What's for Dinner, Redux
A few weeks ago I mentioned that I was beginning to track all my meals in order to get a handle on my daily nutritional intake. I have been doing it religiously since that time, and let me tell you, it did not paint a pretty picture of what's been going into my mouth.
Not enough calories, too many calories at night, coupled with not enough calories in the morning, not enough carbs, and too much fat, oh my.
I now have a personal trainer and nutritionist on the payroll.
The first thing we've done is to come up with a nutritional plan. We sat and figured out how many calories I burn per average day. After figuring in exercise and daily maintenance requirements, that number came to 3400. Then, we figured out how much of a caloie deficit I'd need to run in order to safely take off the pounds I need to get ready for IMAZ. We decided on trying to consume around 2900 calories a day, which using the math that says 3500 calories equal a pound, I would be taking off about a pound a week, more or less. Then, he threw me a curveball - with the amount of endurance exercise I'm doing, I should be consuming a mix of about 75% carbs, 15-20% protein, and the balance fat (a 'normal' distribution would be 60-20-20). Since carbs have about half the energy density of fat (4 calories per gram of carbs or protein, as opposed to 9 for fat), and I had been eating 20-30% fat before, I feel like I'm eating waaaay too much. And I'm always full. But I'm losing pounds like they're going out of style (admittedly, extra pounds went out of style sometime around the renaissance).
I'm also trying to target my intake to two or three specific periods: 1) the morning. a big breakfast (or two) along with a morning wokout is , well, a huge boost for your metabolism; 2) carbs before workouts to keep working muscles happy; and 3) carbs/protein after workouts to make tired muscles happy enough to work out well the next day.
So far, I've been really happy with this addition to the team. He also regularly kicks my ass in the gym with various stretching and core work. We the '300' workout yesterday (named after the movie with the ridiculously ripped actors who played the Spartan army at the battle of Thermopylae): 10 mile run followed by an ab workout that left me unable to sit up at the end. I literally had to roll off the bench and get up from all fours.
Good stuff.
