Do you ever hit the wall?

[Lynne]

I was jogging yesterday and hit the wall about 50 minutes into it. This has happened before and each time I wonder how I will make it home, with sweats, the wobbly legs, and dizziness. I always do though . I went into the house and probably scarfed down about 1,200 calories: prunes, chicken, rice, green beans, a bowl of frozen fruit, and cereal. This time I felt good afterwards instead of being nauseous for several hours. I could have prevented this by eating just 1/2 a peanut butter sandwich before exercising, but I thought I was ok . Never again will I exercise without eating first....

[MiloMan]

Originally posted by Lynne
Never again will I exercise without eating first....

A wise policy.

[Lynne]

And I have to be sure to eat immediately before exercising. My fasting glucose checks out ok, although it didn't last year before I began exercising. My father and a brother both have Type II diabetes and I DON'T want that! They have rotten lifestyle habits though.

[edster951]

When I ran my first marathon, every 5kms I would drink a protein, glucose/matedextrin, creatine drink, about 200-300 mls.

Then at half way, 21kms I ate a banana, then at 35kms at the other half.

My wife was at every 5kms mark.

I never hit the wall at all, but was very tired at each 5kms after the first 21km. I would perk up for about 3-4kms.

Intake is very important.

[~*IronBelle*~]

You sound like your doing too much Lynne. What with these symptoms above and the erratic periods or haemoraging, I think you sound like your wearing yourself down. Either diet is not meeting your energy demands or you simply burning too much energy. Exercise should energise you, not exhaust you.

Plus if your doing things that effect this early on in the day, your not leaving energy for normal every day activity that should follow. I did it myself a while ago and it isnt good. It catches up with you. I had to tune into my symptoms and slow down big time before I saw any change. The haemoraging is your bodies way of telling you your doing too much. A lot of the time if what your doing is disrupting normal hormone function to the degree that it affects your menstruation, it is not right to begin with.

Exercise...but it doesnt mean you have to run yourself into the ground to get results. I did a while back and thought I'd relay that here because if anything, fat loss or muscle growth will stall when your body is in that type of state. Sex hormones are too depleted to effect muscle growth and also you'l end up with adrenal exhaustion also as I mentioned which is not good.

I do long slow cardio and I always have something in my stomach 30 minutes before I do it. Mainly its a scoop of protein and a scoop of spirulina in water ---like a smoothie. Low carb if you want to, but make sure you have something in you a good half an hour before you start.

[~*IronBelle*~]

See this article also:

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/rob9.htm

[Hibiscus09]

50 minutes of jogging (hard cardiovascular exercise) is a long time to have not provided your body with fuel -- especially with morning exercise when you've been fasting all night anyway. I have been telling my husband this over and over and as he is now training for a marathon he finally is listening.

I can't eat right before I workout -- it has to be at about an hour and a half in advance to prevent nausea. Plus, this gives your body time to process what you've ingested and provide it to you as fuel.

Edster had good advice also. When I did my 150 mile bike ride, I was take in a protein/carb drink every so often or a banana, and even fig newtons. I don't know if you'll need this for less than an hour run, but at least eat in advance.

[Minotaur]

I always ran out of steam during workouts. Part of it was the sleep apnea, part of it was being insufficiently fueled. Bad combination. That I made any progress at all is remarkable.

Now I have a MetRx shake before the gym, and a Gatorade during. It gets me through; often I am unwilling to stop.

I just had a bowl of oatmeal and a smoothie made with 1% milk, yogurt and whey protein. I'll go for a trot in about 45 mins. to an hour; my 'breakfast' should keep me going.

I know people swear by it, but I could never subscribe to the idea of running on a completely empty stomach. But maybe that's just me.

[Heavily Armed]

I had ran out of my usual meal replacement shake one morning before working out. My wife suggested I try her Apple Jacks. I thought, well, something's better than nothing. Wrong! The suger-laced cereal shot my blood sugar levels up. I started my workout. The sugar levels went too high, my body dumped insulin into my blood to bring the levels back down. Crash! I broke into a cold sweat, felt extremely weak and shaky. No energy at all. It was terrible, the worst workout experience ever. Not only did I hit the wall, the wall hit back. Unless it's raisin bran, no more cereal for me.

[brayndrayn]

I have moved to (on advise I picked up here) a 1/2 cup of rolled oats and 2 hard boiled eggs pre workout ,post I do a chicken breast and whey

[Lynne]

Originally posted by Heavily Armed
I had ran out of my usual meal replacement shake one morning before working out. My wife suggested I try her Apple Jacks. I thought, well, something's better than nothing. Wrong! The suger-laced cereal shot my blood sugar levels up. I started my workout. The sugar levels went too high, my body dumped insulin into my blood to bring the levels back down. Crash! I broke into a cold sweat, felt extremely weak and shaky. No energy at all. It was terrible, the worst workout experience ever. Not only did I hit the wall, the wall hit back. Unless it's raisin bran, no more cereal for me.

