pam_in_sc wrote:
|| Roger Zoul wrote:
||| Well, a little planning can prevent this....if you make sure you
||| can ride (weather, equipement, etc) then you can do a carb load a
||| little before starting your ride. And if you can't ride, walk or go
||| to the gym.
||
|| I should have walked off my high carb breakfast, but was too upset
|| at my plans for a long ride being ruined. I'm slowly learning to be
|| flexible.
I understand as I have been exactly in that position, though for me it
usually starts the day before because I don't eat breakfast before a ride as
I ride in the early AM.
||
||| Well, if what you're doing now works (you're checking BG, right?),
||| then why not just scale up? ARe you taking any protein along with
||| your carbs? Also, what about after ride nutrition?
||
|| I'm checking bg after riding, but its mostly too hot to carry my
|| meter. I did hike up Table Rock (7 miles, 2,000 ft. vertical
|| rise, 5 hours)
|| and check frequently (carried my meter in a Frio), and never went
|| below 90 or over 110. My concern about scaling up was whether in 3
|| or 4 hours
|| I'm using up the easily accessible stores in my liver and therefore
|| if
|| keep going longer I will need to get more of my energy from what I
|| eat.
I don't know about you -- and everyone is different, so my experience may be
vastly different than yours. But if I don't get enough carbs before/after
getting up around 60 miles, I'll have serious hypoglycemia after my ride.
And the thing about hypo that you have to remember is that it is not just a
matter of having low BG levels -- it is more about the rate in which yor BG
levels change. If it drops too fast, even though the levels may not get
really low, all of the hypo symptoms will appear. Again, this may not be a
problem for you. In fact, I'm not even sure it has much to do with my being
diabetic, it probably has more to do with the fact that i weigh 240 lbs and
ride hard (my HR really gets up to well over 90% max going up the hills
around here) for my size.
||
|| I usually have protein and fat with my carbs because that is how I am
|| used to eating, though one treat when riding is orange juice. I've
|| got
Well, I try my best to restrict fat when I'm eating carbs (it doesn't always
work out that way)....mainly for the reason that if you manage to overeat,
then your body will get the calories from the carbs (they digest quickest)
and then store up the fat - as fat. Your body can generally keep a store of
extra carbs around longer for energy and hence won't quickly turn carbs into
fat. But if you drive your BG up with carbs, and there is fat around, it
gets pushed into the cells by insulin. And if you eat more than your body
needs, that fat stays around and increases the size of your fat cells -- you
basicaly lay down fat.
|| some tasty nut/coconut health food style energy bars. I'm trying to
|| learn the habit of some carbs (maybe 6 oz of juice) after a long
|| ride.
|| I don't find I can eat differently for dinner after a long ride--I
|| thought I would be able to eat more carbs because my body was
|| replenishing stores but I find no reliable difference, given the same
|| dinner, in how high my bg goes. (I'm doing very tight control--my
|| goal
|| is under 140 at 1 hour, under 120 at 2 hours after eating. I eat
|| about 80-100 grams of carbohydrate a day.)
It might be that 40 miles is just not enough for you because you don't weigh
a whole lot. For me, once I get around 60 miles then I've burned a lot of
calories and I can eat more. Even I usually don't do much differently in
terms of eating at 40 miles. In fact, I don't typically bother to carb up
at all if I'm not planning on doing more than 40 miles. I'll just drink
gatoraid while I ride. I take some glucose tablets with me just in case I
manage to hit a wall or something, because sometimes I do get aggressive and
attack hills - something about my personality.
One useful book is Lyle McDonald's "The Ketogenic Diet". It gives the
theory behind carb ups and the details about mixing the various
macronutrients during those times. The book does have a heavy slant toward
weightlifting, however.
