You want to be elite, you cannot argue with physiology. If you want to play at the top level you must prepare the body as well as the mind. This is courtesy of Ben Wiggins, Seattle Sockeye #5
As developed over the years, through a combination of trial-and-error, professional advice, and scientific literature...
For a typical 2-day, weekend tournament, and assuming your goals are to play your best ultimate all weekend, and peak on Sunday afternoon.
Monday/Tuesday: Protein Loading
Why: Body cycles protein slower than other food constituents. Protein loading allows storage of long-term energy.
What to Eat: 3/4 meals per day, with at least one meal being primarily a main protein source (meat, eggs, tofu). Better if two meals focus on protein. Avoiding fat is nice, but no more necessary than any other day.
Omelette for breakfast, chicken or fish for dinner will do it, as long as everything else is balanced.
When this will help: Throughout the weekend, but primarily after
burning through daily reserves. Think "second-wind" on Saturday/Sunday afternoon.
Wednesday/Thursday: Vitamin Loading
Why: Body processes require vitamins to function. These cycle more quickly than protein, but can still be stockpiled during the week.
What to Eat: At least one large, complex salad each day. Focus here is on eating balanced meals that will allow intake of excess vitamins and minerals. Drink a smoothie. Balance the other food groups, make sure you get some protein (especially because you will likely be recovering from a practice or workout on 3-4 of these days). Steam, don't boil, your vegetables...and drink the juice. A Vit C pill isn't a bad idea. Garlic is amazing.
When this will help: Any injury or illness you pick up over the
weekend needs to be fought off quickly, which your body is fully able to do given the right materials. Saturday night you body will heal as fast as you allow it to through what you eat on these days.
Thursday Night/Friday: Carbo Loading
Why: The levels of enzymes that use carbohydrates to make energy can be raised by intaking large carbohydrate meals, and this will also store energy in the short term in sugar form.
What to Eat: At least one full meal of a carbohydrate like bread,
pasta, or rice. The more "hippie" it is, the better, meaning go for
whole-grain instead of bleached white. Keep balanced meals. Get more fluids to help digest (and to hydrate). Keep hydrated, but DO NOT drink gallons and gallons of water solely. This throws your mineral/water balance out of whack just as much as losing all of your water. Actually, pounding salt-water mixes helped a former team of mine. Hyperhydration is a serious threat in hot temperatures: it manifests as the same symptoms as dehydration (cause the same water/mineral imbalance is happening) or as heat exhaustion except without the raised body temperature.
When this will help: Your maximum stored energy will be on Saturday, and this might give you an extra boost in terms of energy usage.
Saturday Morning: Pre-Game Meal
Why: You are about to play 4 games. You must have fuel.
What to Eat: A mix of carbohydrates, simple sugars, and protein.
Fruits/vegetables will help keep mineral levels high, but right now you are mostly concerned with energy for the day. Pancakes/waffles make for good carbohydrate energy. Do not neglect protein, though- fats and proteins make for longer energy throughout the day. No sense in crashing after game #1. This is why Sausage Mcmuffiins and the like are more than just a humorous choice- they actually give a pretty good spread of carbs, protein, and fat.
Those with "weak" stomachs will want to eat at least an hour before you hit the field to allow digestion and give blood that localizes to the stomach time to spread back out. This requires, of course, that you get up earlier.
On-Field Meals: Recovery and Fueling
On the field, you need a mix of fluids and food. Quick energy like
"Goo" is great when you have to have it now, but if you can, try to eat immediately following games, to maximize digestion. Drink sports drinks or something similar to keep water/mineral levels high. Get some protein: sausage or Clif Bars are good for fat/protein intake. A head of lettuce (green) is basically like eating a cup of water with a vitamin pill in it. Pickles, a tried and true favorite, are great for salt (minerals) and for vitamins from the vegetable. Drink more.
Do not allow yourself to EVER feel hungry on the field. Hunger will
lead to your body pulling resources back for safety, leading to lowered energy availability. Eat before you are hungry.
