October « 2009 « eatingRD.com

October 28, 2009

family is always there – part I

Filed under: Blog,Dinner,Restaurants — Kristen :) @ 2:39 am

My mom flew back home this morning and I miss her terribly already! I am such a momma’s girl and we try to call each other at least once a day. I’ve never gone a week without calling my mom since college! I just feel so at ease when she is around. I honestly consider home wherever my family is. There is just nothing like family, and yes we all have our weird and dysfunctional relatives, including myself, but no matter what family is always there good or bad. No matter what we may go through with friends, significant others, coworkers, etc, I always feel safe to know that my family will be there.

It’s been really tough on me since my mom and step dad moved to NC almost 6 years ago. Then, when I was still going to school at UNR in Reno, my grandparents also moved to NC in the same housing development as my mom. Even though I was born and raised in Las Vegas, I don’t really consider it ‘home’ now. Yes, I have Chris, but it’s not the entire package, just not quite complete. Eventually I would like to live somewhere closer to my family wherever that may be.

Ok, enough of the blabbering and on to the recap of my mom’s visit!! We didn’t really have anything planned, and I had to work and go to class, but it was just so nice to spend the time. I didn’t work on anything school related either, so now I have to bite the bullet and try to make it to the end of the semester which is approaching too quickly I’m afraid.

She came into town on Tuesday, but we didn’t really get a full day together until Saturday. During the week I made some quick meals that I knew she would like, one of them being the chicken sausage broccoli pasta that is always requested. I also made pumpkin pancakes for dinner one night and of course we had that lovely fro yo a few times 🙂

Friday night we decided to take her out to that cute little pizza place called Settebello. We are enjoying this place more and more.

I started out with a limoncello cocktail which was a lot bigger than last time (and a bit stronger uh em!) It didn’t go too well with the food, and I wished I would have had a glass of vino, but it was still good.

My mom got the chianti and we shared a nice salad along with their pizza special for the week called Pizza Rustica with various cheeses, roasted mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes and basil. Yum!

But I have to say my favorites of the meal were the desserts!!!

They had a special pumpkin gelato stuffed into an actual frozen pumpkin. I thought this was such a cute idea and the flavor was perfect. Most pumpkin dishes I get don’t have enough spice or pumpkin flavor, but this one was really good. The tiramisu was also outstanding!

Next stop on our unconventional eating out extravaganza, was BJ’s. I always enjoy eating here. My mom and I started out with a taster of Pyramid Apricot Ale. I don’t drink much beer, but when I do this is my go to brew. I also love that you can order a 4-6 oz taster for only $1.75. So you can try a bunch of different brews at a reasonable price, or just have a sensible portion like we did. Portion control is key and alcohol always makes me want to eat more anyways. I’m sure if I had a regular pint I would have had the whole thing, but just having it in a small, cute and tall glass was just perfect.

Avocado egg rolls are a great appetizer, just slightly spicy and filled with the luscious goodness of unsaturated fats!

I can never seem to order anything but the deep dish pizza when I’m there because it’s that good. I could only finish 2 pieces because it’s so filling!

Plus I had to save room for this bad boy . . . the pizookie!!! Oh yum yum! There’s only one spoon there, but I assure you Chris and my mom helped too 🙂

I swear we didn’t eat the whole time, well, for the most part, ha! We also got some good walks in, did some shopping, went to Red Rock Canyon and checked out the progress on the new Hoover Dam bridge. This is what I do like about Vegas because there are great outdoor adventure opportunities not too far from the city.

I don’t want to drag on and bore you guys to death with a never ending post, so I’ll leave the active part of the visit for the next re-cap installment 🙂 Stay tuned . . .

Hope you are having a great week! It has turned quite chilly here in the desert brrrrr . . . and I miss having my mom around

Are you really close to a certain person in your family?

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October 18, 2009

amazing experience

Filed under: Blog,Fitness/Health,Sports Nutrition — Kristen :) @ 10:30 pm

Hello!! The SCAN conference at the Olympic Training Center was such a wonderful and eye-opening experience for me.