Cereal is one of the worse foods I can eat. If I have cereal for breakfast, two hours later I'm worse off than if I ate nothing at all. I have actually wretched (just like morning sickness when pregnant) and this is without working out! Those simple carbs really do me in first thing in the morning. I have to eat protein with any morning carbs. Those symptoms you described are what I experienced. Each time that has happened I've been anywhere from a 1/3 of a mile to a mile away from home and had to walk back . And I literally wondered if I could make it. I just wanted to lie down and go to sleep (not to mention eat, eat, eat) right where I was.

[Lynne]

Originally posted by ~*IronBelle*~
You sound like your doing too much Lynne. What with these symptoms above and the erratic periods or haemoraging, I think you sound like your wearing yourself down. Either diet is not meeting your energy demands or you simply burning too much energy. Exercise should energise you, not exhaust you.

Plus if your doing things that effect this early on in the day, your not leaving energy for normal every day activity that should follow. I did it myself a while ago and it isnt good. It catches up with you. I had to tune into my symptoms and slow down big time before I saw any change. The haemoraging is your bodies way of telling you your doing too much. A lot of the time if what your doing is disrupting normal hormone function to the degree that it affects your menstruation, it is not right to begin with.

Exercise...but it doesnt mean you have to run yourself into the ground to get results. I did a while back and thought I'd relay that here because if anything, fat loss or muscle growth will stall when your body is in that type of state. Sex hormones are too depleted to effect muscle growth and also you'l end up with adrenal exhaustion also as I mentioned which is not good.

I do long slow cardio and I always have something in my stomach 30 minutes before I do it. Mainly its a scoop of protein and a scoop of spirulina in water ---like a smoothie. Low carb if you want to, but make sure you have something in you a good half an hour before you start.

Thanks IronBelle. I'm really thinking about what you are saying. With the heavy bleeding and all, my body is not in an optimum state. I'll read the article you recommend, too .

[~*IronBelle*~]

With the feeling sick on simple carbs... I find taking in a low carb whey protein shake to be best for me. Only a small shot of it though. Not a large tumbler. I take spirulina with it, but that may make others feel nauseous. If you want you can always thicken it with psyllium to save it repeating on you half way through cardio. But to my mind, if your going hard first thing in the morning that your having to breath through your mouth instead of your nose, and your food is making you feel nauseous then your going TOO hard in your cardio--or too fast.

It depends what you are trying to achieve suppose. If you want cardiovascular fitness then exercising at over 60-75% (say 85%) of your MHR is good for that. You need to be aware though that it taxes your lungs and other organs as it says in that article. If your breathing switches to mouth breathing and your not breathing nasally, then that is not really good for fat burning. Thats because breathing through the nose is associated with both parasympathetic balance in the body and feels very meditative; it enhances the balance between the right and the left hemispheres of your brain. When you exercise whilst breathing through your nose your lungs become more efficient and you achieve higher levels of fitness than ever before. If you find you have to breath through your mouth at some point during exercise then it means your putting your body under stress. You'll notice that race horses dont breath through their mouths. You'll get the fullest amount of air in your lungs when you actually breath nasally. If your try it now and breath in three times via your mouth, and then switch to deep nasal breaths, you will find that out of the two, the nasal breathing leads to a better more fuller feeling of air in the lungs.

When breathing through the mouth your also not filtering the air that you breath so your more open to virus and germs than ever. What with the amount of stress your putting on your body (depressing immunity) and then breathing in all those germs, it's kind of asking for trouble IMO. It's ok if your running from a lion...lolol... as its gonna save your bacon ultimately, but for fat burning, you need to be going at a pace where your not getting out of breath.

I've said this elsewhere recently and I'll say it here. Fat burning requires a steady insulin balance in the body. Now you can have high spikes of insulin when you dont eat for long periods and eat simple carbs. You can also have high levels of insulin when you over tax your system with exercise. This is a no no right? Well it is when you consider the amount of brainwashing we get trying to get fit about eating a balanced diet every 2-3 hourly. Goodness knows why the same fitness experts recommend high intensity workouts after this line of advice but it is not sensible, given they just told you to keep your insulin levels nice and steady for muscle growth and fat loss. lolol. The reason it is not sensible is, when you over stress your body in any exercise, your pancreas releases insulin and your whole body becomes insulin/glucose sensitive. This means rapid uptake of glycogen. Insulin is a fat storage hormone as we all know so the best thing to do is keep your insulin balanced whilst you eat AND exercise for fat loss to occur. Unforutnately, harder does not mean burning MORE fat. You'll burn MORE fat bur also when you stop exercising the insulin sensitivity you have set up means anything you eat after that exercise is stored--because you've created a panic environment in the body. It has to recover and also will store up for next time you put it through such. All the fat you burned in that effort is just going to get shoved back where it was when you eat in other words.

