Maybe that's the problem...

[mrsbrown]

Today is the first day in aaages that I haven't felt completely wiped at 4pm.

Usually I get to 4 o'clock and I'm looking at the clock, wishing it was 5pm and I could go home from work. Frequently, lately, I've just gone home and felt awful for the rest of the evening.

Today, I was feeling just like I always do in the arvos - crap, but I asked mr_bassman to bring me a peanut butter and jam sandwich at 3.30 and I ate it at 4pm and then I felt amazing and awake and I worked happily until 5.45pm!!!

Don't get me wrong, I've been eating afternoon tea, but I've generally had a tin of tuna or some almonds or a banana. Not the solid goodness, bulk and sweetness of a peanut butter and jam sandwich on wholemeal bread - with a supplementary cup of hot Ovaltine. I didn't think I was particularly hungry either, just feeling crap.

Maybe I haven't been maintaining my blood sugar and that's why I've been waking so badly in the mornings and feeling so crap in the arvo's.

Anyway, do you think I'm eating enough? I'm breastfeeding and cycling for a total of 40minutes a day (not at the same time, splodgenoodles and any others in the chorus) This is what I generally eat each work day;

Breakfast - bowl of porridge with too much brown sugar and milk
Morning tea, lunch and arvo tea (what I take to work and eat when I feel like it, often by about 2pm) - 4 slices of bread, almonds, sandwich filling (often peanut butter or, lately, cold meat), a piece of fruit or a tin of tuna, multiple cups of Ovaltine.
Dinner - carbs and sauce or meat and three veg.

I feel a bit weird eating 6 slices of bread during the day- like I'm gluttoning or something, but it certainly went down well today and is in keeping with my philosophy of never being hungry.

BTW I think I've got a weight loss issue thing going. I'm really pleased I lost all that weight last year, I love the fact that I didn't put on any weight while I was pregnant (yes, losing weight because you're too ill to eat sucks, but it is effective). I have recently thought that by keeping my food intake at work down to the same as it was before I got pregnant I could lose some more weight, which would be great. Before I got pregnant I was maintaining my weight but not losing any, I figured the extra metabolic load of the breastfeeding would do the rest.

ANYWAY, I'm taking an extra sandwich worth of food to work tomorrow and we'll see.

Comments

[sui-001.livejournal.com]

dude! i'm no nutritionist, but that's a buttload of carbohydrate! you should be energy central! get more red meat in ya!

it's very good that you aren't snacking though! mucho impressed.

[mrsbrown.livejournal.com]

But I am snacking...

I eat all morning, about every hour or two, and in the past I haven't needed to eat as much in the arvos. I think I'm convinced that I do now though.

[sui-001.livejournal.com]

sorry, i meant snacking on sugary things - chocolate, chips, etc..

continued grazing through the day is meant to keep the metabolism up. no high/low sugar crashing.

admission time

[mrsbrown.livejournal.com]

the list of food I eat doesn't include the friday morning doughnut (provided by a lighting rep) or the chocolate I buy once a month or so when I just can't stand the craving.

My goal on crap is to eat it occasionally, when the feeling takes me, but to mostly have enough reasonable food (and no money) that I don't need to eat crap.

Re: admission time

[sui-001.livejournal.com]

they're great goals and i admire them ;)

i find simply not buying the crud food in the supermarket and not bringing it into the house is the easiest way not to eat it.

i think (sugary) snacks are superduper, but as an occassional treat. i had a packet of chips after the fun run the other night - i recon i worked for them ;)

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sounds like the afternoon blood sugar crash thing.

I used to be really good about taking snacks in to the office to eat around that time, and I'd usually have about 200cal worth, but it wasn't really working for me. Then I started taking in a "second lunch" and eating it around 4-5pm, and that turned out to be the trick. Basically I needed real food twice during the working day. Otherwise around 6pm (hometime) I was getting headachey and tired and grumpy and just generally really really unhappy, and the 15 minute walk home from the station would be like a death march.

I'm not as disciplined about it at the moment as I was a while ago, but I usually try to eat *something* around that time, even if it means grabbing a sushi roll from the little place between work and the station.

[nobble.livejournal.com]

I found that putting the warm meal with loaded carb (pasta or something) in at the midday meal kept me going longer. Also meant that I didn't have the lump in my stomach at the end of the day.

