eating pre and post run?

AngInCanada

I was a bit nauseated this morning so only had my coffee (stevia and heavy cream) with 2 hardboiled eggs and a tbsp of butter. I ran 6.5 km in 1 hour. Got home and my blood sugar plummeted. Had a panic attack due to the blood sugar. Grrrr. So I just ate a slab of turkey meat and an ounce of cheese but man...don't wanna go through that again.

For those of you who run, what.do you generally eat before and after a run? I stick to 20 net carbs a day although some days I'm a few over.

nill4me

Yikes...sorry! How long have you been LC? Are you diabetic? How low was your blood glucose? You were nauseated before the run, so did you by chance check it before hand? Just curious. Have you had any kind of fueling issues previously while eating LC and running? If your body is on the fence with "fat-adaptation", you can stress your body and have some performance issues until you are completely fat fueled. Many folks will back off of physical activity until adaptation occurs, but I acquiesce to the smart folk that live here

AngInCanada

I'm 16 days into low carb. Before I was a carb junkie! Toast before run, high carb protein shake after. Sandwich for lunch. Meat and potatoes for dinner. Probably 300+ carbs a day....at least.

I'm not a diabetoc and I don't check my sugars but I've had hypoglycemia for years but can never pinpoint why.

Dragonwolf

AngInCanada wrote: »

I'm 16 days into low carb. Before I was a carb junkie! Toast before run, high carb protein shake after. Sandwich for lunch. Meat and potatoes for dinner. Probably 300+ carbs a day....at least.

I'm not a diabetoc and I don't check my sugars but I've had hypoglycemia for years but can never pinpoint why.

Your experience, then, is pretty typical, assuming it actually was a drop in blood sugar (without testing, there really isn't a way of telling for sure, I'll get to that in a minute). Hypoglycemia is early-stage insulin resistance. When you combine a sudden drop in carbs with endurance exercise like running, and add a pre-existing "not feeling well" on top of it, you've pretty much got a perfect storm for crashing from one thing or another.

That said, it may not actually have been a blood sugar crash, but rather electrolyte imbalance. Early stage keto is naturetic (sodium dumping). Combine that with the fluid and sodium loss from sweating from a run, and you have yourself a situation of being too low on sodium. And yeah, it makes you feel like crap. If eating the turkey and cheese made you feel better almost right away, this is more likely the issue, since both are fairly high sodium (especially if it's deli turkey) and don't really have any carbs to speak of.

Either way, there's a reason it's recommended that you go easy on the exercise in the first month or so of this way of eating.

AngInCanada

That makes sense! I did a long run a couple weeks ago and felt awesome but was only 2 or 3 days in at that point so I was probably still burning off all my carbs.

wabmester

I eat a pickle before and after a run. Or a SaltStick capsule if there are no pickles to be found. It's possible to get hypoglycemic, but it's more likely low sodium.

glossbones

Any time I'm nauseated I try to have a little sodium first. Pickles are great, or broth.