Carb Loading Ideas

tHE vAGGABOND

So I learned a lot carb loading before Dublin, but Im sitting here in work thinking about how I will manage to eat over 800g of carbs a day starting tomorrow before Paris without gaining a few KG in a few days?

So what do folks to do, apart from bread, pasta, porridge etc etc

Any interesting food combo's/recepies/ideas I could steal

G-Money

I've never ate carbs with the aim of carbo loading before a marathon but I'm quite fond of rice, specifically basmati rice. I have a rice steamer that I use to cook it and it comes out just like the boiled rice from the takeaway.

I guess you could take whatever you want with it.

What about wholemeal bagels toasted with a bit of peanut butter?

macinalli

Am curious - why do you want to do this? Would you not be better sticking to the diet that you've used throughout your training?

From what I understand about carb loading, it needs to be well planned to be effective (and badly planned can be a disaster). Just did a quick google and there are some interesting opinions here

BeepBeep67

I've been researching this also in advance of Rotterdam.
Firstly tapering down your mileage and maintaining your typical high carb diet is going to start fueling the muscles as your running decreases.
For me I'm sticking to my regular diet which gives me about 350 to 400 gms of carbs and will just adding some high carb snacks in between the meals, also will start adding salty snacks like salt sticks and pretzels in the last few days.
Here's a list of 50 gm carb snacks I've come across.
- 2 cups of cereal
- 2 Nature Valley Granola Bars/energy bars
- Bagel, 1 (3.5 oz)
- 2 Bananas / Apples
- 16 ounces of Orange juice
- 1/2 cup of Raisin
- 2 slices of wholemeal bread + peanut butter
- 5 fig rolls / 6 jaffa cakes
- 3 rice cakes/slices of bread with jam or honey
- Flavored Yogurt + 3 crackers/rice cakes

tHE vAGGABOND

Thanks BeepBeep67 - Perfect, just what I was thinking, but without the research and work you did on meals/snacks!

menoscemo

tHE vAGGABOND wrote: »

So I learned a lot carb loading before Dublin, but Im sitting here in work thinking about how I will manage to eat over 800g of carbs a day starting tomorrow before Paris without gaining a few KG in a few days?

So what do folks to do, apart from bread, pasta, porridge etc etc

Any interesting food combo's/recepies/ideas I could steal

I seriously question the sanity or necessity of trynig to eat anyhting like 800g of carbs per day for several days before a marathon.

Why do you think you need to do this? You do realise that you body can only hold a limited amount of glycogen (about 2000kcal) and that it is already storing most of this before you start 'carb loading'.

From my own experience I would only concentrate on eating a bit more of what you normally eat the day before a marathon (along with plenty of water).

shels4ever

BeepBeep67 wrote: »

I've been researching this also in advance of Rotterdam.
Firstly tapering down your mileage and maintaining your typical high carb diet is going to start fueling the muscles as your running decreases.
For me I'm sticking to my regular diet which gives me about 350 to 400 gms of carbs and will just adding some high carb snacks in between the meals, also will start adding salty snacks like salt sticks and pretzels in the last few days.
Here's a list of 50 gm carb snacks I've come across.
- 2 cups of cereal
- 2 Nature Valley Granola Bars/energy bars
- Bagel, 1 (3.5 oz)
- 2 Bananas / Apples
- 16 ounces of Orange juice
- 1/2 cup of Raisin
- 2 slices of wholemeal bread + peanut butter
- 5 fig rolls / 6 jaffa cakes
- 3 rice cakes/slices of bread with jam or honey
- Flavored Yogurt + 3 crackers/rice cakes

Nice post . I like the 5 fig rolls / 6 jaffa cakes that is one part thats going to be in my plan next week.

macinalli

BeepBeep67 wrote: »

For me I'm sticking to my regular diet which gives me about 350 to 400 gms of carbs

This is fine, but the OP wants to get to 800g of carbs. To make that up in snacks, by my reckoning you'll need 40-45 fig rolls!

tunguska

menoscemo wrote: »

I seriously question the sanity or necessity of trynig to eat anyhting like 800g of carbs per day for several days before a marathon.

Why do you think you need to do this? You do realise that you body can only hold a limited amount of glycogen (about 2000kcal) and that it is already storing most of this before you start 'carb loading'.

From my own experience I would only concentrate on eating a bit more of what you normally eat the day before a marathon (along with plenty of water).

