Hi Guys,
Does anyone else get super HUNGRY after a stint of intense exercise? And if you do, please tell me how you avoid the carbs? I get SO HUNGRY & feel driven to the bread and peanut butter…. aaaargh!
I’ve tried a glass of skimmed milk or avocado and bacon or a few almonds after a speed session run, but they just don’t hit the spot & I end up feeling grumpy until I eat some carbs- usually the bread and peanut butter option.
Any wise advice from experience will be very welcome!
Mars

I think everyone gets hungry after heavy exercise. That’s one of the reasons Dr. Mosley and Dr. Taylor don’t really recommend it, especially in the early days.

Skim milk is high in sugar (11 grams in just 8 oz) and without the filling fat of whole milk, the sugar hits the blood stream harder and faster which only makes you hungrier. You’d be better off chugging a couple of glasses of water. It would fill you up far more effectively without any effect on your blood sugars.

I recommend a combination fiber and fat. My favorite post-workout meal is tuna and black soybean salad. Mix a can of albacore tuna in water (drained), a can of black soybeans (drained and rinsed) and a chopped green onion. Make a dressing from 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise, 2 T of Dijon mustard, 1 T of white wine vinegar, 1 T of olive oil, a clove of minced garlic and any herbs you might have. (Tarragon or parsley, dry or fresh, work great.) Add salt and pepper to taste. Dress the tuna and bean mixture. Serve half of it on a bed of spinach or other salad greens. Save the rest for the next day.

Black soybeans are not black beans, just to be clear. They look like them, but unlike regular beans, black soybeans have negligible carbs because they are so full of fiber. ( http://www.edenfoods.com/store/black-soybeans-organic-bpa-free-lined-can.html ) That and the fat from the mayo and olive oil will fill you up.

If you don’t have the time to make something like this every other day, just make a double batch on the weekends. It’ll keep in the fridge for a week easily.

My go to when I got a hypo after exercise is a couple of prunes and Greek yoghurt, before BSD it used to be bread with anything but that just meant I had wasted my time exercising. The other thing I make sure now is that I dont exercise several hours after eating but just wait half an hour to an hour so I am not doing it on an empty stomach.

Thank you for the suggestions! Great ideas. Does anyone have any post exercise quick fix meals/ snacks? I read on Runners World that a chocolate milk drink is a good recovery drink, but that’s obviously not wise for someone going low carb!

I use a pot of home-made crab mayonnaise (I actually use Skyr and yogurt mixed with added lemon). Or after a few weeks in RSA , a pot of full-fat yogurt with a strip or two of biltong. I tend to go for fat and protein.

I also understand from marathon runners that a pint of Guinness is good for recovery, but I’d probably see that as off-limits too often.

Chocolate milk?! I don’t get that at all. Might as well inject glucose into your veins for a post exercise snack. You could try a no-carb protein shake, I suppose. Isopure makes a tasty one, but it does have artificial sweeteners in it, so it’s not the best thing in the world. It is easy, though.

I tend to make my own protein shakes, sometimes with whey powder but often just with greek yoghurt, Skyr, Quark, whatever I have in the fridge. Add some chia seeds/milled linseed to thicken it up as well, and add cocoa powder, raw if you can get it as I think it tastes less bitter. I don’t usually bother adding anything for sweetness, but you could if your taste buds are less adapted to the dark chocolate taste. Almond milk works well if you want to make it a bit creamier, otherwise just mix with tap water and blitz in food processor/smoothie maker.

After intense exercise (10k run or 1hour boot camp) I’ve been having either a full pint of semi skimmed milk or
one of those roast chicken breasts you get in pairs in Tesco. Both are around 200-250 calories.

I’m doing the BSD 800 a day but I do not count these towards my daily calories. I’ve spent years fooling myself and thinking I deserve a ton of food after exercise, but in this case I think an extra 250 calories after exercise is not a problem. At least I feel like I’ve got some protein in to rebuild those muscles!

On the exercise front, before I started the BSD I had started using Michael Mosely’s energy drink from Trust Me I’m a Doctor. It was basically 500ml water, 8 tsp sugar, some sugar free cordial to taste and 1/8 tsp salt.
Well because I’m ‘off’ sugar I am now doing my longer runs with 500ml water and a few pinches of salt. Admittedly it does taste like
taking on a mouthful of water at the beach. However it seems to making running on such low calories much much easier and I have got used to the taste.

