Ok so I have been having the odd issue with being tired. I am working out 6 days a week and trying to stay active all 7. But truely training 6 days a week. I suffered from a large crash again or so I think this is what it is. I am not a Dr. By any means. but I am an Engineer and I love data and use it to figure out everything. I went out this past sunday for a 60 km bike ride with my friend/mentor. I had a hard ride average 25.6km/hr and fought a cross/head wind on the ride out. On the way back this same wind switched and was pushing against us a bit too. I got home after just over 2 hours of riding and I was in pain, from lactate I think. The first hour was horrible but after that it was all good.
My evaluation of this ride showed several things I think I did wrong. I am so focused on Weight loss as well that I believe I am not fuelling myself properly for endurance days. May as well lay it out. I ate light all day, including a supper that had 3 oz of steak, tons of grilled veggies which I love and half a sweet potato. At this point I only had about 1500 calories in me for the day. Now where did I go wrong I have been averaging 1800-1900 calories a day for a negative intake and weightloss. I went wrong in several places or so I think.
1. Rides, swimming, running are all starting to become longer
2. I am still eating on this negative 500 calorie a day thought process for weight loss.
3. I am eating a lower carb diet maximum 0.75g carbs per pound of body weight (diabetic reasons and thought process)
4. Rest days. I have only had 1 true rest day in 20 days.
These are the main reasons I suffered from what I am going to call a bonking issue the Monday after the big ride. Lets look at this last week leading up to this from an engineering geek stand point. To maintain my body weight I need 17,500 calories, I took in about 14,068 calories for a week. Thus generating a 3432 calorie differance. This should be 0.95 of pound of weight loss based on the Mayo Clinic stating it takes 3600 calories to burn a pound of fat. So I am already eating for weight loss of 1 lb a week at a min. This also assumes basil rate and no exercise at all. This is just to live based on my body weight. Now the week leading up to this I also burned 1500 calories from running, 1726 calories from swimming and 4500 calories from riding. For a total of 7726 calories burned from working out.
so it looks like this
Need 17,500
Consumed 14,068
Work outs 7,726
whats left 6,342
total difference = Need - whats left
equals 11,158 negative calories for the week.
So this is a great thought process for weight loss and should have added up to 3.18 lbs of weight loss this last week. Well I had 1.5 lbs of weight loss.
What do I get from this geeky math and data that I love. I get Data. I have also worked on educating myself and in the beginning this math worked. However I lacked and still lack physiology information. But Have come to understand that for weight loss fat burning is good. However for working out and endurance the Body can not synthisize fat fast enough for fuel on longer work outs and endurance work outs. During these work outs you can not fuel on fat alone. So this led to a HUGE crash out for me this last monday. I was tired at work all day, miserable moody didn't get much sleep. I tried to run on monday night, was happy I did my first 10 min interval on a run. I was 2.5 km into my run when I was off my walking portion and started to run again and I felt I just couldn't do it. I didn't feel like I had the mental capacity or the physical, I could not stop sweating even while walking. I gave up and walked home pissed right off, having been able to do 4km runs last week with no pushing or struggling.
So lower Carb has also depleted my leptin and glycogen storage as far as I can tell and It has finally caught up to me. this is sort of the second time it happened now. I have also only taken a break or a true off day once in the last 20 days. On Tuesday I was still tired as heck but also hungery as heck and craving carbs for the first time in months. I thought it was depression of bad workouts and I mentally needed to recover. I also gave in to the carbs and bumped up my carb intake yesterday and calories. I felt so much better as the day progressed. I even went to swimming last night and swam 1500 meters (I think, I lost count).
As for the rest. I am going to give myself tonight off to rest and try and recover a bit more. As a suggestion from a few people I may look at backing off my training every 4th week and work at like 75% of my work out pace/distance etc. So that I am still active. However this week I am taking off Wed and I think I am taking off friday as well. Saturday is my first Mini Triathlon, my very first one so I am excited and nervous and excited and I need th rest to be ready for it.
Well I hope that explains some stuff and I can use it to look back on. One think I am learning more and more about nutrition and weight loss and training is the math all looks good on paper but this is not a pure science for anyone. We are all different and it takes different things and different ways to achieve goals. The best thing to do is build baseline data, gather information, work with knowledgable people and learn to try things, document them and see how it really effects us. Also know that as you become more fit and do more that your diet and workouts will have to change as well along the way...
