Breakfast Construction

I want to start by apologizing for the super long post. It's a combo of question, background, and a little thinking out loud.

I'll start by saying that I'm intrigued by the no carb breakfast construction, and during the work week (when my exercise is in the evenings) this is working well. 

However, on the weekends, when I roll out of bed, grab food and coffee, and head directly to the gym I'm struggling. My weightlifting this weekend felt super heavy at a light warm up weight and I struggled with coordination and a foggy head throughout the workout. I had the same struggle last weekend. What shouldn't feel heavy was heavy, and my body and mind were sluggish.

It seems pretty obvious that I'm not getting enough fuel preworkout, and am hoping for some good suggestions. 

Here's the caveat and the struggle -- I'm lactose intolerant and have a very fussy tummy first thing in the morning. So all the yogurt and cheese people have mentioned in other threads wouldn't work for my breakfast.

What I had been using for weekend preworkout food prior to Thrive is a cup of almond milk with a scoop of beef protein powder, a banana, and a small handful of frozen berries in a blender. That's about my stomach's limit, but I'm willing to experiment.

During the work week, I cover breakfast with eggs, turkey sausage, and the occasional leftover from last night's dinner. A little MCT (coconut extract) oil in the coffee if it's a leaner protein choice. I've been considering maybe chicken and the MCT/coffee for preworkout, but I have my doubts that leftover chicken would give me the boost I need. (I had jerky with the coffee/MCT for this Saturday's breakfast and that didn't work out so well for energy. Last weekend, it was eggs fried in olive oil... two, barely, before I couldn't stomach another bite.)

I'm not a huge carb person. I had cut way back on breads, cereals and the like years ago, and that shake is the max of my fruits for any given day. But, I got desperate Sunday and had an english muffin slathered in peanut butter and felt much better for that workout. Go figure.

I'm looking forward to thoughts and suggestions from my fellow athletes.

Thanks,
Jennifer

PS Workout context: my weekend schedule is usually heavy Olympic lifting (one lift per day or a double for totals followed by a squat or jerk day), followed by accessory work, and lastly some GB stretching - MS/FS on Saturday (or Sat evening) and TB on Sunday post lifting.

@Jeff Serven I hear you're the guy when it comes to Thrive? I'd love some thoughts on pre-workout breakfast that's gentle on the stomach and fits into the no carb structure of this lesson.

Hi @Jennifer Marie, I can give you my opinion. I ve been experimenting for some time with different options: training fasted (absolute disaster), training on 10 gr BCAA (just a disaster), training on 10 gr BCCA + 1 piece of fruit or 30 gr oats (I can barely finished my workout), training on a no carb high protein high fat breakfast (sligtly better, but far from feeling energetic) and the last one; training on 30-50 grs of protein, 30-50 grs of carbs and 15-30 grs of fat (feeling absolutely amazing and powerful, having energy for all the duration of my workout and pushing much more, not to mention enjoying much more). I made all this point to say one really needs carb to train, specially GST and even more specially F1. The minimum amount of protein and carbs I need to workout is 30-30, if I consume less than that my training will suffer. If my training is gonna happen some hours later or the duration of it is going to be longer, then I need to go to at least 50gr carbs and 50gr protein.

Certainly not everyone is the same and some people may train good on a no carb breakfast. My recommendation is follow the basic rule of Thrive, but now is time for you to make some personal changes and see if it works better. Good luck!

I forgot to mention I workout much better when my carbs are coming from both starchy food (rice, oats, potatoes) and sugars (apple, banana...).

Thanks @Antonio Alías Montoya... I just tried the fasting experiment this weekend. Not too bad, but I've done it accidentally before and it hasn't gone well, so I'm not holding my breath there.

I've been trying to tough it out -- following Thrive to the letter -- hoping I'd adjust, but the grey areas in this program make me second guess this tactic. I think I just needed that permission to tweak things now that I have experimented with the lessons. Yes, I love the idea of some oats and protein. I suspect I'd do much better on that kind of breakfast too.

It's not like I want a bowl of Lucky Charms... just some fuel for the workout.  

1 minute ago, Jennifer Marie said:

Thanks @Antonio Alías Montoya... I just tried the fasting experiment this weekend. Not too bad, but I've done it accidentally before and it hasn't gone well, so I'm not holding my breath there.

I've been trying to tough it out -- following Thrive to the letter -- hoping I'd adjust, but the grey areas in this program make me second guess this tactic. I think I just needed that permission to tweak things now that I have experimented with the lessons. Yes, I love the idea of some oats and protein. I suspect I'd do much better on that kind of breakfast too.

It's not like I want a bowl of Lucky Charms... just some fuel for the workout.  