It was so neat to get to meet all the wonderful dietitians and sport dietitians there and see what everyone is doing to advance the profession. I actually felt pretty inadequate in the experience department to tell you the truth, but it was so wonderful talking with different people and also very motivating. I can tell you that dietitians are very motivated, driven and amazing individuals that have a true passion for their specialties!!

The weather and scenery was just beautiful. I wish I would have had time to go to Garden of the Gods while I was there.

Every session was very interesting and didn’t really focus on the basics which was perfect. A lot of times in my classes I wish for more advanced concepts and practical applications, but they fall short of my expectations. I feel like that is what I really need right now to advance and get better. I learn and retain information best with hands-on and practical experiences, not just sitting in a classroom. I believe that is my next goal . . . finding some way to get more hands-on experience in the field. This too will increase my confidence.

Here are some of the sessions that were presented:

Energy Systems and Energy Metabolism
Fluid Balance, Body Comp, RMR, Blood Glucose
Endurance, Weight class/combative/aesthetic, Winter Sports
Collegiate Athletes
Professional Team Sports
Marketing Yourself in Sports Dietetics
Environmental Challenges, Recovery Nutrition, Travel
Developmental (Youth)
Female Athlete Triad
Ergogenic Aids
Tips for the Workplace from Coaches, RDs, Athletes

I would have liked to see a session on athletes with special needs, like diabetes, crohn’s, allergies, physical disabilities, etc. Let me know if you have interest in any one of these in particular and I’ll go over some of the main points in the future. I need to go over them all again myself to make sure I retain the information.

Another great thing about this trip was staying in the USOC training center dorms and getting to eat in the dining hall there. The food was definitely not your typical cafeteria food, it was really good!

I hated our college DC food and lived off salads, frozen yogurt and whatever I could fit in my mini fridge. I didn’t take pictures of all my food there because I didn’t know how others would take it, or think I was strange. Each menu item also had detailed nutrition facts which I thought was awesome 🙂

This was some kind of sun-dried tomato chicken with spinach and tomato pasta, and of course all the salad you could ever want!

Here are some other pictures of the OTC:

There is a man in the picture jumping across the floor like a giselle! He had giant quads 🙂

This was the power-lifting training room

This is the Sports Medicine and recovery room where athletes go to unwind after a good training session. Our tour guide said this isn’t open to the public.

Boy I sure wanted one of these!!!!!

I wish I was going to FNCE as well, it would have been so neat to meet many of the fellow RD bloggers. My friend and I are planning on going next year if we can swing it.

Last night we went to a HS friend’s wedding reception and it was so beautiful!!! It was actually like a little mini reunion because I saw so many people that I had known. I was so happy for them and of course I had to have some of the cake! It wasn’t spectacular, but still pretty good. I wish I would have gotten the strawberry one, but grabbed the lemon thinking that was the only flavor. Sure is pretty . . .

At the moment I’m scrambling to get the guest room ready for my mom on Tuesday! We’ve got it painted and put the bookshelf in there so I could get rid of the many boxes I’ve been avoiding for so long. I just have too much crap I think, especially all my school work, which isn’t crap but I just can’t seem to get rid of it.

I’m also getting behind on my school work since being out of town. I have to get a lit review done for one project and also a research proposal for my research methods class. Lots to do! But, I’m looking forward to the winter break fast approaching. I saw Christmas decorations already being put on display. How is it the holiday season already?!

There were inspirational quotes all over the OTC. I’ll leave you with this one from Lance Armstrong . . .

Hope you all had a good weekend! Get out there and show ‘em what you got!

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October 13, 2009

race success!

Filed under: Blog,Breakfast,Fitness/Health — Tags: dates, muffin, peanut butter, quick bread — Kristen :) @ 1:50 am

Boy, it was an eventful weekend! Chris had a really good time on his ride and he was really psyched. Thank you so much for all your well wishes! He felt really good for most of the ride which totaled 6 hours 35 minutes riding time with an average speed of 18 mph. It wasn’t really a race or anything, but he’ll find out about his exact time and rankings towards the end of the week. He’s hoping to be in the top 100 for the century.

