Sunday, August 24, 2008

Nutrition Schmutrition?

About 3 weeks ago, I decided to start logging what I eat again. I've done this a couple times for a few months before and it's so insightful.

Beginner Triathlete has a really great feature where you can pull from its library of foods and log what you eat. I really like this feature, but I find it too time consuming to try to search for everything that I need.

So, I decided to create a spreadsheet which describes what I ate, what time I ate, how many servings I ate and how many fat grams and calories were in each meal. I try to keep it between 1,200 and 1,500 calories.

I'm one of those people who believe that I should be able to eat anything I want, just in moderation. So, if I've had a lighter breakfast and lunch one day, I can afford to go to McDonald's and eat 2 hamburgers for dinner that night. I don't worry about protein, carbs and hardly fat, to be honest. I just focus on the cals.

I think the conventional triathlete wisdom is having your diet be 40% carbs, 30% protein and 30% fat. (I really should just look that up.) What I'm realizing, as I'm doing the most intense working-out of my life, is that I really do need to pay attention to these elements.

My stress level is low, I get 8 or more hours of sleep a night and I'm not overweight. Yet I do feel fatigued a little more than usual. It's not much, just a tad. I hope that by taking a closer look at my nutrition, I can begin to address this.

So, I think I'm going to start using Beginner Triathlete's logging feature, because it will tally how much protein, fat and carbs I consume and this is exactly the information I believe I need to keep healthy.

Oh, plus, I really need to start incorporating some strength training. That will help as well.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good idea with the logs. There are some good nutrition articles with ratios for carbs/fats/protein on the BT site, just FYI.
I was logging nutrition to get an idea of my ratios earlier in the year/season. Calorieking.com also has good food info.

Anonymous said...

Just remember, your body needs fuel to operate. 1200-1500 calories is a good zone for people not working out, but you've been working out almost daily. Google calorie/exercise calculators and you will find websites that can tell you how much you are burning during your workouts. I would use the 1200-1500 for days you are not working out, then up it by the same amount you burned that day by working out. And don't forget to keep drinking water!! Dehydration can also result in fatigue.

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