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Achieving Race Weight For Triathletes

As race season approaches, we are preparing our bodies for the best possible performance. We do this first and foremost through our training. At the same time, most of us are also looking to drop a final few pounds to help generate an extra bit of speed.

 

Category: Training Posted by: editor

We all know that reducing body fat while maintaining muscle mass will help raise our power-to-weight ratio and therefore, performance. However, aiming to lose weight at this time of year when our training intensity is high is extremely dangerous - if we follow the standard approach - because it can compromise both our training and health through nutrient deficiencies.

The standard way an athlete tries to shed a few pounds is by first removing as much fat as possible from their diet - after all surely we get fat from eating fat. And if cutting fat does not lead to weight loss, which it almost certainly will not, then an athlete starts to limit the intake of calories, i.e. simply eat less. This approach to weight loss will ultimately prove unsuccessful.

In this article I will explain why, as well as offer advice on how you can change your eating habits to ensure optimal health and weight, and boost your race performance. To start, I want to look at the reasons why a high carbohydrate diet, i.e. one that is looking to eliminate fat, fails to promote fat loss.

High-carbohydrate diets

The problem we face with a high carbohydrate diet and a lack of weight loss is linked to insulin. This hormone is produced by the body to remove sugar from our blood, and to do so rapidly, because sugar is a toxin. For triathletes, sugar is a necessary evil. It allows us to perform high-intensity exercise for prolonged periods of time. When fueling exercise and muscle contractions, sugar and insulin are our friends - the problem lies outside of training time.

When exercising, our muscles will absorb and use sugar for muscle contractions so we don't have to worry then about the body finding another way to remove it.

After exercise, there is a period of time when the muscles are extremely efficient at refueling their stores of energy. This window of opportunity tends to last between 30 and 60 minutes and is something sports drink makers have picked up on. Most of us are aware of this window and use it to our advantage.

Why is insulin bad for weight loss? 

Insulin is not our friend when we are trying to lose weight. Two of the primary hormones used to control our body's energy supply are insulin and human growth hormone (HGH).

In the presence of insulin our body is in storage mode: it will store as many calories as possible as fat. In contrast, in the presence of HGH, we can tap our body's fat stores for energy: this is something that we want to happen as much as possible if we want to lose weight.

HGH can be looked at as a survival hormone. It allows us access to our fat stores for energy when supplies are low and it also prevents the breakdown of protein which means that we are maintaining our muscle mass and strength. Our body's release of HGH is greatly affected by the presence of insulin: when insulin is present the release of HGH is inhibited. By following a high-carbohydrate/low-fat diet we are preventing our body from losing weight by using our fat stores.

If we follow another typical recommendation of spreading our food intake over five smaller meals through the day, we are creating a situation where insulin is almost always present in our body.

In short, the athlete is not losing weight through the reduction of fat in the diet and believes that this means they are consuming too many calories. So they eat less. As a result, they don't have enough energy for training and are getting less nutrients. And they still don't lose weight. In fact many people start to put on fat.

My advice: carbohydrate is to be consumed only during and immediately following training, it is training fuel and recovery fuel only.

So if we are not eating carbs in our meals what can we eat? To see what we should be eating we need to look at the two other macronutrients: protein and fat.

Protein

Protein is essential for everyone and especially athletes. It provides the building blocks to muscle development along with many other growth and development processes within the body. Protein contains some essential vitamins and minerals for the body including B vitamins which are essential for aerobic metabolism.

At the same time, protein can also be toxic for us and certainly does not provide the body with all the nutrients we need. This has been well documented by Vilhjalmur Stefansson who researched and wrote about rabbit starvation, or the almost total lack of fat in a diet, based on explorations he made in Canada's hinterlands in the early 1900s.

Stefansson found that native peoples sometimes had to rely on rabbits as their primary source of nutrition. Rabbit is an extreme lean meat with very little fat. These people would become very sick, even die, if rabbit was their only food as their bodies were starved of almost all essential nutrients. Eating carbs wouldn't have changed the situation - only the presence of fat would have restored their health. 

Fat and saturated fat

When just a little fat was added to their diet these native peoples would regain their health. As part of his research Stefansson lived on the same diet as Canada's Inuit, one that contains at least 80% fat, which is saturated fat from blubber. Stefansson recorded optimal health in following the diet despite warnings to the contrary. Conventional wisdom tells us that these people would all be keeling over and dying of heart attacks but this was certainly not the case: they had healthy hearts, great body structure, were strong and lean, and were positive and happy.

If I now tell you that saturated fat should account for most of our calories outside of training, you are going to think I'm crazy but let's look at the body to understand this. The body is made to survive. Our body evolved to store energy so that we could survive for periods of time when food was limited. We evolved to store this energy as fat - more specifically as saturated fat.

In times of limited food supply (or intake), our bodies use our fat stores for energy, filling our blood with fatty acids to be used as fuel. Our body uses this saturated fat in exactly the same way as digested saturated fat in our diet.

Here is something to think about when someone says you that you will develop heart disease from eating saturated fat: if the body stored saturated fat to use for survival when food is limited, would it not seem counter-productive if in using this source of energy we developed heart disease that would kill us? It would seem more likely that this was the best source of fuel for optimal health.

If the objective is to lose weight, then there is a simple recipe: consume no carbs at your evening meal. That may be hard to do if you are training after work. And if this is the case, I advise getting all the carbs you need in during the session or with a recovery drink immediately after you finish. Then have an evening meal containing no carbs.

The best time for the athlete to put fat burning and weight loss into effect is on the weekend, when you can train early, refuel and then avoid carbs for the rest of the day to ensure a prolonged period of time of no insulin in your blood. 

How to increase fat?

First, cook in butter or lard instead of oils and don't scrimp, it's not unhealthy. Opt for products produced from free range or grass fed animals.

Second, buy the fattiest cuts of meat – stop eating lean protein.

Third, increase the use of products such as coconut milk and coconut oil.

Fourth, cover your vegetables with cheese and butter.

I guarantee you will feel fuller from a plate of food containing protein and a good portion of fat and vegetables than you will from a plate of pasta. 
Try something different this year and see how your body thanks you with improved health and performance.

About the Author

110 Racing fuel in a Crotch Rocket?

Can you run 110 racing fuel in an all stock Crotch Rocket without doing any damage to the engine?

You mean " Sports Bike " ?

Nobody calls them Crotch Rockets.

The engine will be fine with 110 octane, but you can kiss goodbye to your standard spark plugs.

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