Newbz'z summer mentor group is FULL!!!! (Page 55)

I don't have a Garmin.  I'm using the PT head.  I managed to download to PowerAgent but I'm not a fan of the program.

I gave up on downloading via DA and found out how to examine in PowerAgent.  Av watts over 20min tt 212.  -5% gives me a 202FTP.  2.97w/kg

carl nice job on the test, they are painful painful things!

now the goal is to slowly push that number up!

Oh yeah...that's what I meant...the standard software the head unit comes with.

Based on my limited experience, I would say yes.  The hills take their toll, both up and down.   Nice race.   I'll be happy if I can get down to 45 min and I don't think that will happen until next year.  

so what's everyone got planned for the short week?

Looking forward to having my first set of power data today.

The typical....week three of "competitive season" training.

I've been toying with the idea of losing a few pounds.  I'm currently at 195 and fluctuate between 192 and 196 pretty steadily.  Since I started training in December my goal was to maintain weight.  So I've been keeping my nutrition intact so that I am doing so pretty well.  The problem I see here is that my friends who I train with are in the 160-165 range and are dropping me on the uphills.  I'm not really sure what my percent body fat is, maybe somewhere in the 10-12 range.  I know that's just a guess....  How much benefit am I going to see from losing 10 lbs.  And how the hell do I do it?  I can easily change my diet around and have good will power to stick to it.

Any advice would be great!!

on the bike you'll notice in more on hills. swim, prob wont at all aside from the fitness gains.

on the run, 10 pounds is huge (just from weight alone its something on the order of 2-3 sec per mile per pound).


if you are staying at a certain weight right now with training, you have two options. either start adding in more trianing and keep the food the same, and drop out a bit of a food.

it takes a 3000cal deficit to lose a pound of weight (or is it 3500?).

at your size, 500 or so per day under what you are doing now with the same training will drop you a pound a week. any more than that (unless you have a decent amount of fat to lose) and your workouts may start to suffer. (some people go up to 1k negative a day, i cant train full time under about 600 down).


depending on your diet now, it may be as simple as cutting out some extra stuff (snacks, switching salad dressings, cutting out some fats, etc), or you may need to back off food a bit overall. if you take a look at it though 500 cal can add up quickly and is pretty easy to knock out of yoru diet if you think about it.

This is exactly what I am trying to figure out.  Starting tomorrow I'm going to try to reduce my intake about 500 a day across the board (carbs, protein, fat).  Or do you think I should reduce calorie intake mostly in terms of one of the groups altogether?  My main focus is HIM, so I don't want to just get rid of fat.

across the board is fine, i mentioned fat more as a lot of people end up getting mroe than they need.

for me it was easy to knock out 500 a day simply through things like milk in coffee (dont drink it a ton though so that was smaller), going to oil and balsamic for salads vs salad dressing, changing how i hcook come foods, knocking out some snacks.

protien is a good filler in meals for lower cal content vs some foods.

adding in more veggies will help fill meals without the higher cal costs.

grabbing a banana vs chips for a snack, etc.

a lot of little changes can go a long way.

things like soda, some juices, (if you drink either), are another good place to drop out extra cal.

slightly smaller portions, watching what you cook with, all good ways without killing your overall habits.

Okay.  That makes sense.  I can definitley do that.  I'll go ahead and start today and see how it goes.

Well, like I said, 10-12% is a guess.  I'm pretty lean, 6'-3" and 195, so I don't have a long way to go.  That's the only real reason I went with 10-12%.  That's an interesting theory with the 3 days on, one day off, three days on, one day off.  This is specifically to make sure you're not burning muscle?

Yes.  The idea is to keep your metabolism as high as possible.  When you put your body in a constant calorie deficit, your body's natural reaction is to slow down your metabolism (how much calories you burn at rest) so that your back at an even state.  So all else being equal, if your current normal calorie intake is 2500, and you drop it to 2000 everyday...eventually your body will adjust so that your equilibrium calorie intake is now 2000 instead of 2500.  So in order to lose weight, you need to drop below 2000, and above 2000 you will gain weight.  It's precicely why it is so hard to lose weight and keep it off.  Because you body is constantly resisting it by adjusting your metabolism in the opposite way we intend it to.  If you suddenly go back to 2500 calories because you hit your desired weight, you'll notice you will start gaining weight because you are now eating 500 calories more than your new (2000) equilibrium.  Eventually your metabolism will adjust back, because 2500 is still healthy...but you're back where you started.

This is described as the starvation response.  Basically, through thousands of years of evolution, our bodies have developed this response to slow our metabolism so we don't starve to death.  It's the reason why people can live for months with very little food...because eventually your body will adjust it's metabolism so that you only burn maybe 800 calories per day.  It's also the reason why the following formula does not work...

If I have 30 pounds of fat on me.  That's (30 x 3500) 105,000 fat calories.  If I keep my exercise the same, and I drop my calorie intake by just 200 calories per day, then in 525 days...or roughly 18 months, I should be 0% body fat.

By cycling on and off with your calorie deficit, you can "trick" your body into keeping it's metabolism fairly high.  Essentially what you are training your body to do is to burn calories and lose weight on the days you do create a deficit...and when the alarms start going off in your body that it needs to slow down your metabolism...you have a high calorie day and your body's alarms turn off...and there is minimal impact to your metabolism.  That's the "theory" anyway.

This makes the process longer...but nobody said losing the last 10 pounds was easy.  The key doing it in a way where you can keep it off and still have the energy and strength to perform at the same levels you were when you were 10 pound heavier.  It makes no sense to drop 10 pounds if it makes you weak with little energy.

