Kilocals

As an exercise in productivity toward *actually* seeing my goal weight for the season (170 lbs), I began tracking how many calories I eat on a day to day basis. These are then compared to the average estimates of the calories that I burn both by just being alive and breathing and moving around all day AND by training.

For the past week, I've engaged in what I'd consider faily typical activity levels for this point in the season(~15 hours of activities that burn calories--biking to and fro, training on the bike, racing my bike, weight training, etc.) I've also eaten a fairly typical amount of food (I'll admit, I probably cut back at times because I knew that I was writing them down).

Here's the stats from the past week:

Average Calories Burned: 4003
Average Calories Consumed: 3731
Average Fat Grams and Percent: 137, 35%
Average Carb Grams and Percent: 429, 42%
Average Protein Grams and Percent: 177, 20%

Now, had you asked me to guess based on feel without thinking about it how many calories I eat on a day to day basis, I'd have told you about 3000.

Not surprisingly, my weight has stayed pegged at 180lbs since January, despite ramping up the training efforts and time spent on the bike.

The good news is that I haven't gained weight, my body has felt good and well nourished all year. And I've put some muscle and power into my legs.

But, I'm not quite happy with the diet. It's a little high on fat and a little low on protein. I'm not too worried about the fat since a large part of it is sourced in things like "I eat wayyyyy more Walnuts and Peanut Butter than the average human being." So it's good fat, typically. But still, heavy on the calories.

The protein is coming out to 1g/lb of bodyweight. Not terrible, but I only think it's that high because of the sheer amount of food that I eat. As such, I'd guess that a lot of it is not quality protein but the bunk sort of protein found in Chicken Mcnuggets.

The numbers above (calories consumed and calories burned) are rough guesses. I don't measure a lot of my food...and I don't really monitor energy expenditure in workouts. They are just guesses. So given the fact that I haven't gained weight, I'll say that my average daily intake for maintenance in this state is ~3800 kcal/day despite my "average daily burn" of 4000kcal.

The plan:

1.) I'm going to notch that down a hair and make 3400 the goal intake for the day for the time being. It is pretty much the height of race season and I want to make sure to eat enough to keep my health up.

2.) Bump the protein intake up to ~230-270 grams/day w/ a focus on good sources of protein.

3.) Keep the total fat below 120 g/day. This will easily be achieved by limiting walnut consumption to once per day.

4.) Eat good carbs to round out the balance.

5.) Record my weight once weekly to keep myself honest. Today it is 180lb.

My diet is generally good, and I eat good foods. So I feel healthy and have been recovering well all season. I just want to bring my total body weight down just a hair and clean up some of the problems with the diet.

Training Stuff

Wednesday 6/4/2008

Hit the roads through Oregon with Ms. Barber for a solid 2.5 hour recovery to endurance paced ride. Good times.

Thursday 6/5/2008

Commute plus LT intervals on the trainer with a goodish amount of "big gear" work.

4 x 6'

Avg Power: 300, 300, 291, 291
Avg HR: ?
Gear: 50:17, 50:17, 50:17, 50:15 to 50:19 to 50:14 to 50:15 to 50:17

These were a lot harder than last week, performed in the same gearings with a noticeably lower power output. Perhaps Tuesday's practice crit was still wtih me?

On tap for today:

Box Squats, Front Squats, and some Deads--all fairly light--to keep the form up. I'm happy that I've been managing to squeeze one gym session in a week. I 'd like it to be two...but last year it was zero from about April to about August. As long as I hit the fall still being able to squat proper, I'll be happy.

Then there's an art show that my pal Ben is organizing and a post show ride around lake monona. It may or may not involve whiskey.

Onward.