Does anyone else get kind of moody after a workout? It could just be that I’m craving carbs or something, but I generally get all negative, especially about myself. I’ll sing songs on the bike ride home like, " Oh 1 Man… you have a crappy island cause you SUUUUUCCCCKKK donkey balls, you dumb asshat."
And my productivity has been decreasing PWO as well. After I carb up and shower, I generally don’t want to do anything, and when I do, I keep second guessing myself.
I keep pretty good tabs on my diet, which is very low carb (not keto) and am even gaining a bit, so cals aren’t a prob. Though, I could use more vegetables.
I’m not doing anything crazy in the gym, 3x week along the lines of:
squat 2 x 5, 1 x AMRAP (recovering from injury, not heavy yet)
some DL form work
RDL (3 x 8) or leg press assistance (4 x 20) or nothing
OHP or Bench 3 x 5, 1 x AMRAP
Vertical Pull 3 x 8
BB Row (3 x 12 or 4 x 10) or bentover raises (4 x 10)
Arm work
Calf work/Farmer’s walk/walk
I take another day out of the week for ab work, foam rolling, stretching. I walk or bike every place, but don’t go that many places or that far.
It’s been like this for maybe a month now. It’s not anything too bad, but it’s not anything too good either.
Any input is appreciated. I don’t take any substances aside from mult-V, fish oil, and vit D.
I am going to blame your low carb approach. In the spring of 2012 I did low carb (50-100g per day max) for a few months, and dropped weight like crazy. I was super lean, bottoming out at 140.8 lbs, and about 5% bodyfat, but my recovery sucked, and my mood was bad as well.
Did your diet, routine or anything else (major) change when this started happening? I can sometimes be moody right after a workout, but not as moody as I get in the evening when I don’t work out that day.
Carb-wise, I’m currently taking (47g/90g, Off/On), with a 2-3 hour carb-load every 2 weeks or so. (had a couple bdays early last month… I don’t know how much it helped). Around 50 percent of my cals are from fat. On my off days, I feel fuller despite eating less, and all my carbs come from fruit.
As far as changes… it’s been a moving target. I came off a cut a few months ago and slowly transitioned from a volume-based push/pull to a strength-based full body; this was done very slowly and I’m still not done (I plan on decreasing volume more).
[quote]1 Man Island wrote:
Carb-wise, I’m currently taking (47g/90g, Off/On), with a 2-3 hour carb-load every 2 weeks or so. (had a couple bdays early last month… I don’t know how much it helped). Around 50 percent of my cals are from fat. On my off days, I feel fuller despite eating less, and all my carbs come from fruit.
As far as changes… it’s been a moving target. I came off a cut a few months ago and slowly transitioned from a volume-based push/pull to a strength-based full body; this was done very slowly and I’m still not done (I plan on decreasing volume more).[/quote]
There’s your answer. You’re getting 90 grams of carbs on high days. That’s insane. I averafe more than that in one meal. Why are you getting 50% of your cals from fats? Sounds like your body doesn’t agree with your dietary approach. Up your carbs and you’ll feel better.
Carbs make me happy too. Going low carb for too long makes me tired and moody. 90 grams of carbs is not a carb-up, to me that sounds more like “incidental” carbs.
Sometimes I talk to myself as well while training, usually random sporadic tourette spurts of words or phrases. I sometimes have flashbacks to parts of my life in which I am doing something i have regretted. I put that all down to the endorphins etc running through my system.
My guess is that it’s the reduced carb intake, but for the sake of exploration… it could be micronutrient related. Perhaps double or triple your multivitamin intake for a few days and see if that helps.
Of course, vegetables might be a good choice.
My hunch is more B6 and Magnesium will probably help things out. Both are heavily involved with neurochemical synthesis. (As is glucose.)
It kind of isn’t a decision… I’ll be riding my bike, humming to myself or something and then I just notice I’m talking shit about myself. Happens when I walk after a workout too… though, once I notice it, it usually goes away. I also catch myself mumbling to myself like the bird.
I should say that, while it likely is diet related, I’ve been consistently increasing carbs on an almost weekly basis… albeit not by much. I’ll have to continue, or perhaps accelerate the process.
RE: sleep… no changes. Maybe a tad more as it cools down, but still averaging 7 and change.
There’s also the chance that it’s something completely outside the diet/physical realm, but it doesn’t sound like it.
[quote]theBird wrote:
I sometimes have flashbacks to parts of my life in which I am doing something i have regretted. I put that all down to the endorphins etc running through my system.
[/quote]
I get this a lot. Sometimes I’ll remember things (usually negative experiences) that I haven’t thought about in years.
I’d say two thirds of the time, I’m in a worse mood leaving the gym than when I arrived. The other third of the time it’s about the same.
I generally eat low carb, so I’ll concur with everyone else.
[quote]Dr. Pangloss wrote:
I’d say two thirds of the time, I’m in a worse mood leaving the gym than when I arrived. The other third of the time it’s about the same.
I generally eat low carb, so I’ll concur with everyone else.
All fat and no carb makes Jack and angry boy.
[/quote]
And I thought you were ever the optimist.
I bumped up my pre workout carbs a bit today and did feel better. I also hit a weight that it was looking like I was going to miss… so that’s progress. Though, I’ve also been getting more veggies, so who knows what it was.
The mood swing was better and a little more offset, though. I’ll have to see how it continues and probably carb up at the end of the week.
It could be something to do with you moving from a volume workout to strength, because I’ve found that since I moved to ‘powerlifting’ as opposed to ‘bodybuilding’ that for a good hour or so after the gym I am completely dead, just because I think the strength work taxes you a lot more and isn’t as endorphin releasing as getting a good pump on. This is just a theory though so I could well be talking shit. But yeah the talking down to yourself etc is not ideal and I personally haven’t found that, slightly grumpy yeah but not negative thoughts about myself.
Then again as the others have said it may be down to low carbs, personally I’ve never gone low carbs because my inner fatty would have a tantrum so I can’t really say much about that.
More of a repeat of the posts above, low carbs don’t help my mood. Also is your hydration on point? I find I need to have 10mins post workout to myself to feed and chill with no interference otherwise I can bite. I like to think that I’m pretty calm most of the time so it’scertainly around workouts where it effects me. When I’m shoveling down the carbs I’m on a high post workout