How serious are you about your weight for racing?

[GSXR RACER MIKE]

     I am definately one of the people that have to watch out when working out because of my basic frame and ability to build size quickly. After changing positions at work I am now in a far less physically demanding environment. Thus I gained weight rather quickly due to less calories being burned thru activity and had enough trouble just stopping that negative trend. Now that I leveled off I have to get back down on weight or the leathers are going to be a problem!
     Whether racing, bike riding, down hill skiing, snowmobiling, or stand-up style jet-skiing my stamina has never been an issue due to being over weight most of my life. I even wonder if as long as your cardio fitness is good that the extra fat might actually provide more available energy when racing? I never have had a problem with fading away during a race due to physical reasons, even after racing 6 classes per event.
     Something people should be careful of is just going by their weight. I have a Body Mass Index (B.M.I.) scale now and it is much more representative of your overall fitness than weight alone. For those who don't already know, this sends a super low level pulse (which you can't feel at all) thru your body via metal pads mounted on the top of the scale. Your supposed to be stripped down when doing this, have clean feet that are not wet, and do it right before you have your evening dinner (for consistency). The scale will give you both your weight and your BMI and can be purchased at many sporting goods stores. BMI is NOT your body fat %, but instead relies on the fact that muscle and fat have different electrical resistance and can be tested very easily thru this pulse method.
     My goal is to watch my Body Mass Index while loosing weight and get it to and maintain it at a safe %.

[Super Dave]

I even wonder if as long as your cardio fitness is good that the extra fat might actually provide more available energy when racing? I never have had a problem with fading away during a race due to physical reasons, even after racing 6 classes per event.

I'll agree.  If you can put your body into a state of Ketosis, where your body is using fat stores for energy rather than trying to convert carbs, yes, it does feel better, from my experience.  And endurance and sprint athletes have proven that same case too.  I don't have the studies, but I have seen them.  And again, I have some experience in that too.

[TZDeSioux]

Isn't ketosis kinda dangerous? Ketosis is basically the first step to the adkins diet where your body burns stored fat and I hear it's not too good for the body because to get to that stage.. you have to refrain from any carb intake. Anyone want to clarify this? I need to shed some of my winter blubber before April and I'm too lazy to do it properly.

[Super Dave]

Ketosis is a natural process that occurs in the body, period.  That is how fat is burned and used as energy.

I'll go off on my tangent...

We're cavemen, ok.  So, food is abundant at times, and at others is isn't.  Protein is used to build things.  Carbohydrates are used for energy IF they are needed immediately.  So, when cavemen found berrys and such, they ate them until they couldn't eat them anymore.  They use some of the energy and the rest was stored as...fat.  The caveman goes out and kills some fish, deer, mabye a bear, whatever.  Eats that and he has protien for building his body's muscles, bones, injuries from the mammoth ambush, etc.  You get too much protein, it leaves your system.

Now, when the caveman has a restricted diet in the winter, he probably had smoked fish or something that would keep, but he would go out and try and kill something fresh, if he could find it.  So, his body would still be getting protien.  For energy, the body moves into a state of ketosis and it utilizes fat stores for energy.  

Take the protien sources away...

Here's where it gets interesting.  The body won't want to use the fat it has stored away.  It wants to use that for energy.  And, after all that's all it can be used for.  But if you have a building or repair fuction in your body, you have to have protien.  Fat doesn't work for it, and neither do carbs.  So, your body goes and takes materials from muscles and bones to take care of building that just has to be taken care of.

So, in my years of racing I had tried a whole lot of things to loose weight.  One year, I was so frustrated, I didn't really eat real food for about six weeks (racers can be so obsessive compulsive).  I worked out a whole lot.  I did loose some weight, but then it kind of stopped.  Then my work outs suffered.  My body wasn't going to release any of that fat because it might need that later.  Eventually, I had to start eating because my strenght was suffering.

So, a couple of years ago, i did buy the Adkins book.  I read it.  I understand what ketosis is.  Now, yes, Dr Adkins says you should reduce your carb intake to about 20 grams a day for about two weeks.  You don't have to eliminate them.  This is called the induction phase.  Why do this?  Because food is so over filled with carbs, it's just unreal.  Our carb intake is skewed one way, so it needs to kind of get skewed back on track.  It isn't easy.  Your body is so used to having tons of carbs floating around that you can feel kind of tired, a bit sluggish.  It's just your body getting back into the swing of how it should be.

After that, you can add carbs little by little.  We each have kind of a threashold for weight loss.  