+1. I think you're playing with fire messing around with a concept like carb loading for the first time just before a marathon. Its a process that requires a fair bit of trial and error, it has to be tailored for you specifically and as it stands you just dont have that time available.
I've been reading "Brain training for runners" by matt fitzgerald and he talks about this topic. Reading other articles on glycogen depletion/loading it seems like the best way to go is to do a fair bit of your running on an empty stomach(glycogen depleted state). What happens then is you're body releases some hormone(cant remember the name, it has a number in it)which causes your body to adapt and become more efficient. The trick is to find what works best for you, as theres a whole host of variables to sort out, like how many runs per week to do in this depleted state and taking it a step further, how many hard sessions should you do in this state. And this trial and error takes place over months. During training you're doing long runs on empty, no gels or energy drinks but during your race and the day before, you load up. The energy you take in would be like rocket fuel.

Actually heres that article:

http://www.active.com/running/Articles/Should_you_bonk_on_purpose_.htm

ecoli

Would side with Tunguska and Meno on this you need to differentiate between carbo loading and gorging. I wouldnt stray too far away from your normal diet just aim to change the proportions

General rule I stand by is early in race week higher than normal protein intake and by about wednesday or so flip the ratio to carbs/ The size of meals etc wouldnt change but rather the composition of that meal

BeepBeep67

macinalli wrote: »

This is fine, but the OP wants to get to 800g of carbs. To make that up in snacks, by my reckoning you'll need 40-45 fig rolls!

They say 5-7 grams of carbs per kg of body weight, for me that's a max of 500 - so I'll only need 10 fig rolls .

OP I presume you're not 114kg - where did you get 800gms as a number?

Krusty_Clown

I don't generally eat any more food, I just increase the proportion of carbohydrates. I do tend to try to eat a good carb lunch the day before the race (pasta dish plus a healthy pizza), but otherwise everything is pretty normal. Morning of the race will be porridge and if I can stomach it (without being too full) a bagel and banana and I'll sip on a sports drink in the 90 minutes before the race.

Anyone ever considered/tried carb depletion? I was toying with the idea, but the concept of doing a really long hard run 3/4 days before my goal race scared me off. It'd have to be something I'd practice first for a 'B' goal race.

robinph

I'd just be eating the same as usual, but maybe a few extra Jaffa Cakes. Surely the fact that you are sitting around doing nothing in the lead up (relative to normal) should do a pretty good job of loading you up with extra unused energy reserves if you are still eating the same.

Clearlier

I have a few friends who have successfully used liquid carbs. I wouldn't recommend trying anything new just before your goal race though.

rom

tHE vAGGABOND wrote: »

So I learned a lot carb loading before Dublin, but Im sitting here in work thinking about how I will manage to eat over 800g of carbs a day starting tomorrow before Paris without gaining a few KG in a few days?

So what do folks to do, apart from bread, pasta, porridge etc etc

Any interesting food combo's/recepies/ideas I could steal

Don't know much about this but I have an excellent document about 5 pages exactly what you need on this. Can't post it here but if you message me your email I can send it on to you. Along the lines what BeepBeep67 posted but full meals also, per person based on weight, how to adjust it etc. If you msg me your email I can tell you more regarding the source and send it on.

tHE vAGGABOND

Some good posts here. I maybe should have put some background into original post.

I did the whole depletion for 3 or 4 days and then gorging for 3 days before Dublin Marathon [*fully* knowing it was likely a bad idea, but Im like that, wanting to do things once!]. Dublin was a disaster for me, personally, but as a result of an old injury coming back, nothing to do with stomach or diet.

Like most people posting in a thread like this, I have read many books which cover this topic in one way or another, and its one of those where you will get 5 or more "definitive" versions of the right way to do things, so given Im not one bit a scientist I tend to pick the one which sounds best to me and/or which sounds "coolest" .

For Paris this week, I have eaten normally to today, maybe with more protein than usual [but I eat lots of protein day to day anyway]. But I'm totally concious that the amount I have run has been next to zero, so have cut down on crap totally this week.

With regard to carb amounts - I totally have no intention of eating 23423 plates of pasta a day between now and Sunday morning, so I just wanted hints and tips as to how folks eat extra carbs, and keep it tasty and interesting - BeepBeep's post did that for me.

With regard to the 800g amount - I have read a few times, in a few places, that a "normal" endurance runner should eat 5g-7g of carbs per KG of body weight [while in training], and while loading before a race, they should eat 8g - 10g - So I weigh just under 90kg's and picked 9g - and bingo we have 810!

