Imagine this....
You can eat a 200g bag of jelly snakes in one sitting without blinking. One of your favourite spreads is honey, and you have been known to eat half a loaf of bread when it's toasted and spread with honey.
You know this, and don't like the fact that once you start eating sweet stuff you find it hard to stop. You gradually reduce your sugar consumption so you only have it around your workouts, when your body can best use it.
Then, in the four weeks before your comp, you cut out the sugary stuff around your workouts as well. After a couple of weeks things like sweet potatoes and blueberries start to taste sweet. Your body feels calm.
You receive your instructions before your show. Jelly snakes and honey are two of the ingredients for your carb up. You stand in the confectionary aisle, reluctantly looking at the jelly snakes. It's been months since you last had any. You throw a packet in your basket, along with a bottle of squeezy honey.
Think about this for a moment. You have had months of eating low- to no-sugar foods (by choice) and in the last four weeks your carbohydrates have mostly come from low-GI plant-based foods. How do you think your body is going to react when you do two shows over a weekend and have two days of back-to-back high GI carbs? Please sir, can I have some more?
More than anything, my experience with comp prep this year has taught me to stay true to my beliefs about how my body works. I would rather do a longer, slower carb up on sweet potatoes on the Thursday and Friday before a show than have sweet potato on the Friday and rice cakes, honey and jelly snakes on the Saturday. Give the body more of what it's used to, rather than shock it with something foreign.
6 comments:
Great post Charlotte.
We have to live and learn as to what works for us as individuals, one size fits all most definately doesn't work, as we are all different.
You sound like your in a place where you know whats right for you and your body, what better place to be?
SHar x
Hey Charlotte
Previous comps i did the honey/lolly thing - this year - very different, whilst alot of peeps where sucking honey from a jar, i had whipped up and ate every couple of hours sweet potatoe with flaxseed and pepper on a ricecake. Worked for me! I had red wine and a few jelly beans to pump up - body felt much better for it ie: no sugar headache/rush!
As Shar says, EVERYONE is different and what works for some doesnt for others, all about experimenting and monitoring the bodies reactions x
Hi Charlotte,
I avoided all sugar around the show time because I didn't want my veins popping out.
I even went to Whole Foods and got the peanut butter without sugar in it to fat load.
After the show however.. there were lots of M&M's backstage that were definitetly hard to stop eating once I started... which turned into Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin Robbins... well you get the idea.
Cheers on an excellent post,
~C.
Its great that you have learnt what works for you. I guess you don't know until you try it.
I don't know anything about 'comps' as I'm still losing weight to get to a heathy weight range, but love the BB girls posts. I have learnt so much. I just love Miss Tanks post about the red wine,& jelly beans. Maybe there will be a physique competitor in this body yet!!! Like most things it's all bout knowing what's best for you. Essie
It's so funny to hear you call them "jelly snakes". Over here in the US we call them "gummy worms". LOL. Most things are the same but every now and then reading your blog something will pop up that reminds me - you're in Austrailia.
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