[Vickie]

Yea Hue!

Your body and your brain and your instincts are matched up again. When you train and have a highly effieient machine (your body) again, you have to maintain a higher quailiy fuel and this larger man power requires more fuel than a smaller engine. So, if you don't manage your calories within your meals and the frequency of your meals you will feel hungrier sooner than your previous, smaller engine signaled. I think you've seen on several threads that, depending on your training and your body composition, you should eat every three or four hours. The typical bodybuilder eats between 6 and 9 meals per day, some within the three hour framework if they are trying to maintain a large quantity of muscle, beyond what the body might more naturally develop and maintain in a highly physical lifestyle sans the measured lifting. So yes, more calories are necessary to maintain more healthy tissue. Many people will note the increased metabolism with the larger quantity of metabolically active tissue, tha'd be muscle, and it means basically the same thing with a little more science. If you don't eat enough, if you don't respond to your bodies request, demand even, for food you will begin to catabolize the hard earned muscle, that means your body will break down the muscle and convert it into fuel. So if you want to maintain your work and still take advantage of your metabolisms ability to burn more fat for fuel, eat plenty of high quality proteins, carbs, and fats int he right proportions frequently throughout the day. And that means on the golf course too.

Your post workout fatigue is tricky to answer because diet is influenced by your training, and most people don't train as hard as you are now. So . . . let me say first that all nutritional details must - and the more seriously you approach your objective the more true this is - be adapted to your present body composition, your objective, your taining, and don't forget about your lifestyle. In your case Hue, where we're talking about heavy training, building significant muscle size and anabolic friendly supplements the rules change significantly. The fatigue you feel immediately after your workout is an insulin reaction (rush if you will) that is created by such significant glucose (blood sugar) depletion during your workouts. In strength training the primary fuel for your efforts is the sugar in your blood. The body has a limited ability to store a back up, in the form of glycogen, in your muscles and liver. When you train very hard you use up the sugar available for even the work and the body, in it's infinite wisdom, recognizes your 'acquired' and consistent ability to use up it's resource and will begin to burn more fat in the fuel mix to keep you going, but this often just enables you to keep on going a little longer, and your mental tenacity increases and your supplements kick in and it is easy to get into a near hyperglycemic state which is just another way of saying low blood sugar. Now, you go eat a perfectly healthy lunch but your low blood sugar. [I'd like to leave out of thedetails of the insulin factor in this conversation for this post.] When your blood sugar get's really low and you eat carbohydrates that are whole and healthy and necessary, the body over reacts because of it's state of deprevation and sucks the carbohydrate sugars up so quickly it creates something much like a sugar crash. Have you ever have had a sugar crash?Or think of times you might have over eaten and you were sleepy, can you say Thanksgiving? Even though you didn't overeat after your workout, your body reacts much like you ate a heavy meal.

Best avoidance technique? Make sure your pre workout meal provided enough calories to support your work. When you're building you don't really want to get into lipogenesis, oops, too much fat burn. You want 100% support for your work. Within the first 45 minutes take in almost exclusively protein with the smallest amount of carbohydrate, unless you didn't pre-fuel well enough and then increase it slightly. Then at 45 min add on the rest of your carbs. I typically use a pure protein powder (that provides 50-75% of the protein for that meal) immediatly after workouts, then I can eat a little sooner caz my body isn't breaking down a piece of meat. So straight out of the gym with pure protein product in a shaker with water (the products blend much easier now) and then by 20 minutes I can start eating the rest of my lunch which will contain carbs, the rest of my protein in real food form and some good fat.

I recommend frequent meals (mini meal or three main meals and three snacks -- pick your language) to everyone of my clients. This type of nutritional complience isn't necessary for everyone, in fact not necessary for most people. Remember, it's all about your lifestyle. If you train hard your have to fuel deliberately. Everyone reading this site has a body that is continuously repleanishing itself. That means we are all growing new cells all the time. Just because you aren't growing in the same way as a child, your body is very busy maintaining itself through replacement. That takes nutrients and they are oxygen, water and food in that order. Keep the meals small, eat food in their most natural form possible, and enjoy great variety and frequency. It's so much more fun than three squares.

Vik

P.S. The suggestions I made to Hue require really specific proportions of fat, carbohydrates, and proteins.