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Posted by Sue (MN~Sue) on 1/31/2003, 12:13 am I have placed a link at the close of this that you might find holds helpful information in your crusade against the bulge ~ courtesy of Ronna, who passed it on to me (thanks Ronna!). There is LOTS of info here, spelling out how our bodies work, metabolism, caloric intake, etc., etc. I will include some excerpts from the site, but there is so much info there, that if this interests you, you should take a look to see the rest. Love, There are two goals to keep in mind so far as nutrition is concerned. First, you want a properly limited but high quality stream of nutrients available to help your body recover from workouts. Second, you want to keep your blood sugar stable. If you do this properly, you can burn fat and gain muscle simultaneously. Research is clear that the best way to keep your blood sugar stable is to eat small, frequent meals, containing both protein and carbohydrate (and even a limited amount of fat, particularly "good" fats such as fish oil). In general, you want to fuel your body roughly every 2 1/2 to 3 hours. That works out to about 5-6 small meals daily. There are several reasons to eat this frequently. It's been demonstrated that athletes who eat 6 times a day have significantly lower levels of bodyfat than those who eat 3 larger meals a day. This is because frequent meals even out your blood sugar, so you don't have the peaks and valleys that cause your body to defend fat. As you'll see below, the body doesn't "store" amino acids, so the frequent meals are also essential to ensure that the building blocks for muscle are present when they are actually needed. Don't get fanatical about this though. If you're 90 minutes late having one of your meals, don't force-feed another one an hour later. The point is to keep the nutrient stream relatively stable, not to choke down 6 meals regardless of the time-of-day or your physical comfort. It's helpful to have both protein and carbohydrates in your meals. If you severely restrict carbohydrates, you'll "bonk" and slow down your metabolism. You'll also lose muscle. See, when you run too low on carbohydrate, the body first tries to burn fat, but if fat burning is too slow to provide enough energy, your body starts using protein for energy (gluconeogenesis). If you overly restrict protein, you won't build muscle, and you increase the risk that your body will feed on muscle mass. If your main goal is fat loss, and you're unsure, err heavily on the side of more vegetables and fruits, and slightly on the side of a little more protein and a little less carbohydrate. You can also modestly restrict carbs in a couple of your meals, but never the one after a workout, and not if your energy level or lifting ability seems to drop as a result. Too much carbohydrate restriction leaves the muscles depleted of glycogen, and dehydrates them, which is absolutely counterproductive. The body also perceives a "fasting state" and starts increasing the enzymes that defend fat stores. So if you want to lose fat, you've got to short-circuit that process. You have to eat carbs - otherwise you'll bonk your energy and your body will start feeding on muscle, but keep them modestly limited and high quality. [CONTINUED IN POST BELOW]
Link: Link to Site
Message modified by board administrator 3/6/2005, 1:34 pm
Hi Friends,
Sue
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