Crashing on oatmeal?

[Leslie Powell]

Just curious if any Zoners have problems specifically crashing energywise a few hours after zone breakfasts with oatmeal? I'm using the McCann's, having chicken sausage as the protein, almonds as the fat, berries for the extra carbs needed. It's weird, because I haven't noticed any other combo that does this to me: I usually tolerate carb-heavy stuff just fine.

I *like* the breakfast a lot, so would like to try to salvage it, but can't always be crashing at 10am! (Crashing = feeling loopy, low energy, and strangely fixated on the soda machine.)

Quantities:

1/4 cup dry oatmeal+1 cup water
4 Al Fresco chicken breakfast sausages (6g. protein each, 3g. fat, 4g. carbs)
handful of almonds (not worrying about the extra fat)
1/2 cup blueberries

Wondering if I'm screwing this up somehow? I've been an 80% Zoner for a while now, and haven't noticed anything else that causes this problem. I try for 18 blocks, am 5'11" and 185.

[Joe Bernard]

Some people can tolerate oatmeal and do fine with it, others not so much. I crashed big time two hours after eating oatmeal once, so I stopped eating it (have only eaten it twice). Only way to not crash would be to chuck the oatmeal and have more fruit (or veggies, whatever you want). You could try different brands of oatmeal, or steel-cut oats soaked overnight. I'm not knowledgeable enough about oatmeal enough to know if soaking overnight makes a big difference, hopefully someone can chime in.

[Cassie Savage]

This is why I now only eat oats if they've been soaked overnight. I always feel terrible if I eat cooked oatmeal (I use rolled oats btw). For me anyway, soaking really does make a huge difference.

I've been eating oatmeal (whole grain, not instant) nearly everyday for breakfast for the past 4 years specifically because I don't crash on this. Even better than that is if I mix in protein powder too.

This works great for me, but as a previous poster mentioned, every body is different...

Cheers,
Sydney

[John S Park]

I notice a huge difference in how I feel when I soak my oatmeal overnight as well.

[Darryl Shaw]

Originally Posted by Leslie Powell

Just curious if any Zoners have problems specifically crashing energywise a few hours after zone breakfasts with oatmeal? I'm using the McCann's, having chicken sausage as the protein, almonds as the fat, berries for the extra carbs needed. It's weird, because I haven't noticed any other combo that does this to me: I usually tolerate carb-heavy stuff just fine.

I *like* the breakfast a lot, so would like to try to salvage it, but can't always be crashing at 10am! (Crashing = feeling loopy, low energy, and strangely fixated on the soda machine.)

Quantities:

1/4 cup dry oatmeal+1 cup water
4 Al Fresco chicken breakfast sausages (6g. protein each, 3g. fat, 4g. carbs)
handful of almonds (not worrying about the extra fat)
1/2 cup blueberries

Wondering if I'm screwing this up somehow? I've been an 80% Zoner for a while now, and haven't noticed anything else that causes this problem. I try for 18 blocks, am 5'11" and 185.

1/4 cup of oatmeal (39g; 151.7kcal; 25.7g CHO) is such a ridiculously small serving that it's hardly surpising that your energy levels crashed after just a few hours. Try eating 1/2 or 3/4 cup (~100g dry weight) for a few days and see how you feel.

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/c...d-pasta/5708/2 (wfs)

[Leslie Powell]

I tried the soaking thing last night...had never heard of that before. Not sure I did it exactly right (used 1/2 the water + some yogurt) but it did seem to help. It also tasted better. I'll do some googling on suggested soaking methods.

[Laura Kurth]

I soak 1 cup of steel cut oats in 4 cups of water with either a tablespoon of yogurt, or of lemon juice overnight. Then i rinse it and add new water, using 4 cups again. Then I cook it on the stove, takes about half an hour maybe more.

And if the oats you are using are rolled oats, it's an even smaller serving than darryl stated - as a 150 kcal serving of rolled or flaky oats is half a cup dry.

So if you are eating 75kcal of oatmeal then it is quite a small amount of food!

I can't comment on the crashing, as trying to do the zone at all (eating a 3 block breakfast) would probably leave me gnawing my arm off an hour later no matter what the 300 kcal was made up of.

[Leslie Powell]

I'm using McCann's steel cut...according to their can 1/4 cup dry has 150 calories, so that plus everything else is up around 400 or so for the meal, which seems reasonable.

[Laura Kurth]

I guess that is pretty reasonable. how odd that you would crash on oatmeal and not other things, it's weird. I find oatmeal quite filling though I do tend to eat more than one serving at a time. I generally prefer not to be bothered between meals, so I eat a good amount at meal times.

If your breakfast is 400 kcal, how many kcal do you have the whole day? and what is your height/weight? maybe it's just simply not enough food?