Losing and Tri'g

Welcome, Anne.

We have some things in common. Although, I was never an athlete....ever. I started doing triathlons 2 years ago because I can (for the first time in my life) and they're fun. I was obese.
I guess, in today's way of things, I'm Jhaack39 and I'm obese. Recovering, if you will. I'm down the 100+ lbs. I wanted to lose, but you know...until I live the rest of my life this way, I still have to count calories and exercise and will always consider myself "obese" even if the scale doesn't say so.

I think the nutritionist thing is a good plan. I'm sure you've seen and heard all the crudton of 'Diets' (capital "D") and "cut this from your diets" and "eat this exclusively" type stuff out there. For me, I couldn't completely cut anything I wanted from my diet (lower case "d") and I couldn't isolate myself to anyone one thing or family of things. I like food too much. I think you can't go wrong with a nutritionist. Be it for sport or life. I think any nutritionist is going to say the same thing. Balance. Find what works for you. Find what you like and find a way to make it work.

I, too, am planning a 70.3 for next year. Just did my first Olympic length last weekend. Each time I do a race, I seem to have a different goal in mind. Sometimes it's simply surviving my first race with clipped in pedals. Sometimes the plans change from "surviving" to "kicking butt and never slowing up" when they shorten the course. Sometimes it's beating what I did last year in the same race. Sometimes it's making the leap to a full Olympic.

Achievable goals were easy for me in the weight loss. I didn't start the tri's until I was through about 85% of my weight loss. That 100 lbs. seemed daunting at first. Until I realized that I could lose 2-4 lbs. a week simply by executing a gameplan. I think that's sort of the appeal of triathlons. The more of a gameplan you seem to have in training or in the race, the more you seem to achieve. Goals. Achieving them feels REAL GOOD, no?

jhaack39...we do seem to have similar outlooks and approaches on these things. I do not call my eating a diet. I talk about my food framework. I have been limited certain things, but have not cut out anything. I also set all kinds of goals...I am trying to have something each month. My next event is a 5k on Oct 4th - goal is to run the whole thing...even if it is a sllllooooowww run. Next is Nov 8. 10k..goal is to run the whole thing. After that I want to start working on speed. I also have a ride this weekend for 30 miles and one in October for 60 miles. The day after the 60 miler i will be doing a short duathlon. Swim wise I have joined a masters group. I can only get there once a week right now, but my goal with swimming is to drop 4 min off my 400 by the first tri of our season the end of March.

You are right goals are the key for me. I do not weigh myself but look at sizes. My current mantra there is "12 by 12" meaning size 12 by month 12 (December). goals.

I saw on your profile you hail from Missouri. I have family in Versailles area and Sedalia area. I have looked at riding the Katy trail as a multiple day ride combined with family visit.

How did you determine how many calories to eat? I get the balance thing. I know WHAT to eat....just not how much with all the training.

Cheers!

Hi, I'm new here too and with this work out plan on this awesome site and tracking nutrition I loose weight really fast even though I eat 1650 kcal a day. I've never done a race before, but I would like too, but don't have a good bike. I wish you all the luck in the world in becoming a stronger version of yourself.

That's fabulous, Anne!! I love that your daughter is also doing Triathlons...you can share that and do some training together Good luck on your journey. Find some people in your area to train with if you can to make it fun and help keep you accountable!! Cheers, Mimi

Welcome to the World and Addiction of Triathlons and congrats on your races so far!

Just a word of wisdom about the nutrition needs. Many nutritionist will tell you, that you need XX amount of calories above your normal intake because you train for a triathlon but thats not the case!
I made the mistake many many years thinking that I need to eat more when I train a lot. Well I was totally wrong and it was not until I decreased me calorie intake to about 1500 (with about 10 hrs of training a week) did I start loosing weight! With 2000 calories I maintain or sometimes even gain weight!
Figure out what works for YOU as everyone is different!

An Half-Ironman is surely an ambitious goal for your first full season. Good luck with the training and don't overdo it as that might take all the fun out of it!

The Katy is pretty cool. Especially when you can hit wineries along the trail. Of course, the trek back is usually a little longer due to the weaving.
Just a word of caution, it's not terribly road bike tire friendly. It's essentially all packed gravel. Some spots get pretty soft. At least the bits I've ridden.

As for calories, I don't count so much anymore. I've got a pretty good handle on my new 'framework'. Great term, by the way! When I was aggressively losing, I just went by what Sparkpeople.com recommended and it fit with what my doctor told me and what internet research told me. I used the counting as a game (stay within range of the bad stuff like calories cholesterol and increase the good stuff like folates and potassium.

Being that my longest race has been an Olympic length, I really haven't changed the nutrition that I followed while losing weight. I work out about the same amount, just different forms of exercise when I'm "training". I have been exploring 'nutrition' on longer training days or races that extend towards the 2 hour mark. But that's pretty micro compared to the other stuff I've done and mostly just experimenting while looking at increasing time and distance next year.

I don't expect to actually change a whole lot of what I eat. I think with the extra effort I put in this summer to get up to a little longer race than I've done previously that it's worked out well with my understanding of nutrition. Sure, I'm not as detailed on what I eat and probably am consuming more calories than I did while actively losing weight. Just by the fact that I'm not dedicatedly tracking them. As long as the scale and fit of the clothes are where I want them and my doctor doesn't have me back on the BP and cholesterol medication I was on, I figure I'm doing the right thing. If that changed, I'd probably get back to calorie counting a little. But I'd probably up my limit by a couple hundred if I were in the throws of it like I was this summer.

Thank you everyone for the encouraging words and advice. Tuesday I start with a coach. Today I am struggling with mixed emotions. Saturday I did a 5k without walking. That was my goal...so success. But that feeling of success is tempered with frustration of my really slow pace....And I mean slooowwww. I know I can turtle through just about anything but I am getting tired of being a turtle.

I will restart food logging again and keep it to 1500 to 1600 as that is what I have calculated as my potential sweet spot.

While my coach helps me figure out speed I will try very hard not to compare myself to every other triathlete out there and will remind myself that I have never been last in either of the sprints I did.

Cheers!
Anne