And that insulin takes the sugar, and drives it into the muscle or allows it to become fat. And so, we get the spike, the insulin is dumped in, and we get a decrease. The decrease is because of the insulin taken out to the blood stream again. Now if you get this real fast spike like this, you can actually wind up hypoglycemic, after eating something like white bread. Real fast intake, the body overcompensates the insulin, and you wind up with lower blood sugar when you started. That's going to be a critical point here, and in a little bit of time we will see.
So that's glycemic index, and what I am saying is, Rule No. 3, reduce the glycemic index, the meal, the more time you have before the start of the race or workout. So if you eating three hours before the race, you want low glycemic index foods. If you are eating right before the race, or right before the workout, like minutes before, you can now eat high glycemic foods. So what are glycemic index foods that are high or low?
Well, you can almost, always bet the starches are going to be high glycemic index foods. They are moderately high glycemic index foods, so it's like bread, bagels, white rice, potatoes, corn; foods like that are going to be foods that are going to be higher glycemic index foods. They are going to release the sugar fast into your blood. So what we want to do is, before -- if you are way out from the race, time-wise several hours, we don't want that kind of stuff going into your body, because if you do, you just spike your blood. The insulin is dumped in, and it winds up dropping real fast.
As you wind up with low blood sugar, the opposite will be what we are trying to get to accomplish before the race begins. The other foods that we can take in that are carbohydrate based are for example fruits. Fruits are going to be lower glycemic index, essentially because, the type of sugar they have is called fructose, and it's digested much more slowly than the other sugars are. Most of the other sugars you will find its starch is glucose or dextrose.
So consequently has a slower response, if you graph it up the line looks more like this. It's more gradual with this release of sugar. So the body doesn't overcompensate and overreact to a gigantic mass of sugar coming to the blood all of a sudden. It just puts in kind trickles insulin in your system to take care of it, because its only being trickled into the system itself. So we want to reduce the glycemic index of the meal, the more time you have before the start of the race or workout.
Now there are ways you can take food; that is a high glycemic index, and lower the glycemic index of that food. You can for example add protein or fat to the meal along with the carbohydrate, the starch, for example, and that lowers the glycemic index. So it releases more slowly, because fat and protein have a slower metabolic release time to them, so they slow down everything which is within them, including the sugar within them.
The other way to slow it down is to take in fiber. If you take in fiber with a high glycemic index food, that slows down the glycemic index, or lowers the glycemic index of that meal. Now what number 4 is saying is, don't use fiber to lower the glycemic index of your pre-race meal, or your pre-exercise meal. Fiber is going to cause you some problems potentially in the race. We all know about that, there is somebody that knows about that. I can tell you a story about that myself.
Back in like 1989, there used to be a series in United States, the racer is called USTS, United States Triathlon Series. And they had this masters division where they had prize money and so I traveled around the country to a few of these races, and it was kind of nice, they have started the pro-men, and the pro-women, and the masters-pro. The master is an elite man, the masters elite women in all the age groups.
Early start in the race, 14 overs with the masters were, and they had prize money they are racing for. So I am in Huston at one of these USTS races back in like 1988 or 1989, and the morning of the race I forgot to buy stuff to have for breakfast that morning. So one thing I had in the room at the hotel was a bag of figs. So I thought, well, I would have a fig. This satisfies my appetite. And so I ate a fig, and I was, gosh, that was pretty good. So I ate another fig, and another fig, and another fig, the next thing I ate the entire bag of figs.
So we started to race, and on the bike, I can tell something, this doesn't feel quite right my gosh. It's kind of like I got a small ball, bowling ball in my stomach or something, I can just feel something that doesn't feel quite right. And so, I come back okay. So I came off the bike, and there is a guy ahead of me in my group just going out of transition, and I know I am not going to catch him in the run. So I am like stoked.
There is the guy in front of me, and I know I can get him, and I can win this race and so, I come out of transition, I don't get more in about 200 yards into it, and I get this horrible cramp in my side, right here, it's the stitch you know. I am forced to walk, and I can't get going, and next thing you know I finished last. I am the last guy in the field, as I walked 10 kilometers, just trying to get to the finish line.
So I learned that day that fiber is not a good thing to have before a race. You're better off avoiding fiber the morning of the race, in fact, you may need to avoid the night before the race also, like salads and figs.
Number 5, it's okay to include protein. It's the essential amino acids. In fact, there's research that actually supports the concept of putting protein into the pre-race meal. There is not much research on this, but there is a type of fatigue that many of us experience in very long races called, central nervous system fatigue.
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