Triathlon

August 9, 2009
Today, I did my first "sprint" triathlon which means that we had to swim (in the ocean) for 1/3 of a mile, bike for 15 miles, and run a 5K. It was a beautiful day and all in all, I was pretty pleased with my results. I was especially pleased by how my pre-race dietary planning panned out. I did NOT follow the advise of the Nutritionist who advocated for eating high carbs, and low fat the week before the race. In fact I did just the opposite!! I ate a very high fat diet during the days before the race, HOWEVER, I was very careful to eat "good", clean fats such as Olive Oil, Avocado, Organic Butter, Organic coconut oil, Grass-fed beef, and Organic free-range eggs. I ate my carbs in the form of lightly cooked veggies, salads (raw, of course) fruit and some roasted beets, sweet potatoes and white potatoes and/or quinoa. (I should mention here that I do not eat anything with gluten in it and have been following a gluten-free diet for the past couple years. I do this because I feel SO much better without it!) More on that in another post.....
Here is what I ate the night before the race: Grilled steak that was pre-marinated in olive oil, garlic and plenty of good "Real Salt" TM and freshly ground pepper. I roasted some lovely fingerling potatoes with a light coating of olive oil and Real salt, sauted fresh green and yellow beans from the farm across the street, and finished with a large green salad featuring as many different colors as possible. I used flax and olive oil and lemon juice with Real Salt as my salad dressing. It was great!!
For breakfast this morning at 7AM, (the race started at 10:15 for me) I ate an over-easy egg cooked in organic butter, 1/2 of an avocado with 1 Tbsp of cultured veggies and 1/4 cup of wild Maine blueberries under olive oil and "Real Salt" to taste. Yumm!! (really!)
It turned out to be the perfect mix of good fats, protein, and carbs for me for the race. I did not feel hungry at all before, during or even after the race for a long time. I had plenty of energy (my legs were what held me back!!) for the whole race which took me about 1 1/2 hours.
I attribute this to the fact that I have re-established my body's natural tendency to burn fat for fuel and not carbs. To me this makes so much sense because there is only so much glycogen that your muscles and liver can store for immediate use. What I find interesting is that we do not have to consume ANY carbohydates for glycogen storage because our amazing bodies can actually produce all the glucose we need from the raw materials that we get from eating good proteins and fats. These stores of glycogen are used up quickly in an endurance event such as a triathlon. We then need to go into an aerobic mode of energy production and fat molecules can provide nearly 20X the energy that a molecule of glucose can provide. We are all actually designed to use fats for cellular respiration.
The problem is that we all tend to eat to many carbs which eventually break down into sugars and put us on a blood-sugar roller coaster. This is the familiar "hypoglycemic state" that makes you feel lethargic, light headed, irritable, and hungry(!) that is familiar to many of us after exertion, or just after a few hours following our previous meal. We often reach for something that is laden with carbohydrates to satisfy our low blood sugar state. This may temporarily take care of the immediate problem, but it puts us back on the roller-coaster again and there is a large price to pay for continuosly spiking our blood sugar levels. (More on this topic later...)
There are many topics that I have introduced in this post that I hope to expand on in future posts. I am passionate about making sure that the fats that you do choose to eat are healthy ones. I will definitely be writing more on that subject. Other topics of interest are allergy issues, food sensitivities, gluten elimination diets, blood sugar regulation, digestion and elimination, insulin-resistance, etc, etc, etc...!
Thanks for visiting my blog and have a great day!
Ginny