jamesstout

hi guys, im having a little trouble with the lingering affect of overtraining and they think it could be my diet could some guys who race and train about 300-250 miles/week post their diets?

James

jamesstout

i thought i'd add a diet log.

Snuffleupagus

It's late May.

I smell too much volume and not enough intensity if you're consistently laying down ~15-20 hours per week on the bike while racing.

But you asked for diet tips...but you know the drill, it looks like the predominance of your calories should come from carbohydrates, as you're going to be burning a lot of energy on your daily grind.

jamesstout

i get most of my cals from carbs i was wondering if it was too carby. fo fat and protein affect testosterone and cortisol?

ericgu

James,

"Food for fitness" has a lot of great information and some guidelines for how much protein you need each day. My recollection is that there are a lot of carbs in the diets of athletes.

How is your recovery nutrition. I've been amazed at how well endurox works to keep me fresh and my legs happy.

jamesstout

i normally eat yogurt bannana and grape nuts with rai9sins straight after a long ride im a poor student and we dont have endurox over here-i have a tub of whey portein i could mix something up?

Enthalpic

It seems like you eat pretty well, but it’s hard too tell if it’s enough because your log doesn't add up the caloric value or grams c/f/p of all those things you ate.

fitday.com is nice in that after you have programmed in your most common foods (melba toast, yogurt, cereal, raisins) it's pretty quick each day.

Try eating eggs every once and a while, nutrient dense and tasty.

jamesstout

fitday only seems to work in volume measures which i don't have to give an idea i had for breakfast 70g oats 170ml milk (rest water also 1 tsp maple syrup and yog and 20g fromage frais) 15g raisins 50g bread and 5g of pb and an apple.

carb portions are 70g ish uncooked pasta rice etc protein is generally about 100-150g i dont specifically intake any fats apart fromt he 5g of pb in the morning ( in ever weigh it but i did one day just to see how much i was having) is this lack of fats bad?

ericgu

I think you're probably a little light on the protein after the ride. The real test for me is how I feel about two hours after the ride. If I'm really hungry, I didn't do the right thing with recovery. But if I'm feeling satisfied after a couple hours, that's a good sign.

Oh, and also make sure that you get enough liquid.

jamesstout

2 hours later im hungry shold i add some of my whey protein in the mix?

RiPHRaPH

Now that we know what you do for ~3 hours a day, what are you doing for the other 20-21 hours of the day? Are you getting enough rest? Do you have down time? Are you sleeping well? Do you have an excess of drama in your life?

jamesstout

im a student so i do lots of reading and essay writing i sleep about 7-9 hours i guess. I also do some weights 2x a wek and some core work. I dont drink much and if i go out i try to be backby 12. I dont have much time completely relaxing i guess...

ericgu

If you're hungry hungry a couple of hours later, I'd suggest adding a little whey protein the next time. Or especially if your hungry but eating something doesn't really help.

jamesstout

yes that's how it is. i can tell my stomach is full but i want more!

Enthalpic

If the food is a fluid, or at least pours, it will be in volume measures. Otherwise the oz they are talking about is 28g. For most foods you can also change the measure using the dropdown menu.

jamesstout

aah 1oz is 28g ok. But with oats it has like 1 cup of ats or with peanut butter it has 1 serving - a serving is 2tbsp i eat like a tsp! Also is it ok to have an egg a day, i have started to do this but is blood cholesterol an issue ( i hear its not linked to dietary cholesterol) my family has a history. I have got loads of oily fish to eat too. I love oily ish, anyone got anything good to do with fresh mackerel?

Enthalpic

For the peanut butter just put in the fraction of a serving you ate (eg 0.25). Look up volume/mass conversions (teaspoon, tablespoon, cup, mL, etc).

I don’t weigh my food; I use the nutritional information off the package. So say I ate half of the package I would:
Take the package size in grams.
Divide that by the reported serving size to get the total number of serving in the package.
Multiply the number of servings consumed (in my case half of the total) by the listed calories per serving off of the package to get total calories consumed.
I then take that number and divide it by the number of calories fitday says each serving has to get the number of servings to enter into fitday.

This sound hard at first but it’s really not, especially if you use the “add custom food” feature. Just program in the most common foods you eat using the quantities you normally consume. After a while you just have to use the “add recent” or “add custom food” dropdown bars to enter everything really quick.

