Periodization and Body Composition - Offseason and Weight Loss

Congratulations! You just finished your big race last year. You did ok, but think you could do better next year at B2B. For right now, the important part is basking in the glow of that finish line. Maybe have a celebration with family and friends and start the recovery process.

I have to force myself to take an entire month off from everything after a full ironman. During the big day, my body sort of expands; like the joints all get very loose, and it takes about a month for everything to come back together. One time I started swimming too soon after Ironman, and my ankles were killing me by the end of the warmup. How do your ankles hurt from swimming? makes no sense.

The offseason is the time to cut loose. Nutritionally, cheeseburgers and chicken wings are ok. Bring on the beers. Re-introduce yourself to your friends and family. It's a good time to burn your ex's house down (kidding).  But I do feel like it's important to note here that we are not dogs. We don't need to use food as a reward. I just try not to feel guilty about enjoying the Standard American Diet during the offseason.

Your racing weight is not supposed to be a number that can be maintained all year round. It's supposed to be a target that you can hit and sustain for one day to give you the best chance at a successful race. There is nothing wrong with a little weight gain after the big day.

Training during the offseason is only supposed to be the fun stuff. No structure, no plan, just do whatever you want whenever it feels right. We get into this crazy multisport lifestyle because we enjoy 3 sports and training hard for 3 sports at the same time. Some people want to run marathons during the offseason. Some choose a structured weight training program. So do what you want.

One thing I can highly recommend. Speed follows endurance, so after months of slow training for a really long triathlon you might be surprised at the speed that is laying dormant right now. Jump into the next local 5k just to see what happens. I set my last 2 PR's each a month after an Ironman. It was surprising and fun.

There are two ways for the offseason to come to a close. My favorite was always hitting my Maximum Allowable Offseason Weight (MAOW). In 2010 I was losing weight in preparation for Ironman training, and I got under 190 lbs for the first time since before the turn of the century. As a reward I got the giant cherry tree tattoo on my right shoulder. That means now when my weight creeps up close to 190 lbs it's time to go into a weight loss phase. Anything else would be to disrespect my tattoo and my body. And sure enough, January 2016 is the only time since then that I've gone over 190 lbs.

The offseason is also a great time to write up your training plan. For our B2B half ironman race, let's assume the training plan is written for 20 weeks. Let's assume we already know our racing weight target for B2B, and assume we know our training weight for the start of the training plan. My weight loss phase typically averages 2 lbs per week of fat loss, so if I'm 14 lbs over my training weight right now and plan to hold that through the offseason, then I need to start my weight loss phase 7 weeks before my training plan starts.

My racing weight is 165 lbs, but I usually come in closer to 168-170. My training weight is 175 lbs, that's always my target for starting the training plan. Typically I'm in a weight loss phase (for 10 to 14 lbs) around February into March or April, and spend my summer in a heavy training plan and between 170 - 175 lbs. But that's only typical for me.

The weight loss phase has a very specific structure. I want to go into some detail here, but it is important to note that every body is different and responds differently to the same stimuli. I've tried every diet plan that I can find to determine what works best for me, and you should too. Check with your doctor if you have more than 20 lbs to lose or have concerns about heart disease or how certain diets will affect your medications. I don't regularly take any medications and I do know my family medical history. I am not a medical doctor, just a former unhealthy fatass. My advice is what worked best for me, and I can certainly do other posts about weight loss or health trends that did not work out for me. Disclaimer over.

Tracking your progress is very important for a weight loss phase. I highly suggest using a scale that will show weight as well as body fat percentage. Especially if you did a bunch of strength training over the offseason, the purpose of the weight loss phase is really to lose body fat, not just pounds. So yes, I want to go from 188 lbs to 175, but I also want to see the scale go from 21% bodyfat down to 16%. Then I can also multiply those two numbers together to get the amount of bodyfat (in pounds) that I'm currently carrying around. For reference, visible abdominal musculature appears in men who have a maximum of about 11% bodyfat, and for me that's around 17 lbs if my weight is down to 162 lbs and I can maintain some muscle mass.