Chris woke at 4 am and I slept till 4:30, then quickly threw on some clothes to take him to the ride. I don’t really know how he was planning to function that early, but I think the adrenaline was kicking in. I on the other hand just wanted to go back to bed 🙂

We got there in just enough time to get Chris geared up and make it to the start/finish line. It was more like a start/finish mob because there were so many cyclists! I think this is what would scare me the most. Trying to start with all those cyclists so close would make me nervous!

I felt like a proud mama as he started and then hoped that he would be okay on the ride. He made sure to stop at every fuel station and not take any chances with his first century. Even though this slowed his overall time down, it was a good idea to make sure he didn’t fatigue.

So while he was gone riding like a maniac, I decided to get in the kitchen and do some intense baking of my own! I tried another muffin recipe from Pinch My Salt and I think this one is THE best so far. It’s an applesauce spice muffin that uses ww flour, oat bran, wheat germ and flax with 3g of fiber per muffin. Instead of raisins I added chopped dates and I think these really added to the wonderful flavor. Yum!

I also baked another recipe from VeggieGirl called peanut butter banana bread. I added 1/2 cup chocolate chips. The only thing is, my worst fears came to fruition and I over-baked it!! I had to leave it in the pan too long when I went to pick Chris up, and when I was trying to get it out it fell apart! It sure tasted yummy though and super peanut buttery. Anyone know of good vegan binding tricks for breads? It just needed a bit more binding capacity I think.

After my baking, cleaning and washing fest, I made it in time to get some good shots at the finish, so happy!!

After the ride, the participants got a free lunch from Outback. mmm lots of high quality protein and carbs to fuel the muscles and replenish all those expended calories.

As far as glycogen replenishment, general guidelines are to have 1-1.5g/kg CHO as soon as possible after the event and every 2 hours after that until 7-10 g/kg is reached. This is especially important for those athletes who will be doing an event pretty soon again. It can take about 20 hours to fully replenish glycogen stores.

I had to buy lunch and was able to grab a couple tacos from Qdoba just as they were closing down shop. Instead of eating the second taco, there was a little kid running around giving away free ice cream. Heck yes!!

I decided to go for the creamsicle which I haven’t had for ages, and it was just as good and creamy as I remember.

After the race Chris was flying on the clouds and felt really good, but as we made our way home I could tell he was getting much more tired. I made him eat a large peanut butter, jelly, banana and honey sandwich with more fluids and then he rested on the couch for most of the night watching football. I also gave him a good leg massage and ice packed his legs. I was kind of worried about him, but the next morning he was chipper as could be and actually wanted to go on another ride! He’s actually been saying how he’s never felt stronger.

Overall it was a great experience and hopefully I can work up to that someday, or at least the 62 miler 🙂

Sunday we finally got to painting the guest room. I really like the color and hope we can get it ready soon. The color is called Restful by Behr and I want to do a shabby chic theme with some antique feel. I plan to organize it more this weekend hopefully because my mom will be here next Tuesday!

I majorly need to tackle my Google Reader and visit all your bloggies. I’m leaving for the SCAN workshop at the Olympic Training Center on Wednesday! I hope to come back with some cool pictures and useful information 🙂

I hope you all have a great week!

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October 9, 2009

BEST pumpkin pancakes. period.

Filed under: Blog,Breakfast,Dinner — Tags: eggs, mushrooms, pancake, pumpkin — Kristen :) @ 10:04 pm

Happy Friday to everyone!! This week went by pretty fast and I actually got some good gym time in, yay! I think this weekend is going to be packed already, and there will be no room for dilly dallying like last weekend 🙂

Tonight for the Viva Bike Vegas Ride they are having a pasta party for all the riders and friends/family. Frankly I could make a butt-load of pasta myself for $10, but I want to go and support Chris and chat with the other riders. I’ve been having Chris eat predominately carbs towards the end of the week to maximize his stores and calories. I also told him to go easy on the pasta. Just stuffing your face the night before won’t help and will make you feel bloated and icky in the morning. He still needs to make sure to get a substantial meal in, especially since it will start early in the morning and will last at least 6 1/2 hours.

