32 weeks on LCHF. He regained his usual performance level within 5 weeks back on a high CHO diet, finishing second and fourth in two Ironman events separated by just 3 weeks. Subjective psychological well-being was very negative while on the LCHF diet, with feelings of depression, irritability, and bad mood. In conclusion, this long-term (32 weeks) LCHF intervention did not solve the gastrointestinal problems that the athlete had been experiencing, it was associated with negative performance outcomes in both the half-Ironman and Ironman competitions, and it had a negative impact on the athlete’s subjective well-being.
Since about March 2020, I’ve been using food to cope with stress. I ate when I was not hungry. I ate much more than I needed. People who knew me always admired my “clean eating” habits. They thought that I had a very strong discipline to keep myself away from the sugar. Yes and no. I simply did not crave anything sweet. My diet consisted from whole foods with almost no sugar. I could easily sit in front of the desert table and not having a single bite. I simply didn’t want to.
My addiction began from a small candy here and there. Nothing serious. I would often eat my regular meals to the point where I was overly full. I would justify such binging as the need for energy to fuel my trainings. By the end of spring, things got out of control. I got laid off; I no place to stay; I failed to purchase the house (the owner died the night before closing)… I was stressed out of my mind to say the least. Guess, how did I cope?
If I had something sweet or tasty I would lose control. I could not stop until I ate the whole peanut butter jar or the entire box of candies. I was not hungry. I was not starving, but I kept eating and eating and eating… Like a pig, I would stuff myself to the point, where it was uncomfortable. I started going to fast food places. “WTF are you doing?”, I would ask myself in my mind, but I couldn’t stop. In the middle of the night, I would find myself in the drivetrough of McDonalds, Wendy’s, Taco Bell etc. This is when I clearly realized that I had a full-blown sugar addiction. I got worried about myself.
Despite 2-3 hours of hard daily training, the weight started to come on. No matter how hard you work out – you can not over exercise a bad diet. This added more stress. I realized that I needed to do something about it, so I started analyzing my addiction.
I read a lot. I watched and listened to a lot of smart people. As always, I was trying to solve the problem with my mind. It took me about nine month! to realize that I could not break this addiction with my brain. I needed something different. I kept searching.
By the way, around September, my body weight had reached 75 kg. I was shocked. This was 10 kg over my typical weight… Holly sh*t Sasha!
I was trying to break my food addiction with the thing that created it – my mind. I read, I listened, I watched. I took notes. I meditated on it. Nothing had worked and it made me realize how strongly I got hooked on food… sugar in particular.
Throughout my research I learned a ton about myself. I analyzed my actions and triggers in-n-out. I am very good at analytics.
I knew exactly what was going under the hood of my brain, however it did not make my life better. All this knowledge came to be useless after the fridge door opened…
Books I read
“Experiments with Intermittent Fasting”
BY DR. JOHN M. BERARDI WITH DR. KRISTA SCOTT-DIXON AND NATE GREEN
I am the fattest that I have ever been in the past three years. It bothers me. Not so much the weight but the psychological side of things. I realize that the problem is much bigger than eating less and exercising more.
Like many others, I am going through some hard times. Coronavirus pushed me way out of my comfort zone, so my mind had to figure out how to cope with high levels of stress and anxiety. It didn’t take long to fall back into the old, proven coping method – the food.
I could force myself to lose weight. I’ve done it before. Using the brute force of willpower, I lost 40 pounds in less than 2 months in the spring of 2017.
It took a toll on my body. I messed up my hormones and gallbladder. I got away with it, just because I was young enough to handle such abuse. This is not the route I want to pursue again and it won’t be the solution. It will not address the root cause, because the problem is not the extra weight itself, nor the food. The problem is in my head – I am addicted.
I want to fix the issue, not the symptom. I want to get to its core, so I never have to come back to it again. I want to get out of this endless cycle of gaining and losing. The cycle of abundance and restriction.
I’ve been thinking a lot… I’ve been analyzing my past. I’ve been asking myself a lot of uncomfortable questions. I’ve been studying literature and talking to others. By figuring out my own problem, I feel I could help others. My strength is analysis. I will use myself as a guinea pig and try to solve this puzzle. I will write about my path to breaking food addiction.
Money, clothes, cars, houses… I need, I want, I have to… It is toxic. Everything goes in and nothing comes out from living a such self-centered lifestyle. Dude! The world does not revolve around your persona. No one cares about your looks or possessions. All the people care is themselves and how they feel around you. Thats the way things are and that’s how they will always be, with or without you. Stop chasing your tail and trying to impress others. How much do you need to fill that hole inside of you? How much do you need to say – enough? Me-me, more-more…
The more you take, the less you get. The hole grows and sucks everything in and leaves you unfulfilled, at the minimum. Continue down this path and you will end up with depression. “Cranky train” will take you places you don’t want to be in.
Turn the tables. Pull emergency stop handle.
What if instead of taking, you begin giving?
Run the experiment. No matter what you have or where you at in life – start giving. “I don’t have anything to give” – bullshit. At the minimum you can give a smile to a stranger. You don’t need to wait until you make a billion of bucks to start donating money to charity. The life is short and most likely you will never hit that threshold for money where you say – enough, I don’t need anymore. You will never be enough.
Giving is receiving. However giving to receive is stealing.
Give unconditionally. Give without expecting anything in return. However if returned – don’t shy away from it. Learn to accept.
COPE Mental Health Program of Community Care Durham is a community-based program that supports mentally challenged adults. I volunteered my time to go through eight week training program and became certified to work as a group facilitator with emotionally and mentally challenged adults. Considering my passion for active lifestyle and interest in yoga, me and another volunteer developed the 8-week course which is aimed to help mentally challenged community members to become more mindful and healthier through the body movement and exercise. Every Saturday we meet for two hours, where we volunteer as yoga instructors. Each class is broken down into two parts: first hour is physical health through yoga practice; the second half is the mindfulness piece. I put together the slides and present the information about the nutrition and healthy living. We just finished our second week out of eight and I think we’re doing great! People are engaged, they show interest in doing different yoga poses that often seem to be challenging. During my presentations they often ask questions and make the discussion flowing. I feel that I am doing something really meaningful and valuable. I’ve been challenging my class with the balancing yoga pose – the tree. Only few people got it in the first class, but more than half of the class got it as soon as one week later. They were excited to see that quick improvement and I felt fulfilled, because I contributed into this. I felt fulfilled when the lady came up to me after my presentation and genuinely said: “Thank you Sasha”.
“You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give.”, Winston Churchill.
Past Saturday I decided to bring Mr. Blake with me into the class. I thought he would be a great addition to my yoga teaching and indeed he was! Everyone absolutely loved him and couldn’t help but smile seeing Me and him doing our yoga tricks.
In fact, this wellness program is doing so well that got so popular that community center hit attendance threshold. 27 people step into our center every Saturday for a yoga class and wellness talks. It is really nice to see people coming back. I look forward to the next week’s session and excited to share with others my time and energy. I never felt comfortable talking on public and giving speeches, but now I am even looking forward to giving presentations on the subjects of health & wellness.
I wonder what will come out of it? There is only one way to find out…
Why volunteer?
Stop thinking about your own problems and focus on someone other than yourself. In return your stress levels will decrease. You will be more satisfied with yourself and your life.
Dealing with a mix of personalities you step outside of your comfort zone. You improve your teamwork, leadership, problem-solving and people skills.
Volunteering, gives you the chance to contribute to the community and world you want to live in. It gives you the opportunity to be apart of something bigger than yourself and use your own skills and knowledge to empower the people you serve.
Volunteering shifts your lenses and changes how you see the world. This shift in perspective opens your mind to what is truly important, and helps to become more empathetic.
Every person volunteers for his own reasons. No matter what the reasons are for you, remember this: Giving is receiving. However giving to receive is stealing.
For the past several months I’ve been experiencing serious performance decrease in my sport, especially in cycling. Trying to find the root cause I stumbled on such an interesting term as RED-S. According to Wikipedia:
“… an athlete’s bone density may decrease, but may not yet have dropped below her age-matched normal range. These signs can be considered “occult,” as no one symptom may be severe enough to seek medical attention, leaving the Triad to go unnoticed or untreated…”
Sounds pretty serious. I needed to rule out the possibility of having a low bone density so I went ahead and booked an appointment for the DEXA scan. Why DEXA?
A dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) scan is a low-radiation x-ray that accurately measures how much of your body weight is made up of fat, muscle, and bone. It also measures the bone density. Tt tells you your total body fat, muscle, and bone, and breaks it down by body part. I cared less about the body fat and muscle – just tell me what’s my bone density.
I did my test at the place called Studio Athletica in Toronto. I would recommend this place for the several reasons:
Location – 5 Stars
Customer service – 5 Stars
Overall experience – 5 Stars
Pricing – 5 Stars
Eye Opener
I did get the number I was looking for, however I also got a lot of other very interesting information about my machinery. Let’s dive in!
Below you see three pictures of me:
Bone (left)
Muscle (middle)
Fat (right)
Lean Mass
According to the readings, my lean mass is 138 lb (63 kg), while total weight is about 156 lb (70 kg). Lean mass is the sum of all the muscle and soft organ tissue (internal organs, ligaments, connective tissue, etc.). What makes the rest 20 lb? Not the poop – Fat. Fat mass includes all the fat found within the organs of the body as well as the subcutaneous fat found under the skin. 8.8% of Sasha is made out of fat. Below is a breakdown:
This is the off season and I gained about 2-3 kg of my typical weigh. Even considering that 8% seem to be on the edge of health/performance. Below is the picture of me one month before this DEXA. I was about 2 kg lighter then, therefore I would assume that my body fat was 1-2% lower. However, to give you an idea of what 6-8% body fat looks like:
RSMI
Next screenshot shows the more precise body fat percentage as well as RELATIVE SKELETAL MUSCLE INDEX (RSMI). What that is? RSMI helps to determine your risk for sarcopenia.
Sarcopenia is a disease associated with the aging process. Loss of muscle mass and strength affects balance, gait, and the ability to perform daily living tasks.
It basically tell how old you are. Not too old yet, according to the readings. Also, with such a low body fat %, I might need to consider putting on some weight, as 8% is almost critical for my sport.
Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR)
This is interesting, as it shows how much energy your body needs just to keep you alive. This energy is just enough to maintain your body temperature, heartbeat, and keep you breathing.
My machinery requires about 1,700 calories a day not to die. This makes me wonder, how would that look in terms of food?
1700 CALORIES worth of FOOD
Salmon Filet 1,9 KG
Oatmeal 455g
Sweet Potatoes 1,5 kg
Avocado 1 kg
Ok ok, I got distracted here… Basically, what I showed you is that to simply stay alive, mine and yours bodies require quite a bit of food. Try to eat almost 2 kilograms of salmon or 1,5 kg of sweet potatoes! Then multiply in by 7 to estimate the weekly intake. Also consider the thermic effect of proteins vs carbs and fats… I definitely underestimated the energy requirements of my body.
Muscle Balance in Body
This is a comparison of my body’s right to left muscle mass symmetry. Despite the fact that I am right-handed, left side of Sasha appears to be stronger. Abnormally big heart, bigger left arm, leg, runk… everything is bigger on the left side:
Main Takeaways
Bone Density is within good range. It’s not included in this report, however I got the results separately.
Resting Metabolic Rate is 1,700 calories/day, which is a lot of food.
I might consider putting on some weight, as 8% body fat is pretty low – almost critical for my sport.
So many young healthy people complain about feeling tired on High energy levels will not only increase vitality, but also make you more influential and authoritative. The higher your energy the more attractive you become to people around. So many people are energy deprived, tired and exhausted. It’s in high demand and unconsciously, people feel your energy and feed on it like vampires. This is why so-called magnetic or charismatic people appear to be so attractive. When you have high energy levels, they spill over onto others, making you favorable and appealing to them. Energy within is the secret of your charm.
There are two ways in which you can increase your energy levels:
Reduce the expenditure.
Increase the production.
The first step is reduction, not in a sense of doing less, but reducing the amount of energy spent on meaningless things. It is about bringing awareness to the things that suck the energy out of you, essential for litality and good health. Self-rumination, negative thoughts and feelings take so much of your energy. The continuous inner battle drains us, sucks all the life out. You job is to determine the major energy leaks in your life. Some of them are obvious, some not. Set yourself free and get all the wasted energy back. You will feel lighter. Bringing awareness by shining light on the leeches that feed on your energy give you choices: continue feeding the leech or demand what’s yours, stop the leak and shake off the sucker off your back. Even if you don’t don’t use any of the techniques and tools described later in the book, but fixed several major energy leaks in your life – you will greatly increase your energy levels. This will make you feel empowered and you will never want to go back to the sluggish existence you’ve been calling “living”.
Energy Drains
So much of the energy is being wasted on negative feelings and emotions:
Anger;
Fear;
Cognitive dissonance. When your actions conflict with your core values you create an internal conflict with your soul. Clearly define your core values and use them to guide you through the journey of your life. Don’t waste the precious energy on battling with your soul. No matter how hard you try, I promise you will lose every time;
Carrying what other people think;
Guilt. Feeling to be owed comes out of the guilt. If you owe, you did something wrong therefore you guilty and you need to be punished;
Trying to control something or someone;
Worrying about the future;
Resisting feelings or emotions;
Exhaustion due to overdoing/multi-tasking;
Dis-ease of the physical body. Fighting the disease or a virus within the body requires a lot of energy;
Boredom.
Any of the things listed above, if reached a certain level of intensity, can easily consume all the energy resources produced by your body. The list can go on and on, however there are two processes among the rest that consume the most of your energy:
Inner dialog;
Muscle tension.
We can’t stop or control the unstoppable stream of thoughts in our heads which drains us faster than anything else. Without even realising, we remain tense for the most part of our day. The muscles are tight, even when we are not doing anything. Whenever we perform any kind of physical activity, we engage muscles of the body that should not be used at all. When doing the easiest things, we waste so much energy that would be enough to run a marathon. When we walk, we waste the energy to keep the shoulders and neck muscles contracted. Even laying on a couch we can’t truly relax and remain tense in the entire body. Unconsciously we even waste the energy on facial expressions.
In addition, we have a habit of talking about stupid things with everyone. We drain ourselves trying to prove, attempting to explain ourselves. Even if there is no one around, we continue chatting with ourselves in our minds. We just can’t stop this endless chat. Talking, talking. talking… Realize that you don’t have to always talk, think, do or even feel. You can just simply be. First step for increasing energy levels you need to learn how to save the energy that is being produced by your body. Stop unconsciously wasting this precious resource on meaningless things. Save and use this energy on the things that matter, things that make a difference in your life and the lives of others, grow and develop a beautiful human being – yourself.
Energy Vampires
Energy is all around, however only so many people learned to access it. Those people recharge their batteries, taking the energy from Cosmos. It is not a born skill and hard to develop. Much easier to absorb someone else’s energy, who had done the job of assimilating it in their bodies.
There were times when you felt exhausted, bored, irritated, stressed, anxious, overwhelmed or depressed after just a few moments in a person’s company. You’ve been drained by the energy vampire.
“Energy vampires are emotionally immature individuals who have the sense that the whole world revolves around them. They are almost incapable of seeing things from another person’s perspective. They often lack empathy. They believe that they must take everything they can get from others and that giving anything will deprive them of essential resources. It’s as if the whole world exists just to serve them and you are the latest object upon which they have set their sights for exploitation.”, (Henshaw S., 2018).
Some literature refers to energy vampires as to “Psychic Vampires”:
“ A psychic vampire is a fictional and religious creature said to feed off the “life force” of other living creatures. The term can also be used to describe a person who gets increased energy around other people, but leaves those other people exhausted or “drained” of energy. “, ( Wikipedia, November 3, 2019).
Psychic vampires often feel energy deficient. They don’t produce enough energy to sustain themselves. At one point of their lives they discover that they can charge their batteries from other people. Once they get a taste of elevated energy levels, they can’t go back. The vampire is now awakened.
There are conscious and unconscious vampires. A lot of people will suck your energy out without meaning to do so. They are unconscious of their needs and abilities. Other type – conscious vampires is more dangerous. They are well aware of whom they are and how to use other people for their well being. Emotions, often negative, are the fuel for vampires and they will do anything to shake you off the balance. Emotional vampires are everywhere and wear many different heats — from needy relatives to workplace bullies. Either consciously or not, these people can make us feel overwhelmed, depressed, defensive, angry, and wiped out.
Protect yourself:
Be aware. Whenever you feel drained, get tired and lose energy in a company of a certain person – you have surely met the emotional vampire. Now that you are aware that you are being used, you can take actions to protect yourself from being completely drained.
Distance yourself from the person. The easiest ways to protect yourself from being drained by a vampire is to simply stay away from them, however that is not always possible;
Meditate. Daily meditation will increase your energy levels, so when the interaction with one is inevitable, you at least will last longer, until you can break free.
Smile. If vampire tries to shake you off the balance to feed on your negative emotions – fight them back with a smile and kindness. Awareness is your shield, smile is your sword. It can be really hard to lift up the heavy sword of smile when all you think of is to scream and yell, however realize that this all the vampire needs from you.
I am a strong believer in the power of mind. Strong mind as important as a strong healthy body. It is what makes elite the elite, either in sport, business or life in general. Below I share a simple technique that will improve your mental toughness, will make you healthier and will boost you with energy.
Few facts about your body
Your body is tuned to optimally operate within 20–21°C (68–71°F)
125,000 km (77,671 mi) of blood vessels running through your body. It’s enough to go around the world 3 times! Just think about that for a sec.
There are two types of fat in your body: White fat and Brown fat. Brown fat is keeping your body warm by utilizing glucose and fat. Newborn babies don’t shiver as they have a lot of brown fat to keep them warm. People who live in colder climates have more brown fat than those that are not. By exposing to cold, overweight people lose weight by fueling brown fat with the white one.
When you take ice bath/cold shower
Your body closes blood flow to less important parts of itself to remain in homeostasis by keeping the core temperature above 35°C (95°F). Blood rushes from the skin and muscles into the organs to keep the body temperature within healthy range. The more cold your body gets, the more blood vessels in my arms and legs contract, ensuring that the heart, liver, kidneys get enough blood to continue working. This is why you may feel burning or tingling sensations in your toes and fingers. By taking a cold shower or ice bath you essentially train your blood vessels to open and close, just like training your muscles.
Known health benefits from exposing your body to cold
Improves blood circulation
Activates brown fat
Trains you heart and cardiovascular system
Improves immune system by increasing the amount of leukocytes, which helps fighting against viruses, parasites, bacteria and foreign substances
Clears your skin and making it soft
Charges you with energy. Adrenaline and dopamine levels rise instantly, giving you the “energy boost”
Improves your mood
Besides the health benefits outlined above, there are additional benefits I personally found for myself:
It’s a good mental training
Raises self-confidence and gives a sense of accomplishment. A mini-win over the mind
Speeds up muscle recovery and relieves soreness for people who keep an active lifestyle
Helps to clear the mind and fight negative thoughts. It also slows the mind down in a way, so you get a sense of stillness and connection between mind and body
3-step Body Tempering Procedure
It’s not all just about getting cold
There are two parts of the exercise: breathing and cold. The breathing part is not intended to relax you. It is there to enable you to control your mind and body.
It’s not all just about getting cold
Ice bath, or a cold shower is only the tool that allows you to train your mind. Think of it as a mental gym. Just as if I would go to the gym to train my body, I dive into the ice to train my mind.
Step 1. Take contrast showers
A contrast shower is simple. You just alternate between hot and cold water. The hot water opens your blood vessels and increases blood circulation, and the cold water contracts your blood vessels and decreases blood flow. While on the beginning you won’t be able to stay long under the cold water, with time you will get more used to it and will even start to like it. When you open the cold water, naturally you will start breathing fast. The trick here is to calm your breath by breathing in deeply and exhaling slowly. Control your breathing. Week by week slowly increase the time under the cold shower, and remember the main thing — breathe slowly and deeply. With time the ratio between hot:cold will decrease and you will be able to stay under the cold shower much longer and it won’t shock you as much as it did in the beginning. Practice it in the morning or first part of the day.
Step 2. Take ONLY cold showers
Now that you’ve been playing with contrast showers for a while, cold water doesn’t feel as cold and you significantly increased the time you spend in the blue zone. It’s time to level up. In the morning, right after you woke up, jump into the cold shower right away. Remember: the trick here is to calm your breath — breathe slowly and deeply. Begin from 60–90 seconds, then step out of the shower and dry your body with a towel as fast as you can. Day by day slowly increase the time under the cold water.
Step 3. Superman level
Fill your tub with cold water. Add the ice. Don’t think, just jump in! The more you think, the less likely you will do it. When you’re in, focus on your breath. As I already mentioned before, deep breathing is the key. If your breathing is fast and shallow, you will start panicking and your reflexes will take over, forcing you out of the ice water. Breathe slowly and deeply, watch your breath. The second you noticed your mind began wondering, come back to your breathing. Don’t sit in the ice for too long. I would say a minute would be a good start, and then slowly progress.
Your breathing is the link between the physical, material world and spiritual — non-tangible world.
