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Starchy carbohydrates and eating for your body type
As of lately I have been really questioning some of the things I have been reading and following over the past years; especially in terms of diet and body composition. Reading stuff like Alan's research reviews really opens my eyes sometimes.
I have two main questions really. I wanted to know how many people avoid or try to avoid bread/starches after breakfast and pre/post workout? As long as the person is getting fruits and veggies, then is bread or pasta really bad? I'm not a new to nutrition or training by any means, but I just find myself following the above^ most of the time.
I realize that it is certainly much easier to overeat starches than fruit or veggies, and if a person is trying to lose weight this is potentially bad. But is the whole spiking insulin outside of training periods negatively affecting body composition, a fallacy like "eating 6 times a day or else"?.....especially if the person is eating for their desired goal calorie wise.
And this also kinda ties into my second question, in regards to eating for your body composition. I'd kinda like to hear some thoughts of this as well?
I did a "real age" assessment online. One of the things they pointed out that needed improvement was that I wasn't eating enough whole grains. (I consistently eat about 7-9 servings of fruits and veggies a day, rarely any white grains, oatmeal for breakfast, high fiber wrap for lunch, maybe a whole wheat cereal or Wasa cracker for snack.) So I've started to try to include a serving or two more a day. But I'm conscious that I have to be careful. Bread in all its forms is pretty addicting for me.
I can't notice any correlation b/w workouts and hunger for starches or any correlation b/w what type of food I eat for my snack before my w/o and the subsequent performance. Only that if I workout hungry (or too far out from a snack or meal) I do get sluggish. I seem to have most energy if I eat a substantial snack about a half hour to 45 minutes before. But it doesn't seem to matter whether it's whole wheat bread and peanut butter or fruit and yogurt. So, no, I don't purposefully avoid carbs pre/post workout.
I'd like to learn more about eating for body composition. Later when I have time I'll google.
__________________
To be calm is the highest achievement of the self.
I don't restrict my carbs outside of breakfast and pre/post workout, although I do normally eat lean proteins, fruits & veggies most of the time anyways because those are the foods I enjoy. I think that part of the problem, dogma, or what have you is that people have taken the scientific research that carbs cause insulin spikes and therefore are bad if not eaten around exercising, and kind of ran with it without digging deeper and researching it further.
Bread alone may not be a great food choice by itself, but if you eat a piece of toast with an egg and spinach omelete, then the meal as a whole isn't bad at all. But you'll see people who are so carbophobic that they would rather cut off a finger than eat that piece of toast with the omelete...and the only reasing being is because they read in reader's digest that bread is bad for you and haven't done any real research on it.
Fat loss really does boil down to expending more energy than you are taking in. So in theory, any "diet" that you choose if followed consistently will give you results no matter if you eat low fat, low carb, or only foods that are purple with yellow stripes. As long as you are eating less than what you are burning, you will see results. But thats not to say that there aren't better food choices for you depending on your goals which is one of the reasons why I quit using whey & gatorade pwo and instead drink chocolate milk or eat real food (thank you Mr. Aragon!)
I may not notice an immediate difference between whey & gatorade and chocolate milk, but I'm smart enough now to know that the chocolate milk has a whole lot of other stuff in it that my body needs to function properly, and that over the long haul this may speed up my results some because my body will have enough nutritionally dense fuel to run the best that it can while eating in a deficit.
I have two main questions really. I wanted to know how many people avoid or try to avoid bread/starches after breakfast and pre/post workout? As long as the person is getting fruits and veggies, then is bread or pasta really bad? I'm not a new to nutrition or training by any means, but I just find myself following the above^ most of the time.
I realize that it is certainly much easier to overeat starches than fruit or veggies, and if a person is trying to lose weight this is potentially bad. But is the whole spiking insulin outside of training periods negatively affecting body composition, a fallacy like "eating 6 times a day or else"?.....especially if the person is eating for their desired goal calorie wise.
I don't eat as much starches as I'd like to eat because I think that they aren't as healthy to us as many other foods (fruits and less starchy veggies).
I don't think they are the end of the world, because there are so many degrees of healthy and unhealthy. One could argue that berries are better for you than pears, since for the same calories, berries have less sugar, more fiber, etc. Still, pears are healthy, right? I think grains fall near the bottom of the list of "healthy foods."