Heart problems?  Wanna talk about cholesterol numbers.  People in Europe seem to lead the way in cholesterol numbers.  Lots and lots of people have numbers in the 300's.  But they aren't dead and they don't have plaque in their arteries.  Oh, and they like naturally high fat foods with cream, liver, sausage, etc.  And how many really fat Europeans do you see?

The heart problems can be traced back to too many carbs, fluctuating insulin, (gee, now we have a diabetes problem...even among kids...).  All pretty much goes back to WAY too many carbs.

And there seems to be this thing floating around that too much protein can damage a kidney.  No such study.  However, a damaged kidney can't process protien.  That's the apparent root of that one.

Dave's advice.  buy the book.  I'm not the leanest guy, but I found that I can loose weight by eating rather than starving and working my self to death.  I should exercise, but I don't have time.  And then racing season comes and I eat incorrectly.

I am back on a low carb diet again.  I've lost about seven or eleven pounds.  You see more happening with a low carb diet because you loose the mass of fat, which doesn't really have a lot of weight.  Unfortunately, we carry WAAAY too much of it...

[unforgivenracing]

Hardcore ::)
Always active.  Upper body to throw it in the turns 8)
Jogging and biking for the heart, lungs, legs. :P  Sex for the rest ::) Bloody Marys for guts. ;)
 :o6 ft, @175lbs. fully suited 8)

[TreyBone]

I try my best to eat 4 fried chickens and a coke before each race. oops i almost forgot, you got to smoke 2 packs of Marlboro Lights too ;D

[Super Dave]

I prefer a quicker charge....

A pack of Camel non fliters in a retention enema... :o

[chris_chops]

Dave,
Are you refering to yourself in the third person now?
Matt wants to know. :)

[tigerblade]

Dave,
  
Could you do a quick rundown of foods to avoid (high carb)?  Pretty much pastas, cereals, breads, potatoes...  what else?

[Super Dave]

Dave,
Are you refering to yourself in the third person now?
Matt wants to know. :)

We are Borg...

[Super Dave]

Dave,
  
Could you do a quick rundown of foods to avoid (high carb)?  Pretty much pastas, cereals, breads, potatoes...  what else?

Super Dave's full service...

I look at the boxes and all.  

The further away it is from the farm, the more carbs it probably has...

You're pretty much spot on.  But you've got to look.  I like soup, and usually, it's pretty decent.  The wonderful wife picked me up some Healthy Choice soup and it was loaded with about three times the carbs of my normal soup.

I love bread...  That's the hard one for me.  Pasta too....

Ever notice that you can sit down and eat about a pound a pasta and a whole loaf of bread?  Carbs just make you want more...gives you kind of a charge...like Red Bull (it's loaded too, then they put caffeen in it to slam it in your system...).

For eight bucks or so...  Buy the Atkins Diet Revolution book.  Read the whole thing.  Then you know how it works.  Keep reading it so you understand.

I think the big trick for racers...  Travel.  If you go to get burgers, throw away the bun.  The meat and cheese is good for you, and you'll feel full.  Eat it with the bun (carbs) and you'll want about ten more burgers.  Fat can be a key...it makes you feel full.  And it is necessary for absorbtion of certain minerals and vitamins.  Fat does not make you fat.  

[KBOlsen]

I did Atkins for the first time a little over two years ago.  Lost 45 lbs. with no real "extraordinary" exercise.  The hardest part was giving up fruit and sweets.  After the first 10 days, it got a lot easier - energy levels were actually noticeably higher than before I started.  Atkins will definitely teach you the importance of reading labels on packaged foods.  It seemed like there was corn syrup in EVERYTHING!

One thing I learned from Atkins was that high-fat diets were never problematic before man invented processed sugar.  The Inuit did just fine on a high-fat diet... the problems started when sugar and refined flour were introduced.  Heart disease and diabetes were virtually unheard of until the dawn of the 20th century - and there is a direct correlation between introduction of things like Coca-Cola into the diet and diabetes/obesity/heart disease.  The pancreas can only work so hard at producing insulin for so long before it just "quits".

I'm back on Atkins again - haven't been weighing myself but my clothes are getting looser.  Next will be stepping up exercising... building stamina and lower body strength (honestly, I should have started this last fall but procrastination....)  

If you're going the high-protein/low carb route, watch out for starchy vegetables (potatoes, corn, peas and beans), hidden corn products in prepared foods (most Chinese cooking uses corn starch as a thickener in sauces) as well as the obvious (pasta, bread, rice, etc.).  Fruit is laden with sugar too.