Saturday Night Meal: Recovery Mode
One day down, one to go. You need to heal all the damage you have done and maximize your chances of waking up Sunday feeling good. Eat soon after playing. Cagging at the field is fun, but you have a 90-minute "glycogen window" after exercise in which to replace sugars, or else the body will start to break itself down to feed metabolism. If dinner is going to take a while, eat something right then, to stave off the breakdown.
Eat a balanced meal. You need some of everything to maximize your recovery: minerals, vitamins, protein, carbs. A big plate of Mexican food gives a great mix of resources. Indian food is good. Saltworks II is optimum. Drink water and sports drinks.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Weekend After 1st Chem Mid-Term
Dam things have been going by fast. I can't remember if I've been in college for a month, or two months? Let me try to give short glimpses of my days and nights so I won't forget them
Thursday: Well Happy Birthday Ben! You've been 18 for a year! Isn't that excited... well I thought so. For my birthday I ended up not going to Frisbee practice because I felt stressed over my chemistry mid-term the next day, then I ended up pulling an all-nighter studying for the mid-term. I like all-nighters because they make me feel worthy to call myself a dedicated student for some reason. I had printed out five practice mid-terms and their keys (which turned out to be around 120 pages) from the the Tech center in the SAAC earlier that day, so I forced myself to practice each mid-term all night long. I did end up going to breakfast with the crew team sans Liam because he wanted to study more around 7:30. We took the test at 9:00 and I felt really good about it minus not finishing it. No one else finished it either, so that worked out for a nice curve. We got our tests back Monday after chem lab. I got a middle B which I'm happy with.
Friday: My Friday started after I took my chemistry mid-term. It began falling all downhill from there. I fell asleep in calculus class while listening to my ipod. Then when I got back from that lecture, I realized I forgot my key to get inside my room. I figured I would just lay down and wait for Liam to come to the room. I knocked on the door, but nobody came, so I guessed that he was either in the bath or at class. Well waiting got really boring, and I was really tired. I ended up closing my eyes for a few seconds... which turned into two hours. Lol, I practically passed out for two hours on the hard floor right outside my dorm room. When I woke up, there was an outline of empty bottles around my body and a sign that said, "Ben Hubbard is passed out on the floor. Take pictures of him and write on his face". Luckily nobody wrote on my face, but I did see pictures of myself laying on the ground later on from Sean's phone. My door was still locked and I had no way to find Liam. He was probably out to lunch or something, I really didn't care about that thought. All I was thinking about was finding more places to sleep at. Brooke ended up letting me use her bed to sleep from 2 to 4 until my Stat class. Nice bed and all, which makes me feel bad about farting all over it. Hopefully it didn't smell too much like me afterward. Then I had my first Chico team practice from 5:30-7. Lol it went surprisingly well, but I do need to start skying more people.
Saturday: Chico team practice from 10am-1pm. This was really fun. They video taped whenever we played, so I hope I look good when I watch the tape at Taylor's house on Thursday night. After that, Mom, Dad, and Michael came up to visit me for a birthday celebration. We biked around downtown Davis (which I secretly wish I could do more often) and had lunch at Chipotle. Then we biked the entire Arboretum. That is a beautiful bike ride. I definitely want to do that at least once a month. We stopped at one point along the way and watched Michael play with the geese. Later on at night we went to Fuzio for a nice dinner which rocked my socks off because I hadn't eaten that much all day long after practice. Food just tastes better when your hungry. After my parents and Michael left to go back to Pleasanton, I went up to floor 2 and began to get my drink on. It wasn't exactly right away, but we did end up finishing around 7/8ths of Sean's handle before going to the bonfire. Then we came back to the room after the bonfire and drank some more. Tonight was the night that everyone was going to my Frisbee party. It was at Kevin's house on Vassar which is right behind Cuarto. They told me to bring girls, so I brought around 9 girls and 4 guys. I invited all the girls from my floor along with Natasha and her friend. The Frisbee party was legit and I was having fun, but I think most of the girls from floor 2 were being wet towels, and I was having fun with Sean, Isaiah, Natasha, Samantha, and Tonhu, so I'm pretty sure we just ended up leaving and then going to watch airplane in the main lounge while still being semi-drunk. I think I ended up sleeping in the lounge until about 7:30am when a cleaning guy was doing his thing moving chairs around. I waited until he was in the kitchen, then I rushed up to my room and slept until around noon.
