Monday, May 31, 2010

Tweaking and Timing

Week three of Aspire is done and dusted and after consulting the dietician I have made some changes to get my wildly swinging blood sugar levels under control. The good news is I’ve been feeling much, much better. The bad news is I’ve put on a massive 100gms! Actually I’m not even slightly worried that I haven’t lost any weight over the last week. Now that I can actually do some proper exercise I’m sure that will soon sort itself out. I hear you ask: what are these amazing changes you have made?

Tweaking Portions
I’ve had quite a few comments from people that I seemed to be eating quite a lot of grain portions. So I talked to the dietician about that and we agree that I’d move down to 5 portions of grain and have an portion of protein OR legume a day. This has been great. I’ve been getting protein in the middle of day now and I’ve been feeling much better for it.

Timing Portions
This has actually been the most important change. I’m still eating only 20 portions in total a day, but I’m making sure I eat certain things at certain times to make sure my blood sugar doesn’t start doing the crazy dance that leaves me lying on the couch feeling like passing out. The first thing was when I was eating my grains. I’m now having 2 for breakfast and 2 for lunch, meaning I only have one at dinner, much better. Also I’ve split lunch into two meals, one at 12 and on at 2, meaning although I’m eating the same amount, it’s released into my body at a more consistent rate, meaning no big highs and lows.

I’ve also realised I have to eat between breakfast and lunch. I was letting myself get super hungry and weak by not eating anything for 4 hours and that was setting me up badly for the whole day. Now I have a portion of legumes at 10:30ish and that helps even things out and means I’m not as starving at 12 so only eating half a lunch is fine then.

What a change a week has made. I’ve been on a couple of hour long roadie rides during the week, in the rain and hail (I love my Helter Skelters) and yesterday I took the singlespeed to McLeans. It was wet and hard going, but I still felt human at the end of it and had a big grin on my face. Today it’s not raining and I think I might just have to take a jaunt to Sumner on the roadie and see how this new eating plan holds up to a longer ride. I will be taking Replace and a snack with me! Now I just need this crappy weather to go away for a decent amount of time and I can get back to having fun on my bikes.

No comments: