Carb loading and Weight Controls for MA's

[Fu-Pow]

Ok sports science gurus, here's a question for ya.....

Premise:

While MAs are not a high endurance sport they are in some ways. There is a base level of cardiovascular exertion thru an entire match or fight. This is punctuated by brief moments of extreme exertion. So your body gets hit on all metabolic levels. I think that most people will agree that high intensity interval training is the best sort of "cardio" training for martial arts. And if you looked at most "fast paced" MA classes (ie not IMAs) they contain this kind of stop/start high intensity training.

Question:

What is the best way eat for this type of training?


My thoughts:

If you work in a office job you are not doing HIIT all day, probably 2-3 hrs/ day at best. So it doesn't make much sense to me to eat as though you are going to be doing HIIT all day.

Bottom line is that you want to keep a steady flow of calories and keep your insulin levels low to avoid gaining weight (not a problem for you guys with super high metabolism.)

The best diet in terms of a sedentary lifestyle I would think would look something like a modified Atkins diet. Where you maintain glycogen levels by eating low calorie, low GI (glycemic index) carbohydrates thru out the day. Along with lean high quality protein and some fat.

However, before you do your HIIT does it make sense to eat something that would raise your glycogen levels....and in addition eat something that would help you maintain your glycogen levels through out your workout? For example, maybe some fruit juice followed by a low GI snack bar (like a cliff bar).

This is kind of like "carb loading" on a daily level except your not dropping your glycogen super low. Your just keeping at a maintained level through out the day and then giving it a boost for class or whatever.

Any thoughts/ideas are welcome (as long as your handle is not Ford Prefect, Fatherdog or Merryprankster.)

Peace.

[rubthebuddha]

what you're sayin makes sense, fu. i don't see any problems with it. if i paid more attention to when i eat certain things, i'd probably follow something that matches that. :o the only thing i'd add is that one should be abundandly clear on eating good protein throughout the day, and that moderate carbohydrate intake is good for post-workout recovery.

the problem i do see is putting those guys on your ignore list. ford and fd are probably the most well-read peeps on the training forum. mp just competes a ton and, being a snobby ***** about food, knows a wee bit about pre-competition snackin. like them or not, that's akin to a player ignoring bob knight just because he thinks knight's a dick (which, of course, knight is). like him or not, knight knows his stuff.

[Fu-Pow]

Its not always the content, its the delivery.

[Toby]

Originally posted by Fu-Pow
However, before you do your HIIT does it make sense to eat something that would raise your glycogen levels....and in addition eat something that would help you maintain your glycogen levels through out your workout? For example, maybe some fruit juice followed by a low GI snack bar (like a cliff bar).I don't think so. I don't think the mechanism is as short term as that. I think that muscle glycogen is used by exercise and after exercise the raise in insulin replenishes glycogen where it's needed so if you ate a bunch of carbs and didn't have a specific muscle deficit your liver would get loaded. But IIRC liver glycogen is the major store anyway. My knowledge is probably wrong and very limited. But interesting that you post this. Last night I picked up my copy of The Ketogenic Diet (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0967145600/qid=1090894099/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_2/103-5732830-8436618), which I haven't read for a while. Highly recommended book BTW. It was late and I was searching for something specific but there is a lot of stuff in it related to this post. Despite the title it is no Atkins book. Everyone here would find it informative.

[Ford Prefect]

I feel so unwelcome. That's not really a thought/idea right?

[blooming lotus]

so when and what amounts are you doing these workouts???......ish........

[Fu-Pow]

Well...I'm not %100 sure that they would qualify as HIIT.

Basically I'm mixing up 1/2 hr of jump roping + bag work at 5 minute intervals.

I' try to do this 2x a week before my kung fu class.

In addition I do 2x circuit training/week on the nautilus machines.

Then my kung fu class depending on what we are working on could be considered HIIT.

My goal here is to drop some fat (mostly on waist and thighs) and retain muscle.