Exactly, is not about eating 2 doughnuts, just 30 grs of oats with an small apple!  Of course if one is not training after breakfast one can do very well without carbs, even without carbs for the whole day if one is not train this day at all!

Hi Jennifer,

If I workout after breakfast, I need to have some fat for long lasting fuel. As long as I've had enough carbs for dinner the night before, I don't need carbs first thing in the morning. I usually have a eggs/avocado/smoked salmon/coconut cream and chia seeds/nuts/omega3. There's many dairy free options  

Please let us know how your experimenting is going

It is interesting to see how same food can have completely different reactions on us. I usually divide my training into two sessions: 

In the morning I usually do my maximal strength workout and in the evening complementary exercises plus conditioning. My goals are planche and front lever and feel a lot lighter and stronger in the morning after having a small but caloric breakfast. My favourite option is meat and nuts. If I had to train maximal strength after eating carbs, I'd feel a lot heavier, which is okay for weightlifting but not for bodyweight exercises. My morning session lasts usually around 30 minutes and in the evening 2 hours, which I can face a lot better after carb consumption. Thus, I think that for a short but demanding workout it is a lot better fat consumption and for a long and intense workout in which your blood flow increases, I'd recommend carb consumption. 

Opinions? 

Always better with carbs for me and among all carbs rice absolutelty beat it, the number one for performance. 

In my opinion the art is to balance between carbs and fat, both provides energy. Fat is better used on low intensity trainings and carbs are better used on high intensity trainings. Taking the energy from the fat is slower and that s the reason, but some people are better than other in burning fat as fuel. Supossedly the more athletic you are the better you burn fats. So each individual should play a bit with carb and fat intake during training and rest days. I feel lighter and more powerful with chicken and rice than with greek yogurt and salmon. I m just talking about the performance aspect (not the health). But this may change with the years. Of course when I say i feel better with carbs I mean rice, oats and potatoes, not bread, jam and breakfast cereals. 

My options when distributing the macros are:

1. High protein/High fat/Low carb (not working out or just strecht)

2.High Protein/Low fat/High carb (post workout)

3. High Protein/Moderate fat/Moderate carb (preworkout) or High Protein/Low fat/Moderate carb (also preworkout).

That s what works better for me at the moment, but I m not married to this, I want results, so if other approach will give me better results I ll change it.

7 hours ago, Antonio Alías Montoya said:

Always better with carbs for me and among all carbs rice absolutelty beat it, the number one for performance. 

In my opinion the art is to balance between carbs and fat, both provides energy. Fat is better used on low intensity trainings and carbs are better used on high intensity trainings. Taking the energy from the fat is slower and that s the reason, but some people are better than other in burning fat as fuel. Supossedly the more athletic you are the better you burn fats. So each individual should play a bit with carb and fat intake during training and rest days. I feel lighter and more powerful with chicken and rice than with greek yogurt and salmon. I m just talking about the performance aspect (not the health). But this may change with the years. Of course when I say i feel better with carbs I mean rice, oats and potatoes, not bread, jam and breakfast cereals. 

My options when distributing the macros are:

1. High protein/High fat/Low carb (not working out or just strecht)

2.High Protein/Low fat/High carb (post workout)

3. High Protein/Moderate fat/Moderate carb (preworkout) or High Protein/Low fat/Moderate carb (also preworkout).

That s what works better for me at the moment, but I m not married to this, I want results, so if other approach will give me better results I ll change it.

Completely agree with you. My strength trainings are low in intensity, thus I only perform a couple of one arm handstands and 5 full planche holds. So I feel better after eating a small dose of a very caloric source of fats. Priority for me is to feel light. In the evening I do my high intensity training after carbs for lunch.

Hi folks, thanks for all the info. I've stopped Thrive and went back to my macro counting. Between the lack of breakfast carbs and the higher fat intake, I was just feeling awful for too long. I'm feeling better now, with more energy and better recovery. This program just wasn't for me.

On 3/30/2018 at 3:46 PM, Jennifer Marie said:

Hi folks, thanks for all the info. I've stopped Thrive and went back to my macro counting. Between the lack of breakfast carbs and the higher fat intake, I was just feeling awful for too long. I'm feeling better now, with more energy and better recovery. This program just wasn't for me.

