CoachCox

Inspired by Matt Fitzgerald’s recent book Racing Weight I decided to keep a food diary during the 100 mile run week. I figured it would give me an interesting insight into how much I’m actually eating and how it relates to training and weight loss. With weight loss being part of my current focus I expected to be eating less than required in simple calorific terms.

The process of keeping a diary proved to be quite enjoyable in the end and it’s a habit I intend to maintain from now on. I can definitely see the value in understanding how my dietary intake relates to current feelings of health and performance. Also establishing a baseline of dietary practices for maintaining a decent race weight is important in the longer term.

As you’ll know from the previous entries on the run week I dropped weight very rapidly. Whilst I suspect the initial day’s weigh in was unusually high and the final weigh in exceptionally low I was clearly eating far less than I imagined. In simple volume terms what was on my plate appeared huge, but in terms of that calorific content it was a lot less than needed.

Keep that in mind when you look at the tables below. This is not an example of the perfect training diet. On this diet I lost a lot of weight, but generally manage to train well. I was eating similarly during the 43 hour week out in La Santa and I’m sure Roger would attest to the quality of work I was doing. Weight dropped off there too.

The caveats then are that you should take this as an extreme example and not necessarily something to follow. You will have to be getting good sleep whilst eating like this to stand a chance of keeping performance levels up. You have to ensure the diet has plenty of sources of micronutrients in and that you feel healthy on it. At no point do I feel weak or ill as a consequence of my diet. You may feel hungry, actually you will feel hungry!

I’ll revisit the food diary again once I’m looking to maintain weight to allow a comparisson of my eating habits. The primary strategy I’ll use is an increase in carbs, primarily via potato. I suspect I’ll sneak in the odd treat too (in addition to that nightly hot chocolate), but I’m wary of these in case I get sugar cravings! I can’t really do much about volume of food other than increasing the snacking. There was a distinct lack of nuts in the diet last week and I’ll rectify that.

I’ll also start eating more (at all!) during training sessions as currently I don’t eat at all. Food during the longer more focussed bikes and runs that are coming into the plan will be essential for good performance. I tend to opt for cheap cereal bars as there’s no point spending money on expensive sports nutrition for training. Full time athletes tend to have to be budget conscious after all!

Feel free to ask any questions in the comments below. The diary is accurate and only excludes drinking water that I’m aware of. Not all the eating habits are that good I’m sure you’ll note. Perhaps it’s also less strictly paleo than you anticipated? It fuelled a week where I ran 166km, biked 250km and swam (just) 7km.

The Diary

Ironman Training Library

From nutrition to pacing - a collection of CoachCox blog posts focused specifically on Ironman training and racing.

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