I'm looking for a raw alternative to energy drinks or shots. I intend to start training for about two hours a day. I used to train capoiera two years ago and I would drink an energy drink or shot before training. It is really energy intense and works out a lot of muscle.

I haven't trained in almost two years (due to no money and tiny living space) and really have done little exercise except for a hula hoop since then. I know that I am going to be so out of shape. I am not heavy, but I lost most of my muscle.

Any suggestion for alternatives? I'm thinking about a green drink. But I don't know how much greens I should put in. Normally I do a handful in the morning, but I don't know if that's enough for an intense workout. I think I'll need mad energy. Oh and I can't eat dates because I'm allergic to them. Unfortunately my throat gets tight and itchy if I eat them. And I can't eat nuts or seeds either. Thanks!

I would suggest chia seeds mixed with something else

but also brendan Brazier's book
[www.brendanbrazier.com]

I find 2 - 3 bananas does me fine. Water during the exercise. I eat nothing else beforehand but then drink and eat soon afterwards. Celery, apple and cucumber is a great recovery drink for straight afterwards. Then as much food as I feel like.

Is there really any such thing as an "energy" drink?

If you really listen to your body you won't need "energy" drinks, "energy" drinks still use up "energy" when you drink them.

"Energy/vitality" comes from within with rest and positive living.

JS

JERICHO SUNFIRE-BASIC TRAINING
www.jerichosunfire.com

Brendan Brazier is the man for this. he has a free lessons at the link below, this si the most recent post he made about what you're talking about.

[thrivein30.com]

Thrive in 30 Lesson 8:
"Pre-Exercise Nutrition

Earlier in this lesson, you learned that digestibility is one of the most important factors in pre-exercise eating. In addition to digestibility, you’ll need to consider the intensity of the activity you’re embarking on, as well as how long you’ll be active for—these determine the ratio of protein, fat and carbs your body will use for fuel (and thus determine what your pre-exercise snack should consist of).

This chart breaks activity into three basic levels based on intensity and duration of exercise and outlines the ratios of protein, fat and carbs your body will burn for fuel at each level:

Activity Level


Intensity
/Time


Sample Activities


Your Body’s Source of Fuel (% Burned)

Protein


Fat


Carbohydrate

1


High Intensity, Shorter Time

(< 1 Hour)


* 3-6 mile run

* Intense gym workout

* A tennis, hockey or soccer game



10%


70%


20%

2


Moderate Intensity, Moderate Time (1-3 Hours)


* Half-marathon

* Marathon

* Intense cycling

* Olympic-distance triathlon



5%


35%


60%

3


Lower Intensity, Longer Time

(> 3 Hours)


* Half-Ironman

* Ironman

* Long-distance
bike or hike



3%


7%


90%

To help you prepare for exercise at each of these levels, here are three pre-exercise recipes designed to give you the optimum fuel your body will need to perform its best:

Activity Level


Recipe Name


Ingredients


Step-by-Step Instructions

1
Direct Fuel Bites

* 5 dates

* 2 Tbsp coconut oil

* 2 tsp lemon zest

* 1 tsp lemon juice

* Sea salt to taste

1. Combine all ingredients in a food processor, process until smooth2. Form mixture into a ½-inch-thick rectangle

3. Cut into bite-size pieces

4. Individually wrap in cellophane and store in the fridge or freezer

Makes 8 ½ oz bars

2
Energy Pudding

* 2 bananas

* ½ cup dates

* ¼ cup ground flaxseed

* ¼ cup roasted carob powder (or cacao nibs)

* 1 Tbsp coconut oil

* 1 tsp lemon juice

* ¼ tsp sea salt

1. Combine all ingredients in a food processor, process until smooth

Makes 2 servings

3
Performance
Banana Blueberry Pancakes

* ½ cup hemp protein (or 2 scoops of Vega Whole Food Health Optimizer)

* 2 Tbsp hemp or flaxseed oil

* 1 ¼ cups buckwheat flour

* 1 ½ cups hemp milk (or water)