However, I've noticed when I severely restrict my carbs that I don't have enough energy to complete my work outs.

So I'm looking for something that can help me keep my weight down but give me enough energy to keep up with my HIIT workouts.

Ya dig?

[Ford Prefect]

1) That definately does not qualify as HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training), which is basically a sprint followed by a period of restoration (active or passive), followed by sprint. 5 minutes is too long to be a "sprint".

2) Give up the machines.

3) Work sprints into your routine.

4) Toy with caloric intake. No need to avoid carbs. Just never have a large amount of carbs alone or with fat.

5) You can't spot reduce. You may just want to lose weight on your thighs and waist, but your genetics decides where it is going to take fat from. You just have to try to burn fat period.

6) Have a nice day.

7) I hate doing numbered posts.

[FatherDog]

Originally posted by Ford Prefect
I feel so unwelcome. That's not really a thought/idea right?

Me too. Let's go hang out in another thread, and you and MP can lie to me about how good being married is :D

[Ford Prefect]

I'm not even 2 months, so really it's great! ;)

[blooming lotus]

Originally posted by Fu-Pow
Well...I'm not %100 sure that they would qualify as HIIT.

Basically I'm mixing up 1/2 hr of jump roping + bag work at 5 minute intervals.

I' try to do this 2x a week before my kung fu class.

In addition I do 2x circuit training/week on the nautilus machines.

Then my kung fu class depending on what we are working on could be considered HIIT.

My goal here is to drop some fat (mostly on waist and thighs) and retain muscle.

However, I've noticed when I severely restrict my carbs that I don't have enough energy to complete my work outs.

So I'm looking for something that can help me keep my weight down but give me enough energy to keep up with my HIIT workouts.

Ya dig?

dig.........


maybe you can try something like a redbull post workout ( having sugars/ taurine and caffiene.you maximise carb infusion to muscles and get an engrgy shot all fr a 250 ml recovery )..........

f you're restricting carbs ( which I do recommend for a high burn come rip)......maybe you need to look at potassium and clear fluids.potassium is found in milk, egg yolks, orange juice and anything as per label.........shoot for a good multi vit totally 500mg min........2000mg max........


potassium controls the pressure with which your heart pumps....so maybe that's all it is........also to high sugared carbs'll sap strength and leave you lethargic on such a plan............

additionally, bowel health is directly resposible for day to day running of our bodies.......being cpu for all of our nurtional intake

oh.and don't forget to do a grain every so often.........

cheers

[Toby]

Originally posted by blooming lotus
oh.and don't forget to do a grain every so often...I almost read "don't forget to do a gram every so often". I thought, yeah, that'll cure your lethargy. :p

I did some reading last night. It was late so I didn't absorb as much as I could. But here goes.

Carbohydrates raise your blood glucose. Raised blood glucose causes your pancreas to release insulin. Insulin causes blood glucose to be transported to muscle and liver and stored as glycogen. Glycogen is the fuel used by your muscles for medium term exercise (20s < t < I forget but not hours). So yeah, the carbs replenish your muscle glycogen as it's used. If your muscles and liver are fully compensated with glycogen, any fat you intake will be stored as triglycerides. Also, some carbohydrate can be converted to triglyceride through DNL (acronym for I forget), but not much. How much glycogen is used by your muscles? Not much information is available, but an example table for exercises performed at 70% of 1RM had roughly ~5g of carbohydrates would replenish a 90s total time under tension set.

As to the GI index of carbs, this basically determines how quickly your blood glucose and subsequently insulin are raised in comparison to either white bread or glucose. So if it's in comparison to white bread and a carb has a GI of 130, blood glucose and insulin are raised 130% faster than they would be by white bread. Now if you're burning through your muscle glycogen fast with moderate intensity exercises over a medium time frame, this would be a good thing. If OTOH you're walking slowly for an hour, you'd probably want lower GI carbs. If you're sitting behind a desk all day, you'd want the lowest GI. The book I referenced earlier (from which all this comes) says IIRC that not much study has been done into which carbs and how much are necessary for certain exercise but says that the why isn't as important as the fact that carb loading before exercise works anecdotally. Recommendation is high GI carbs in liquid or as close as possible to pure glucose form.

