Showing posts with label eating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eating. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Why wait after eating to work out? empathetic to the parasympathetic?
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SO, here's a thought.
You know how your folks say don't go for a swim till an hour after eating? ever wondered why?
Here's a thought: turns out that eating triggers our peripheral nervous system, in particular, the parasympathetic nervous system aka "rest and digest" - so blood is going to digestion (the GI tract is pretty long. that's a lot of blood flow).
That means the energy going to the digestive system is not going to be as available for the rest of the peripheral nervous system actions (sympathetic), like moving muscles. So when we try to workout while we're digesting, something's gotta give - our bodies aren't optimized to do both things happily at once. Parasympathetic trying to say relax, lie down, digest. WHen working out, the sympathetic is going "fight or flight" - as you can imagine it's not a happy thing. Conflicting chemicals everywhere.
Now some folks say they have no problem working out right after eating. Anything is possible. But generally speaking, what i'm starting to think is "give my body a frickin' break" - rather than try to force it to split its energy across two demands - digest on the one hand; workout on the other - why not give it a chance to rest and digest before switching gears?
What i've also been experimenting with is, while i support my rest and digest, and since digestion starts in the mouth (especially with carbs), i'm also trying something learned at the Sustenance course last summer, and that's focus on tasting the food. For me, that means no working while eating. It also means not trying to talk and eat concurrently.
The idea is that chewing food, while it does help break down food for digestion and thus improve the likelihood of getting more nutrients/less getting processed into waste, also helps improve the taste experience which means usually eating less at one sitting - satiation is related to a taste experience. Part of my hypothesis as to why good quality chococalte means less is more because of flavour.
So how does this chewing and attention relate to digestion? Potentially longer time spent in pre-gut processing of food - which means less time needs for the gut, means less effort by the gut, means easier job for the gut, means getting to a workout sooner?
And you know what? Well i'll tell you - it's actually nice to take a bit of a break after the meal to chit chat or gaze out the window or sit for a minute - if i need an excuse i have the excuse of "i need a few minutes to digest my food - i'm going to sit for a minute" - but it's quite zen or delightful. I like delight.
I find generally speaking i can have breakie (some sprouts, veggies, oil and vinegar - being sure to get protein/greens/fats in) and comfortably be doing good cardio (rowing say) within 20 mins of eating. Not an hour. Perhaps because of the attention on chewing? And really less food does seem like more: when less is on the plate - even if it's spinach leaves - i'm going to linger over the leaf as it were.
So all we are saying is, give the parasympathetic nervous system a chance: provide opportunities to enjoy food. When we're trying to lose weight, chewing, tasting longer; using flavourings like balsamic or seasoning, indulge the flavour, all good. and the workout can be well energised. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
You know how your folks say don't go for a swim till an hour after eating? ever wondered why?
Here's a thought: turns out that eating triggers our peripheral nervous system, in particular, the parasympathetic nervous system aka "rest and digest" - so blood is going to digestion (the GI tract is pretty long. that's a lot of blood flow).
That means the energy going to the digestive system is not going to be as available for the rest of the peripheral nervous system actions (sympathetic), like moving muscles. So when we try to workout while we're digesting, something's gotta give - our bodies aren't optimized to do both things happily at once. Parasympathetic trying to say relax, lie down, digest. WHen working out, the sympathetic is going "fight or flight" - as you can imagine it's not a happy thing. Conflicting chemicals everywhere.
Now some folks say they have no problem working out right after eating. Anything is possible. But generally speaking, what i'm starting to think is "give my body a frickin' break" - rather than try to force it to split its energy across two demands - digest on the one hand; workout on the other - why not give it a chance to rest and digest before switching gears?
The idea is that chewing food, while it does help break down food for digestion and thus improve the likelihood of getting more nutrients/less getting processed into waste, also helps improve the taste experience which means usually eating less at one sitting - satiation is related to a taste experience. Part of my hypothesis as to why good quality chococalte means less is more because of flavour.
So how does this chewing and attention relate to digestion? Potentially longer time spent in pre-gut processing of food - which means less time needs for the gut, means less effort by the gut, means easier job for the gut, means getting to a workout sooner?
