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Late afternoon crashes

Started by Piotr Ochocki, June 6, 2016 · 3 Replies · 112 Views

Piotr Ochocki

Putting this here as it could be related to @Jeff Serven daily meal flow.

Maybe you could give me some advice on optimal approach to troubleshoot/sort this problem, which is basically a crash in the late afternoon (end of work/after work time, around 6pm).
Breakfast (8am) these days fuels me nicely most of the days, where before around midday I was often starving, now I'm hungry at worst. I seem to have more energy during aerobic "workout" (yesterday I was hiking up a small hill like a small machine after supper/breakfast, to my surprise a bit), but then in the late afternoon I'm sleepy, weak, my Foundation training is super bad. Today's example, strong morning, lunch around 12:30 (solid portion of thai curry with rice plus my veg with olive oil) slightly hungry couple hours later (few hours later I often want to eat more), ate some crap (hey for spare cakes around the office), then 5-6pm comes, I nearly sleep, can't do anything. Ate a bit, it did help some, but not that much, it usually gets better around 9-10pm if I eat solidly before that. But then should I eat again to have some good after training meal?
These crashes seem to repeat more often in last couple weeks.
My gut(!) feeling is I need more carbs (maybe protein as well). Unsure if best would be to put a second meal in the late afternoon (and if so, then keep it again carbs + protein limit fats at this time?), depending on the day my training would be somewhere around 6-8pm, or 8-10pm and then eat dinner after training/night time?

Jared Birbeck

follow your gut.

I usually do breakfast 6.30-730ish then lunch around 11.30/12. I definitely need something mid to late afternoon as I won't have dinner until around 730 and 8 hrs is too long. Depends on the day but porridge with Greek yoghurt is my usual. But I recall Jeff saying somewhere he does a second smaller lunch for those long days.

Jeff Serven

Start by switching that after lunch snack to something a little 'heather' for you. Its a small step but, thats what we want: a really easy fix. 

Piotr Ochocki

Thanks, will continue experimenting with second lunch/snack on those days.