Lastly, for people that feel lethargy, sodium is recommended to regulate blood pressure.

Hope that helps.

[blooming lotus]

Originally posted by Toby
I almost read "don't forget to do a gram every so often". I thought, yeah, that'll cure your lethargy. :p

.

will come back for the rest of the post in an hour or two.class in 45 secs if I claim a slow watch............

westerners are programmed to eat waaay more carb than is essential to run anybodies body and take your muscley hulk..as long as it does what I want it to ........i'm good ;)

[Ka]

Originally posted by blooming lotus
westerners are programmed to eat waaay more carb than is essential to run anybodies body
I hope your talking about social conditioning.

Originally posted by blooming lotus
maybe you can try something like a redbull post workout
I don't think this is a good recommendation for any person let alone a young athlete.If you need a hit perhaps a coffee before workout.Consider a Protien/carb drink or a banna milk honey type smoothie post workout. (largely determined by your fiscal situation).
Recent studies on cyclists saw increases in Muscle Glycogen % if they downed a protien drink straight after an endurance workout.
Need I say it but a great sum up of recent studies on T-mag.
http://www.t-nation.com/findArticle.do;jsessionid=E726FB20D53A78A2E021ABA8 58208A84.ba13?article=04-030-feature

Originally posted by Toby
"don't forget to do a gram every so often"
LOL:D The gram should be left to Friday Nights to make Mondays even worse.

[Toby]

I forgot to say what Ka said earlier, so I'll 2nd it - I don't think the Red Bull idea is good either. When I was in Austria before it became available worldwide I once drank 6 of the little concentrate bottles in a row, not the premixed cans. I used to like experimenting with my body. Anyway, I was pretty wired. It wasn't altogether unpleasant, but I could tell it wasn't altogether good for me either. I had significant experience with controlled substances and the Red Bull feeling ranked up there. I always wondered wtf is "Taurin" anyway?

[blooming lotus]

downing 6 red bulls is hardly a standard to measure its' viabilty.....that is some crazy s*it and you may as well just have a hit of amphetamine ...............

also, well duh protein 1 hr post workout is the general drill for recovery but it doesn't change the fact when you do your carb a hour or 2 post workout, a redbull will increase your muscles' abilty to maximise density from that intake........


oh and yes.......social conditional.........how else could you interperate that????

ps.......taurine is a substance that causes a false insulin hike that when coupled with a complex carb infuses/injects the carb matter deeper into muscle tissue........post workout whenyour muscles are primed to accept intake is perfect time to do this

[Toby]

Originally posted by blooming lotus
downing 6 red bulls is hardly a standard to measure its' viabilty...No, it was just an example of excess usage and that it generally made me feel flaky and shaky for want of a better description. I just doubt it would help recovery after a workout, although it would help combat lethargy I guess. But kind of a false thing, like coffee or amphetamine pumps you up but only because they make your heart beat faster.


Originally posted by blooming lotus
also, well duh protein 1 hr post workout is the general drill for recovery ...AFAI understand, protein is used for anabolism. Carbohydrates are used for "recovery", since the end product of carbs is what you burn in the sort of exertion Fu-Pow is talking about. Semantics, but still an important distinction because e.g. it may affect what Fu ingests.


Originally posted by blooming lotus
ps.......taurine is a substance that causes a false insulin hike that when coupled with a complex carb infuses/injects the carb matter deeper into muscle tissue........post workout whenyour muscles are primed to accept intake is perfect time to do this Interesting. Is taurine synthetic or naturally occurring? Also, what does "false insulin hike" mean? Is insulin released or not?