Few useful tips
Don’t think about taking a cold shower. Don’t think how cold and uncomfortable it will get. Don’t let your mind talk you out of it.
Focus only on stepping into the shower. Period. Just step in, the rest will follow.
When in cold, focus on what follows. Think of how good the warm water will feel afterwards and how good you will feel about yourself.
Remember, the cold shower won’t last forever, but the mental strength will.
“It’s all Good Mental Training”
Once you have formed the habit of taking cold showers daily, don’t let it vanish. To see the benefits outlined above, you have to stay consistent. There will be times when you travel, catch a cold or simply don’t have access to a shower, and that’s fine. It gives you the opportunity to try something new. If its a winter time, go out and jump into the snow — scare your neighbors. Maybe there is a lake or pond nearby that you can dunk in. Gyms, community centers all over us. Don’t look for excuses, because you will find them. Instead, search for the opportunities and stay creative.
Ever since I started the cold exposure habit, it’s been more than three years. There wasn’t a single day that I missed a cold shower or an ice bath. When people hear that I dive into the ice, they usually say: “it’s just not so cold for you anymore…” or “you’re from Ukraine, so you’re used to it”. It is no more than an excuse that people find for themselves to not do it. It brings up the smile on my face each time I hear them. I took a cold shower over a 1,000 times and let me tell you, there wasn’t a single time that I felt like taking it. Every time I left my warm bed and came up to the shower, my mind would give me a million legitimate reasons why I shouldn’t do it. Thousand times I forced myself to open the cold water. Thousand times I won the internal battle between ME and MY MIND. Thousand times I stepped out of the shower as a winner. Thousand times I trained my mental muscle and strengthen it.
Cold showers are still as cold for me as they were when I just started. However my mind is much stronger now, and your will get too. The ability to control the mind doesn’t stop in the tub of ice, it impacts all areas of your life. You will finally put the reins on the crazy “monkey mind” of yours and slow it down. You will be able to step back and take control over the impulsive behaviors, you weren’t even aware of before. It will teach you to do the right things when you don’t want to, when you being lazy or tired. It will train you to push through discomfort and pain. It will open up a whole new, previously unreachable world.
Today I met with my surgeon to see how the recovery is going. I was secretly hoping to hear it goes better than expected and I can return to my training.
X-Ray pictures, then range of motion assessment… impressive! What?
October 29 (4 weeks later)October 1st
Indeed, I’m healing really fast and haven’t lost any mobility in the shoulder. In fact I am moving so well, that when I asked about physiotherapy he smiled and asked Why? He said I already do the things people usually can’t in this stage of recovery. He also allowed me to slowly get back to the training, however warned me about lifting weights and stay away from it. Swimming, Running, Cycling? Yes, Sir!
What contributed to such fast recovery?
1. Continuous movement. I haven’t stopped moving and every day I would find a way to keep the blood flowing. My arm can’t move, but the legs can. Walk, walk, walk… a lot of walking. Blake might’ve cut a few pounds from putting so many steps.
2. Nutrition. I always stay on top of my nutrition and closely look what I put into my body. Clean, nutritiously rich foods sure helped with recovery by delivering all the necessary building blocks.
3. Attitude. It was not always bright and positive. In fact, I went through a lot of frustration and it got pretty ugly at time. During those time I haven’t stopped reminding myself that it will not last forever and it’s a good mental training.
4. Support. Mental support from the people around helped me to see a better future and find the positives in situation. Knowing that there’s is someone you can ask for help gives hope.
Would I do anythingdifferently?
This is a tough question to answer. I don’t think I would do anything differently… Maybe just working on cutting the negative thoughts and emotions. However without having those dark periods I won’t feel so good right now. No, I won’t change anything. All was good! Couldn’t get any better.
I am so happy and grateful for recovering so fast, so well. I am grateful for everyone who helped me along the way. A huge Thank you!!!
It’s been though, it’s been painful, but it was a good mental training. Time to roll up the sleeves and get back to business! Watch me evolve…
Друзья, после падения с велосипеда на IRONMAN 70.3 Lake Placid, New York я получал вопросы по поводу процесса госпитализации, стоимости и реабилитации. Ниже я ответил на интересующие вопросы. Почитайте, сравните, задайте вопрос.
После падения приехала скорая, тебя сразу в больницу забрали и там выполнили рентген и поставили диагноз? С момента падения, прихода в себя и прибытия кареты скорой помощи пошло порядка 30-40 минут. Машина подбехала тихо, без лишнего шума и серен. Во время ожидания со мной пребывал сотрудник полиции, который позже помог поднять меня на носилки. Дорога до больницы заняла порядка 40-45 минут. Проокатили с ветерком, сиренами и всем сопутствующим. Компанию мне создавала молодая сотрудница скорой помощи.
Через сколько дней после травмы была госпитализация и операция? Через 9 дней после получения травмы у меня был назначен appointment с хирургом. В тот же вечер мне перезвонили с госпиталя и сообщили что операция назначена на следующее утро в 6 часов. И того 10 дней после получения травмы.
Операция была же под общей анестезией? (Ты спал с трубкой во рту) через сколько времени после операции разрешили пить, есть, вставать? Операция проводилась под общей анестезией, перед которой мне также сделали “anesthetic nerve block“. Анестезиолог сообщил что nerve block не обязателен, но они сильно его рекомендуют. Объяснил как будет проходить процедура и сообщил все возможные побочные эффекты и осложнения. Подкатили ультразвук, подключили меня к приборам и больно укололи в шею.
Сколько времени/дней ты находился в больнице после операции? Выписали в тот-же день. Более того, спустя 4-5 часов после начала операции.
Какие препараты тебе давали/прописали? Прописали только один болеутоляющий препарат – Oxycontin. Считается одним из самых опасных и вызывающим быстрое привыкание.
Косынку после операции сразу разрешили не носить или когда снять? Косынку сказали носить до следующей встречи с врачом (2 недели).
Через сколько дней после операции рентген? Рентген и осмотр доктора – 2 недели после операции.
Какие движения в плечевом суставе разрешены или запрещены? Единственными запретами были не нагружать руку/плечо и не поднимать руку вверх. Таких прям конкретных запретов не давалось и общение строилось в плане рекомендаций.
Какую программу реабилитации дали? И когда можно вернуться к нагрузкам? Пока еще не прописали программу реабилитации. Сказали походить 4 недели, ии назначили рентген по истечении. Если рентген покажет что все в норме, только тогда можно будет начать реабилитацию. Когда можно будет вернутся к нагрузкам не сказали, так как это будет зависеть от физиотерапевта.
За чей счет все происходило? Бесплатно, как экстренная помощь при травме; полностью по страховке (если по страховке, то сколько стоит страховка, если не секрет). Медицина В Канаде бесплатная, хотя есть свои нюансы, такие как например она не покрывает услуги стоматолога. Операция и всё с ней связанное, на територии Каданы, было за счет государства, то есть бесплатно для меня. С другой стороны, госпитализация в США стоит денег. Ниже копия счёта пришедшего по почте. В сумму включены только услуги скорой помощи:
Обрати внимание, отдельно идет расчет по километражу, прям как в такси. Инвойс из больницы я еще не получил, и с нетерпением жду приговор. Страховка: Мой работодатель предоставляет медицинскую страховку, которой предусмотрена госпитализация за пределами Канады. Ещё не подтверждено, но есть надежда что она покроет 100% расходов связанных с моими приключениями в США.
По поводу стоимости моей страховки не могу сказать, но знаю что в среднем, семья в Канаде тратит порядка $2000 на страховку для всех членов (он, она и ребёнок), плюс $4000 на всевозможные “premiums” то бишь выплаты из собственного кармана. В основном в Канаде, так же и в Америке, страховка предоставляется работодателем.
До и после операции. 7 болтов и одна металлическая пластина.
Так выглядит установленная пластина под кожей.
В Канаде не практикуется удаление пластины по истечению определенного времени, так что пластина остается в человеке навсегда. Металл вынимают только в случае возникновения осложнений.
Шрам после операции. “Небольшое” напоминание.
Как вы уже заметили, медицинские услуги за границей не дешевое удовольствие, особенно в США и Канаде. Я очень рекомендую потратить пару $ на приобретение страховки особенно если вы планируете участвовать в каких-нибудь спортивных мероприятиях.
В целом я удовлетворен качеством полученных услуг и отношением к себе, как к пациенту. Медсестры в Нью Йорке накормили фруктами и и напоили кофе. В Канаде ко мне так же отнеслись с уважением и терпеливо ответили на все мои вопросы. Если бы я был в силе изменить что-то, то это время ожидания операции с момента получения травмы. Но с учётом того что я сломался не на родной земле и мне пришлось ехать 500 км обратно в Торонто, даже 10 дней я считаю не так уже и плохо.
Always in car. So convenient, so comfortable. I can’t remember when was the last time I took the bus.
Took the bus today.
The first time since I arrived to Canada, the first time in a past several years.
November 2013, Austin, Texas… I’m 21 and I just arrived to Austin for internship. Alone, scared and cold. $300 cash in my pocket, one small suitcase and huge round eyes. I’m in survival mode.
What a flashback…. the feelings are not so intense but they are present. Why am I feeling so lost again…? I felt the way I was feeling back then, 6 years ago. The thoughts I had, the outlook on life and world… they’re all back. It’s not the pretty place. The smell of cheap fast food is just like then, so vivid. Stop it, it’s just a dream.
Did I take the wrong bus? Its a time travel bus.
It brought me back to the place I’ve started from. The place I don’t want to return, the ugly place I was trying to get out from sooo bad.
All of a sudden I’m back in Ukraine. At the bus station on a cold evening. I am a student, going back from school after a long day at university. I’m waiting for my jam packed yellow box that will take me back to another box – my tiny apartment room. The weather is exactly the same. Light rain in my face, cold and windy.
Tired and hopeless, I am miserable in my own eyes. Watching passing cars, feeling lesser than people in those cars. I am not worth, I am not enough. I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to live like this. Like this? Sasha, you have everything. So many things to be grateful for… so many reasons to be happy. But you are not. You was not happy then and you are not happy now… Memories are sucking me back into the past.
No! I don’t want to go back! This is not my bus! Stop it! Let me out!… I need to walk.
I need to get these out of my head… I need to write them out.
Look in the mirror. Is it what I look like now? Why the picture of myself in my mind is so much different from what I see? Who lies? If it’s a dream, what is reality?
Your body is A-MA-ZING. It’s the ultimate bio-machine ever created. Designed by trial and error, perfected by time. Enclosed system, a mini world inside of every one of us. So complex and difficult to understand, it was given to you for free. The only thing, is that it came without manual of any kind – go figure. There is no same human in the entire Universe and we all uniquely designed, came into this world already preprogrammed.
There is a system that explains how you were built and it explains how you respond to the world. It’s called Human Design. It’s a logical system that uses astrology, chakra systems, and quantum physics to reveal your genetic design. A BodyGraph, also called a Human Design Chart, is calculated using your birth date, time, and place.
Human Design provides two main sets of tools – Strategy and Authority. This information can help you make decisions that are most in line with who you are, which will ultimately lead you in the direction that is right for you. Acting in accordance with your body’s natural energies instead of against them, you will experience less resistance in your body and life. This information will help you to know how to move through the world, and what things to engage in.
Human Design studies – simply help you to understand how you are hardwired
Live as yourself, affirm who you really are, understand and let go of what you are not. Work with your natural energy instead of working against it.
Every person is unique, but we can still group people into four groups. They are called STRATEGIES:
Generators
70 percent of the population – they are the life force of the planet, the builders. They respond, instead of initiating.
Projectors
20 percent of the population. This type of people wait for recognition and invitation. They have the ability to see deeply into others.
Manifestors
9 percent of the population. As natural initiators, they inform those around them of their decisions before they take action. Manifestors have a powerful aura and they can make others feel off balance.
Reflectors
1 percent of the population. If you have all of your centers open then you are a Reflector. You have a resilient aura that samples the energies around you and reflects them. They process experience in very different way than other types. They have the potential to see what is happening in a way that no one else can. Their greatest gift is to read others and their environments.
There are nine centers of the body that we put and receive the energy through. They are called BODY CENTERS.
Another quality to learn is authority type. Your Inner Authority is your body’s knowing or intelligence, how you know if a decision is the right one for you.
“Follow your intuition…”, they say. What is it and how do I follow it?
Human Design shows exactly where your intuition lies in your body. By intentionally practicing with your true Strategy and Authority, you align with your unique path and who you are. Things naturally fall into place, in your life, job, and relationships.
Emotional Authority
47 percent of the population falls into this type authority. This type rides their emotional wave and experiences all of its nuances. They are slow to learn and pick up information and its best for them to make decisions after they wait some time. “sleep on it” before making decisions.
Sacral Authority
35 percent of the population has the Sacral Authority. Their natural tendency is to wait for something/someone to show up in their field so they can respond. They don’t “go and get stuff done”, instead they wait and get familiar first.
Splenic Authority
11 percent of the population, and is characterized by an intuitive sense or recognition in the moment. Spleen is our oldest center, faster than the mind, and deeply rooted in survival, health, and well-being.
Environment/No Inner Authority
3.53 percent of the population. People of this type receive information through their open centers. They use other people as “sounding boards” in order to hear the truth/not truth. Being in the right environment is important for them.
Self-Projected Authority
2.8 percent of the population. This people are deeply non-energetic, and powerful, beings. They haveability to listen and hear their inner voice. They find the truth through the core of their identity (the G center).
Lunar Cycle Authority
1.39 percent of the population. They have a special connection with the moon. Before making an important decision, these types should wait through a twenty-eight-and-a-half-day moon cycle.
Ego Authority
1 percent of the population. These people trust what they say and do spontaneous things. Ego is the voice of the moves them, if they allow it.This authority has a willpower that is unmistakably engaged, or not.
Ok we’re done with the basics, let’s see what the body graph tells us. The goal is to take the information from your BodyGraph (Chart) and use it to make better decisions and learn more about your strengths and weaknesses. Use it as a tool for self-knowledge. Learn to make decisions using your Strategy and Authority (it’s different than making decisions with your mind). Below I share my own example and the things I learned from it.
OLEKSANDR’S TERESHCHUK USER MANUAL
Type
Generator
Strategy
To Respond
Not-Self Theme
Frustration
Signature
Satisfaction
Definition
Single
Authority
Solar Plexus – Emotional
Profile
Heretic – Investigator (5/1)
Incarnation Cross
Left Angle Cross of Limitation (32/42 | 56/60)
As a Generator I am described as the life force of the planet, I am a “builder”.
I have “Defined” Sacral Center (red square on the mid-bottom). It’s a tremendous energy generator that gives me all the energy I need to do things.
My life is all about RESPONSE. Instead of chasing after life, I should let the life come to me.Sacral can not initiate, it can only respond.
This means that the more I try to initiate or force things the more frustrated I get. Without responding, I will end up deeply frustrated. Frustration is an early warning sign that I’m out of sync with life and engaged with the wrong work, people or situations. “Generators” often find themselves in this situation as a result of impatience with waiting, mental decision making, and the influence of others. The key here is waiting to respond, and only engaging when there is an energetic gut-level “yes”, a feeling of being “turned on” as though your energy comes alive in relation to something you encounter. It can often be experienced like a natural rising up of energy inside you that wants to engage.
My aura is a powerful magnet, that brings to me everything I need to fulfill my purpose.
If I give my energy to something that I don’t feel passionate about, I burn out. Fast.
Those of us who have this center defined are supposed to wait until something light us up and then respond to that. We are absolutely not supposed to initiate. We need to figure out a way to ignore our habit of living by logic and reason.
SLEEP is super important!
We use our energy to respond to the things that light up during the day and then sleep when that energy is exhausted. If you find yourself having a hard time sleeping – you didn’t burn off enough of this energy during the day. You are supposed to empty out this center during the day and recharge it overnight. Physical exercise can also help.
I am gifted with enormous reservoir of power, and my goal is to find personal expression and satisfaction doing work I love, or by creating and raising children, or both.
SATISFACTION is the signature for Generators. It’s all about self satisfying work. Selfishly, it means that I got to be doing only what brings me satisfaction. My life is all about doing what I love and only what shows me who I am and brings me happiness. ONLY the things I love… easy, right?
People with Single Definitions are usually attracted to long distance relationships because they give them freedom and allow them their independence. Such people have a hard time with depending on or needing others. They get attracted by people who is reliant and have a sense of themselves outside of the relationship. Single Definitions believe that another relationship will come along, and they feel totally comfortable going through life convinced that “the one” is out there somewhere. Single Definitions recognize that no matter what partner they are with, they will always have a sense of individuality and are wired to be self-sufficient.
Finding the right balance of independence and reliance, of care taking and being cared for in relationships is key for Single Definitions.
If you have Emotional/Solar Plexus Authority in your chart, you should never make any emotionally charged decisions! Feel all the feels, and then when you feel calm, decide. Such people never feel 100% sure about their decisions… 70-80% at best.
80% certainty around a decision is actually my body’s version of 100% and is all I need to feel confident taking action.
Main two rules of having a defined Emotional/Solar Plexus Center:
1. NEVER MAKE DECISIONS WHEN YOU’RE IN YOUR FEELINGS. 2. NEVER MAKE DECISIONS WHEN YOU’RE IN YOUR FEELINGS.
Don’t suppress your feelings. Feel the HIGHEST HIGHS and the LOWEST LOWS, wait for calm and 80% clarity around a YES or NO, and then take action.
People with the 5/1 profile are brilliant problem solvers
They usually deliver practical solutions. They can spend their whole lives meditating alone on the mountaintop when their strategy and authority guide them so, and their purpose would be fulfilled. They don’t need other people =)
When someone meets a person with the 5/1 profile, they immediately project onto the 5/1 profile being their savior. They project on the 5/1 profile being the solution to their problems. These problems can be health-wise, job related, private, sexual, etc. People project on a 5/1 person to be the best partner, the best lover, the best boss, the best employee, the best healer, the best president, the best father, the best mother, etc.
People with a 5/1 profile are very cautious with their reputation. A good reputation is essential for their success. When not delivering the practical solution, they mutate in the eyes of others from a savior to the devil!
Find something you love and genuinely want to explore and investigate. It should be fulfilling to you and simultaneously of value for others.
Famous Generators: Albert Einstein, Dalai Lama, Elvis Presley, Bill Clinton, Meryl Streep, John Lennon, Madonna, James Dean, Vladimir Lenin, Carl Jung, Timothy Leary, Oprah Winfrey, Meg Ryan, Greta Garbo, Margaret Thatcher, Deepak Chopra, Frederic Chopin, Marie Curie, Hillary Clinton, Clint Eastwood, Sigmund Freud, Mahatma Gandhi, Steffi Graf, Marie Antoinette, Mikhail Gorbachev, Jimi Hendrix, Pope John Paul II, Janis Joplin, Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Nixon, Yoko Ono, Prince, Jaqueline Onassis, Martin Luther King, Vincent Van Gogh
Final Thoughts
I have never heard before about Human Design Studies or Body Graphs. Skepticism and rejection is a natural response to everything new and foreign that human-beings don’t understand. I kept my scepticism low I gave it a shot with my mind opened. I was impressed by precise accuracy of the body graph’s description of some of my personal qualities. It confirmed the knowledge of myself and shined the light on other things I was not aware of. It took quite a bit of time to make sense of all the metrics related to my personality, however the information I received is really valuable. For everyone, who is looking to understand themselves better and uncover some new personal characteristics, I definitely encourage to give the Body Graph a shot. Knowing the way you are wired will help to make better decisions and life more balanced, healthy life. This is a great tool to keep in your toolbox and come back to it in times of crisis or mental fog. You can also use it to understand the people around and overcome some communication or other interpersonal issues.
If you don’t know yourself, how can you demand other people to understand you?
The most important relationship in your life is relationship between your mind and soul. If there is a constant battle in your head and you are not happy with yourself, you will never build strong and fulfilling relationships with others.
Injuries happen and nutrition is one of the methods to counter the negative impacts of an exercise-induced injury. Typically injury result in reduced activity and training. While some injuries are minor, such as a bruise or inflammation, others are much more debilitating such as a tear, broken bone, impingement, stress fracture or ruptured tendon.
To minimize decline in muscle strength, neuromuscular control and overall fitness, nutrition plays a vital role in healing and rehabilitation process. It is possible to come back stronger and faster after the injury, following the right diet, physiotherapy and re-training program.
There are two main stages of injury:
Stage 1: Healing & Recovery
The first phase begins immediately after an injury. A complex process of wound healing begins which consists of three, phases:
Inflammation
Proliferation
Remodelling
Inflammation caused by training is different than inflammatory response initiated by the injury. Athletes perceive inflammation as something bad, however while excess inflammation may be harmful, inflammatory process is essential for wound healing. Therefore attempting to drastically reduce inflammation may not be ideal for optimal recovery. Injured athletes should be careful when considering of the appropriate approach to managing inflammation.
The proliferative phase is when the wound is rebuilt with new tissue made up of collagen and extracellular matrix. There is an increase in protein synthesis for cell division following. As well as inflammatory process, this phase consumes a lot of energy.
Remodelling process is when the wound fully closes by the scar tissue formed as a result of the first 2 phases.
