What/When to Eat So I'm Not Dead After Zumba?
Hi all!
I do zumba classes (which is moderate-high intensity in my area, lots of jumping and squatting) for 1 hour 5x a week and am ready to fall over afterwards. I felt better after class a couple of weeks ago than I do now. Recently, I was taking a shower at the gym after class when my vision started to go black from the outside inwards (like tunnel vision closing in on it's self, but spotty) and I collapsed onto my knees and and had to keep my head down until it didn't feel so heavy and I could get back up. I get about 80oz. of water per day and take a water bottle to class, but I won't rule out dehydration for that particular incident. I don't count calories and don't starve myself, pretty much just eat when I'm hungry. Is there anything I can do to be less tired after zumba? I'm perfectly fine *during* the class (except for some heartburn that's probably unrelated), it's only afterwards that I have this issue. 4/5 of the classes are at 6pm, so I'd expect some tiredness, but I'd just like to be able to walk without feeling like I'm going to fall over. The class does involve a warm-up and cool-down, if that's relevant. Any suggestions? |
Drinking that much water might be flushing all the electrolytes out of your system. Make sure you're getting plenty of salt. Please read "The Salt Thread" in my signature.
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Are you on any medications? any medical conditions? Do you ever test your blood sugars? If that happens again, I would contact your doctor's office or a consulting nurse just to be safe. It reminds me of episodes I had with low blood pressure.
Aside from sticking to a clean low-carb diet, I'm not sure that you can "eat for energy". You'll probably do best if you are in ketosis (as long as you have adapted). I've had some of my best, most energetic days when I've skipped breakfast (intermittent fasting). For instance today I moved 2 tons of flag stone, wheeled 1 yard of river rock, and mixed 6 bags of concrete, after skipping breakfast. I'm tired but not overly so. |
1 hour, 5x a week. Probably not eating enough for that much sugar-burning exercise. You could be bonking from your body not producing enough glucose .
Mark Sisson has some fun breakdowns of the energy needed to support daily exercise. You might want to read up and then compare your food, your body, and where your movement is. In the quote below, PB stands for his Primal Blueprint program. Quote:
A Zumba workout for a female at 200 pounds and 35 years old, would take 800 calories according to a simple calculator found on a Google search. Since it's moderate-high intensity, say it's 75% sugar-burning and 25% fat burning. That means 600 calories of glucose are needed each day just for the exercise session. That has to be glucose, not coming from your stored fat. Don't know how much protein, fat, and carb you have, but that might take an extra what, 150 g of protein per day, over and above your usual? Notice that Sisson assumes you would just add more carbs if carb energy is what you're missing. Personally I would do that too but it wouldn't work if you were zero carb. |
Take a look at the blog of Sami Inkinen (if you google him, you'll find him).
He is an ultra triathlete, and a winning one, and is very low carb. He has a series of graphs on his blog, showing how, once he went low carb, he could exercise longer without hitting a wall, because a greater percentage of his energy was coming from fat, and even the leanest athlete has several days worth of fat to draw on. I think I would assume, if you are in ketosis, that the issue is dehydration and loss of electrolytes. Try drinking a quart of water before your Zumba class, with enough salt in it that you can taste the salt, but just barely. If you start with hot water and the salt, it'll dissolve more easily, then add cool water to make it taste better. |
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