Thursday, March 13, 2014

What Do I Eat ?

I got back into cycling at the end of last year. Read the full story about my arthritis HERE and the motivational tools and training aids HERE

There is still a missing parameter in the fitness and health equation, my diet.

The word diet has all sorts of connotations and people have tried to get around this by saying, this is not a diet is a lifestyle ! Well, this is just the stuff I eat after a lot of research, several attempts at similar eating regimes and a little give and take I arrived at this.

It is to a large extent Low Carb High Fat. Yes, I'm a cyclist and I'm saying LCHF ! Also see bottom of page for info.

That may sound crazy, Carbs are your easy fuel, to cycle you need to eat as much as possible right ? Well not really. Take a look at what I have eaten over the past few days. Now I don't usually track my food all the time, However I was away from home last week and ate the food in the Hotel so I'm just checking I'm back on track again.

Normal day with no planned workout would be something like this:



The food tracker is Fatsecret and I have set a RDI of 2200 calories. You can see the small amount of carbs consumed and fat eaten in it's place. What about the Protein I hear you ask ?

Well a recent article in Cycling Fitness by an Olympic Nutritionist suggests that over 35 years of age should consume 2g of Protein per Kg of body weight. (Dr Sharon Madigan )
At 66kg - 67 Kg that's 132g. Having eaten that regularly over the last few months I'm pretty sure that most over 35's are NOT getting enough !
Anyway, onto a workout day. This was a 60 minute turbo session workout around the Sweetspot, see my Trainer Road blog.


Aye the good old Weetabix for breakfast, two hours before the training session, also there's the PhD ISO 7 drink post workout. I never even managed to get near the set RDI. I'm actually just eating to hunger, as I said I don't usually even track what I eat. Last Fridays 2225 calories may have been related to the fact that I ate quite a lot of carbs at the Hotel the day before. I have discovered that when you eat carbs it actually makes you hungrier throughout the day and the next day !

Tuesday and we are having a day off again. Few carbs and lots of lovely fat.



So what's eating all that fat done to my body and my fitness ? Well I have beaten all my Strava segment times from the past few years so I'm a lot fitter and have MORE muscle mass.

My cycling performance has increased. Here are my results for a local hill climb.


I had been back cycling since August and only started my exercise and diet program at the end of October. I thought my September time was fast and that I would not easily beat it !

As for my weight and body fat, well here is the graph. I was 71Kg in October 2013 and 22.1% body fat.



Today I'm 66.4Kg and 18.4% body fat, the main thing is I feel great aswell ! Another great benefit is NO heartburn/indigestion. Over a year ago I was taking Ibuprofen and Paracetemol for my knee pain. I stopped because of an upset stomach but the indigestion continued all year until I started my new way of eating !

When I first started doing this along with cycling I had a lot more carbs before, during and after excercise. I have been cutting this back recently with no negative effects. As I continue to experiment I will take food or a gel out with me just in case I need it :)

I would just like to say a big thanks to Andreas Eenfeldt   
It's nice to see some sense in a sea of diet confusion and stupidity !

If you want an excellent example of a self inflicted scientific study with proper control and all the data ( even more than me ) have a look at this. Peter Attia, experiment.

Another cycling and triathlon specific story can be found here Bob Seebohar

Get fit and lose weight, there's no excuse. LCHF !

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