Now if I would only listen to my own advice I would do well.......
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Monday, June 7, 2010
Still At This
Well still updating this and have not made anyone aware of my blog as of yet... not sure why.. maybe I want more content, maybe I am doing this for me or something who knows. Anyways this weekend was great for working out, I managed to get my first 50km bike ride in on Saturday. Got up early and I was getting ready when my friend Text me and said " are you ready to ride" She has been a great help and inspiration, having done HIM last year and doing some smaller triathlons in the past. She has been and continues to be a valuable resource for everything. Thank goodness she was not feeling well and was able to ride with me. Considering her pace is so much faster then mine. We averaged about 26 km/hr and the ride was about 1 hr 52 mins long. It felt great to get 50km in for the first time. I will have to admit that I had to two laps of my block to officially get over the 50km, but I don't care I did it.
Followed that up with a quick scuba dive on sunday to make sure my gear was in order for an upcoming dive trip in a few weeks. Jumped in quick in crappy water in Sarnia, then went for lunch with my wonderful wife and the dive shop that was teaching up there. After that ran to the mall and over to the Running room to get a hydration belt.
Monday, thats tonight now. I was able to try out the Profile Designs 4 bottle hydration/fuel belt out. It can carry 4 bottles, I used only two for my run today, but I think hydrating on the walking portion of my run did help me. I did 4km for the first time tonight and it didn't feel like I had to push hard to get there. Starting to enjoy running a little now as I am seeing some great progression and I am not having to push so hard to get the run done.
Now I know I have to step up this week and next on my running program so it is going to get hard again. But with the support of my wife and my determination to change and ensure I am healthy and around for a long time in this life I know I can do it no problem.
Through all of this my wife has been very supportive and done many things around the house to ensure I can make it on some of my work outs. I can't ask for better support.
Til next post
Followed that up with a quick scuba dive on sunday to make sure my gear was in order for an upcoming dive trip in a few weeks. Jumped in quick in crappy water in Sarnia, then went for lunch with my wonderful wife and the dive shop that was teaching up there. After that ran to the mall and over to the Running room to get a hydration belt.
Monday, thats tonight now. I was able to try out the Profile Designs 4 bottle hydration/fuel belt out. It can carry 4 bottles, I used only two for my run today, but I think hydrating on the walking portion of my run did help me. I did 4km for the first time tonight and it didn't feel like I had to push hard to get there. Starting to enjoy running a little now as I am seeing some great progression and I am not having to push so hard to get the run done.
Now I know I have to step up this week and next on my running program so it is going to get hard again. But with the support of my wife and my determination to change and ensure I am healthy and around for a long time in this life I know I can do it no problem.
Through all of this my wife has been very supportive and done many things around the house to ensure I can make it on some of my work outs. I can't ask for better support.
Til next post
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Well Still going Strong
Had a great run last night after getting home from the chiropractor. Went straight home changed into my cloths while my wonderful wife was doing laundry and had dinner almost made. I opted to skip dinner and eat after my run. Doesn't help I got home at 6:30PM and didn't want to eat and run at 8 pm.
Got out for the run it was nice and cool with the wind blowing. My damaged toe was still hurting just a little bit. But these new Brooks BEAST shoes helped me to not feel a thing. They are a bit on the heavy side for a running shoe, but they are motion controlled and more suited towards runners over 200 lbs... well guess what... thats me. Plus I am flat footed and I seem to supinate, when most flat footed people pronate. Ya I am weird... what else is new.
Anyways back to the run. I am running in intervals 3 min run 90 second walk then a 5 min run and a 2.5 min walk and repeat for a total of 16 mins running and 14 mins of walking. Second lap of the park near me the sun came out and my sweat started to pour out of me. But it felt good, a little burning on the bottom of the feet and slowed down after hitting my max heart rate alarm on the second 5 min run. Had to actually run past my house this time and down the road that seemed a bit weird to me.
Got home, showered, ate and helped my wife bring the laundry up stairs. Downloaded my Garmin Forerunner profile to find that I actually averaged 7.1 km/hr instead of my normal 6.7km/hour and I totaled 3.5 km instead of the normal 3 km. So I am seeing some progress after a week of setbacks. Very nice and it came fairly easy. Ok I had to push through a few spots but I have to do this with every run.
