Monday, November 16, 2009

Week 2 - Figuring out natural foods during long workouts

I've definitely leveled-out this week. I'm not hungry all the time and feel better overall. Saturday I went on a 3 hour trail run/walk and I ran about half of it. I went to Rocky Hill Ranch in Smithville, TX and explored the mountain bike trails. It's beautiful single track, both hilly and flat. Next weekend there is a trail half marathon there, and I was also actually checking out the course for that.  Thumbs up - definitely going to do it :) Sunday I rode my bike for 2:30 and did some intense hill repeats on Mesa Dr. here in Austin. I was amazed how strong my legs were on that hill since I've really only been practicing hills in spin class for the past 6 months.

As part of Paleo, I'm trying to transition to more natural energy sources while working out... i.e. gels and sugary processed bars are out.  So far Larabars and apples are working well. I'm excited to try some other things to see if they are just as good as the processed stuff. I went to the store and got dates, raisins, and dried apples to test out next weekend. I'd much rather use whole foods for re-fueling anyway and have only used the gels out of convenience.

One difficulty I'm having is that when I work out in the neighborhood of 2-3 hours, I need a significant amount of carbs during and immediately around the workout in order to make it through. However, with the Zone prescription I am on of only12 carb blocks per day, almost all my carbs are used during the workout and then there are none left to use on veggies in post-workout meals and meals later in the day. I consider the veggies key to recovery and getting anti-oxidants to reduce stress. On long workout days, it really doesn't seem possible to limit myself to 12 carb blocks. 16 is the minimum I was able to do and even then I felt like I was skimping on what I needed.

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