As always at Christmas I receive cookbooks, which if I am honest annoys me a bit.
My family obviously think they are doing me a favour buying me the latest, often celebrity endorsed “Cookbook”.
The truth is the they are often in my opinion dross.
They may be ok for someone who is inactive and has no intention of ever doing any activity but for people who do things, who do sport, they’re often useless.
Mainly because they suggest such a low calorie approach.
You see, for the athlete our main priority has to be performance.
Fat loss is definitely a way to improve our performance in the long run but in the short run, going on too low a calorie diet will likely affect your performance negatively.
Especially when you are training for endurance sport, where the energy expenditure can be very high.
1000 calories burnt in an hour is possible and if you are only consuming 1500 for the day, it is easy to see how after a few days you run into trouble.
It is then after those few days that the low calorie diet gets thrown out and essentially we give up.
God intentions, combined with high activity levels and too extreme an approach, can only ever mean failure.
That is assuming your not taking performance enhancing drugs.
So what is the answer?
Firstly, it is in my opinion a mistake to INCREASE activity levels and DECREASE calories at the same time.
Assuming you have a training volume and routine you are comfortable with, I would initially drop calories from normal very slightly.
If you don’t know how many calories you consume, use my fitness pal for a week and if no weight is lost, drop the calories next week.
Simply if you have a week without weight loss, next week, drop the calories by about 100 a day.
If you can’t be bothered counting calories you will be better following a diet plan which is nutrient dense.
This simply means a plan which floods you body with the correct ratios of macro nutrients and vitamins and minerals.
This is what people usually term – “Healthy”
The problem with healthy then, is that it is seen as:
RABBIT FOOD!
And if you like to eat, this is NOT an attractive proposition.
This is exactly the reason I wrote my E-Book – The Triathlete Nutrition Code:
Written by an athlete, for the athlete with someone with over 20 years experience in endurance sport.
Not only that, I like to eat.
I was fat in my younger years and that fat person remains inside – my appetite is big!
So I wouldn’t recommend a diet which makes you hungry all the time.
This book will help you set up the perfect diet for you.
It is of course full of tasty, healthy, filling recipes for every meal and snack.
At £9.99 (12 USD ish) the investment is small and the result if followed will be BIG.
Not big in a fat way but BIG in a getting lean way.
Lean, healthy, energised – oh and you won’t feel fat or out of place when you put on your tri suit.
Lycra and wetsuits are NOT flattering.
Go and get it now:
Jamie “Eat BIG” Leighton