6 ms·

I do a lot of rock climbing, so most of my body is muscle. I'm currently floating at 170 lbs, but would love to lose 10 lbs so I can get up the wall faster. I t

by zatkin 10y ago

I do a lot of rock climbing, so most of my body is muscle. I'm currently floating at 170 lbs, but would love to lose 10 lbs so I can get up the wall faster. I think that fasting might be foolish because my body needs energy for climbing. In fact, if I wait too long after eating lunch, I tend to get really hungry during climbing and I start yawning a lot (not sure why).

personjerry 10y ago
Might be lacking glucose; I believe that is why marathon runners eat glucose before they run.
- zatkin 10y ago
  What do you mean by glucose exactly? What kind of foods should I be eating? I usually just get whatever for lunch at my company - tacos, Indian food, whatever is being served.
  - ihsw 10y ago
    Depends, how long are you training? I'm not familiar with the effort required for mountain climbing, but eating a varied meal beforehand would help. Personally, a peanut butter sandwich, banana, half an avocado (depending on the size of the avocado), tall glass of milk, and celery with hummus will prepare me well for the following few hours. Adjust this for yourself as needed. A healthy balance between fat, fiber, carbs, and protein is what you're looking for. I can't give any any hard numbers but a good macro-nutrient balance is the first step to a healthy diet, with the second step being fresh food.
  - mpbm 10y ago
    From experience, you'll need to spend a lot of time learning about macros before advice on what food to eat will do you much good. For example, if someone says "eat two cups of green salad with 2 tablespoons of olive oil" you'd have to A) already know what all that means or B) spend a couple hours researching how to estimate volume and source predictable ingredients and prepare them or C) just wing it and end up with some bullshit from a store that's lettuce covered in croutons, cheese, and sugary dressing. A good heuristic is that if you bought it, or it was bought for you, it's got too much refined carbohydrate in it and the serving size is too large. This is because to consumers value=(volume*taste)/dollar
- ihsw 10y ago
  This is probably it -- after exhausting the contents of the digestive tract, the body resorts to glycogen reserves in muscle and the liver. Your glycogen reserves are your "blood-sugar" and consuming them requires a burst of oxygen, so depleted oxygen typically follows low blood-sugar, ergo yawning. Energy gels are usually high-energy but low-everything-else, which is probably what the parent is referring to ("eat glucose"). This is to supplement blood-sugar levels without affecting the digestive process too much, or, more to the point, without affecting their marathon performance.
  - fpoling 10y ago
    Only muscles can use glycogen stored in muscles. Brain, digestive tract can only use glycogen energy from liver. Also note that eating just glucose or table sugar before marathon also helps to minimize digestion energy expenditure so most stored glycogen in liver will be used on brain and nervous tissue, not on processing food.
- tigerBL00D 10y ago
  Some corrections from the point of view of an endurance athlete (triathlon). First of all you don't really "eat glucose", that would be an oversimplification. Glucose is produced by your own body when metabolizing carbohydrates. As a backup mechanism your liver can also produce glucose by converting amino acids (muscle) and even fat, a process known as gluconeogenesis. Now, if we replace "eat glucose" with "eat carbohydrates", then the statement is still not quite accurate. Experienced marathon runners (and other endurance athletes) will not consume carbs before the run because doing so would spike insulin and effectively shut down breakdown of fatty acids in the liver. Liver can more or less either convert glucose to glycogen and fat, or break down fat, and is not great at doing both