[blooming lotus]

I meant to type spike and yes........insulin is released......

basically speaking carbs are the bricks and protein is the mortar of a muscle.....

as important as carbs are , for recovery, protein is just as essential........especially when they are restoring the viscous that are getting leached when you work out and dehydrate...........
and if your protein includes potassium, It would only be important if you wanted your heart to continue pumping the extra load you just created........

[Fu-Pow]

Originally posted by Toby
If you're sitting behind a desk all day, you'd want the lowest GI. The book I referenced earlier (from which all this comes) says IIRC that not much study has been done into which carbs and how much are necessary for certain exercise but says that the why isn't as important as the fact that carb loading before exercise works anecdotally. Recommendation is high GI carbs in liquid or as close as possible to pure glucose form.


Nice post. I knew a lot of that stuff because I majored in Biochem and also I read a lot on metabolism/nutrition etc.

Anyways, I do work behind a desk all day. So you are right I don't want to be sitting eating carbs all day (especially carbs+fat.) The high glycemic ones seem to be the worst because they are converted rapidly to glucose---->glycogen.

Then once your glycogen reserves are filled up it all gets stored as fat.

(If you are eating carbs + fat its even worse. Your glycogen stores get filled up by the carbs and then your fat goes straight to fat. Fat to fat is an energetically less costly conversion than sugar to fat so you are going to be storing away more of those calories.)

Another factor here that we haven't discussed is Gluconeogenesis and protein metabolism. When your body has depleted its glycogen and doesn't have enough glucose it has to start making its own sugar. It does this 2 ways. One is by breaking down fats into metabolites. But it also starts breaking down muscle and using protein to feed into the Gluconeogenesis pathway. Gluconeogenesis is basically where you body breaks down the carbon skeleton of proteins and feeds them down the pathway that glucose normally goes.

As an athlete you obviously don't want to be breaking down muscle tissue and protein.

So my theory is that if I maintain my glycogen levels through out the day at a steady rate (by eating frequently, eating low GI foods like protein, vegetables and some preferably whole grain starch.) I will avoid that protein metabolism.

Then if I eat a sugary snack (high GI) + carby whole grain (low GI) snack about 1/2 hour before working out I will boost my glycogen levels (sugary snack) and I'll have a steady supply of glucose (low GI carby snack.)

This way I have plenty of energy to work out and I avoid burning muscle while I'm working out when glucose is going to be in high demand.

(As blooming lotus noted it might be worth taking some sort of stimulant like caffeine to counteract the sleepiness caused by carb consumption.)

Post workout diet would look a lot like the pre workout diet with the exception of some post workout recovery sugar to bring glycogen levels back up.

We take this further by seeing how this applies to the 3 main energy expenditure pathways.

That is phosphate, glycolytic and oxidative but I'll save that for another time.

Thanks for the great responses.:D

[Ford Prefect]

Thank you, dieting 101.

[blooming lotus]

Originally posted by Fu-Pow
Nice post. I knew a lot of that stuff because I majored in Biochem and also I read a lot on metabolism/nutrition etc.

Anyways, I do work behind a desk all day. So you are right I don't want to be sitting eating carbs all day (especially carbs+fat.) The high glycemic ones seem to be the worst because they are converted rapidly to glucose---->glycogen.

Then once your glycogen reserves are filled up it all gets stored as fat.

(If you are eating carbs + fat its even worse. Your glycogen stores get filled up by the carbs and then your fat goes straight to fat. Fat to fat is an energetically less costly conversion than sugar to fat so you are going to be storing away more of those calories.)



Another factor here that we haven't discussed is Gluconeogenesis and protein metabolism. When your body has depleted its glycogen and doesn't have enough glucose it has to start making its own sugar. It does this 2 ways. One is by breaking down fats into metabolites. But it also starts breaking down muscle and using protein to feed into the Gluconeogenesis pathway. Gluconeogenesis is basically where you body breaks down the carbon skeleton of proteins and feeds them down the pathway that glucose normally goes.