And you know what? Well i'll tell you - it's actually nice to take a bit of a break after the meal to chit chat or gaze out the window or sit for a minute - if i need an excuse i have the excuse of "i need a few minutes to digest my food - i'm going to sit for a minute" - but it's quite zen or delightful. I like delight.
I find generally speaking i can have breakie (some sprouts, veggies, oil and vinegar - being sure to get protein/greens/fats in) and comfortably be doing good cardio (rowing say) within 20 mins of eating. Not an hour. Perhaps because of the attention on chewing? And really less food does seem like more: when less is on the plate - even if it's spinach leaves - i'm going to linger over the leaf as it were.
So all we are saying is, give the parasympathetic nervous system a chance: provide opportunities to enjoy food. When we're trying to lose weight, chewing, tasting longer; using flavourings like balsamic or seasoning, indulge the flavour, all good. and the workout can be well energised. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
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Tuesday, July 15, 2008
What does "eating less" mean?
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Recently i've been part of a lot of discussions about weight loss and calories being calories (or not) and dealing with Real People who are very frustrated at being slightly overweight, but having a heck of a time getting the last 5-10 pounds down.
No matter what your school of thought, we know that to lose weight you have to input fewer calories than your system needs to maintain your weight.
We also know however, that some people seem to lose weight faster than others (i don't mean some people are skinny and stay skinny no matter what they eat, i mean *lose weight*). Some hypothesize that it's the type of diet - privileging fat or protein over carbs, etc etc. But recent literature suggests that the differences in approach aren't particularly significant - they're noise.
If that's the case, and we assume that people can indeed lose real fat (not water, which dropping out carbs does right away, but FAT) while still eating real food including a balanced range of macronutrients (fats, proteins, carbs), how do we know what the right "less" is to ask people to eat, or to not eat, as it were?
Over where i write for geeks to help them get fit and think about food more nutritiously, i've got a piece comparing three methods:
My caveat as always in this space is that before thinking about counting calories, you need to know something about the composition of those calories (protein/carbs/fats) and about how to put those ratios together to work for you. Approaches such as Precision Nutrition's habits (here's an overview) don't count calories at all in the initial phases. There, it's get right with good food habits first, and see where that takes you. Doing anything else first is just getting intrigued without a foundation.
It's like what Pavel Tsatsouline talks about in his seminar with Charles Staley around powerlifting: why would someone who's a neophyte lifter worry about whether they're going to be a grinder in their deadlift or a speedster? they have to get the skill of their strength first.
Same thing here. So i offer this idea about calculating "less" ness more as a way to understand or think about a process, not as a how to until those basics are in place. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Recently i've been part of a lot of discussions about weight loss and calories being calories (or not) and dealing with Real People who are very frustrated at being slightly overweight, but having a heck of a time getting the last 5-10 pounds down.
No matter what your school of thought, we know that to lose weight you have to input fewer calories than your system needs to maintain your weight.
We also know however, that some people seem to lose weight faster than others (i don't mean some people are skinny and stay skinny no matter what they eat, i mean *lose weight*). Some hypothesize that it's the type of diet - privileging fat or protein over carbs, etc etc. But recent literature suggests that the differences in approach aren't particularly significant - they're noise.
If that's the case, and we assume that people can indeed lose real fat (not water, which dropping out carbs does right away, but FAT) while still eating real food including a balanced range of macronutrients (fats, proteins, carbs), how do we know what the right "less" is to ask people to eat, or to not eat, as it were?
Over where i write for geeks to help them get fit and think about food more nutritiously, i've got a piece comparing three methods:
- the drop 500cals a day to lose a pound a week,
- the drop 20% from maintenance and
- the it's all relative to your fat method.
My caveat as always in this space is that before thinking about counting calories, you need to know something about the composition of those calories (protein/carbs/fats) and about how to put those ratios together to work for you. Approaches such as Precision Nutrition's habits (here's an overview) don't count calories at all in the initial phases. There, it's get right with good food habits first, and see where that takes you. Doing anything else first is just getting intrigued without a foundation.
It's like what Pavel Tsatsouline talks about in his seminar with Charles Staley around powerlifting: why would someone who's a neophyte lifter worry about whether they're going to be a grinder in their deadlift or a speedster? they have to get the skill of their strength first.
Same thing here. So i offer this idea about calculating "less" ness more as a way to understand or think about a process, not as a how to until those basics are in place. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
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