Hi Jennifer, 

I was reading your first post. To me it seems that your body is not used to take fats as an energy source yet. It takes time to get used to it. I'm following Thrives breakfast since August 2017 and recently started to workout only on fats in the morning. So, that is about 7-8 months of adaptation for my body to work optimally on fats. On the other hand, you were clearly not eating enough fats in the morning but only protein: 

On 1/29/2018 at 5:22 PM, Jennifer Marie said:

During the work week, I cover breakfast with eggs, turkey sausage, and the occasional leftover from last night's dinner. A little MCT (coconut extract) oil in the coffee if it's a leaner protein choice. I've been considering maybe chicken and the MCT/coffee for preworkout, but I have my doubts that leftover chicken would give me the boost I need. (I had jerky with the coffee/MCT for this Saturday's breakfast and that didn't work out so well for energy. Last weekend, it was eggs fried in olive oil... two, barely, before I couldn't stomach another bite.)

Try to double or triple the intake of fats in the morning and you will feel the difference. And, to conclude, I dont know how you can train better and have a better regeneration with a banana, berries, almond milk and a scoop of beef protein for breakfast... That's basically sugar. I don't think that Thrive is not for you, you were just doing it wrong and not taking enough time for your body to adapt. 

8 hours ago, Oscar Riaño said:

Hi Jennifer, 

I was reading your first post. To me it seems that your body is not used to take fats as an energy source yet. It takes time to get used to it. I'm following Thrives breakfast since August 2017 and recently started to workout only on fats in the morning. So, that is about 7-8 months of adaptation for my body to work optimally on fats. On the other hand, you were clearly not eating enough fats in the morning but only protein: 

Try to double or triple the intake of fats in the morning and you will feel the difference. And, to conclude, I dont know how you can train better and have a better regeneration with a banana, berries, almond milk and a scoop of beef protein for breakfast... That's basically sugar. I don't think that Thrive is not for you, you were just doing it wrong and not taking enough time for your body to adapt. 

 I understand both of you guys. I think I m in the middle point. I understand perfectly well that Jennifer was feeling better on basicaly a protein and sugar breakfast, because leaving health aside there is nothing like the evil insuline spike sugar  to boost your performance. Nothing like a red bull or big coke! I read once about a body builder drinking around 5-6 liters of soda a day and was super lean. Of course we are not body builders and I don t recommend to drink soda. But at the same time is true that the more we are capable of burning fat as fuel the more athletic we are and the more energy we ll be. So becoming very dependant on carbs for energy it s a problem. But in my opinion this problem is solved when you just eat healthy carbs and the only sugar you consume is from whole fruit and when you know how many carbs you should eat at each time of the day and also taking into consideration yout training parameters. So I also don t consider the old Jennifer s breakfast a good breakfast, in both, health terms and performance terms, but i believe cutting completely carbs on breakfast before training will result in a big lost of performance. So I d consider on first changing the bad carbs (almond milk) for some healthy starches and change the high sugary fruit (banana) for low sugary fruit (berries, kiwis) and second on reducing slowly the amount of net carbs on youra breakfast to the point that you find your performance is not deteriorating. After some time feeling great try to reduce a bit of carbs and increase fat intake. Always same calories, play with carbs and fats. I hope this help!

Interesting topic. 

I have one question pretty much related to what was written above, so I hijack the topic for a while. 

I've been on Thrive for more than a year and for a long time, my mornings looked like this:

Around 8:00 - carbs free breakfast - big one :-). 

Around 10:00 - workout, for about hour - hour and a half. 

Somewhere between 11:30 - 12:00 - whey shake and 1-2 bananas

Around 13:00 - lunch - thrive approved. 

But lately, sleeping pattern of my daughter changed and as this is my only time I could workout uninterrupted, I have to push my workout later in the morning - starting somewhere around 11:30. By that time I start to feel lil bit hungry and have to have some snack before workout. If I don't, my energy crashes very soon and workout suffers. 

What I do right now - i'll have that wheyshake and banana before workout, at around 11:00 - 11:15 and feel OK during my workouts. After a workout I'm more than ready for lunch around 13:00 - 13:30. 

This means - sugars before lunchtime. So I thought lately, if that is optimal solution or would it be better sticking to protein/fat snack and keep those bananas for later. 

Any opinions? 

On 17. 4. 2018 at 2:08 PM, Petra Kmecová said:

Interesting topic. 

I have one question pretty much related to what was written above, so I hijack the topic for a while. 

I've been on Thrive for more than a year and for a long time, my mornings looked like this:

Around 8:00 - carbs free breakfast - big one :-). 

Around 10:00 - workout, for about hour - hour and a half. 

Somewhere between 11:30 - 12:00 - whey shake and 1-2 bananas

Around 13:00 - lunch - thrive approved. 

 

But lately, sleeping pattern of my daughter changed and as this is my only time I could workout uninterrupted, I have to push my workout later in the morning - starting somewhere around 11:30. By that time I start to feel lil bit hungry and have to have some snack before workout. If I don't, my energy crashes very soon and workout suffers. 