Starchy carbs make me hungrier than non-starchy carbs (or less carbs, in general), but that's the only reason I avoid them in a fat loss phase. Because I don't want to be hungry.
Quote:
Originally Posted by newdawn
I did a "real age" assessment online. One of the things they pointed out that needed improvement was that I wasn't eating enough whole grains. (I consistently eat about 7-9 servings of fruits and veggies a day, rarely any white grains, oatmeal for breakfast, high fiber wrap for lunch, maybe a whole wheat cereal or Wasa cracker for snack.) So I've started to try to include a serving or two more a day. But I'm conscious that I have to be careful. Bread in all its forms is pretty addicting for me.
I can't notice any correlation b/w workouts and hunger for starches or any correlation b/w what type of food I eat for my snack before my w/o and the subsequent performance. Only that if I workout hungry (or too far out from a snack or meal) I do get sluggish. I seem to have most energy if I eat a substantial snack about a half hour to 45 minutes before. But it doesn't seem to matter whether it's whole wheat bread and peanut butter or fruit and yogurt. So, no, I don't purposefully avoid carbs pre/post workout.
I'd like to learn more about eating for body composition. Later when I have time I'll google.
That real age thing is crap. It's going to work for the average couch potato, but not many fitness enthusiasts. "Eat more whole grains" is like saying "smoke more filter cigarettes." If you eat enough calories worth of fruit and veggies, there no reason to eat any whole grains at all. If you eat a few servings of grains a day, then by all means, replace them with whole grains, but don't add more grains.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Defiant1
I don't restrict my carbs outside of breakfast and pre/post workout, although I do normally eat lean proteins, fruits & veggies most of the time anyways because those are the foods I enjoy. I think that part of the problem, dogma, or what have you is that people have taken the scientific research that carbs cause insulin spikes and therefore are bad if not eaten around exercising, and kind of ran with it without digging deeper and researching it further.
Bread alone may not be a great food choice by itself, but if you eat a piece of toast with an egg and spinach omelete, then the meal as a whole isn't bad at all. But you'll see people who are so carbophobic that they would rather cut off a finger than eat that piece of toast with the omelete...and the only reasing being is because they read in reader's digest that bread is bad for you and haven't done any real research on it.
Fat loss really does boil down to expending more energy than you are taking in. So in theory, any "diet" that you choose if followed consistently will give you results no matter if you eat low fat, low carb, or only foods that are purple with yellow stripes. As long as you are eating less than what you are burning, you will see results. But thats not to say that there aren't better food choices for you depending on your goals which is one of the reasons why I quit using whey & gatorade pwo and instead drink chocolate milk or eat real food (thank you Mr. Aragon!)
I may not notice an immediate difference between whey & gatorade and chocolate milk, but I'm smart enough now to know that the chocolate milk has a whole lot of other stuff in it that my body needs to function properly, and that over the long haul this may speed up my results some because my body will have enough nutritionally dense fuel to run the best that it can while eating in a deficit.
Excellent post on all that GI and energy in vs energy out!
I'll stick to whey and gatorade if I need a workout drink, though. It's cheaper and more portable in the gym bag. And since I only drink about 900 calories worth of workout drink in a whiole week, the extra nutrients in milk (compared to whey) are trivial.
Not speaking for Alan, just for me... I think chocolate milk is just fine, and a tasty replacement, but it's not better than whey and gatorade. It's just that whey and gatorade (or the fancy pwo drinks) aren't better than chocolate milk.
I don't eat as much starches as I'd like to eat because I think that they aren't as healthy to us as many other foods (fruits and less starchy veggies).
I don't think they are the end of the world, because there are so many degrees of healthy and unhealthy. One could argue that berries are better for you than pears, since for the same calories, berries have less sugar, more fiber, etc. Still, pears are healthy, right? I think grains fall near the bottom of the list of "healthy foods."
Starchy carbs make me hungrier than non-starchy carbs (or less carbs, in general), but that's the only reason I avoid them in a fat loss phase. Because I don't want to be hungry.
That real age thing is crap. It's going to work for the average couch potato, but not many fitness enthusiasts. "Eat more whole grains" is like saying "smoke more filter cigarettes." If you eat enough calories worth of fruit and veggies, there no reason to eat any whole grains at all. If you eat a few servings of grains a day, then by all means, replace them with whole grains, but don't add more grains.