Sunday: Not as much happens during days when you wake up at noon compared to other days. I remember we played an IM ultimate game (and lost), but I got Natasha to come out and give our team more girls. She seemed interested in playing or getting better. But I still had to teach her everything new. First practices are always hard for ultimate because you drop the disc more than catch it, and then you only catch it once or twice. Most of the time your just running around confused. Later that night we ended up watching Amelie in the main lounge. Now I had alot of chemistry homework for Lab that needed doing... but this was Amelie, which I just couldn't pass up. I'm sure anyone in my position whose seen Amelie before and liked it would have done the same thing. Anyways, movie was as bomb as I remember :) This time I did not sleep in the lounge. For the future, I hope I don't turn into one of those people who watch movies because they have nothing else to do.
Monday: What else is there to say other than it's my hardest day of the week. I wake up and wash my face, then go to chemistry lecture. Then I come home and take a shower. I decided to skip calculus for two reasons: 1) I had chemistry homework to finish and 2) They are learning about shortcuts for differentiations which I already know. After lab in my stat class, I realized that I hadn't eaten any food at all today. This kinda worried me, but I just blew it off because I knew I could have all-you-can-eat for dinner at the DC. After I got back from my nutrition class, I called Natasha and asked if she wanted to throw. She said that people had just gone to the DC and that I should come. Well, I came, I saw, I conquered. I had 8 different dishes with 4 cups of liquid (one of them was cappuccino which might be one of the reasons I'm up so late). Everyone ended up leaving except Natasha before I ate a huge salad and two more slices of pizza. We tried out drinking coffee and reading the newspaper on the nice couches (conclusion: it still rocks). After dinner Natasha, Sean, and I all went to the ARC/Pavilion to play some racquetball. It was fun, but just "playing around" racquetball. When we got bored of that, we went back to the main ARC because Sean wanted to practice some wrestling moves on me. I also taught both Sean and Natasha how to do the moonwalk, and they taught me how to balance on my head and do a cartwheel. Now I do believe I'm all caught up on my life. Gonna go take a shower because my Stat teacher gave us an extra day for homework (Wednesday 3:00am instead of Tuesday 3:00am)
Thursday: Well Happy Birthday Ben! You've been 18 for a year! Isn't that excited... well I thought so. For my birthday I ended up not going to Frisbee practice because I felt stressed over my chemistry mid-term the next day, then I ended up pulling an all-nighter studying for the mid-term. I like all-nighters because they make me feel worthy to call myself a dedicated student for some reason. I had printed out five practice mid-terms and their keys (which turned out to be around 120 pages) from the the Tech center in the SAAC earlier that day, so I forced myself to practice each mid-term all night long. I did end up going to breakfast with the crew team sans Liam because he wanted to study more around 7:30. We took the test at 9:00 and I felt really good about it minus not finishing it. No one else finished it either, so that worked out for a nice curve. We got our tests back Monday after chem lab. I got a middle B which I'm happy with.
Friday: My Friday started after I took my chemistry mid-term. It began falling all downhill from there. I fell asleep in calculus class while listening to my ipod. Then when I got back from that lecture, I realized I forgot my key to get inside my room. I figured I would just lay down and wait for Liam to come to the room. I knocked on the door, but nobody came, so I guessed that he was either in the bath or at class. Well waiting got really boring, and I was really tired. I ended up closing my eyes for a few seconds... which turned into two hours. Lol, I practically passed out for two hours on the hard floor right outside my dorm room. When I woke up, there was an outline of empty bottles around my body and a sign that said, "Ben Hubbard is passed out on the floor. Take pictures of him and write on his face". Luckily nobody wrote on my face, but I did see pictures of myself laying on the ground later on from Sean's phone. My door was still locked and I had no way to find Liam. He was probably out to lunch or something, I really didn't care about that thought. All I was thinking about was finding more places to sleep at. Brooke ended up letting me use her bed to sleep from 2 to 4 until my Stat class. Nice bed and all, which makes me feel bad about farting all over it. Hopefully it didn't smell too much like me afterward. Then I had my first Chico team practice from 5:30-7. Lol it went surprisingly well, but I do need to start skying more people.
