Weekly Overview:
Finally back from vacation and recovered from illness, I started a more regular training schedule this week. I also, for better or worse, started dieting. I am blessed with a body type that, given any sort of worldwide food shortage, would give me an advantage: it seems to extract calories from thin air, causing me to gain weight very easily. Ah well. My basic diet plan is as follows:
Estimated calorie needs for someone my age, height, weight, and gender: 2362
Calorie deficit needed to lose one pound per week: 500
Calorie budget: 1862
My usual diet looks like this:
Breakfast: 80g GoLean Crunch cereal, 240g skim milk
Lunch: 4c green veggies (lettuce, spinach, etc.), 100g brown rice, 130g grilled white meat chicken, 100g pasta sauce, 1T olive oil, 1T balsamic vinegar, salt to taste
Snacks: 3 small-medium apples, 1 Clif builder bar, black coffee or tea, and unlimited water!
Dinner: Same as lunch, possible substituting quinoa for brown rice, and salmon for chicken
Total: about 1850 Calories
This is all I'll eat on a rest day. On top of this, I'll use my power meter to replace whatever calories I burn on a ride. I use the very simple "kilojoules expended equals calories burned" approximation, and aim to refuel within an hour of riding. Most of my workouts require an additional 800-1200 Calories per day. Every evening, I'll look at the rides for the next day, estimate how many Calories I'll need during and after the ride, and prepare all the food I'll need. This way, there is always a plan, and there are rarely any surprises.
After years of doing this, I find that losing more than about a pound a week affects recovery time and productivity at work.
In coming weeks, I'll write about why I choose the foods I do, how I established this base diet, and what I eat on rides.
Workouts:
01-02 Monday
Prescribed: Easy recovery ride, ~45 minutes.
Actual: Rode around the neighborhood with my fiancée.
01-03 Tuesday
Prescribed: 1h Crossfit workout plus sprint efforts
Actual: As prescribed. I saw a new personal best max wattage of 1443 W in a sprint. When I do a standing start on my Tarmac SL3, it flexes a fair amount.
01-04 Wednesday
Prescribed: 45min endurance ride with stretching session
Actual: Rode for 1h on the rollers. I don't do well in cold weather. Did stretching afterward. I have a routine for this.
01-05 Thursday
Prescribed: 1h Crossfit in AM, 1h threshold combo rollers session in PM.
Actual: As prescribed. Crossfit involved some Tabatas, intense workouts with 20 seconds on and 10 seconds off. I found that I can jump on top of a 42" box, but not a 48" box. The PM rollers session was challenging - I discovered I had a flat tire at the end of it. D'oh.
01-06 Friday
Prescribed: 2-3h endurance/tempo ride plus 30min stretching session.
Actual: Rode outside for 2h20min. What a mistake. I was freezing, and as a result, cold and sore. I need to either do these during the warmest part of the day (which is tough with work sometimes), or do them on the rollers (which is tough for more than about 90 minutes). I'm glad that I'm not racing in the shape that I'm in now! Did stretching session when I got home, after warming up some.
01-07 Saturday
Prescribed: 3h threshold combo ride with 2x20 min efforts: 1 flat and 1 climb, plus stretching session (30 min).
Actual: Rode for 3h49min during the warmest part of the day, which was still somewhat chilly. Efforts were solid given my recent power numbers, but I have a long way to go before I am in race shape. Did stretching session afterward.
01-08 Sunday
Prescribed: Day off, optional ride.
Actual: Went on a 1h hike along Skyline Drive with my "little brother" Kevin (http://www.bbbsba.org/).
Weekly summary:
Time: 14 h 24 min
Distance: 184.32 miles
TSS: 768.3
(Distance and TSS only incorporate rides for which I have power data.)
I've copied this report to my blog at http://bikefleet.blogspot.com/, where you can also find past updates, race reports, and more!
Thanks for reading.
--Jose
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