Carbs and Athletes

Someone asked me the other day about why athletes eat so many carbs. They do this to fuel the body for the intense exercise that they are doing. The carbs for an athlete fuel the muscles and the brain. So the day before a race or the day before we ride 75-80 miles, we have a carbo rich meal so that we would have fuel for the muscles as we peddled our way up and down mountains. Included in these meals are high fiber sugars and starches like fruit, vegetables and whole grains.

During the ride time or race time, the athlete now needs low fiber sugars that can be easily digested. Especially with runners, they need to have things that are quickly and easily digested because the stomach is really jostled around as they run. You'll often see these folks drinking smoothies, sports drinks, sports gels and bars.

The other thing that is really important for athletes is to keep hydrated. Drinking 1-2 hours before the event and then more about 15 minutes before the event helps keep them going. If you run for more than 90 consecutive minutes, you need to refuel the muscles and brain with carbs. Cyclists usually have a rest stop about every 10 miles for refueling with carbs and drinking liquids. Cyclists have the advantage unless they are racing in that they often have water with them in the form of bottles on the bike or a camel pack of water on their back.

Nutrients That Make Your Body Work #1

There are seven major nutrient groups that are necessary for your body to run in good condition. Most of these you know, but hopefully you will learn a little from this.

The first group is carbohydrates. Yes, you do need them. Carbs are the chief source of energy for the body. You really need them for muscle activity and they help in the regulation of fat and protein metabolism.

Carbs are broken down in the body to form glucose which is converted by the cells into energy. This glucose can be stored as glycogen in the muscle or it can continue to circulate in the blood stream. Diabetics tend to have a lot circulating in the blood stream because they are not able to get it into the cells. Once the glucose is in the cells, it must combine with oxygen to become energy.

The biggest problem we have today is that our American diet incorporates way to many carbs in the form of grains, ie pasta, bread, etc. Your greatest and best source of carbs should be coming from fruits and vegetable.

Manage Your Insulin for Antiaging

One of the most important things you can do to help manage the aging process is to manage your insulin levels. You may think because you are not a diabetic that you don't need to worry about insulin levels. But in fact, you do need to worry about insulin levels.

When insulin levels are balanced, you will see a reduction of blood pressure, a decrease in cholesterol levels, and a reduction in the risk for development of Type II Diabetes. Now you may ask how do I manage my insulin levels.

First, you should be eating protein at every meal. The minute that you smell or see food, the pancreas begins to set up proinsulin which is the precursor of insulin. In other words, the pancreas is getting ready for you to eat. That first bite that you take signals the pancreas to begin production of insulin. Proteins help burn the carbs that you eat, so your first bite should be a bite of protein. Then you can eat whatever you want, well maybe not whatever you want, but you can vary the next bite to something other than protein.

The other way to help manage your insulin levels is to eat complex carbs, ie those found in fruits and vegetables. Limit the number of simple carbs, those found in grains. Be sure that you stick to good fats also.

Economic Crunch and Your Health

Many are cutting back on things that may endanger your health because of the economy. While I understand this, don't endanger your health because of the economy. I know that if you are on a medication for high blood pressure or diabetes, the cost may prohibitive at this point in time, especially if you have lost or don't have insurance. Talk with your doctor about getting a medication that is less expensive than the one that you are on. There are likely generics or older medications that do work that will be less expensive.

Better yet do some healthful things to help lower your blood pressure or your blood sugar. There was a study in the UK where they fed people basically fruits and vegetables for 10 days. What they found was a highly significant drop in their blood pressures (all had high blood pressure) and also highly significant drops in blood cholesterol levels and more stable blood sugar levels. The participants ate 11 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables a day. That is a lot of fruits and vegetables, but can you imagine how healthy you would be. I'm not advocating becoming a vegetarian. But what I am saying is increase the number of fruits and vegetables you eat each day and decrease the simple carbs like bread and pasta. Get your carbohydrates from fruits and vegetables so that you're really getting nutrition instead of just calories.

Diet Tip #4

This next tip may be a difficult one for you, but if you are serious about losing weight it will help a great deal. For the next 4-6 weeks, eliminate all wheat or flour based foods. This includes breads, crackers and pastas.

This may seem difficult and it may be, but if you can stick to it, it will help a great deal. One of the things that you will recognize is how much of these you may be eating. Cutting these foods out will also make you feel better. Eating the fresh vegetables and fruits can take the place of the fiber requirements.

Creating Serotonin - What Should I Eat?

Since we know that tryptophan is the building block for serotonin, that would be the first thing we need to produce serotonin. Most of us are familiar with one source of tryptophan - turkey! We all get very relaxed and sleepy after that big Thanksgiving turkey dinner. This is related to the tryptophan in the turkey. In this case however, the tryptophan goes to the pineal gland and melatonin is produced which makes us sleepy. Not the serotonin we were hoping to produce.

This is a complex issue, because the amino acids in proteins can get in the way of the tryptophan and keep it from converting to Serotonin. To help you understand this, if you are depressed and your Serotonin levels are low, you will crave and eat simple carbohydrates like sugar and sweets. This gives you a short burst of Serotonin but it is not sustained and requires more within an hour or two at most. We all know what eating sugar or sweets every 1-2 hours will do to your waist line. Complex carbohydrates will raise Serotonin levels to a lesser extent because they contain protein amino acids which get in the way.

To clear the protein amino acids, you need to have foods which stimulate the production of insulin which will clear the proteins out of the way. Best foods for this are whole grain breads or raw fruits.