What is the physiological reason for nausea during intense exercise? It’s happened twice in the last month while riding a stationary bike. It has been before breakfast so I’m wondering if it has anything to do with blood sugar level. There are probably several possible explanations. Exercise can result in temporary fluid and electrolyte imbalances, which in turn results in nausea. I’d also suspect other metabolic changes may be possible. Be careful or you may have to be rehydrated by IV, although that’s usually either a severe GI bug or running in hot conditions.

I’ve allways been careful about nutrition and think it’s useless even harmful to train before eatting early in the morning. You eat to have energy, that energy is spend to keep working your body properly, even more while excercising. We all know that, but why don’t we take serious about what we eat? I think you feel nausea because your body feels the lack of glicogen. Have you ever felt that pain in your stomatch? well, it’s not your stomatch, it’s your liver which has run off from glicogen. At that point you must stop because after it your body get the proteins from your muscles as source of energy, if you ignore this pain or even don’t feel it, then your body can produce nausea as secondary defense alarm to say something like -hey man, you’ve get rid of my reserves-.

I’ve heard of people who have broken some of their abs muscles doing this. By the way, It takes 20 hours for your glicogen to go up again. I bet you don’t have much fat, this is a great store. The 50% of your energy comes from fat during the first hour of excercise and up to 70% after it. Fat poeple don’t faint easily because they have plenty of energy stored, in any case they exhaust too soon. How this relates to you? The less fat you are, the more prominent your meals are to keep the balance. I bet those people who train hard in a low fat diet know what I mean.

I have been doing aerobics for several years but have decided to split my routine between aerobics (2-3 days per wk., 40 mins.) and using Nautilus and similar machines (2-3 days per wk) . I really need to add some muscle and tone to my upper body which I’ve neglected for several years. I’ve read in many places that for adding some bulk it’s best to eat a high protein diet spread out in smaller meals throughout the day. I need to figure out what my protein and calorie requirements are.

Using a “very” rough guide I may need about 2,000 cals. per day (weight times about 10). I sit a lot a my desk at work but I’ll be doing the routine above. Can someone recommend a diet and tell me what they would think my protein and caloric requirements are? Contrary to popular belief, a high protein diet is NOT required to gain muscle. Many medical research abstracts have been published saying that athletes do NOT need more than 15% total caloric intake in the form of protein.

Nor, should we forget the fact that you are a body building beginner, NOT a world class champion. Further, you stated that you have been exercising for a couple years and yet are still overweight. Hence, you need to go on a diet: NOT eat more! I would recommend that you consume 1,500 calories a day until you reach your ideal weight (160 to 180 pounds). You can eat between 60 and 75 grams of protein a day and still gain muscle while losing weight.

I consider myself to be in great shape. My resting heart rate is about 47 bpm, I bike 50-90 miles a week, and I spend some time in the gym doing additional cardio and strength training. I noticed that this morning (while biking) I exceeded my theoretical max HR for about 30 seconds. The period right before the 30 seconds I was at about 180, for 30 seconds I was at about 203 – 205, and then back down to 179. My average HR for the workout was 164 so I know it was just this little period while I was really hammering.

I assume this has happened before, but I only recently upgraded my HRM so that I could see this. It didn’t hurt or anything, am I pushing way to hard or is it cool to get in the upper reaches of you HR for 30 seconds? I suppose another possibility is HRM malfunction but I doubt it. It’s expected to see some scatter about an estimated maximum heart rate and it’s common to see high maximum heart rates on people who have exercised over a period of time. I’ve read of maximum rates above 240. One’s actual maximum heart rate isn’t supposed to increase though, although mine has crept up from 178 when I started exercising (supposed to have an estimated maximum of 176) about nine months ago to 190 this last weekend, when doing weights.

I too would like to know more about this, as I feel fine and have been making steady gains with the aerobics and weights. Consider yourself very fortunate. The maximum heart rate formula of 220 minus your age is just a real rough ball park estimate. Individuals vary considerably. Your resting heart rate shows that you are fit. And the fact that you can hit the high numbers in beats per minute means you have great athletic potential.

I have absolutely no problem with my BGs when exercising. Mainly because I’ve worked out the exact dosages and approximate carbohydrate intake required. On exercise days my dose is so low, it would be almost impossible to become hypoglycaemic, or if I do, it’s only very mild. The problem occurs on rest days. On rest days the insulin dose has to be increased. If I overestimate the requirement I may have difficulties. This doesn’t usually create problems (with the exception of last weekend!) but may mean I end up eating far, far more than I would like on that day.

The reason it is sometimes hard to estimate the “rest day” dose is because the insulin requirement is dependent on several factors: not just what I’m doing on the day but on how *hard* I cycled in previous days as well as how far and how often. Even so, on days that I ran (when I used to run) I would take my meter, 500ml of juice and various other odds and ends along with me in a special “running” bum-bag. I find cycling has the advantage that you can take more fluids and other supplies with you. When running you can only carry so much. Even with hard cycling the drain on my BGs is not quite as rapid as with running. So BG control is a little less lumpy. One final thing: whether running or cycling it seems that for me, doing so twice a day is better than once a day.

This is related to the types and actions of the insulins I take. Exercising at different ends of the day means a steady drain on the BG is kept up throughout the 24 hour period, meaning that control is made easier. This of course may not work for everyone. If some of you think that doing this sort of stuff is a major exercise in management or logistics, you are right! On the other hand I feel the results are more than worth it – especially when I see my non-diabetic contemporaries wheezing up the stairs.