Day Three Meal

I was able to get about 1900 calories in my evening meal. The weight lifting must have made me extra hungry. I ate a total of about 2500 calories. I know it doesn't matter but I like to keep track of my approximate total number of calories. Eating that much at once is satisfying to say the least. I seem to reach a point were I can't even look at anymore food. One problem I need to fix is that I seem to be getting too much fat. I simply don't have that many lean protein choices in the house. At least I don't have any that aren't frozen solid. I should set out a few chicken breasts, or ham steaks, yeah, I'll set out some ham steaks for tomorrow night. They're less fatty than the two hamburger patties I ate last night.

Lean protein sources aren't cheap. Well, I guess cans of tuna are pretty cheap but it's pretty easy to get sick of tuna.

All cramped up...

I'm not trying to sell this diet, just relate my experiences while trying to follow its main tenets. Everything going well today until about 2:00 in the afternoon when I started feeling, eh, maybe sleepy? I wasn't tired although I felt like I could lie down for a while. Odd feeling, not carbo-sleepy, just uncomfortable. I started to get a hunger pains and drank some V8 juice and it got worse. Then, I kind of noticed it was on the outside of my stomach and now I think it was a cramp in my abdominals. I have been doing a lot of difficult core work lately but I never felt cramps like that. I got up and stretched and they seemed to go away. I ate some blueberries and now I'm feeling fantastic, like I could go for a run. Did the diet cause muscle cramps or was it over-exertion? maybe both? Just a coincidence that I experience cramps in my ab muscles for the first time in my life when I'm fasting during the day? Of course, it's my first week of incorporating floor-wipers into my core workout. Too many variables.

Putting on my cyber-sleuth hat, I did some digging around to possible causes of muscle cramps. I was looking for some kind of nutritional deficiency that I may be unknowingly experiencing. Guess what can cause muscle cramp? Hypoglycemia, or a relative drop in blood sugar (glucose).

As hypoglycemia progresses a variety of symptoms can occur including muscle twitching. Amongst 300 patients in one study (185 female, 115 male) found to have relative hypoglycemia (a drop of 20% or more below the fasting blood sugar level during a 6-hour glucose tolerance test), 23% had muscular twitching or cramps.

I'm not suggesting I have hypoglycemia or that you'll get it, but low blood glucose levels can apparently cause cramps. What confuses the topic is that there's a form of hypoglycemia that's called "fasting hypoglycemia" but it has nothing to do with the cause of the hypoglycemia, only when it occurs, i.e. in the morning before eating. I was thinking that maybe low glucose levels during the day brought this on, especially with the tough workout this morning.

I checked with Dr. Wikipedia and the good doctors mention that "As the duration of fasting is extended, plasma glucose levels can fall further, even in healthy people. In other words, many healthy people can occasionally have glucose levels in the hypoglycemic range without symptoms or disease."

So, intensely performing new exercises in the midst of a 20 hour fast increases the chance of muscle cramps. That's my hypothesis. My solution is to drink more water and have another banana.

Day Three - Morning Workout

I had some coffee and a vitamin this morning about 6:00 A.M. I didn't feel hungry at all. I finished my warm-up and I did Level 6 Day 2 of Simplefit. That's 5 rounds of 6 pull-ups, 19 push-ups and 32 squats. I performed all repetition straight through except for the last set of squats when I took a 5 second break at the 20 rep point and then did 12 more. The noticeable difference was that during this part of the workout, several time I felt, not weak, but different. As if my mind was reminding me that I didn't eat this morning. But there was no noticeable drop in performance, in fact, I'd say it was one of the better performances I've ever had at this level.

After completing those 5 rounds, I did 5 reps of chin-ups with 10 pounds on a weight belt and then 2 sets of 4 reps with 20 pounds on the belt.

Then I did 5 sets of 5 reps of deadlifts at 245 pounds.

Then some shoulder presses on the machine and followed with some ab work (side bends with a weighted bar overhead and floor wipers.

This workout was 1 hour and 15 minutes in the gym including warm-up and stretching afterwards, confirming my previous statement that my workouts rarely go longer than an hour.

One other noticeable difference, I felt something different about 45 minutes into the workout, almost like I got a big burst of energy and I didn't feel wiped out at all after I was done. I still feel good and I don't feel hungry in the least. I don't think I've had hunger pangs once yet and almost no sugar or carb cravings at all. Although when I went to the grocery store yesterday, the smells from the bakery nearly knocked me over.

I'm going to have my after workout protein shake in about 15 minutes, about an hour after the workout. I'll probably have a banana* then too.

*Demetri Martin: I feel stupid when I write the word banana. Its like, how many na's are on this thing? 'Cause I'm like 'Bana ... keep going. Bananana ... damn.