I am training for the BG this summer and have a few food questions I would like advice on, any thoughts?
Is there any index or way of telling how fast a food is digested and leaves the stomach? This is obviously important because if I digest one snack it leaves room for another without being too full to move. I like to eat salty snacks like nuts but don't want to fill my stomach up with something that takes ages to digest.
Protein - how important is this on a 24 hour run? I have read something that says when you have been on the go for ages and used up all your glycogen stores you start to need protein. Is this stored protein, or stuff I have just eaten? Do I not need to bother with this if I keep eating carbs?
GI - as I understand things, GI gives a measure of the energy released from a portion of carbs in the 2 hours after eating, considering I am planning on eating pretty much constantly, do I have to worry about lower GI carbs such as oats or would these just fill the stomach and mean I would be be better off just drip feeding myself high GI foods such as dried fruit and sweets?
Chocolate/Nuts/flapjack - because these have a lot of fat in they are medium/low GI, so if I eat a mars bar will it significantly slow the digestion of other high GI foods that I am drip feeding myself and cause me to hit the wall?
Suck or swallow? - How much quicker will the energy get to my muscles if I suck a sweet or chew and swallow it? I don't like holding sweets in my mouth for ages, but feel this might be the quickest way to get the energy. Worth bothering about or not?
I know most people will be thinking - stop thinking so much and just try stuff out, see if it works. Which I have been doing, but I also want to understand what is going on in my stomach to give myself every chance of getting the food right.
Thanks for any thoughts.
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