My "diet" philosophy (Page 3)

Alan-

One thing thatmight help you get a handle on your nutrition is to use FitDay to log what you eat.  After a few days of logging you'll have an idea of what your daily diet is made up of in terms of calories, fat, carbs, and protein.  Being aware of how your eating habits translate into the macronutrients your body needs can be a good motivator for change.  Most people couldn't even begin to accurately estimate how much fat, protein, and carbs they eat in a day...and they likely have a distorted view of reality until they actually see the numbers.  I'd bet that your "high carb, high protein" diet isn't as high in protein as you think.  It takes work to get 200g+ of protein in a day.

Don't like cereal, bread, and cheese?  No problem!  Check my FitDay logs from the last week...not a slice of bread, bowl of cereal, grain of rice, or single single noodle in there...but I'm still eating plenty of carbs for the training I'm currently doing.  I've started to change my view of grains, breads, rice, and cereals.  I still think they're a perfectly good source of carbs but I've started to focus more on fresh fruits and veggies as my primary carb source.  I can't say there is any "idiot proof" way to start eating healthy except to spend a little more time considering everything you eat before putting it in your mouth.  Basically, just think more about your eating habits.  Don't worry about grams of protein/fat/carbs...I sure don't.  Sure, I know my protein powder has 23g per scoop but I don't know how many grams of protein are in a lb of chicken breast.  I just try to eat reasonablly sized portions...I think in terms of serving size.  For meats, use a deck of playing cards as a guide...that's roughly 4oz which is 1/4 lb.  I try to buy meats in packs that divide relatively evenly by 1/4 lb increments because that makes it easier to determine how much I eat at a sitting...buy a 1lb pack of chicken breast and eat half for, log 8oz of chicken breast in FitDay and it'll tell you how much protein it was.  It takes a couple weeks of logging foods but eventually you'll get a feel for how servings equate to your macronutrients and your eating will become more intuitive...you'll be able to maintain a healthier diet without constantly checking up on yourself.

As for your goals...very reasonable.  You can safely lose 3-4lbs per month and keep it off if you adjust your diet appropriately.  Going from ~15 to 10% BF is also well within reach but it will take longer and getting much below 10-12% takes considerable dedication to your new eating lifestyle.   Looks like you tend to exercise about an hour a day.  That shouldn't require a huge carb intake for recovery.   I'd suggest cutting back on carbs in the evening (except for immediately after your workout), trying to get your protein intake up to 30-40%  of your daily calories and bringing fat intake to ~30%...this will still leave carbs at 30-40%.  For the fats you need to limit the majority of it to things like olive oil, flax oil, fish, nuts and avacado.  Thse "healthy" fats rich in omega-3 and omega-6 will help promote the release and burning of body fat.

If burning body fat is your goal then you should be doing most of your training in lower intensity zones to focus on fatty acids as energy.  I could be off base here but it looks like you typically run in the 7:30/mile range.  This is a bit fast for most people to stay in the right intensity range.  Do you use a HRM?  If your breathing gets at all heavy from running this pace then you're likely going too fast...unless you're doing tempo work. 

I may have missed the article (if it's out yet?) but the "diet" philosophy described here sounds a lot like a mix of the Zone and common sense (which sadly isn't so common). Anyway, I've been eating as described for the past two years. Moderate or low GI carbs for the most part, protein in almost every meal/snack, and healthy fats. It works really well for training and getting leaner without much additional effort, and no hunger!

Although I use fitday less often, it's still reassuring to see how things tally up. I know I'm on track when I hit 40-30-30 without even trying. It's not that hard either; just cut the junk and bump up the dairy, meats, and veggies.

Cheers, -Sunny

P.S. To the OP whose name escapes me...your diet journal in fitday today (1/19) looks pretty great, except for that Fat Bastard intro photo...ow, my eyes!! This was mine today:

Calories Eaten Today
source	grams	cals	%total
Total:		2117
Fat:	71	639	31%
Sat:	19	174	8%
Poly:	9	81	4%
Mono:	32	285	14%
Carbs:	211	743	36%
Fiber:	26	0	0%
Protein:	136	545	26%
Alcohol:	22	155	7%

P.P.S.  Are you eating too much tuna?  How much is "safe"?  See this calculator for both albacore and chunk light tuna.  This site also has general info about mercury in tuna and how much is safe from a risk assessment perspective (via an enviro watchdog group, so take it with a grain of salt)
http://www.ewg.org/issues/mercury/20031209/calculator.php


Edited by SunnyS 2006-01-19 8:36 PM

Good looking breakdown on the diet today.  According to that calculator I should probably have dies from acute mercury poisoning long ago   Following their guidelines I can eat about one can of ablacore per seek...I eat 2-3 cans on average. 

