Diet and nutrition

firegooroo

I have been out of cycling for about a year and a half and on the beginning of March I decided to get off my rear and get back in shape and get ready for the 09 season. That being said I have been on a very restricted diet just to lose the pounds I have gained. My ideal riding weight is about 175lbs and I started this mission at 220lbs I am currently 206lbs. I am using a program that I got from my personal trainer to monitor and grade my food intake. This program tells you the calories you need to eat based on activity and other factors, I would like to ask you guys out there what you think of this? I am going to put the link below, it has a free demo to show you how it works. I have been using it since I started, and am using it very religiously. I don't intend to use this forever since there is a monthly fee. But this has really shown me how much I need to eat and until I get use to the routine I keep using it. In advance thanks for the input.

http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?Clk=2324520

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Ride for your life today because tomorrow no one knows what will bring...(CARPE DIEM)

iliveonnitro

fitday.com and it's free.

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My club: University of Illinois-Chicago Cycling

Cycle Man

I have also used http://www.calorieking.com and there Windows based software. I found it to be simple, but cover all the key points and have a really good food database.

Jeremy
http://cycling.spaces.live.com

DennistheMennis

If you want a nice program that you can also install on your Windows Mobile device or Smartphone, I highly recommend "MySportTraining" by Vida One. It now also tracks your diet. Very handy, especially if you travel, don't work from home, eat in restaurants, etc. Just be subtle about it or your wife will get really annoyed with you!

matagi

The biggest problem I have with these things is that it is so cumbersome to input your daily foods, especially if 99% of the food you eat is prepared from scratch. Trying to estimate the quantities gets to be really challenging and time-consuming.

tonyzackery

As a current dieter, or more accurately 'lifestyle-related-to-eating change', there is no such aspect that is too challenging, too time-consuming, or too cumbersome if it will get me to my goal of losing the weight I want to be rid of. It's my desire to become more competitive in road race competitions and to do that excess weight must come off by almost "any means necessary".

One must decide early on in this endeavor - which is more important; staying at your current weight and getting beat with regularity, or getting serious about losing the weight required and getting on the podium every now and then, but most of all, being competitive rather than enduring the race.

Weight loss for most of us is a seriously challenging and daily battle. Because it is such a challenge is what makes it an all the more worthwhile endeavor...

Steve_B

Though I am not a complete vegetarian, I eat more fruits and vegetables than the average American and as such, my food tends to be prepared from scratch as well. I found that using CalorieKing was really quite easy and less painful as you can whip right through the list of what you are eating pretty quickly. It goes even faster once you have created "custom foods" (e.g., that turkey, lettuce, tomato and mustard on oat bread sandwich that I tend to get at the company cafeteria once per week - instead of entering all those items individually, punch up one item and boom, you are done). It does get a little hairy when you make big salads like I do (with 8 or some such different ingredients) but owing to the low caloric content of many vegetables, if you skip the tablespoon of scallions, it's not the end of the world.

Also, don't estimate quantities - get a dieter's scale. Yes folks, weigh your food. It sucks but it works. If you are keeping a diary, it actually makes it easier to tabulate. On Calorie King, you can enter not just volume measurements (e.g., 1 Cup) but also weight in ounces or grams for most items. So punch up 50 grams of lettuce, 50 grams of carrots, 50 grams of peppers, one 6 ounce can of tuna, etc. until you're done with everything. Once you get the hang of it, it will take less than a minute.

And no, I don't work for Calorie King.

Steve_B

Of course, you also have to balance this with the rest of your life and not driving yourself crazy. I've seen people develop eating disorders in this sport and it's not pretty.

I think that if what comes out of a dieting process is a healthy scrutiny of what, how and when you eat (which happened in my case) and cutting out some needless stuff (mine again), then that's not a bad thing.

Also, you need to have a supportive spouse/partner/s.o. othewise it can be a bit of a mess.

Pendejo

I don't know how anyone can go through the daily hassle of weighing foods, counting calories, etc. And do you plan to do that for the rest of your life? People weren't doing that before obsesity became such a prevalent problem. My advice: give up all flesh, including fish (or eat them only occasionally), and eliminate hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup. Go very easy on rich desserts. Other than that, just eat. And train. Give yourself six months and see where you are. You will have a much healthier attitude toward eating.

matagi

I think part of the problem is that a lot of people have lost sight of what constitutes an acceptable portion of food. Certainly using something like CalorieKing makes you more aware of the sizes of the portions you are consuming and retrains you (in a manner of speaking) in the art of estimating appropriate portion sizes. Which means that eventually you should be able to work out roughly how much you are eating without resorting to weighing, etc etc.

I am happy to admit that the quantity of food I eat has almost halved since I began logging my food. I do it very sporadically these days - mostly to just check that my calorie intake is still within acceptable levels.

Moderation in all things is the key too, so yes cut back on the rich desserts, go easy on the alchohol and try not to use too much fat in your cooking.

Steve_B

Of course. The point is, as matagi notes and as I alluded to before, that you develop a better sense of how much, when and how you eat. When you put something under a microscope (such as your eating habits), it illuminates excess and poor habits. The object is not to make you weigh your food for the rest of your life, rather to get "re-calibrated".

In general, people who diet tend to gain weight back because habits do not become ingrained. In my case, long before I started using an online counter, a scale, etc., I just paid attention to habits and was smarter about stuff. Some new ways of doing things have become ingrained and that has lowered my average weight quite a bit over the years. It has been gradual enough that I don't consider it "dieting", more of a "lifestyle change" and that's the only way to make things become permanent.

When you are really serious about those last few kilos, then you start weighing your food and using a calorie counter on a daily basis. I don't consider that to be a permanent measure. It's way too much of a hassle to keep up for long but still, it can illuminate things for those just starting out too. Many riders only use them in the winter/spring to keep themselves on track.

daveryanwyoming

+1 Steve.

It's all about modifying habits in a sustainable way. That's the problem with the "diet" mentality, it's seen as a short term quick fix and usually involves depriving yourself of something you really want to eat. That's not a sustainable approach and doesn't lead to better habits. Small changes like recognizing appropriate portion sizes or tuning into the difference between satiety and being "full" are really important.

-Dave

matagi

Have you noticed when talking to people with the quick fix "diet mentality" that as soon as you mention the "E" word, they run away in horror? Part of the lifestyle change involves regular exercise but the number of people who think you can lose weight and keep it off without adding exercise to the mix is astounding.

daveryanwyoming

Yep, a quick fix diet that doesn't require you to get off the sofa is really what a lot of folks are after.

My wife's an RD and counsels a lot of folks looking to lose weight, drop cholesterol levels, deal with various health issues, etc. She's a big advocate of small sustainable changes and approaches to lifestyle change grounded in moderation. But I opened her eyes a bit by sharing power files from last year's training.

It seems pretty obvious to folks tracking power in their training, but you burn roughly 4 times your average power per hour (3600 seconds * watts / 1000 * efficiency ~ 1.1 or ~ 4* AP as an easy mental estimate). Ride an hour at 150 watts and you'll burn ~ 600 Calories. Get fit and ride an hour at 250 watts and you'll burn ~1000 Calories for the same perceived exertion or effort. It sure pays to build fitness.

The on line calories burned while exercising charts allude to the same thing by giving you caloric estimates at say 12, 15, and 19 mph for a given body weight but the idea that you get more weight loss bang for your exercise buck as you build fitness isn't always obvious. Anyway, I couldn't imagine maintaining my race weight by dieting alone but I guess if I wasn't racing I wouldn't care as much

-Dave