[Note on that, Ryan Hall said the biggest change in his training when he changed coach a couple of years ago was that he was made to start eating more, the running part was pretty good already, but he says that he still does not eat as much as the top African runners]

TFBubendorfer

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Anyone ever considered/tried carb depletion? I was toying with the idea, but the concept of doing a really long hard run 3/4 days before my goal race scared me off.

I do to some extend, on advice of my previous coach.

4 days before the marathon (or ultra) I run a workout that consists of about 10 miles with some miles at race pace and then 3x800 at a good clip (about 5:50 pace when I was training for a sub-3 marathon). All this in the morning before breakfast.

For the rest of the day, try and limit your carbohydrate intake. That's the hard bit, and that's as far as it goes as far as depletion is concerned.

The next 2 days I eat normally.

The day before the marathon I try to increase my carbohydrate intake. But never gorge on food. If you don't feel like eating, don't do it. It's common sense, really. You can also get carbs from sports drink or juice.

opus

Read an interesting article about this very subject recently - Carbo-loading: Is it key the day before a marathon? I'm going to try some of the suggestions by sipping on a sports drink instead of water on the Sat before the VLM (which is getting scarily close now!).

dev123

opus wrote: »

Read an interesting article about this very subject recently - Carbo-loading: Is it key the day before a marathon? I'm going to try some of the suggestions by sipping on a sports drink instead of water on the Sat before the VLM (which is getting scarily close now!).

That "Maxed Out" meal plan is hell of a lot of food. There is absolutely no way I could stomach that the day before a marathon. I'd be a fat, bloated mess waddling up to the start!!! The "Theshold" meal plan maybe, at a push.

I think the energy drinks are good way of getting the carbs without feeling stuffed but again 5 x 500ml bottles the day before for the "Maxed Out" plan?!?!?

EDIT: Just looking at the lunch calculations and the carbs per serving don't add up. Just by adding half a cup of cooked rice to the "Average" lunch you increase the carbs by more then 50% (51g). Yet by adding another half cup of cooked rice AND 1,000ml of sports drink you still only get an extra 50g.

The sports drink contains 28g as worked out by the various "Dinner" options. A cup of cooked pasta contains 43g.

The breakfast seems to work out with a slice of toast containing 13g.

opus

dev123 wrote: »

That "Maxed Out" meal plan is hell of a lot of food. There is absolutely no way I could stomach that the day before a marathon. I'd be a fat, bloated mess waddling up to the start!!! The "Theshold" meal plan maybe, at a push.

I think the energy drinks are good way of getting the carbs without feeling stuffed but again 5 x 500ml bottles the day before for the "Maxed Out" plan?!?!?

EDIT: Just looking at the lunch calculations and the carbs per serving don't add up. Just by adding half a cup of cooked rice to the "Average" lunch you increase the carbs by more then 50% (51g). Yet by adding another half cup of cooked rice AND 1,000ml of sports drink you still only get an extra 50g.

The sports drink contains 28g as worked out by the various "Dinner" options. A cup of cooked pasta contains 43g.

The breakfast seems to work out with a slice of toast containing 13g.

Yup it was mentioned in one of the comments afterwards:

[CORRECTION: Reader Mike LaChapelle just pointed out that the math doesn't add up in the graphic. The "threshold" lunch should include 500 ml of sports drink. That being said, I should clarify that I'm not recommending these menus as exactly what you should eat; it's aimed at giving a sense of the quantities involved. In real life, I'd go for more variety, and include things like fruit and vegetables!]

I wouldn't be going for a huge feed the day before either tbh but sipping a sports drink or two on the Sat should be ok.

liamo123

I dont change my diet at all in the days before a marathon. What I've found works for me is to consume Hi 5 2:1 fructose carbohydrate drinks...

2 days before : at least 1 litre sipped throughout the day
1 day before : at least 2 litres
Marathon morning : at least 500 mls

Again different strokes for different folks...

meijin

liamo123 wrote: »

I dont change my diet at all in the days before a marathon. What I've found works for me is to consume Hi 5 2:1 fructose carbohydrate drinks...

It may work some way for you... but fructose has to be metabolized in the liver (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose#Fructose_metabolism, http://fellrnr.com/wiki/Fructose) so it doesn't seem like and optimal idea.

Glucose would be preferred, or some short chain glucose based sugars/starches, like maltodextrin.