Saturday is the ride! Gosh, I think I’m more nervous than he is. I don’t want my guy to ‘hit the wall’ and end up like that video I recently posted. I think he’s going to do awesome, but I still worry like always 🙂 Consistency will be key and making sure to fuel up at every station.

This weekend I have to study for my research methods midterm on Monday . . . eek! I also have to paint, organize and decorate the guest room for my mom when she comes in less than two weeks. Wednesday I leave for the SCAN sports nutrition workshop at the Olympic Training Center. Lots to do!

One of the high carb meals we had this week was breakfast for dinner!! Who doesn’t like warm pancakes at any meal?! I decided to make my favorite WW pumpkin pancake recipe from Pinch My Salt. They come out golden, fluffy and full of spicy, pumpkin flavor. You can find it here.

Instead of whip cream, I like to use Greek yogurt.

I added one vanilla bean and it was out of this world, bursting with intense vanilla flavor.

I’ll save the rest of the beans for vanilla ice cream or pudding. Any ideas?

I put the rest of the pod in the sugar jar to give it some more vanilla flavor. Yum!

Along with it I made a little omelet, with roasted red peppers, grilled chicken and spinach, and of course real maple syrup. Yum!

This is really easy to prep before hand too. Just separate the wet and dry ingredients and then mix together when you want to make them and enjoy! I just couldn’t resist and had to have another one 😉

Buster likes to help with the dishes too.

It’s funny he has to be right in the middle of the kitchen and I have to be careful I don’t trip over him!

Each time I go to the farmer’s market I plan to get a new variety of mushrooms to try out. This week I decided on this . . .

Looks very strange! It’s a wild Oregon mushroom, but I can’t remember the exact name of it. Maybe one of you mushroom experts out there can help. It sure looks similar to a Maitake? I’m not sure exactly what to do with it, but I was thinking of some kind of mushroom Bolognese, we’ll see!

I hope you have a great weekend 🙂

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October 7, 2009

quickest back-up dinner

Filed under: Blog,Comfort foods,Dinner,Recipes in a Flash — Tags: soup — Kristen :) @ 11:05 pm

Usually in my meal planning I like to include an easy prep meal that I can fall back on if something comes up during the week, or if I get home later and just don’t feel like putting something together.

Well, it was one of those days yesterday and I love having something for plan B that is simple, healthy and filling!

It has finally started to cool down somewhat here, well, it’s still in the 70s during the day which is like summer for many of you. I am enjoying being able to open the windows and having a considerably lower power bill. Another great thing about the cool down that I absolutely adore is starting to make more soups and casseroles again!!!! Yay! I think those are my favorites to make because they are so easy and can be adjusted based on what ingredients are on hand.

On to the easiest recipe in the world. . .

TJ’s Roasted Red Pepper & Tomato Soup (I get the low-sodium version)
1/2 box low sodium chicken or vegetable broth
2 cups frozen veggies and big handfuls of torn spinach
1 cup grilled balsamic-marinated chicken or you could sub chickpeas/beans
Various spices, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, cinnamon (gives it some warmth)
2 cups cooked pasta, or some rice, quinoa, etc.

In a pot place all the ingredients and warm to your liking.

These are also great if you don’t have fresh basil on hand. It’s not as flavorful as fresh, but it works. I used about 8 cubes for the soup.

That’s it! I like to serve it with a nice grilled cheese or cheesy naan for dipping (fontina with oregano). I am addicted to naan with pretty much anything at the moment.

What’s the easiest back up meal you like to make?

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October 6, 2009

lackadaisical weekend

Filed under: Blog,Breakfast,Dinner,Restaurants — Tags: dates, pumpkin, quick bread — Kristen :) @ 2:45 am

Hope everyone else had a great weekend! I just wanted to give a quick recap. Overall my weekend was very unproductive, but there were some good eats! This month I am working a little less hours, so I’m hoping my lackadaisical tendencies won’t be too detrimental. I think this unfortunate lack of motivation always comes to me at the start of that certain time (wink, wink). I don’t know what it is but I feel sooo tired, cranky and blah. Needless to say, I was a bum.

