Weight Loss & Training

Losing weight can be difficult at the best of times, but throw in training for an event and the challenges just multiplied.

Cut out too many calories and you don't have the energy to train, don't cut out enough and you don't see the results you want.  It's a bit of a balancing act, but not impossible.

• Be realistic about how much weight you want/need to lose.

Based on your time frame, it may not be realistic to lose a significant amount of weight.  Figure 0.5-2 lbs/week, depending on your activity level and starting weight.  The more weight you have to lose, the more you will lose in the first few weeks/months (1-2 lbs).  As you get closer to your goal weight, the amount each week may get less (0.5-1 lb).

• Use the off season for weight loss and maintain it during the racing season.

During the off season workout volume and intensity are not as high as during the racing season.  This is the time when cutting back on some unnecessary calories should not effect your training as much as it might during the racing season.

• Plateaus are not necessarily a bad thing.

You're likely not going to lose weight every single week.  This is natural.  Sometimes your body needs a little time to readjust based on the weight you've already lost and training volume.  While cutting back on calories is important in weight loss, cutting out too much may stall any progress.  More is not necessarily better.

• Cut back on unnecessary calories, not key nutrients.

I'm always amazed at the talk around the amount of sugar that is in fruit and cutting out other foods high in fibre, vitamins, minerals, energy, but continue to eat foods that provide very little nutrients, only calories (muffins, cereal bars, snack foods, etc).  When you're looking for places to cut back, look for foods that provide calories but not essential nutrients.  These 'extras', while tasty at times, are the first place to start.

• Beware of the liquid calories

Often people are very diligent about what they are eating, but miss the calories living in their favourite beverage.  This is extremely common.  It is easier to drink a lot of calories than to eat them.  And because liquids empty out of our stomach relatively quickly, we can end up feeling hungry not that long after.  Some drinks are important and provide a lot of nutrients, but most are just flavour, sugar and water.  Those are the ones to cut down or replace altogether.  Water is usually the best choice because it's essential for good health and has no calories. 

• Use tools to your advantage.

There are many online tools that can help you keep track of what your eating, how much and the corresponding calorie intake.  This makes it much clearer to know what to reduce or identify when you have times of 'mindless eating'.  It will also help you to not cut out too much.  Never go below your minimum calorie intake (most sites will figure that out based on your age, height, weight and activity level) or it will effect your ability to lose weight and training appropriately.  Small consistent changes work best.   

• Forget the cheat days/meals

I've never like cheat days or meals because it seems too much like dieting or restricting.  Health eating should be a lifestyle that you can maintain for your life and not just until a specific event is over.  The 'diet' mindset usually leads to temporary drastic changes not positive, sustainable ones.  But that does not mean you cannot or should not enjoy yourself from time to time.  Food is so much more than just fuel. If you really want a specific food, have it ... but not all the time or every day.  Make a conscious decision to have it on a specific day at a specific meal or time only. 

Depending on how much weight you have or want to lose, it may take more than one off-season to get there. 

 Consistency and constancy are the keys.  The best nutrition plan is one you can stick to long term, and enjoy.

Four Letter Word Month

For the past few months, training has been going really well.  I've gotten in workout that I planned, ate healthy, and had plenty of energy to finish, until now.  I made two mistakes this week that ended up with me having to cut short my long run and tweak my running distances. 

I've been doing indoor bike training 3x/week (on my road bike, not a spinning bike) since the end of October. It's been hard at times, but doable.  Now we've transitioned to lactate threshold training, affectionately called '4-letter word' month.  I'll let you figure out some of those 4-letter words yourself.

Tuesday was out time trial, 2 8-min segments to determine max speed and distance.  I managed my fastest speed and distance ever in the four years I've been doing indoor cycling.  Thursday morning was sprinting, sprinting and more sprinting.

For the past 4 months, I've been swimming 1x/week for about 1 hour, just to 'get it in'.  For the past two weeks, I've committed myself to swimming 2x/week and started using my nifty swim workout for Triathletes book I bought years ago.  So each swim is averaging 2500+ meters and over an hour.

While all this was going on, I was also increasing my run distance by 1.5 km each week since the boxing day 10 miler.  As my distance was increasing, my pace was also getting quicker (but it didn't feel like that).

So what were my two mistakes?  My intensity & total workouts increased and I didn't increase my calorie intake.  And I  kept increasing my run distance without a 'recovery' or down period.