Everything has a starting point, and it is important to record your starting point. Take pictures if you want to. Start tracking your weight and bodyfat percentage (weekly) even if you need to buy a new scale. Find a food and fitness tracker and start logging what you eat. I use My Fitness Pal, but have used others in the past including the Livestrong tracker. Input EVERYTHING that goes into your face-hole and every workout you perform to establish a baseline of how you got fat. This will show you which foods are "bad" for you, and which foods are "good" for you. MFP also has a calculator to help determine my resting metabolic rate and helps me identify which meals were too big and pushed me over my limits for that day.

My structure for the weight loss phase is limiting myself to 1800 calories a day and going vegetarian. After a few weeks of logging everything into MFP I get used to what works, establish the patterns of portion control and learn what my high calorie treats can be.

Going vegetarian has a ton of benefits. Most Americans don't get enough fiber. Most vegetarians do get enough fiber. That's what happens when you eat a lot of plants. You can also get a lot of bulk out of your food when it's all plants. How big is a 16 oz steak? better get a couple of sides with that. Bust into an entire 1 lb bag of spinach and you'll fill up before getting the whole thing down. And the spinach has more protein, less fat, and plenty of iron. Spinach is really one of my power foods, I can't take in too much.

Take a closer look at how bodyfat gets released. You hear the phrase "burning calories" a lot, and what happens when something burns? It generates smoke and leaves ashes behind. The mass that was once something solid turns mostly into smoke and the resulting ash (waste product) carries a small percentage of the original mass. So literally when we lose weight by burning fat (high consistent metabolism) it leaves the body by exhaling.

That's right, up to 75% of weight loss is breathing. The rest of the waste product gets collected by the blood stream, delivered to the colon through our filtration systems (kidneys, liver, etc) and pooped out. That's why fiber is so important. It acts like a toothbrush for your colon.

I'm also pretty big on keeping it low fat. Avacados are pretty high on my normal diet, but in a weight loss phase I will even curb those. Calories from fat just don't get the job done for me. Some people love it, but I prefer sugar/salt instead. My youngest kid is all about the butter but thinks ketchup is too sweet. So this is what works for me. Low fat, high fiber, 1800 calories a day vegetarian.

One last trick.... Some people call it intermittent fasting, or just cutting out the late night snacks, or timing your meals. But if you try to pick a 12 hour window during the day to get your food in, then it will end up better in the long run. It has to be timed with your workout, but I tend to eat breakfast around 7 am. If dinner is done by 7 pm then don't eat anything after then. Going to bed hungry (but not too hungry) is a good thing. Eating right before bed forces your body to process/digest that food during sleep, when it should be doing other things like muscle repair from the workouts. 

Workouts during the weight loss phase are more about consistency than volume. Don't do too much! The time for 3 hour bike rides is during the build phase of the training plan. Weight loss workouts should be no more than 45 minutes in duration. Anything longer than that, and you will have to eat more than 1800 calories to recover from the workout. Even my beloved Masters Swim Team practices go for an hour and 15 minutes, and afterwards I need to eat about 300 calories. My favorite weight loss workout is a 5 mile run. Run 5 miles, 5 days a week, and maybe sneak in a 45 minute bike ride one other day and it's done. Funny thing about doing a ton of 5 mile runs while you keep getting lighter - you end up getting a lot faster too. This is how I went from10 minute miles down to 8 minute miles regularly.

That's what worked for me. Low fat, high fiber, 1800 calories, vegetarian, 45 minute workout. Plus maybe some stretching/yoga to keep my mind sharp.

So here's the breakdown of a typical day:

Breakfast: 7 am
Oatmeal (1/2 c instant oats, 1/2 c milk, 1/2 c water microwave for 2 min) topped with a banana, rasins, cinnamon
385 calories

7:30 am yoga/light stretching/meditation - prepare for today!

11:30 am lunch
Amy's organic veggie burrito (frozen), usually around 280 calories
1 actual serving size of potato chips, even if it's only like 10 chips
around 400 calories

snack or after lunch or pre-workout:
1 greek yogurt, usually about 200 calories

1 banana before workout (100 calories)

5 pm leave work and hit that 5 mile run (burn 600 calories)

7 pm dinner
spinach, preferably
roasted veggies, beans, quinoa, fruit, tons of delish vegetarian recipes out there.
fill the plate with healthy plants! be full and happy, but not over-stuffed like thanksgiving day.
about 500 calories

If you are still too hungry at it's at least an hour before bedtime, go for some fruit, another banana, maybe a string cheese stick. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner add up to about 1300 calories, snacks make up another 300 or so leaving you under the 1800 max on this sample day. Sometimes for lunch I'll have a salad or some leftover veggies from last night's dinner instead of the burrito.