Friday night we went to a high school dance show to see our friend’s daughter, and it brought back a lot of memories and made me want to dance again!! Boy I miss it terribly sometimes.

Saturday morning I woke up pretty early and had a great urge to bake! This was the extent of my motivation this weekend. I saw Veggie Girl had made a banana butternut pecan bread recently and I thought that would be awesome because I had been craving quick breads, and had 3 large bananas getting browner and uglier by the minute on my counter.

Instead of butternut, I had a sugar pumpkin from the farmer’s market begging to be roasted up in the oven. I also added about 1/3 cup chopped dates into the mix because I’ve been addicted to dates lately. It turned out really good! The only thing is I don’t think I baked it quite long enough at 55 minutes, and it probably needed a good 10 minutes longer. I always seem to do this. For some reason I get scared that I’m going to dry it out or something. I would also reduce the nuts down to 1/2 cup, it was nutty! It sure tasted yummy and Chris really enjoyed it. I put 1/2 in the freezer, and the other 1/2, well, it’s already gone! Chris REALLY liked it!

So then of course I had to break out my favorite quick bread topping, also known as heaven on earth . . . TJ’s Pumpkin Butter!

Just a little closer . . . ahhh yumminess

That was pretty much the extent of my Saturday during the day. I did a little bit of wash and forgot about it in the washer, dorked around on the computer, and also tried very hard to concentrate on reading for school while doing this. Not so good, but I was feeling blah. Chris and I also did a few errands and ordered the thresholds to finally finish our floor, yay!

Saturday night we took Chris’ mom and step dad out for dinner at Maggiano’s since they are always so kind to take us out. Have you ever been here?! Oh my gosh the food is amazing, the portions are gigantic (good for leftovers), and the ambiance is nice too. The service was a little slow, but I’ve always had pretty good service otherwise, plus they were busy!

I didn’t want to drink too much, but Chris’ mom had ordered a glass of wine and I can’t really turn it down. I just really enjoy a glass of wine with dinner.

Funny, I used to hate the stuff when I first tried it. I had the Ruffino Chianti which is always a safe choice.

We sat by the window so it was pretty good lighting while it lasted. Here is our view from the table . . . Hello downtown Vegas!

We also decided to get the set dinner menu where you can choose 2 appetizers, 2 salads, 2 pastas, 2 entrees and 2 desserts! Yikes, it was a lot of food.

We started out with the spinach salad, stuffed mushrooms and garlic bread. Here is my plate . . .

Next came the pastas and entrees. We got the beef braciole, which is one of my favorites there. It is basically flank steak stuffed with veggies and meats and is very tender like meatloaf. For pasta we ordered the spinach manicotti with red sauce instead of alfredo. They ordered the roast chicken, along with fettuccine alfredo. Their portions are just crazy. Even the half portions are shareable.

Here is my plate . . . I ate 1/2 of everything, I was so full plus we still had dessert coming and

nothing would prepare me for this . . .

When the waiter came out he had mistakenly ordered the cheesecake instead of the chocolate cake, so he said he would go bring us the chocolate cake too!!! Oh my gosh, no stop it already please! I was in dessert heaven and yes I did eat too much. I was uncomfortably full, but it was really good. Eating out like that always quickly brings me back to eating better again. I just can’t do that all the time. This week I have vowed to lay off the desserts because I probably ate enough calories for 3 days, yikes!

The chocolate mousse cake was amazing and gigantic. You should have seen the size of my eyeballs as he brought this to the table. I could only muster 2 bites.

Needless to say we had tons of leftovers and the rest of the cake and cheesecake went straight into the freezer not to be touched for at least a couple weeks!

Sunday was yet another pretty unproductive day. I did make it to the gym for jump rope and body pump, but I think I was still recovering from my food and wine coma and didn’t quite feel right. Chris and I also went out to Art in the Park benefitting the Boulder City Hospital Foundation. This is an annual festival where tons of artists come and set up tents over a huge park and sell their awesome work/crafts. My mom and I used to always go every year. It was super windy, so we just stayed for a few hours and just perused the tents.

