So if you've read my post from yesterday, I started with a clean slate today, by clean slate i mean I ate terrible foods that I LOVE last night, and today would be my first day out of 30 of strict paleo diet.
I've been paleo since early october and I am LOVING IT! I love cooking, and eating the paleo/primal way is a great way to cook up some delicious foods: steak, fish, chicken, turkey, saueed veggies, whatever. But i have cheated on the diet a couple of times and the outcomes from doing that is not good. It affects me mentally and physically.
Results from eating unhealthy foods: (last night example)
- Didnt fall asleep until 1 am due to me feeling like absolute shit from all of the crappy foods I ate. Couldnt really stay asleep because of my super hot bedroom area of my college studio appartment.
- missed my first 8 am class to sleep in
- wasnt focussed in my other classes due to lack of sleep
- stomach felt wierd all day
- i've been tired all day
- had no motivation to do anything all day due to my fatigue
So this has been happening more often than not recently, it sucks. No one likes it, but it is definately avoidable. I just need to stick to my diet and get into a good sleeping pattern and I should be golden.
I did start eating paleo again today. It is a diet lower in carbohydrates, so i was feeling a little lathargic with low energy and even more tired combined with bad sleep last night. But i did enjoy every meal I ate, and I never had any upset stomach issues like I would with unhealthy foods.
Eating paleo for a cyclist at this point in the year is a good idea due to the lower amount of carbohydrates. Cycling and all other sports require energy in order to perform. Most people get that energy from carbohydrates. Our body only stores enough carbohydrates to last us around 2 hours of exersize, max! this is the same for professional cyclists too, so how do we keep pedaling for 6 hours!? well, our body also burns fat as fuel too. we store up to 30,000+ calories of fat in our bodies (even super skinny pro cyclists can even store that much fat). With those many calories from fat, our bodies can run on that energy source for weeks! In cycling, when someone is pedaling at an easy pace, our bodies will tend to use fat as fuel, and once the intensity of exersize increase we switch from fats to carbohydrates, which is much easier for the body to convert to energy than fat.
With a lower carb diet, my body is forced to use fats for most of the exersize I do, therefore increasing my body's economy at burning fats, saving the precious carbohydrates for when it is needed most, like the end of a race!
For those thinking about starting the paleo diet, BE WARNED, you will be really tired the first few weeks as your body switches over to burning fats instead of carbs for fuel. But once you fully adapt to it, YOU'LL FEEL SO GOOD!!!
On to the rest of my day: Went grocery shopping to stock up my kitchen. I had been back home in chicago for thanksgiving break, so I had no food when I got back last night (perfect time to eat unhealthy fast food!)
I didnt want to do my gym workout today, but i forced myself to do it. So i did 1 hour of core and leg exersizes that my coach prescribed me to do today. then came home, ate dinner, did hw and now i'm typing this blog.
Athlete Food/Exercise Log:
Exercise: 1 hour core/leg gym workout, burns around 300 calories
Food:
Breakfast: 3 egg omlet with spinach and avocado, 2 bananas
Lunch: lamb stew, large spinach salad with carrots and broccoli, apple
Snacks: 2 bananas, 2oz turkey breast, 1/3 cup canned salmon
Dinner: Sockeye salmon fillet, with a large side of sauteed butternut squash.
Total calories consumed today: 2000kcal (out of around 2300-2400kcal total burned today)
Now im going to do my nightly stretching, and shower and get to bed early to catch up on my sleep.
Hope you enjoyed reading my blog post, if you have any questions or suggestions for me to include in future posts, let me know in the comment section!
Brandon