Fast-5 Diet and Lifestyle: Re: [fast5] Hitting the wall

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Re: [fast5] Hitting the wall

You might want to listen to your body. I've never worked out that hard
myself, but my spouse and daughter do. They work out very, very hard.
And often, then go into sugar craving mode. And eat sugar. And it
hasn't hurt them one whit. My guess is that their glycogen stores are
just empty and need to be refilled. Healthy sugars/starches are
obviously better than junk, but workouts use up a lot of glycogen. In
non-workout mode, your body uses up mostly fat. But in workout mode,
it can use up mostly glycogen.

The headache/brain fog mode though, is often just excess cortisol.
It's a hormone, and it makes you feel lousy. You can sometimes trick
your body into producing adrenaline or insulin to counteract it ... a
little bit of exercise, a little food, something acidic (lemon juice
or vinegar). For some reason just plain lettuce works for me, though
it takes 15 minutes or so for it to take effect.

As for thirst, I find that generally when my body is losing weight or
changing shape. It can also mean you need more electrolytes, esp. if
you are on a low-salt diet (hard workouts with low salt can cause
major problems for some people). What Fast-5 seems to do more than
anything is enable people to hear what their bodies are saying. For
people who don't use many calories and are carrying too many, that
means their appetite will decrease. But for people who need calories,
or protein, or water ... it means appetite for these things might
increase. Your body has an extremely accurate chemistry set built
right in, and a lot of your nervous system is built to encourage you
to consume the things that are needed. It's sending you messages! Try
listening to it and see what happens.

On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 2:22 PM, Scaramouche <scaramouche_54@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
> I'm on day 10 and experienced what I call "hitting the wall" this morning. I'm 55, quite active and in good shape from lifting weights, biking to work, cardio and aikido twice a week. Since starting FF, I've cut way back on my workout intensity until I adjust.
>
> Aside from day 4, I've been feeling generally very good. Workouts have been normal. Last night I had a bigger dinner than usual, but didn't eat anything out of the ordinary. So far, so good.
>
> But this morning I woke up with major brain fog, headachy and a bit nauseous. I tried to ignore it, but before leaving for work I just HAD to eat. Felt immediately better after eating a bit. Was okay for the morning, but ate my normal small lunch as a precaution anyway. Then I began to feel normal.
>
> When I got home after work I began craving sugar like mad. This is totally not normal for me. I don't like sweets. Ate a couple of fruit rolls, a handful of chocolates and some chocolate spread on crackers. Followed that with cheese and a couple more crackers. Dinner was a medium-sized steak, a huge serving of whole wheat pasta and a glass of wine. This is a LOT of food for me; at 5'5" and 137 lbs. I'm not a big person and normally do not eat this much. And the sugar craving is totally abnormal for me. I rarely eat cookies, cake, chocolate, etc.
>
> Has anyone else had a similar problem? I'm a little worried about fasting tomorrow. Breakfast won't be a problem. I never eat it anyway. But maybe I should ease into the full 19-hour fast more slowly. Or just not fast every day. I've also been very thirsty all the time since starting FF (like with a low carb diet). Any thoughts?
>
> Cheers,
> Paul
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