Exercise, food and PKU: Working out and weight loss vs phe levels
So I had a personal training session today at the gym. Was a little sad because the PT who the session was with was leaving and today was his last day but the session was free and I got some awesome info about it.
I told my trainer about PKU last week and, not surprisingly, he was fascinated when I said I was living on a low protein diet. I mean, most people he works with are on a high protein diet, so I imagine low protein was quite different for him. I told him about the massive struggles I've had to lose weight and that it took me 15 months from the birth of my daughter to see the scales reading at under 100kg.
Anyway, after the session he gave me was really useful.
In order to keep your metabolism firing you should eat every 3 - 4 hours. Now, when you eat the key is to watch your portion sizes and to choose the right food. Mr A (how I will refer to my trainer from hereon in) suggested I try increasing the number of low GI foods in my diet.
Low GI/Suitable for low protein diet:
Lettuce, peppers, mushrooms, onions, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, aubergine, Â apples, apricots, oranges, melon, cherries, grapes, pears and strawberries.
High GI foods that can be consumed but in smaller amounts (these foods are not necessarily all suitable for the PKU diet but I thought I'd include them anyway: Baked beans, carrots, corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes (these are lower GI than normal potatoes), peas, banana, dates, figs, biscuits, bread, doughnuts, muffins, pasta, rice tacos/tortillas, relishes, fruit juices.
Most of us know that losing weight can send our levels up and that when we are trying to lose weight it needs to be done slowly and steadily and, preferably, in consultation with our dietitian. What a lot of us don't know (and I certainly didn't until tonight) is that certain types of exercise and exercising at certain times of day can also elevate our levels. To perform at our optimum level - for everything, life in general - we need to avoid raised phenylalanine levels.
So as it turns out we want to avoid extended periods of cardio. Of course, we need to work our heart muscle so some cardio is good, but weight training, which puts your body into an anaerobic state which for us is a good thing.Â
The biggest thing I got from my training session today was that while for most people doing your cardio workout first thing in the morning before breakfast can be a good thing (it maximises fat burning apparently), working out before food in the morning is a BAD thing for us PKUers. We need to have something in our bodies to burn off because if there isn't then we go into a catabolic state and break down our muscles instead of our fat. We want MORE muscle, not less, so we should focus on building muscle and add in cardio, preferably in the form of interval training. If you're reading this and you have PKU, make sure you don't workout without having eaten in the four hours previous to your workout.