I've never read about the Zone diet but I think someone else asked me about that too.  My original post is based on information I've gathered over a couple years as I started to get back in shape after a little too many beers and cheese steaks in college  

regarding tuna...there's a company out of santa cruz that sells canned fish from the wild.  it's pricey, but if it's a concern and you love tuna....davesalbacore.com    Our Master's group is putting together a  multi-case order to save a few bucks.   You can also find it in health food stores like Whole Foods Market. 

Thanks for the comments -- I shall try my hardest to "reform" my diet lifestyle. Just started using fitday.com -- trying to learn the system now. My concern here is that I cook mostly at home and eat an Asian diet -- which is difficult to "guesstimate" the calories. This shall be a work in progress.

Thanks again ......

This is good stuff, keep it coming!

Thanks for "bumping" the thread...one of these days I really need to finish writing it up as an article for BT...it's on "thie list" along with 3 or 4 other articles and finishing the 5 training/nutrition books I have started

Lots of talk about the fitday log. Is it worth the price? I like to use the nutrition log on this site, but find it fairly limited.

I use the free online log...does exactly what I need and it's free.  What aspect do you find limiting?

I've recently started using the free service, and find it very valuable.

creating a custom food is a little more cumbersome than I would like>

Really?  You only need to enter 4 numbers (calories, fat, carbs, and prot), define the serving size and name it.  Are you talking about a custom meal where there are several individual ingredients?  that can be a bit of a pain but once you do it you'll have it stored forever.  I have a few things that I took the time to work out...like my spinach salad...but mostly I just log the parts that went into the food.  There is definitely a data curv to get over when you start but once you have a lot of custom foods stored it's pretty easy.

FINALLY people are starting to see that the high-carbohydrate, low-fat approaches that have become gospel for many endurance athletes might not be the best for the less than genetically gifted.

I personally struggled with various endurance-type diets of various macronutrient breakdowns, but always with the emphasis on carbohydrates for energy. The diets were great for giving me energy, but I couldn't shed a pound. I was training twice a day, eating only low-GI carbs, working out with weights, sleeping a lot ... couldn't drop a pound. Even after cutting my calories down to 1750 a day (for a 185 lbs. guy -- yes, I was starving), my weight wouldn't budge.

Then I started to eat more like I did as a former bodybuilder. I focused on protein, fat to keep me full, and small amount of high-fiber carbs to keep my energy up. Suddenly the weight started falling off me like crazy. I wasn't counting calories at all. I ate a lot of lean ground beef, TONS of peanuts, natural peanut butter, eggs (whites with one yolk), protein shakes with heavy whipping cream (yep, I said whipping cream). For carbs, I usually had whole oats at breakfast (1/3 - 1/2 a cup), low-carb, high-fiber wraps, buns, or bread, black beans, All-Bran cereal, and green beans and broccoli.

Calorically, I was taking in more calories than on my higher-carb diets, but losing much more fat (definitely not muscle -- I was keeping track of skin calipers and my poundage at the gym). Plus, I felt much more full and satisfied after each meal. Keep in mind that I had enough energy to run 8-9 miles about 5 times a week plus bike a couple days -- all on an empty stomach before breakfast.

So I wondered how it was possible. Depending on how I ate that day, my macronutrient breakdown was something like 25% carbs, 45% protein, 30% fat, which seemed like a low-carbohydrate diet, a definite no-no for endurance athletes. That's when I stumbled across some articles on insulin resistance or IR. It turns out most Americans have some degree of insulin resistance. Basically, it means that your body has to pump out extra insulin to absorb the glucose from food into your bloodstream. Left unchecked, your body may become 'immune' to insulin and you become diabetic. It also turns out that when insulin is released, your body stops burning fat for fuel and starts storing glucose for fat if not immediately being used. To top it off, as insulin levels rise, hunger goes up.

Looking at common symptoms of IR, I'm 99.9% sure I was insulin resistant (also my father has been warned of diabetes himself and IR may be genetic). I'm guessing that when I was eating higher levels of carbohydrates, my body was continually in a 'fat-storing' mode and I was probably burning muslce to compensate for my lack of calories. Fortunately, IR can be reversed by exercise (check), consuming fiber-rich foods, limiting sugar, and some believe (me included) following a lowered-carbohydrate diet.