Saturday: Chico team practice from 10am-1pm. This was really fun. They video taped whenever we played, so I hope I look good when I watch the tape at Taylor's house on Thursday night. After that, Mom, Dad, and Michael came up to visit me for a birthday celebration. We biked around downtown Davis (which I secretly wish I could do more often) and had lunch at Chipotle. Then we biked the entire Arboretum. That is a beautiful bike ride. I definitely want to do that at least once a month. We stopped at one point along the way and watched Michael play with the geese. Later on at night we went to Fuzio for a nice dinner which rocked my socks off because I hadn't eaten that much all day long after practice. Food just tastes better when your hungry. After my parents and Michael left to go back to Pleasanton, I went up to floor 2 and began to get my drink on. It wasn't exactly right away, but we did end up finishing around 7/8ths of Sean's handle before going to the bonfire. Then we came back to the room after the bonfire and drank some more. Tonight was the night that everyone was going to my Frisbee party. It was at Kevin's house on Vassar which is right behind Cuarto. They told me to bring girls, so I brought around 9 girls and 4 guys. I invited all the girls from my floor along with Natasha and her friend. The Frisbee party was legit and I was having fun, but I think most of the girls from floor 2 were being wet towels, and I was having fun with Sean, Isaiah, Natasha, Samantha, and Tonhu, so I'm pretty sure we just ended up leaving and then going to watch airplane in the main lounge while still being semi-drunk. I think I ended up sleeping in the lounge until about 7:30am when a cleaning guy was doing his thing moving chairs around. I waited until he was in the kitchen, then I rushed up to my room and slept until around noon.
Sunday: Not as much happens during days when you wake up at noon compared to other days. I remember we played an IM ultimate game (and lost), but I got Natasha to come out and give our team more girls. She seemed interested in playing or getting better. But I still had to teach her everything new. First practices are always hard for ultimate because you drop the disc more than catch it, and then you only catch it once or twice. Most of the time your just running around confused. Later that night we ended up watching Amelie in the main lounge. Now I had alot of chemistry homework for Lab that needed doing... but this was Amelie, which I just couldn't pass up. I'm sure anyone in my position whose seen Amelie before and liked it would have done the same thing. Anyways, movie was as bomb as I remember :) This time I did not sleep in the lounge. For the future, I hope I don't turn into one of those people who watch movies because they have nothing else to do.
Monday: What else is there to say other than it's my hardest day of the week. I wake up and wash my face, then go to chemistry lecture. Then I come home and take a shower. I decided to skip calculus for two reasons: 1) I had chemistry homework to finish and 2) They are learning about shortcuts for differentiations which I already know. After lab in my stat class, I realized that I hadn't eaten any food at all today. This kinda worried me, but I just blew it off because I knew I could have all-you-can-eat for dinner at the DC. After I got back from my nutrition class, I called Natasha and asked if she wanted to throw. She said that people had just gone to the DC and that I should come. Well, I came, I saw, I conquered. I had 8 different dishes with 4 cups of liquid (one of them was cappuccino which might be one of the reasons I'm up so late). Everyone ended up leaving except Natasha before I ate a huge salad and two more slices of pizza. We tried out drinking coffee and reading the newspaper on the nice couches (conclusion: it still rocks). After dinner Natasha, Sean, and I all went to the ARC/Pavilion to play some racquetball. It was fun, but just "playing around" racquetball. When we got bored of that, we went back to the main ARC because Sean wanted to practice some wrestling moves on me. I also taught both Sean and Natasha how to do the moonwalk, and they taught me how to balance on my head and do a cartwheel. Now I do believe I'm all caught up on my life. Gonna go take a shower because my Stat teacher gave us an extra day for homework (Wednesday 3:00am instead of Tuesday 3:00am)
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Scavenger Hunt
Tonight was the most bomb-diggity night so far in Davis. Better than parties, and way better than studying. Around 7 o'clock I had this idea to make a scavenger hunt for all the Thompson residents. This came about because I was playing around with my Thompson '08-'09 facebook group that I made to keep a directory of everyone in my building. There is a button that lets me message everyone in the group, so I sent out a message saying I was going to make a scavenger hunt.
