How do you eat enough calories in an aerobathon?

topbombin

Hi all

I'm doing a 5 hour dance aerobathon in 3 weeks time. Looking the calorie burn up for high impact aerobics, i should burn over 3400 calories!

Does anyone have any ideas as to what to eat or how to match this amount of calories in the day.

Thanks

topbombin

Bumping for any ideas!

Eaglesfanintn

I would think you would want to fuel like a marathoner. Say your aerobathon is on Saturday - eat carbs Wed and Thur. Build up your glycogen stores. Friday should be healthy, but not too heavy (pasta dinners the night before do almost nothing for you). Saturday, get some light carbs in the morning - maybe a bagel and some yogurt. Then during, make sure you're hydrated and maybe use some GU or Hammer gels or protein bars to keep your energy levels up.

eleslie1989

hey, i just had a quick search there and seen this wesite.

http://www.powerbar.com/articles/390/sports-nutrition-before-during-and-after-trainingcompetition.aspx

hope it helps a little.

trail_rnr

Yes, you will need to eat like an endurance athlete as Eagles fans suggests. During the event you might think about following the advice in item 3 on this web page:

http://www.hammernutrition.com/knowledge/the-top-10-the-biggest-mistakes-endurance-athletes-make.1273.html?sect=essential-knowledge-section

You can only absorb so many calories, and it's not usually as much as you are burning. So your diet in the weeks and days leading up to the event is also important. Make sure your glycogen stores are full!

topbombin

Thanks everyone! That is really useful. Thanks for the useful websites too.

When i signed up for it i was only thinking about the exercise and training for that. I then realised that my food intake would be really important.

Any other comments would be gratefully received.

topbombin

hey, i just had a quick search there and seen this wesite.

http://www.powerbar.com/articles/390/sports-nutrition-before-during-and-after-trainingcompetition.aspx

hope it helps a little.

Thanks eleslie1989, the website is really useful. I can now get thinking of which lovely carbs I can eat for breakfast. We start at 11am so if i get up early i should have plenty of time to eat before the event and hydrate myself suficiently.

cardbucfan

Wow-thanks for posting this. I'm doing something similar this Saturday and truly didn't even think about the eating before hand or during (other than to bring a Clif bar for midway through!). I was more focused on all the lovely calories I would have for that night!

topbombin

Yes, you will need to eat like an endurance athlete as Eagles fans suggests. During the event you might think about following the advice in item 3 on this web page:

http://www.hammernutrition.com/knowledge/the-top-10-the-biggest-mistakes-endurance-athletes-make.1273.html?sect=essential-knowledge-section

You can only absorb so many calories, and it's not usually as much as you are burning. So your diet in the weeks and days leading up to the event is also important. Make sure your glycogen stores are full!

Thanks trail_rnr - that website is quite deep but brings up some useful info on hydration which i really needed to know about. I dont think I do drink enough before this type of exercise so I need to change my routine.

topbombin

Wow-thanks for posting this. I'm doing something similar this Saturday and truly didn't even think about the eating before hand or during (other than to bring a Clif bar for midway through!). I was more focused on all the lovely calories I would have for that night!

Yes card - the websites are a good read and have good info - let me have any tips that you pick up when youve done your event. Ive done plenty of 2 hour events but never a 5hr before so im nervous that I can eat and drink the right stuff so i survive!!!

topbombin

Anyone with any other experience or ideas?

topbombin

Bump

cardbucfan

Reporting back after my "thon" this morning.

I ate normally the last couple of days, had breakfast for dinner last night so carbs and protein. Ate my normal pre-workout breakfast this morning with two glasses of water instead of one and only 1 cup of coffee and off I went.

the way our thing was set up was they were doing back-to-back-to-back group fitness classes in one place and at the same time they were doing a spin-a-thon and you could go from class to class. So what I did was zumba for 75 minutes first thing, headed to the spin room and ate a Clif mojo bar before the first spin ride. I finished one bottle of water in zumba and refilled before the first spin class. I did 70 minutes of spin then had a banana and I refilled my water bottle twice. Did another 40 minutes of spin and had some cookies (options were limited at this point!).

I did close to four hours of fairly constant aerobic activity with short breaks to re-fill my water bottle. I felt fine. I was certainly DONE by the end and tried to do the final spin class but my legs had nothing left in them for the "metal mountain" (I also didn't pace myself like I should have-problem I have when I hear a great song I go hard!).

Hope this helps. I wish I'd had another banana instead of the cookies but those got inhaled pretty quickly!

topbombin

Thanks for that - do you think you just ran out of food fuel in the end? Will you try and eat back all the exercise calories or just do you normal thing?

cardbucfan

No I don't think it was food fuel-I think it was just tired muscles and not pacing myself properly. I've done double spins before but not triple spins on top of zumba! I ate back some of the calories-indulged with Mexican but I still had quite a large deficit at the end of the day. I'll eat pretty healthy today and am taking my normal rest day but for some garage cleaning.

topbombin

Ok cool, thanks for the info