simultaneously. Maintaining fat metabolism is hugely important when going the distance since it's the largest energy reserve available in your body (50,000+ calories vs <2000 calories as glucose). Marathon runners consume moderate amounts of carbohydrates DURING exercise when insulin response is blunted. The idea here is to maintain glucose levels and avoid going into hypoglycemic state (low blood sugar). Ingesting moderate amounts of simple and complex carbs during exercise spares glycogen without necessarily spiking blood glucose to where liver has to regulate toxicity. This way you can keep on going longer.
  - CarpetBench 10y ago
    > As a backup mechanism your liver can also produce glucose by converting amino acids (muscle) and even fat, a process known as gluconeogenesis. Just a quick note, and your explanation is fantastic otherwise: this isn't quite correct. The (human) liver doesn't use fat directly for gluconeogenesis. It's just not efficient for humans: We wouldn't gain enough energy from it. The liver uses fat indirectly through glycerol (which is a product of fatty acid catabolism), but it's important to draw a distinction here because this is why ketosis occurs - if the liver could efficiently break down fat directly, ketosis would never happen at all! Most tissues would much rather use glucose directly if it's an option. While muscle breakdown occurs in small amounts normally it's mostly a last resort that occurs after an extended period of starvation. Which makes sense: You wouldn't want to break down the thing (skeletal muscle) you need to get more food except as a last resort. The amino acids involved in more typical gluconeogenesis largely come from other sources.
cel1ne 10y ago
There is an often-forgot other situation where your body needs some stored energy: sickness and accidents.
- derefr 10y ago
  Does it really need stored energy? Parenteral nutrition in hospital works fine with plain glucose. One would assume you could just eat fruit (or drink soda, I guess) when sick, to get the energy you need right then.
  - gaius 10y ago
    Yes, your body can't carry that much energy in your blood - it gets shunted off to glycogen or fat quickly because if it didn't the chemistry would start to go horribly wrong. You could maybe do what you suggest by just slowly sipping a glucose solution over the course of a few hours but it would be very inefficient.
  - sgt101 10y ago
    One problem for athletes is that they take an energy drink or bar and then feel dopey. This is because as soon as a surge of glucose hits your blood your pancreas pumps out insulin and sweeps it all up leading to a crash. Instead drink milk or eat complex un processed carbs like oat cakes (but not ones that have a ton of honey).
    - cel1ne 10y ago
      People who consider themselves "athletes" should know that.
- geomark 10y ago
  I experienced this. I never needed to lose weight, always been lean. But I wanted to see if I could reduce my blood sugar since it was borderline high. So I went very low carb for a while. Did not intend to but lost 5 kilos right away and felt fine, although it seemed like I was a bit underweight. A few weeks later got a miserable case of flu and couldn't eat for a few days. Lost even more weight, felt terrible, looked like death. It seems like the little reserves I previously had were gone from my change in diet.
readme 10y ago
Just fast on rest days, or don't climb those days. Go for a a short/easy hike or something. I do a lot of cardio. Some days I will burn 5000+ cal. I am absolutely unable to lose weight or restrict calories on those days because I always feel insatiable hunger.
- clockwerx 10y ago
  Interesting - I can do 3000-4000 calories through cycling and get away with only a small protein rich meal (scrambled eggs + steak) after. Even today, another 2 hour mild session (appx 1000 cal) and have only had light breakfast, coffee + pie. Hunger is there, but not at the forefront at all.... unless I eat a few sugary meals in a row.