What I do right now - i'll have that wheyshake and banana before workout, at around 11:00 - 11:15 and feel OK during my workouts. After a workout I'm more than ready for lunch around 13:00 - 13:30. 

This means - sugars before lunchtime. So I thought lately, if that is optimal solution or would it be better sticking to protein/fat snack and keep those bananas for later. 

Any opinions? 

@Pauline Taube, @Everett Carroll

Or @Jeff Serven

Any advice would be appreciated, thanks. 

Thanks for the tag The simple answer is to eat the bananas and whey, Petra. 

This could be worth really digging into though, since you don't feel properly fueled during training, though. So, here are some ideas for now, while your daughter's sleep schedule continues to mess with your routine: 

8am 

Eat your normal breakfast

10:15-10:45

Scenario 1: Eat your lunch, or something with the same macros as the Thrive lunch.

Scenario 2: Since it's so close to breakfast, maybe eat half of your lunch during this time and the other half in the 1-2pm slot. 

Scenario 3: If you still want to workout without carbs, eat a second Thrive breakfast. Portion manipulation for the 2 breakfasts might be necessary to balance feeling good during the workout and overeating. 

11:30-12:30/1

Train

12-12:30 (post-workout)

Whey+Bananas

1-2 pm (true lunch)

Scenario 1: Eat a second lunch (different foods, same components)

Scenario 2: Eat the other half of the "lunch" from the 10 am slot, which would be the same foods. 

Scenario 3:  In this scenario, you would have eaten a second Thrive breakfast, so eat lunch as normal. 

I'm just brainstorming here. As long as you're not overeating because of the added meal/partial meal, this might be a successful strategy that allows you to perform better during training. My personal eating and training strategies might help you, so here are the two scenarios that exist in my world:

AM: I perform a light workout, skill session, or cardio in the AM after a low/no carb breakfast. This session is not every day and is never intense. It's more just to get the blood flowing. Whether I do it or not, morning eating is the same. 

PM: My main training session is always in the afternoon, but the timing is not always the same.

-If it is earlier (12-1pm), then I will eat lunch between 10:30 and 11:15 am. Then, AFTER, I'll have another Lunch (different foods, still Thrive Lunch).

-If it's later (3-6pm), I'll have a whey+fish oil snack in the am and eat lunch at about 12. Then I'll eat another lunch around 2. Train. Protein and Carbs after. Then Dinner (sometimes 2, lol). 

This is more complex and I'm going into this only because you've been crushing Thrive for so long. The meals listed in my scenarios are all full meals, since I'm not concerned with eating too much. In a case where weight loss/maintenance is the goal, the meals should be trimmed. Does this help? Questions?

Thanks @Everett Carroll. This is perfect info, that I need to summarize and reconsider.

I'm on Thrive for more than a year and it helped me so much to dial in the basics. I've totally beaten the sweet craving and binging episodes and I've even slowly lost almost 10 kg, and am still loosing. 

I am now revisiting lessons and doing some "fine tuning" on my nutrition, mainly around workout. So, I'll let the info sink in and probably be asking some details in couple of days. 

And I also have some other questions, that I'll post in corresponding subforums. 

Hey @Everett Carroll, 

So I've given your suggestions some thoughts over the weekend and this is what I came up with:

Basically, I don't want to add a lot of food to what I am eating right now, because with that volume, I'm still slowly loosing some fat while feeling good during the day and recovering OK. 

Main point of my original post was, if there's something wrong with having some carbs/sugars before workout during lunchtime. Beeing on Thrive for more than 1 year, I've learned here that morning workouts pre- or post-breakfast are prefered without carbs. And it's something I was doing and when situation allows it, I still am. And when I start my workout within that 2 - 2 and a half hour after breakfast window, I have no energy crushes. 

Trouble comes when it's later in the morning, closer to lunch. Your suggestions Everret sort of told me, that having some carbs would not be the worst scenario. 

So, I decided to cut the greek youghurt/kefir out of my breakfast and aprox 1/3 of my lunch starch (and switch rice or potatoes for rolled oats), add some berries and put it together to preworkout meal. Basically - around 150gr of greek youghurt with presoaked oats and some berries. I'll test it during upcoming month and see how it works. 

Whey and banana after, because there's that psychological soothing component of chocolate whey shake goodiness and banana after good workout.... :-).

Thanks again for your suggestion, it really helped... And gosh, you sure eat a lot of food!!! :-) 

Hey Petra,

My pleasure! I love this stuff. Let's be sure to touch base in early June to chat about how your body responded to the changes.