Stage 2: Rehabilitation & Hypertrophy
The second phase of complete recovery and returning to full function and training takes longer than the first, immobilization period. Sometimes it take several years to fully recovery from some injuries. Nutritional support is crucial to lessen the length of time and reduce the negative aspects of reduced activity and immobilization, as well as to support the return to activity and training.
Injuries that lead to reduced levels of activity have a lot of negative consequences. Disuse of a limb results in loss of muscle mass, reduced muscle strength and function. Substantial muscle loss has been reported in as little as 5 days of disuse (study link).
During muscle disuse, the basal, i.e. resting and fasted, rate of MPS (muscle protein synthesis) is decreased. Muscle loss is not the only negative consequence of inactivity in muscle tissue. Muscle mitochondrial oxidative function and metabolic flexibility are impaired with muscle disuse. Some of these changes occur as early as 48 h following initiation of inactivity. Moreover, simply reducing activity of muscle for 2 weeks may lead to decreased insulin sensitivity of muscle.
The single most important nutritional consideration during reduced muscle activity and/or immobility is to avoid nutrient deficiencies. Deficiencies of energy, vitamins, minerals and macronutrients—particularly protein— will impair wound healing and exacerbate loss of muscle and tendon mass and function. Nutritional choices made during recovery from an injury need to be carefully considered to optimize recovery and return to training.
Energy Balance
Energy intake is a critical component for optimal recovery from an injury. Athlete’s energy expenditure almost certainly will be reduced with a reduction in training and activity, therefore most athletes are likely make an intuitive conscious decision to drastically reduce energy intake to avoid increased body fat and total mass.
Energy expenditure following an injury with muscle immobilization is likely not be as greatly reduced as would be expected. During the healing process, energy expenditure is increased, particularly if the injury is severe. Energy expenditure may be increased by 15% up to 50%, depending on the type and severity of the injury. If athlete restricts the energy intake too much, recovery almost certainly will be slowed due to negative metabolic consequences. Negative energy balance will interfere with wound healing and exacerbate muscle loss. Therefore, instead of focusing on preventing weight gain, an athlete should ensure that sufficient energy is consumed during recovery from an injury.
It is clear that negative energy balance has to be avoided, a large positive energy balance also is undesirable for optimal healing and recovery. A positive energy balance may be appealing to suggest during immobilization, even considering a small increase in body fat. However, there is evidence that a positive energy balance actually accelerate muscle loss during inactivity, most likely via activation of systemic inflammation. Moreover, excess energy with reduced activity leads to decreased insulin sensitivity and alterations in muscle and adipose metabolism.
Energy intake must be considered very carefully. Factors promoting satiety despite a reduced energy intake, including protein dose and type, in addition of low energy density food choices such as vegetables need to be considered as well. Energy balance should be the aim during reduced inactivity and/or immobilization due to injury.
Macronutrients
Energy balance is not the most important factor to consider. The macronutrient composition of the energy is additional operative factor. Recent evidence suggests that oversupply of lipids (fats) decreases insulin sensitivity and impairs the response of MPS (muscle protein synthesis) to amino acids.
Protein
Insufficient protein intake impedes wound healing and increase inflammation to possibly deleterious levels. Synthesis of collagen and other proteins are very important in preventing muscle loss and supporting the healing processes. Sufficient protein intake is necessary to support wound and/or fracture healing.
Protein and amino acids probably have been the most widely studied nutrients in the context of muscle injuries. Recent studies has shown that athletes consuming relatively high protein intakes (~ 2.3 g protein/day/kg) had reduced muscle loss during periods of negative energy balance compared with lower protein intakes (~1.0 g/day/kg). Therefore we can assume that relatively high protein intakes (>2.0 g protein/day/kg), are necessary to prevent muscle loss. Also, more than ~30 g of protein in one sitting should be the maximum amount.
In addition, other factors in relation to protein should be considered. The pattern of protein intake in terms of timing and amount in each meal are the important factors.
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates is the energy. Due to the limited physical activity, energy expenditure is reduced, therefore demand for the energy is reduced as well. It makes sense to slightly lower carbohydrate intake to prevent excessive weight gain. Prioritize higher-fiber, satiating foods such as whole grains, fruits and veggies.
Fats
Omega-3 fatty acids has been used by many people because of its anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory properties. Fish and flaxseed oil supplementation is often touted for reduction of inflammation.
The studies suggest that fish oil supplementation could play a role in the amelioration of muscle loss with disuse. However, high fish oil diets inhibited recovery of muscle mass during recovery from hindlimb suspension in rodents. Taken together, it seems that whereas high fish oil consumption may ameliorate muscle loss during a catabolic situation, it does not seem to be effective to enhance muscle hypertrophy. Moreover, the appropriate dose for injured humans has not been established.
Micronutrients
There are no clear guidelines for use of micronutrients. Leucine, curcumin, and others have been demonstrated to be beneficial in rat studies. Higher intakes of these nutrients may do harm, therefore caution is warranted before recommendations for wholesale use of these nutrients by injured athletes. Deficiencies should be avoided, but supplementation above sufficiency does not help either.
Vitamin C is necessary for collagen formation.
Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower.
Green and red peppers.
Spinach, cabbage, turnip greens, and other leafy greens.
Sweet and white potatoes.
Tomatoes and tomato juice.
Winter squash.
Calcium and Vitamin D during healing from fractures is important for optimal bone formation.
Fatty fish, like tuna, mackerel, and salmon
Beef liver
Cheese
Egg yolks
Spinach
Kale
White & Soybeans beans
Vitamin A. It helps to form and maintain healthy teeth, skeletal and soft tissue, mucus membranes, and skin.
Beef liver
Cod liver oil
Sweet potato
Carrots
Black-eyed peas
Spinach
Broccoli
Sweet red pepper
Zinc. Maintains your immune system, supports cell division, cell growth, wound healing, and the breakdown of carbohydrates.
Oysters
Lean Sirloin Steak
Lamb
Hemp Seeds
Chickpeas
Black Beans
Cashews
Cheddar Cheese
Creatine is well studied supplement and widely used to enhance muscle gains during resistance exercise training. Creatine supplementation also has been shown to counteract disorders of muscle. However, there is no strong evidence for use of creatine to counter muscle loss during immobility. Creatine supplementation during weeks of lower-limb immobility did not lessen the loss of muscle mass or strength in healthy volunteers during 2 weeks of casting. However during rehabilitation after immobility, creatine supplementation resulted in an increased rate of muscle growth and strength gains compared with placebo.
Supplements that shown benefits:
Arginine
Collagen
HMB
Glutamine
Enzymes
Antioxidantcompounds, including Omega-3, decrease oxidative stress and have been recommended to improve healing and recovery. High in antioxidants:
Curcumin from Turmeric/Curry Powder
Garlic
Bromelain from Pineapple
Cocoa & Tea
Berries
What to Avoid
Excess consumption of Omega-3 fatty acids. This could excessively depress the inflammatory response and compromise the wound healing.
Pro-Inflammatory foods. Processed foods high in saturated and trans fats, vegetable oils like corn, sunflower, soybean etc.
Excess energy consumption. This could lead to increased total and fat mass, especially if activity is dramatically reduced.
Alcohol. Alcohol impairs wound healing, by reducing the inflammatory response, and increases muscle loss during immobilization. It is very important to limit alcohol ingestion during recovery.
Salt. Over consumption can lead to calcium loss through urine.
Coffee. Too much caffeine (more than four cups of strong coffee a day) can slow down bone healing a little. A moderate amount of coffee or tea should be fine.
Summary
Deficiencies, particularly those of energy, protein, and micronutrients have to be avoided.
Be sure to keep up with your protein intake especially after exercise/rehab.
Energy balance is critical.
Higher protein intakes (~2–2.5 g protein/kg/day) may be warranted, and should be maintained even in the face of reduced energy intake.
Many athletes are afraid of gaining extra weight and feel they don’t deserve to eat calories or carbs when not expending calories through exercising. This is a common misconception, however, remember that your body still requires energy, carbs and nutrients – even at rest. In case of surgery, your daily energy demands may increase by 10-20%. Don’t be afraid of food and give your body building blocks to promote proper healing instead of dieting. Use this time to improve your lifestyle choices, learn new ways of cooking and create new meal planning strategies. Learn how to love your body in different shapes and sizes.
– I can not continue like this… ENOUGH! – I am sick to my stomach.
Few days ago, after the awful bike performance, I said to myself ENOUGH! I decided I will do something different. I can’t continue like this any longer…
The things I did differently for this workout: Instead of training in the morning, I moved it to the afternoon. I was hoping it will give my body enough time to hydrate and fuel up.
Had a big breakfast and lunch: 1,130 Calories: 180C/27F/47P Rice 300g Oatmeal 100g Grapefruit 4 eggs
Took a 1 hour nap, hoping it will help perform at my best. Woke up feeling ok.
Went on the bike, and almost right from the beginning felt like crap. Please no… As I was gradually building up to 180W, at 130W I already felt that something’s off. I could not keep 180W for 10 minutes… I can’t believe it. I am back into this hole again. I am so disappointed and sick from failing over and over. Since April, since freaking April I’ve been suffering with my trainings, specifically on the bike. I can’t take these hits anymore. I broke down emotionally… Tears streamed down my cheeks. I HATE this bike! I HATE myself! What the f*ck is wrong with me? I dismounted off the bike and layed on the ground with no energy to even move my finger. All I did was cried. Not just cried like a little girl, but cried my ass off. I felt sorry for myself, I felt so disappointed, I felt discouraged to do anything… not only train, but I did not want to live anymore. I layed on the floor for several minutes and cried. Everything in my life seemed to be wrong, I felt myself as a total loser, failing on all accounts. Suicidal thoughts would come and go. I knew I needed to get outside of my head and let it all out. Only two people that came to my mind at that moment were my father and my coach. I needed to talk. I called my dad, but he was busy with his wife. I didn’t want to interrupt him from time spending with his lovely wife and dump my emotional truck full of crap into his ears. I lied that everything’s alright and I’ll call him later. I began typing text message to my coach Renee, but never sent it. It’s a middle of the day, she is busy.
– Ok, Sasha, what do we do now?
4 options I saw at the moment:
Quit and count your losses. Tell yourself that this sport is just not for you and convince yourself that there other things in life that matter more. Also you can add that you achieved quite a bit and it’s time to move on. Easy option.
Blameothers. Blame your coach for digging yourself into this hole and find another coach or train on your own. By doing so I move responsibility for the way I feel and perform onto other people. Easy option.
Try to change your state with food, alcohol, sleeping, drugs etc. It will help, but only short term. Within few hours your will feel even worse than before. Easy option.
Pick yourself up and take full responsibility for the way you feel and perform. Go back on your bike and complete the damn workout to the best of your abilities.
I completed the workout to the best of my abilities… While barely pushing 130W I got the opportunity to think. I think better when my blood is flowing fast.
Every failure is the opportunity and I will use this failure to learn from it.
I will learn what caused such performance decline over the past several months. Knowing this will help me prevent future failing occurrences and I will have more great trainings over just a few poor.
I will learn how to bring myself back up to performance levels prior to this and I will use this knowledge to move beyond that. Overcoming this challenge will show me that I can do anything I put my mind into. I will also develop a coping mechanism that I can use in the future. It will help me re-build my self-confidence and self-esteem after so many failures.
I will help other people to overcome similar challenges by sharing my personal experience and what I learned from my failures.
Pushing harder does not work. I’m stuck and the harder I press on gas pedal, the faster and deeper I dig myself into the hole I’m in. Mud and smoke. Sweat and tears.
I am sure there are other athletes who struggle with similar issues. I respect those who did not give up and chose the option #4. Just like me, they are looking for solutions.
I begin my investigation with a series of blog posts on Overtraining. I will dig deeper and try to find causes as well as solutions. I learn from this “failure” and bounce back stronger than ever before. My posts will describe this “journey” in details and Ihope that my finding will help others who is facing similar challenges. Together we will rock the sport of triathlon!
Luckily we live in the world where we have access to technology that allows us to measure different body metrics. This is especially helpful for athletes who are looking to understand their bodies more. Of course, you should not solely rely on your watch or some sensor data and primarily go by the feel. I use sensor data to find correlations between the way I feel and perform. It also allows me to learn my body faster, rather than going blind, solely relying on my internal subjective data.
TrainingPeaks is a software platform I use to analyze the data collected and my training.
Performance decline I experience seem to be mostly noticeable in my cycling training.
My bike performance peaked around March 19′ and after that gradually went down. The screenshot above shows my 1 hour peak power for each months, starting from February 2019.
60 minute power March: 270 Watts Today: 189 Watts
Power Loss: ~80 Watts
March vs August
According to Training Peaks, my Power profile is at the world class level. This is definitely encouraging, but I definitely don’t feel like International Pro at the moment.
Around April, after few miserable workouts, my coach started to reduce my Training Load gradually, hoping that it will give my body the opportunity to recover. Since then my overall training load was cut more than in half. Did not help and we’ve got what we’ve got.
VO2 Max
This is another metric that worth paying attention to. The trend here is not as promising as I would like it to be either.
It is obvious now that I am doing worth than in early Spring. Slowly, over the span of 5 months my performance been into the free fall. Something needs to change.
Acupuncture. Begin with x1 a week for 4 weeks. The session is typically 45 minutes long and the price is around CAD$100 for Toronto GTA area.
Meditation.
Massage.
Nutritional Corrections & Recommendations
Increase daily caloric intake. Begin increasing the amount of food you eat on a daily basis by 200-300 calories a day. Pay attention to your weight and body image. If you notice a rapid weight gain, cut the increase to 100-200 calories. If there is no weight gain, increase caloric intake by another 100-200 calorie a day, totaling at about extra 400-500 calories a day.
Increase the frequency of the water consumption. Instead of drinking more water in total, make the emphasis on drinking it more frequent with little gulps. Drink the clear water, consistently and frequently throughout the day. Reduce water consumption 1-2 hours before bed.
Consume protein from clean animal sources. The list below is organised in order from most nutritiously rich foods to least:
Raw pork belly fat (30 grams a day)
Fatty fish
Beef
Turkey
Eggs & Plant based proteins
Chicken (The least nutritious. Nutritional value = 0)
Do you hate running? I know you do, you chubby panda. Take off your running sneakers and step on your yoga mat. Below I present the sequence of yoga poses that is alternative way to strengthen your legs. The poses are designed to strengthen every part of your lower body, ranging from ankles to quads and hamstrings. This practice will not only make your legs stronger, but more flexible as well.
Repeat 5 Times:
Savasana (Corpse Pose)
Bridge Pose
Boat Pose
Note: Really engage the leg muscles to make it easier on the core
Child’s Pose
Plank Pose
Four Limbed Staff Pose
Upward Facing Dog Pose
Downward Facing Dog Pose
Mountain -> Tree Pose
Repeat on each side:
Warrior III Pose
Dancer’s Pose
Warrior I Pose
Warrior II Pose
Triangle Pose
Standing Forward Bend Pose
Chair Pose
Seated Forward Bend Pose
Wide-Angle Seated Forward Bend Pose (Upavistha Konasana)
There are so many ways to loose weigh: fast & slow, simple and overly complicated, cool and “sexy” & long, boring… People find motivation from all sorts of things and reasons that are uniquely different for each individual. We are not going to explore the infinite world of weigh loss psychology, dietary restrictions or any other topics of such matter in this chapter.
Being an athlete, you are motivated more by performance rather than just the looks. It’s obvious, the lighter athlete is, the less weigh to carry, especially in sports like cycling or running. The ideal weight is the weight, where you perform at you best, WHILE staying healthy. “Race weight” is not to be kept year round and achieved only for short periods of time during competition season or major athletic events.
In this post you will find the information with real life examples to teach you simple and basic approach to a short-term weigh cut. This technique is slightly adjusted to meet demands of high energy expenditures of endurance training, however it can also be adopted by non-athletic population.
This example uses 150 lbs athlete who tries to loose few kilos to meet his/hers ideal race weight prior to major competition.
Starting Weight: 68 kg Goal Weight: 65 kg Time: 3 weeks Loss Rate: 1 kg/week
1. Determine your Energy Intake
First of all, you need to determine what’s your current energy intake level or “maintenance level”. To do so, you will record everything that goes into your mouth for one-two weeks. There are numerous phone apps and online calculators that will allow to pull up foods nutrition data and estimate energy equivalent of the foods you eat. You need to have a very good idea of how much you eat on a daily and weekly basis. Below is example of 150 lbs athlete daily energy intake:
Such energy intake allows this athlete to maintain his current weight with current level of activity. Multiply by 7 and get the following number:
Weekly Calorie Intake : 21,042 Calories
IMPORTANT NOTE: Calories consumed during exercising (sports nutrition, energy bars, gels, chews, isotonic drinks etc) are not to be included in energy intake calculations.
2. Determine you Energy Expenditure
Now that you have a good idea of how much you eat in terms of numbers, next step is to calculate how much energy you expand. Modern fitness trackers, such as FitBit, Garmin, Apple Watch etc. allow you to guesstimate your energy expenditures during your trainings. Keep in mind that this number is far from being precise, however is used consistently it will allow you to get a general idea of what your body expands and have a rough number of calories used to fuel your trainings.
The example below used Garmin Fenix 5 watch and Garmin Connect App to determine energy expenditure:
Average Weekly Expenditure: ~20,500 Calories
Because the athlete consumes about the same amount of energy as what he expands, he is able to maintain his current body weight. To loose weight he needs to create energy deficit.
3. Create Appropriate Deficit
It is estimated that 3,500 calories equals about 1 pound (0.45 kilogram) of fat. Therefore we can make an assumption that you need to burn about 3,500 caloriesto lose 1 pound. We also assume that cutting about 500 – 1,000 calories a day from your maintenance level, will make you lose about 1 to 2 pounds a week. Sounds simple, isn’t it?
Below is example of adjusted energy intake with a goal of loosing 2 kg of body weight in three weeks.
Adjusted Daily Macronutrient & Caloric Intake:
Because of very active lifestyle and a lot of aerobic type training, given athlete needs to make sure he maintains proper glycogen stores in muscles and more importantly – in liver. The goal here is to keep eating as many carbohydrates as possible, while loosing weight. Therefore fats – is the first macronutrient that will need the adjustment.
Fats 25%
Healthy fats are really important for proper body function and hormonal health. About 10 years ago a healthy fat intake was suggested to be 1/2g per 1 kg of body weight. This is when “fat free” products became popular. Modern guidelines suggest the minimal fat intake to be around 1g/kg of body weight. For 150 lbs athlete, minimal dietary fate intake should be no less than 70g of dietary fats per day. It is really important not to go below the minimal amount as it can harm your hormonal health!
Proteins 25%
Healthy protein intake for active people is suggested to not exceed 2-2.5g/kg or 1g/lb of body weight per day. For the athlete with weigh of 150 lbs (70 kg) its 150 g of protein per day.
Carbohydrates 50%
The rest, half of your calories, will be coming from carbohydrates. Again, such high carbohydrate intake is necessary to fuel athlete’s trainings. Ideally carbohydrates will be coming from complex and low glycemic load sources. This is necessary to keep blood sugar within healthy levels.
Energy deficit of 576 Calories/day made our athlete loose 3 kg in one week. Not all the weight loss came from fat, partially it’s a water weight. Anyways he reached his “ideal race weigh” three times faster than expected. This is a very rapid weight loss, not ideal scenario for long term health and performance. Such fast results could also have an impact on nervous system, making the person apathetic, demotivated to exercise and pessimistic about life in general. In case if you loose more than 1 kg a week, you might want to slightly bump your daily energy intake by 100 calories. This will not stop the weight loss, but it will make it healthier and more sustainable in long run.
Meal Examples
Below are few examples of complete meals designed to fuel athlete’s body post-workout with weight loss goal in mind. These meals come from organic and “clean” foods and contain proper amounts of macronutrients to fuel athlete’s body post exercise activity.
More detailed nutritional guidelines to proper fueling, types of foods and timing discussed in section solely dedicated to Sports Nutrition.
All the stretches I’m going to show, are the basic stretches that you need to maintain on a regular basis. Ideally this routine will be done at least twice a week.
Start on all fours with hands directly under shoulders, knees under hips.
Walk hands a few inches forward and spread fingers wide, pressing palms into mat.
Curl toes under and slowly press hips toward ceiling, bringing your body into an inverted V, pressing shoulders away from ears. Feet should be hip-width apart, knees slightly bent.
Hold for 3 full breaths.
Hip Flexor Stretching
They let you to walk, kick, bend, and swivel your hips. But if your muscles are too tight or if you make a sudden movement, your hip flexors can stretch or tear. This stretch will help keep your hip flexors loose and prevent injuries.
Squeeze your butt cheek
Engage your core
Don’t spike your toes. Keep your foot
flat to create a greater stretch
Hold for 30-40 seconds
Quadriceps stretching:
Running involves your quadriceps or “quads,” which is the group of muscles at the front of your thigh, attached at the top of the kneecap . This stretch will increase the range of motion around a joint and also loosens up the stiffness in the muscles.
