One good day in a week of too much Chocolate

This was one of the healthier diet days I’ve had in the past week. Actually stayed below 2000 calories, 5+ servings of fruit and veg (the bean stew has 2-3 servings of vegetables since its all vegetables and beans in a tomato base), high in fibre, and no junk food. Despite the lack of junk food (the sorbet was only 140 calories and was made with pureed fruit) it was surprisingly high in fat, though most of that was from good fats in the olive oil and avocados. However, it does mean that once again I am short on protein and higher on fats than I would like.

Overall this lack of balance, coupled with an abundance of calories from chocolate, was a major theme last week. I averaged 2325 calories a day with less than 100 calories a day burned through exercise (I only had one body balance workout and one 30 minute race), with 20% of those calories from protein, 51% from carbohydrates and 29% from fat. At the start of the month when I decided to up the amount of carbohydrates to 50% of my diet, the idea was to keep the amount of protein at 25% and drop the amount of fat from 30% to less than 25%. However last week most of my “extra” carbohydrates can from sweet treats, which are also full of fat. The worst part is this was a rest week, so the excess fats are likely to hang around because they were not used to fuel exercise, while the lack of protein may have impaired the muscle building that’s supposed to happen in a rest week.

This week I will be in Switzerland on business, so it’s going to get harder to keep my nutrients balanced. I used to live in Zurich, so I do have the advantage of knowing where to go to get gluten free food. The bad news is that I also know gluten free food is less available and less well known in Switzerland than it is in the UK. So my goals this week: Get in all my workouts and get enough to eat. Worry about calories and nutrient balance next week.

The Score:

Calories:	Protein:	Carbs:	Fat:	Alcohol:	Fibre:
1916.47	98.21g	238.90g	64.41g	0	29.0g
	20.5%	50%	30%
Calories burned through exercise:		Rest Day

What I ate:

Time	Item	Amount
09:00	Vitamins - Centrum Advance A to Zinc, 400iu of Vitamin E, 1000iu Vitamin D3 and 500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 each
	Cold water	200mL
	Whole Scrambled egg with 2 egg whites	3 eggs
	Genius brown bread toast	2 slices
	with Flora Light	8g
	St Dalfour Blackcurrant jam	32g
	Sainsbury's Orange, Mango and Passionfruit juice	200mL
10:00	Black Tea	500mL
12:00	Raspberry and Echinacea tea	250mL
13:45	Baked chicken breast	125g
	Mashed potato	200g
	with butter	6g
	Stir fried Kale	50g
	in Olive oil	7.5mL
	with Pine nuts	4g
	Bisto Best Chicken Gravy	about 5g
	Sainsbury's Bramley apple sauce	30g
14:30	Green Tea	250mL
17:00	Fresh Strawberries	100g
	Sponser Chocolate Recovery Shake	30g
	in Skim milk	225mL
20:45	Lee's Hippy Farm Beans (Leon's recipe book)	350g
	Fresh avocado	60g
	Alpro Soya Original	200mL
21:30	Sainsbury’s Raspberry Sorbet	132g
22:15	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.

Calories Trending Upwards!

OK, so this was not my most controlled week. I was shooting for 2000 calories a day really! But somehow I never managed to get less than 2150 on any day last week and I averaged over 2470 per day.  And most of those extra calories came from carbohydrates (or alcohol!) at the expense of protein. Despite trying to get 25% of my calories from protein, I had 3 days last week where I got 19% or less from protein – all towards the end of the week. This might explain why I was having such trouble recovering from my workouts later in the week. I know I was working hard, especially during my interval run on Thursday, but I really was tired and sore for days.

To be fair, I have not been averaging 2000 calories a day since I made it my goal at the start of the month. In fact, I seem to have subconsciously taken to heart the body composition analysis at the gym which said I could eat over 2500 calories a day and maintain my weight. The first week of March I averaged 2260 calories a day, the second week 2390, and this third week 2470. The biggest problem I have with these averages is that they are clearly trending upwards! Even if I believe I can eat 2500 calories a day without putting on any weight, I am already almost there. Not to mention that all these extra calories are not coming from healthy sources!

This week is a rest week so I’ll be burning far fewer calories through exercise anyways, so I think it’s time I got back on track and tried to keep the calories down around 1800 per day. The logic being, if I shoot for 1800, I just might make 2000!

The Score:

Calories:	Protein:	Carbs:	Fat:	Alcohol:	Fibre:
2496.34	130.60g	372.14g	55.76g	0	35.33
	21%	60%	20%
Calories burned through exercise:		852

What I ate:

Time	Item	Amount
09:30	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
	Gluten Free fruit muesli	70g
	Alpro Soy milk	120mL
	Sainsbury's Orange juice with juicy bits	200mL
10:00	Black tea with milk and sugar	500mL
10:30	Black tea with milk and sugar	350mL
11:15	Easy long run - 90 min
	500mL Sponser Isotonic, fruit mix	38g
13:00	Lemon Tea Nuun electrolyte tablet in water	750mL
13:45	Sponser Vanilla Recovery Shake	30g
	in Skim milk	225mL
	Poached eggs	2 eggs
	Genius brown bread toast	2 slices
	with Flora Light	8g
	and Waitrose Lemon Curd on one slice	15g
	Raw Tomato	85g
	500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 pill
17:00	Waitrose Love Life free from fruit scones	1 scone
	with Flora Light	2g
	St Dalfour Blackcurrant jam	16g
	Irish Yoghurts Diet Apricot and Nectarine	125g
	Fresh Pineapple	160g
	Caffeine free Black tea with milk and sugar	500mL
19:45	Quick cook Turkey Steak	107g
	Merchant Gourmet tinned puy lentils	100g
	Boiled carrots	125g
	Frozen peas	80g
	Sainsbury's Bramley apple sauce	30g
	Lindt Excellence 70% cocoa dark chocolate	20g
22:00	Galaxy Minstrels	42g
22:30	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.