From now on I’m going to be pretty busy because my mom is coming to town in 2 weeks!!! I’m so happy, but our guest room still looks like a storage shed . . .eek! We still have to paint, get a bed and a comforter, finish the thresholds, and spruce up the rest of the house. Of course I want it to be perfect for when she comes, but I’m going to try not to stress myself too much.

Hope you all have a great week!

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October 4, 2009

Hitting the Wall

Filed under: Blog,Fitness/Health,Sports Nutrition — Kristen :) @ 5:12 am

Continuing on the talk of carbohydrates and their importance in performance, I wanted to share a pretty amazing video showcasing what happens when someone ‘hits the wall’. I’m sure you have heard of this term before. Has anyone experienced this? I can’t say I have had anything like this happen, but there have been a few times during an intense day of dance practice, competition or dance camp where I felt pretty shaky even after eating a substantial meal and hydrating. Sometimes it just isn’t enough and our bodies say . . . I don’t think so.

High intensity aerobic exercise for 1 hour can decrease liver glycogen by about 55%, and at 2 hours it can almost completely deplete stores. So how can those crazy people do events that last 6 hours or more? It most certainly has a large part to do with their intense training and mental determination, but it mostly has a lot to do with their nutritional strategy/timing and maintaining blood glucose to fuel the body.

I’m not sure what Julie’s nutrition strategy was throughout this Ironman race, and she may even have been consistent with her fuel. It would be really interesting to see what she did eat/drink before and during this race. Even though she may have been taking in carbohydrate and fluid, at the end of an intense race like an ironman, sometimes the body cannot take in energy and process it fast enough to fuel the muscles to function. In the case of ‘hitting the wall’, the muscles just stop working, as in this video below. Blood glucose concentration eventually falls because liver glycogen depletes, and the exercising muscles continue to break down the available blood glucose. This is a recipe for disaster and why it is so important to make sure those glycogen stores are nice and stocked and blood glucose is maintained. It is just sad and amazing to watch at the same time. . .

There are so many different carbohydrate fuels to choose from during an event, from bars, to gels and drinks. It’s really about finding what works best for you. I’m no super endurance athlete by any means, but I do like to experiment with different products to see how I like them. If I get asked about a certain product I want to make sure I’ve at least heard about it. I think my favorites so far are the Luna Moon gummies. I don’t like the gels that much at all. You also don’t really need to buy all the recovery powders and bars, which can be expensive, if you are getting enough quality nutrition. These are nice because they are convenient and easy to use, especially for those who need the extra kcals. I just like to experiment 🙂

Gatorade Sports Science Institute has a neat site with some great research on hydration, sports nutrition and other topics.

Have you ever experienced hitting the wall, or know anyone that has?

I hope everyone is having a good weekend! I’ve had some pretty good eats so far and will share with the weekend recap 🙂

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October 2, 2009

Carbs are good

Filed under: Blog,Dinner,Favorites,Fitness/Health,Sports Nutrition — Tags: mushrooms, pasta — Kristen :) @ 4:43 am

Yes! Carbohydrates are an integral component to an active lifestyle, especially for endurance athletes. Having the right amount of fuel at the right time can make or break performance. Every person is different in their tolerance and there is no one ‘perfect’ equation to it, so it’s important to experiment during training to see what works best. I know I’m preaching to the choir out there, but here are some general carb guidelines for performance:

In general . . .

50-65% CHO or about 5-10g/kg per day for active
40-50% complex CHO, <10% simple CHO
70% CHO for heavy endurance training, not for long term but for days before a big event
CHO is the energy source for anaerobic glycolysis and primary energy source for high intensity activities

Pre-Competition . . .