As an athlete you obviously don't want to be breaking down muscle tissue and protein.

So my theory is that if I maintain my glycogen levels through out the day at a steady rate (by eating frequently, eating low GI foods like protein, vegetables and some preferably whole grain starch.) I will avoid that protein metabolism.

Then if I eat a sugary snack (high GI) + carby whole grain (low GI) snack about 1/2 hour before working out I will boost my glycogen levels (sugary snack) and I'll have a steady supply of glucose (low GI carby snack.)

This way I have plenty of energy to work out and I avoid burning muscle while I'm working out when glucose is going to be in high demand.

(As blooming lotus noted it might be worth taking some sort of stimulant like caffeine to counteract the sleepiness caused by carb consumption.)


but do remember : protien + sugar ....ok........protein + fat.......ok.............complex carb ( preferrablely in it's natutral state).....ok.....;) Ps. Caffeine has a side effect of speeding up your metabolism + the sugar quick energy and muscle density maximisation you get from say a red bull, makes it an extremely good choice.........



Post workout diet would look a lot like the pre workout diet with the exception of some post workout recovery sugar to bring glycogen levels back up.

We take this further by seeing how this applies to the 3 main energy expenditure pathways.

That is phosphate, glycolytic and oxidative but I'll save that for another time.

Thanks for the great responses.:D

[IronFist]

Holy ****, who drank 6 Red Bulls? I drank part of one once (in a Red Bull and vodka) and I couldn't sleep that night. But then again I never drink caffeine and I have no tolerance.

edit - I see you said little bottles. I assume they're smaller than the premixed cans we have here in the states?

[Toby]

The bottles were 330ml IIRC and they were purported to be more concentrated than a can. Cans were diluted to make them more palatable. That was the rumour from my Austrian friends anyway. It's so long ago that I don't remember anymore. But seeing as Red Bull comes from Austria, they may've been on to something.

[Ka]

Originally posted by blooming lotus

also, well duh protein 1 hr post workout is the general drill for recovery but it doesn't change the fact when you do your carb a hour or 2 post workout, a redbull will increase your muscles' abilty to maximise density from that intake........
I'm guessing you didn't look at the link.There are many better alternatives to a red bull but I still wouldn't recommend them.


Originally posted by blooming lotus
oh and yes.......social conditional.........how else could you interperate that????
Racially

Originally posted by blooming lotus
Caffeine has a side effect of speeding up your metabolism
:rolleyes: A side effect!
I hope you don't have to plan a healthy eating pattern for that kid of yours.

[Mika]

Ketogenic diet was mentioned. I think ketogenic diets are good for those who know how to use them.
But I would also like say that athletes who are mostly into in-space sports (weight training, that is :D ) benefit the most from these diets, in general. Those who partake in vigorous exercise do need more carbs and thus ketogenic diets should be approached with care and thought.

Fu-Pow, good for you having learned all that :)

(I am still kind of looking for the questions that have not been self-answered, but...;) )

Cheers :)

Mika

[blooming lotus]

Originally posted by Ka
I'm guessing you didn't look at the link.There are many better alternatives to a red bull but I still wouldn't recommend them.


Racially

:rolleyes: A side effect!
I hope you don't have to plan a healthy eating pattern for that kid of yours.


:rolleyes: what a rediculous thing to say..what parent doesn't???

ps.busy as a mofo up to 450 papers to mark and mid-term exam preps etc etc....get to it if and when I can

[Toby]

Originally posted by blooming lotus
... up to 450 papers to mark and mid-term exam preps etc etc...:eek: Maybe they need to decrease the teacher/student ratio in China. No wonder you were made headmistress/district supervisor/Minister of Education.

[blooming lotus]

little off topic here, but all be forewarned.if you teach here, it's all work very little play.you eat , breath, sleep if you get any....then have nightmares about work............but if you want to rack up some shopping cash or cash to train, not a bad option, in return , you can have virtually anything you want ( providing you can find it) and will live well...........