* ½ cups sprouted buckwheat grouts (soaked overnight)

* 2 bananas

* 1 cup blueberries

* 1 Tbsp ground flaxseed (or whole white chia), soaked in 2 tbsp water

* ½ tsp nutmeg

* 1 tsp cinnamon

* 2 tsp baking powder

* 1Tbsp ground dulse flakes (or a pinch of sea salt, to taste)

1. Combine all ingredients in a food processor (other than blueberries and buckwheat grouts), process until smooth.

2. Stir blueberries and buckwheat grouts into batter

3. Lightly oil a frying pan with coconut oil on medium heat

4. Pour batter into pan to desired size of pancake

5. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes or until bubbles appear in the batter

6. Flip and cook until done (for another 5 minutes or so).

These pancakes are cooked at a lower temperature than standard pancakes to avoid damaging their essential fatty acids—they will take longer to cook comparatively.

Makes 2 large servings

Pre-exercise, you’ll want to moderate the amount you eat. Even though these recipes are formulated for easy digestion, common-sense should prevail—you won’t want to eat the entire batch of Direct Fuel Bites right before your hockey game, for example (one or two are plenty!). If you don’t have time or aren’t keen to make these from scratch, Vega Whole Food Energy Bars are a convenient alternative to Direct Energy Bites—I formulated them with the same energy requirements and whole food ingredients in mind.

Nutrition During Exercise

Even with proper pre-activity nutrition, your body will require continual fuel and hydration as you work it. For short duration activities (level 1), your only concern should be hydration. It’s better if you hydrate before you start to feel thirsty (your body is already dehydrated by the time you feel thirst). As a general rule, I know I start to feel thirsty around minute 20 of exercise, so I make a point to drink about 15 minutes into activity.

For level 2 activity—where I know I will be exercising longer than 90 minutes, but less than two hours—I’ll have a sip of water (or sports drink) every 15 minutes. To keep fueled, I also consume easily-digestible nutrients every 25 minutes or so.

Obviously, eating when you’re literally on the run has its challenges, so I recommend making your own sports drinks and gels to consume on the go. As I’ve explained previously, I avoid commercially prepared versions—they’re usually full of artificial colors and flavors, plus they’re based on heavily refined sugars that don’t deliver the real nutrition your body needs.

Making your own sports drinks and gels is really easy and gives you control so you can fuel your workout with healthy carbohydrates instead of with garbage you can’t pronounce. Here are two simple recipes to set your during-exercise nutrition on the right footing:

Recipe


Ingredients


Step-by-Step Instructions
Lemon-Lime Sport Drink

* Juice of ½ lemon

* Juice of ½ lime

* 3 dates

* 2 cups water

* 1 Tbsp agave nectar

* 1 tsp coconut oil

* Sea salt to taste (or ½ tsp dulse)

1. Filter out pulp from lemon and lime juice (if desired)

2. In a blender, combine all ingredients and process until smooth

Stores in the fridge for up to 2 weeks (re-blend before use as ingredients can settle)
Carob Gel

* 4 dates

* ¼ cup agave nectar

* 2 Tbsp lemon juice

* 2 tsp roasted carob powder (or cocoa nibs)

* 2 tsp lemon zest

* Sea salt to taste

1. In a blender, combine all ingredients and process until blend reaches a gel-like consistency

Makes about ¾ cup, enough to fill two standard 4-oz gel flasks

Post-Exercise Nutrition

You learned earlier in this lesson that it’s your body’s ability to recover from the stresses of exercise that makes the biggest difference to achieving your fitness goals. Two athletes using the same training plan will see very different results if one focuses on improving recovery while the other does not. How you nourish your body after you exercise is key to speeding recovery and gives you a real edge over time.

