Eating More To Go Faster

One of the reasons I’ve decided to stop actively trying to lose weight is that it is more important to me to be able to run faster than it is to look a certain way. While I know losing more body fat might make me faster too, there is a serious law of diminishing returns. Once again, it is one of the ironies of weight loss and exercise – the fitter you are, the harder it becomes to drop body fat without losing any of the muscle you’ve worked so hard for. This is because the more muscle you have the more calories you burn at rest, so the more calories you need just to maintain your body. Cutting calories below this amount will have your body using both your fat stores and your muscles mass to maintain itself, so while you may lose weight, your performance will suffer.

I’d like to keep all my muscle and I’d like to get faster too, so I need to make sure I am eating enough to fuel my new muscles and all my training. It’s tough to figure out how many calories I should be eating per day to maintain my weight - as I’ve said before I’ve tried several online calculators and have been given figures ranging from 1600 to over 2300 calories per day. So we’ll try eating an average of 2000 calories per day for now and see not just how it affects my weight, but also how I feel during training and how fast I recover.

Of course that’s assuming I have better luck sticking to 2000 calories a day than I did 1800!

The Score:

Calories:	Protein:	Carbs:	Fat:	Alcohol:	Fibre:
2059.54	115.93g	271.07g	58.05g	0	33.65g
	23%	53%	25%
Calories burned through exercise:		363

What I ate:

Time	Item	Amount
07:45	Vitamins - Centrum Advance A to Zinc, 400iu of Vitamin E, 1000iu Vitamin D3 and 500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 each
	Cold water	200mL
	Mattesson's Turkey rashers	3 rashers
	Sainsbury's Freefrom oats	50g
	with Sultanas	20g
	Sainsbury's pressed apple and cherry juice	200mL
08:30	Black Tea	500mL
09:30	Raspberry and Echinacea tea	250mL
10:30	Brazil nuts	6g
	Cashews	17g
	Plums	150g
11:00	Lemon and ginger tea	250mL
12:30	Homemade chicken and butternut squash risotto	300g
	Raw Tomato	113g
	Alpro soya original	200mL
	Sainsbury's Be Good to Yourself chocolate mousse	62.5g
13:30	Green Tea	250mL
14:00	Hill run
14:45	Citrus Nuun electrolyte tablet in water	750mL
15:15	Sponser Chocolate Recovery Shake	30g
	in Skim milk	225mL
18:15	Sponser Protein Snack bar	1 bar
20:15	Moorish Vegetable Tagine	300g
	Merchant Gourmet Red and White Quinoa	100g
22:00	Ellactiva Chocolate Calcium Chew	1 chew
	500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 pill

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