To Eat or not to eat

Peace. I don’t just run… I research running. One of my biggest concerns was whether I should eat before a run or not. Not eating burns more fat. Eating makes increases performance. Now this is something I had to really teach myself. The doctor in me labored on this. The information is out there, but it’s very confusing to interpret if you are a novice. And I have a hard time taking advice on face value. So here is the skinny in case you were interested…. If all you’re interested in is losing weight, and not becoming a better runner and possibly competing, then don’t eat first. Running will burn through the glycogen stored in the body 1st and then move onto the fat. Yes you might pass out on your run because you get light headed, but you will burn off fat. And if that is your goal along with fitness then don’t eat before a run. The run will be harder because the body goes into debt because it’s not normal for it to want to burn fat. And because of the previous reason, the more you run without eating the more the body will learn to conserve its glycogen stores making it harder each time to get at the fat. It will also fuck up your blood sugar for a minute because it goes awry when fat is being burned rather than sugar. Sugar is the preferred fuel. Fat means emergency. It could possibly push your body into starvation mode. Now if you want to run longer, quicker, more efficiently or train for races and or marathons, then maybe you should consider eating. Because the carbs/sugars in food will act as fuel and not allow you to tucker out. Carb loading will give you a better performance, but it will take away from weight loss since carbs come with calories. Which do I advocate? Neither. I’m not a coach. I run all the time without eating because I tend to run right when I get up because that’s my only opportunity. But I have had hard runs lately and I’m thinking that not eating has really contributed to them; especially since my body is getting used to the activity. Not finishing and/or passing out on a route is not cool and not losing weight is pretty shitty too. This, my friend, is a choice you make for yourself…. Peace

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Backsliding on Home

All right, all right….. I know I’m prolly setting myself up for failure. Especially since I’m about to go to Show & Prove; and y’all know how it’s done on vacation… But… I think…. I am going to get back on the “raw food” bandwagon. Two reasons. 1st reason: I feel guilty every time I put non-raw food in my mouth. And I try to rationalize it all out by eating a salad with it. Imagine how it all looks, BK (just an example. I don’t do fast food on the reg) veggie burger with cheese and all the fixins, onion rings (cause I only eat McDonald’s fries) a vanilla shake and a side salad. I rationalized that the fixins and the salad are raw and therefore count toward my goal of ‘high raw’. NOT. 2nd reason: And most importantly…. This morning I put on a dress that I couldn’t wear last summer. The dress was so tight I felt like a sausage in it. I almost gave it to Goodwill. But I wanted to wear a sweater today that I rigged last night and this dress was a good fit. I expected to have to wear al
Read more

"I Itch"

I have eczema. I have had it since I was a small child. My mother reports I’ve been spotted since infancy. I remember getting in trouble on purpose just to get the beating that would satisfy the itching for a minute. That weirded my Ole Earth out. I remember one of my godmothers used to slather me with bacon grease. She swore that that would calm the lesions. It did to some degree. But the dog became very friendly afterward. I still have outbreaks. Most of the time it’s a small outbreak. 80% of the time it occurs only on my arms, legs, and back. But it can pop out anywhere. Don’t sleep on adult eczema. It can get really bad, disfiguring and incredibly painful. I put it, mostly, on the weather. I usually have outbreaks in the winter or if I go somewhere and the weather is distinctly colder than my regular climate. I ALWAYS get something in the winter time. Whether it be light patches just where my bra strap rubs against my skin or all over my body. It feels like little need
Read more

Skirting the Issue

I put on a skirt this morning. That’s not impressive. I put on a skirt every morning. I don’t generally where pants outdoors. I pulled this skirt out of the dryer. Guess what? It is loose. Real loose. I am happy dancing. You gotta be mindful of the history of the skirt. This garment began its life as pants about 5 years ago. Back then I was still wearing pants. When I decided to cease my slacks wearing ways and actions, I did not want to incur the expense of having to replace garments that I wore on the regular. It made perfect sense, since I sew, to convert pants to skirts. That’s what I did with the skirt I’m currently wearing. The trick is the skirt will be a pencil skirt if you don’t have material to add. And who does? Also my skirts have to be long. (3/4) So I have these fitted pencil skirts that used to be pants hanging in my closet. They serve the same function that they did when they were pants. Maybe I’ll blog about why I don’t wear pants later. I said all that to
Read more