There are two windows for post-exercise nutrition: the 45 minutes immediately following activity and the hour after the snack in the first window. Here’s how to use each window to your body’s advantage:

1. Within the first 45 minutes post-workout, feed your body an easily digestible snack consisting mostly of simple carbohydrates. After you’ve pushed yourself, your body is too tired to work at heavy digestion—refuel it with liquid or near-liquid snacks, like whole food puddings or a recovery drink (see recipes below for starters).Ideally, this snack should contain minimal fat and be fiber-free so your body can get these simple carbohydrates into the bloodstream immediately. A small amount of protein (no more than 25%) will help speed glycogen synthesis, the rate at which your muscles absorb carbohydrates.
2. An hour after you’ve had your post-exercise snack, eat a complete, nutrient-rich meal. Make sure this meal includes some of the high-quality proteins from earlier lessons (like hemp), a good blend of essential fatty acids and lots of vitamins and minerals. If your workout was very intense, a liquid meal is your best option (such as a smoothie, soup or a serving of Vega Whole Food Health Optimizer), so your body can put its remaining energy toward recovery.

Try these two recipes for your post-exercise recovery snack—they’re tailored especially for this purpose with the perfect balance of simple carbohydrates and protein:

Recipe


Ingredients


Step-by-Step Instructions
Lemon-Lime Recovery Drink

* Juice of ½ lemon

* Juice of ¼ lime

* 4 dates

* 1 cup water

* 1 cup coconut water

* 2 Tbsp agave nectar

* 1 tbsp hemp protein (or Vega Whole Food Health Optimizer)

* 1 tsp hemp oil (or Vega Antioxidant EFA Oil Blend)

* 1 tsp ground dulse

* ½ tsp lemon zest

1. In a blender, combine all ingredients and process until smooth

Stores in the fridge for up to 2 weeks (but you’ll want to re-blend before use)

Makes about 3 cups
Recovery Pudding

* 2 bananas

* 1 cup blueberries

* ½ cup soaked almonds

* ¼ cup ground flaxseed

* ¼ cup hemp protein (or Vega Whole Food Health Optimizer)

* ¼ roasted carob powder

* 2 tsp ground rooiboos (ground finely in a coffee grinder)

* 1 tsp lemon juice

* ¼ tsp sea salt

1. Combine all ingredients in a food processor, process until smooth

Makes 2 servings

For best results: add 2.5 grams of maca

By now, you’ll have noticed how all you’ve learned so far in Thrive in 30 is beginning to come together. You’re not just learning about the interesting features of individual foods—instead, you’re learning how to combine these whole foods to create tangible benefits for your body. Now you can take good raw information (like the glucose content of dates or the fructose content of agave nectar, for example) and start applying that knowledge to how you fuel your life so you can make a big difference in how you perform and recover."

He's the man

I am a great admirer of Brendan Brazier and totally respect what he does. I have his book and he isn't always raw - I don't know if that matters to the OP or not. Also he does promote his own powders for sale - no reason why he shouldn't of course but you may not want to go down that route.

Another fantastic raw athlete who has a huge amount of information to share - u tube, facebook etc is Tim Van Orden. He has videos of him making up smoothies etc and is a world class athlete. I hope this is useful to you

check out doug graham 80/10/10 book and his website .........................ive done sprint tris with banana/greens/dates sommthies in my water bottle......................you can subsitute dates with pears or mango, maybe! be your own science experiment...............make different combos to see how your body reacts..................i took dried appricots on a 50 mile bike ride once and the gas and cramps were awful..............i never did that again!!!!!!!!! have fun with it.................i stopped using those protien drinks/energy bars a long time ago...............when i was doing sprint tris i only did raw food and my times were good enough to place in my age group most of the time...............RAW ROCKS............LLLANIE

Satori108, the answer's simple. Fruit. You don't need any of these complicated recipes.

Check out the '30Bananas' site at: [arawconnection.ning.com]

Over 700 members - loads of athletes on there, always talking about training schedules/'fuel' etc!

They'll give you your answer.

Thanks guys!

I like to make a juice with my juicer: apple, celery and spinach. You will get sugars and amino acids and its easy to digest.