I'm not suggesting Atkins at all! You have to have some carbs and I can't fathom how a diet consisting of bacon, mayonnaise, and whole-fat cheese can be good for you. I'm saying that for those who have a problem shedding weight, despite regular endurance exercise and a 'healthy' eating plan, reducing your carboydrates (definitely getting rid of those damn 'sports drinks' and 'energy bars' that only spike insulin levels) and upping your protein and fat may do the trick. You may be surprised that you'll have MORE, not less energy as your blood sugar is in check throughout the day.

For those of you who don't believe that endurance athletes can eat like this, take a look at the diet of Coach Gordo (http://www.coachgordo.com) and the ultimate endurance athlete, Dean Karnazes, the Ultra Marathon Man (http://www.ultramarathonman.com/diet.php) who follows not a low-carb diet, but what he calls a 'slow-carb' approach.

Edited by Creelove 2006-03-10 4:22 PM

Great thread.

For those who don't like fitday (I couldn't get my mom to pick it up very well), www.myfooddiary.com is good (but $9/mo). I've been using that for several months, and think the tools are a lot more user friendly and fool-proof. Also, some good forums and reports available from that.

I found this interesting article about weight loss mistakes... Notably mistake #2.

http://www.topendsports.com/nutrition/weightloss-mistakes.htm

It makes sense. If my BMR = 2000, and that equal 24 hours of doing nothing, a 1 hour run that burns 100 calories doesn't simply add a full 100 calories to the 24 hours of nothing because that would equal 25 hours of caloric needs... My new calorie needs would be 23 hours of doing nothing + 1 hour run.

This may not make a difference for a lot of us high volume triathletes, but maybe for someone who is stuck on their weight loss, it'd be especially noteworthy. I, for one, have at least been underestimating my exercise to reflect this difference.

I'd be interested to hear some opinions on this.

Edited by robin314159 2006-03-15 1:09 PM

I guess it'd be more like ~600 you burn running in an hour. Whoops. That article talks about using MET's to calculate how much you burn... I think that's confusing as hell.

I think it's easier to just go off the averages, and subtract the portion you would have burned if you had not exercised during that hour...

A person with BMR of 2000 burns about 2000/24 per hour (more during day, less at night).

Calories burned for hour of running = whatever calorie estimator says you burned in an hour - 2000/24.

So if you usually add 600 calories for an hour of running to your food log, this article says you would add only 520.



Edited by robin314159 2006-03-15 3:04 PM

Exactly. I just subtract the calories I would have burned just sitting around from the calories I burned during the exercise.

My latest problem, and I thought about starting a new topic but why start a new thread when I can hijack this one? Is that I am having some serious stomach troubles and need surgery. I am also starting my training season this week. My doctor, who I do not think read my chart at all, wants me on an 1800 calorie a day diet. When I am running 5+ miles a day and biking 13+ miles or swimming an additional whatever yards I feel like (it varies. It's my weak spot) 1800 calories ain't gonna do it. I tried to tell the man that but he listened about as well to me as my 2 year old does. He said, "No one really works out that much".. Umm buddy do I have a group of people for you to meet. He also said low fat and no sugar. I can do the no sugar part (OK I can't I am a Twix addict and I have 1/2 of 1 cookie a night. I freeze them and break them in 1/2) for the most part but low fat? I lost 40lbs last year doing this and I want to take off another 20 but know my body pretty well. Anything less than 2000 calories a day and I stall or worse, gain. 2000 a day? I lose. Slowly but it happens.

What do I tell this guy? He is really bugging me about it. I think he is looking at me and saying, "Well she's heavy" and not how far I have come.

I'd say to do the best you can to make it clear what your lifestyle is and show him what your typical week of training looks like.  If that doesn't get through to him then just tell him what he wants to hear and do what you need to do to stay healthy, support your activity level, and lose weight safely.  I typically don't suggest ignoring doctors but unless this guy is a nutritionist and/or exercise physiologist he just doesn't understand they amount of energy we require.  If you really want to blow his mind show hom a couple weeks of my build to Diamondman last year when I was eating 5000cal+ per day and just holding steady at 164lbs

Sadly this is a GI guy and there are not a lot of them around. My regular doc knows better.

This deserves a bump. Thanks again Joel.

I've been doing some reading lately and I'd like to update this thread with some additional info on more specifics of what and when to eat to maximize training. I still need some more time to finish reasding and thinking but hopefully I'll get sime thoughts together before we get too far into the season.

Books I'm currently working on:

-Performance Nutrition for Runners

-Nutrient Timing

-The Paleo Diet for Athletes

-Sports Nutrition for Endurance Athletes 

Edited by TH3_FRB 2006-04-30 3:09 PM

Bumping to the top.

We've had some good nutrition and body fat discussion going on the board lately and I wanted to bump this up for others to read.  Always good information!