Make sure you have a sound diet during training because you can’t make up for nutritional inadequacies that quickly.
Focus on easily digestible/low-fiber foods a 1-2 days before unless your body can handle it
Meals should be higher in CHO and relatively lower in protein and fat
- Protein requires ~7x more water with an additional ~50cc of water lost for each gram of urea produced
Stress/Nerves can alter and slow digestion
Never try something new right before/during the event

If you have . . . 3-4 hours before the event

Nice, big substantial meal
60-70% CHO, low residue/fiber (3-5g/kg)

2 hours before the event

Lighter meal (solids and/or liquids depending on the person)
60-70% CHO, low residue/fiber (2g/kg)

1 hour before the event

Snack or CHO beverage
60-70% CHO, low residue/fiber (1g/kg)
aim for low glycemic index foods or add a little bit of protein (scoop of pb) if reactive hypoglycemia is common)

3 hours = 3g/kg 2 hours = 2g/kg 1 hour = 1g/kg

So depending on how much time you have before the event dictates how much is recommended to eat, but it really depends on the person and their individual tolerance. Most events are early in the morning and someone isn’t going to get up at 2 am so they can eat a substantial meal. They would want to make sure they eat/drink something that will satisfy their hunger, replenish and stock their stores lost overnight without causing GI distress.

During the event . . .

This is really only needed when the exercise is intense (~70% VO2 Max) and it will last longer than 1-1.5 hours, and/or if the weather is hot and humid. Athletes can use 30-60g CHO per hour so it’s important to keep the BS stable and prevent depletion or else the body will just stop or ‘hit the wall’.

Ingest 15-20g CHO every 15-20 min of mixed CHO sources to utilize all the intestinal transporters and maximize absorption. I just try to shoot for at least 1/2-1L of fluid an hour and a packet of gummies because I can’t stomach the CHO drinks.
Avoid only fructose because it can delay gastric emptying and cause GI distress in some.
6-8% CHO solutions are best
CHO supplementation before and during events has an additive effect
Delaying replenishment until towards the end can increase BG, but not enhance performance

After the event . . .

It takes about 20 hours to rebuild glycogen stores
1-1.5g/kg within 15-30 minutes and then 1-1.5g/kg every 2 hours until 7-10g/kg is reached. This is especially important for the athlete who has another event soon.
CHO/PRO has no benefit on glycogen synthesis, but protein is very important for muscle recovery.
Most important factor is the AMOUNT of CHO, not necessarily if it is high or low GI, although high GI appears best to maximize stores.

CHO loading is also another strategy athletes use before an event. A good way to tell if it is working is to watch the trends on the scale. If you are gaining weight that means you are storing glycogen because for each gram of glycogen, there is 3g of water weight gained.

Because Chris is getting ready to race a century (118 mile) ride in 2 weeks, I’ve been using him as my guinea pig to help him maximize his performance with nutrition. I think the main thing for him the week before is going to be eating MORE, lots more, to fuel his ride that will take at least 6.5 hours to finish. The last big ride he burned about 2,800 kcals in 4 hours, wow that’s almost a pound!

Speaking of carbs, I definitely include complex and simple carbs in most of my meals because I’m pretty active, they are healthy and I like them! I think my favorite type of carb is pasta in any form if you hadn’t noticed by all the pasta recipes I post 🙂

I went to the farmer’s market today and got lots of goodies: kabocha (Not to be confused with kambucha tea, so sorry for my misspelling earlier!!), apples, pears, lemon thyme, wild chanterelle mushrooms and vanilla beans. So many recipe ideas rolling through my brain!

I decided to experiment with these beauties . . .

I didn’t really have anything planned for dinner since our leftovers ran out, so I decided on a simple dish: chanterelle papparadelle with a lemon thyme sauce. I had never had these mushrooms before and they were very earthy and meaty and went well with the lemon thyme. I had some of TJ’s lemon pepper pasta leftover and it went well too. I just sautéed the mushrooms and a shallot, made a roux with butter, flour and non-fat milk (salt, pepper, & a small pinch of cayenne) and added 2 tbsp lemon thyme and mixed it all together.

Overall a quick, satisfying dinner! I sure wanted to have a glass of sauvignon blanc with this! FYI: wine is no good for performance darn-it!

What are some strategies you use to maximize your performance?

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