Tracking is important at the end as well. You want to see the weight and bodyfat percentage both drop over time. Multiply those together and you should see that number drop as well. That way you know you are burning off fat as well as just getting lighter.

Be sure you drink enough water. I start every day with a 24 oz bike bottle of clean water, then drink at least 32 oz while I'm at the office, a glass with lunch and dinner, another bottle during the workout, and another bottle after dinner. Water helps the fiber move through the body, and that's really where the weight loss comes from.

So this is what I do for the offseason and the weight loss phase. There are lots of other points I could add here about specific recipes, portion control, recovery protocols, and resting metabolic rate. But this has gone on long enough. I hope this helps explain how to prepare your body for a heavy training plan, because when the hard work starts, it really gets going. Next up: how to build our 20 week triathlon training plan for B2B!

It's a weight loss phase, yo!

Recently I found MyFitnessPal. Less recently, I was enjoying a frivolous offseason. Then suddenly the pants didn't fit quite as well. I knew it was time to bring back the MMNW (monday morning naked weight), and start tracking.

The last time I needed to drop some serious lb's, I went totally vegetarian and tracked everything I ate and stopped at 1800 calories a day. It worked great, I felt good, and I got from 205 lbs down to 175 in a reasonable time frame, and was ready to start training for my first Ironman. My comfort zone became staying around 175-180 during the season, and 180 - 185 during the offseason. Anything over 185 is cause for concern.

Given my race lineup for 2015 I decided to go ahead and start up a weight loss phase. I've been logging on MFP for 22 days straight now. My starting weight was 188 lbs even, and that's practically panic time. I like how MFP tracks, they start with a base number of calories to lose 2 lbs a week, then add in exercise calories earned. One of the key points to my weight loss is limiting the workouts to 45 minutes or so, and this time I haven't really been able to do that.

If I run more than about 5 miles, I have to eat more to recover and that would thwart the weight loss or push me over 1800 calories that day. I guess, now I'm conditioned well enough to run longer. I've been running 4 or 5 days a week, swimming 1 day, and doing hot yoga 1 day. I'm still getting on the yoga mat at home too almost every day, but that's not nearly the workout that hot yoga is. To lose 2 lbs a week they start me out at 1250 calories a day, and so far I've only had one day where I didn't add any exercise calories on top of that.

The losses haven't always been consistent but I'm learning how to manage the process. Every day I take what the scale gives me. Today's MMNW was 179 lbs and 20.5% body fat. There's always faster progress when you first start a phase like this, but 9 lbs over 3 weeks is still a pretty good average.  I'm going to try and start posting the MMNW every Monday. The goal is to average 2 lbs a week over the long term. Most of the online calculators say that for my height, age, and activity level I should get down to 160 lbs to maximize my power-to-weight ratio. I'll see how close I can get to that.

In 2011 training for my first ironman got me down to 165 for a while. But now that I'm almost 40 years old it's not as easy to shed the bodyfat anymore. So we'll just see how it goes. I'm trying to be all zen about it. Some days are up, most days are down, I'll just take what the scale gives me and stick to the plan.

Trying to lose weight during the holidays still sucks. Wings, beer, friends, Christmas parties, vacations, you name it. ugh.

The Results: PR achieved!

 

So for the last 2 weeks Kelley and I have been doing this Paradigm Diet challenge. We started this with the end game in mind:

1. shred some body fat
2. heal the right foot
3. make it a habit
4. get a shiny new PR!