Same
deal here:
Squeeze your butt cheek
Engage your core
Toes are flat
Hold for 30-40 seconds
Glute Stretch:
When your glutes are tight and fatigued they can cause you to have a sore lower back and hamstrings, poor balance, and even shooting nerve pain down your leg due to sciatica. Regular stretching will prevent these.
Both hips are parallel to the floor. (you should feel a good stretch on the foot turned to the side)
You can play with this pose, rocking side to side.
Hold for 40-60 seconds on each side.
If you want to feel a greater stretch, reach the arm of the feet bent up and to the side.
Adductor Stretching:
You use this muscle during any type of athletic motion that requires you to move your legs from side to side, such as ice skating, kicking a soccer ball or volleying in tennis. Stretching this muscle can help prevent and rehabilitate groin injuries.
You’re on one knee.
Arms on the ground, supporting you.
The leg you are stretching is straight
with foot flat on the ground.
Sit back and hang in there for 30-40
seconds
Kneeling Hamstring Stretch:
Tight hamstrings reduce the mobility of the pelvis, which can put pressure on the lower back. This stretch will prevent them from becoming too tight and provide extra support for the back and pelvis.
Kneel down on one knee and place your other leg straight out in front with your heel on the ground.
Keep your back straight, hands on the ground in front. Make sure your toes are pointing straight up.
Slowly move your hips back using your arms for balance.
Hold this stretch for about 20 to 30 seconds and repeat at least 2 to 3 times.
Level Leg Extension:
Start in neutral quadruped position: arms under shoulders, knees under hips, chin tucked for neutral cervical spine, flat lumbar/thoracic spine (engage abdominals).
From a neutral quadruped position, extend one hip and knee backwards while maintaining spine in neutral position.
Control leg extension by engaging abdominals.
Come back to starting position. Repeat 5 times on each leg.
If you feel strong, keeping your spine and waist long, extend one leg back and up, as you simultaneously extend the opposite arm just parallel to the floor. Alternate 4-6 repetitions on each side.
IRONMAN Marbella 70.3 is over and Kona race is in 2 weeks. I took about 10 days of recovery and this is the first somewhat serious bike workout.
Since Hawaii race will be done in much warmer climate than I’m used to, I need to train for that. To do so, I implement the “heat training“. I am not using fan + wearing warm cycling pants, windbreaker, long-sleeved shirt underneath and a heat.
10′ easy spin
Complete 75′ ride holding 150-175 At the top of the 20th min put in 5×5′ bouts at 205-210W on 3′ soft pedal
5′ easy spin
FUEL No fueling. Workout performed in PM. Properly hydrated and eaten.
I totally failed to complete this workout as prescribed. Again… I am beyond being disappointed with my bike performance over the past 2.5 months. I’ve been steadily declining up to this point, where I can barely hold 140 Watts… I try so hard, I put so much effort, but I keep on failing and failing. I am not enjoying the workouts. With so manny failures I am afraid of bike. I don’t even want to touch it. My confidence on the bike is below the ground. I absolutely HATED this workout.
What is wrong? I can’t find the answer. What am I doing wrong? What is missing? I need help, I can’t figure it out on my own.
Lessons Learned:
Didn’t learn anything… Besides that next time use the “standart mode” instead of “erg” on the trainer.
There are so many diets that promote incredible results with weight loss, muscle gain or overall well being. How many diets or different approaches have you tried in pursuit of your goals? How many times have you failed? Don’t rely just on somebody’s opinions or suggestions to eating. I encourage you to take proactive approach and learn what works and what doesn’t, specifically with your body. Create your own “perfect” diet to live a long and healthy life.
I can not overstate the facts that we are what we eat and our health totally depends on what we put in our mouth. Every human being is unique and different is so many ways. Therefore there is no universal recipe or diet that will give you all that you want. You got to realize that you are the only one responsible for your health and there is not a single person in the world that would have the answer to what works and what doesn’t for your body. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of good information on the internet and books, but you got to take the initiative in your hands and figure out what works specifically for YOU. Luckily you live in the age, when genetic tests are freely accessible to the public. 10-20 years ago, food intolerance or DNA tests were done only in sophisticated laboratories by scientists. Today you have the luxury of access to a lot of blood testing tools that can help you improve your health and live longer.
Food Intolerance Test is one of such tests. I did it at the lab called Dynacare in Toronto, Canada. The test costed me $250.
What this test will tell you?
The test will show show how your body reacts to certain foods that you eat. It will help to discover food intolerances you were not aware of that could compromise your health and well being. Results of the test will help you to create a diet that suits specifically your body’s needs. It help you to see the correlations between the foods you eat and the way you feel. I can also explain why you had some of the food intolerances symptoms. Some intolerances symptoms include and not limited by:
Bloating
Anxiety
Headaches and Migraines
Fatigue
Astma
Joint pain
Arthritis
Weight gain
Itchy skin etc.
How is test being done?
Your immune system, in response to external stress that come from food, produces antibodies called IgG. Your blood is being tested against 125 most common foods, while measuring the levels of IgG antibodies. This test determines if you have intolerance to certain foods and how severe the intolerances are.
Note: food allergy and intolerance are not the same. In response to allergy, your body produces IgE antibodies, which are different from IgG. Also while allergies usually cause immediate reactions, it can take few hours or days for the symptoms caused by food intolerances to occur.
My Intolerances
Egg Whites, Peanuts, Yeast (Beer) and Barley are on top of the list. That’s a no-no foods for me. Below is the full list of foods they tested me agains. Some other foods to keep an eye on are: pretty much all nuts and seeds, mustard, wheat, corn, potatoes.
Eat the rainbow. Eating variety of foods insures that you get the full range of important vitamins and minerals.
Once you eliminate some foods from your diet, you also loose the nutrients that came along with them. To replace the nutrients you need, use the table below to find “safe” replacements options for you.
Nutrients found in Common Foods
Know your body. Take full responsibility for your health and well-being. Learn what works and what doesn’t. Create your own “perfect” diet.
As you already know, during exercise you lost a portion of electrolytes along with sweat. As you drink after the training, you increase the fluid levels in your body, which will lower electrolyte concentration even more. Natural foods, like fruits will replace nearly all the electrolytes, except sodium. Add two-three pinches of salt to your post-exercise recovery drink for sodium replenishment. The table below lists great fruits and juices for your recovery drink to replenish electrolytes in your body.
Notes: Liquid protein consumed within 30 minutes after exercise improves muscle repair. Including fruits and greens will deliver extra antioxidants. Stay aways from added sugars.
To fully restore the fluid and electrolyte losses after the workout, aim to drink around 24 oz (700 mL) of liquids for every pound lost. Don’t drink too fast, but instead consume your solution or water slowly over a 60-minutes period and later throughout the day. Listen to your body and use the thirst as an indicator of your hydration status. Doesn’t matter if you replaced all the fluids lost, forcing it down if you’re not thirsty is not a good idea. As a general guideline: if you urinate more often than 10 times in a 24-hour period and your urine is clear – you’re drinking too much.
Better Hydration = Better Performance
References:
Karel, L. (1948). Gastric Absorption. Physical Reviews, 28(4), 433-450.
Cordain, L., & Friel, J. (2012). The Paleo diet for athletes: The ancient nutritional formula for peak athletic performance. Emmaus, PA: Rodale.
What we are trying to achieve here is to prevent more than a 2% drop in body weight caused by fluid loss (about 3 lbs (1.4 kg) of weight loss for 150 (68 kg) pound athlete). The two main goals of performance hydration is to:
Improve calorie absorption by utilizing performance hydration as a “transporter”
Maintain blood volume.
Don’t wait until you get thirsty! Remember: better hydration = better performance. Now pull out your calculator, I’ll teach you how to create your ideal hydration solution:
Carbohydrates: 4-8% solution. To calculate it, divide the grams of carbs (sugar) per serving size by the volume of the serving size (in mL), then multiply by 100 . So let’s say you want to fill your bicycle flask of 500 mL with a 6% solution we will need 30 grams of carbs (sugars).
Electrolytes. Calculations are easier here: 0.5-0.7 grams of sodium per 1 liter (34 oz) of water. So in the same 500 mL cycling water bottle you will need to add 250-350 milligrams of sodium.
The chart below describes carbohydrates and electrolytes needs for optimal hydration during exercise, based on time. Athletes don’t always need to take extra electrolytes during training or racing. Anything under 75 minutes doesn’t require extra supplementation with sodium pills or salt tablets.
Notes: Glucose can be absorbed around 1g/min and fructose has been shown (when combined with glucose/maltodextrin) to be absorbed at 1.5g/min.
The reason is why you should include calories into your hydration solution is to improve fluid absorption rate. “Fueling” and hydration should be separate from one another, so you’re not trying to get your fuel from your hydration solution. A little bit of sugar works as a transporter to pull the sodium across the intestinal barrier to keep your blood plasma volume up.
Hydration guidelines:
When creating your ideal performance drink strive for 2:1 ratio of glucose:fructose as it has been shown to improve absorption rate.
Drink 5-8 oz (150-250 mL) of your solution every 10-15 minutes.
Train yourself to get used to drink fluids on a schedule while exercising.
If exercising at higher temperatures or humidity, reduce the intensity to improve the gastric emptying.
Go with sports drinks over the plain water to minimize the risk of hyponatremia.
As I already mentioned in the introduction, starting a workout in dehydrated state will take you places you don’t want to be in. As little as 1% of body weight decrease due to fluid loss will make you competitively disadvantaged and put you at greater health risk. Research shows that adequate hydration level prior physical activity reduces muscle tissue breakdown. You don’t want to use the muscles to fuel your workout. You should always go into training or competing in well hydrated state.
Pre-exercise hydration general recommendations:
4 hr before: 16-20 oz (500-600 ml)
1-2 hr before: 12-16 oz (350-500 ml). Water only. Carbohydrate (sugar) rich drinks can cause hypoglycemic reaction (low blood sugar), making you dizzy or lightheaded right before the start.
10-20 min before: 8-12 oz (250-350 ml). High glycemic drinks or sports drinks are safe to consume.
Add a pinch of salt to retain fluids in your body. Avoid drinking too much too fast as you may have to interrupt training session to use the washroom.
Morning Training
The first thing to do, straight from the bed, is to objectively access your hydration status. Run quick self-assessment on your body:
Do I feel not thirsty at all or particularly thirsty and your urine is bright yellow? You’re starting your day in a good state and there is nothing special you need to do before your workout.
How dark is my urine? The first pee in a day is the most accurate indicator of your background hydration status.
If you feel quite thirsty, the good idea would be to postpone the session 15-30 minutes to get some fluids in and make sure you’re not putting yourself into the deeper hole.
Afternoon Training
If you train in the afternoon and especially if you also been training in the same day morning, you have to take more aggressive approach to your hydration. Before going into your evening training, you have to completely restore your hydration status, especially if the morning session was challenging.
Your body stores much more energy in form of fat than as carbohydrate. Some athletes strive to change their metabolism so that their bodies rely more on fat to fuel exercise which in turn allows them to spare the carbohydrate that’s stored in muscle and liver and improve your endurance capacity. In theory, training when carbohydrate availability is low, may force your metabolism toward a greater reliance on fat as a fuel for exercise.
There are two approaches to creating a state of Low Carbohydrate Availability:
1. Exercising after an overnight fast. Stores of carbohydrates are used while you sleep and not replaced before a workout in the morning. 2. Exercising after a prior heavy, high intensity exercise. In this case carbohydrate is used up during an exercise bout and not replaced before the second workout.
These two approaches are different in their bio energetics and will lead to different adaptations.
At night, while we sleep the liver secretes glucose to maintain blood glucose levels and supply the body with carbohydrates. This is very important for the brain because it relies almost entirely on blood glucose to function. By morning 60 to 80 percent of the liver glycogen has been used by your body. However muscle glycogen levels remain high throughout the night and are high when you wake up for your morning run, because it isn’t secreted from or consumed by skeletal muscle cells while you sleep.
In summary, you go to sleep with high glycogen levels in both muscle and liver and you wake up with no change in muscle but with low levels in liver.
As you begin your workout in the morning skeletal muscle prefers its own fat and glycogen stores but gets some of its energy from fats and glucose in the blood. The liver breaks down glycogen to ensure that blood glucose levels are maintained to support all the cells of your body. During exercise a person hits the wall or bonks when they run so low on liver glycogen that the blood glucose levels drop. Muscle glycogen levels will also be low at this point because the muscle has been preferentially consuming it.
In endurance community the concept of exercising when the body is low in available carbohydrate (“training low“, meaning low in glycogen and glucose), has been adapted by athletes to encourage adaptations that favor the use of fats for fuel. In theory, improving fat utilization will lead to a sparing of limited glycogen stores and reduce the need to consume as many calories while exercising. Some recent research has shown that fat utilization can be enhanced by depleting muscle and liver of glycogen through high intensity interval training in the evening and then stressing the muscle in a prolonged moderate exercise about the next morning without eating any carbohydrate in between. With that goal in mind there are two approaches commonly used by athletes for training on low glycogen:
1. Exercise first thing in the morning without eating breakfast. 2. Exercise after depleting stores through a prior workout. In this case athlete would perform a high intensity workout then not eat carbohydrate until after a second workout. The two workouts would be performed approximately 10 to 12 hours apart. For example: early morning and then late evening or late evening and then the following morning.
These two methods are very different with respect to the bio energetics.
THE FIRST METHOD
Exercise first thing in the morning after an overnight fast and without breakfast. This method stresses your liver glycogen stores because only the liver uses its glycogen stores overnight. Skeletal muscle will rely on its own stores of glycogen during the morning training which it prefers anyway. The glycogen that is stored in muscles is for “locals only”. In other words, once it’s stored in muscle, it’s not capable of being transported to other areas of the body to provide fuel. Instead, it must be used at the site. When your body can’t push for one more rep, this likely means that the glycogen has been depleted in those muscles. While you exercise, your muscles may run out of their stored glycogen sooner than if the liver was supplementing them with additional glucose but muscle won’t be very compromised energetically and any stress for adaptations in fat metabolism will be small at best. Exercising in this manner you primarily stressing the liver because it can’t maintain blood glucose once it runs out of what it has left from your overnight fast. A rough estimate would be 5 to 10 miles run, depending on bed time and duration of sleep. After that you may feel the bonk because your brain isn’t getting the glucose it needs but your active muscles aren’t very stressed.
THE SECOND METHOD
Complete a high intensity workout or long run to deplete muscle of glycogen followed by a near zero carbohydrate diet for ten to twelve hours. Depleting workout forces both muscle and liver to use up their glycogen stores. During the 10 to 12 hours without carbohydrate the liver will metabolize any remaining glycogen to maintain blood glucose levels as best it can. When you start a second workout 10 to 12 hours later muscle and liver will be low in glycogen reserves. You’ll feel the same level of bunk but in this case it’s not just your brain bonking, it’s your muscle to muscle too. The muscles will be forced to rely much more on fat for fueling your exercise and they may adapt so that you rely a little more on fat in the future if you do this regularly.
CAUTION
It may seem that depleting muscle glycogen through prior exercise (second method) is the way to go if you want to really force muscle into a greater fat utilization, but be careful and consider the fact that the first workout places a substantial stress on muscles, it’s a depleting workout after all. Following such workout your immune system works hard to repair your muscles and it needs carbohydrate to do so. By depleting carbohydrate and not replacing it, these repair and adaptation systems are unable to function optimally. The second exercise, where the goal is to stress fat utilization, comes with consideration that the muscle is functionally compromised. Therefore the second bout should be of low or moderate intensity. Carbohydrate feeding should begin immediately upon completion of the second workout.
Endurance events are typically performed at average
intensities at roughly 60 to 70 percent of maximum heart rate. At such
intensities fat utilization is highest in most all athletes and nearly 60
percent of total energy expenditure progressing to 65 plus percent after
exercising longer than 2 hours.
A study was conducted, where after 12 hours of running at 60 to 70 percent max during a 100 km race, glycogen levels were measured to decrease by 64 percent in the thigh muscle and it was still very high in the calf muscle. These observations led to question practicality of doing anything extreme in an attempt to influence fat utilization in athletes competing in endurance events. Any shifts in fat utilization will have very little impact on performance, when compared with the many other factors, such as temperature regulation, hydration, fueling and especially mindset.
Overall exercising while carbohydrate stores are low may be something you choose to experiment with but it’s unlikely that it will lead to a large impact on your performance. Because exercising in glycogen depleted state makes it very hard to keep the intensity high, and places additional stress on your body and nervous system, you may compromise the quality of your trainings while you try to figure out what works for you. If you choose to train in a glycogen depleted state the biggest take home recommendation is to make sure that you’re actually depleting the tissue you’re trying to stress. If you want to stress skeletal muscles fat burning, exercising in the morning without breakfast won’t do it. To do so, you need to deplete your muscles with a bout of high intensity or long duration exercise and then not replace the carbs until after the next workout.
First a little bit of background. In 1853 Claude Bernard discovered that the liver secretes your body’s main carbohydrate glucose by observing that the blood flowing out of the liver of fasted or meat fed animals contained glucose while the blood flowing into it contained little. When a cell takes in glucose from the blood it is modified by the process called oxidative phosphorylation (the major cell energy provider). This locks the glycogen molecule into the cell for future use. Only the liver can secrete glucose and it has the highest concentration of it. If you ever ate cooked liver, you know that it doesn’t taste sweet at all. That’s because the glucose in it stored as glycogen and glycogen does not taste sweet.
Liver contains 100 to 120 grams of glucose as glycogen. Compared to the liver, skeletal muscle contain less concentrated glycogen. However, because there is much more skeletal muscle than liver, we can they have much grated storage capacity. In total, your skeletal muscle contains 400 to 500 grams of glycogen. One gram of glucose produces 4 kilocalories of energy. Therefore the net energy stored in the liver is about 500 calories and about 1500 calories in skeletal muscle. Comparing trained and untrained individuals, more trained people are able to store more glycogen in their muscles and liver, however the difference is little. Average athlete might store 2000-2500 calories in total as usable carbohydrate energy in muscle and liver.
Carbs is preferred source of fuel for your body. They are easy to digest and provide fast energy. However due to the limited amount of them stored on board, you can easily deplete your carb storages just within 2 hours of moderate-intensity exercise.
75% of glycogen is used by the brain and central nervous system. For athletes, eating carbohydrates is like putting the octane in their engines. Consuming carbs will increase your blood glucose levels and help to fill your tanks before training or racing.
Glycogen is either created directly from food (glycogen synthesis) or through an indirect pathway (gluconeogenesis). When you eat a meal with carbohydrates, your body releases insulin, which takes glucose from the blood for energy into the cells. When the body gets excess fuel, the glucose molecules are linked together in a chain, producing longer units, called glycogen. As mentioned before, your body can store a limited amount of glycogen before it gets converted to fat.
FAT or CARBOHYDRATES for FUEL?
Adequate glycogen storage in your body is the key for optimal performance. Exercising at low and moderate intensities your body uses both: muscle glycogen and fat. The higher exercise intensity, the more carbohydrates are required to fuel your engine. Below is an example of how your body shifts from using fat for fuel towards running purely on carbohydrates. This is my VO2 test, conducted in professional laboratory:
Red column on a left is my heart rate (HR), measured in beasts per minute (bpm). Two columns on the right show the carbohydrate (CH) and fat (F) utilization related to heart rate. What we see here is that at lower intensities (<111 bpm) my body works primarily on fat as fuel. However the higher intensity of the exercise becomes, the faster my heart beats, more carbohydrates are being burned. Approximately at 111 bpm my body’s engine works as a pure hybrid, utilizing about the same amount of fat and carbohydrates for fuel. As the intensity increases, less and less fat is being used to fuel the exercise, until my body shifts completely to using carbs for fuel at 163 bpm.
Maintaining optimal carbohydrate stores is essential not only for good performance, but for protecting your health. Your nervous system, and brain primarily use carbohydrates for fuel. When glycogen stores get depleted and blood sugar level is low your brain will do anything to stop you from continuing exercising. You “hit the wall”. Pack your bags buddy, cause you are not going anywhere at this point. Consider yourself lucky if you finish the race.
What restores glycogen?
When the body experiences glycogen stores depletion, it takes about 24 hours to refuel (i.e., to ingest, digest, and convert food into glycogen). It is understood that carb-containing foods will help replenish stores the most efficiently. When food is digested, glucose is created. The pancreas recognizes this and produces insulin, a hormone that regulates the amount of glucose present in the bloodstream. Any glucose that isn’t used at this time is directed to the liver to be stored as glycogen.
There are two commonly used methods among athletes to store large amounts of glycogen is through carb loading and “training low”. We will get into these methods more in depth later in a book.
Past 4-5 weeks were hell. The taper began 5 days ago and my training volume has been decreased. Having failed so many times I am not looking forward to this workout. The race is in one weeks, but I am not excited, I am not confident. Not in a right place mentally or physically. I made an effort to eat more carbohydrates than usual two days prior to this workout. Staffed myself with oatmeal and quinoa right before bed on Thursday night, continued eating quinoa and oatmeal the entire day on Friday. Little to no fat or protein, carbs only.
