Stick with Whole30 or change to Whole9 for an upcoming race?

[audreykaterae]

Hello everyone, I am on R2D9 right now. My first round reintro got a little bit messed up due to life stuff. I decided to start another round so I could do a proper reintroduction.

I just signed up for a triathlon in 12 days (R2D21). I wasn't planning on doing it; I'm training for an olympic distance later this summer, but I felt like I was ready, so what the heck, right?!

Should I....

1. Switch to a Whole9 and do a proper reintroduction before the race?
2. OR stay the Whole30 course and try to teach myself race-nutrition in 12 days? (I've ton a ton of reading on here already about that. Thanks, everyone, for the great info.)

Thanks for any insight!

[jmcbn]

I don't think 9 days is going to give you enough of a clean slate to carry out reintros. The mini re-sets are fine for getting you back on track, but not for figuring out which foods do & don't work for you...

I'd also hesitate to say that you'd sufficiently fat-adapted & running on all cylinders in 12 days....

Tough call.

When was your last Whole30 and how far off the rails did you go?

[audreykaterae]

Hi jmcbn, my last Whole30 ended on 3/24, so about 5 weeks in between the end of that and the start of this round. Kind of went right back to the old way of eating which is why I was giving this another try. 

I did a pretty intense swim/bike workout this morning and I'm DRAGGING. Not sure what to do!

[jmcbn]

2 hours ago, audreykaterae said:

I did a pretty intense swim/bike workout this morning and I'm DRAGGING. Not sure what to do!

So you're on day 9 or 10 now, right?

What have you been doing in terms of pre/postWO meals?

What do your other meals look like? How long are you lasting between meals right now?

[audreykaterae]

Today is day 10. This morning before the swim, I ate 3/4 of a banana. It was 4:50am so it's hard to really eat much at that hour.

I had 2 dates wrapped in himalayan salt - one before the bike and one after the workout. 

Then, for post-workout I had 2 HB eggs and 1 beet and a swig of pickle juice.

Then, a little while later I ate a few handfuls of cashews. 

Lunch was a salad with tons of veggies, grilled chicken, quac, and watermelon. Feeling a little better after that meal, but not great. 

[jmcbn]

3 minutes ago, audreykaterae said:

banana

dates

 

If this is what you've been doing for the past 9days then you are providing your body with an immediate source of fuel to burn & preventing fat adaptation and it could be a push to turn it around in 12 days. That said it's fairly normal to be dragging at this stage....

What are you eating each day in terms of starchy veg?

[audreykaterae]

I've been eating roasted butternut squash, sweet potatoes, and some white potatoes. I've also been told that beets are good, so I've been eating those. The only reason I didn't have sweet potato post-workout today was because I messed it up cooking it last night!

Thanks so much for your help, by the way.

[jmcbn]

Any kind of starchy veg is good postWO as they replace muscle glyocgen - it doesn't need to be sweet potato.

Lots of folk think that they need carbs before hand to run/swim/cycle/lift etc, but actually the body is pretty good about burning fat for fuel, provided it's trained to do so. Ideally you'd want to be eating protein/fat preWO - not as fuel, but as a signal to the body that more fuel is on it's way & so it's okay to burn the stores that it has. Then if you're replacing muscle glycogen postWO with the starches, and eating plenty of lean protein too for protein muscle synthesis then the body should be able to recover. The fat in your egg yolks aren't ideal as they slow down the absorption of nutrients & so prevent recovery & repair of the muscles. You could eat the yolk before hand & save the whites for after.

A lot of people who do cardio based sports like yourselves find that they are able to preload their carbs in the day/night before their events, and can then rely on things like sweet potato puree (baby food pouches for example) when they feel they're flagging, but it takes some time & effort to reach a point where the body is comfortable doing this without you feeling like you're hitting a wall - and I'm just not sure you can turn it round in 12 days given that you've been relying on carbs up until now.

Would it matter if you didn't get a PB?? Could you use the event as a training tool? A learning curve...?

[audreykaterae]

Oh yes, this race is a last-minute thing, mostly using it to get my feet wet again before my goal race in July. All of this stuff is so new to me. I had my old way of doing things, and am trying to take all of this in and adjust!

[jmcbn]

6 minutes ago, audreykaterae said:

mostly using it to get my feet wet again before my goal race in July

Then if you're planning on continuing to eat Paleo/Wholeaudreykaterae then I'd be inclined to give it a go - have a good read through the Whole30 for Athletes section of the forum - pretty much anything you'll want/need to know will be there, and if you have any other questions just ask

[audreykaterae]

Thanks to your advice, I switched up my nutrition on my cardio session this morning. I'm feeling much better this afternoon!

Here's what I did:

• Few bites of baked chicken 15 minutes before. 
• Coconut water during workout. 
• 2 dates rolled in Himalaya salt and one pouch of sweet potato/squash baby food during workout.
• Immediately following: few more bites of baked chicken and butternut squash

Then a regular breakfast about an hour later. 

[ThyPeace]

That sounds like a good pre and post workout meal!  Thanks for this discussion -- it's been helpful to my experimenting with fuel, too.

 

ThyPeace, just realized I forgot something in my most recent giant post...

[laurelerin22]

On 5/10/2017 at 3:06 PM, jmcbn said:

Any kind of starchy veg is good postWO as they replace muscle glyocgen - it doesn't need to be sweet potato.

Lots of folk think that they need carbs before hand to run/swim/cycle/lift etc, but actually the body is pretty good about burning fat for fuel, provided it's trained to do so. Ideally you'd want to be eating protein/fat preWO - not as fuel, but as a signal to the body that more fuel is on it's way & so it's okay to burn the stores that it has. Then if you're replacing muscle glycogen postWO with the starches, and eating plenty of lean protein too for protein muscle synthesis then the body should be able to recover. The fat in your egg yolks aren't ideal as they slow down the absorption of nutrients & so prevent recovery & repair of the muscles. You could eat the yolk before hand & save the whites for after.

A lot of people who do cardio based sports like yourselves find that they are able to preload their carbs in the day/night before their events, and can then rely on things like sweet potato puree (baby food pouches for example) when they feel they're flagging, but it takes some time & effort to reach a point where the body is comfortable doing this without you feeling like you're hitting a wall - and I'm just not sure you can turn it round in 12 days given that you've been relying on carbs up until now.

Would it matter if you didn't get a PB?? Could you use the event as a training tool? A learning curve...?

Thank you for this information!!  I'm 22 days in and sometimes still struggling in my morning runs and HIIT workouts.  It was better yesterday, but I think I've been fueling incorrectly and also doing the old routine of easy carbs (fruit, mostly) beforehand (if anything - I'm an early morning workout person).  Next workout, I'll try fatty protein beforehand and lean protein with sweet potato after.  It's funny, but Whole30 seems to recommend the complete opposite of what most diets recommend for pre- and post- workout meals!