Exercise, Nutrition, WLS & Cooking Q&A - 10/17/2013

I alternate my days for my cardio and my weight training exercise. I've heard people talk about needing more protein or needing more carbs, depending on what your workout is that day. Can you explain that to me, please? 

Ok hopefully I will make this simple but if you need more details we can dig a little deeper. 

There are 3 macro nutrients that make up you diet: Protein, Fats, and Carbohydrates.

Your body's preferred form of fuel is carbohydrates. It doesn't have to work particularly hard to convert them to energy so they are easy and it can easily convert any excess to body fat for usage later.

The next form of fuel your body will use is fat. When it runs out of carbohydrates it will burn fat for fuel. It doesn't like this because it is much harder because it has to convert fat to ketones before it can be used. This process is called ketosis. Once the fat is converted to a ketone, the ketone can be used like a carbohydrate can be used. Now that conversion process costs the body 1/2 of a calorie. What does it do with the other half? It throws it away and that is why when you are in ketosis your urine smells a bit stronger than usual and your breath might smell bad and you may even have a stronger body odor than normal.

Protein is meant to build muscle and repair your body. When your body does not have fat or carbohydrates for fuel it will burn protein, the problem here is that when it runs out of dietary protein to burn it will start converting your muscle to protein to continue repairing and fueling your body.

So if we agree that we don't want to risk the body turning to muscle to keep us going we need to fuel or body with something. Since we know the fat conversion process is inefficient and because of it we actually burn more calories as weight loss patients we really want this to be happening.

Carbohydrates are easy to consume but if we eat to many, the excess is easily stored as fat because our blood sugar increases and our insulin spikes. When this happens the body just starts storing fat even when the body is trying to burn carbs. Now this doesn't happen during exercise but this is also hard to control and this is a situation we do not want.

So when you exercise you want to increase your fat intake so that you have dietary fats to burn initially but when those run out your body is already set up to burn fat and it goes right for the body fat.

Now standard nutrition protocol says eat more carbs (because they are easy and a good source of fuel for exercise) but this is for people who are not overweight, athletes, etc. For WLS patients you need to keep the carbs low. You will be more tired at first but after a week or so you will get used to burning fat and you will as much or more energy than ever before.

Thank you so much! This is very helpful. I've been cutting out my carbs as much as possible. The only "big" carbs I eat are an occasional wheat tortilla, oatmeal, and if I have an occasional protein bar or granola bar. I have completely cut out bread. I just wanted to make sure I was not needing more when I exercise. The whole what to eat when you exercise really confuses me but I'm learning and your posts really help!! Like all of you vets on here say, this is not an easy road. But I'm learning a little more each step I take and y'all have really helped me out! Thank you again 

I am hardly a vet I just do a lot of research. The thing that is hurting you most in what you listed is the granola bar. Granola tends to have a lot of added sugars, so not good for what you are trying to accomplish. The oatmeal and the whole wheat tortilla are both slow digesting carbs so they do not spike your blood sugar. The granola almost certainly is.

I did not know that! I thank you for letting me know. NO MORE GRANOLA BAR!! 

I just did your: 10 x 3 push ups, squats, mountain climbers and crutches exercises.  Can you do these "body weight" exercises everyday or do you need to take a day off inbetween like traditional stretch training?

Thanks,

I would do them every day, that is a simple calisthenics battery. Now if you are sore tomorrow you may want to take a day off because you are just starting out. But right now you are building up. You should do some stretches right after the exercise. Now you can find a different set of exercises to do on alternating days. Something that focuses on different muscle groups, but that particular routine was designed to work the major groups.