Most of the expert guidelines suggest a bit more than twice as much carb as protein in recovery, roughly 30 to 40 grams, more if the main focus is endurance training (as replenishing glycogen is more important).
Yes, more so for people in ketosis. They have less glycogen stores. What happens with the protein induced insulin spike is glucose (and amino acids) being driving into muscles. Without enough circulating glucose glucagon gets released to counterbalance that and cause some glycogen (more from liver) to get broken down into glucose, keeping sugar levels from dropping too low. Low glycogen stores, less ability to keep that balance, more need for glucose intake at the time. Fat oxidation is not enough.
If you were to eat 30 to 40 grams of carbs after every workout, you probably wouldn’t be in ketosis. That’s about my daily intake, so it’s simply not viable. What’s the consequence of not consuming the carbs? Stunted muscle growth and slower recovery?
So I’m considering lowering my caloric intake. I’ve never actually watched my calories before except when I tried doing normal low calorie diets before I found low carb. Never needed to - hunger is well regulated on low carb and you tend to eat as much as you need. But I wonder how much of my previous disregard for calories was only practical because I was working out so hard, and now that I can’t do as much, maybe I need to restrict myself. It’s funny because normally during this phase of diet/exercise I would actually deliberately add more calories to my meals because I was concerned I wasn’t eating enough. I’m leery of not getting enough protein and nutrients for optimal lean body mass building. But I’m thinking maybe supplementing with protein powder and cutting out some of the high fat to protein ratio foods from my diet might allow faster loss without losing the lean mass.
So for one, I need ideas for replacing mayo. I never realized how ridiculously calorie dense it is. I eat a lot of wraps - sandwich wraps, steak/fajita wraps, salad wraps, wraps wraps wraps. It’s super convenient and tastes pretty good. But I don’t like when they’re very dry, which is why I tend to put a lot of mayo in them, or sometimes ranch or creamy Italian dressing, but those are pretty much the same as mayo in terms of being huge globs of fat. Does anyone have suggestions for alternatives that would fill the same role?
Mexican wraps can take salsa, some others could take tomato sauce. You can experiment with low fat cottage cheese and yogurt, but I expect you’ll be disappointed.
Edit: you could try making Ranch dressing from the packet mix with half milk and half yogurt, instead of half mayonnaise.
Mustard is good in wraps, as long as you like mustard.
What are you using as the wrap? I was surprised to find out how many calories were in a flour tortilla. The big flour tortilla used for the Chipolte burrito has 300 calories! The meat inside is only like 200 calories. But maybe a low-carb tortilla is different.
There are a bunch of brands of low carb tortillas and they’re all pretty good, the ones I’ve tried at least. I would actually recommend them over flour tortillas even for people not on low carb diets. They taste better, they’ve got way more good stuff in them. The ones I’m using now apparently have 80 calories each, 5g non-fiber carbs, 6g fiber, 10g protein, 2g fat. Made of a mix of oat and soy flour I think. Good stuff.
I’ve only been tracking calories for a few days, but estimating based on what I’ve learned I’d say I do about 1800-2300 on average. So not very high I guess. And I’ve always tried to err on the side of eating too much actually, I don’t want to deprive my body and lose any lean mass. But the weight loss progress is creeping along, so I want to experiment with taking the calorie count lower and supplementing with protein powder.
I do use the Heinz no sugar added ketchup on steak-based stuff, it’s actually better than regular ketchup IMO, not cloyingly sweet.
Those guidelines are focused most on maximizing sport performance, and having a full tank of glycogen is desirable. Probably somewhat less would work for your purposes but even if it means using up some significant chunk of your full day’s carb allotment I’d try to take *some *in along with the protein in that after work out period. Half a glass of fruit juice, an apple, a cup of kefir instead of the almond milk?
I didn’t think the little healthy choices I have been making to make a difference these past two weeks because I had to travel for business and I failed most days to stay within my points budget but I still lost 5 lbs. Yay!
Lower-fat mayo isn’t too bad (the nonfat version isn’t very good, though), and miracle whip has way fewer calories than mayo, as does the light version.
It’s funny how things work out like that sometimes. I’m glad to hear your healthy behaviors are paying off.
I went out to a reservation yesterday (about a 40 minute drive from my house) to do some trail hiking with Sr. Olives. I have this dream to be able to take long hikes, like to be gone a whole day or something, to check out cool places in nature. I’ve been missing nature a lot lately, and I can’t even tell you how long it’s been since I’ve been out in the woods. Jersey and Philly have their charms but the concrete jungle can be absolutely suffocating sometimes.
Oh, it was great. We went 2.7 miles which was enough for a first time, and even though it was marked as an ‘‘easy’’ course I found there were plenty of hills and rocks to keep it challenging. Next time I’m bringing water, though, 'cuz I got really thirsty.
Next week I’m going to a different reservation for a 2-mile nature walk with some folks I met on a Meetup.org Hiking Group website. Today’s workout assignment is 40 burpees, and then probably will go for a walk in the park later.
Yesterday was also my 1-monthiversary for clean eating. I’m not going to stop. Honestly eating is so much simpler this way. I don’t have to obsess over what I’m eating all the time, all I have to do is make sure it’s food, as opposed to a food product, and I’m good.
