This is usually the approach adopted of the highly motivated dieter.
It is my suspicion that form the 17,000 triathletes reading this, a good proportion of you will have adopted this strategy in the new year.
Let me tell you about Alex:
Alex decided he wanted to do an Ironman and whilst he was reasonably fit needed to up his game.
Like most of us, this meant more training and also some fat to be lost.
Whist the training would get him fitter, the weight lost would make him faster over the 13.5 hours he hoped it would take him to compete the course.
He bought a plan off Training Peaks and started following a calorie controlled diet which looked like:
Breakfast – Porridge with honey
Lunch – Sandwich, apple, flapjack
Dinner – Pasta, sauce, bread and a yogurt.
He also had a energy drink during training.
Total calories – 1600.
Alex’s basal metabolic rate(amount of calories burnt at rest) was 2000.
He was initially training every evening except Friday and Saturday/Sunday mornings.
On average this meant he burnt an extra 600 calories a day.
1600 (daily intake) minus 600 = 1000 calories a day.
As expected he lost weight quickly – 3 pounds in the first week.
Another 3 in the second.
Then it started getting tough, he got a cold and was finding it harder to be motivated to train.
He took a couple of days off and ate less well and drank some alcohol.
One month down the line, that six pounds off fat turned into one pound and he felt even more demotivated.
Alex had made a BIG mistake – the sort I see every day.
He was too aggressive.
Too short term in his approach – he wanted results tomorrow.
If he’d have been more restrained and ate more, even allowed himself some treats, he would have lost more in that first month – estimated 4 pounds.
NOT as much in the first week but more in the first month and we know which is the most important.
It’s the same message we’ve heard all our lives – we must be patient, but that takes belief!
Belief in your nutritional plan.
Not just a calorie restricted plan you’ve made up or bits and bobs you’ve picked up from magazines or the internet.
Thuis is exactly why I wrote my nutritional guide E-Book for Triathletes – The Triathlon Nutrition Code:
http://www.nutri-tri.com/e-books/
To educate you more on nutrition.
To help you set up the perfect diet for you and your body type.
To understand more on the effects of stress on fat loss.
To give you recipes which will fuel your training and make you feel better, not weaker and more tired.
And it’s only £9.99/13 USD ish.
http://www.nutri-tri.com/e-books/
Jamie “Eat more” Leighton