What to Eat & How Long to Wait to Eat Before Intense Exercise?

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Permalink Reply by Jim Pilrose on November 25, 2011 at 9:47am

Hi Cecile,

I've been living this way about a year now and my experience is that drinking a banana smoothy even right before excercise doesn't hurt but actually gives me energy. Bananas are high in carbs which is exactly what your body uses for fuel when performing intense activities.

Hope this helps

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Permalink Reply by Cecile on November 25, 2011 at 4:34pm

Thanks Jim! I've tried the banana smoothie route actually...and still haven't worked out good timing with this. I LOVE bananas & they give me such sustained energy! I personally feel like I either have to make sure to get in the smoothie 3+ hours before my first class, in order to give it enough time to pass through my system, or else it ends up weighing me down throughout class.

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Permalink Reply by DURIANRIDER on November 25, 2011 at 11:54am

For a 2 hour class if your eating, drinking and sleeping early enough then you will wake up with full glycogen each day on 3000+cals of fruits and would only need 2-3 bananas an hour before a 2hr session. Have a sip of datorade each 30 mins. 2hrs aint long and we will be running on yesterdays glycogen. 

 

TOP level athletes even on drugs wouldnt be doing INTENSE stuff in training more than once a week for 2hours. I wouldnt do this 2hour session more than once a week otherwise 100% your gonna burn out or get a stress fracture first. If you wanna be a pro dancer then you gotta take care of yourself. I dont know if its just the lighting but under your eyes looks really dark indicating you need a break from intensity. If you keep on pushing then you will join the fatso's that 'used to be a good dancer'. Even have a break from intensity for a few months if you havent had one in the last year. Youll come back the strongest ever. Its no surprise most the best athletes on the planet have their best seasons after a comeback. The work ethic that keeps em going can also break em.

 

Sure you can practise dance moves each day as long as you keep the intensity low. Look at the high turn over of people in gyms trying to be the hero each day of the week. I remember saying to Freelee 4 years ago that if she wants to have a good figure for life then she gotta figure out a way to train smarter vs harder. Now she is the fittest of her life, best health, best body and trains the least than ever before. HOW? Training smarter vs harder. Animals in nature show us this all the time. We are just too busy/tired to notice it lol!

 

So if I were you Id have some intensity break  for a few months and just focus on core strength, flexibility, foot placement, posture, early nights etc.

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Permalink Reply by mathyou on November 25, 2011 at 12:40pm

what he said. i biked almost 4 hours today and ate nothing for breakfast. loaded up on water to avoid cramps and ate a few dates once an hour w/water. i burned way more than 8 dates worth of cals, but loaded up last night, which is why i felt great and set a personal best time.

when you eat too much before a workout, your body focuses on digesting food, which hinders performance. yes this applies to eating even non-processed whole fruits, although it is much easier for the body to break these foods down than cooked food. you should be fine w/a few nanners in the a.m. if you're hungry. just do it first thing.

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Permalink Reply by Cecile on November 25, 2011 at 4:30pm

Thanks mathyou! Ya, it's really odd because some days when I just rush out with only a litre of water in my belly I seem to feel lighter & sail through class. Since, there's a lot of high impact jumping & dancing maybe the lack of food prevents me from slowing down? Of course, I always make sure to follow my classes immediately w/my 2nd litre of water for the day & a 1,000+ cal mono fruity meal.

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Permalink Reply by DURIANRIDER on November 25, 2011 at 7:28pm

Dancing is like running, you cant have much in your stomach and need to turn up with full glycogen from the previous days fruit eating.

 

Then make sure we drink/eat straight after. Just have a cup of water and a piece of fruit when you get out of bed. Sip water or juice during class. Hydrate and drink right after. 

 

The glycogen window is open straight after training. If we dont eat asap, we just dont restock our glycogen good enough and that means we dont want to be active/have fun and then life sucks lol!

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Permalink Reply by Cecile on December 2, 2011 at 7:17pm

thanks Harley! this really makes sense with not having too much liquid in my tummy before class...AND most importantly having the tank full, as you say ,from the previous day's eating. ya. i recently had to make a concession whilst out of town by drinking odwalla grapefruit juice. it still managed to keep me fueled though it wasn't "technically" raw. thank you for all of your insight. i most definitely "lurk" on your responses (first & foremost) to discussions on the forum and have garnered a wealth of information about all things HCRV by doing this. 

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Permalink Reply by Cecile on November 25, 2011 at 4:56pm

Hi DR! Thank you for responding. :D You def bring up some relevant points that I am working on addressing.

I am working on altering my schedule to have earlier nights & earlier mornings & on getting adequate rest. I'm lucky if I get 8 hours+ of sleep most nights. :/ A huge part of this is because about 3 nights out of the week I work until about 10-11:30 pm. And...truth be told I had insomnia all of my life and have just recently reconciled this issue...so staying up too late has always been a problem. I neglected to mention that on top of working out, I also work as a waitress 5 days a week on my feet non-stop anywhere from 4-7 hours at time. So, yes, just as you suspected, I am probably burnt out a lot of the time.

 

To top it off I have severe hay fever & pollen allergies, which I have to take claritin for daily, or else my under eye circles would be even worse. They have actually improved significantly since being 100% HCRV for a mere 44 days!! 

 

Good to know I only need an hour before class for my 2-3 nanners! And, I never thought of dateorade. But, that might be exactly what I need to keep me light whilst still having the sustained energy for my classes. :)

 

Bottom line is I KNOW I need more sleep AND a break. After the New Year, I will be positioning myself back into a more lucrative field that won't require such late nights of working on my feet non-stop for hours at a time as well. Thanks for your vast knowledge & insight & taking the time to respond. You & Freelee are such an inspiration to me & this site is the reason I finally made the jump to 100% HCRV. I lurked on the forum & found tooooo many beautiful/positive people radiating on this site. Thank you! <3

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Permalink Reply by DURIANRIDER on November 25, 2011 at 7:31pm

Thanks. :)

 

Its about building up the lifestyle that supports health & fitness aka fun. Ive drunk a lot of mango tango odwalla's during times in the US when fresh fruit or dates were low. Its not 'raw' but its fruit, vegan and keeps the vibes flow'n when your on the go and your glycogen stash just went zero.

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Permalink Reply by Estefanía on November 25, 2011 at 1:15pm

I've found that Oranges are pretty good at providing lasting energy while avoiding that sloshy feeling in the stomach. 

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Permalink Reply by Cecile on November 25, 2011 at 4:24pm

Thanks Estefania! I've tried both 2-3 oranges an hour before my first class on one day and 16-24 oz of fresh squeezed OJ on another day. They both seem to work to a certain extent but I haven't really tried either consistently enough to be sure if they'll bring me sustained energy. I'll experiment with both of these over the next few days & let you know. :)

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Permalink Reply by DURIANRIDER on November 25, 2011 at 7:33pm

Sustained energy during events under 2hr is from the days before stored glycogen. What we eat today, powers us tomorrow. If one fasted for a week, then ate a 3000cal breakfast 3hours before running a marathon, they would struggle with low glycogen still.

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