Excellent post on all that GI and energy in vs energy out!
I'll stick to whey and gatorade if I need a workout drink, though. It's cheaper and more portable in the gym bag. And since I only drink about 900 calories worth of workout drink in a whiole week, the extra nutrients in milk (compared to whey) are trivial.
Not speaking for Alan, just for me... I think chocolate milk is just fine, and a tasty replacement, but it's not better than whey and gatorade. It's just that whey and gatorade (or the fancy pwo drinks) aren't better than chocolate milk.
In hindsight, my chocolate milk vs. gatorade/whey debate wasn't the best example. I was trying to get a across that just because 2 foods are similar, doesn't mean they are nutritionally equal. But on the flip side of that, I agree with you and I'm *pretty sure* that pears and berries are healthy!
One thing I hate seeing is people choosing to eat low carb, low fat, or whatever just because so and so lost a bunch of fat eating that way and therefore it will work for everyone. Technically it would from an energy standpoint to some degree, but when applied in the real world, the results may not be the same. I know this because I'm the dummy who used to think that way, ate as close to zero carbs as I could with extra bacon, and failed miserably in my efforts over and over again.
So in theory, any "diet" that you choose if followed consistently will give you results no matter if you eat low fat, low carb, or only foods that are purple with yellow stripes.
I've been looking for the "purple with yellow stripes" food - but all I can find are pepinos - which are really yellow with purple stripes - can I substitute those?
Regarding the choc milk vs whey/gatorade comparison, I think it depends on the purpose & the population.
Regarding one fruit versus another, funny enough I gave a nutritional presentation to the mom's club at my church yesterday. One of the trick questions I asked the audience was, what's better, bananas or blueberries? People unanimously choose berries because of the antioxidant capacity that's sooo heavily marketed. It's easy to draw them back to the reality that it's not a matter of one fruit being 'better' than the other. Bananas have 4x the potassium & magnesium as blueberries on a calorie-matched basis. Those are 2 nutrients that the American diet can stand to have a lot more of. Another thing, a cup of blueberries gets you 36% of your daily requirement of vitamin K, which functions primarily to clot (thicken) blood, while a calorie-matched amount of banana gets you 1%. Both different species of fruit, both have different benefits. Optimally, you would have both - granted you can stand either one taste-wise. First & foremost, you gotta eat the fruits that taste good to you. No need to force down stuff you don't like.
That real age thing is crap. It's going to work for the average couch potato, but not many fitness enthusiasts.
They do take into account the time spent working out each week. In fact, I was hoping that my "real age" was going to be a few years younger than the results b/c of my working out. But then there were these unexpected things that offset it. Like the grains, and the fact that I don't know my cholesterol levels. I'm 42, should I know those??
I have done the no-carb thing in the past too a but it was pretty miserable to deny myself my favorite things constantly. Now I eat them in moderation, and, as Defiant says, with other things. But I have to be careful b/c I know my worst weak spots, and that's up there. I don't think it's an insulin thing. I think I just want them.
I've noticed if I eat fruit alone, I am hungry quickly. So I would never workout after, say, just an apple. I think that may indeed be an insulin spike thing.
__________________
To be calm is the highest achievement of the self.
I've noticed if I eat fruit alone, I am hungry quickly. So I would never workout after, say, just an apple. I think that may indeed be an insulin spike thing.
It wouldn't be an insulin spike thing because a) a serving of fruit isn't particularly insulinogenic, and b) spikes in insulin actually suppress appetite.
If you eat something sweet, your body produces more insulin and clears the glucose out of your blood, leaving you hungry. That's how I understood it. Though I suppose it could just be that an apple isn't enough energy for a workout.
__________________
To be calm is the highest achievement of the self.
I'm a little on the "carbophobic" side I guess when it comes down to bread, pasta, ect, outside of an hour or two after training and didn't know what other normal people thought about this philosophy....even though I'm sort of an ectomorph.
When I think about it though, most of the time I'd rather eat fruit and veggies anyway.
Btw, 2% chocolate milk with a 1/2 scoop of choc. whey has been my pwo drink for a while now . After reading Alan's article a while back comparing it to Surge, it just reinforced my feelings about it. Both taste pretty good imo though!
