How To Be Healthy Pt 1 Diet

I'm going to keep this as simple as possible and show you what works, I will give links to further info where possible. Bottom line is I'm going to show you what I do and what I know works. I will tell you whether it's something you MUST do or if there's a little leeway.

You are going to need a smart phone of some kind to help you get fit, some other gadget are usefull and we will cover them too.

Lets kick things off with diet.

1. First of all you need to know how much you are eating. Get Myfitnesspal app to track your calorie intake. Here is how you should set it up. On the desktop version, under MyHome- Settings-update diet/fitness profile.

Choose what you want for your goal weight, always choose sedentary and no workouts as we will add our exercise another way. At the bottom you get to choose how much you want to lose. I would go no higher than .5kg a week. I started with this and quickly reduced it to .25 then changed to maintain weight ! You may or may not know what weight you should be. Use a BMI calculator as a guide, or if you were thin and fit before, recall what weight you were when you could run and cycle with ease.

Then go to MyHome- Goals and fill out the information. 

I set my meals up that way somewhere else in the app, it's not that important but makes sense to me working different shifts.

2. Now heres one of the most important things in this guide. Your Macros.

The key here is to start with your Protein intake.

Take your weight in Kg and multiply by 1.75 That number is how many grams of protein you need to eat in a day. You need only match this with grams of carbs and the rest will be healthy fats.

This vid is about low carb, it also demonstrates why you need to base your intake on Protein.

Above you can see I have manipulated the Macros in daily nutrition goals to be 25/40/35 PFC. I'm going to move to 25/45/30. Any extra Carbs must be earned in exercise.

You can link something like Strava or Trainingpeaks to Myfitness to automatically add your 'free' calories you earned with exercise.

3. We are almost there. All you need to do now is not go over your daily limit. A good way of doing this is following a 16-8 eating plan otherwise known as intermittent fasting. I'm usually finished eating at 1900 and try to go until 1100, often I have food at the standard tea break time of 1000 :) This is not always practical and if I have planned a long cycle or other rather difficult workout I WILL eat in the morning. That said, I can easily do a zones 2 cycle for 90 mins before I break the fast at 1200 on my days off.  

The 16-8 has health benefits and makes it easier to stick to you calorie goals so its a win win.

So we have 3 things to remember. 

1. Carefully monitor your intake. 

2. Eat enough Protein 

3. Try fasting

Do it.

Zwift. Is it any good ? Should I try it ?

Q. Zwift any good ?
A. Yes and No.

First of all let me just say that I would recommend you use a power meter or smart trainer for these apps. If you think your Fluid 2 alone is good enough then have a look at this video.

I'll come clean right away and tell you I have used Trainerroad for many years and for 'Training' it is fantastic. The User Interface has everything you need for specific workouts and the training plans are really well thought out, it's very very good indeed !

      Stick some music on, follow the graph and keep that wee white ball where it should be. Simples !


So, that was Trainerroad and this blog is about Zwift but I just wanted to give you a bit of background for what is to come next.

Zwift in workout mode just isn't as good as Trainerroad, There i've said it Trainerroad blows it out of the water.

                                                             Too much useless info ?

The above shot shows a virtual cycle around a virtual island, there is a schedule down the left so you can see what's to come in the workout. The top middle shows some useful info but NOT your average power for the lap. The 'wee white ball' does this well on Trainerroad. The bar on the right is useful in another aspect of Zwift but completely superfluous in workout mode. The HR line and graph at the bottom are just stupid !

So although you will hopefully get your workout done, the user interface needs a complete overhaul.

Zwift for group riding?  I hear you ask.

Yes, Yes YES.


The various group rides and races are brilliant !
This is what Zwift was made for. Have a look at Zwift  Events and you will see a whole host of rides, usually there will be a description of the event PLEASE read this and follow the instructions :)

                                       Me on one of  the MGCC Winter Rides

If you just want to get the lie of the land then may I suggest the ZZRC sub 2 ride or if you have decent ability the sub 3 ride. The 2 and three refer to Watts per Kg. If you don't know then stick to the sub 2 for now and go back through my blog posts.

                                   The very interesting WBR Buffalo Herd Ride

For races there will quite often be A to D categories based on your FTP Watts/Kg. Some events have a one lap warm up where you must stay with the leader followed by a two lap race. Others are handicapped in such a way as D'd start first followed 2 mins later by C's and so on look for the MGCC ( in the winter ) for these ones. Another good one was with WBR Buffalo Herd ride on a Saturday where the leader messages various drills to do during the ride.

So is Zwift any good ? Yes and No :)