Had an average heart rate of 140 BPM with a max of 170. I get an alarm at 167 BPM, so when I hear it I know I need to back down just a bit. I don't want to exceed my 80% max heart rate when working out. For me if I keep to 80% or under I can maintain longer endurance even when on the bike. I am all about the zone work outs. Althought I don't think I truely understand them. The more I read about eating properly, weight loss and exercise the more I realize everyone is different and no one really knows the true answers. Being the dorky Engineering guy I am, I have been collecting data on Weight, Calories consumed, calories burned, work out vs food in etc etc etc... and I have yet to find a true formula of what is working properly. I hit a plateau for a few weeks, then last week didn't exercise as much and ate like complete crap for a day. I felt horrible that afternoon and the next day like a calorie hang over or something. Then got right back on track Ate clean and even cut back just a bit more on calories ensuring I was on my low side of my weight loss intake, about 1800 calories for a few days and bam I dropped another 2 lbs. Weird, It might be part of the yo-yo or zig zag diet plan. I was trying that before and it didn't work. Eat 1800-2000 calories a day for 2 days then eat 2200 on the third then three days at 1800-2000 and on the 4th 2400 calories. Trying to trick your metabolism into not slowing down. Well it didn't work for me so I went back to 1800-2000 calories and only spiking or should I say not caring so much about food one day a week.
I have been reading that is possible I dropped my leptin in my body from eating a lower carb diet. More about this and thoughts on this next time.
Got out for the run it was nice and cool with the wind blowing. My damaged toe was still hurting just a little bit. But these new Brooks BEAST shoes helped me to not feel a thing. They are a bit on the heavy side for a running shoe, but they are motion controlled and more suited towards runners over 200 lbs... well guess what... thats me. Plus I am flat footed and I seem to supinate, when most flat footed people pronate. Ya I am weird... what else is new.
Anyways back to the run. I am running in intervals 3 min run 90 second walk then a 5 min run and a 2.5 min walk and repeat for a total of 16 mins running and 14 mins of walking. Second lap of the park near me the sun came out and my sweat started to pour out of me. But it felt good, a little burning on the bottom of the feet and slowed down after hitting my max heart rate alarm on the second 5 min run. Had to actually run past my house this time and down the road that seemed a bit weird to me.
Got home, showered, ate and helped my wife bring the laundry up stairs. Downloaded my Garmin Forerunner profile to find that I actually averaged 7.1 km/hr instead of my normal 6.7km/hour and I totaled 3.5 km instead of the normal 3 km. So I am seeing some progress after a week of setbacks. Very nice and it came fairly easy. Ok I had to push through a few spots but I have to do this with every run.
Had an average heart rate of 140 BPM with a max of 170. I get an alarm at 167 BPM, so when I hear it I know I need to back down just a bit. I don't want to exceed my 80% max heart rate when working out. For me if I keep to 80% or under I can maintain longer endurance even when on the bike. I am all about the zone work outs. Althought I don't think I truely understand them. The more I read about eating properly, weight loss and exercise the more I realize everyone is different and no one really knows the true answers. Being the dorky Engineering guy I am, I have been collecting data on Weight, Calories consumed, calories burned, work out vs food in etc etc etc... and I have yet to find a true formula of what is working properly. I hit a plateau for a few weeks, then last week didn't exercise as much and ate like complete crap for a day. I felt horrible that afternoon and the next day like a calorie hang over or something. Then got right back on track Ate clean and even cut back just a bit more on calories ensuring I was on my low side of my weight loss intake, about 1800 calories for a few days and bam I dropped another 2 lbs. Weird, It might be part of the yo-yo or zig zag diet plan. I was trying that before and it didn't work. Eat 1800-2000 calories a day for 2 days then eat 2200 on the third then three days at 1800-2000 and on the 4th 2400 calories. Trying to trick your metabolism into not slowing down. Well it didn't work for me so I went back to 1800-2000 calories and only spiking or should I say not caring so much about food one day a week.
I have been reading that is possible I dropped my leptin in my body from eating a lower carb diet. More about this and thoughts on this next time.
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