Paleo Diet and Paleolithic Diet Questions & Answers

Question

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This is my second week of paleo and while I feel great I can't seem to stop being hungry. I'm an elite athlete and my official training starts next week. I'm really trying to get a handle of Paleo before the work begins. Is this common for people to be so hungry when they first start paleo. I am looking to lean out and drop about 15 pounds before October. Any ideas on keeping fueled from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm during speed and power sessions?

flag	asked May 8 2012 at 19:34 Morgan 1●1

Casey · Answer 1 · 2012-05-08 19:39:03Z UTC

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You sound like you might be the type of person who needs more carbs while on Paleo. This assumes you've stumbled across the low-carb version of paleo.

There are those (Ben Greenfield, Phil Maffetone) who suggest that an athlete can still do plenty fine on lower carbs, but their idea of low is as compared to SAD; i.e. 100-150g carbs/day.

So if you're restricting your carbs and still keeping a high training volume, you just might need to increase it until you get to a comfortable level.

answered May 8 2012 at 19:39

Casey
7,766●8●39

Thanks so much! That was kinda my thought but I thought I would try the low carb option first and see how my body reacted. Any thoughts on how long I should test the low carb waters before increasing my carb intake? I'm trying to be as true as possible, at least in the beginning. – Morgan May 8 2012 at 19:56

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Morgan, I have often heard that it takes the body approximately two weeks to adjust to low carb. If you're already a week in then you might as well stick with it another week and see if you can get over the hump. – MeepsIsWellfed May 8 2012 at 21:58

Read Dr. Volek's book on performance and training. I think you'll find it interesting - triatheletes, ultra-marathoners, power lifters, etc. benefit esp. – Wowza May 9 2012 at 1:45

Bandman · Answer 2 · 2012-05-08 20:12:08Z UTC

I am a cyclist and my focus in the past has been on endurance events. 6hr MTB races and 200k road rides have been goals in the past. I began paleo in late December and was down to around 50g of carbs a day. After suffering though some pretty bad "carb flu" for a few weeks I started to feel pretty good but had no energy during workouts. I slowly started adding some sweet potato, winter squash, and small amounts of white rice. At this point, I am averaging 100-125g of carbs on most days that I workout and it has worked fine. I can do up to 2 hrs of pretty intense work with this level of carbs. I'll be experimenting with on the bike paleo fueling as my training takes me beyond the 2 hr mark.

Acumen Athletics · Answer 3 · 2012-05-09 01:41:45Z UTC

You can benifit from a low fat high carb diet on training days. High fat low carb on off days.

I train 3hrs 5x a week (when not training for a fight) & eat close to 400g of carbs on workout days. Fat is pretty low 30-50g (depending on my hunger) . On off days I eat near 2lbs of ribeye steak drenched in butter with carbs being under 80g.(usually a chocolate bar or some fruit)

Athlete new to the Paleo diet who can’t seem to be satisfied

3 Answers