This got me thinking about everything I could do for the scavenger hunt. Usually once I get rolling with an idea, more ideas come even more quickly to me and I had an entire scavenger hunt planned out in my mind in about ten minutes. The plan was to have people come to my room for the first clue, then I would have pieces of paper with more clue directions on them for where to go next. There was something witty written on the paper like, "Where can I study for my mid-terms at on the first floor" (answer: study room) or, "Lets make some popcorn in the microwave" (answer: a clue in the microwave).
This is my list of places I was going to have people go to:
1. Laundry room
2. Floor 4 trash chute
3. Study room
4. Floor 2 lounge area
5. Piano room
6. Floor 3 emergency exit
7. Next to the soda machines
8. Kitchen fridge
9. Floor 4 Lounge area behind a couch
10. Kitchen microwave
11. ?????
I sat and thought about what the prize should be at the end. Then it hit me. Have everyone go to Ashley's (my floor R.A.) room and wish her happy birthday. Her birthday is the same day as mine (October 16th) which is tomorrow. But I gotta make it a cool prize though. So what I did was I went out about bought a bag of 75 small airhead candy stuff. Then I went to Ashley's room and told her that I wanted to give her a birthday present, which was the bag of candy. The last clue was in place. The final paper from the microwave said something like, "Go up to room 201A and say 'Happy Early Birthday Ashley! Can I have some candy', but make sure you don't say anything about the scavenger hunt. If she asks, just play dumb".
Such a fucking good idea. In the end I had like 15 people doing the scavenger hunt all from Thompson Hall. I got on my R.A.'s total good side. And to a bunch of people, I'm no longer that one guy who walks around in his underwear.
This got me thinking about everything I could do for the scavenger hunt. Usually once I get rolling with an idea, more ideas come even more quickly to me and I had an entire scavenger hunt planned out in my mind in about ten minutes. The plan was to have people come to my room for the first clue, then I would have pieces of paper with more clue directions on them for where to go next. There was something witty written on the paper like, "Where can I study for my mid-terms at on the first floor" (answer: study room) or, "Lets make some popcorn in the microwave" (answer: a clue in the microwave).
This is my list of places I was going to have people go to:
1. Laundry room
2. Floor 4 trash chute
3. Study room
4. Floor 2 lounge area
5. Piano room
6. Floor 3 emergency exit
7. Next to the soda machines
8. Kitchen fridge
9. Floor 4 Lounge area behind a couch
10. Kitchen microwave
11. ?????
I sat and thought about what the prize should be at the end. Then it hit me. Have everyone go to Ashley's (my floor R.A.) room and wish her happy birthday. Her birthday is the same day as mine (October 16th) which is tomorrow. But I gotta make it a cool prize though. So what I did was I went out about bought a bag of 75 small airhead candy stuff. Then I went to Ashley's room and told her that I wanted to give her a birthday present, which was the bag of candy. The last clue was in place. The final paper from the microwave said something like, "Go up to room 201A and say 'Happy Early Birthday Ashley! Can I have some candy', but make sure you don't say anything about the scavenger hunt. If she asks, just play dumb".
Such a fucking good idea. In the end I had like 15 people doing the scavenger hunt all from Thompson Hall. I got on my R.A.'s total good side. And to a bunch of people, I'm no longer that one guy who walks around in his underwear.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Why I Picked My Major
My career discovery group for nutrition assigns us to write her emails with prompts every Friday. This was her prompt this week:
"Tell me how you picked your major? What sort of process did you use to determine that you liked nutrition or food science enough to specialize in it in college? Tell me some of your fears or worries about focusing on this subject (i.e. you are not sure you will like the jobs, but you know you like the subject, or salary worries, hours required per week worries, etc.) I am looking for some thoughtful answers that are 1-2 paragraphs in length."
This is my response
"Good afternoon Joelle,
I only became interested in bodies nutrition in the past year or two. My older brother (UCSD ’09) would always come home from college on holidays and then the summer to cook up amazing meals that would blow my mind. He would also help me out with food secrets to make my body function better when doing a sport like ultimate Frisbee. My family has also always been food conscience by never having soda or white bread in the house, or things like that, but my brother made me realize how extremely important it is for your body to eat the right diet. I began eating right, and I got interested in reading food labels then making connections between what I ate and how I functioned or felt. I’m pretty sure that everyone in my family had read fast food nation like three or four years ago, but then we started getting into books like “The Omnivores Dilemma” or “In Defense of Food” by Michael Pollan. So basically right now, where I am in my life, I take pride in being aware of everything I eat, and I think that having knowledge of metabolism is valuable.
