Introduction and questions

[kenkyusha]

Hello all,

First, just a quick introduction:
My name is Jigme, and Mr. Lindsey has kindly allowed me to be moderator here in Food and Drink.

Okay. Now the questions:
1) What do you eat before training (do you carbo-load, or fast; do you stick to certain types of food)?

2) Are your habits dependent on the type of art you practice (eg, not wanting to eat before doing a lot of ukemi).

3) Are there any foods that you especially stay away from before training?

4) For long training sessions (like weekend seminars) do you change from your normal routine?

Thanks in advance for your input.

Be well,
Jigme

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Jigme Chobang
Kenkyusha@bigfoot.com

[Dokanyama]

Tea.

The benefits of drinking tea, both mystical and real are many. But as a drink related to training, at least based on my traing here in Japan, tea a very important role. Perhaps not in terms of nutrition or performance enhancement, but as a social fuction. We start every practice with tea, and after training we head out to a local soba shop down the road and eat and drink beer together.

Besides nutritional, the role food and drink plays as a socializing tool shouldn't be overlooked.

Thomas James

[Gil Gillespie]

This may elicit thigh-slapping guffaws but it happened here. During seminars I used to eat salad bars & drink lotsuv iced tea. I then experienced muscle cramps in the afternoon session. Years ago I decided, enough with the health. I went for a small steak with good giant steak fries & lotsa salt. A cold draft or 2 complete my medication. Cure!

Strange, because ordinarily I never eat before class. This may not work for everyone. ..

Gil

[Margaret Lo]

I try to stay away from greasy foods before training. I make sure I eat a filling lunch on a class night with plenty of carbos. Vietnamese noodles are ideal.

During tournaments or 6 hour training session, I can only stomach fruit and yogurt.

Jigme - since you are in Boston, have you heard of Dong Kangh? Its the best Vietnamese restaurant in Boston, on the corner of Harrison and Kneeland street in Chinatown. They have the best noodles in town and an iced coffee that'll wake the dead.

-M-

[Joseph Svinth]

Beer, it's the training drink of champions.

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Joe
http://ejmas.com

[DJM]

Hi..
I always try and grab a sandwhich about an hour before training. Cheese and pickle, or ham salad. Nothing too heavy..
Also I try not to drink (anything) too close to training, but maybe that's just me http://216.10.1.92/ubb/wink.gif
A beer afterwards goes down very well indeed, I think having a strong social group improves the practice of martial arts in general, certainly Aikido in particular since there's so much trust involved..
Mmmm, Beer...
http://216.10.1.92/ubb/biggrin.gif
David

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Poetry of Birds,
A Thousand Voice Melody,
Dancing on the Waves
-- David Marshall

[kenkyusha]

Thank you all for the excellent input! Actually, the follow-up question was going to be if food (or particularly drink) plays a role in the overall training experience, but so far, it looks like a majority of respondants feel it does.

Thomas-san,
That sounds like a lovely way of beginning and ending class.

Margaret-san,
No, haven't been there but I will check it out soon (though if it is the one I think it is, it was burnt out a year+ ago, so it has moved)!

Mr. Svinth (et al),
Dag-nabbit, I don't like beer much, can you suggest any other 'performance enhancers'? http://216.10.1.92/ubb/smile.gif

Be well,
Jigme

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Jigme Chobang
Kenkyusha@bigfoot.com

[This message has been edited by kenkyusha (edited 06-06-2000).]

[Joseph Svinth]

Margaritas are quite pleasant, and Jameson's is generally cheaper than equivalent Scotches.

I would, however, advise against the collegiate diet, which involves ingesting rum, tequila, beer, and cold greasy cheeseburgers during one sitting.



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Joe
http://ejmas.com

[Dokanyama]

As far a pre-training dietary aid, and energy thing in general, here in Japan the "genki drink" is a booming biz. There is anything you can think of. Some of them include snake venum, deer antler,sugar, and maybe even bugs... who knows.

I used to drink one called Ribotan-D. I found that after drinking them once daily, I couldn't feel any effects. But when I stopped drinking them, I felt low on energy and grogy for about two days.

Anyone else use these drinks?

TJ

[Joseph Svinth]

For pre-training, the drink I'd recommend is a lot of water. The Japanese traditionally believed that you could teach people to survive on less water and as a result suffered unreasonable numbers of heat injuries. (All heat injuries are preventable, and they are generally due to supervisory negligence. The Israeli Army got rid of them by courtmartialing the supervisors of the soldiers who suffered heat injuries; amazing how supply suddenly managed to get water forward after that.)

Anyway, probably a couple quarts of water per day should be ingested at a minimum, with an extra quart in the hour before training begins. (If your training is that strenuous, you'll sweat it out before you need to go to the bathroom.) Tea, coffee, and sodas are generally stimulants and should be avoided. (Just as alcohol really should be avoided, too, assuming your interest is health rather than connivality.)

As for not drinking or eating before beginning training, well, if you can guarantee that no one will ever attack you right after dinner, then go for it. But if you can't, then you should learn to do all things in moderation, and train as you live and live as you train. No, you don't want to eat the three-course Mexican dinner an hour before class -- I did that once, and somewhere through the second set of a hundred situps I decided I wouldn't do that again -- but a sandwich or the like shouldn't affect your training at all negatively. In fact, it might help, as your blood sugar levels will be higher farther into the training.

[Kit LeBlanc]

BTW,

I know I'm diming myself off here but, don't eat macaroni and cheese and chili before a heavy ne-waza session. Eeww.

Absolutely one of my favorite things in life is the after-training meal with a good bunch of training partners and the teacher.

Kit

[Ruairi Quinn]

Hi all-

Earlier in the thread someone mentioned eating before classes with heavy ukemi. I would actually extend this and say that personally I don't like to eat anything even a couple of hours before any class. If it's an evening class, then I have breakfast and a late lunch, and then leave it at that. I suspect that this is probably not good nutritionally, but I definitly feel a bit sharper on a mostly empty stomach.

In Ken Shamrock's biography, he talks about how he feeds his fighters on a diet of chicken breasts and brown rice six days of the week (friday being the day they're allowed to backslide a little bit). On the fight day, however, he eats like a horse, packing in as many carbohydrates as he can. I think (if I remember right) there's a scene in that book where he's pumping in eggs and steak for breakfast when he's getting ready to fight Kimo.
What I've found is that on days that I train, if I eat red meat or anything similar for lunch or whatever then I'm sluggish and sleepy. So I find that wild rice and chicken works well, I've even attempted going vegetarian once or twice.

What about during training, in terms of drinks. Contrary to popular opinion, we here in Bujinkan Ireland don't drink alcohol during training (er, sometimes before and always after, though). I like Lucoazade. A long-dstance runner once told me that if you feel thirsty, it's too late, your preformance is already degrading- he said that you should drink continously to pre-empt it.
Then, after training, I'm very strict. I find that about 660ml of beer calms my nerves and aids in my absorption of the night's techniques.



[This message has been edited by Ruairi Quinn (edited 06-07-2000).]