Its been a while since I've actively posted anything here on the blog. And to be honest, I've missed it. I enjoy writing about cycling, training and sharing tidbits on my other interests as well. Hopefully some of you have also enjoyed my musings.
As I continue, we'll try to keep things consistent with Mega Mondays, a review of the happenings of the weekend...races, training, fun events; Training Tuesdays, something about my own or other's training for cycling and other pursuits; we'll call Wednesdays either Wide Open Wednesday or Wet Wednesday. I still keep tabs on yacht racing and motorsports, so Wednesdays will have something along those lines. Thursdays we'll leave open for product reviews, ski reports, cycling news and other relevant topics and of course Fridays will highlight a fun video I've found. Maybe keeping to a schedule like this will keep me going and motivated. The blogging sure does help my own training and focus.
So, to get back into it, lets kick off a Training Tuesday!
Now that we're officially in the off season, its a great time to discuss diet, especially as the holidays set in. Normally I put on a good ten pounds in the winter but being that I had such a difficult season of racing in 2012, I never really dropped what I usually do in season. I never got below 180 lbs whereas the past few seasons I've ended the year at 172-175. I also had to deal with a bout of overtraining and some difficult personal struggles so after Harvest Moon Criterium, I took some time off the bike. Needless to say, I started my winter training last week at 190 lbs.
With the extra weight, I've renewed my focus on getting down to race weight. My biggest help so far has been my wife. She also has some weight loss and training goals. It helps immensely to have a partner in any kind of goal, especially with health related endeavors. The second help has been Brianne Nalder, a sports nutritionist in Salt Lake City. She's opened my eyes to issues such as bone density, nutrient timing and cooking for weight loss. She also provided me with my Resting Metabolic Rate, which told me exactly how many calories I should use as my baseline. With this data I've been able to utilize an amazingly simple but effective online tool: www.myfitnesspal.com. This website keeps your food diary all in one place with more than 2 million foods already in its database.
Whats been most eye opening has been how much good food you can actually eat, as long as you keep track. What has also been interesting is to see how much I was over eating. It doesn't take much. 500 extra calories a day can be consumed without really thinking about it, which equates to about 1 lb a week in weight gain.
With watching calories, every calorie counts. If you splurge on lunch, dinner becomes more difficult and that snack you need before bed is impossible. So each food item becomes important. It has to be satisfying, nutritious and filling.
My resting metabolic rate has me at 2232 calories per day. That's basically what my body needs just to function during the day. So to lose a pound a week, I need to be at 1732 net calories. I'm working out 6 days a week, so keeping to that number has been relatively easy, but on Sundays, that is a very hard number to keep. Its amazing to see how much physical activity affects your calories for the day.
So with that, lets keep this going. Please leave feedback or drop me line. Peace!
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