hey guys, i hope someone can help me with an answer here. i am in the middle of a bulking phase with great results and up to now i have been using oatmeal as my primary source of carbs. this week i decided to switch things up and use brown rice for a change. but this whole week my workouts have been flat. i have had no energy and after my first set i feel drained. this never happened with the oatmeal and i was wondering if someone could clue me in. are they two different types of carbs (i didnt think so) and if so are they stored and used differently in the body? i hope you guys can help. thanks in advance.
Yup. It is most likely due to you getting a carb CRASH nuch faster with the rice than the oatmeal.
The oats take quite a bit longer and give a more sustained level of carbs to you at a slower pace due to the healthy fiber and such hindering the digestion process.
Where as the rice has very little in the way of anything to slow this process. Not saying they are a bad choice for your goals just that you will have to get the timing of them right. Or add in a during w/o drink to sustain/thwart off the carb crash.
So either eat them a bit closer to your w/o, or add in somethinbg like a single scoop of Surge duringf your w/o to keep energy up and stop the crash, or better yet go back to the Oatmeal pre w/o for the sustained energy and fiber, and save the rice for your first whole food meal post w/o.
Rice is great then (during a bulk) as it will allow you to get a nice dose of carbs and leave you hungry again a short time later. Then you can pack in a bit more protein and some less starchy carbs like veggies.
Hope this helps,
Phill
Wow Phill, thanks man. that was a better explanation than i could have hoped for. i feel like i owe you an xmas present!!
I’m still not sure about this - hasn’t brown rice been shown to be one of the foods that has an insulin response that doesn’t correlate with the glycemic index? I thought it produced much less of an insulin response than expected and so shouldn’t lead to a dramatic energy crash as you described.
[quote]trailer36 wrote:
hey guys, i hope someone can help me with an answer here. i am in the middle of a bulking phase with great results and up to now i have been using oatmeal as my primary source of carbs. this week i decided to switch things up and use brown rice for a change. but this whole week my workouts have been flat. i have had no energy and after my first set i feel drained. this never happened with the oatmeal and i was wondering if someone could clue me in. are they two different types of carbs (i didnt think so) and if so are they stored and used differently in the body? i hope you guys can help. thanks in advance.[/quote]
You have gotten some good advice on why you are feeling as you do. However, let me add one more thing to the equation. Oats in general have been known to promote a better sense of well being. In fact, some nutritionists and health minded doctors have recommended oats as one way to combat depression!
Oats, (unlike brown rice) has also been known to raise HDL (good Cholesterol) and lower your LDL (bad cholesterol). So many reasons to go back to oatmeal.
Is that the brown rice with the chap? It tastes like s, how can anyone eat it. Oatmeal is king here. I mix it with natural peanut butter from time to time.
yes, it is the brown rice that tastes like shit. i just force it down in the pursuit of being a meat. but with all my new advice i am going to go back to the oatmeal. i liked it better anyway!!
I would go with the oats predominantly, but with one important caveat: soak them in a bowl of water overnight before cooking them. This helps neutralize phytic acid, a substance naturally occuring in large quantities in grains which binds important minerals in the body like zinc and magnesium, impeding their absorption. Most people know to soak beans and other legumes before cooking them to neutralize enzyme inhibitors and render them more digestible, but the practice of doing this for grains like oats has almost disappeared.
I personally prefer Arrowhead Mills’ organic oat groats. Groats are a more whole form of oats than the more popular oat meal variation, and they actually resemble brown rice.
I don’t think it’s necessary to soak rolled oats overnight, unless you’re making muesli. Oat groats or steel-cut oats need rinsing and extra soaking before cooking, so this step makes sense with those, but not with rolled (aka “old-fashioned”) oats; soaking them overnight will turn them to mush.
I don’t like brown rice much, but here’s a culinary trick to make it more palatable. Rather than boil water then add rice, bring chicken stock (or boullion) to a boil; keep the liquid-to-rice ratio the same. Meanwhile, heat a skillet or saucepan–with or without oil, depending on your degree of dietary malfeasance, then add the dry rice grains in the skillet. Once the rice has released a faint nutty aroma, it’s toasted; pour the now-boiling chicken stock in and simmer the rice as per normal.
You can also try building a risotto with brown (or white) rice (or any other grain). The steps are the same, but rather than add all the liquid at once, do so 1/2 cup at a time, only adding stock when the rice has absorbed all of the stock in the pan. This requires, however, a lot more attention and time, and a true risotto has about 1/4 lbs of butter for every 1 cup of dry grain. If you’re health- or fat-conscious, you’ll be leaving out the butter, but missing out on a huge amount of flavor.