Lesson Learned -- EAT

The one tough thing I heard about before getting into BJJ was that normally the classes are late-ish at night and that it's difficult to 1) sleep well so soon after a hard training and 2) figure out what to feed yourself before and after.

Some of ya'll who know me know that I try to eat a 'primal' or 'paleo' diet and have been for the past year and a half. The difference in my energy level and mental clarity have been astounding and I'll never (permanently) return to a "SAD" -- Standard American Diet. I'm nowhere near perfect but even being 70%-90% paleo has helped me tremendously.

Given the fact that the primal diet tends to be lowish-carb, there is a bit of a learning curve when beginning a super-intensive sport like BJJ. The one man who has helped me understand this balancing act better than any other is Robb Wolf. I would highly recommend his website, www.robbwolf.com. He also has one of the best podcasts EVER called "The Paleo Solution". Here is a link to an article posted in the past few days about a paleo athlete: http://robbwolf.com/2011/09/08/paleo-athletes-uncovered-olympic-hopeful-ursula-grobler/

I sure hope I get this next part right! His basic philosophy is that being paleo is 'carb-neutral' and that you should simply feed your body the amount of carbs it needs to sustain the type of activity you are performing. If you are a fully converted fat-burner, your body will burn fat as it's primary fuel source and you can add the amount of carbs in that will support your higher output activities. The difference here from mainstream diets is that usually that number of carbs is still far lower than most people live on right now. The number is very different for different people and activities. He recommends that, if you are going to eat a higher-carb meal to help recover from an intensive training session, do so in a window pretty soon after training. That helps your body partition them correctly to build muscle instead of what they usually do, which is spike your insulin levels, which in turn store fat.

The flip side of that is that if you train intensely and do NOT eat afterwards to recover, your body will use up it's glycogen stores (that's sugar stored in the liver) and then start using the protein from your muscles to rebuild. Not good!

Anyway, I hope I got that science at least partially right! I've only listened to about a hundred of his podcasts and I'm just going on memory here...

So you're probably asking WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS FREAKING POST?

Okay, wrapping it up here. Last night I got home from my 2 1/2 hour class and didn't know what to eat. It was 9:30, I was dead-tired, and to top it off I had to get up at 5AM this morning for my business networking group. I was already wound-up from class (yes you can be tired and wound-up at the same time) and knew that if I ate I would be laying in bed trying to get to sleep forever. I had made bacon and eggs for breakfast around 7AM, ate a baked sweet potato with lots'o lovely butter for lunch around 1PM, then eaten a quick handful of almonds and dried cranberries for a snack about 6PM, 30 minutes before class started. So, not a lot of food. And I was hungry. AND I didn't want to eat. So...I didn't. I drank a bit of 'So Delicious' Coconut Milk to calm my stomach and then went to bed.

Fast forward to this morning and I am WIPED OUT. Note to self: I must find something to eat when I get home that will satisfy my hunger, help me recover, AND not keep me up for half the night because my body is going nuts trying to digest it. I'm thinking a small piece of chicken or a little beef is something that wouldn't mess me up too bad but we don't always have something like that just prepared and ready to be heated up.

So there ya go. Just a thought, albeit a very, very long one.

If you have insomnia tonight, just come back and read this and I'm sure you'll be cured.

Thanks for reading everybody!!

AS:)