Has anyone got any knowledge on whether it’s possible to get sick from carbo loading?
Was preparing for a half on Friday and had the following…
Breakfast: Bowl cereal, 4 slices toast and glass of juice
Morning ‘tea’: two muesli bars and some jelli lollies. (two bidons between breakfast and lunch , one was Powerade)
Lunch was large serving pasta and chicken and a banana. Another bidon of sports drink
Afternoon ‘tea’ was two muesli bars and one banana plus two 600ml powerades.
Dinner was another large serving pasta and chicken. Glass sustagen sport.
Think I had about another two bidons in there somewhere, must have peed about 15 times.
Anyway got a headache that night that lingered over the weekend. Warmup run felt hot flushing in the face. Managed the swim but was way slower than expected even though didn’t feel it at the time. When stood up felt dizzy. Managed one lap of a four lap course and went relatively fast although the HRM wasn’t working so was stressing about how I really felt. When heading back out for lap two into the headwind my legs just vanished and I felt weak. Two minutes of coasting whilst deciding what to do and I pulled the plug on my best ever prepared for race.
Is it possible to overdo the eating or was it just the stress of rushing to get down there on the day (3 hours away)? Pretty bummed about the whole thing as I wanted to nail an a/g award but as long as I could learn something from it I would be consoled somewhat.
Thanks for any feedback in advance. PS do most of you bother loading for a half and to what extent?
If I ate and drank all that in one day I would still be on the toilet. Carboloading has mixed reviews. Don’t think anyone is depleting anymore, but I think with all the gels and nutrition that is available for use during races, carboloading is sort of on the outs.
I still think a good “clean” pasta or carbo meal the night before and hydration is important, but I have had and seen a lot of races go down the crapper (literal) due to way overloading the GI tract prior to a race. I still see people eating ten pound dinners before a race sometimes.G
Yeah my Coach just told me the same thing (diet advice was from a different source - sports dietician). I pretty much did the same thing before my first IM and recall getting a mild headache also but had a good race. Maybe I did drink a bit more plus have a few more sugary lollies. Would have been interesting to see how I went with a normal day of eating the day before.
Thanks for the comments. Funny my close training partner has the same nickname!
Just for my curiosity, i’d like to know where you got the information about carbo-loading being on the way out? Is this just anecdotal evidence, or are there actual studies that disprove it’s effectiveness? I’d agree that the depletion phase of carb-loading is “on the way out” due to the fact that even tho this is the best method to load glycogen stores, your body is put at a risk of injury and illness b/f the race. However, anything i’ve ever read/studied/seen (i’m an exercise sci undergrad, fwiw) indicates that carbo-loading is indeed effective.
ps. i’m not meaning to be inflammatory at all, i’d just really like to see where you got this information, or if it’s really just anecdotal. thanks
Cuz you put yourself into insulin overload. Your reaction to all those high GI carbs is for your body to produce a whack o’ insulin to process it. Then you continue to pump more into your bod, creating more insulin. No wonder you had a massive headache. You had a massive insulin spike, then drop. It’s the drop that will make you feel ill (headache, even nausea, can feel like you’re getting a bit of the flu even).
Crazy. Know how much sugar you consumed? Looks like a hell of a lot. All those *ades are chock full of it. You probably had 90% of your calories that day from carbs, most of it the kind that triggers immediate insulin responses. If you don’t eat like that regularly, you bet you’re going to feel sick.
Next time, skip the *ades and drink water. And make your lunch and dinner smaller, have two smaller dinners if needed, or smaller dinner and chug a boost before going to bed/middle of night.
well…aside from the fact that carboloading is a weeklong thing, and most of the stuff that you took in before the race wouldn’t have actually digested and loaded into your muscles…i’d say probably just overload.
you’re supposed to load your carbs for the entire week leading up to the race.
do a search for ‘modified carbohydrate loading’ on google and pubmed, that might help.
the classical method is on it’s way out, but to my knowlege, the theory still holds.
As other have said sound like WAY to much. No idea what a “bidons” is but a WAG is that you took in 1000+ calories in sports drink alone…that would be alot.
Also as other have pointed out. Carbo loading is probably best done over the prior few days or even week before a race.
My understanding is that your replacing glycogen that is stored in teh muscles. Something that connot be done with race day nutrition. Which is why its a good thing to do.
Personally I do a larger intake two days prior allowing the musles to fill and then use the day before the race as a “light day” of eating only to mintain levels and to “top off”. This allows any “major digestion” to occur teh day before the race rather than race day.
Also I’d try whatever you plan on doing race day on a couple of workouts. I often use long rides as “Race day nutrition” experiments. This sometimes includes “loading” the couple of days before, typically on recover weeks.
i’m on my way out the door right now for my 110 run.
this working thing is killing my body…blah.
the week was decent, i’ll update motionbased tonight after the run.
missed the easy 90 spin and the second tempo run…it’s tough to train when you go to bed for the night right when you get home from work/coaching…stupid 5:30am wakeups
FWIW–The day before IMAZ they were interviewing some of the top pros, and somebody asked about carbo loading. The fellow who answered the question said “I don’t change my diet! Why should I change my diet? I always am training hard so I am always eating right.”
I think that may be one of the most isightful things I’ve read on here in awhile! Short and to the point, and very, very true. The biggest mistake most newbies make is training one way and racing another. I can’t count the number of times I had people come into the shop saying “I’ve got this race tomorrow…what energy bar/gel/drink/whatever should I use?” My response, “what did you use in training?” Usual answer was nothing.
I talked alot of people out of buying stuff. Never change your routine day before or day of a race.
