Spearfishing diet

[bruner]

Spearfishing diet... What are your tried meals?



What do you think about dark chocolate? It is a great source of energy and magnesium, but I know the opinions that contained in the heat- treated cocoa causes adverse increase in heart rate.

 

[Rossi01]

I add a little dark chocolate to my diet, rich in antioxidants too, can help make up part of a balanced diet, maybe just give it a miss on days where you will be diving, complex carbs are what you will be thankful for on days of hard exercise, load them the night before.... Then maybe a couple of poached eggs and a piece of toast for breakfast, a bowl of porridge you couldn't go wrong with either imo.

I haven't looked into the specific dietary requirements for spear fishing but from a general perspective that's what I would be looking for.

 

[growingupninja]

I have good results with a fat based diet, and if know I am gonna have a very long day on the water I will load up on carbs 24-48 hours out to rebuild glycogen stores. Morning of though it is bacon, eggs, coconut flour pancakes (high fat/low carb).

Dark chocolate is good but if you are training crazy hard, chocolate is a food that interferes with iron absorption, so you should keep that in mind. The HR thing you mentioned I would consider a non-issue. You can run tests if you want using cold water facial immersion, in my case caffeine has never had any appreciable effect on my dive response.

 

[Pinniped72]

I usually have the same breakfast as normal which is muesli, added oats, dried figs, dates and fruit. Whether bodyboarding or spearfishing if I need to top up the calories its the old faithful, bananas........... Gods gift to muscle cramps Also hydration is very, very important to me if I want my right ear to equalise well.

 

[Mr. X]

I am not as enamored of porridge, muesli, Weetabix, cereals as once I was. I feel quite hungry a couple hours after eating them - even after large bowls of porridge. I don't like how they make me feel after eating them. I also found they contribute to seasickness while spearing (perhaps the cereal, perhaps the milk, perhaps the combination?). I was surprised to find the old adage about fry ups helping with sea sickness to be true, for me anyway.

Cereal with milk contains a fair amount of simple carbs (sugar, lactose, starch, etc.) - great if you need a lot of energy real soon - otherwise not so great. Also, some people associate milk with excess mucus production.

Re. dark chocolate, they say a little of what you fancy does you good

 

[Rossi01]

Another excuse for a fry up ,I'll be having one every day of the week at this rate

 

[Andrew the fish]

folks please tell me what is the reason for carb loading? I do carb loading for bodybuilding reasons. Or rather glycogen supercompensation, but otherwise I am mostly on low carb/high fat diet. What is so special that spearfisher needs from food?

 

[growingupninja]

folks please tell me what is the reason for carb loading? I do carb loading for bodybuilding reasons. Or rather glycogen supercompensation, but otherwise I am mostly on low carb/high fat diet. What is so special that spearfisher needs from food?

Depends on the type of spearing... I am fine to spear all day in ketosis when making aerobic dives below my lactic threshhold which are typically (for me) shallow dives up to about 65'. But if I am going to pound a reef/wreck at 35M my muscles will be working 100% anaerobically on ascent and glycogen is nice to have to keep me going throughout the day.

Also, from tests I have done on myself ketosis interferes with/delays dry dive response but when water is involved it doesn't seem to get in the way.

 

[Mr. X]

folks please tell me what is the reason for carb loading? I do carb loading for bodybuilding reasons. Or rather glycogen supercompensation, but otherwise I am mostly on low carb/high fat diet. What is so special that spearfisher needs from food?

Do you do carb depletion before carb loading? Many years ago I worked with long time marathon runner. He pointed out that (for distance running) it was important to deplete carbs for several days before carbo loading and also, you don't need to eat pasta - he ate spuds instead. I hadn't heard of this being used for bodybuilding before, I thought carbs were avoided when preparing for competition in order to reduce water retention, to "get ripped". So is idea to retain water to "pump up" the muscle & blood vessel volumes?

As mentioned above, for me, avoiding sea sickness/nausea while diving is a particular consideration. Not sure if it is for anybody else tho'

 

[Rossi01]

A carbohydrate-loading diet, also called a carb-loading diet, is a strategy to increase the amount of fuel stored in your muscles to improve your athletic performance for endurance events.

Carbohydrate loading is a result of continuing to eat a high-carbohydrate "training diet" while scaling back your activity level during carbohydrate loading.

Any physical activity requires carbohydrates for fuel. For most recreational activity, your body uses its existing energy stores for fuel. But when you engage in long, intense athletic events, your body needs extra energy to keep going. The purpose of carbohydrate loading is to give you the energy to complete an endurance event with less fatigue, improving your athletic performance.

Carbohydrate loading is most beneficial if you're an endurance athlete — such as a marathon runner, swimmer or cyclist — preparing for an event that will last 90 minutes or more. Other athletes generally don't need carbohydrate loading. It's enough to get half or more of your calories from carbohydrates.

 

[Rossi01]

The purpose of carb-loading for bodybuilding is to create a full-muscular look when you are onstage. Full muscles will give you a larger appearance as well as help tighten your skin against the muscles giving you a hard, vascular appearance which is very important if you want to win or place well in your competition.

Unfortunately, many bodybuilders overcomplicate this process and end up over carbing and place far worse than what they could have if they never carbed up in the first place!