Eggs in moderation (1/day ave) are no problem. The benefits from of all the nutrients far outweigh any potential, and debatable, cholesterol risk. I just bake fish with lemon, it's ok but not great IMO.

ChezJfrey

I'm mostly a runner, but I'll chime in anyway. Strictly speaking, overtraining is an oft-used, but seldom correct self-diagnosis. However, you could be over-reaching a bit, so check your training schedule and make sure to allow some recovery/base mile rides between workouts. And if you're racing right now, lighten the weekly mileage a bit and work on some speed to keep sharp between races.

As for diet, I log about 80-100 miles/week running and 100 miles/week cycling, so my nutritional needs should be similar to a 300-400 mpw cyclist.

I was feeling tired a bit too often so I started keeping better tabs on my food consumption. Normally, I just ate when I felt hungry, but after carefully monitoring my caloric expenditures/intake for a month, I made a startling discovery - I was operating in a state of caloric deficit. I was shocked by how much since I tend to eat all day long...we're talking sometimes a 1,000 calories short daily. Now, most of the time this was during the weekdays, while I'm at work. I did notice that my weekend eating was much more in line with my activity level.

Admittedly, I'm a pretty slight guy at 6 feet and 165 pounds, but I would never consider myself unhealthy - heck I'm a marathoner so I've got plenty of strength and endurance! I started forcing myself to consume many more calories, more evenly distributed throughout the day. Now comes the interesting part - I've increased my food intake by about 800-1,000 calories per day (I'm now eating 4,300 - 4,800 calories per day) and I've lost weight! I've lost 4 pounds (down to 161) and about a 1/2 inch from my waistline. Now I'm stepping into the Twilight Zone!

The increased fuel intake has improved my day-to-day recovery, given me more energy to burn and paradoxically, is lightening the load as well, so bottom-line is (assuming you sleep enough and train appropriately) you may need to eat more! Measure your food intake against your activity level and make sure they balance!

I keep track every day now in order to obtain maximum benefits from my training regimen.

Enthalpic

That's crazy run volume.

I am not surprised at all your body reacted "backwards" to increased food consumption. You just corrected some nutritional deficiency that was screwing with your cellular machinery.

You need to eat a very large amount… very roughly:
100mile x 110kcal/mile = 11,000
100mile x 40kcal/mile = 4,000
BMR 2100 x 7 = 14,700

~4240kcal/day… that is some serious eating.

jamesstout

i was defo overtrained it was an endochrinological diagnosis im talking high cortisol low test hyper thyroidism

were you missing any macros in particualir or just low in claories per se? could you link your fitday so i can get an idea?

ChezJfrey

Ah yes, thyroid imbalances do pose problems -- Galen Rupp and Adam Goucher (elite runners) come to mind.

I don't use fitday, so I don't have a link. My diet is pretty balanced (I adhere to 55/30/15 carb/fat/protein and make sure to eat fruits/vegetables often) so my macro mineral intake is generally good. Although I didn't get hemoglobin/ferritin tested, I was concerned about a lack of iron since it is a common deficiency for distance runners - I merely focused on a few more iron-rich foods. But, my improved health followed when I simply started eating more of what I was already eating so I'm pretty sure I was simply not ingesting enough calories.

jamesstout

my split looks closer to 70/20/25 c/p/f is that bad? The doctors tell me carbs-> less cortisol is that true?
How did those runners get over their issues? I have low haemoglobin but thats a symptom of the thyroid issue.

ChezJfrey

I don't know the prescribed treatment for Rupp or Goucher.

As for your dietary split, you may want to check your math, 70 + 20 + 25 = 115 Though, I get what you're saying - as far as I know, high carbs are called for with hyperthyroid. Unfortunately, a diet for endocrine problems is outside the scope of my knowledge. All I know for your case would be get more zinc, high carbs and fish, which it seems you already know.

jamesstout

fish simply as a lean protein choice or other benefits?

Enthalpic

omega 3 polyunsaturated fats.

As for cortisol control try to eat some protein with breakfast as cortisol levels are highest in the morning and protein can help attenuate that peak. Sorry I don't have the reference to where I got that from.