Dehydration: H2 “Oh no”s

Don’t fear- the purpose of this post is not to tell you to drink at least eight glasses of water a day.  I have a hunch that that idea has been drilled into your heads by this point.  So rather than beat a dead horse, I’d like to discuss just HOW dehydration could be detrimental to your athletic performance.

Studies have found that dehydration (sweat losses greater than 2% of your body weight) can lead to the following:

- Increased perceived exertion

What it means:  Everything will feel harder than usual (i.e. you’ll likely have a desire to walk when you turn the corner on that 400m run).  This is especially true if you are dehydrated due to an evening of excessive alcohol intake.  Not that any of you drink…

- Increased cardiovascular strain

What it means:  Your capacity to perform aerobic activities will be lowered, meaning you may feel the need to increase rest breaks.

- Increased glycogen utilization

What it means:  You’ll burn up your energy stores faster than usual, bringing you to exhaustion more rapidly.

- Degradation of cognitive performance

What it means: Very technical movements involving concentration will become more challenging and it may become difficult to maintain proper form on your lifts. Also, if you ever find yourself in a competition where there is a logic puzzle involved, consider yourself toast.

The above physiologic effects have only been found to have a negative impact on aerobic performance, not muscular strength or anaerobic performance (anaerobic means “without oxygen”; activities include heavy weight lifting, sprinting, or any other rapid bout of difficult exercise), but don’t think that means hydration is only important for long runs.  Your body can only perform anaerobic activities for a short period of time before transitioning to aerobic, or oxygen-utilizing, exercise.

For those of you who do two workouts in a day, you are at an even greater risk for dehydration.  If you are in a fluid deficit from the first workout, it will likely be carried over into the second, and your performance will suffer.  Additionally, heavy sweaters (I’m talking to those of you that can soak your entire shirt in 30 minutes) should be particularly mindful of their fluid intake.  If you are a heavy sweater or a two-a-day-er, I recommend occasionally weighing yourself post-workout to monitor fluid losses.  Anything greater than 2% of your body weight (i.e. 3 lbs. for a 150 lb. athlete) indicates severe dehydration.

Aim for at least 64 ounces of cold, clear deliciousness a day. Mmm…who’s thirsty?

Guess Who's Coming to FB With Whole9?

Click on pic to see what they're all about!That's right - Julie and Charles Mayfield, authors of Paleo Comfort Foods, will be at the Whole9 Foundations of Nutrition Seminar this Sunday for a special Q&A during lunch. Click on their book above to see what they are all about!

Whole9 Fridays- Tips & Tricks From Top Paleo Chefs

Click above to sign up for the Whole9 seminar next Sunday, Feb 19. Almost 60 people signed up!

Today’s post is dedicated to those of you stuck in Good Food Jail – permanently chained to your cutting boards, knives, ovens and dishwashers. Preparing and cooking three meals a day, seven days a week can be a daunting task, and eat up all the time you’d like to take actually appreciating your culinary creations. So we’ve brought in the experts – a team of top Paleo chefs, to help you break out of jail, and enter the New Year well fed and stress-free.

Click HERE to see what these experts are saying.

The Dirty Dozen

What The Dirty Dozen is NOT:

- A really old carton of eggs
- An 80s rock band
- A Crossfit WOD

Find out what The Dirty Dozen is HERE

Q&A with Bert Weiss of Q100’s “The Bert Show” Part 2

Hopefully you saw my previous post about my twitter conversation with Q100's Bert Weiss. If you didn’t, please go read it now and come back.  No, really.  What are you still doing here?? Go read it.

So, following our sugar conversation, Bert had another nutrition question:

@BertShowBert: Here's another. Do freeze dried veggies retain their nutritional value?

And my response…

@CarolynBallard:  Yes...May be lower in some vitamins that break down easily (like C), but overall still high in nutrients and phytochemicals.




This is a summary of my feelings about fruits and vegetables that are dried, freeze-dried, frozen, or canned:

• They should never be a substitute for fresh produce
• They are convenient and usually less expensive than fresh F&V
• Canned = the worst choice.  Can be very high in sodium and low in nutrients. But if it’s all you like, eat up.  It’s still better than no vegetables.
• Frozen = the best choice.  Maintain a lot of their nutritional value and last a very long time.
• Dried fruit can be healthy in moderation, but beware that some kinds have added sugar (i.e. sugar-coated raisins in cereal).
• Fruit and veggie “chips” that are cooked in oil get a big thumbs down.  Especially banana chips.  I don’t really know why anyone would want to eat them anyway. When I was a child we would feed them to our pet ferret.  I don’t know about you guys, but anything a ferret eats is not going in my mouth.

Did you expect this post to end with a ferret story?!  Yeah, me neither.

Follow me on twitter @carolynballard

Q&A with Bert Weiss of Q100’s “The Bert Show” part 1

I was recently avoiding school, work, and other boring obligations by scrolling through my Twitter feed when I came across a question from Bert Weiss, host of Atlanta's no. 1 radio station Q100’s morning talk show:

@BertShowBert:  No one can answer this for me. Does processed sugar and natural sugar get processed the same way in your body?

This is a great question that I get asked all the time.  So I decided to reply...

@CarolynBallard: Yes. Sugar is sugar.

He was not satisfied with that response….

@BertShowBert: Then why do we avoid the sugar in chocolate but not fruits? The benefits totally outweigh the storage of fat?

This one was a little difficult to answer in less than 140 characters…

@CarolynBallard: Fruit has fiber and nutrients; chocolate is basically empty calories. Excess calories from any food will lead to fat storage.

Since I am not limited to a character count on this blog (unfortunate for those of you who are already bored), I will elaborate. The metabolism of sugar is the same as any carbohydrate, which means your body could never know the difference between the glucose from a vegetable versus that from chocolate.

Glycemic index is what complicates things.  Glycemic index (GI) is a value placed on foods that indicates how they affect your blood sugar.  High GI foods are typically white, i.e. white rice and potatoes.  These foods tend to spike your blood sugar and insulin levels rapidly, which can cause the glucose to be converted to fat.  Then there’s glycemic load, which takes into account the carbohydrate content of the food and gives a more accurate depiction of its effect on blood sugar.  

The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition explains it better than I can:

“Low-GI foods are relatively more satiating than are their high-GI counterparts.
Compared with low-GI meals, high-GI meals induce a greater rise and fall in blood glucose and a greater rise in blood insulin, leading to lower concentrations of the body’s 2 main fuels (blood glucose and fatty acids) in the immediate post-absorptive period. The reduced availability of metabolic fuels may act as a signal to stimulate eating.”

This is why, if you are like me, you get ravenous 10 minutes after eating an apple.  When eating fruit, I recommend adding something with a little protein (cheese, peanut butter, etc.) to avoid the rapid fluctuation in blood sugar and starvation that ensues.

The Journal continues:

“Studies have shown that the chronic consumption of a diet with a high glycemic load is independently associated with an increased risk of developing type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and certain cancers…

A low-GI diet might also protect against the development of obesity, colon cancer, and breast cancer.”

For the full article, which contains the GI and glycemic load values for over 750 foods, click here.
Thanks for the blog inspiration, Bert. Now we just have to figure out how to get The Bert Show in for a WOD…