Suggestions for breakfast before LONG daunting sash test

[ZhuiQuan]

Hi, I'll be taking my first sash test, that I am told will be about 3-4 hours long, and very taxing on the mind and body. It won't only be a test on materials, but a personal test of will. I'll be leaving my house at 8 AM, the test starts at 9.

Does anyone have any suggested breakfast ideas? I want to eat something that won't weigh me down or make me puke. Also, how much time should I give myself to digest?

I was thinking fresh fruits, a small serving of cereal, or oats? I'm a very healthy person, I eat lots of fresh and raw foods, whole grains, oats etc. I don't consume a lot of sugar (if any at all) corn syrup, caffeine, stuff like that.

[Wong Fei Hong]

I think you know yourself best !! , dont change your diet too much from what you are used to or it might mess you up.
Thats the most basic advice, personally i could wake up and eat fries before that and have energy all day hehehehe or i could just eat some flour noodle soup which is light and give me carbs for quite a few hours.

[Chief Fox]

A peanut butter and jelly sandwich on wheat bread, a banana, some fig neutons and plenty of gatorade and water.

Take some fig neutons with you to your test so you can pop one in your mouth during if you have to. Maybe take some grapes too.

Don't focus on eating healthy, focus on eating for fuel. If you eat a light healthy meal you may run out of gas half way through.

Be careful with the fruit. Some fruits are very acidic and may upset your stomach during your test.

Finish your meal at least an hour before your test. An hour and a half might be better. Also, don't eat too much before. It could slow you down.

One last thing. I'm not a nutrition expert. This is just stuff that I have discovered over the years that works for me.

Good luck.

[Mel]

I know a lot of people think that carbo-loading is good thing. And if it works for them, more power to them. But for me, if I know I've got something big ahead of me and I won't be able to eat for a while, I eat a lot of protein. Eggs, sausage, milk, etc. (and NO, I don't buy into all that cholesterol crap!). I can go quite a few hours on a decent breakfast of protein.

[IronFist]

Eat a bit of fat so you don't get too hungry an hour into it.

Can you bring a drink or something to take sips of in the middle?

I ate pizza before my powerlifting meet, but I'm a freak, so don't copy me unless you're used to eating pizza before workouts and you know it works for you.

I also had 1/2 a Redbull.

Good luck on your test.

[ZhuiQuan]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I definitely couldn't eat fig newtons. I don't eat cookies or anything, it would make me feel crappy.

As far as protein and fat being as or more important that carbs, that's the kind of suggestion I'm looking for. Thanks for the fruit warning. I didn't think about the acid thing. I know it may seem like a dumb thing to worry about, but without food we'd die, and the right food can benifit us a lot.

[Oso]

you could try to carbo load the day before at about 5g/1lb of body weight spread out over your normal meals.

you should eat a good, hearty meal of a mix of carbs/protein/fat between 3 hours and 1 hour before your test. Figure it for 300-500 grams of carbs. good carbs, not high octane sugars.

if it's possible to drink during the test. go for gatorade or some other sports drink. they will have water/carbs/salt in appropriate amounts. somewhere around 1g/1lb of body weight per hour will keep you in good energy. read the label. as you will want up to 2 quarts of water in an hour (depending on heart rate/sweating) you may not want to take in those 2qt/hr in all gatorade and could cut the gatorade with water.

good luck.

[IronFist]

Did you have it yet? How did it go? Tell us about it.

[ZhuiQuan]

No I haven't taken it yet, it's tomorrow morning. Since you're interested, I'll post here tomorrow evening.

[ZhuiQuan]

Wow, it was really not worth all the worrying. It wasn't 3-4 hours at all, it was 2 1/2 hours. The yellow sashes, well... that's a different story, but I have some time before I get to that level.

I woke up a little late, drank half a protein shake a bowl of high fiber/carb/protein cereal (low in sugars and sodium)

It's not what I wanted, but I didn't have time to prepare. I was pretty weak after an hour, but I'm not so sure I could have avoided a little fatigue after an hour of straight work.

The worst part of the whole thing, is that I messed up on a form I've done hundreds of times. I guess I was nervous. I passed though, and besides the messed up form, I think I deserved it, but I could have done better.

[Oso]

Congratulations.


Messing up a form happens even to long time people. I wouldn't sweat about that.


It would be hard to comment on why you starting getting fatigued after just an hour w/o knowing more about what you were doing and your overall physicallity.

If you weren't able to supplement carbs after the first 30 minutes though then that is probably part of it. IF you were going 70% or better for 2+ hours then you definitely needed to intake some carbs to maintain performance.

Keep it up and good luck in the future.