I agree with Sui. More meat.

I dont think you're weird. I was eating that much bread until R was about 6 months and I still dropped heaps of weight. You burn 1000 Calories per day breastfeeding. You're hungry because you aren't replacing that energy.

Are you drinking enough water? Water is a great tummy filler. Have you tried rice cakes? I know they look and sometimes taste like cardboard, but it is an alternative to bread and you can put jam or vegemite or peanut butter on them if you're concern about wheat/yeast intake re bread.

Anyway, just keep eating and feeding that bub. R is still going strong morning and night. It'll be a shame to wean. He likes asking for it too. That's a bit bizarre first thing in the morning. "mummy booby"

Probably eating enough but not the right stuff

[vonstrassburg.livejournal.com]

Breakfast is good although I'd move to more whole grains. Switch to muesli instead of porridge, you can heat it up in the microwave with milk if you want more porridgey texture and flavour. Or find (or make yourself, it ain't hard) a good bircher style muesli, put it in a bowl and pour milk on it the night before and leave it in the fridge overnight.

Morning tea and lunch are OK. If you are energy crashing in the afternoon you need to load on carbs at this time of the day. What you eat in carbs you use 6 - 12 hours later. So stick with the bread and almonds and peanut butter or meat. Maybe cut the sugar load by swapping out the piece of fruit with a stick of celery and some carrot sticks, although with stone fruit in the shops at the moment it's hard. Fruit is good but it's also concentrated sugar which you burn off really quickly -- unless you're sitting on your arse in an office of course in which case the sugar works its way down to your arse and stays there.

Eating carbs at dinner is pointless. You will digest and use those carbs during the night, which means you use them while you're asleep. How much carb energy do you need while rolling over in bed? The rest ends up on your bum and thighs. Red meat and chicken and fish are what you need, that gets digested during the day but doesn't become available to your body until 18 - 24 hours later, so you'll get the benefit of it the next day riding home from work. So skip the carbs and sauce and stick with the meat and 3 veg. Make sure the vegs are only very lightly cooked, maintains more of the fibre and other good stuff.

If you are cycling a lot to the point where your body is overheated and/or exhausted (relatively easy in this weather) then you will become catabolic. That's the state where your body is burning off protein to repair muscles that have become overworked, and if necessary it will tear apart other muscle tissue to get at that protein. So to reverse that you need good protein stocks in your body, which either means having eaten available protein reasonably recently (fish or chicken is best, in the last 6 hours), or giving your body a "shock dose" of anabolic proteins in the form of a protein shake immediately you finish. In fact if you're cycling to work you could probably swap your morning tea with a protein shake -- the iso-whey type compounds aren't cheap but if you buy them in the larger tubs they do last for ages.

Of course it depends on whether 40 minutes of cycling == hard pushing yourself along, or slowly ambling along the back lanes watching the scenery.

I wouldn't be too worried about the fat intake, it seems about right, and you need it for muscle repair. I suspect you need it for breast feeding too although you could find a specialist in that area to give you the low-down on that.

Re: Probably eating enough but not the right stuff

[mrsbrown.livejournal.com]

How much carb energy do you need while rolling over in bed?

interestingly, I'm feeding (and thus producing milk) about 2-3 times a night.

Of course, this is also about what I'm eating and being in the habit of for the rest of my life, so thanks.

Cycling is mostly a bit of an amble, although there are some hills and I make sure to push myself up them. I'm trying not to push too hard, in case that's too much for my recently birthed body.

Mr Atkins has obviously had some influence on your dietary opinions?

Re: Probably eating enough but not the right stuff

[vonstrassburg.livejournal.com]

interestingly, I'm feeding (and thus producing milk) about 2-3 times a night.

Like I said, I have no idea what sort of energy this uses, ask an expert.

Mr Atkins has obviously had some influence on your dietary opinions?

No, not really. Mostly my PT, who believes in eating carbs sensibly. Not eating carbs at all doesn't count as eating them sensibly.

Re: Probably eating enough but not the right stuff

[the-rauf.livejournal.com]

What vonstrassburg said is pretty accurate from my readings of late. Try to eat the majority of your carbs in the morning and your evening meals should be a good dose of protein and green vegetables.

I've got a stack on interesting reading i can refer you to if your interested in finding out more.