The result was running out of energy early on in my run and leaving me tired and cranky.  So Friday morning, as I struggled to make it back to my car, I decided to change my strategy on the fly. 

I've signed up for the Chilly 1/2 marathon on March 6th. My focus has always been distance, not speed, so I'm shortening my run for next week and then building up to include Chilly as another weekly run, not a targeted event.  I'm planning to use this same strategy for Around the Bay in April.

Luckily for me, there's several weeks between Chilly and ATB to change course, depending on how the next few weeks pan out.

2015 Year End Review

So because it's the year end, I thought I would take the time to review my initial goals that I made back in September to see where I'm at and what needs more work.

Here are my original goals:
1.  Lose ~50 lbs & change my body composition
2.  Incorporate strength and flexibility
3.  Distance, distance, distance

So how am I doing with each goal? And what can be improved?

Goal #1

• I'm almost half way to meeting this goal. The original plan was to focus on losing before training got too heavy or intense.  During that point, it's important to eat enough calories to properly fuel the training or I won't see any speed or distance gains.  If I can maintain this pace, I should meet my goal in another 3-4 months (March/April) which will be perfect timing.
• I'll continue my focus on health eating, cutting out unnecessary empty calories (mainly from added sugars) and pre-planning meals.

Goal #2

• I've already been doing Pilates on a weekly basis and some Yoga.  
• Starting next week, I have Pilates classes scheduled for 2x/wk with an instructor who knows how to challenge me.
• I'm planning on adding some upper body focused resistance band workouts 1-2x/wk

Goal #3

• I've been systematically increasing my distance each week, no more than 1.5 km/wk for running to avoid injury
• Over the past three months I've mainly been swimming 1x/wk.  Next week I plan on swimming 2x/wk.
• Monday's & Wednesday's indoor treadmill runs will get longer and tailored for interval or tempo runs.

2015 Training Distance Totals (using Garmin Forerunner 910xt, not including twice weekly treadmill runs)

October Totals             November Totals             December Totals                   Overall 2015 Totals
Swim - 3.67 km             Swim - 1.32 km                 Swim - 3.47 km                      Swim - 9.47 km
Bike - 50.43 km             Bike - 232.01 km.              Bike - 241.61 km                   Bike - 524.01 km
Run - 37.59 km              Run - 32.26 km                  Run - 58.93 km                      Run - 128.78 km

Luckily for me, I've remain injury free and relatively healthy (only 1 mild cold so far), so training has remained unimpeded this far.

The next phase of training (Jan-Mar) will continue the focus on indoor training, intervals and building my base.  I'll have two scheduled races during this time (Chilly 1/2 & ATB) that will drive my running distance.

The race is no longer 'next year'.  It is 10 months away, which seems like a long time, but as a friend & training partner always says '"each weekend counts".  I need to keep moving forward to meet my goals and finish in 15:30 ... or better ;)

Holiday Pitfalls & The Boxing Day 10 Miler

The holidays are always too busy, but not usually with training.  All the Christmas parties, family visits and traveling, it's very difficult to keep up with training and not gain a ton of unwanted weight.

I was very conscious of some of the pitfalls in my life during the holidays, so I took control to minimize any possible 'damage' to my training.  I hosted Christmas eve and made sure that there would be low calorie health foods mixed in with some of the high calorie favourites.  Choices were kept to a minimum (the more different flavours to choose from, the more we tend to eat) and desserts were small.  If someone wanted more, they could very easily get seconds.

One of the biggest issues is fitting in workouts.  Both my bike class and swimming went on hiatus during the week of Christmas until Jan 4th.  Instead of doing nothing, I picked up a few drop in classes at my local Pilates centre, swam on my own and continued my running schedule.  It was good timing because I was increasing my run distance and my legs needed a break from all that hard cycling we've been doing.

All of my run training was designed to lead up to the Boxing Day 10 miler.  I signed up for this race for two important reasons: 1. They always give the best running gear which is different each year 2. Because of when it happens, it keeps me on track during the holidays.  It's really difficult to do this run filled with turkey, all the fixings and multiple desserts.  In the past I've never had a good boxing day run, partially because I didn't restrict holiday eating leading up to race day.  This year I was determined to make smarter choices and it all paid off.

