Originally Posted by
Carbonfiberboy
My GTT showed what some might call my sugar intolerance very clearly. They sent in a diabetic nurse to advise me. Her advice: "Put a log on the fire. Carbs are like tinder, you go through them too quickly. Eat cheese."
Exactly. Fat & protein. Good thing I love cheese! My meals typically consist of meat and vegetables (and dairy). I do eat white bread and pasta but I try not too overdo it or eat them too often. I recently discovered farro which is a very tasty whole grain. Before a longer ride I’ll have a bowl of oatmeal with raisins. Works well for me.
Originally Posted by
Carbonfiberboy
It's still a problem for me somewhat, though now if I eat too much of the wrong thing, I can simply wait for the drop to pass and then I'm alright. I've learned not to try to eat my way out of the drop. Fat burning will take over and bring it back up now if I just wait.
I also figured out that I can wait it out and it’ll pass, though I’m not sure that would have worked for me when I was at my worst. Like I said, I am mostly ok now. I only ever really get symptoms now if I wait too long to eat
and am doing too much physical activity. A long busy night at work is usually the culprit. I have only had symptoms on the bike once when I stupidly decided to climb a challenging hill in 40 degree weather. I got off the bike, drank some water, rested for 30 min and continued on when I was feeling better.
Originally Posted by
Carbonfiberboy
Suggestion: My type 1 diabetic friends told me that one's blood sugar is most stable in the morning before one has eaten. Thus it's a good practice to go for a 1-2 hour pre-breakfast ride, fasted.
This seems a little frightening to me! Maybe I should give it try though and see how I hold up. My fear is that messing with my diet might screw me up again. Since taking up riding again I realize I do need to eat more carbs during my long rides and this makes me nervous. I do not want to recreate the cycle that (I believe) caused my RH in the first place. I mostly stay away from any processed sugar and eat whole foods, but on my rides I’ll eat a muffin or “healthy” cookie
Originally Posted by
Carbonfiberboy
My wife drank 1440 calories of Ensure…
Eeek! Isn’t that full of sugar?
Originally Posted by
Carbonfiberboy
I believe that our problems, caused by eating carbs frequently while working or in your case, power walking, fall into a different category than eating carbs while riding or running hard. In these latter cases, energy use is scouring out the sugar from our blood faster than we can replace it no matter how much sugar we ate. This "scouring out" limits insulin release because our blood sugar stays relatively low. Thus the "reactive" component never happens. The body fills that gap with glycogen and fat. So the whole time you're riding hard, you're already getting energy from sugar: glycogen. It's pouring glucose into your system as your exercise level requires it to do. No difference between that and eating it, except that eating it spares glycogen for later use. It's the rate of glucose use by the muscles that eliminates RH during exercise.
Very interesting though I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this as I don’t really understand the process to begin with. Assuming you are right, however, I will still opt for healthier sources of carbs (like honey, dried fruits and whole grains) over processed sugar and whole foods over processed foods in general. It is my belief that processed sugar is bad for you no matter how you dice it and is what compromised my system in the first place. Carb loading during a long ride doesn’t necessarily have to be accomplished by consuming just sugar, no? One can just as easily eat complex carbs with maybe some fat and protein and achieve the same effect?