La Buvette

How long do you think it takes two Personal Trainers to devour a plate of blueberry pancakes accompanied with orange butter and a side of crispy bacon, and French toast with banana and bacon? 

Nutrition- 3 (mixed- for us it was perfect in that moment…)

Taste- 8

Service- 6

Ambience- 6

Extra mile- 4

Budget – medium

*Scores are out of 10

La Buvette rating – 27/50 on a medium budget (would normally give a 31)

 

Nards

If you guessed, not very long, you would be correct!

 

I actually cannot remember the last time I had pancakes; dripping in loads of maple syrup with lashings of butter, and salty bacon to balance it out.  Now you may be thinking that this is very unusual for us two and again you would be right, as this was a special occasion.

 

We were both on one hell carbohydrate re-feed day! 

 

Whilst that sounds like a lucky thing to be doing, it isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.  The reason for doing a re-feed was because we both had a photo shoot in the afternoon, and as such, we had been on a shoot preparation protocol for a few days prior.

 

Most fitness models you see in a magazine have gone through some sort of shoot preparation; of course they are ripped to start off with, but there are some ‘tricks of the trade’ that people use in order to maximize how good they look in the shots.  I’ll let MC get into the details of his particular one, but I want to point out that following a shoot preparation protocol cannot cover up for lack of training and poor nutrition prior.  As I said, it is the fine-tuning that occurs to make the models look even better.  Now, I am no model by any means, and am certainly not as ripped or lean as MC (and nor do I want to be because that would be weird and I actually like my curvy bits), so I used an easier version of the preparation protocol to get me ready for the shoot.

 

One of the major aspects of the preparation is carbohydrate depletion and water loading followed by carbohydrate re-feeding and water cutting.  Put simply, these protocols are designed to make the model appear leaner, fuller and harder on the actual day.  Of course, these protocols take time to fine tune, and what works for one individual may not work for another, however, this has been one that I have used in the past, and one that works well for MC…

 

Which brings me back to breakfast.  After days of complete carbohydrate depletion (only greens and protein for days!), it was time to refuel the muscles with some glycogen AKA sugar!

 

The first few bites of something as delicious and sugary as the pancakes are amazing, however, it soon becomes quite sickly.  I always love the idea of eating sweet things for breakfast but am quickly reminded as to why I cannot.  My extreme sugar high was met with an equally large sugar coma, and any reasonable thinking went out the window.  I felt like I had given myself diabetes!  Fortunately, exercise was on the horizon and the blood sugar was taken up into the muscle cells to do its work. 

If I was someone who could tolerate that much sugar in one hit, I would be back asap to get me some more of dem pancakes, but I’m afraid I need to stay well away from them…

 

Mike

Yeah, French toast, banana, maple syrup and bacon. The bacon being my own addition, because, you know… why not?!

As NN detailed, a day like this is an interesting one. It may seem like the best kind of day, to just pig out guilt free, but if you’re a reasonably healthy person, who has limited sugar most days, and enjoys the odd bit here and there (as you should) then the sweetness soon becomes too much. Especially – and note this – when you’re now no linger drinking water, as the water cutting process has begun while the carb smash is in full swing.

In a pseudo challenge, next time you have something overtly sweet, such as a mixture of the pancakes and French toast above, try to avoid any kind of liquid before and after. It gets hard.

 

Now this is of course in a ‘first world problem, get over your ridiculous issues’ kind of way, I’ll remind you. However, this was the reality we faced on Saturday. A sweet, gluttonous reality in which I also devoured a packet of crumpets covered in banana, honey and jam, close to a packet of jelly babies, a dozen or so fresh dates, oh and some chocolate.

Yeah- by the end of that photo shoot, the last thing you want to see is something sweet.

 

Still, having been through this process a few times now, and refined it somewhat for me specifically, I can say that it is a very interesting thing to go through. One of the est things to come out of it, apart from better looking musk-les and added vanity, is a really good idea of your own body and how it responds to things. Paying close attention through the lead up days and the day of, you can really see your body change as you do different things.

 

This being one of my biggest pieces of advice for anyone  interested in losing fat and getting in better physical condition– pay close attention to your body and how it responds to different food, training and stressors.

 

That doesn’t mean you should do this carb/water manipulation protocol, just get an idea for what some foods do to you, and so on.

 

However, if you want to read more about this then click here to read the guest post on my Unleash Your Alpha site by a friend of mine Eric, from Bach Performance, in which I coached him through for his virginal photo shoot experience.

 

Now, it’s back to ‘normal’ eating. Might I add, that La Buvette do other options besides these sweet ones, and I highly recommend them. This is one of my favourite cafes in Sydney; awesome food, great coffee and always friendly staff. So get down there…

 As for the shoot- it went pretty well. Photos will follow at some point, however, if you live in and around Sydney, and which to get some photos taken, then I can’t recommend the wonderful Simon Le highly enough. Check him out on facebook here.

Questions? Fire them through…

 MC & NN