Lessons Learned Last Workout:
Reduce fiber intake 1-2 days before
Two water bottles (1400 mL) on the bike last only for about 1 hour (30 km). During the race I will need to make 2stops to refuel at aid stations (First at 33 km; Second at 58 km)
Highway 1 that goes north has nothing besides hills… and more hills. Good to work on hill climbing; Not good for speed work. Maybe riding West to East or vise-versa will have less hills.
BRICK
A brick workout is any workout that combines swimming, biking and/or running into a single session. The most common example is the bike to run brick, where you go for a run immediately after finishing a bike ride.
Fueling
Formula: min 0.25 – max 0.33 grams carbs per hour x body weight (lbs) Or min 1 calorie/hour x body weight (lbs)
The main focus is to maintain adequate glycogen levels in muscles and liver to delay fatigue and prevent “bonking“.
No FRUCTOSE!
0.33 g/h x 150 lb x 2.25 (2hr 15min) = 111 grams of carbs required.
Hydration
TheGOAL: prevent loosing more than 2% (1.5 kg) of body weight in fluids.
What I got
What do I need? Sweat Rate: 1400 mL x 2.25 = 3150 mL Sodium: 0.5 x 3150 = 1575 mg Carbs: (X / 4125) x 100 = 5% -> X=0.05 x 4125= 206 g of carbs!?
Results
Pre-weight: 69.9 kg Post-weight: 68.7 kg Liquids consumed: 1950mL (Left one bottle) Weight lost: 3.150 kg Sweat Rate: 1260 mL/hour
Total weigh loss: 3.150 kg (4%)
Not good 2% is maximum loss allowed
BIKE
Felt Strong! Holding 210 Watts felt easy. 300 Watts for a minute were easy as well. Even knowing I was planning on fueling with protein bars, it felt too easy to inject extra carbs to fuel the workout. Therefore I did not eat anything and completed the ride purely on very little sugar from isotonic drinks.
RUN
Felt Strong! Experiencing really bad digestive issues previously. I was going into the run worried they will come back. However I did not have diarrhea or even the slightest symptoms of it. Thats a Win!
Lessons Learned:
I reduced fiber intake two days before workout (starting Thursday evening) this helped to prevent GI issues. Also, NO FRUCTOSE and supplements or foods containing high concentrations on VITAMIN C.
“Carb Loading”worked. Making emphasis on eating more complex carbs such as quinoa, sweet potatoes and oats, two days before filled up my glycogen stores and made me feel strong. I even didn’t need to fuel during the ride. Also glycogen do not get filled up overnight. It took me about 36-48 hours to begin feeling better.
This the first time this year I was riding outside. For the past 5 months I’ve been training in my basement on a trainer. I am so happy to finally get outdoors and test this machinery I’ve been working on so hard.
BRICK
2 hours @ 210 Watts + 45 min Run off bike
A brick workout is any workout that combines swimming, biking and/or running into a single session. The most common example is the bike to run brick, where you go for a run immediately after finishing a bike ride.
The more time you have before workout, the larger meal can get. Also it shouldn’t be high glycemic because you don’t need the energy available any time soon. Instead give preference to “slow carb” with lo moderate-low GI. Also don’t forget to include protein.
TheGOAL: prevent loosing more than 2% (1.5 kg) of body weight in fluids.
What do I need? Sweat Rate: 1400 mL x 2.75 = 3850 mL Sodium: 0.5 x 3850 = 1925 mg Carbs: (X / 4125) x 100 = 5% -> X=0.05 x 4125= 206 g of carbs!?
What I got:
WATER + Beta Alanine & BCAA. All calories come from solid foods.
Total Calories: 1010 calories: 367 calories/hour Riding outside. No power meter.
Results
No weight/sweat data.
Pre-weight: kg Post-weight: kg Liquids consumed: 2000 mL Sweat Rate: mL/hour
Total fluid loss:
BIKE
Right the second I clipped into the pedals, Ialmost lost balance. Riding on a trainer doesn’t require you to keep balance and I got to re-learn how to. Took only about 10 minutes to adjust. It was VERY windy. Strong side and front facing winds were blowing consistently throughout the ride. The wind was so strong, so I couldn’t let go one of my hands to reach back for a protein bar. Instead of 3 bars, as planned, had 1.5. There we A LOT of hills. Literally no flat stretch on the road. It was not quite the ride I was hoping to have, however I tried to stay positive and enjoy it as much as I could. It was certainly nice to get outside of my basement. Wasn’t feeling strong. Two water bottles I had mounted on the bike weren’t enough, felt thirsty.
What’s good?
Did a lot of hill climbing. Ironman 70.3 Marbella has 1400 meters of climbing on the bike course. It will help to prepare for the race.
Used different muscles, keeping the balance and fighting the wind.
Tested my bike in action, making sure everything’s working properly.
RUN
First 10 minutes felt really weak in legs. I think I went too hard on a bike part. Hills after hills after hills… Around minute 10, had to pause the workout to use the restroom. Not critical. I wen’t into the run with full stomach. I think reducing the fiber a day before will help. Finished the run to the best of my abilities.
Lessons Learned:
Reduce fiber intake 1-2 days before
Two water bottles (1400 mL) on the bike last only for about 1 hour (30 km). During the race I will need to make 2stops to refuel at aid stations (First at 33 km; Second at 58 km)
Highway 1 that goes north has nothing besides hills… and more hills. Good to work on hill climbing; Not good for speed work. Maybe riding West to East or vise-versa will have less hills.
Large breakfast: Rice 300g Beets 120g Oatmeal 50g Protein Shake (Muscle Milk) 135C/10F/44P = 800 calories
During (Fueling)
Gluten Free Bar (BFB) Quest Bar BCAA 2 scoops 54C/21F/28P = 470 calories
Sweat
Pre: 69.6 Post bike: 68.8 Post run: 68.1 Liquids consumed: 1400 mL Sweat Rate: 1450 mL/h
Weight Loss: 2.9 kg 4%
BIKE
210 Watts were relatively easy to hold. 2 minutes at 310 Watts was the longest I could sustain. Everything after that was a suffer.
I am extremely disappointed and frustrated. For the past month I was constantly failing on my bike workouts. This failures pushed my confidence to the lowest point it ever been. I feel insecure and begin developing negative associations with cycling. Before I was excited to see a bike workout on my schedule, now I am not looking forward to it. I approach the bike with fear, fear of physical pain and mainly emotional pain caused by self judgment and mental fatigue.
The problem is that I underperform comparing to my month old results. It’s not a plato, it’s degradation. There is something wrong either with my Training Program or Recovery (Nutrition, Sleep, Health) or all together. I keep on hitting the wall over and over again. I slowly kill my passion for sport and self-confidence. It can not continue like this.
What can I change? Where was the mistake made? At this point I believe it’s fail to say that my preparation for IronMan 70.3 Marbella has failed. I reached a peak of performance 3-4 weeks ago and now it’s falling down a cliff.
RUN
Felt really good and strong! Truly enjoyed the run. Could’ve ran much faster. No diarrhea!!! I believe I found a reason: Fructose before the workout. Especially fruits high in vitamin C: bananas 🍌, grapefruits, pineapples 🍍, apples 🍏.
First step is to recognize the feeling. What is it that you actually feeling?
Different feelings require different approaches, therefore it is important that you give it a proper label so you can deal with it accordingly. There are more than 27 feelings humans can experience, however, most of us are aware of only a few. You got to develop your vocabulary for each feeling and emotion.
Anxiety
According to “Epidemiology of anxiety disorders in the 21st century” anxiety disorders affect up to 33.7% of the population. It is called the “Disease of the 21st Century” and it stands alongside another leading disorder – depression. Interestingly it’s becoming more and more common among youth.
Millennials are a generation of people that were born between 1981-1996 (22-37 years old). We were born with cell phones and computers in our hands. We were born during a technological explosion that made the Earth spin faster. While our parents were gone at work all the time, technology raised us. This generation is a different breed.
The technological boom opened a door into a new world – the world of information. The speed of life has increased dramatically. Nowadays we see, learn and experience more in one day than people did in months or even years before. The hardware in your cell phone is so much different than it was a year ago or even a month ago, however your hardware, the brain, stayed the same. Our human hardware capabilities are simply not keeping up with technology and information that is made available to us. We are drinking from the firehose.
Unlike computer parts, we can’t replace outdated, slow or malfunctioning equipment with a new, better and faster one. Your brain is something you can not replace and you are stuck with. Luckily for you, the hardware
You’re tired of your mind constantly racing. You’re sick of being worried and anxious most of the time. Meditation, breathing techniques, exercise – it all helps to relieve the symptoms, but only for so long. You blame your mind and wish that it can stop thinking, allowing you to just catch a breath and enjoy life. The problem is that you work AGAINST your mind, trying to calm it down. You essentially starve your mind on its food, it’s fuel – the challenge, the mental tasks to solve. You can diet only for so long until you brake into overeating on everything you can possibly get. The harder you try to calm your mind, the hungrier it gets. Don’t fight with your mind, but make a partnership with it. You feed it with information and give it work to do and in return, it gives you a sense of accomplishment, peace and focus.
When you feel anxious, recognize the feeling and welcome it. Surprise it by saying Hi! Observe what it will do next: “Well… hello anxiety, hello stress! It hasn’t been long since you were here. What is your plan for today? How hard do you plan on hitting me? Common, let’s do it and get over with” Look at it with irony. Realize its ridiculousness.
Causes:
Go back in time to your college years. Do you remember how you felt right after a challenging exam or particularly hard class, on a way back to your dorm? Do you remember feeling exhausted mentally? I bet you felt drained, after just a few minutes of hard mental work, where you were required to memorize something or resolve a difficult mathematical equation. I am sure the only thing you were thinking at that moment was your soft, warm bed. Your mind wasn’t racing anymore, it wasn’t making you feel anxious. Your mind exhausted its energy on the cognitive task you were trying to solve.
The human body energy balance equation states that if you consume more energy than you expend, your body stores the excess as fat. It’s quite simple: eat more than you need – gain weight. Every person, depending on one’s lifestyle, genes, age, weight etc. has different energy requirements. The same goes for the brain…
Mental energy balance
Every person is born with different hardware – the brain. Someone is less smart, someone is more. Therefore every person’s brain energy requirements are different. Did you know that the brain is the most energy-demanding organ in a human body, consuming up to 20% of your body’s energy?
Just like any organ in your body, you can’t stop your brain from working. If you won’t feed it with a task to solve, if you don’t utilize its capacity, it begins to wonder. It will start bringing up memories from the past, reminding you of that stupid comment you made during a meeting with your boss. It will begin creating events and scenarios in future, where things go sideways, causing you to worry about the staff that most likely will never happen.
Anxiety is a waste product of an excess of mental energy
Unchallenged brain – crazy brain
In order to gain control over your brain, you need to put it to work. You need to channel it’s energy to solving a task that will benefit you. The key here is to pick a task that will truly challenge you, not an easy one. Once the scope of cognitive work is outlined, unleash your brain on it. Exhaust its energy in a productive way that doesn’t harm you, but serves. When the task is complete or you feel that you have no energy to continue, notice how you feel. Particularly pay attention to the feelings of anxiety and worry. You might find your mind being calm and still. You will feel tired, but relaxed. Remember this sense of inner pacification and link it to the hard mental work. This is your reward, enjoy it.
Physiological
Physiological causes can be dealt with chemical and physical interventions. The best practice it to begin with natural ways of changing your state:
You are a competitive athlete. You put a lot of hard work into your training days in, days out, completing every workout as prescribed. You are the workhorse, doing everything necessary to succeed in the sport you are in. You pay close attention to your nutrition and your kitchen has no place for Doritos and donuts. You fuel your machinery with high octane, nutritiously rich foods. While your friends are just getting ready to hit the bars on Friday night, you are in your bed at 8 pm. You sacrifice meeting with your buddies, because you know how important the quality sleep is for recovery. Everything seem to be in check and there is nothing that could possibly stop you on your way to your dream – a podium. Nothing besides… diarrhea.
Discussing intestinal problems in athletes is not sexy. What’s even less sexy is shitting yourself on the course in front of other people and fellow athletes.
You are not alone
Gastrointestinal problems among athletes are more common than you may think. About 30 to 50% of endurance athletes experience GI problems related to exercise. The numbers go higher with the level of athlete and can reach 70% for elite class performers.
Don’t perceive GI problems as your personal flaw. Instead accept it as the opportunity to learn and grow. Your body is intelligent super-machine and it is trying to communicate with you by bringing up GI symptoms, which only cover the bigger underlying issues. Work with your body, not agains it. Understand that there is not a singe person in the world that will have exact same body as yours. People keep different lifestyles, eat different foods and have personal training regimens. It is nearly impossible to create universal “pill” that will help each and everyone. You must take initiative in your hands and experiment to find the root cause of your GI distress. Realize that you are the one who caused your body behave this way, and you are the one responsible to fix it. However you are not alone and I am here to help you and give you some tips on how to fix what’s leaking.
What causes GI distress?
There are many reasons why your tummy fail on you. We can place them into 3 buckets: mechanical, physiological and nutritional. Let’s break them down:
Mechanics
The mechanical causes of GI-problems are either impact-related or are related to posture. Running and jumping movements cause your GI track repetitively bounce, which can contribute to lower GI symptoms such as diarrhea and urgency. More severe case of lower GI issues is gastrointestinal bleeding and is common amongst long distance runners.
Posture of your body also have an effect on GI symptoms. Shifting to aero position on a bicycle move your body to more horizontal position and increase pressure on the abdomen, which can trigger upper GI symptoms.
“The frequency is almost twice as high during running than during other endurance sports as cycling or swimming and 1.5-3.0 times higher in the elite athletes than the recreational exercisers“, (Erick Prado de Oliveira, Oct 2009).
Physiology
Reduced blood flow and pre-competition anxiety fall under physiological causes of GI-symptoms. During exercise blood flow to the gut can be reduced by as much as 80%. The body redirect blood to the working muscles and compromise gut function to varying degrees.
Anxiety and stress mess up your hormone secretion which affects gut movement, compromise absorption rate and cause loose stool.
Nutrition
Fiber, fat, protein, and fructose intake increase the risk of developing GI-symptoms. Dehydration with body weight loss greater than 4% may also exacerbate the symptoms.
Dehydration. In an extensive literature review using an evidence-based approach, main factor for exercise-induced GI tract symptoms is shown to be dehydration (body weight loss > 4% during or after exercise).
Hydration solutions overloaded with carbs can also distress your stomach. Too much is >12 g /100 ml of carbohydrate as well as electrolytes (most sports drinks are around ~6 g/100 ml).
“Association was reported between nutritional practices and GI complaints during a half ironman-distance triathlon with the intake of fiber, fat, protein and concentrated carbohydrate solutions during the triathlon, in particular beverages with very high osmolarity“, (Erick Prado de Oliveira, Sep 28, 2011).
Alright, let’s get practical…
Foods to Avoid before exercise
High fibre foods. (use the table below to learn about fiber content of some of the most common foods you need to stay away from)
Fermented foods. Wanna know where adrenaline is coming from? Have Kombucha as a pre-workout.
Coffee and tea. Hot fluids can stimulate gut movements while caffeine itself can have a laxative effect
Fatty and Spicy foods
Alcohol
Vitamin C in large doses
Are you Overtraining?
Below are the few possible underlying causes of runner’s diarrhea and other intestinal problems which are less obvious than the ones I described above and require your personal assessment.
Let’s dig deeper…
Food digestion is very energy-demanding process and requires your body to dedicate energy resources into it. When you overload your body and it can’t handle the external stress caused by training, it puts less priority on eating and digestion.
When the off-season is over, athletes are usually ramping up volume, intensity and frequency of their workouts. Total load on the body increases, while caloric consumption often stays the same. In addition, the amount of rest and downtime is not properly adjusted to support higher training load. This essentially leads to overtraining.
Overtraining can disrupt your liver’s ability to properly break down nutrients, which can lead to leaky gut syndrome, bouts of diarrhea or constipation.
You haven’t always had GI problems, however at one point in time something worked as a trigger and you started to experience them. Next time you find yourself on a toilet after another “incident”, ask yourself the following questions to narrow down the possible causes:
Do you remember when you began having the symptoms?
Did your training regimen change lately?
Do you experience any of the signs of overtraining?
Washed-out feelings (tired, drained, lack of energy)
Night sweats
Mild leg soreness, general aches, and pains
Pain in muscles and joints
Drop in performance (decrease in training capacity/intensity)
Insomnia
Decreased immunity (increased number of colds, and sore throats)
Moodiness, irritability, depression, loss of enthusiasm for the sport
Decreased appetite
Is your caloric consumption adequate to the level of energy you expand? What those calories are mainly coming from (carbs, fat or protein)?
Have you introduced any new sports supplements into your diet?
When all else fails
There is no quick fix for your health issues and there is no magic pill that will cure you once and forever. You must search for the answers by asking yourself the questions outlined above, you need to experiment with different foods, especially during pre-workout time period. However racing season is here and you need something that could at least relieve the symptoms while you search for the root cause. Below is the over counter medicine that might temporarily stop the leakage:
Pepermint TUMS
Taking peppermint TUMS prior to hard efforts to decrease stomach irritation and diarrhea. Here’s how TUMS may help with your symptoms: – Calcium works with the neuromuscular contractions and muscle metabolism – Carbonate helps to coat the intestinal cells, reducing endotoxin release and the ensuing symptoms – Peppermint is a homeopathic remedy for GI disturbances.
Imodium
Imodium help stop diarrhea by slowing the movement of food through your intestines. Many runners suggest that by taking a does prior to long runs or races could relieve GI problems. It can also take up to 48 hours to work, so if you’re trying it for the first time on race day there are no guarantees.
Possible side effects of Imodium include:
dizziness,
drowsiness,
tiredness,
constipation,
stomach pain,
skin rash, or itching.
Again, it should be considered as an option… not a solution. Figure out the cause, don’t mask it.
Lomotil
Lomotil (diphenoxylate and atropine) is alternative medicine to imodium and both are antidiarrheal medications used to treat diarrhea.
Common side effects of Lomotil include:
drowsiness,
dizziness,
headache,
tiredness,
restlessness,
blurred vision,
dry mouth,
nausea,
vomiting,
upset stomach,
loss of appetite,
skin rash, or itching.
SuperStarch
“Super Starch” mixes are used by many endurance athletes to fuel their workouts. Unlike sports gels and high GI sugary solutions offered on the course, super starch mixes don’t overload the system with a high GI sugar shock, which may prevent some gastro intestinal problems. If you tried eating real food of all kinds, various different gels (including all natural ones) and still have GI issues, you might want to try super starch mixes.
Summary
GI problems should not be perceived as personal flaw. Instead they should be used as the opportunity to learn and grow.
Mechanics, physiology and inadequate nutrition are main contributors to GI distress.
Reducing consumption or avoiding certain foods prior to exercise can help reduce or eliminate symptoms.
Overtraining can be the root cause of gastrointestinal problems.
There are over counter medications that can help reduce GI distress symptoms.
Oliveira, E., De. (2009, September). The impact of physical exercise on the gastrointestinal tract. [Scholarly project]. Retrieved April 5, 2019, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19535976
A brick workout is any workout that combines swimming, biking and/or running into a single session. The most common example is the bike to run brick, where you go for a run immediately after finishing a bike ride.
Today I pushed myself above my physical limits. Today my mind won over my body, forcing me give everything I had. It’s all good Mental Training. IRONMAN 70.3 Marbella
Warm-up: 15 min easy
Main set: 3.5 hours @ 200 watts At the top of every hour, ride x 10 mins @ 275 watts with 3.5 min easy riding after each interval.
Cool-down: 15 min easy
Using the sweat rate and fueling data I’ve collected over the past few weeks My strategy is following:
Hydration
Goal: Prevent loosing more than 3% of weight through the fluid loss. In my case 68 kg (150 lb) = 2.1 kg
As I recently found out, Lionel Sanders has exactly same Sweat Rate as I do. We both sweat at approximately 1400 mL/hour. Another question is how much sodium each looses?
How?
Sweat Rate (SR): ~1400 mL/h Liquids Required: Exercise Duration x SR = 4 hr * 1400 = 5600 mL x 1.06 (to convert in grams) = 5936 g Carbohydrates Required: (X g carbs / 5936 g) x 100%; X = 5936 x 0.05 = 296.8 g (5% Solution) Sodium Requirements: 0.5 x 5.936 = 2968 mg
What?
Electrolyte Solution:
Gatorade G2 (591 mL) x 5 bottles = 2955 mLx 1.06 = 3132 g Bio Steel (500 mL) + Karma (532 mL) = 1032 mL Coke x 2 (355 mL) = 710 mL Aloe crap = 500 mL Smoothie = 450 mL Sodium: 1685 mg Carbohydrates: 231 g (890 calories) Total volume: 5647 mL x 1.06 = 5986 g
FUELING
Pre-Exercise: 30 min Before
As usual workout is done early at 6 AM. After the night fast.
Two bananas + cup of coffee. That’s it
50 g of Carbs = 192 calories
During Exercise
How?