 

[Rossi01]

I was going to say that word for word, but found someone else had already written it somewhere else

 

[Andrew the fish]

Do you do carb depletion before carb loading? Many years ago I worked with long time marathon runner. He pointed out that (for distance running) it was important to deplete carbs for several days before carbo loading and also, you don't need to eat pasta - he ate spuds instead. I hadn't heard of this being used for bodybuilding before, I thought carbs were avoided when preparing for competition in order to reduce water retention, to "get ripped". So is idea to retain water to "pump up" the muscle & blood vessel volumes?

As mentioned above, for me avoiding sea sickness/nausea while diving is a particular consideration. Not sure if it is for anybody else tho'

yes, depletion is what causes the overcompensation. Not to steal the thread, will quickly outline the process. Also check "better than steroids" book by Dr. Whiley, if interested. Basically, low carb diet initially creates low glycogen stores. I say initially because body eventually adjust to just about anything. 5 days on low carb diet with usual resistance training, and then on 5th day there is a specific depletion workout, followed by 48-hour carb loading. This is a very specific routine, doesn't have much to do with spearfishing. I was just curious what you all talking about when you say carb loading. And how does it transfer to better spearfishing. To me, simply eating more carbs mean bloating and having massive insulin spike, and water retention with all the goodies attached to it. Kind of a little skeptical, is there anything to it or is it just a parasympathetic effect driven by a belief system.

 

[growingupninja]

A carbohydrate-loading diet, also called a carb-loading diet, is a strategy to increase the amount of fuel stored in your muscles to improve your athletic performance for endurance events.

Carbohydrate loading is a result of continuing to eat a high-carbohydrate "training diet" while scaling back your activity level during carbohydrate loading.

Any physical activity requires carbohydrates for fuel. For most recreational activity, your body uses its existing energy stores for fuel. But when you engage in long, intense athletic events, your body needs extra energy to keep going. The purpose of carbohydrate loading is to give you the energy to complete an endurance event with less fatigue, improving your athletic performance.

Carbohydrate loading is most beneficial if you're an endurance athlete — such as a marathon runner, swimmer or cyclist — preparing for an event that will last 90 minutes or more. Other athletes generally don't need carbohydrate loading. It's enough to get half or more of your calories from carbohydrates.

Not quite correct. The body can efficiently burn fat for fuel although most diets in industrialized nations discourage this. 'Paleo' and 'keto' diets are largely fat based diets sometimes with some other mumbo jumbo stuff mixed in. Once adapted to using fat as the primary energy source a lot of people do pretty well although the initial adaptation period is very off putting.

However, for anaerobic muscular performance the body strongly prefers to use stored glycogen from carbohydrates as opposed to ketones (from fat).

A lot of body builders do a cyclical ketogenic diet in order to build or maintain muscle while losing body fat, and many endurance athletes have been using it in recent years.

There is evidence that it increases mitochondrial density and hematocrit and may mitigate against the damage done by ischemia, all which make it interesting for free divers. However the anaerobic limitations of the diet make it difficult and not a good precompetition practice.

 

[Andrew the fish]

...Any physical activity requires carbohydrates for fuel. For most recreational activity, your body uses its existing energy stores for fuel. But when you engage in long, intense athletic events, your body needs extra energy to keep going. The purpose of carbohydrate loading is to give you the energy to complete an endurance event with less fatigue, improving your athletic performance...

This made me chuckle, very debatable. How about all physical activity requires ATP for energy, and go from there.

 

[Andrew the fish]

Ninja did an awesome job outlining, saves me a lot of typin

 

[Rossi01]

Every day's a school day I was just about keeping up until I read the first sentence in ninjas last paragraph Also I have no idea what ATP is ??

 

[Mr. X]

Key
ATP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenosine_triphosphate
ischaemia: an inadequate blood supply to an organ or part of the body, especially the heart
hematocrit: is the proportion, by volume, of the blood that consists of red blood cells.

There will be an examination at the end of this thread.

...However, for anaerobic muscular performance the body strongly prefers to use stored glycogen from carbohydrates as opposed to ketones (from fat)....

Do you have any more information on this?

 

[Mr. X]

Looking at the video in the original post, the text appearswholesome and conformist - like "apple pie & motherhood", indeed the sort of dietary advice trotted out for more than half a century. However, it does appear to ignore the more recent recognition of the importance of fats in diet. Also the disbenefits of many vegetable oils that were previously championed as healthy and some of the positive benefits of long maligned saturated fats. Also, it pays scant regard the increasing acceptance that sugars can be extremely harmful in the quantities typically consumed by many western nations now. The inclusion of "isotonic drinks" rings alarm bells for me because most people will read that as "energy drinks". Also, the vilification of tea & coffee is not unreasonable but for those that drink it regularly, missing it can be as problematic as taking too much - and if the newspapers are to be believe (& I would argue that they are not to be relied on!), tea & coffee also have numerous healthful properties beyond their caffeine "problems".

The point about diving on an empty stomach is well made; as well as discomfort, Reflux is a condition increasingly associated with a variety of serious medical conditions and so is best avoided.

 

[growingupninja]

@Mr X
Re: glycogen vs ketones for anearobic performance
The point at which an activity becomes intense enough to be anaerobic is usually considered the 'lactic threshhold'. There are a lot of studies done on ketogenic diets and anaerobic performance on cyclists, it is a good place to start. In my own experience ketosis was perfectly fine for recreational freediving but when I have trained depth on a line that way I experienced muscle fatigue that I would ordinarily feel after 10 dives in about 3 dives. I could do fairly tough pool sets in ketosis though.