by zatkin 10y ago

personjerry 10y ago

Might be lacking glucose; I believe that is why marathon runners eat glucose before they run.

zatkin 10y ago
What do you mean by glucose exactly? What kind of foods should I be eating? I usually just get whatever for lunch at my company - tacos, Indian food, whatever is being served.
- ihsw 10y ago
  Depends, how long are you training? I'm not familiar with the effort required for mountain climbing, but eating a varied meal beforehand would help. Personally, a peanut butter sandwich, banana, half an avocado (depending on the size of the avocado), tall glass of milk, and celery with hummus will prepare me well for the following few hours. Adjust this for yourself as needed. A healthy balance between fat, fiber, carbs, and protein is what you're looking for. I can't give any any hard numbers but a good macro-nutrient balance is the first step to a healthy diet, with the second step being fresh food.
- mpbm 10y ago
  From experience, you'll need to spend a lot of time learning about macros before advice on what food to eat will do you much good. For example, if someone says "eat two cups of green salad with 2 tablespoons of olive oil" you'd have to A) already know what all that means or B) spend a couple hours researching how to estimate volume and source predictable ingredients and prepare them or C) just wing it and end up with some bullshit from a store that's lettuce covered in croutons, cheese, and sugary dressing. A good heuristic is that if you bought it, or it was bought for you, it's got too much refined carbohydrate in it and the serving size is too large. This is because to consumers value=(volume*taste)/dollar
ihsw 10y ago
This is probably it -- after exhausting the contents of the digestive tract, the body resorts to glycogen reserves in muscle and the liver. Your glycogen reserves are your "blood-sugar" and consuming them requires a burst of oxygen, so depleted oxygen typically follows low blood-sugar, ergo yawning. Energy gels are usually high-energy but low-everything-else, which is probably what the parent is referring to ("eat glucose"). This is to supplement blood-sugar levels without affecting the digestive process too much, or, more to the point, without affecting their marathon performance.
- fpoling 10y ago
  Only muscles can use glycogen stored in muscles. Brain, digestive tract can only use glycogen energy from liver. Also note that eating just glucose or table sugar before marathon also helps to minimize digestion energy expenditure so most stored glycogen in liver will be used on brain and nervous tissue, not on processing food.
tigerBL00D 10y ago
Some corrections from the point of view of an endurance athlete (triathlon). First of all you don't really "eat glucose", that would be an oversimplification. Glucose is produced by your own body when metabolizing carbohydrates. As a backup mechanism your liver can also produce glucose by converting amino acids (muscle) and even fat, a process known as gluconeogenesis. Now, if we replace "eat glucose" with "eat carbohydrates", then the statement is still not quite accurate. Experienced marathon runners (and other endurance athletes) will not consume carbs before the run because doing so would spike insulin and effectively shut down breakdown of fatty acids in the liver. Liver can more or less either convert glucose to glycogen and fat, or break down fat, and is not great at doing both simultaneously. Maintaining fat metabolism is hugely important when going the distance since it's the largest energy reserve available in your body (50,000+ calories vs <2000 calories as glucose). Marathon runners consume moderate amounts of carbohydrates DURING exercise when insulin response is blunted. The idea here is to maintain glucose levels and avoid going into hypoglycemic state (low blood sugar). Ingesting moderate amounts of simple and complex carbs during exercise spares glycogen without necessarily spiking blood glucose to where liver has to regulate toxicity. This way you can keep on going longer.
- CarpetBench 10y ago
  > As a backup mechanism your liver can also produce glucose by converting amino acids (muscle) and even fat, a process known as gluconeogenesis. Just a quick note, and your explanation is fantastic otherwise: this isn't quite correct. The (human) liver doesn't use fat directly for gluconeogenesis. It's just not efficient for humans: We wouldn't gain enough energy from it. The liver uses fat indirectly through glycerol (which is a product of fatty acid catabolism), but it's important to draw a distinction here because this is why ketosis occurs - if the liver could efficiently break down fat directly, ketosis would never happen at all! Most tissues would much rather use glucose directly if it's an option. While muscle breakdown occurs in small amounts normally it's mostly a last resort that occurs after an extended period of starvation. Which makes sense: You wouldn't want to break down the thing (skeletal muscle) you need to get more food except as a last resort. The amino acids involved in more typical gluconeogenesis largely come from other sources.

cel1ne 10y ago

There is an often-forgot other situation where your body needs some stored energy: sickness and accidents.

derefr 10y ago
Does it really need stored energy? Parenteral nutrition in hospital works fine with plain glucose. One would assume you could just eat fruit (or drink soda, I guess) when sick, to get the energy you need right then.
- gaius 10y ago
  Yes, your body can't carry that much energy in your blood - it gets shunted off to glycogen or fat quickly because if it didn't the chemistry would start to go horribly wrong. You could maybe do what you suggest by just slowly sipping a glucose solution over the course of a few hours but it would be very inefficient.
- sgt101 10y ago
  One problem for athletes is that they take an energy drink or bar and then feel dopey. This is because as soon as a surge of glucose hits your blood your pancreas pumps out insulin and sweeps it all up leading to a crash. Instead drink milk or eat complex un processed carbs like oat cakes (but not ones that have a ton of honey).
  - cel1ne 10y ago
    People who consider themselves "athletes" should know that.
geomark 10y ago
I experienced this. I never needed to lose weight, always been lean. But I wanted to see if I could reduce my blood sugar since it was borderline high. So I went very low carb for a while. Did not intend to but lost 5 kilos right away and felt fine, although it seemed like I was a bit underweight. A few weeks later got a miserable case of flu and couldn't eat for a few days. Lost even more weight, felt terrible, looked like death. It seems like the little reserves I previously had were gone from my change in diet.

readme 10y ago

Just fast on rest days, or don't climb those days. Go for a a short/easy hike or something. I do a lot of cardio. Some days I will burn 5000+ cal. I am absolutely unable to lose weight or restrict calories on those days because I always feel insatiable hunger.

clockwerx 10y ago
Interesting - I can do 3000-4000 calories through cycling and get away with only a small protein rich meal (scrambled eggs + steak) after. Even today, another 2 hour mild session (appx 1000 cal) and have only had light breakfast, coffee + pie. Hunger is there, but not at the forefront at all.... unless I eat a few sugary meals in a row.