If you eat something sweet, your body produces more insulin and clears the glucose out of your blood, leaving you hungry. That's how I understood it. Though I suppose it could just be that an apple isn't enough energy for a workout.
You'd be a lot hungrier if you didn't eat the apple, and eating nothing would produce zero insulin. If you ate the apple, you be less hungry than eating nothing, but you'd produce a little insulin. If you ate the apple plus some protein, you'd produce more insulin than if you ate the apple alone, but you'd be less hungry than eating the apple alone. Thus, your mental linking of higher insulin response with higher hunger is simply incorrect.
Btw, 2% chocolate milk with a 1/2 scoop of choc. whey has been my pwo drink for a while now . After reading Alan's article a while back comparing it to Surge, it just reinforced my feelings about it. Both taste pretty good imo though!
Whey + milk = yeah budday
As for eating starchy carbs outside of the immediate pre or posttraining period, it all depends on how they impact the bigger picture of your caloric surplus (or deficit).
I've been looking for the "purple with yellow stripes" food - but all I can find are pepinos - which are really yellow with purple stripes - can I substitute those?
There are only 2 times you are able to eat fruits that are yellow with purple stripes and not get super fat and that is in the morning after a fasted workout, or if you mix them with some of Biotest's SUPER FOOD!
Seriously though, if I go on a low carb diet with reduced fruits, my immune system completely shuts down it seems like. After about the 40th time of getting the flu (in the summer time too) and absolutely sabotaging my efforts, I decided to stick with something I like and that is lots of fruits & veggies & meat, with some grains and fats thrown in for taste.
I've been looking for the "purple with yellow stripes" food - but all I can find are pepinos - which are really yellow with purple stripes - can I substitute those?
I'm sorry. I think you're gonna have to resign yourself to living on Nexium pills.
__________________
"Time and patience are the 2 elements that most people don't include in their plans."
-Alan Aragon
"The scale simply tells you how much the earth loves you on a particular day."
-Ogedei (Keith)
Alan, while somewhat on the subject on pre/post-workout nutrition...I used to do the maltodextrin/whey shake thing for my post-workout, the past 5 or 6 months I have been eating a large bowl of lucky charms (2-3 servings) with skim milk, and a protein shake of whey/creatine. I've been trying to consume around 4000-4300 calories per day and its a easy way for me to down a quick 600-700 cals after a workout. Any thoughts on this, positive or negative?
As for eating starchy carbs outside of the immediate pre or posttraining period, it all depends on how they impact the bigger picture of your caloric surplus (or deficit).
Thanks for putting that into a straight answer.
AS, I'm my opinion and what I read from Alan's book, it really depends on what/when you ate prior to training. But as long as you are getting some protein and carbs ingested after training....it doesn't really matter as long as you enjoy eating it. I do something similar to you when I lift at home.
I'm sure he can answer better though.
That real age thing is crap. It's going to work for the average couch potato, but not many fitness enthusiasts. "Eat more whole grains" is like saying "smoke more filter cigarettes." If you eat enough calories worth of fruit and veggies, there no reason to eat any whole grains at all. If you eat a few servings of grains a day, then by all means, replace them with whole grains, but don't add more grains.
Real Age told me I was working out too hard and needed to work on reducing the frequency and intensity of my workouts. WTH?!?!
And I also got the admonishment for not eating enough whole grains in spite of the large amounts of fruits and veggies I generally consume.
Alan, while somewhat on the subject on pre/post-workout nutrition...I used to do the maltodextrin/whey shake thing for my post-workout, the past 5 or 6 months I have been eating a large bowl of lucky charms (2-3 servings) with skim milk, and a protein shake of whey/creatine. I've been trying to consume around 4000-4300 calories per day and its a easy way for me to down a quick 600-700 cals after a workout. Any thoughts on this, positive or negative?
I hear that Lucky Charms prevent people from losing touch with their inner child, so I give that a thumbs up. But seriously, cereal & milk is a great combo postworkout. Blessed are we who can digest milk without a problem.
Starchy carbohydrates and eating for your body type
I'm 42, should I know those??
They make no distinction at all between types of red meat, leanness, etc.
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