IF Chat

This week I had a hard time finding conclusive research to discuss that didn’t have to do with weight loss, was recently published, or used human participants. However, I did come across this little gem in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports titled “Effects of fasted vs fed‐state exercise on performance and post‐exercise metabolism: A systematic review and meta‐analysis“.

This is obviously of interest to me as I discussed last week that I liked exercising on a fasted stomach, which is something I touch on this week, too!

In the aforementioned article, which is a review article that I don’t have full access to, the researchers reviewed 46 studies which met their inclusion criteria, and found that:

• Pre-exercise feeding
  • Enhanced prolonged aerobic performance
  • Blunted signaling in skeletal muscle and adipose tissue (fat cells) which regulates metabolic components such as mitochondrial adaptation and substrate utilization (how cells use nutrients)
• Fasted exercise
  • Increased post-exercise free fatty acids (FFAs), suggesting that beneficial adaptations may occur i peripheral tissues

The researchers close, of course, saying, “Further research is required to fully elucidate the acute and chronic physiological adaptations to fasted vs fed exercise.” I find this research highly perplexing and will continue on this theme next week.

WEEK 7 IN REVIEW

During week 7, the first official week of 16hours fasting : 8hours eating, I planned to have left over duck confit pasta for dinner as well as my usual suspects for lunches and snacks (smoothies, eggs, avocado toast, fruit). This went well, and I also used up the rest of the chicken and caprese ingredients I had on hand by making a pasta. Salad and fruit every day, plus I had a few more pieces of that awesome chocolate cake through the week after taking the rest to my Crossfit coach. Honestly 16:8 felt easy during the week, I really like skipping breakfast! Again this week my 12pm workouts felt better than usual, probably because my body wasn’t also trying to digest food at the same time.

Challenges:

• The Weekend – which was anticipated
  • Friday I went out to commiserate in loneliness with a friend (February blues being single and all). We met at 9:30pm and stayed out till 12:30am. Over the course of three hours I had six vodka/sodas, which I don’t think is that bad… Judge me if you want. This made 10 hours with calories coming in if you could vodka calories, which I guess we should. 
  • Saturday I skipped Crossfit because I was annoyed with how my gym is doing a competition around the Crossfit Open. Also, I was a little hung over. And, I had tabata spin at 11:30am.  
  • Saturday afternoon went well, I had lunch around 2:30pm and then realized I hadn’t had a meal away from home in almost two weeks. So I treated myself to dinner at Beuchert’s, my favorite neighborhood spot. I had a medium-rare steak with beef jus, parsnip puree and grilled kale, then a side of french fries, and four glasses of wine (two red wines, two sparkling wines). And an after-dinner Negroni. I took in calories till ~11:30pm, which pushed me to a 9 hour eating window with calories from drinks.

• Sunday was back to being a little better. After lunch at 1:30pm, I met a couple friends for a few beers in the middle of the afternoon, ate leftovers at 5pm, then had a light(er) dinner at 8pm while I *tried* to watch the Oscars (ABC Live doesn’t stream in my area, apparently). 

Note: After giving up on Dry January and continuing to see discipline issues on the weekends related to alcohol intake, I’m more excited for Whole 30 than I used to be. I’m also kind of excited about alternate day fasting, because I suspect there will be less drinking since only one or two weekend days will be including calories.

Successes:

• Planning meals the way that I do proves to be success for me. A military friend informed me of the “Seven P’s”, being Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. As this has worked for my week days, it may be a good idea to try to plan weekends a little more, since they are where I typically am less disciplined in the evening (and Sunday afternoons) when it comes to social situations and drinking. 

WEEK 8: This Week! 

Hungry Harvest came with some basics this week. It’s also dawned on me that I end up having a lot of food if I try to make things on top of what I normally eat. So as I’m going to try to use grains and other pantry items, I’m going to either add them to salads, make things that can be frozen, or bake things that can be shared. 

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On the menu this week:

• Lunch:
  • Avocado toast with eggs
  • Smoothies (spinach, 1/2 banana, 1/3 cup cherries, soy milk, whey protein)
• Snacks
  • Fruit 
  • Carrot Cake Baked Oatmeal
    • I used walnuts since I was out of pecans
    • Added more spices like nutmeg, cardamom
    • Stuck this in the freezer and will reheat for snacks as necessary
• Dinner
  • Spaghetti squash with chicken and tomato sauce, OR
  • Home made hash browns with chicken
  • Green beans roasted with a little oil and lemon slices
  • Salads with greens, radishes, bell pepper, dressing

Saturday evening I have a friends birthday dinner at Cuban Corner, so I’m going to make it a goal to “behave” myself Friday night, especially since Saturday morning is a busy one, too. Sunday I don’t have any plans but if the weather is nice I will likely go out for a bike ride and/or take a book somewhere. If the weather isn’t nice I’ll aim to hit up a museum and/or take a book and my computer to a coffee shop. A chai latte will be my treat for being a good girl.

Thursday February 28th I will share a comprehensive post about where I shop and why, a cost comparison of the items I typically purchase among the various grocery stores I frequent, and some information about reading labels and ingredients.