How many of you have cut out the white stuff in your diet altogether? This would include stuff like white flour, white rice, sugar, white bread etc…generally, the bad carbs. How has your body composition changed? Has it affected your mood?
I would love to try to cut out sugar (my nemesis), however, it seems everything made nowadays has sugar in it. I realize we need it in our gels and gatorade and what not, however, it is hard finding good food without having it loaded with sugar and the other bad crap. I try to eat all natural, but I can’t seem to eat enough of it…
I cut out the white stuff, except for road food. But I was starving. I was told that the body regulates the hunger respose based on fat levels in the blood. So, I added a little more fat to my diet and the hunger problem disappeared. I’m talking about using regular mayonnaise, etc.
i did it for a month, and it sucked. it made me irritated more than anything. it didn’t really do anything for my performance or energy or anything.
generally though, i just can’t do it, the whole diet thing. i spent too many years on strict body building diets (even in high school for cheerleading). now it’s like i have zero tolerance for any kind of dieting. i can make it a month, go nuts, and then over accomodate for all that i’ve not allowed myself to have.
what i’m getting at is, just don’t push yourself too hard…strictness like that can make you crazy. really, sometimes, you just want some freaking ice cream. or a buttermilk biscuit. in that case, you better go ahead and eat it, and enjoy it. if you feel that you need some structure, make a day, an evening, or a time where you go off the diet and have some indulgence in your life.
example, generally, i eat what i want on fridays (well, everyday lately, which is BAD i know) and i look forward to that. if i want ice cream, i’ll get it friday. if i want 100 beers, i’ll have that on friday. whatever. you’ve got to let yourself have some fun every now and then. and i don’t care who says what…eating is gratifying on many levels, not just for fuel. otherwise, we’d all be living on GU, water and cliff bars. (and I"m sure you’ll agree, the thought of that is horrifying!)
I consider a bad carb anything which spikes my insulin level dramatically while I am at rest. So all the sweets like chocolate bars with the refined sugars in them. If I eat them in the office, that is bad. Eat them on the trainer, not too bad. But I need to cut them out of my every day diet. They tend to sneak into my life via coffee, tea, breakfast cereal, cookies etc…it all adds up.
Mark
Well, quite a few choclate bars have mass amounts of SAT and TrANS fats, so that goes without saying. Plus the mass amounts of sugar in them just isn’t that good for you. Like the dieticians say, they are empty calories. However, they do have a place in an endurance athletes diet. My issue seems to be that I don’t have an on/off switch for this stuff. If it is in the house, it will be eaten. And unfortunately the girlfriend keeps buying it!!!
Anyway, thanks Kittykat for the reply on your mood and what not. I appreciate it.
I totally hear that. I’m All Or Nothing Girl!!! If it’s in the house, it’s GONE. “One serving” - my ass. One serving = entire chocolate bar, or bag of jelly beans, or whatever . I
I can’t even LOOK at that stuff in the store. Don’t even walk past it. Walked past candy aisle the other day, and got so cranky because I’m trying to be “good”, lately.
Whew!! You are only talking about the white stuff in food, for a second there i thought you were talking about cutting out the coke, an essential supplement to any triathlete of course.
Seriously, though. I have tried it and it did not make any real affect either way to me, I eat little of the “white stuff” as it is. I do have a friend, however, who has tried it and claims it works. Same ole same ole, try it, if it works for you then it works for you.
cheers
I believe it has something to do with how fast it enters your blood stream. White pasta’s bread’s turn to sugar more quickly and enter the blood giving you an energy spike while whole wheat foods digest slower feeding you constantly. I think that is the way it works.
Carb equal 4 calories per gram, period. It doesn’t discriminate by color.
If you are low on carbs, your body does converts protein (breaks amino acids down) into carbs to feed your brain (which can only use glucose). I hope I don’t need to explain the physiology of why this is not a good situation.
Fat can not be converted to carbs or protein. Period. Hence, once you are carb depleted, your body burns protein and much less fat.
People, LOW CARB DIETS DO NOT WORK. It’s a quick fix gimmick.
Here’s another little thought. A pound of muscle burns ~45 calories per day. A pound of fat burns about 7 calories per day. Add 10lbs of muscle and you burn 450 calories per day for “free”. It’s not that hard to add 10 lbs of muscle if you haven’t been resistance training. You don’t need to spend hours in the gym to do it either.
I heard ? Brown at a pre-race lecture. He said he had a terrible diet. When someone asked him about it he would say, “I’m a furnace, I just burn up all the bad stuff with the good stuff.” Then someone asked him, “that’s okay but what do you do with all the soot and creosote that the bad stuff leaves in your furnace?”.
People, LOW CARB DIETS DO NOT WORK. It’s a quick fix gimmick.
ok, I hope you aren’t thinking that I am advocating those stupid ass low card diets because that is NOT what I said at all. I simply stated that I wanted to cut out refined carbs, and I can find a tonne of Dr.'s and dieticians who would agree that is an excellent idea.
There absolutely is a difference in various foods and how the carb is converted to energy (slow or fast). At least that is my understanding.
I am saying that aside from when I am working out (and for 30 minutes afterwards) I want to cut out those crap sugars which are refined.
markus, if you are eating alot of refined sugars, you will no doubt feel better by cutting them out–i’m talking about chips, candy bars, cookies, sweets, french fries this type of stuff. since i didn’t eat alot of them to begin with, i was cutting out pasta and some other things to try to loose weight. it was a hunter gatherer diet and was impossible for me to do more than 4 weeks.
but, seriously, if you want to put in more whole foods and whole grains and things like this, you will feel better for it. it does work help your body to burn better. also i encourage you to pay attention to hydrogenated fats, as they will make you feel awful too.
I am hardcore anti-hydrogenated/saturated fats. It’s just the evil sugars I crave. I have decided to take a serious look at my diet for the next couple weeks and see what is going on. My goal is not to gain 1 pound over the holidays.
oh, you can do that i’m sure. all of those cookies and things, they are just a recipe for being bummed out and slow. i hate that. stick to the savories! you’ll be better fed for it!
being a man, it seems like every man i’ve been around on the holidays gets pressured to eat. pressure from the women! don’t know if you encounter that, but if you do, be prepared and just say NO!
ok, i must go to bed, i’m delirious with flu. (crying…as i type that…)
How has your body composition changed? Has it affected your mood?