Unlike other Boxing Day runs, this year's was completely devoid of snow and 4-5 degrees Celsius.  Perfect conditions, if it wasn't for that wind. 20+ km winds, with gusts, coming off Lake Ontario, made the back of the 'out and back' much harder than it needed to be.  After all, there were plenty of hills to do that.  The majority of the route going out was either flattish or downhill, so coming back was where you paid the price of running too hard, eating too much or just being too unprepared. 

For me the day wasn't about time, it was getting in distance and building a solid running base.  That being said, I did have a goal time based on my current running pace.  I hoped to be done in 2 hrs, but during the run, while struggling up the hills and through the nasty wind, I rethought my goal and would have been happy to finish under 2:10 or 2:15.  My finish time was 1:55:46, and almost did a even split (just missed it by 2:14ish).  I'm pretty happy with the results, especially since the second half was significantly tougher than the first half.

Next up is the Resolution Run (5 km) on New Years Eve.  After that, training will return to 'normal' in the new year.  And I think that will be the official transition from IMpretrainingtraining to IMtraining.

Pre-Training Training

What do you do when your targeted Ironman is almost a year away?  How much should I be doing now? 

I've been #IMpretrainingtraining when tweeting about my workouts over the past two months.  To me, I'm in pre-training mode.  I'm no coach or trainer, but I've done the distances enough times that I sort of know how to put it all together and what's required of me right now. 

Right now, it's all about finding a training schedule I can manage while getting in 2-3 swims, 3 runs, 3 bikes and strength/flexibility workouts, and being consistent.  Slowly, very, very slowly I've been increasing distances.  I don't need to do 4 km, 180 km, 42.2 km now.  That will come in about 11 months.

So my pre-training training schedule goes something like this:

• Monday
• Strength - total body (15 min)
• Plates (60 min)
• Yoga (60 min)
• Tuesday
• Swim (30 min)
• Run (30 min)
• Strength - upper body (10 min)
• Wednesday
• Strength - total body (15 min)
• Thursday
• Swim (30 min)
• Run (30 min)
• Strength - upper body (10 min)
• Friday
• Strength - total body (15 min)
• Saturday
• Long Run - (time and distance vary)
• Sunday
• NOTHING!

This will all change in a couple of weeks when indoor cycling training begins.  The cycling will be Tues/Thurs morning and Sunday, the swim will move to the evening, the runs will move to Mon/Wed and the rest will move to Fridays.  And everything will begin to increase in time, except the rest :(

So it will look more like this:

• Monday
• Strength - total body (15 min)
• Run (30 min)
• Pilates (60 min)
• Yoga (60 min)
• Tuesday
• Cycling - indoors (1-1.5 hers)
• Strength - upper body (10 min)
• Swim (1 hr)
• Wednesday
• Strength - total body (15 min)
• Run (30 min)
• Thursday
• Cycling - indoors (1-1.5 hrs)
• Strength - upper body (10 min)
• Swim (1 hr)
• Friday
• NOTHING!!!!
• Saturday
• Long Run
• Sunday
• Cycling  - indoors (1.5-2 hrs) 

The hardest part of this schedule for me is the evening swims.  I like to go to bed early and get up early, so doing things in the evenings, like the swim, consistently will be a challenge.  This will change again at the end of November when both my Pilates and yoga classes will be complete.  I'll probably take another class in January ... probably.

I'll also have to decide at that time whether or not I want to get myself a coach.  That's when pre-training training ends and official training begins. Can't wait.  Until then, I'm putting in my time, trying to get better with each swim, bike and run.

I, Caveman ... no thanks!

I just finished watching the second half of Discovery's "I, Caveman" show that takes a group of men & women and put them in a 'caveman' situation.  They are given caveman clothing (pelts and skins), shelter and basic survival training skills like starting a fire.  Then they're left alone (surrounded by cameras of course) to live as 'cavemen/cavewomen' for 10 or 14 days.  At the beginning they were all positive and upbeat, after all how hard could this be?  Well they found out after it took them hours and hours and hours to start a fire.  It went down hill from there.

They were tired, hungry, thirsty and generally complaining most of the time.  They struggled to find enough to eat and when they did, several women (I'm sorry to say) turned away in disgust at the thought of eating snails or having a head on their fish.  By the end, two had enough and gave up; tired, hungry and dejected.

Unfortunately in Paleolithic times, there was no giving up.  You ate or you starved and died.

The reason I found this whole thing fascinating is because of the cult like status of the Paleo diet.  Their thinking is that the major illnesses we face today, including obesity, can be traced back and caused by the start of agriculture.  While some of their 'rules' have some health benefits, the reasoning behind them is suspect.