As usual fellrnr has quite detailed research on that: http://fellrnr.com/wiki/Carbohydrate_Loading

belcarra

http://www.gaelforceevents.com/upload/articles/docs/RRNs_/SSC_beginners.pdf
This is a useful intro to cover the basics and gives some tips on alternative sources of carbs, etc.
Gaelforce ran another evening on this subject last night aimed towards intermediates rather than beginners so that presentation should be available for download in the next couple of days.

opus

meijin wrote: »

It may work some way for you... but fructose has to be metabolized in the liver (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose#Fructose_metabolism, http://fellrnr.com/wiki/Fructose) so it doesn't seem like and optimal idea.

Glucose would be preferred, or some short chain glucose based sugars/starches, like maltodextrin.

As usual fellrnr has quite detailed research on that: http://fellrnr.com/wiki/Carbohydrate_Loading

Hopefully my plan to drink a bottle or two of Lucozade sport on the Sat will be ok, I've had it before & it doesn't cause me any problems.

And by coincidence in my weekly email from Runner's World today, they have this article - 60-Second Guide: Carb-Loading. An extra bowl of porridge for me next Friday I think

Larry Brent

Wesley Korir has one 6inch tuna sub from subway the night before a marathon.

By eck, do I eat too much...

Bugsy2000

I went to a talk by Barry Murray, Sports Nutritionist & Ultra runner a couple of months ago where he completely disagreed with the the whole point of carbo loading as most of us use it. I wrote the following email to a mate who couldn't make the talk, some of you may find it interesting. I wrote this a few days after the talk so any mistakes are completely of my doing so I apologise in advance if I may have misquoted him anywhere but it's fairly close to what was discussed. I also have some info / slides that we got direct from him that I didn't want to post up here. PM me if anyone is interested. He has a website where he can be contacted too for any queries.


The talk was very interesting, your man seemed to know his stuff anyway. The talk was mainly on general nutrition more than particular sports nutrition but he explained the effect it had on our performance. There was a small bit towards the end about making gels, energy drinks & recovery shakes.

He initially qualified as a BioChemist which allowed him to understand how foods breakdown & what effects they have on what function of the body etc. He was able to transfer this knowledge into his own sports fields. He eventually changed career and got a degree in sports nutrition & regularly works with olympic athletes, Tour de France cyclists & Premier League teams. He is also a champion ultra runner.

It was supposed to be a one hour session but went on for two but I'd say he could have talked all day and only scratched the surface of it. I tried to take notes so bear with me.

Basically sugar, sugar producing foods & processed foods are your enemies. Full fat foods, red meats, white meats, wholewheat, seeds fruit & veg are your friends.

He said the whole idea of loading up with pasta or similiar coming up to & before a race is a big fallicy, it doesnt work (or it doesn't work to the level we think it does). The biggest source of energy in the body is its fat content. The problem is telling the body how to tap into this source. To do that we need to know what each food does. He showed us a slide which broke down the three food sources (Carbs, Protein & Fats). All of these foods are eventually broken down into glucose by various means. Glucose in turn produces insulin. Insulin is effectively a 'store'. It tells your body to go into storage mode so that if you are eating fatty foods & high protein foods with loads of carbs the body is trying to deal with the high levels of sugar (glucose) instead of working off the good energy source of fat & protein. It is instead storing the fat under your skin and preventing the protein engaging with your muscles where its needed.

Most foods which we eat to carbo load (pastas, spuds etc) are all transferred to glucose fairly quickly. He gave the example of a supposedly healthy days eating. Say you eat a bowl of cereal in the morning, have a cous cous salad at lunch, might snack on an Elevenses bar in the afternoon & a big pasta dinner in the evening. Each of those meals will transfer to glucose quickly, but your body will also burn that energy quickly so that you have a yo yo effect all day. Hence the three o clock slump. The key is to keep the production of glucose & therefore insulin to a constatnt level so that its not spiking & dropping continuously. To do this we eat non processed foods etc.

He explained that a perfectly good breakfast would be rashers, scrambled eggs, tomatos & mushrooms. Its all natural food that your body can break down easily but will transfer to glucose slowly. This will allow the body shut down the sugar burn and turn on the fat burn. As soon as you put some toast, waffles or pudding etc to the breakfast it will speed up the glucose production & start the sugar burn. (He mentioned that he often ran his long runs on an empty stomach for this reason, it forces the body to work off its fat content as a source of energy)

All meals should be similar. Natural foods, unprocessed meats etc. Steak dinners are fine, it all depends what you put with them whether or not you are speeding up the glucose production. Low GI foods, wholegrain, eggs, fruit, oats, seeds all take longer to transfer to glucose.