I’m not thinking about jobs at all right now that require a nutrition science degree. I mean, yes, I do want to work more under the biochemistry side of nutrition compared to the community approach, but I’m not concerning myself with which companies I should apply to in four years. I am a little worried that most jobs for nutrition don’t pay around 200,000 a year, which would be nice, but I’ll worry about that after 4 years.
Another problem I foresee in my future is that I really like chemistry, but I’m just not good at it. I love the idea of chemistry and learning about it. Sadly I’ve never done that well in any chemistry classes that I have taken though. This makes me worried because in the future, I’m probably going to want to take a lot of chemistry classes, but not do so well in them. I will probably have to go to tutoring a lot more often.
Best of wishes,
Ben Hubbard"
"Tell me how you picked your major? What sort of process did you use to determine that you liked nutrition or food science enough to specialize in it in college? Tell me some of your fears or worries about focusing on this subject (i.e. you are not sure you will like the jobs, but you know you like the subject, or salary worries, hours required per week worries, etc.) I am looking for some thoughtful answers that are 1-2 paragraphs in length."
This is my response
"Good afternoon Joelle,
I only became interested in bodies nutrition in the past year or two. My older brother (UCSD ’09) would always come home from college on holidays and then the summer to cook up amazing meals that would blow my mind. He would also help me out with food secrets to make my body function better when doing a sport like ultimate Frisbee. My family has also always been food conscience by never having soda or white bread in the house, or things like that, but my brother made me realize how extremely important it is for your body to eat the right diet. I began eating right, and I got interested in reading food labels then making connections between what I ate and how I functioned or felt. I’m pretty sure that everyone in my family had read fast food nation like three or four years ago, but then we started getting into books like “The Omnivores Dilemma” or “In Defense of Food” by Michael Pollan. So basically right now, where I am in my life, I take pride in being aware of everything I eat, and I think that having knowledge of metabolism is valuable.
I’m not thinking about jobs at all right now that require a nutrition science degree. I mean, yes, I do want to work more under the biochemistry side of nutrition compared to the community approach, but I’m not concerning myself with which companies I should apply to in four years. I am a little worried that most jobs for nutrition don’t pay around 200,000 a year, which would be nice, but I’ll worry about that after 4 years.
Another problem I foresee in my future is that I really like chemistry, but I’m just not good at it. I love the idea of chemistry and learning about it. Sadly I’ve never done that well in any chemistry classes that I have taken though. This makes me worried because in the future, I’m probably going to want to take a lot of chemistry classes, but not do so well in them. I will probably have to go to tutoring a lot more often.
Best of wishes,
Ben Hubbard"
Cappuccinos
Almost every time I go to the DC now, after my meal I pick up the Aggie newspaper and sit down on the nice chairs with a cappuccino. It makes me feel like an adult college student. Sometimes I cross my legs if I wanna feel extra college.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Getting Better
In the short amount of time since my last post, I've done a lot of productive things that have made me feel good about myself. After I finished writing my "Ugh" post, Liam told me that we had to schedule an appointment with a person to talk about being written up, so I got the number and called the lady without thinking twice. We scheduled to talk with this guy in the SAC (brick building) on Tuesday at 1. Then Jake called me and I agreed to fill in his spot at a Intramural-Captain meeting at 9:45-10:15 tonight because he can't make it. This makes me happy because I'm able to fulfill these promises I am making to people, and people are being able to rely on me again. After that, I went to Jake's room in Gilmore to pick up "The Game" by Neil Strauss. It's a great book on how to meet women and I think the author writes amazingly well. Walking back to Thompson, I stopped by the junction to put 10 dollars on my WEB Laundry card! Now I'm going downstairs to do a load before ultimate practice at 4. In between now and practice, I plan on focusing my undivided attention to studying chemistry.
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