New to Low Carb w/exercise question

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tcmedara - 23 Jan 2004 03:52 GMT

Greetings all. Just found this wonderful forum and hopefully have a
relevent question that hasn't been beat to death. I tried Google for sites
and newgroup posts, but couldn't pin down an answer. Hopefully you all can
help or point me in the right direction.

My wife and I just started the South Beach diet 5 days ago, and it's been
pretty successfull and easy to this point. My clothes feel looser already
and I'm not craving pretzels everyday at 3:00pm at work. I'm already pretty
active, working out or exercising 3-4 times per week for anywhere from 30-90
minutes. Primarily cycling, running, and swimming. Things were going fine
this week until halfway through my lunchtime swimming workout today. Just
when I started into a high intensity set, I felt like I lost every bit of
available energy in my body. I slowly swam a few more laps and had to drag
myself out of the pool and into the shower. I hadn't felt too hungry up
until that point, but at that point became absolutely ravenous. I'd eaten
breakfast in the morning (a couple of biscuit-sized egg and spinach disks my
wife made for me) and had a few snacks over the course of the morning.
(cheese stick, nuts, and a lettuce/ham roll-up). The last time I felt like
that was years ago on a cross-country bike ride, where I'd failed to keep
fuel up and actually had to stop and eat in order to keep riding.

Anyway, I made it back to my office and ate my lunch -- rather quickly I
might add -- and felt better in a matter of minutes. This went beyond just
craving, though. My body was screaming for food. This brings to mind
several questions:

1. What, if anything, did I do wrong?
2. Is there something I can do to avoid having it happen again?
3. Any tips or resources on exercising with a low carb diet?

I'm less then a week into this thing and I'm liking the effects so far,
except for todays episode. I was anticipating some loss in athletic
performance, but was surprised to find myself so depleted halfway through a
normal workout. Hopefully this is a one-time event, but I would like to
take steps to avoid a repeat.

I'll post results for both myself and my wife after phase 1. Wish us luck!

Tom

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Tabi Kasanari - 23 Jan 2004 04:07 GMT

On 23-Jan-2004, "tcmedara" <tcmedara@REMOVEhotmail.com> says:

> My wife and I just started the South Beach diet 5 days ago, and it's been
> pretty successful and easy to this point. My clothes feel looser already
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> I
> lost every bit of available energy in my body.

This probably means the diet is succeeding in making the necessary changes
in your constitution. I had something similar happen around the same time
(4th or 5th day). Another day early on I noticed abnormal sweating. And on
the 13th day I had a brief dizzy spell when standing up suddenly. But I
still managed to finish Phase 1, losing around 10 lbs. in the process. Apart
from those brief episodes (not as bad as yours, but I experienced great
difficulty walking, like my legs were very heavy, early on), I have felt
great. And now that we are on a more regular diet (brown rice once a day,
plus eggs, fish, chicken, vegetables, cheese, nuts, tofu, beans, etc.), we
both feel great and are still losing bit by bit.

My advice would be to stick to the diet, but perhaps go a little easy on the
exercise until you get to Phase 2. I am not a medical practitioner, however;
I'm merely passing on my own experience.

Signature

Tabi Kasanari

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Ignoramus31635 - 23 Jan 2004 04:24 GMT

I would check your glucose tolerance, maybe Jenny will have something
to say.

i

> Greetings all. Just found this wonderful forum and hopefully have a
> relevent question that hasn't been beat to death. I tried Google for sites
[quoted text clipped - 35 lines]
>
> Tom

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Saffire - 23 Jan 2004 06:19 GMT

> I'll post results for both myself and my wife after phase 1. Wish us luck!

Hi Tom, welcome to the group!

Signature

Saffire
205/175/125
Atkins since 6/14/03
Progress photo: http://photos.yahoo.com/saffire333

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Yvonne - 23 Jan 2004 08:18 GMT

Tom wrote:

> Just
>when I started into a high intensity set, I felt like I lost every bit of
>available energy in my body. I slowly swam a few more laps and had to drag
>myself out of the pool and into the shower. I hadn't felt too hungry up
>until that point, but at that point became absolutely ravenous.

Sounds like a blood sugar drop to me.

Yvonne

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Roger Zoul - 23 Jan 2004 10:44 GMT

It's an adaptation to LCing. As you get more and more use to LCing and
exercising, those episodes should vanish, assuming you're not diabetic and
taking meds. If you are, then you need to see your doc about making
adjustments to your medications.

Keep in mind that people who do very intense exercise -- such as lifting
heavy weight, frequently find they can perform better of they take a
pre/post workout carb hit. For less intensive exercise that is usually not
necessary after the adaptation period.

:: Greetings all. Just found this wonderful forum and hopefully have a
:: relevent question that hasn't been beat to death. I tried Google
[quoted text clipped - 38 lines]
::
:: Tom

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SadMu_n - 23 Jan 2004 13:18 GMT

>Greetings all. Just found this wonderful forum and hopefully have a
>relevent question that hasn't been beat to death. I tried Google for sites
>and newgroup posts, but couldn't pin down an answer. Hopefully you all can
>help or point me in the right direction.

>1. What, if anything, did I do wrong?
>2. Is there something I can do to avoid having it happen again?
>3. Any tips or resources on exercising with a low carb diet?

You didn't Google.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040122.html
Lift well, Eat less, Walk fast, Live long.

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tcmedara - 24 Jan 2004 01:40 GMT

>> Greetings all. Just found this wonderful forum and hopefully have a
>> relevent question that hasn't been beat to death. I tried Google
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
> http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040122.html
> Lift well, Eat less, Walk fast, Live long.

Thanks for the replies, all (except SadMu above who either failed to finsih
the post, or is just an a.s). I didn't Google well enough, to be more
accurate. I did a bit more searching today. I'd assumed low-carb "bonk"
prevention would be a viable topic on the web, but it doesn't appear to be
the case. My perusal of various low-carb diet specific sites didin't give
much on the topic of physical/athletic performance other than to state that
exercise will speed weight loss. Expanding my search from just low-carb
specific stuff to exercise/sports nutrition in general did the trick. It's
obvious to me that the low-carb thing is working as advertised, as its
apparent I had no glycogen left in my bloodstream. I don't think I had
recovered fully from the day before (due to the same issue) and so quickly
went into hypoglycemic. I figure I'm just going to have to experiment a
bit with carb intake and my eating schedule to find the right balance. No
problems today, but I still felt weaker. I figure I'll just slack off the
exercise a bit during Phase 1 and then experiment with adding limited carbs
in before and after I work out.

I'm hoping to lose about 20 lbs overall. Not too much compared to the goals
and results of others in the group, I know, but important enough to keep me
focused on the program. I really respect those of you who have achieved
amazing results and continue to adhere to the various programs out there.

Tom

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Roger Zoul - 24 Jan 2004 12:29 GMT

:: SadMu_n <sadmu@hotmail.com> wrote:
::: On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 22:52:34 -0500, "tcmedara"
[quoted text clipped - 38 lines]
:: of you who have achieved amazing results and continue to adhere to
:: the various programs out there.

The best pre/post workout carb source is pure glucose....it will refill
muscle glycogen without refilling liver glycogen. The exercise will burn
the carbs off -- you'll stay or quickly return to ketosis and the weight
should come off.

I usually use Smarties candies -- made from dextrose (an old name of
glucose), however, there are several energy type drinks you can use. You
can also by dextrose in bulk from certain places (beer makings, Indian
stores, etc.).

:: Tom

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