Formula: Low End: 0.25 x 150 = 37.5 g/h x 4 hr = 150 g High End: 0.33 x 150 = 49.4 g/h x 4 hr = 198 g
Fueling & Bonking Calculator
Calculator suggests I take in 60 g/h x 4 h = 240 g of carbs It also predicts the calories burnt (from fat and glycogen), distance covered and training stress score (TSS). Let’s see how close those predictions are…
What?
As I mentioned before, I would like to experiment with liquid sources of carbs, so here we go. When thinking about sugar, the first thing that comes to mind is Coke. In addition I threw in a smoothie or “natural” juice plus “Dena Aloe” drink. All the carbs are coming from liquid sources today.
Taking peppermint TUMS prior to hard efforts to decrease stomach irritation and diarrhea. Here’s how TUMS may help with your symptoms: – Calcium works with the neuromuscular contractions and muscle metabolism – Carbonate helps to coat the intestinal cells, reducing endotoxin release and the ensuing symptoms – Peppermint is a homeopathic remedy for GI disturbances
RESULTS
Pre-Weight: 68.1 kg Post-Weight: 69.5 kg Liquids Consumed: 5647 mL (5986 g) Weight Lost: 4.6 kg Sweat Rate: 1080 g/hr
Weight Loss: 6.6 % body weight
Bad job Sasha! That’s waaay too much…
BIKE
First hour felt ok holding 200 watts, however I sensed something’s not quite right, wasn’t feeling particularly strong. Shortly I understood why…
10 x 3 at 275 Watts Intervals:
#1
F*ck it hurts! Can’t hold 275 Watts going down 10w. Lasted 6 minutes, dropped down to 260 W.
#2
Lasted for about 2 minutes, then – BONK. Dammit I can’t believe it, again. Couldn’t hold 275 W any longer, gradually reducing power… Went down to 240 W – it’s the maximum I can squeeze out of my body right now. SO MAD! I am not going to give up! Slowly increasing wattage… Last two minutes of the interval ramping up to 260 Watts. F*CK IT HURTS! HR stays low. 2 hours to go… not sure if I can do it. I might just drop out right here. No sense to continue after I hit the wall.
I continue. It is no longer physical training – now it’s a mental training. Let’s see how far can I push myself mentally.
Suddenly after I opened the second can of Coke I felt that strengths comes back. I thought, once you bonked, there is no way out of it… Jogging down on soda. Feeling stronger.
#3
Held 276 W for the entire duration of the interval!!! So damn HAPPY and PROUD of myself! I pushed above my limits here. My mind won over my body. Sweat is so acidic, and it burns my eyes. My legs are hurting like bitch. It took me enormous amount of effort to push through. I left nothing in me…
RUN
My legs are numb and heavy. Really hard to keep up with that pace.
Distance Covered: 170 KM: 168 on bike + 2 by feet Time Elapsed: 4 hours 15 minutes Energy Expanded: 3106 Calories
Lessons Learned
I am not eating enough. With my current load I need to be eating more carbohydrates.
I prefer taking in solid carbohydrates, instead of liquid.
You CAN get out of bonking hole. It took me 2 cans of Coke (90 g of sugar). However don’t expect your performance to be the best.
Even consuming the right volume of fluids, I finished seriously dehydrated. Probably due to the low glycogen stores, as it holds the water in the body.
Fueling & Bonking Calculator suggested that I am in the very high risk of bonking. How right it was!
Sanders has very similar sweat rate. I might look into his sodium loss to guesstimate mine.
What will I do Differently?
Increase caloric intake few days before big training session. Make emphasis on carbs!
The race is over. You’ve given all you had. You pushed your body to the limit. What’s next?
Recovery Proper post-exercise nutrition as much important as the two previous stages pre- and during- exercise fueling. Show your body appreciation and give it exactly what it needs and deserves for the work it’ve done. Learn about how to maximize your recovery through the lenses of sports nutrition.
First 30 minutes after the exercise stops are extremely important in recovery. There are five main goals we are trying to accomplish during this stage:
Replace expanded Carbohydrate Stores
Take in carbohydrates that are high on GI: potatoes, rice and grains are great choices. Take in 1/2 – 3/4 body weight in grams of carbs within 30 minutes of exercise (ex: 150 lbs = 75 – 112 grams). Liquid form is preferred.
Rehydrate
Take in 500 ml of liquid for every pound lost during exercise.
Provide Amino Acids
After carbohydrate stores get depleted in the working muscles, the body begins to break down protein structures within the muscle cells, cannibalising itself. Protein, particularly BCAA should be taken in at a carb-to-protein ratio of about 4:1 or 5:1. Best sources are Egg or Whey Protein (easiest to absorb).
Begin Replacing Electrolytes
Electrolytes are critical for muscle contraction and relaxation. Drinking juice or eating fruit will easily replace nearly all of the electrolytes, with the except of sodium.
Reduce the Acidity of Body Fluids
During exercise, body fluids trend increasingly towards acidity. Fruits & vegetables have a net alkaline-enhancing effect (reduce acidity).
Below is the table of GL (glycemic load) and GI (glycemic index) of alkaline-enhancing foods:
(L. Cordain & J. Friel, 2012, p. 63)
Meal Examples
During this stage the emphasis is still primarily on the intake of solid carbs and proteins. See the alkaline-enhancing foods table above to pick net-alkaline starchy vegetables with high GI that you might enjoy.
Good choices for carbs and proteins are:
CARBOHYDRATES Potatoes, Sweet potatoes, Yams and Dried Fruits
PROTEIN Fish, Shellfish, Egg whites and Turkey Breast
The protein intake is recommended within the same ratio 4:1 or 5:1 with carbohydrates.
The most commonmistake here is to keep eating a high GI diet. Right after the exercise your main focus was on carbohydrates, and specifically the ones that are high on GI. Those foods are great for refueling your glycogen tanks, however they don’t bring much of nutrients. Now you need to shift you focus to eating more nutrient-dense foods, filling your body with minerals and vitamins. The more you demand from your body, the more important it becomes.
The optimal food choices here are:
Fruits Any fruit is good so pick and choose whichever you prefer
Vegetables Vibrant color ones: red, yellow, green and orange. Stay away from white colored veggies
Nuts, Seeds and Berries Macadamia nuts and walnuts are rich in omega-3. Avoid beans and peanuts
Lean Protein from Animal Sources Rich in BCAA and essential amino acids: Game animal and Free-ranging animal meats, Ocean or Stream-caught Fish & Shellfish, Turkey breast High in Omega-3: Cold-water Fish, Beef Liver, Eggs enriched with omega-3
Omega-3 Supplements Fish or Flaxseed Oil
The five MAIN GOALS for this stage:
Maintain Glycogen Stores
Assuming you’ve done a good job eating enough of carbohydrates from good sources in the previous hours, less carbs are required to maintain your glycogen stores. To maintain, aim for low GL fruits and vegetables.
Maintain a healthy pH
Fruits and vegetables reduce blood acidity protecting your muscles and bones from losing nitrogen and calcium.
Reduce Inflammation
Omega-3 have been shown to reduce inflammation. The ratio between omega-6 to omega-3 should be approximately 2:1
Rebuild muscles
To prevent your body from cannibalizing itself in attempt to repair damaged muscle tissue, it requires optimal amount of branched-chain amino acids (BCAA) and essential amino acids.
Optimize body weight
The lower your body mass, the less to carry. Maintaining low body fat percentage, in most endurance sports can lead to improved performance.
Make It A Habit
Create a non-negotiable habit of fueling your workouts. You will notice your energy balance throughout the day is enhanced, training and racing performance improves, it will get easier to manage body composition and you will experience fewer cravings for foods later in the day, you try to avoid.
Last Tip: Sleep Recovery & Protein
If your training load is heavy, you struggle to sleep, or simply want to maximize recovery and minimize stress, then begin and end your days with protein.
20 grams of protein before bed 20 grams of protein when you first wake up
Protein suppresses the negative effect of cortisol (stress hormone) and helps you to switch from fight-or-flight response to rest-n-digest.
References:
The Paleo Diet for Athletes: the Ancient Nutritional Formula for Peak Athletic Performance, by Loren Cordain and Joe Friel, Rodale, 2012, p. 63.
Energy expenditure is extremely high in endurance sports and a lot of athletes are failing to adequately fuel their bodies. Under-eating is commonly seen among endurance athletes.
Hydration During Exercise
Hydration is a complex topic and deserves a special attention. Hydration before, during and after exercise is discussed in the post that can be accessed here: Performance Oriented Hydration Guidelines for Athletes. If you haven’t read it yet, I highly suggest you do so, before we move on.
To refresh your memory, the goal of hydration is not to completely stop your body from loosing fluids, but to prevent it from loosing more than a 2% in body weight from fluid loss.
Drink to thirst! Quite simple. BUT make sure you don’t over drink. There is such a nasty thing called hyponatremia (low sodium concentration in the body fluids). Over drinking during exercise can cause dilution of sodium which eventually leads to health problems and even death. Utilizing sodium in your hydration solution helps to maintain blood plasma volume and reduce the risk of over-hydration.
For high intensity and workouts longer than 60 minutes we begin to utilize hydration solutions or sports drinks. When choosing a isotonic drink for your workout aim for the following carbohydrate & electrolyte concentration:
Carbohydrates: 4% – 8%. To calculate it, divide the grams of carbs (sugar) per serving size by the volume of the serving size (in mL), then multiply by 100 . So let’s say you want to fill your bicycle flask of 500 mL with a 6% solution we will need 30 grams of carbs (sugars).
Electrolytes. Formula: 0.5-0.7 grams of sodium per 1 liter (34 oz) of water. So in the same 500 mL cycling water bottle you will need to add 250-350 milligrams of sodium.
Fat or Carbohydrate for Fuel?
Adequate glycogen storage in your body is the key for optimal performance. Exercising at low and moderate intensities your body uses both: muscle glycogen and fat. The higher exercise intensity, the more carbohydrates are required to fuel your engine. Below is an example of how your body shifts from using fat for fuel towards running purely on carbohydrates. This is my VO2 test, conducted in professional laboratory:
Red column on a left is my heart rate (HR), measured in beasts per minute (bpm). Two columns on the right show the carbohydrate (CH) and fat (F) utilization related to heart rate. What we see here is that at lower intensities (<111 bpm) my body works primarily on fat as fuel. However the higher intensity of the exercise becomes, the faster my heart beats, more carbohydrates are being burned. Approximately at 111 bpm my body’s engine works as a pure hybrid, utilizing about the same amount of fat and carbohydrates for fuel. As the intensity increases, less and less fat is being used to fuel the exercise, until my body shifts completely to using carbs for fuel at 163 bpm.
Maintaining optimal carbohydrate stores is essential not only for good performance, but for protecting your health. Your nervous system, and brain primarily use carbohydrates for fuel. When glycogen stores get depleted and blood sugar level is low your brain will do anything to stop you from continuing exercising. You “hit the wall”. Pack your bags buddy, cause you are not going anywhere at this point. Consider yourself lucky if you just finish the race.
90 to 120 minutes are the short exercises and include sprint distance triathlons, time trials, some mountain bike races, 5-K, 10-K etc. What sets such events from longer-distance races is the high intensity.
The main focus is on hydration and the greatest nutritional need is WATER. Assuming adequate nutrition in the days and hours before the race, the athletes body is well prepared with glycogen stores. Taking in solid foods not necessary.
During prolonged or high-intensity physical activities, blood flows out of the least important organs, such as gut to supply your muscles and skin for optimal performance. It impairs your gut’s ability to process and absorb the foods, therefore carbohydrates at this duration is best in a liquid form. Solid foods are better tolerated at very low intensities or exercising in cold-weather.
Don’t sacrifice your health and performance training in a low-carb states during competitive seasons or when the training load is high. Training in such way will reduce your body’s ability to utilize it’s preferred source of fuel (carbohydrates) for energy, which leads to the series of health issues: hormonal disturbances (low testosterone in men), injuries, sickness, sleep disorders, burnouts, mood swings (moodiness). Don’t work AGAINST your body, but work WITH it. Fuel appropriately and it will pay you back with those fitness gains you are chasing for.
The main focus is to maintain adequate glycogen levels in muscles and liver to delay fatigue and prevent “bonking“. Some research shows that including small amounts of protein may be beneficial in improving performance during endurance events. Protein requires additional energy to break down in your gut therefore it can be too much of a load on your digestion system, causing diarrhea and nausea. Test it on yourself!
Inadequate carbohydrate fueling during high-intensity and prolonged exercise can result in muscle wasting.
High glycemic index drinks with much greater maltodextrin or glucose than fructose are preferred. Caffeinated sports drinks or gels has been shown to enhance the utilization of the glucose in sports drinks. Be careful, too much coffee may cause you shit your pant, when intensity get’s higher. Distribute 200-300 calories per hour in equal chunks, ideally from liquid sources. As always, drink enough to satisfy thirst.
Marathon, ultra-marathon, half-Ironman (70.3), Ironman (140.6), cycling races like century rides, ultra-marathon cross-country ski and rowing events fall under this category.
Participating in such events your main focus has to be on your health. Such long exercises is a true test of your nutrition and hydration strategies. Longer durations give more opportunities to fuck up, either catching hypoanatremia, or bonking on the field, running out of fuel.
Typically intensities during such events are staying low, meaning that your body is going to rely on fat for fuel. It doesn’t mean that we don’t need carbs anymore, we do, but not as much as at higher intensities. As discussed previously your body is a hybrid when it comes to fueling the muscles and the ratio of fat:carbs being utilized depends on intensity of physical activity, therefore your heart rate.
“Fat burns in a carbohydrate fire”, meaning that if carbohydrate stored as muscle glycogen runs low, the body will gradually lose its capacity to produce energy from fat.
If the athlete is behind the carbohydrate intake versus expenditure curve, catching up is difficult and may be accomplished only by slowing dramatically or stopping the exercise. Carbohydrate must be taken in right from the beginning.
The highest rate at which an athlete can expand the energy is 1000 calories/hour. It is almost impossible to replace all of it during the exercise, therefore it is really important to eat enough carbohydrates in 24-48 hours prior to the event. If you did, you’ve got about 1500-2000 calories in form of carbohydrates stored in your body, which should last you for a good part of the race, depending on intensity and time exercising.
During 4-12 hours events:
1. Consume approximately 200-400 calories / hour equally distributed every 10-20 minutes. 2. Calories should be coming from carbohydrates, ideally in liquid form.
Formula: min 0.25 – max 0.33 grams carbs per hour x body weight (lbs) Or min 1 calorie/hour x body weight (lbs)
Therefore 150 lb (68 kg) athlete should aim on consuming no less than 150 calories per hour just from carbohydrates)
In addition, taking in some protein could help to the onset of nervous system fatigue. But keep in mind that protein requires extra hydration for absorption and digestion. Too much of it can cause nausea.
Use the guidelines above as the starting point and experiment. Every body is different, therefore go and test things out yourself.
If you’re up to something like this – you’re crazy and I wish you good luck! Nutrition is critical for such events Recommendations are the same as for the previous section, but in addition the solid foods now become necessity. It may include bananas, cookies, jelly sandwiches, fruit juices etc. Foods with higher glycemic index should be chosen. Don’t forget the protein, especially branched-chain amino acids.
That’s all I had in regards to fueling during the exercise. I hope you learned something new and implementation of it will improve your performance. Below I also attached a “cheat sheet” to be used as a quick reference for Pre, During and Post race fueling.
In addition, I uploaded the Race Pace Predictor, Fueling & Bonking Calculator for cycling, made by FASTFITNESSTIPS. This is a great tool to use while planning your race fueling strategy. Here are the video instructions of how to use it: Fueling Science! How to pace your cycling to avoid bonking.
A brick workout is any workout that combines swimming, biking and/or running into a single session. The most common example is the bike to run brick, where you go for a run immediately after finishing a bike ride.
38 g (carbs/hour) x 2.75 (2 hours 45 minutes) = 105 grams of carbs required. 2 protein bars + Cliff energy chews = 100 C 21 F 28 P 660 calories
Hydration
TheGOAL: prevent loosing more than 2% (1.5 kg) of body weight in fluids.
What do I need? Sweat Rate: 1500 mL x 2.75 = 4125 mL Sodium: 0.5 x 4125 = 2062 mg Carbs: (X / 4125) x 100 = 5% -> X=0.05 x 4125= 206 g of carbs!?
What I got:
G2 Gatorade: 6 bottles (591 mL) + own solution (580 mL)= 4126 mL Carbs: 12×6 = 72 g Sodium: 270×6 + 330 = 1970 mg Additional Sodium: AminoPro 2 scoops 230 mg + Vega hydrator 100 mg = 330 mg in 580 mL of water💦 Calories: 300
Total Calories: 960 calories: 350 calories/hour Using the Cooling Fan.
Results
Pre-weight: 69.3 kg Post-weight: 69.3 kg Liquids consumed: 3930 mL Sweat Rate: 1430 mL/hour (confirmed previous calculations)
Total fluid loss: 3930 kg (2% body weight)
I am satisfied with this numbers and consider my calculations right on point. It’s a win!
BIKE
What do you know about “bonking”?
The first 40-50 minutes felt strong, pedaling without too much of an effort (RPE 3-4). Wasn’t fueling until 30 minutes into the ride. Approximately at minute 50 my power began going down increasing RPE.
Since then it was a total suffer fest. No matter how much I ate or drank, my power kept going down and down. I hit the wall or how cyclists call it “bonked”. Glycogen in my muscles and liver got depleted making my body fatigue and bonk. It felt incredibly hard to keep pushing 190 watts and I had to slow down multiple times for 10-15 seconds, because I just couldn’t keep going. My mind began playing tricks on me, but no matter what I did, I just couldn’t physically spin my legs. Even knowing my legs were hurting, it wasn’t about pain. I simply couldn’t force my body to push the pedals. Multiple times I had thoughts to quit and stop this suffering as I couldn’t keep up with workout.
Here is how bonking looks like on a graph:
While heart rate is going up, speed and power falls down.
RUN
Immediately after the ride I put my running gear on and went out for a 15 minutes run. My legs felt like jelly, running at 5:28 /km pace RPE felt like 6-7. Didn’t try to push, making the emphasis on keeping the form.
Severe diarrhea hit me 5 minutes into the run. I honestly thought I would shit my pants… In addition to that had minor stomach cramps. Had to finish the cool down part short… at the restroom.
Lessons Learned:
3,000 calories / day with 400 grams of carbohydrates I currently eat on my diet is not enough to fulfill the energy demands. I went glycogen depleted into the training and payed the price.
100 grams of carbs from pre-meal burned in 40 minutes.
Confirmed my Sweat Rate calculations. Approximately 1500 mL/hour.
Learned what the bonking is and how it feels.
If you drain your glycogen tanks, there is no way to refuel it on the fly, while keeping the power & speed.
Cooling fan didn’t make significant change in my sweat rate.
I don’t like energy chews. They get stuck in teeth.
What will I do different?
Increase my carbohydrate consumption to 600 grams/day. Total daily calorie intake: 3,900 calories
Always have a big, carbohydrate-rich meal at least 90 minutes before workout.
Try consuming liquid calories. See how that feels on stomach and absorption.
There are six things we are trying to achieve with of proper pre-exercise nutrition:
Restore muscle glycogen (especially important for morning training). A lot of athletes ignore food first thing in the morning. Don’t be like most! Going into training fasted or under-fueled will catch your up later with what cyclists call “bonking” or runners call “hitting the wall”. You simply run off the gas (glycogen) and your body refuse to deal with you any longer. You are forced to stop, you lost!
Satisfy hunger. Realizing that you’re hungry in the last hour before exercise or race is too late. Eating so close to start will only harm you.
Boost motivation
Delay fatigue
Optimize performance. This is a biggie! This is why you continue reading this chapter. Other than simply restocking your glycogen stores and fluid levels, proper pre-training nutrition has direct correlation with your performance.
Improve post-exercise recovery. If you start with your fuel tank on empty, even if you eat and hydrate during training, your recovery will be compromised. The better fueled and hydrated you are going into the training, the faster you will recover from it afterwards.
WHAT?
Salads are bad for you! This is the only time you hear me say it – right before training or racing. We are not talking here about eating for health and longevity, we are fueling up our carb tanks for performance. Understanding that, we stay away from fiber, high fat and protein foods. Those foods are slow to digest, may cause bloating and diarrhea during high intensity trainings.
Here is your general guidelines to follow, when deciding on how you are going to fill up your body for upcoming training:
Eat mostlycarbohydrates. The more time you have before exercise, the lower GI of your food choices should be.
Stay away from fiber.
Include protein, especially BCAAs. The 2018 Researchsponsored by Western University in Canada have shown that taking in BCAAs before aerobic exercise improves endurance and stimulates protein synthesis.
No foods or snacks in one hour prior to event or training. Is to prevent hypoglycemia (rapid insulin spike, followed by drop in blood sugar level).
