Recently I dived head first into some interesting nutritional bits (or should I say bites? LOL 😉 ) that have been particularly advantageous to my wild work and training schedule. Make no mistake, I am a big fan of the book Metflex by Eat to Perform and regularly refer to that manual as my “nutritional bible” so-to-speak when it comes to performance based eating (nutritional Bible numero uno will always be Practical Paleo by Diane Sanfilippo). What would eventually lead me to a certain nutritional trick of the trade was a discussion we had on the ETP forum a while back regarding carbohydrate spikes at night time leading to an INCREASE of lean mass. If you ever heard that eating a lot of carbs at bed time is a bad thing to do, allow me to call out the BS. There may actually be some evidence to suggest that you can and SHOULD eat your carbs at bedtime, REGARDLESS OF WHEN YOU WORK OUT DURING THE DAY.
oooo. . .. I feel like I have grabbed your attention. Stand by for some serious eats! 😉
First up, I would like to direct your attention to a man that doesn’t get the much deserved attention in the Paleo-sphere as he should. Nate Miyaki, author of the book “The Samuri Diet” , has been a man of my interest lately when it comes to eating in line with performance. I began reading up on his article and ended up buying his book, the “Samauri Diet”, which actually advocates an eating style where carbohydrates are eaten at the end of the day, regardless of whether you train at night or not. I bring that up because there seems to be some confusion (and there was on my part as well) about this whole “Carb timing” thing. According to Nate, if you are engaged in high volume activity 3-5 times a week, your body is constantly in a repair process that be last anywhere form 12-48 hours after your last workout session. What that means is, for someone engaged in demanding physical activity, eating carbs around your workout matters, but only marginally so. For the athlete, ripping carb sources out of the diet during training AND non training days will actually hinder your recovery and performance.
Well now. . .that is interesting. Where as I personally used to be more of a carb cycler, I have found some interesting “side effects” from the carbs at bed time thing. First side effect, increased athletics performance on the RKC snatch test. I hit the 100 rep test with a 16kg in 3:40 seconds. For someone at 5’3”, I am told that is almost unheard of. I am not complaining, because this is pretty effing cool and I am all about pushing myslef on that test! 😀
While he increased performance may be due to increase glycogen stores, the physique tid bit caught my attention the most. In this video, Nate Miyaki Himself gets into the growth hormone response from spiking carbs at night. Take a look at this video below and I will follow up with some recent photos from using this nutritional trick.
And remember those physique changes? Well. . . here is what we are currently looking at.
Not gonna lie, I am a fan of this. So. . .what does a meal for me look like when we plate it all up according to this style of eating? Take a look at my own video below to get an idea of how to plate up a big meal at night.
If you need some nutritional tweaks to reach your peak in terms of performance or physique, please feel free to email me at janelle@primalfitnesspittsburgh.com and request a consultation. I will be more than happen to help you custom tailor your needs to suit your lifestyle all while enjoying your well deserved feasts 😉
Until next time . ..
Master your instincts!