Sorry I should add that I lost 10kg in 9wks, so that did work.

I am also not advocating the myFitnessPal/Weight Watchers way of replacing every single calorie lost through exercise. I only have the post exercise extra calories if it is a proper exercise session. I do lots of walking to/from work and that never gets replaced.

I am 70 so I don’t exercise heavily, but I like to do a run a couple of times a week. What has helped me is doing a bit of carb loading the night before, a slice or two of whole wheat bread or something like that, to get the glycogen levels up. The extra glycogen gives me the energy to get through the runs without flagging. Before I started to do that I used to run out of steam about half way through.

One weird side effect: I normally need to go to the bathroom a couple of times at night, but if I eat carbs in the evening I don’t need to go. The glucose in the carbs combine with water to form glycogen, so I don’t have extra water.

Jan

Hi there, this is strange being on a forum about exercise because exercise is one thing I find very hard to do. I just get monumentally bored.

However, now I week 7, and suddenly this week I walked to work twice, with some extra to visit a friend, and today biked to work. But it has certainly upped my appetite.

One reason exercise has been off my menu is that I buggered a ligament in my left knee and a tendon in my left shoulder three years ago. It’s taken until now with the weight loss to be able to walk properly. I developed a real sailor’s rolling gait while favouring the knee. And I put back on the weight I’d lost doing the 5:2 (I did 6:1) and going to the gym twice a week.

Now moved to a different town, different job, different life.

Work is 1k from home. I can now walk all the way without having to stop due to pain. It does hurt, but not enough to stop. As for biking…I discovered this summer when I purchased a second hand bike, that I had to relearn how to ride. I fell off (on the grass, but it had been so dry it might as well have been concrete) and severely bruised both legs and somehow sprained a finger (still swollen 5 months later).

I would typically plan the night before to get up and walk, or get out the bike and then, when the morning came, I’d just not be able (mentally/emotionally) able to do it.

But this week something switched. So exciting, because it is also about reversing depression.

Mind you, the knees were well wobbly after just a few minutes on the bike and the gentle slope uphill on the way home, which I don’t notice when walking, defeated me on the bike. I must also remember to take some asthma meds before biking too as I get out of breath so quickly.

I obviously need to plan for these hungries from exercising. I’ll do better next week and have something to hand for after and probably a little extra about an hour before such as a miso soup.

Thanks for letting me rant about my new found zeal for exercise.

Crabbycams

Making exercise part of your daily life through your commute is perfect, and an ideal distance too. You’ll feel better both mentally and physically as your fitness levels improve, but don’t push it. Your cardio and muscle strength can improve quickly, but your joint strength takes a lot longer to build up, so take it easy and only increase your walking/biking distance gradually to allow your whole body to get stronger as a system. You are making a permanent lifestyle change, and a slow success with constant gentle improvements is a great motivator.

Thanks Jande9 for the support. I to tend to forget I’m not 15 any more (63 in a couple of weeks) and go at it too hard and expect the body to respond as my 15-year-old body did.

I didn’t do any exercise this weekend but did get a couple of jobs done around the house. I’ve got ballroom dancing on Wednesday night, which is fun, so will do a couple of walks/rides to work this week as well.

I’m on vacation in a couple of weeks but not too worried as it is a 5-day workshop and fully catered. I went last year and there were health options all the time except for morning/afternoon tea and desserts at lunch and dinner. And there’ll be walking every day from accommodation to the dining hall to the workshop over a hill and back.

When I get back from holidays, I’ll be putting myself onto a slightly more generous 1000 calories a day and starting to try and get more exercise.

I find everyone on all the forums very inspiring and so helpful.

Thanks everyone.

Crabbycams

hi Mars,
you have good instincts there, your body needs carbs to repair muscles after a vigorous workout, protein alone doesn’t work, and to get maximum repair you need to eat within an hour of working out as “your body will automatically use the calories you eat for good (repair and recovery) and not bad (fat storage).” I saw a ratio of 3 carbs to 1 part protein. It is also the only time you can eat higher g.i. carbs normally forbidden for BSD such as banana, raisins, other higher g.i. fruits of your choice. Just try not to choose empty calories like white bread.

I have never seen it written in BSD that you can have high gi carbs of any kind. Personally I get enough carbs in my diet without turning to bread or pasta etc. There are 17 grams of carbs in a apple.