Paul Petch

Being a mountain biking vegetarian

I’ve been feeling really flat of late where I’d have a few weeks of being on form and riding really well- recovering quickly and generally coping with “life stuff” and then I’d get tired real quick- unable to concentrate- and generally ache and feel like total rubbish. Night sweats and restlessness would follow and It’s at this point that I have to really slow things down. If I was to be honest the past 3 years have been a struggle to fit in work, family and play…. but with things now feeling out of whack its becoming a real bummer. I’ve been a vegetarian for 15 + yrs now but the past 12 months I’ve really increased my physical activity and I’m sure my diet has become unbalanced and I’m struggling to cope with this increase. I’m fairly active, but not enough to warrant such exhaustion!!

Anyway, yesterday I visited a nutritionist at the College of natural medicine here in Christchurch to get a check up. What a fantastic experience it was too! Put simply I have got a Vitamin B12 deficiency, Omega 3 deficiency and a  Protein deficiency and generally need to start eating more regularly combined with protein to stop sugar cravings. My blood pressure is also a little high….so that will need to be fixed too. The nutritionist also prescribed some supplements to help my cardiovascular health and anxiety which I often suffer from which can be exaggerated due to all of the above. I also need to lose another 7KG to get me down to 70KG which will not only help reduce my love handles and risk of heart disease but then puts me pretty much bang on for fat mass for my size. The bonus is that I’ll climb like a mountain goat too. So watch this space!

Overall though, aside from lack of energy! I’m doing alright….and It was found that I have a higher muscle mass than average (4.5KG more) which apparently is fantastic news in that I can burn fat better than the average person (i.e. I have a high metabolism) and I’ve also got some funky intra and extra cellular fluid balance thing happening which again is quite unusual…. in that I can regulate cell activity a tad more efficiently than the average person. I have a print out of data here that really sounds good… but I have no idea what it means……haha.

It’s not easy it seems to eat a balanced diet as a vegetarian especially when it comes to protein intake… yes all amino acids required are found in meat alternatives, but require such complex combination’s throughout the day that I’ve opted for a Whey protein shake twice a day on top of other protein sources….. which is fine. I also learnt that eating protein alongside a complex carbohydrate will slow down the release of sugars into the blood further so that sugar cravings will decrease…..infact protein makes you feel full which also helps to stop overeating :) By eating more regularly and adding more protein into my diet as well as some supplements my sugar cravings, exhaustion, blues, sleeplessness, inability to concentrate…etc etc should subside. FANTASTIC!

Currently I’m keeping a food diary and noting how I feel overall to then email to the nutritionist at the end of the week for her feedback. I’m also booked in for a visit in 4 weeks for another vitamin B12 injection. I’ll also get some blood work done in the next few months for my liver and cholesterol…. as well as an extensive test to check for food allergies and intolerance’s. I’ll post up my findings!

On the diet side of things I’m currently reading a book called Sports Nutrition, by Anita Bean which is a fantastic read when it comes to advice of fueling for an activity both pre and post as well as the science behind energy stores and their uses. The book also provides some fantastic advice on recommended calories etc per day based on body size/ level of activity/ goals etc.

The bottom line is that I’m not doing to bad and you know what too? I feel alot better today already knowing that this can be fixed with diet….. vs DRUGS that the local GP wanted to prescribe.

My advice to you if you are feeling “off” is to go visit a nutritionist as well as your GP even if you are not a vegetarian….as it’s a real eye opener!

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 8:41 am and is filed under Bike Stuff and tagged with nutrition, vegetarian. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.