A Healthier Week

Yesterday was not a very good day for me. I was suffering terribly from hay fever despite the rain, which killed my appetite. We decided to go to the Triathlon Show anyways, but only stay for a couple of hours and be home in time for a late lunch. Of course we ended up staying much later and there was no food I could eat there (lots of sandwiches). By the time we got home at 3:45 I was exhausted, massively congested and in no mood to eat. I had a snack then spent an hour in the bath, before having some cereal because that was what I could stomach. It was a very odd day, with no lunch, cereal and milk at 5:30pm, but a normal breakfast and dinner. And much higher in fat and calories than I thought it would be!

The good news is that, yesterday’s diet chaos aside, the quality of my diet was much better this week. No chocolates, no random snacking on Doritos moments, and quite high in fruits, vegetables and fibre. Despite having over 3000 calories on Saturday and over 2300 yesterday, I still managed to average over 100 calories a day less this week than the week before. I also did all my workouts this past week, so averaged almost 300 calories a day burned through exercise. However, where it all falls down is in the nutrient balance. I wanted to average 25% protein, 50% carbohydrates to 25% fat. Well I managed the 50% carbohydrates, but only got 20% protein, over 28% fats and 2% alcohol. Part of that is just eating more calories, mostly from carbohydrates and fats, than I planned on, so even when I got 110-125g of protein, it was a much smaller percentage of total calories.

So now that the junk food is contained, time to work on getting more protein.

The Score:

Calories:	Protein:	Carbs:	Fat:	Alcohol:	Fibre:
2345.94g	78.72g	311.69g	89.06g	0	38.57g
	13%	53%	34%
Calories burned through exercise:		Rest Day

What I ate:

Time	Item	Amount
09:00	Vitamins - Centrum Advance A to Zinc, 400iu of Vitamin E, 1000iu Vitamin D3 and 500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 each
	Cold water	200mL
	Scrambled eggs	2 eggs
	Genius brown bread toast	2 slices
	with Flora Light	8g
	and St Dalfour blackcurrant jam	20g
	Honeydew melon	180g
	Sainsbury's Orange, Mango and Passionfruit juice	200mL
09:30	Black Tea	500mL
12:00	Costa cappuccino with sugar	small
12:15	Sponser Protein Snack bar	1 bar
15:00	Burts hand fried Potato chips, mature cheddar	40g
	Green tea	300mL
16:15	Fresh blueberries	100g
	Doritos Hint of Lime tortilla chips	40g
	Twinings Camomile, honey and vanilla tea	250mL
16:45	Pink lemonade Nuun electrolyte tablet in water	750mL
17:30	Gluten Free fruit muesli	70g
	Alpro Soy milk	120mL
17:45	Gluten Free fruit muesli	70g
	Alpro Soy milk	120mL
20:00	Moorish Vegetable Tagine	300g
	Merchant Gourmet Red and White Quinoa	75g
22:30	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.

How much fat?!

This really has not been the best rest week for me, both in terms of diet and exercise. I had planned to do a 30 min swim, two weight and/or yoga sessions and the 5Km Park run. Well, I did manage the Park Run and the swim, but none of the rest. On the one hand, life stress has been pretty high over the past two weeks so extra rest is no bad thing and I should be really fresh going into my next three weeks of hard training (base 3). However, I really was not keeping the calorie burn up and since my diet was so poor much of the time as well, this is a problem.

This week I averaged  2240 calories per day with only 179 calories burned through exercise – and that includes the 550 calories I burned walking over 12Km around Richmond Park yesterday! Five out of the 7 days I ate more than 2000 calories and I never had less than 1900 – when my goal is to keep my calories below 1800. This during a rest week, where I normally try to get less than 1700 on the days I’m not exercising. My nutrient balance was also way off, with only 20% protein and 47% carbohydrates but over 32% fat. I’ve checked, and the last time I had a week where my average percentage of calories from fat was over 30% was the week between Christmas and New Year’s! Not only that, but 2% of my calories this week came from alcohol, but the only time I had any was during my 2 hour meal at The French Table on Friday night. Fortunately it’s very rare for me to drink that much in such a short amount of time, or even to have more than two drinks in the same evening.

Setting aside the special occasion of my birthday supper on Friday, there was still a lot of tea cakes with clotted cream, chocolates, Doritos and cheese in my diet last week, none of which is going to help me lose that last kilo or properly support my training. So this week I really need to focus on the quality of my diet.

The Score:

Calories:	Protein:	Carbs:	Fat:	Alcohol:	Fibre:
2408.90	114.82g	263.29g	99.11g	0	24.26g
	19%	44%	37%
Calories burned through exercise:		550

What I ate:

Time	Item	Amount
09:30	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
	Gluten Free fruit muesli	70g
	Alpro Soy milk	120mL
	Sainsbury's pressed apple juice	200mL
12:45	Sunday roast pork loin	125g
	Roast potatoes	2 large quarters
	Mixed root vegetables	1 serving
	Gravy	2 spoonfuls
	Gluten free Chocolate chip cake with chocolate icing	3/4 of one square
	Black Tea	400mL
13:30	Long walk around Richmond Park - 2.5 hours
17:00	Fresh blueberries	106g
	Waitrose Cornish Quartz Cheddar	38g
	melted onto Genius brown bread toast	1 slice
	Caffeine free Black Tea	500mL
17:30	Classics by Thorntons chocolates	6 pieces
	Citrus Nuun electrolyte tablet in water	500mL
19:45	Scrambled eggs	2 eggs
	with Scottish Smoked salmon	42g
	with butter	2g
	Genius brown bread toast	1 slice
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.