It is important to carbo load but only after a big workout. This refuels the muscles with carbs which is when they need them to improve the muscle. It also prefuels you for your next exercise, when you should have set yourself up to work off fat burn. By carboloading beforehand you are starting up the sugar burn / shutting down the fat burn and giving yourself a limited supply source.

For cooking purposes he said that lard & animal fat are the best things to cook with. Again because they are natural & your body is set up to deal with them. Next is butter (full fat) & next is olive oil. He said while olive oil is good it is damaged during the cooking process which reduces its good points.Vegetable oils, sunflower oils etc are a no no. They are processed so many times our bodies struggle to cope with them. Coconut oil is also good to use.

He said so called 'Low Fat' foods are the biggest myth & con out there and are actually the cause of most of the obeseity problems in the world. Two things, the are again overly processed to break down the fats plus they are also loaded with sugar. So the body goes straight to sugar burn instead of fat burn plus the body can't deal with the over processed nature of the product.

He gave us a demonstration of how the likes of Flora etc actually are a big cause of heart disease that cholestoral is blamed for. All of these food cause divots in the arteries as they are not natural to the body and the body can't deal with them properly. In these divots are caught triglycerides which are also produced by processed foods. These thicken the arteries so that when the cholestoral (which is required by the heart to function) tries to pass through these gaps it clogs up causing heart attacks. But in reality it is the build up of triglycerides rather than high cholestoral that is the problem. (He has published research papers on all of these so he wasn't just spouting sh1te apparently, he has also addressed the minister for Health to try to change the way this is all looked at by the medical profession)

Basically oily foods with Omega 3 (fish, nuts etc) are good for this. Foods with Omega 6 are bad. Omega six is a manufactured strand which the body can't cope with.

Right, I could go on all day but that should explain the basics of it. Below is how to make your own gels etc. He uses these himself for ultras.

Energy Drink - (Think Lucozade Sport):
These are essentially water & sugar, sometimes with a bit of salt & caffeine.

Take 500ml of water in a shaker, add 25gms of Pure Glucose (buy in health shop for a couple of euro). Add a pinch of salt (literally a pinch) & thats it. Just add some orange juice to flavour or similar. Because there are no added sugars, flavouring, colourings you get the same benefit without the downsides. Pus its way cheaper. If you want you can add a drop of cordial to flavour it.

Energy Gel:
Take 80ml of hot water & add a large tea spoon of honey plus a pinch of salt. Again you can add a touch of lemon / orange juice to flavour. As the honey has two types of sugars (good sugars) it actually gets to the muscles faster than normal gels.

Recovery Drinks:
Buy a bag of Pure Whey Protein. Add in the instructed amount on the pack & add water. Hey presto. Its effectively what you get in the Kinetica etc packets. He said Kinetica is good but it does have a lot of added colourings & flavours. As he said he's never seen a luminous green or blue river so why should we be drinking it.

Obviously it will probably taste like sh1t so to flavour it you can do different things. Make it with juice instead of water. Make it with milk & add honey or cocoa powder or both. Come up with your own but keep it natural. Add in bits of fruit etc.

Okay this has taken ages and I couldnt be arsed reading back through it but I think I have everything covered.

His name is Barry Murray, his website is http://www.optimumnutrition4sport.com/ & he also has a Facebook account. I've signed up for his newsletter so he might be throwing about a few tips. He seems to be approachable & if you have questions you can ask him on his website / facebook page.

Kenneth

tHE vAGGABOND

Digging this thread up as taper madness kicks in

nerraw1111

Barry Murray, the performance nutritionist quoted above is doing a series of talks at wheelworx in Dublin.

One is on tonight. There's also another talk in October specifically dealing with race day etc.

http://www.wheelworx.ie/nutrition-talks

tHE vAGGABOND

For the record, Im not stressed about this for Berlin at all - I just dug this up as I thought it was funny looking back to where my head was at then - and I know some others out there will be thinking the same thing I was...

I took on board all the sensible advice from here, and also stuff from books by good folks like Noakes etc - and ate a normal diet on race week, and took on a few more carbs than usual on couple of days before marathon [mostly via liquid in my case then].

I still blew up with a couple of miles to go in Paris, so all Im doing is tweaking that plan and learning from it a bit; pushing that barrier back a few more mins is all I need