Now if your training for a marathon or long distance run, or do this for a career, it pays to be both lacking muscle and being insulin sensitive because it helps your body to utilise glycogen more effectively to sustain your body for longer periods with what little glycogen you may have in the liver--and of course if it eats muscle thats a more streamlined body for a long distance runner--he doesnt care. Less cumbersome. These people lose mass as well as fat when they do that type of long distance running. Not where you want to be going when your trying to build mass and cut body fat. If you exercise nice slow and long, you will burn 50/50 carbs and fat, and the crisis will not be on for your body to make up the fat lost afterwards because you created no crisis in the first place by going slow. The minute you start to demand too high a level of oxygen, thats the minute the ratio switches to more carbs and less fat for energy. Thats because carbs are easier to burn. Once the muscle and liver are depleted of glycogen, your body will turn to muscle for fuel because this is the bodys survival instinct you see. It will protect fat stores at ALL cost and even replenish fat stores after an emergency. An emergency is you running like a bat out of hell as if from a lion. This is exactly why a lot of long distance runners HAVE NO MUSCLE to speak of. Keep your heart rate at a pace whereby you can still breathe through your nose is a good way of knowing when your not over doing things.

I am currently doing a session every day of long slow cardio liike this and its for 45-60 minutes duration and I can go at 135 BPM breathing through my nose and that is my fat burning zone for the minute. It may take 30 minutes before your body is burning fat---lss if you didnt eat breakfast, but it does. Eventually my cardiovascular ability nasally will get better I'd imagine. I've been able to switch my resistance on the elliptical from 3-4 up to 5-6 in two weeks and STILL breath via my nose and not feel out of breath at all. Thats optimal fat burning and since everyone is different, you need to play around with what is best for you. Sometimes even jogging is too much for some people--especially if they are unfit, and even then the more taxing it is, the less fat your burning anyway. You need to build up to it gradually.

Try very fast paced walking and concentrate on nasal breathing and making sure you dont get out of breath and do it for atleast 45 minutes and more than 4 times a week for good fat loss. Use a low glycemic diet and you'll have cracked it. Think "Insulin Balance" for everything you do. Even work at reducing stressful events--I've gone as far as taking large doses of St Johns Wort because it helps to keep me on a level and helps me to sleep. (Raises melatonin levels and seratonin levels). I used to wake at 2-3am every morning when I over taxed myself and this affects your energy levels through the day and can disrupt hormonal patterns also and menstruation.

[~*IronBelle*~]

I mean last year I would go at it like a loon. Raced around for months thinking, "No pain, no friccin gain," and dropped NO body fat whatsoever. (What a waste of a year). Had folks accusing me of eating wrongly (when I had this ultimate clean diet in reality) and that I was simply not doing enough. My personal trainer at the gym tried to tell me (I had a huge row with her and told her to "P!$$ off at one point) but I preferred to listen to the ones telling me I wasn't working hard enough. So like a complete nutcase, I upped my activity levels even more ON TOP OF doing the job of a mother of five. I became really sick. I'm STILL paying for it. Run myself into the ground virtually. I can still see it in others on this forum. I just started noticing what was happening to others here basically and read a little more into it.

I can see it happening with you now, and Ed. It took me a long time to get the message---and I did two weeks ago. I also did a LOT of research to understand why I couldnt reduce my body fat. What I think happened is that I lost the 40 lbs easily enough because to start with I was not fit enough to run. ( I see this with Ed). I had to rely on less taxing exercise to sustain it for any length of time. Now that was optimal fat burning wise when you look at it in hindsight. Then you see as I got fitter and I started to push my body in ways it hadn't been pushed whilst losing that 40lbs of fat. I could run faster and sustain such for longer periods...and yes I got out of breath but I could do it. lolol. But thats when I took my body out of fat burning and into fat storage and survival mode IMO.

I've switched in the last two weeks to the above type of exercises and I feel much more energised after my cardio in the morning and havn't been as ill or run down. I lost 2 lbs last week and hope it will continue.

