Almost Back on Track

Yesterday I had a much better diet and fitness day, going for a run, avoiding all sweet treats and getting back to the goal nutrient balance in my diet. I am trying to maintain a nutrient balance of 25% protein to 45-50% carbohydrates to 25-30% fat. The high percentage of protein is to help my body rebuild my muscles and recover from all the training I will be doing, plus it keeps you feeling fuller for longer so you are less likely to snack. The fat percentage is quite high as well, as most dieticians would recommend keeping the percentage of calories I get from fat to less than 20%, especially as I am trying to lose weight.

However, as a regular runner there is a reason to eat a higher proportion of fat: it teaches my body to rely on fat as fuel as instead of carbohydrates. During aerobic exercise, especially long, slow efforts, your body gets a higher proportion of its energy from your fat stores, and less from stored carbohydrates. What I want to do is teach my body to rely on my fat stores for fuel rather than on carbohydrates, so I am giving it fewer carbohydrates, especially during exercise (no sweet sports drinks or energy bars!). This not only reduces body fat during training, but it also helps in a race situation where you might have 1500 calories of stored carbohydrate energy in your muscles but have over 50,000 calories of energy in the form of fat. In essence, the more your body uses fat for fuel at all speeds, the more efficient a runner you are. It’s just one of those counterintuitive things about weight loss and training – eating fat can help you lose fat!

The Score:

Calories:	Protein:	Carbs:	Fat:	Alcohol:	Fibre:
1963.82	121.88g	227.18g	62.64g	0	22.56g
	25%	46%	29%
Calories burned through exercise:		360

What I ate:

Time	Item	Amount
08:45	Vitamins - Centrum Advance A to Zinc, 400iu of Vitamin E, 1000iu Vitamin D3 and 500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 each
	Cold water	200mL
	Essential Waitrose unsmoked British back bacon medallions	65g
	Nairn's Gluten Free Porridge oats	50g
	with Sultanas	20g
	and walnuts	10g
	Copella English Apple juice	200mL
09:30	Black Tea	500mL
11:00	Raspberry and Echinacea tea	250mL
13:30	Baked chicken breast pieces	93g
	Mrs Crimble's Sage and Onion stuffing	82g
	Spinach	25g
	Raw tomato	110g
	Kraft Light Honey Mustard dressing	12g
	Skim milk	210mL
14:30	Green Tea	250mL
15:30	Hill run - 22 minutes
16:00	Lemon Lime Nuun electrolyte tablet in water	750mL
16:30	Smoked Salmon and cream cheese rolls	53g
	Sponser Strawberry-Banana Recovery Drink (in water)	60g
19:00	Orange, mango and cinnamon tea	250mL
19:30	Homemade Turkey meat loaf	200g
	Baked potato	164g
	with butter	12g
	and cream cheese with chives	21g
	Microwaved Broccoli	100g
	Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Cranberry sauce	20g

Plus 500 to 1500mL of cold water sipped from a water bottle throughout the day.