The following are examples foods to eat prior the event:
Fruits with Eggs. Fruits (Low in fiber: bananas, peaches, cantaloupe, honeydew and watermelon) + Eggs (Easy to digest and is a great source of BCAAs)
Applesauce (Unsweetened) + Protein Powder. Applesauce is easy to digest and is low in fiber. Add egg or whey protein powder to slow the glycemic reaction and to add BCAAs
Baby Food (easily digested by anyone) + Animal Protein (Turkey, Chicken or Fish)
Liquid Meals. Stress reduces our abilities to digest food and I’ve had a nervous stomach prior to events before. Blending foods makes it easier to digest
Sports Bars with Protein. My least favorite option. Whenever possible, stay away from engineered foods
Fluids, especially WATER. In addition, a strong brewed coffee has been shown to improve endurance performance. Downsides of caffeine: upset stomach and nervousness
Of course, eating moderate-high GI foods will cause the insulin spike and shut down fat oxidation and your body will shift to burning carbs for fuel. This is concerning for many athletes that try to loose weight and train in fasted state to improve fax oxidation.
You got to pick one or another:
You burn fat and loose wight
You train and race at you peak performance, stimulating fitness gains.
Those two are not compatible. If you chose the option #2, continue reading as I’ll get more in depth on how to fuel up for performance. If your goal is to loose fat, you chubby panda, I suggest you read on some of my postshere.
HOW MUCH & WHEN?
To boost your performance, carbohydrate-rich easy-to-digest foods should be consumed no less than 1-2 hours before the exercise or race.
Everybody is different and the amount is determined by body size and gender. You should listen to your body, however here is some general guidelines:
3-4 hours before – Large meal (500-800 calories)
1-3 hours before – Medium-size meal (250-500 calories)
30 min – 1.5 hour before – Small meal, snack (100-500 calories)
10 minutes before start – Sports drink or Gel (100-200 calories), followed by 180-240 ml of water.
Race Week Diet
Typically a week before competition, athletes go into a “tapering” stage, where training volume and intensity is reduced to ensure the athlete is well rested before the event. Since they don’t train as much, it makes some athletes confused with their food choices. Let’t keep it simple: this is not the time to make changes in your day-to-day diet. You should continue to eat the same diet as while you was training, but with slightly reduces amount of calories consumed.
Skip the pasta party! The day before the race slightly add more carbohydrates to ensure your glycogen tanks are full. It’s a great time to treat yourself to some: bananas, peaches, watermelon, dried fruits, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams. To keep your blood sugar levels in check from such high GI foods, add protein and fat with each meal. In addition, reduce the fiber and eat at your usual times.
A tip: The order in which you eat carbs and proteins matter. Simply by switch the order you eat your food you can control you glucose and insulin levels. Eat protein and vegetables first and carbohydrates at the end. Never eat carbohydrates alone. Read more on Food Order.
References:
Lemon, Peter. “Effect of Branched-Chain Amino Acid Supplementation on Muscle Damage – Full Text View.” Search of: Spain – List Results – ClinicalTrials.gov, Western University, Canada, 2018, clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03766815.
The closer I get to my first IRONMAN, the more race specific my training gets. On today’s agenda is the “BRICK”:
2 hour 15 minutes Endurance Bike Ride (180w) immediately followed by10 minutes run of the bike
Fueling Before:
2 cups of coffee
Essential Amino acids
Whole Grapefruit 360g (40 carbs)
Hydration
Considering my previous Sweat Rate calculations: ~1500 mL/hour * Workout: 2 hr 15 min = 3000 mL of fluids (4xG2 bottles (2840 ml))
Today I experiment with hydration solution G2 from Gatorade. A bottle (710 mL) is a 5% solution with 330 mg of sodium. (240 cal/64 carbs)
It’s important to mention that the calories in hydration solution are not meant to deliver energy to the muscles, but to improve the fluid absorption.
Fueling
The formula I use to calculate carbohydrate needs:
0.25 x 150 lbs = 38 g/hour
2.15 x 38 = 82 grams of carbs
2 Protein Bars + banana = 585 cal (86c/23f/15p)
Total Calorie Intake (hydration+fueling): 825 cal (150c/23f/15p) / 2.15 hours = 384 cal/hour
Results:
Had 3 bottles of G2, left one unopened. Found it difficult to drink this much. Couldn’t say the same about eating part. Sugars are always fun. So here is what I’ve got:
Pre-Weight: 68.4 kg
Post-Weight: 66.9 kg
Fluids Consumed: 2130 mL (710 mL less than suggested)
Total Fluid Loss: 3630 mL
Sweat Rate: 1613 mL/hour
Energy Expanded: 1630 calories / 2:30 hours = 652 calories/hour
Felt strong on the bike physically and mentally. Was able to hold ~180w for 2 hours straight. The ride ended up at 100 kilometers, averaging at 44.5 km/h. Running off the bike, my legs felt literally like jelly. Ran 2 kilometers at 4:56 /km pace.
Overall I am impressed by the power output on the bike and how good I felt.
Do you want to get the taste of every shade of pain? I’ve got a perfect recipe for you – get yourself dehydrated. All you need is to lose just 1%-2% worth of your body’s weight through the fluid loss. Here is how you do it: wake up early in the morning to get that 90 minutes bike ride done, before work or school. Have nothing besides a cup or two of coffee and jump straight on the trainer. I guarantee that your heart rate won’t go higher than zone 3-4, no matter how hard you push yourself. RPE of 3-4 will feel like 7-8, making every second of your workout count as you courageously suffer through it. Besides that, you might experience some of the following symptoms, but they most likely have nothing to do with you being dehydrated. Push harder!
Headache (wether changes)
Fatigue (don’t be lazy!)
Dizziness (thats ok, just don’t close your eyes)
Increased thirst (resist! less water = higher RPE)
Tachycardia (you won’t even feel it)
Weak pulse (don’t worry about that)
Chills/cold hands (put on an extra jacket)
Organ failure (people live even with one kidney)
Shrunken brain (less weight to carry)
Heat cramps, heat exhaustion, heatstroke – those are the things that will add more flavor to your experience of riding the paintrain. There are few tips on how to access those add on features and amplify your suffering:
Do some interval training outside, including extreme spikes in intensity or volume
Try exercising when sick. Disease and fewer is not an excuse to skip a workout
Put on as many clothes as you have. Let’s see how many cycling jerseys you’ve got in your closet
Neglect all the clues and heat-related illness signals your body sends you
Few more workouts like this and you begin questioning your abilities as an athlete and your existence on this planet overall. A little shit-talking voice in your head gets louder and louder, yelling at you to stop this suffer fest and quit the sport all together. Perfect! There are many other ways to get on the paintrain with a first-class seat, but I will not discuss all of them just yet. If it’s something that you’re specifically looking for, let me know and I will provide you with step-by-step instructions on how to obtain the ticket to the suffer-land for free.
Let’s get serious
Performance Hydration
Let’s talk first about why exactly is hydration so important?
I bet you heard a million times that making sure you are well hydrated with clean water is essential to your well-being. I’ll just refresh a few things in your memory in regards to why you need to drink water.
About 40 liters of water contains a 150 pounds human body. Every day you loose 2-3 liters of fluids. Your body doesn’t produce water and heavily rely on external sources. Without proper amount of water, your body fails to:
Transport fuel to your working muscles
Eliminate the byproducts of your trainings from your cells
Keeping you alive and not let you dies from overheating by cooling itself down.
Digest the foods you eat and convert them into the fuel for your next training sessions.
Keep your brain functioning, making you a bit smarter than your dog. Concentration is compromised.
Maintain the blood volume. The sweat that you loose during exercise comes out of your blood plasma. Loose too much sweat -> blood volume goes down -> performance decreases.
The list goes on and on, but the main point here is that WATER IS LIFE.
Dehydration
When endurance athlete “hits the wall” or getting “bonked”, running out of energy, he can grab a gel or coke and rapidly put that necessary calories into the engine. Up to a certain point dehydration is manageable and there no performance decline. However, if the athlete is getting dehydrated, there is no fast way to restore hydration status. When is too late? Over 2% of body’s mass lost through the fluids links to a low performance. Your main task as an athlete is to stay above 2% or 3% off for fluids lost during exercise. Its easy to miss the point of not coming back and once you’re in the hole of dehydration, you’re not coming out of it in a course of the event. Game is over! Or it for the least your performance is highly compromised.
A symptom of dehydration is often expressed as hunger. That sound weird, but it’s true. When people reach for carbohydrate rich foods, because they’re hungry in the pm its often the fact that they simply dehydrated. By retaining hydration status during the day, it get easier to manage portion control and quality of food consumed.
Hyponatremia
On the flip side is over-hydration problem – hyponatremia. A lot of athletes are over-hydrating lowering the body sodium levels to dangerously low levels. Your blood becomes thicker and saltier and you feel thirsty. If you drink a lot of water or a lot of low-sodium fluids you actually diluting your blood down. You hold about 32 oz (950 mL) of fluids in your stomach. Depending on your body size and exercise intensity it empties at a rate about 30-42 oz (890-1242 mL) per hour. If you drink too much, too fast, your stomach gets overfilled, having no choice, but make you vomit to remove the excess. Overdrinking can cause nausea.
Electrolytes
You noticed in the past that your sweat leaves white marks on your clothing. Sometimes less, sometimes more. With sweat you never loose just the water, but also electrolytes. Without those positively and negatively charged ions you won’t be able to contract your muscles properly, making your running form seem more like a butt injured bear running away from the hunter. Potassium, calcium, magnesium and sodium are the micronutrients that in proper combination allow your body to remain in homeostasis by maintaining the fluid balance. Sodium is predominant electrolyte so you mainly loose this important nutrient with your sweat.
Five main electrolytes inside your body
If you don’t replace the fluids and electrolytes lost, it will essentially pull a cascade of negative events that will make you a dehydrated bitch. Luckily for you, mother nature provided your body with reliable fluid level management feature – a thirst. When too much water leaves your cells – they shrink and your brain gets notified immediately. If you feel thirsty, you’re on your way to a suffer-land, sponsored by dehydration. Listen to your body and drink enough to satisfy thirst, not more or less.
Better Hydration = Better Performance
You may not feel thirsty during exercise, but you absolutely need to hydrate while you exercise. Plain water is the best! There are three kinds you are safe to go with:
Purified water. This water is free of contaminants and produced by deionization, distillation, reverse osmosis and carbon filtration.
Spring water. Spring water is the “natural” version of purified water. may have been disinfected, but most impurities and contaminants remain. In terms of quality, spring water is much closer to tap water than purified water.
Alkaline water. It’s less acidic than tap water, however there is little evidence that its healthier than regular tap water.
“Taste and temperature have no perceptible effect on fluid absorption”
Karel, L
Sports drinks
Hypertonics. They are the high-calorie sports drinks or simply soda. Drinking these is notoptimal way to hydrate as your body has to move water out of the bloodstream into the gut to absorb the calories within the drink.
Isotonics or Hypotonics. This types of drinks are formulated to a concentration that is similar to your blood, which makes them a good hydration tools.
Coffee & Tea
Coffee is considered as probably harmless and possibly healthy. Just keep in mind that it’s a central nervous system stimulant so try not to over drink it.Commonly accepted safe dose of it is no more than 32 oz (946 ml) a day.
Tea also has caffeine in it, but way less than coffee. It is often praised for its health benefits and can help to fight free radicals, reduce the risk of heart related disease and even cancer. Herbal teas increase immunity, support weight loss, control appetite, promote better sleep and lower stress levels. It’s not a magic bullet, but if you get to pick between tea and coffee, I would go with the first one.
Juice, Energy drinks and Alcohol
Liquid produce is not healthier than whole, solid produce. Real juice, even with no added sugars is a very easy way to over-consume the calories, compared with eating whole foods. However it may come in handy after the intense workout, assisting in rehydration and delivering vitamins with minerals. To make it even a better post-workout option, add a tea spoon of pink Himalayan salt to make it more similar to rehydration sports drinks.
Energy drinks is a no-no! 5-hour Energy, NOS, Monster Energy, Red Bull, Rockstar etc. is a poison straight from a can. Sugar, enormous amount of calories and caffeine along with other stimulants will put you at risk of cardiac arrest. Save your heart and opt from such drinks, especially during the exercise.
There are no benefits to alcohol consumption. Sorry. The use of alcohol even in small amounts can negatively affect your hydration status, sleep, recovery, motivation and overall performance.Not to mention, it causes weight gain and weakens your immune system. If you are an athlete, especially during a competition season, do yourself a favor – stay away from alcohol.
Know your Sweat Rate
Everyone looses fluids differently, therefore to better understand how much you are sweating it’s important to calculate your sweat rate. Right before your next big workout, jump on scales and record your weight. When finished, re-weight yourself and calculate your sweat rate using the example of how to estimate the sweat rate for 150 lbs athlete after a 2 hour 30 minutes bike ride:
Pre-exercise weight: 150 lbs (68 kg)
Post-exercise weight: 148.5 lbs (67.3 kg)
Weight (fluids) loss: 1.5 lbs (0.7 kg) or 24.7 oz (700 mL)
Water consumed during exercise: 3 liters (100 oz)
Total Sweat Loss: 24.7 oz + 100 oz = 124.7 oz (3688 mL)
Unlike professional athletes, a lot of people manage to balance full-time jobs, family commitments and relationships with training. Training and competing, tight deadlines at work, travel across time zones, misunderstandings with people you care about, illnesses, dealing with difficult kids – all accumulate and add to psychological and physiological stress. Add on top of problems at work one or two hard training sessions, sprinkle it with sleep deprivation and you are well on your way to burnout and injury.
Mood swings, food cravings, inconsistency and unpredictability in athletic performance, lack of motivation, low energy levels are only the symptoms of system overload. You feel drained and totally destroyed. At 3 pm you fall asleep on the toilet at work, or worse, while driving back home. Total load is the term proposed by International Olympic Committee. In addition to your training and competing stress, it takes into account the daily life stressors.
Faster, better, stronger, harder! Sleep less, work more! Sleep for the weak! No pain – no gain! Chasing “gains” in our sports, we totally neglect psychological stressors and daily life hassles. We are so good at pushing ourselves, but so bad at recovering. Do you really think you can keep on abusing and pushing you body this way forever without any consequences? How long do you think you can last until it breaks? The question is not IF, the question is WHEN? Understanding the implications of total load and how to manage it – is critical to achieving your goals.
Modern technologies allow people to monitor so many body metrics: Heart rate during exercise; Resting heart rate (RHR); Sleep duration; Sleep stages; Caloric consumption and expenditure; Glucose and Ketone levels, you name it. We have access to data, that only a few decades ago was available to scientists in research labs. So many metrics at your hand and inability to make sense of it leads to information overload and analysis paralysis.
Information is gold. You will learn what the HRV is, and can it help you to improve your health, well-being and sports performance. I will teach you how to track and interpret your HRV data and show you real life examples of how daily life events and trainings impact your performance and recovery.
By default, Mother Nature has programmed your autonomic nervous system (ANS) with two operation systems: Sympathetic OS and Parasympathetic OS. They both work simultaneously, however performing totally different tasks.
Sympathetic Operation System
This is the system that has direct access to the “red button” which in situations threatening survival will prime your body for action.
Muscles contract, and begin to convert glycogen into glucose.
Heart rate ramps up.
Bronchial tubes dilate to facilitate better gas exchange.
Pupils dilate to enhance visual input, even in low light.
Hearing shuts down (auditory exclusion – loss of hearing).
You feel almost like rocket fuel has been poured into your system. Nitrous oxide is fueling your engine. You are READY TO EXPLODE at any second now. Flames are shooting down your exhaust pipes. Go get them!
This system saved your great-great-great-…-great father’s life, when saber-toothed tiger decided to have some homosapien for dinner. It is the reason why you are being alive. It was developed from necessity as a survival mechanism to prepare your body respond with everything it got in a matter of milliseconds. This system is awesome.
Parasympathetic Operation System
Manual NHRA top fuel driver Brittany Force (right) deploys her parachutes alongside Pat Dakin during round one eliminations for the US Nationals.
Unlike SO system, Parasympathetic OS is designed to slow you dow. This system is responsible to deploy the parachutes when the race is over. It maintains both mental and physical health by helping your body to calm down from stress reaction you’ve had and divert energy from other body processes to “rest and digest”. It’s a pit stop, where you get repaired, refueled and prepared for the next race.
Turns on digestion system, sending you to use the restroom
Relaxes muscles
Makes you horny
Puts brakes on the heart rate and lowers the blood pressure after the sympathetic nervous system has activated the fight or flight response
Now that everything is behind, it’s time to chill and restore the energy you expanded.
HRV, What are you?
Heart Rate Variability – is the physiological phenomenon of variation in the time interval between heartbeats.
Unlike the car’s engine, your heart doesn’t beat with exact same frequency each moment. The pauses between beats are not equal and can range from 0.85 and 1.35 seconds.
Note: The longest intervals between beats occur when you exhale, and the shortest intervals when you inhale.
HRV is simply a measure of the variation in time between each heartbeat which is controlled by autonomic nervous system (ANS).
Is it Worth the Hype?
For the past 4 months, every single morning I measured my HRV using HRV4Training IOS app. It costed me $10 for the app which promised to provide data analytics on the relation between physiological parameters, training and performance. It does not require any extra sensors and use iPhones flashlight with camera to measure your heart rate (technique is called photoplethysmography). The process of measuring is really easy:
Place your fingertip exactly on the camera. Touch the camera gently
Try not to move for the duration of the whole test, and breathe freely, without forcing any unnatural breathing pattern
Stay still for 1 minute
After each measurement the app will output the HRV Score. Higher score (or greater variability between heart beats) usually means that the body has a strong ability to tolerate stress or is strongly recovering from prior accumulated stress. At rest, a high HRV is generally favorable and a low HRV is unfavorable.
I also been journaling my emotional conditions, energy levels and training performances during that time period. I collected a lot of data to see if there are any patterns or corrections between HRV and my athletic performances , as well as overall feeling.
Traveling & Racing
Ukraine, Euro-tour, Marathon, Half-Marathon
From December 29th to January 19th I put A LOT of stress on my body and mind. I flew to Kiev, Ukraine from Toronto changing 8 time zones. I visited 5 countries during the road trip through the Europe. I drove over 5,000 km. I ran a marathon on January 5th in Paris and a half-marathon week later. Below is the data I got from the app during that crazy trip:
Left picture shows the recovery points and the right one shows the heart rate. To my surprise, app measurements show that cross-continental flight to another part of the world didn’t harm my body too much, neither the marathon did. Almost throughout the entire time of travel, training and competing my recovery points stayed nice and high, even higher then when I was back home. Same story with heart rate. It stayed low during the entire time, showing the positive trend even after the marathon.
Looking at this graphs it seems that my body handled travel, training and racing very well. In fact the scores are better than I had, while back home in Canada.
Back Home
This is where it gets really interesting! Immediately right after returning back home, everything went down. My recovery pointsfell straight down, continuing this negative trend for 7 days! We can also see direct correlation to heart rate readings. For a week it continued to creep up indicating that my body is having a really hard time.
My theory is that during the time spent traveling and in Ukraine, my body was under some sort of adrenaline or in defense mode to absorb the stress. Shortly after I returned back home and touched my bed, my body switched off the defense mode and literally fell apart.
Not to mention that despite downward trends Ifelt good mentally and emotionally.
Can HRV predict good and bad performances?
Let’s put travel and stress associated to the side and evaluate the data during regular training under normal conditions. Consistent journaling allows me to go back and see when I felt particularly good or bad, strength or weakness. I used my post-workout comments to compare them with HVR scores on that particular day.
Below Average / Bad Performances
In contrast to low HRV scores, let’s review some more recent data with higher scores. Did I feel and perform better with high HRV scores?
Great performances / Breakthroughs
Conclusions
“Information is only useful if it’s actionable“
Now that we reviewed the data, lets bring the elephant into the room and answer the main question:
Does HRV4Training provide data analytics on the relation between physiological parameters, training and performance?
In my case it DOES NOT.
During the 4 months of recording and comparing HRV data to my overall feeling I did not find direct relationship between HRV scores and athletic performances. It addition HRV score does not reflect mental or emotional state, neither it was promised by developers it would.
I am sure there are people who found this tool useful and will disagree with me. However everyone is different and what works for one, does not work for another. $10 for this particular app will not break your budget and I encourage you to give it a shot and see if you benefit from it. I am opened for discussion on the topic and I might change my mind, but for now I will stop measuring my morning HRV using the app for the reasons I stated above. Instead I will work to recognize the signs my body tell me, when something’s not quite right. I will also listen more to my emotional state to access my condition and predict the readiness to perform on a given day.
Stay STRONG!
References:
Soligard, T., Martin Schwellnus, J. A., Bahr, R., Clarsen, B., Dijkstra, P., Gabbett, T., . . . Engebretsen, L. (2016, September 01). How much is too much? (Part 1) International Olympic Committee consensus statement on load in sport and risk of injury. Retrieved March 7, 2019, from https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/50/17/1030
Schwellnus M, Soligard T, Alonso J, et al(2016, September 01). How much is too much? (Part 2) International Olympic Committee consensus statement on load in sport and risk of illness. Br J Sports Med2016;50:1043-1052. Retrieved March 7, 2019, from https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/50/17/1043
Simon Wegerif
What is Heart Rate Variability (HRV)? And how it can enhance your training. (n.d.). Retrieved March 7, 2019, from https://www.myithlete.com/what-is-hrv/
The venue took place at the sports complex with hot drinks and even live music. I got my bib and started to prepare for the race. Standing at the front line of the start line I got a good vision of the road ahead of me. 3…2…1 and we all set our bodies into motion. The time has come to kick some French ass. As always I’ve come with a plan.