Edited by tri808 2010-06-01 3:44 PM

i'll play devils advocate here.

at 155 down to 150 (if training hard) this puts me in the 7-8% BF range.

at that range, at a full 14-18hours per week, i can safely hit 500 down a day and not have it effect workouts too much (have to back off harder stuff a bit or make sure i am eating during all workouts).

over 500 down and i have to back off training intensity for a while and normally only do this in the winter when i am just getting back into training, and can stand to not kill myself all the time.


i messed around with a few days under, one over, as well as a steady under, and it didn't matter all that much for me (and like most people, some of the weight i needed to lose was muscle).

i know for me coming into this from rowing, and just how i am build, i tend to carry a bit more upper body muscle than most long distance racers, so i needed to lose some of that too (maybe why staying under was ok for me).

now i am also trying to get rid of everything that is not going to help in my racing, so upper body looks are not an issue for me, nor do i have other sports/areas where this might matter.

at that point though you are really splitting hairs, and for most people hitting that point is neither worth it nor feasable/a good idea. I know i cant stay down in teh 6% range for more than part of the season without driving myself nuts, and tend to reserve this for the month or two leading up to my key races, then go back up a pound or two.

david...completely agree.  At a certain point you are splitting hairs.

But my main point was that if you want to drop weight and keep it off permanently (for years, not months), I believe the few days deficit, one day over method to work the best because it keeps your metabolism higher in the long run.  If you are just cutting weight for race season, and plan to gain back a few pounds in the off season...then it doesn't really matter which method you choose...because it takes a while before you see significant changes in your metabolism, and any changes that do happen would likely be reversed in the off season anyway.

For some reason, I thought it was 3600 calories per pound.  I've always remembered it that way by equating 1 pound to 24 12 ounce cans of beer at 150 calories per can.   So, if you drink a case of beer per week, stop drinking and you should lose at least a pound per week.   

first, thats awesome.

@ 808, again i agree and dont at the same time. i think finding whichever method is most sustainable for you is going to be the best long term (i see waht you are saying about backing off every so often though).

I guess in a way i am doing exactly what you say just a bit longer gaps, ie normally have a day a week where i dont owrry about it (normally a weekend out with friends). so in effect doing what you said just 6 days on vs 3

yeah...everything I mentioned is "in theory" and by no means applicable to every person.  Some people have naturally high metabolisms and can operate at a deficit just fine.  Others, not so much.  It's way too complicated for me to stick to...so I just follow it loosely...like you mentioned when you have get togethers...you simply don't worry about eating or drinking a few more calories.  It's not like I have a calandar and say today is the day I eat 542.7 more calories than normal...LOL. 

All I know is that losing the last 10 pounds is super difficult...and keeping it off is even harder.  When I read about, tried, and experienced how my body reacts to extended periods of deficits, vs adding in a few high calorie days...it made sense to me.

You could say I'm more facinated with the science of how our body responds to calorie deficits through thousands of years of evolution and natural selection than actually practicing it in my own life...LOL.  For the seasoned athlete, most people know how to balance calorie intake and the effects on your metabolism is minimal because of the exercise you put in.  But I shake my head when the overweight person complains that they keep gaining weight back after going on a diet that creates a 1-2k per day calorie deficit.  Your body is just not meant to lose that much weight, that quickly, over an extended amount of time.

agreed.

the last 3-5 pounds for me take FOREVER to get off, as it gets harder and harder to balance being enough under to get there and not dying in workouts.

i'm 2-3 from where i want to be right now and its getting harder and harder. but i have just ramped up the bike mileage so hopefully that helps!

Hahaha!!! I often think of weight gain/loss in terms of beer consumption.

If nothing else, you may be able to sustain a weight loss plan if you know that in a few days you can indulge in a few extra calories. Not many people can sustain caloric deficit for long periods of time - its why most diets don't work.

I always prefer to up my exercise versus reducing food intake. But, at some point you just don't have enough time to get all the exercising in.

Good luck - keep us posted!

You figure this should work...but when I up my exercise...I have to up my food intake...LOL.  I have come to the realization that I'm currently not mentally strong enough to ever be super lean, so I do what I can to maintain...but I can have my cookie AND EAT IT TOO!!!

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the advantages of my youth.  I've come to the conclusion that I don't really need to think about complete rest days yet.  I've got the rest of my life to ache and rest.  My muscles are still delivering and I am very grateful.  I'm also thankful that at 19yo 5'10 and 150lbs I can eat as much of whatever I want and stay the same weight.  I'm not sure if it is metabolism, youth, active lifestyle, or what but I gorge myself on complete (I do eat healthy foods but they are negated by the junk) and hardly gain weight.  If I do gain weight, it somehow goes away within a day or two.  The only downside to gorging constantly is that it causes GI issues when too close to a workout.  I think my body is just used to burning tons of calories and getting tons of calories back.  I eat much more than others my age and weigh much less.

Because of this, I've been wondering if I could lose a few lbs.  I have no idea what my body fat percentage is but I think I am pretty lean.  By no means do I think I am fat.  This isn't for vanity reasons, although in a few years once my eating catches up with me it will be.  I'm just curious to know what my body composition would be like if I cut out the junk.

I have no idea how much fat I have on my body, but I'm extremely surprised that I'm not obese by the way I eat.  I feel that with healthier eating, I could lose 5lbs in no time.  I've mainly been thinking about this for training benefits.

Just something I've been mulling over.... as I eat chocolate

EDIT: When I say that my weight stays at 150, I mean that I fluctuate between 148-152 based on food intake.

Edited by carlwithac 2010-06-01 9:17 PM

probably a small amount, but if you eat like that, my guess is (and like my brother, i hate you), that you are prob close to where your body would/should fall with the training.