Discussion: Meal schedules & training

I am generally a bit hesitant to start a discussion thread on this topic, considering the prevalence of eating disorders among athletes. But I learned something this week-end that has made me very curious: Rosstopher does not eat breakfast before he goes out and wins an 11.9 km course by 8 minutes.

Managing meals has been a concern of mine for some time. I find that when I train, my metabolism increases significantly, which has some specific effects:
* If I skip or delay a meal, I feel like crap and get very grumpy.
* It becomes difficult for me to train, much less race, without having eaten a few hours beforehand.

The way I typically manage this is as follows:
* I generally eat at least a yoghurt + banana before a morning work-out.
* I generally eat a small meal, such as a 6" veggie sub around 4pm, so that I can train after work without having dinner first.

If I don't eat between lunch and my work-out, the quality of my session generally suffers. The reason why I don't have dinner first is that I then have to wait for at least two hours before I can work out without getting heartburn.

I would be interested in hearing if other people feel that they have to be as careful as me in managing their meal schedule. Sometimes I ask myself the following questions:
* Is my diet too heavy in carbohydrates?
* Can I learn to train on an empty stomach? If so, how?
* Am I eating too much fiber?
* Can I train my digestive system to be more efficient in general?

Eating disorder? I have to eat regularly or I feel like crap too.

I think your body can become more efficient at converting fat to energy with training.

I do most of my training in the morning. If it's less than an hour I'll drink some water or juice and head out. This was difficult at first, but my body seemed to adjust fairly quickly.

> an hour I'll throw down a few calories while stretching: juice and some banana or maybe a bowl of oatmeal if theres 45+ minutes before I start, but never a huge amount. Add more calories during the workout, especially at the one hour mark.

During the day, I need a steady stream of calories, taken in small but frequent doses.

For late in the day workouts, I avoid high fiber stuff all day - or I regret it. Otherwise, just the steady stream going in all day.

Adventure racing gets you pretty accustomed to exercising with food in the stomach so that doesn't bother me much anymore unless its a tempo pace.

I have to err on the side of not eating before racing as I have been diagnosed with exercise induced anaphylaxis - basically I have food allergies that only seem to be triggered by intense exercise. 4 hours after eating seems to be the magic time for me to compete safely (apparently longer is needed after a Macca's thckshake), although I have now come to the point where there are foods that I know are safe and tend to eat these for breakfast before racing. (I only know for certain of two types of food to avoid, but finding others by trial and error is not something I look forward to)

Doesn't seem to make much difference to me, except mentally - I hate being hungry, but performance-wise I'd prefer to have an empty stomach than a full one (eating within 2 hours of racing always made me feel nauseous anway)

Certainly don't have any issues training before breakfast, have run up to a couple of hours with no food but 'feel' happier when I start if I have a banana first.

Eat disorder... consume as much food as I can, porridge, bread, banana(s), maybe a bowl of cereal is well, finished off with the famous black pudding sambo for breakfast before a long race. Followed by a mug (or two) of coffee all washed down with a litre of water, pumped with a variable amount of glucose powder....
I find that the previous days eating before a race is just as important. Large amounts of carbs, bread, pasta, spuds (lots of spuds).

Post race, a cold can of coke, bottle of luco sport and any food I can lay my hands on. Fruit generally goes down easier that high sugar foods straight after a race

As I do have an eating disorder that has cost me an internal organ, you might want to take my advice with a grain of salt. However, I have found it beneficial to TRAIN long runs on an empty stomach. The idea of a long run is to get your glycogen stores down low enough that your body is forced to burn more fat. Not eating any carbs prior to the run helps get to this point faster.

That said, this is clearly not a state that you want to be in for a race. In a race of 2 hours or longer, you may get there whether you want to or not, but having something in your system will certainly delay the depletion. I have done some fairly long (3-4 hours) races with no pre-race meal, but those have always been very early starts with a big meal the night before and plenty of eating during the event.

My usual pre-race meal is oatmeal and some form of protien (usually eggs). Very easy on the digestive system.

Thanks for the feedback so far. I didn't intend to imply that being addicted to food was a disorder, merely that topics that have to do with consuming food may be a sensitive one for athletes.

I wish I could find the source of this, but all I have are my scribbled notes. To maximize your muscle glycogen availability (note: maximizing glycogen isn't all that necessary if you are racing for <1hr or can feed during the race), its recommended that you consume 1-2g CHO/kg body weight before your race, 1-3hrs before the race. Best to test this before some intervals rather than just on race day.

If you're racing two (or more) days in a row, the most important thing you can do for yourself is get some carbohydrates into your gullet immediately after racing, ideally within 20min. Then its 1g/kg body weight/hr for the next 4 hours. Speeds recovery.

Recovery procedures might be important after a long and/or strenuous workout too.

This week-end I did an experiment. On Saturday I swam for 45 minutes before breakfast. I was approximately 10% slower than usual, which is pretty significant for swimming, but the effort felt the same. On Sunday I ran for 2 hours 30 minutes before breakfast. I felt o.k. running at LSD pace, but I would not have been able to do anything of higher intensity. So I'm still amazed that some people can race on an empty stomach.

I also read an article about a vegetarian ultra-marathon runner. Not that I'm planning to become a vegetarian, but it talked about how he chews his food meticulously. I've always inhaled my food, so I've decided to become a better chewer in order to better utilize whatever I ingest.

mindsweeper - I wonder if you would start to adapt to working out before breakfast if you decided to do it more often?

Yep, well at least I've found out that I can do it for LSD workouts, so I guess the next step is to increase the frequency and then see if I can eventually get through an interval work-out too. It would definitely help make my schedule more flexible if I could get to that point.

Hey Mindsweeper. Do your LSD workouts go past Jerry Garcia amphitheater in McClaren Park, or are you referring to the Haight-Ashbury route?

I don't profess to be an expert on swimming, but I was married to a Division-I swim coach for a few years, so I picked up a few things. Because of the cooling effect of the water, swimmers can (and do) go reasonably hard (close to VO2Max), just about everytime they get in the water. The only way to do that is to have your blood sugar and glycogen levels properly topped up. Running is a whole 'nother thing. Most miles are put in well below VO2Max. The easy morning run before breakfast is a staple of many distance runners. At 500-600Kcal/hr, there's no need to have food in your stomach. I've raced orienteering events without breakfast with no trouble because I don't go anywhere near VO2Max while navigating (unless it's an urban sprint). A better navigator who is running at closer to their potential would likely suffer much more than I without a meal.