The raw data does not lie.  We did a fairly strict adherence to the program, and I recorded my weight/bf%/workout log/diet log here on the blog. The raw data doesn't lie, here's how the goals turned out:

1. Body fat went from 22.2% to 18.1%, and my weight went from 185.2 lbs after the Thanksgiving bloat down to 175 lbs. So I lost 10 lbs total, and 9.4 lbs of that was pure bodyfat.
2. Healing the foot is tough to quantify. It does feel better, but not much better. These things take time.
2. Make it a habit. Today I missed my breakfast smoothie, but had one for lunch instead. And it was a real mental debate if I wanted to do the smoothie or the kale salad. Save that for tomorrow. I'd say it's a habit.

Ok cards are on the table. After the race and choir practice on Saturday we kind of went non-vegan nuts. Kelley debated me that the number of plates I get at the Chinese buffet should not exceed the number of miles run, but I proved her wrong (3.1 mile race, 5 plates at the buffet). This kept going into sunday, and by sunday night we both felt like absolute crap and couldn't wait to get hungry again so we could finally eat something healthy. Today was back to vegan with quite the sense of relief from both of us.

4. Shiny new PR! Why yes, actually I did get a shiny new PR. Saturday morning was the Jolly Elf Trail Run 5k. This was my third time doing this race, I set my old PR here 2 years ago, then in 2012 came in a minute slower than 2011. In other training runs, I will routinely do 5k tempo runs with times ranging from 20:45 to 21:30, so I thought I could easily beat that 21:58 PR.



Hi there! PR awaits this guy

They gave us all bells to wear on the shoes to make a big jingle.

I was not trying to blend in with this outfit.

I got there very early, and warmed up by jogging to the packet pickup then back to the car. Some light stretching in the park, a quick trip to the men's room to lose some extra weight, and I was ready to race. I got up towards the front and started talking with some other guys with much faster times than I was going for.

At the start I took off pretty fast, but was careful not to go too fast. The course starts out in a field, then heads off into the woods for some trail time. Some of the trails are paved. Then right around the one mile marker, you come out of the woods, run up a hill around the field where you can see the finish line clock and get a rough 1 mile estimate. The clock said 6:19 when I ran past, and the garmin said my 1 mile split was 6:49. My goal was to break 7 minute miles, so this meant I was right on point.

The second mile had the only really tough hill in there, and I passed my friend Jason on that hill. The 2 mile marker was right after the water stop, and the garmin said my second mile took 7:12. I was ok with that. Jason passed me at the water station, I was less ok with that.

The third mile repeated the first mile of the course, but this time when we came around the baseball courts I walked for only 4 steps to let my heart rate come back down some. I had been pushing it for a while and wanted to put up a strong finish. When I came back out onto that field the garmin said 20:35, so I thought I had a PR well in hand. I mean, you could see the finish line right there in the field!

Turns out the garmin also said that was only 2.9 miles into the race. I thought it was a short course at first, but when you start that finish line kick.... then keep kicking.. and kick... and there's the 3 mile alarm from the garmin... and you still need to hold a strong kick..... yea. not a short course. But my lungs, abs, and legs were totally screaming when I hit that finish line in....

21:56! I still got a PR by two whole seconds! I'll take 2 seconds. It wasn't the 21:30 I was looking for. It wasn't the sub-7 pace I thought I would get for sure. but I'll take it.  Goal 4 is very achieved!

Why Vegan (revisited)

I wanted to revisit the Why Vegan topic that I wrote about when we did go totally vegan at the first part of the year. It was really fantastic, and I really did enjoy it. But we couldn't make it into a habit, even after 2 solid months. I had a couple of expectations going into it that were all met, and a few that were disappointing.

Lately I've had vegan/vegetarianism on the brain again. Once you get into a plan like that for a couple of weeks, how it makes you feel, how you look, it's all very appealing. But those are the side affects of the lifestyle and it's not easy to maintain.

The biggest side effect that I was hoping for was faster recovery from the workouts, and I certainly got that. Only a few hours after a hard run and I'd be feeling great. Run in the morning and I'd be totally recovered for the swim that night.  Get some good sleep and I'm ready to hit the bike the next morning. That's the rhythm of Ironman training, you can keep up or get injured or get left behind.

