Archive for January, 2016

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The food struggle is real

January 22, 2016

This is the way people treat me what I talk about being vegan and still training extremely hard. Yes I’m vegan – yes I work out and ride my bike as much as I can. My dietary goals for calories are to be at 40% carbs, and 30% from both protein and fat. This calls for me to eat 200 grams of protein/day for my frame size and activity level. So what’s the issue?

Not eating the protein that’s for sure – I’m always amazed when people ask this question. It just shows how little others know about nutrition – but it’s ok. It gives me a chance to talk about all the sources we use. Veggies!! Yes, crazy huh? Veggies have a lot of protein, vital wheat gluten is one of my favs as well – of course I do supplement with protein powders as well – #vega with greens and #orgain are two of my favorites in this category. I use only water to mix them right now but may be switching soon to fix my biggest issue.

FAT!!! I started tracking all my foods and I was amazed at how little fat I was eating. In fact most days prior to my tracking I was about 1/2 of what I am doing now. This is kind of a fun thing but it is also the place I #struggle. My calorie count calls for about 100g of fat each day. this has been tough for me since I don’t have meat sources to use for all that fat. So what am I doing? This is where it gets super fun!!! I’m eating peanut butter, sunflower seeds and avocados like crazy. I even started adding hemp seeds to oatmeal to help get the fat spread more evenly through the day instead of piling it all on late at night. I’m thinking of adding some cashew milk to my protein shakes when I can as well to add it into other meals and also to get my b12 from it. Lately it’s been easier as I have been learning to add it in earlier in the day but wow, what an eye opener.

Sodium is the next issue to tackle for me I think – too much of it right now in my diet but one thing at a time I guess.

 

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Don’t starve yourself!!

January 8, 2016

What does Skinny feel like? It feels hungry, very hungry most times. I don’t know about you but this is not the type of feeling I enjoy at all. So I made a change – and no it was not at New Year’s.

My change was I was going to eat – and i mean a lot!!

I’ve always been a good eater (LOL yes picture a round guy). Then I started dieting to lose weight so I could climb better. Now I know what you’re thinking – that’s exactly what you should be doing. except for one thing, my energy levels weren’t normally very good on training days. Yes I completed my workouts and yes I progressed a bit, ok a good bit (15% increase in FTP). But I always felt like there was so much more waiting inside my body that I just couldn’t tap into. Thus the change – I started eating more – more protein and fats and some extra carbs but not a lot of extra.

So here I am in week 5 and how’s it going?

This week I’ve had a number of interval sessions already with another scheduled for tomorrow. They have been amazing – I tested myself and am already at 97% of my best 1 minute, 93% of my best 5 minute and 91% of my best 20 minute power numbers. A reminder – it’s January 8th!!

but wait what about you weight – it’s gone up a bit 2lbs. (1kg) in these 5 weeks so far – this is a trade-off I am willing to make. Since I am more of a criterium racer and not a straight climber I need more power!! This is a year where I go seek out the pain cave and crawl inside it. So far my interval sessions have been tough and at times feel brutal, but guess what?? I have more inside me – I’m not sore afterwards but I am dying during. That’s ok though, bcz then the next day comes and I’m able to go right back to doing another solid, strong, hard workout. Eating makes a huge difference. So no more starving for me – I’m going to eat and look for me toward the front of the pack in this year’s crit races. Hopefully I’ll be the guy ripping legs off at the end – we’ll see.

Ride safe my friends

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I have no time to train – then get faster with less

January 5, 2016

We’ve all said this or felt this or heard someone else say it. I have no time to train! Sometimes this can be true. Let’s face it, we all have lives outside of just training and working out. There are not many people in the this world who get paid to train and race for a living and even those that do have to many times find other forms of income to survive. Money can’t buy happiness but I sure would allow me more time to train and that would make me happy…. But I digress.

Time to train can be tough to find in today’s go, go, go world. With work and family commitments not to mention some semblance of a social life, food, and OH don’t forget that one little thing called sleep. Some days there just doesn’t feel like there is any time to get a workout in.

I felt this way yesterday – It was cold outside in the morning and I wimped out on getting the workout in early, then my work day started and off I went. Making calls, returning calls, send and receiving emails – you know the typical work day for most I imagine. But then it started to creep in on me. I missed my workout. Oh, the guilt – the worry. Am I going to lose my edge? Haha. Then I started feeling really good and wanted to get something in – I had no time I kept telling myself. I have calls scheduled throughout the day and here is only a one hour break in there…. That’s not enough time for a workout, what with changing, getting set-up and then putting everything away and getting food after.

This is when I tell everyone that I am one of the lucky people who gets to work at home a couple of days a week. This allows me more freedom than most people who try to squeeze things in. So during one of my calls I placed myself on mute and went and changed my clothes into my cycling kit, filled my water bottle (this is important to be on mute for or else it sounds like you’re going to the bathroom-not good for clients to hear) and started to prep the bike. Once my call ended (late of course) I had 55 minutes until my next call. I immediately jumped on the bike (rollers) and set off on a hard intervals session. 8 minutes of ramped up warm up and then into the faux meat (I am vegan afterall) – 60 second intervals at 105% of FTP with a 60 second recovery in-between. As I neared the very end of my 30 minute session I did an all-out 60 second interval to see how close I could come to my all-time best. I’m pretty happy to say I was within 10 watts for my best 60 second sustained power output – and it’s only January 4th. This is my best EVER – even after years of training and doing testing on myself and all the heated group rides and races I was only 10 watts away from my best.

How can this be? I haven’t have a ride on the bike longer than 90 minutes in the past 5 months. All I can say is intervals, intervals, intervals. These things make you faster. Short ones, long ones, increasing, decreasing it doesn’t matter they all work as long as you are pushing yourself during them. So when you have time or when you have no time get on the bike and blast away. The short fast work we do now will help us once the days get warmer and we decide to venture outside once again. Don’t just ride along aimlessly – make the time count!!

 

Ride safe my friends

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