PACING:
13 miles at pace 7:50-8:00 /mi.
9 miles at 7:45 /mi.
4.6 miles as fast as I can, depending on conditions.
In fact I felt really strong during the first 13 miles, running at 7:30-7:33 /mi, 20 seconds faster than planned😬. I was constantly reminding myself to slow down, however 30 minutes into the race I stopped resisting and made a decision to continue with a faster pace. Bad decision.
NUTRITION
I will begin from saying that I totally failed it, not just on the race day, but a week leading to the race. For breakfast I had approximately 200g of brown rice, 1.5 scoops of whey protein shake, 1 grapefruit and banana. On the course I brought 3 hummer gels (~ 70g of carbs in 300 calories), and two 200 ml bottles with BCAA mixed with creatine (no calories here). Throughout the course there were 7 fueling stations, serving !potato chips!, dark chocolate, oranges, pure cubed table sugar, orange juice, coke and water. My body is familiar only with bananas and coke, therefore I decided not to experiment and ate approximately 1 banana, flushing it down with 2 gulps of coke (~40-50g of carbs). Shortly after I passed the halfway point, I realized it wasn’t nearly enough to keep up with a faster pace I chose to stick with. Poor nutrition, undereating few day prior to the race, sleep deprivation did it’s nasty job. It’s an “F” Sasha. Lessons learned.
PERFORMANCE
Remaining 13.6 miles I felt pain in the liver and excruciating pain throughout my legs, making it more and more difficult to keep up with the pacing strategy. Right leg T-band and quadriceps on the left one, became sources of burning pain making the race more fun than I could handle. The second half was a 100% mental race. I became the main actor of my own movie called “50 Shades of Pain”, battling rapidly raising fatigue and exhaustion. It was really painful experience, maybe the most painful I ever had. Instead of running a negative split, as I usually do, I found myself getting slower and slower with a creeping thought of not finishing.
“It’s all good mental training” as mantra I kept on repeat in my head. I did not walk. I finished running! In just two months of hard training I broke my PR by 15 minutes since Toronto Waterfront Marathon.
I really enjoyed French nature while running through wide opened fields and forests. I am grateful for the warm and dry weather and appropriate choice of clothing I did for the race. I am grateful for the mind and body that allow me to take on this not only physical, but for the most part mental challenge. Thank you for not failing on me.
I am grateful for people that supported and believed in me.
Renee, thank you for smart, structured and personalized training plan and the words of wisdom I got from you. You are not only my coach, but a mentor to me.
Alysa I am grateful for your support. You know me better than anyone else. You have the power to ground me in times of deep crisis. You find the right words and approaches to break my armor and get me out of the mental prison I put myself into.
Mom, thank you for accepting my decision and cheering up for me from Ukraine. This is not how I imagined our vacation. Knowing that you had no hard feelings, took a huge weight of my chest and let me focus on the race.
Dad, thank you for always being honest WITH me, FOR me. I highly value your advices regards my physical and mental health. Thank you for giving me freedom to make my own mistakes.
Stepan, I am grateful for having you by my side, cheering up for me and forgiving my unpatience and short fuse. At the start line, you was worried for me more than I was for myself. You didn’t judge my decision to continue with a trip, pursuing my personal goals.
Another goal of mine got achieved setting me up for the next, greater challenges. I hit the PAUSE button for marathons and shift my focus to something greater. New 2019 year is going to be challenging and exciting year as I’ll spend it under the IRONMAN flags around the world 🌎
For the past 5 years that I spent living in USA, I got accustomed to its cost of living at different cities and pricing politics at the grocery stores. I love shopping at the farmers markets and would always give preference towards fresh, organic produce over it’s cheaper alternatives. Moving to Canada made me reassess my spending behaviors, as the cost of healthy foods seemed to be more expensive, compared to where I’m coming from. Out of curiosity and the will to save some money I made a little experiment. I was wondering of how much do I have to spend to continue eat as clean and healthy as I’m used to. Particularly I was interested to see the costs of meats, as they tend to be the most expensive item on the receipt.
While doing my calculations I also converted prices from CAD (canadian dollars) to ukrainian hryvnia for my Ukrainian friends.
According to Dr. Google ₴1 = $21
With my level of physical activity I stick around with 1 gram of protein per pound oflean weight, or approximately 2 grams per 1 kg of body weight. When it comes to the source of protein, I typically give preference to fish, chicken and beef. I stay away from eggs, dairy or “engineered” sources, aka protein bars etc. From time to time I would supplement with organ meats and protein shakes, but only as an addition to my daily meals. Based on my meat preferences, and the fact that I’m pretty lean, I calculated weekly protein requirements off my weight of 68-70 kg:
One week (7 days) worth of protein: 150 g/day (1 g * 1 lb of lean body mass).
If we translate it into the cooked foods, it will look like this:
Cooked:
Wild Salmon: 4.5 kg (10 lb) * 150 = 600 g/day
Chicken Breast: 3.3 kg (7.3 lb) * 150 = 500 g/day
Angus Beef: 5 kg (11 lb) * 150 = 700 g/day
Raw:
Different factors can play a role in how much your meat shrinks. The cut of meat and cooking methods are the main factors. Dry-cooking methods like roasting yield the most shrinkage.
Using 25% shrinkage as the guideline I calculated the amount of raw product I will need to buy in order to get the needed amount of protein after cooking.
Wild Salmon: (4.5 kg (10 lb) * 25%) + 4.5 kg (10 lb) = 5.6 kg (12.3 lb)
Chicken Breast: (3.3 kg (7.3 lb) * 25%) +3.3 kg (7.3 lb) = 4.1 kg (9 lb)
Angus Beef: (5 kg (11 lb) * 25%) + 5 kg (11 lb) = 6.3 kg (14 lb)
With these numbers in mind I went to the grocery store…
Wild Atlantic Salmon
12.49 lb (5.66 kg) = $82.31 (₴1728.5)
$82.31 / 7 days = $11.7 /day (₴245.7)
Cooked in the oven at 425 F for 20-30 minutes, with no oils.
Raw: 12.49 lb (5.66 kg)
Cooked: 10.4 lb (4.7 kg)
I LOVE SALMON. This is my most favorite source of protein, but unfortunately the most expensive among three. It’s a great source of Omega-3 fats that are so essential to counterbalance the Omega-6 ones that are so prevalent in modern foods. Too much of this fish may cause bloating and gas.
Chicken Breast
9.33 lb (4.2 kg) = $37.05 (₴778.05)
$37.05 / 7 days = $5.30 /day (₴111.3)
Raw: 8.7 lb (3.95 kg) (after removing from packaging and re-weighting myself. Delta: 0.63 lb (300g))
Grilled: 2.85 kg. Delta: 2.42 lb (1.1 kg) lost in cooking.
My preference towards chicken is somewhere between fish and beef. It’s still a bit hard on digestive system, but I like it because of it’s price accessibility and “purity” of protein.
Angus Beef
10.78 lb (4.9 kg) = $53.82 (₴1130.2)
$53.82 / 7 days = $7.7 /day (₴161.7)
Raw: 10.78 lb (4.9 kg)
Grilled: 6.72 lb (3.05 kg)
Delta is minimal.
Beef is not my favorite among three meats for the following reasons: it’s hard on digestion system; cooking of it takes more time and leaves a lot of mess to clean; it’s hard to chew on and it always stuck in your teeth. The main reason why I still implement beef into my diet is because of its fats. I never shy away from buying the fattest pieces of meat, as the animal fat it contains is essential for hormonal productions in our bodies.
Conclusions:
As expected, salmon is the most expensive source of protein. It costs about $12 (₴252) a day to cover my protein needs with fish. Choosing chicken instead would drop price by half, only $5.30 (₴111.3) a day. Beef lays in between, with its moderate price of $7.7 (₴161.7) a day, and on the last place due to my personal preference.
Eating only salmon for a month would cost me about $329.2 (₴6913.2). Chicken: $148.2 (₴3112.2). Beef: $215.3 (₴4521.3).
I can save money the following ways:
Alternate fish and chicken on a weekly or bi-weekly basis
I am a strong believer in the power of mind. Strong mind is what makes elite the elite, either in sport, business or life in general. To achieve great results, to brake out of the comfort zone requires at least 101% of effort. Nothing great in the world were achieved without struggle, paint, tears and sweat. Dare to struggle, dare to win.
I will share with you the simple technique that will improve your mental toughness, will make you healthier and will boost you with the energy so you rock your day.
Few facts about your body:
Your body is tuned to optimally operate within 20-21°C (68-71°F)
125,000 km (77,671 mi) of blood vessels running through your body. It’s enough to go around the world 3 times! Just think about that for a sec.
There are two types of fat in your body: White fat and Brown fat. Brown fat is keeping your body warm by utilizing glucose and fat. Newborn babies don’t shiver as they have a lot of brown fat to keep them warm. People who live in the colder climates have more brown fat than those that are not. By exposing to cold, overweight people loose weight by fueling brown fat with the white one.
When I take ice baths:
My body closes blood flow to less important parts of my body to remain in homeostasis by keeping the core temperature above 35°C (95°F). Blood rushes from the skin and muscles into the organs to keep the body temperature within healthy range. The more cold your body gets, the more blood vessels in my my arms and legs contract to ensure that the heart, liver, kidneys get enough blood to continue working. This is why you may feel burning or tingling sensations in your toes and fingers. By taking a cold shower or ice bath you essentially train your blood vessels to open and close, just like training your muscles.
Known health benefits from exposing your body to cold:
Improves blood circulation
Activates brown fat
Trains you heart and cardiovascular system
Improves immune system by increasing the amount of leukocytes, which helps fighting against viruses, parasites, bacteria and foreign substances
Clears your skin and making it soft
Charges you with energy. Adrenaline and dopamine levels rise instantly, giving you the “energy boost”
Improves your mood
What do I get from it?
Besides the health benefits outlines above, there are additional reasons I personally found for myself:
Its a good mental training
It raises my self-confidence and gives me the sense of accomplishment. A mini-win over my mind
Speeds up the recovery after training session
It helps me to clear the mind and fight negative feelings
I get the sense of stillness and connection of my mind and body
It’s not all just about the cold!
There are two parts of the exercise: breathing and cold. The breathing part is not intended to relax you. It is there to enable you to control your mind and body.
It’s not all just about getting cold!
Ice bath, or cold shower is only the tool that allows you train your mind. Think of it as a mental gym. Just as if I would go to the gym to train my body, I dive into the ice to train my mind.
Step 1. Take contrast showers:
A contrast shower is simple. You just alternate between hot and cold water. The hot water opens your blood vessels and increases blood circulation, and the cold water contracts your blood vessels and decreases blood flow. While on the beginning you wont be able to stay long under the cold water, with time you will get more used to it and will even start to like it. When you open up the cold water, naturally you will start breathing fast. The trick here is to calm your breath by breathing in deeply and exhaling slowly. Control your breathing. Week by week slowly increase the time under the cold shower, and remember the main thing – breathe slowly and deeply. With time the ratio between hot:cold will decrease and you will be able to stay under the cold shower much longer and it won’t shock you as much as it did on the beginning. Practice it in the morning or first part of the day.
Step 2. Take ONLY cold showers:
Now that you’ve been playing with contrast showers for a while, cold water doesn’t feel as cold and you significantly increased the time you spend in the blue zone. It’s time to level up. In the morning, right after you woke up, jump into the cold shower right away. Remember: the trick here is to calm your breath – breathe slowly and deeply. Begin from 60-90 seconds, then step out of the shower and dry your body with a towel as fast as you can. Day by day slowly increase the time under the cold water.
Step 3. Superman Level:
Fill your tub with a cold water. Add the ice. Don’t think, just jump in! The more you think, the less likely you will do it. When you’re in, focus on your breath. As I already mentioned before, deep breathing is the key. If your breathing is fast and shallow, you will start panicking and your reflexes will take over, forcing you out of the ice water. Breathe slowly and deeply, watch your breath. The second you noticed your mind started wandering, come back to your breathing. Don’t sit in the ice for too long. I would say a minute would be a good start, and then slowly progress.
Your breathing is the link between the physical, material world and the spiritual, non-tangible world.
It’s all Good Mental Training
It’s been almost a year since I started taking cold showers. There wasn’t a single day that I missed a cold shower or an ice bath. When people hear that I dive into the ice they usually say: It’s just not so cold for you anymore, or, You’re from Ukraine, You’re used to it. It brings up the smile on my face to hear those excuses people find for themselves why not to do it. I took the cold shower approximately 365 time and let me tell you, there wasn’t a single time that I felt like taking it. Every time I left my warm bed and came up to the shower, my mind would give me million legitimate reasons why I shouldn’t do it. 365 time I forced myself to open the cold water. 365 times I won the internal battle between ME and MY MIND. 365 times I stepped out of the shower as a winner. 365 times I trained my mental muscle and strengthen it. The cold showers are still as cold for me as they were a year ago, but now my mind is much stronger. The ability to control the mind doesn’t stop in the tub of ice, it impacts all the areas of my life. I put the reins on the crazy “monkey mind” of mine. It allows me to step back and take control over the impulsive behaviors, I wasn’t even aware of before. It allows me to do the right things when I don’t want to, when I’m being lazy or tired. It allows me to push through discomfort and pain. It opens up the whole new, previously unreachable world.
A few useful tips:
Don’t think about taking the cold shower. Don’t think how cold and uncomfortable it will get. Don’t let your mind talk you out of it.
Focus just on stepping into the shower. Period. Just step in, the rest will follow.
When in cold, focus on what follows. Think of how good the warm water will feel afterwards and how good you will feel about yourself.
Remember, the cold shower won’t lats forever, but the mental strength will.
Obesity is a huge deal in US and many other developed countries. People are obsessed with the quality and quantity of food they eat, without monitoring their schedule of food intake. Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot about Time-Restricted Eating and Intermittent Fasting as it gains popularity around North America. Different “health guru” bring up the relationship between temporal eating and obesity. I don’t believe everything I hear, so I pulled up some scholar literature from the field, to see what the science says and share my findings with you.
“Time-restricted eating(TRE)” or “time-restricted feeding (TRF)” is the approach to eating which limits the time for food intake, typically 6-8 hours a day (24 hours). People who follow this protocol consume all their food for the day in an 8-hour window, such as from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The rest of your day (16 hours) is the fasting period, meaning no calories are consumed.
Circadian rhythms dictate our bodies not just when to sleep and wake up, but they also play a huge role in regulating hormones responsible for metabolism, including Ghrelin (hunger hormone) and Leptin (fat storage hormone). Energy metabolism in our bodies has evolved to be cyclical, meaning it speeds up at certain times during the day, and slows dow when we fall asleep. This particular study got my attention as it tested whether obesity and metabolic illnesses result from bad diet or disruption of metabolic cycles (circadian rhythms). The study was published in Cell Metabolism Journal in May 17, 2012.
Lab test was done on mice, where they were subjected to time-restricted eating (ate for 8 hours, fasted for 16) and free feeding, where they were fed the same amount calories evenly throughout the day. Both groups were on a bad diet (high-fat diet) for 6 weeks. Now let’s see what happened:
The lab test showed that TRE resulted in:
Decreased predisposition to get fat (Adiposity and Leptin Resistance);
Decreased inflammation (body’s response to injury);
Improved motor coordination.
FA – free feeding FT – time-restricted feeding
Despite equal energy intake from the same bad diet, FT mice didn’t gain extra body weight. The study suggests that time-restricted eating reprograms the way our bodies metabolize energy received from food and improve body weight regulation.
In addition, TRE will help you to:
Give you body and digestion some rest and stimulates cellular repair processes, by removing toxic materials from cells;
Increase metabolism;
Decrease such brain illnesses like Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s;
TRE affects endurance sport athletes:
Mice eating an unhealthy diet on TRE showed greater sports performance than mice with the same diet and no time restrictions on eating.
Conclusion:
Simply by modifying our feeding schedules without changing the amount of food we eat, we can improve our overall health and protect ourselves from illnesses associated with excessive body fat. Each human is unique and it’s difficult to suggest what is the best schedule of TRE for you. Discover for yourself through trial and error. The healthiest approach to incorporating TRE is to have a breakfast later in the day and finish dinner earlier.
You don’t want to be that FAT RAT on the left!
References:
Hatori, M., Vollmers, C., Zarrinpar, A., DiTacchio, L., Bushong, E. A., Gill, S., Leblanc, M., Chaix, A., Joens, M., Fitzpatrick, J. A., Ellisman, M. H., … Panda, S. (2012). Time-restricted feeding without reducing caloric intake prevents metabolic diseases in mice fed a high-fat diet. Cell metabolism, 15(6), 848-60.
Modern “trendy” diets, aka Keto, Paleo, Carnivor, Vegan etc., made us perceive carbohydrates as evil. There are so many things that impact the way our bodies absorb and process foods. Every person is unique, with his set of hormones, digestive microflora, physical and mental stress loads etc… When it comes to developing a healthy individual diet a lot of variables need to be taken to the account: macronutrient content, caloric load, glycemic index, meal timing and a lot more.
For a while I’ve been wondering if the order we consume nutrients during the meal impact glucose response. I’ve been thinking, will it change anything if we eat proteins first and carbs later or in reverse order. Eventually everything mixes in the stomach anyways, so is there is a difference to the order we eat? I found the answer and I am excited to share my finding with you.
After searching for a while I found this recent research made by Dr. Alpana P. Shukla that brings up the term – food order. The term “food order” refers to the sequence of the nutrients consumed during the meal. Turns out that timing of carbohydrates consumption during a meal has significant impact on the blood glucose level response. The research shown that when the carbohydrate component of the meal is consumed at the end of the meal or last, the effect on the glucose level will be way smaller that if the carbs would be consumed on the beginning of the meal. In other words, if you start your meal from eating proteins and vegetables first and save the carbs for the end, it wont cause the blood sugar level go up high. The table below shows that carbs eaten last resulted in 37% less of a blood sugar spike and 49,6% less of insulin response:
This is fascinating! Simply by switching the order you eat your food you can control you glucose and insulin levels in control and loose or maintain your weight. I am also fascinated to see how it can help people with diabetes and other insulin related deceases.
Protein pre-loading. Another, related study showed that taking whey protein drink shortly before a high-glycaemic-index meal (your favorite pancakes or pasta), lowered the insulin response by 28%:
“The results showed that over the whole 180 min post-meal period, glucose levels were reduced by 28% after whey pre-load with a uniform reduction during both early and late phases”, (Jakubowicz, D, July 10, 2014).
The study published by The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in July 2005 proved the previous one:
“Whey proteins have insulinotropic effects and reduce the postprandial glycemia in healthy subjects. The mechanism is not known, but insulinogenic amino acids and the incretin hormones seem to be involved”, (Anders H Frid, July 1, 2005).
I like how they put “the mechanism is not known” in a study, but it doesn’t matter. What matters to us that is it works. Simply have a whey protein before your carb loaded meal and you won’t skyrocket your blood glucose levels up. When choosing whey protein, I suggest looking at isolate as it usually has the least amount of added sugars. Make sure you check the label for sugars content as you don’t need more than 3-5 g of sugars per scoop.
Does eating this way impact satiety? Yes it does. The research showed that protein consumed first, suppressed the ghrelin hormone level. Ghrelin is the “hunger hormone” because it stimulates appetite, increases food intake and promotes fat storage. Good news, keeping your food in order will make you feel more full and you will eat less.
Here is the study published by Diabetes Care journal. The experiment was done in 3 ways:
Carbohydrate-first meal: carbohydrate (bread and orange juice), followed 10 min later by protein (chicken) and vegetables;
Carbohydrate-last meal: protein and vegetables, followed 10 min later by carbohydrate;
Sandwich: all meal components together, each half consumed over 10 min with a 10-min interval in between.
Below are the results:
Main takeaways:
The order in which you eat carbs and proteins matter. It is not only “how much” and “what not to eat”. Optimal timing of carbohydrate consumption during a meal have a big impact on blood glucose levels and as result on your health and body composition;
You can loose weight by simply eating protein and vegetables first and carbohydrates at the end;
Never eat carbohydrates alone. They should be consumed as a part of the meal, followed by protein intake;
Taking a whey protein drink before meal reduces blood glucose spike;
Eating proteins first make you feel more full for longer;
References:
Shukla AP, Dickison M, Coughlin N, et al. The impact of food order on postprandial glycaemic excursions in prediabetes. Diabetes Obes Metab. 2018;1–5. https://doi.org/10.1111/dom.13503
Shukla, A. P., Iliescu, R. G., Thomas, C. E., & Aronne, L. J. (2015, July 01). Food Order Has a Significant Impact on Postprandial Glucose and Insulin Levels. Retrieved November 11, 2018, from http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/38/7/e98
Anders H Frid, Mikael Nilsson, Jens Juul Holst, Inger ME Björck; Effect of whey on blood glucose and insulin responses to composite breakfast and lunch meals in type 2 diabetic subjects, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Volume 82, Issue 1, 1 July 2005, Pages 69–75, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/82.1.69
