Cocoa Puffs, Insulin & Muscle!

June 26, 2012

Yes you read it right. we eat Cocoa puffs & we enjoy it! Now you must be thinking, What! They lost/maintain weight by eating a sugary kid’s cereal?!?!  Ha ha hold up a second & hear me out.  A nutritionist that works with with national level competitors turned me on to this a couple years ago & I was shocked when he suggested it.  Here I was trying to lose weight & he told me to eat kid’s cereal.  Now after getting over the shock, I asked him why.   He explained to me (Now remember, I was in a non healthy, non workout slumber weighing over 300lbs for 10 years) the advances made in sport nutrition, 1 of which is  “post” workout meal/nutrition.  He suggested that after a hard workout to take in a fast simple carb/sugars  up to 50 grams of kids cereal, put it in a bowl & instead of using milk, use water mixed with my Nitrean+ protein powder & pour it over the cereal in the bowl & viola thats your post workout meal.  After our conversation, I did some research on it, reading articles like the one Im about to introduce below & it was the truth.   It’s not about the cereal as it is about using rise in Insulin that eating the sugary cereal causes to do the work in immediately helping to preserve, recover & build muscle by quickly driving branch chain amino acids and nutrients into the muscles.  Because I eat low carbs throughout the day to enhance fat burning, the chance of those carbs being stored as fat is nil because my Insulin level is low through out the day is low.  After a hard workout that is the window in which I can eat carbs like the cereal and get away with it.  Also notice I didnt say I ate 1/2 a box! lol, no I only ate a cup & 1/2 which with co co puffs is like 46 grams of carbs.

For more on how Insulin can help or hinder your progress, check out this article by Clay Hyght over at TNation 

Here is an excerpt of the article  LOL —

“The truth is, insulin is like a woman: sometimes she loves you, sometimes she hates you. But the good news is that unlike a woman, we can accurately predict how insulin will act.”

**Disclaimer – If your activity intensity level of ease is below a 5 on the hardness scale, then you might want to consider an alternative post workout meal appropriate to your intensity level. We only eat our cereal after lifting heavy weights 🙂 **

Post navigation

← Steeler’s Hood- Off Season Training Video..

Audrey – lbs lost = 150 →