[~*IronBelle*~]

Just nipped back to post this below. If your reasonably fit and not a beginner, I'd recommend exercising between 65-75% for optimal fat loss using the formula below. I exercise between 125-135 BPM on the elliptical for anything from 45-60 minutes most days. I don't at any point during that ever engage in breathing through the mouth at that rate so its in my target zone and also perfect because it isn't over taxing my body because I can still breath through my nose. You should work up a very light perspiration, not be dripping in sweat though it may depend upon the heat in the room or time of year this. I just perspire lightly on my forehead and such. Weight training is in fact perfect. My heart rate gets up to around 120BPM during a workout so that is fat burning also if its kept to within an hour.

CALCULATE TARGET HEART RATE ZONE

To perform aerobics effectively you need to calculate your target heart rate zone. To do this subtract your age from 220 to find out your maximum heart rate, so if a person is 30 years old then:

Maximum heart rate.. 220 - 30 = 190 beats per minute

Then multiply your maximum heart rate by 65%:

190 x 65% = 123.5 beats per minute

123 beats per minute will be the lower range of the zone.

Now work out your higher range by multiplying your maximum heart rate by 85%:

190 x 85% = 161.5 beats per minute

The example reveals a target heart rate of 123 - 161. When exercising the heart rate should be within your own range at all times and to burn more fat you should exercise within the lower range. Exercising at the lower range enables the body to take up enough oxygen so the cells can utilize stored fat. If you workout within the higher range of the zone but you will burn more calories however most will be in the form of carbohydrates and less total fat.

You can check your heart rate while exercising by gently placing your index and middle finger on the inner part of the wrist. Now count how many beats in 10 seconds and times the number by 6.

[Lynne]

IronBelle,

Thanks for the admonishment to slow down some and for all the great information. I really appreciate your taking the time .
Lynne

[Overload]

Originally posted by Lynne
I was jogging yesterday and hit the wall about 50 minutes into it.

Next time watch where you're going

[Lynne]

Originally posted by Overload
Next time watch where you're going

OK..... and I'll start acting like a brunette instead of a blonde.

[Overload]

Glad I could help

[Hibiscus09]

LOL, Jay!! Lynne he's had practicing abusing people -- he does that to me all the time!!

[Overload]

You must have me confused with someone else. Do I know you?

Bummer, no whistling smiley here. Boy, that other site has their act together

[Hibiscus09]

LOL -- only if you count singing to you nakey as knowing you.

[Overload]

I believe I know you now

[~*IronBelle*~]

Originally posted by Lynne
OK..... and I'll start acting like a brunette instead of a blonde.

You mean if I was brunette and not blonde, my mind would be more active than it is right now? LOL! I think I'd have a nervous breakdown if that were the case...

[Macattack]

I always take something before i workout anymore hit that wall too many time, even a piece of fruit or a shake beef jerky something light preferably, then follow up with food soon after workout something anything......malt balls are good

[Oregon Adonis]

It's funny, but I ALWAYS run on a mostly empty stomach. Two cups of coffee max with NO suger (on a Splenda experiment) but hate to have anything in me. No problems with 'bonking' either............even doing 10K races this way. Dunno, maybe it's just how I'm used to doing cardio.

[AminoMan]

I usually eat something semi-substantial about an hour before lifting. I drink a Red Bull about ten minutes before leaving for the gym and drink one of those pre-workout beverages all throughout my session, alternating with water.

[Lynne]

Originally posted by Oregon Adonis
It's funny, but I ALWAYS run on a mostly empty stomach. Two cups of coffee max with NO suger (on a Splenda experiment) but hate to have anything in me. No problems with 'bonking' either............even doing 10K races this way. Dunno, maybe it's just how I'm used to doing cardio.

Golly, I found that caffeine on an empty stomach even exacerbates the problem for me....

[MiloMan]

Originally posted by Lynne
I was jogging yesterday and hit the wall about 50 minutes into it. This has happened before and each time I wonder how I will make it home, with sweats, the wobbly legs, and dizziness. I always do though . I went into the house and probably scarfed down about 1,200 calories: prunes, chicken, rice, green beans, a bowl of frozen fruit, and cereal. This time I felt good afterwards instead of being nauseous for several hours. I could have prevented this by eating just 1/2 a peanut butter sandwich before exercising, but I thought I was ok . Never again will I exercise without eating first....

Try a complex carb sports beverage like Ultra Fuel or an eqivalent.

[~*IronBelle*~]

Originally posted by Lynne
Golly, I found that caffeine on an empty stomach even exacerbates the problem for me....

Same with me lynne. God knows why they recommend that either cos it also leads to an insulin spike. lol! I mean it totally goes against the fat loss thing to my mind also. If your meant to keep insulin balanced during the day and during exercise, why have a shot of caffeine and ruin that? May as well slam your toe in the door and get a shot of cortisol also at that rate. LOL!