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Maintain Your
Lean, Mean Racing Machine
By
Gale Bernhardt
For Active.com
If you are looking
for those magic nutrition tips to drop 10 pounds in two weeks, don't
read this column.
If you expect fast
results from a highly restrictive or prescriptive diet, it's not here.
If you are
interested in a life-long eating strategy that has sustainable results,
read on.
Early in the year
typically means more cyclists than usual will pay me a visit or give me
a call to review training plans and diets. These two topics are closely
intertwined, and in this column I'll focus on sharing some of the
nutrition and eating tips with you that have helped other cyclists.
Tip #1: Think
about your diet and nutrition plan as a long-term goal.
You will never
reach your full potential as an athlete if you are not healthy. Solid
nutrition builds a healthy body.
Tip #2: Enjoy
food.
While eating fresh
vegetables, lean meats, whole grains and low-fat dairy products might be
close to a religion for some people, they may not be the only food
products you want to consume while on earth. If you enjoy things like
chocolate, cookies, adult beverages, or chips, there are ways to build
those treats into a healthy eating plan without feeling like you've
committed food sins.
The 80-20 rule
applies to eating, I believe. If you eat nutritionally dense foods 80
percent of the time, 20 percent of your diet can take a diversion to
treats without significant negative consequences.
Tip #3: There is
no perfect plan for everyone, find what works for you.
Some people can
deliver outstanding health scores (blood profiles, blood pressure and
other health checks) eating red meat five days a week and others cannot.
Find a nutrition strategy that works to combine optimizing your overall
health with enjoyment and what fits into your lifestyle.
Tip #4: Think
about your calorie balance like a bank account.
Each day you have
a baseline calorie expenditure—the calories it takes to keep you going
on a daily basis. To sustain being a regular person, each day you need
approximately 30 calories per kilogram of body weight. To find your
weight in kilograms, take weight in pounds and divide by 2.2. For
example, if weight is 140 pounds, weight in kilograms is 140/2.2 = 63.6
or 64 kg.
To find daily
caloric needs, take 64 x 30 = 1920 calories. At 140 pounds, it takes
roughly 80 calories per hour (1920 calories per 24 hours) to fuel your
body. Of course the exact value changes depending on if you are awake
and active or sleeping, but 80 calories per hour is a good start.
Modify this base
formula when appropriate:
1) Add
more calories (about 100 to 300) to the daily total if you lead an
active lifestyle. Subtract calories if your lifestyle is low-activity.
The following
modifiers are gross values that include exercise expenditure and the
base energy expenditure:
2) Add
about 0.15 to 0.17 calories per minute, per kilogram of body weight, for
cycling. (For example, 0.17 calories/minute-kilogram x 60 minutes x 64
kilograms equals 653 calories needed for an hour of fast cycling.)
3) Add
about 0.1 calories per minute, per kilogram of body weight, for strength
training. (For example, 0.1 calories/minute-kilogram x 60 minutes x 64
kilograms equals 384 calories needed for an hour of strength training.)
4) Add
about 0.13–0.16
calories per minute, per kilogram of body weight, for swimming. (For
example, 0.16 calories/minute-kilogram x 60 minutes x 64 kilograms
equals 614 calories needed for an hour of fast swimming.)
5) Add
about 0.14–0.29
calories per minute (roughly the range from an 11 minute pace per mile
to a 5 minute, 30 second pace per mile), per kilogram of body weight,
for running. (For example, 0.2 calories/minute-kilogram x 60 minutes x
64 kilograms equals 768 calories needed for an hour of fast running.)
If you weigh 140
pounds and you did a killer-hard, one-hour bike workout, your calorie
expense account for the day is roughly your base needs plus your
exercise calories. Don't forget to remove your base calories from the
hourly exercise number: 1920 calories + (653 - 80) = 2493.
Eat anything you
please, within your budget.
Tip #5: Calibrate
base rate and exercise if possible.
While the formulas
contained in Tip #4 are a good start, you need to find ways to hone in
on what you are really expending when you exercise and what you expend
during normal activity.
Keep track of what
you eat for about three days to see what you are consuming to maintain
your current weight.
One way to
calibrate cycling exercise is with a power meter that displays calories
burned for a workout or kilojoules expended during the workout. (They
are roughly one in the same.) If your power meter says you only burned
400 calories for an hour of a high-intensity workout, that needs to be
taken into your budget consideration. You will begin to know what
exercise intensity is worth 400 calories per hour and what exercise is
worth 600 calories per hour.
Some heart rate
monitors estimate calories burned during a workout. However, some
athletes have reported to me that these values are close for them, while
others have said it is way off. Consider this number another piece of
data.
Tip #6: Calibrate
your eyeballs.
Some athletes have
reputations of measuring or weighing food all the time. While this works
for them, constantly measuring and weighing food would drive other
people crazy. If you are an athlete that does not like to weigh and
measure meals and you find you are gaining or losing weight when you
don't intend to, calibrate your eyeballs every once and awhile.
What I mean by
this is if, when serving yourself one cup of a particular food, you
actually put 1.5 cups on your plate, your eyeballs need calibration.
Measure and weigh
your food portions for three to seven days to get your eyeballs
calibrated and then stop. Know that you may need to recalibrate from
time to time.
Tip #7: Eat for
the weight you want to be.
Here is where the
life-long strategy comes into effect. If you currently weigh 160 pounds
but you want to weigh 140, eat as though you are currently at 140 pounds
using the formulas in Tip #4. What this does is establish the healthy
eating habits it takes to maintain your lean, mean, racing machine over
the long haul.
It will take time,
but eventually you will reduce your weight from 160 to 140 and keep it
there.
Tip #8: Monitor
your daily account balance, but be accountable for weekly performance.
There are going to
be some days you eat more than you need to for one reason or another.
There are also going to be days where you exercise more and expend more
calories than you burn. Eating 200 calories too many on one day is no
big deal if you expend an extra 200 within the next couple of days.
Tip #9: Plan to
weigh three to eight pounds more in the winter.
Some athletes
drive themselves crazy trying to maintain race weight in the winter,
when they are exercising less. While you shouldn't go wild eating like a
bear planning to hibernate all winter, don't stress about a few pounds
more in the off season.
Tip #10:
Nutrition and exercise are choices. Choose to be healthy and fit.
You don't have to
be a racer to have a lean, mean machine of a body. And you don't have to
be a sedentary person.
Eating healthy
foods, enjoying treats and exercising a body that was meant to move are
personal choices. Make choices that serve your long-term vision for
yourself.
Tip #11: Monitor
health, weight, and performance and anticipate changing something when
your benchmark measures do not meet your goals.
It is the case for
most people that you will need, and want, to make changes to your
nutrition plan from time to time. Monitor your overall health status
annually, your weight weekly and your athletic stats to decide when to
make changes. Give your body at least two weeks for the changes to have
a measurable affect. |