Here are some points that the paleo people may not be considering.

1. There is no one Paleo diet.  Paleolithic man ate different foods regionally and seasonally.
2. The types of fruits/vegetables, seeds and meats are different today then they were back in the day.
3. There were no doctors back then, so how do we know what diseases they may have had.
4. Their lifespan was a heck of a lot shorter
5. Food was not as abundant then as it is now (feast & famine)
6. If it was edible, they ate it.  They couldn't afford not to.
7. Everything they did required a lot of energy

Calories are energy and everything we do cost calories.  In our 'push button' society, we require less and less calories to do the basic activities of daily living.

In Paleolithic times, everything was work.  Cavepeople didn't have any other job but to survive and it took a lot of energy.  Even the basics of cooking and drinking took effort.  They couldn't just go to the tap or the microwave when they were hungry or thirsty. 

So the industrial revolution and technological evolution over the past hundred years has switch the calorie balance (consuming more energy than we are using) and we are suffering the effect.

Check out a great Ted Talks on the paleo diet and what paleolitic man most likely ate: http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/Debunking-the-Paleo-Diet-Christ

So what are the good, healthy points about the Paleo diet I agree with:

• eat more lean meats, fish, poultry (if you like free range, go for it, but it can be $$$)
• eat more fruits and vegetables (all of them, even the poor maligned potato)
• avoid added sugar (sugar that's found in an ingredient list, sugar that's easily removed or adjusted in the food, not the sugar in fruit or dairy)
• avoid processed foods (again, check out the label, just cause it's in a box doesn't always mean it's bad, but it's a good start)
• eat health fat (I'd prefer the poly & mono-saturated fats found in nuts, seeds, fruits & vegetables, like avocado or olives)

What I would add to the Paleo plan:

• grains - not necessarily wheat, but whole grains like oats, bulger, barley, spelt, quinoa, etc; what we call ancient grains
• legumes - a great source of fibre, protein and many vitamins/minerals; just make sure to cook the dried ones well or use canned
• consider portion size and cooking methods - it's not always what you eat, but how much and how it's made
• eat local - the $ stays in your community and the produce is likely fresher & tastier as it didn't have to travel far to get to your market

Above all, food is meant to be enjoyed.  Diets are temporary, restrictive and don't work.  Eat for your lifestyle.  One food, one meal, one day will not make you healthier or unhealthier.  It's a pattern of eating over time.  

What is Healthy Eating?

In my last post I listed some of my goals for Ironman training, or pre-training right now.  The first was to lose weight through healthy eating.

Health eating and what to eat for weight loss can be controversial.  Research studies are consistently looking a different types of diet, usually low fat or low carb, to ultimately determine which one is best for weight loss.  Fad diets and opinions are all over the internet and people are very 'passionate' about their food beliefs. Between the low carb people, paleo people, vegans/vegetarians and the 'clean eating' people, it's all a little cultish ... in my opinion

As part of my master's degree, I created a website that looks at the research around weight loss, along with providing tools and tips for both weight loss and weigh maintenance.  It also has a blog which I've been trying to maintain, as much as I can with everything else I'm doing.  You can check it out here: http://bgrohmannrd.wix.com/what-fuels-you.

Basically, the research shows that no matter what 'diet' you're following, the most important factor for long-term weight loss is consistency.  

With that in my, my 'healthy eating' plan includes:

1. Reducing added sugars
2. Eating more fruits/vegetables
3. Adding beans/legumes/pulses
4. Choosing more lean meats/fish/chicken
5. Whole grains (barely, quinoa, bulger)
6. Portion size
7. Tracking everything I eat

I recently made red lentil curry with spinach ... so good.  You can find the recipe here: http://naturallyella.com/quick-red-lentil-and-spinach-curry/.  Actually, it was so good, I made it for two weeks in a row.  The second time, I doubled the batch and froze the other half.  It can be eaten with rice, quinoa (yum), naan, and as either a main course or healthy side.  When I made the double batch, I added roasted red peppers and black beans that I had in the freezer.

Healthy eating does not need to be complicated, or restrictive.  It should meet your own personal preferences, cooking abilities and schedule.

  

I'm not a foodie.  I rarely make anything from scratch (but I'm working on that) and absolute love when I can throw everything into one pot.  And with all the training I have ahead of me, I need health food that not only fuels my body, but tastes good and easy to make/reheat.