The other thing that really worked for me was "looking my age". Meat and other animal products contain carcinogens and other elements that come naturally or are created through most cooking methods that prematurely age people. So what we normally think a 37 year old man should look like is what people used to think a 50 year old man looked like. When I had been vegan for a month, most people guessed my age at 25, but I got a few 23's in there and even started getting carded at bars again.  Once after showing a bartender my driver's license he actually said "holy shit man, good for you" because I looked so "young". I could challenge that concept by arguing that most others looked older than their actual age so the concept was skewed, but I really had no problems accepting that I looked over 10 years younger than I actually was.  it was pretty awesome.

What disappointed me was the weight loss. Weight loss is a side effect of a vegan diet, not an intended consequence. The body "right sizes" itself by getting rid of unneeded body fat. I knew from the way I was working out that I needed to get down to a certain weight (175 lbs, under 20% body fat) and I thought that being vegan would get me there. It did not.

The other thing that didn't work was the portion sizes. Supposedly you can eat just massive quantities of plants and fruit without gaining weight. Since I like eating massive quantities of food, that's what I did. The weight did not come off, there was no "right sizing", I stayed over 180 lbs and over 20% body fat the entire time. Now that is a totally normal weight for my height, and nobody would call me overweight or obese with those numbers. completely normal. But I wanted to get lean. The way I work out has to be fueled with a lot of energy. So I think the portion sizes I used were still out of control.

There are still plenty of bad vegan foods you can eat. French fries, potato chips, breads, pasta ( no egg noodles), and I really did stay away from most of those. We did mostly whole foods. It was really some incredibly tasty stuff. And no animal products at all. So when the weight didn't come off it just didn't seem worth it to me. The biggest problem is that I have a bowl of cereal every night before bed, and have since I was a teenager. Vegan milk, while fantastic in my oatmeal, sucks on cereal. And cereal is all processed carbs that have no place in a whole food based diet.

So you can imagine how I felt when the tendonitis put me on the sidelines for a few weeks. Fast recovery from the workouts is paramount to preventing injury, and that's one of the benefits of being vegan. I started back on the cereal wagon in March, and then added more dairy and eggs back in. Then by the summer we were cooking meat. The workouts get longer the farther you get into the training plan, and when I'm burning 2500 calories a day just during the workouts, and it can be really tough to get in 2500 calories a day total in a vegan diet, much less adequately fuel the body for the rest of the day after those work outs.

Yes we're not plant based anymore and haven't been for several months now. We just couldn't make it a habit once the workouts started getting harder and the weight wasn't coming off. I still read lots of books about diet and believe the science behind things like the Paradigm Diet and Vegucated. But my lifestyle takes milk and eggs. I'm still also frustrated with the amount of belly fat I'm carrying even though now my weight is down to 174 lbs and 18.6% body fat. I'll find the right way to get lean eventually, but this didn't turn out to be it. Close with some very nice benefits, but either it didn't work or I didn't do it right.

500

When I started this little corner of the interwebs back in September 2008 I had no idea I would still be running triathlons for this long, much less still be blogging about it. This is the 500th time I have posted to the ol' Smoke Trainer, so I thought I'd bring out some of the highlights in case you haven't been reading for the last five years.

Welcome

The first post I wrote explained why I run and what the family history was like. It was funny and the first time I realized I might have a "writing style". It also exposed just how much I care about my health and why I need to stay healthy.

At that time I had done one sprint triathlon and that was it. I jumped straight into multisport, having not done a 5k  or swam a lap before that race. I bought my first bike just 2 weeks before the race. When I crossed that finish line I knew I had beaten my addiction and found a suitable replacement.

From the Greenville Sprint 2008

I swam without goggles, and needed a CamelBak to get through a 15 mile bike ride, refilling the bladder in TA before a 5k run.  It was a big deal. I only did one other race in 2008.

I also wrote this little gem in 2008, which was really a precursor to other funny stuff.  I mean, 6 miles was a long run? come on.

The Kids

I post a lot of pictures and stories about the kids, but this one has to be the most important. I have emailed this story to plenty of people and told it in person thousands of times. If you've never read it you really should. It's the story of how we got the kids, and it's actually a funny and cringe-worthy tale of infertility and healing.

In 2009 I did the most posts of any year, 142. I did my second triathlon, and finally started to make it less of a big deal to race. It became a habit, something that I could post about regularly and start to see some continual improvement on.  I ran my first marathon, first Olympic distance triathlon, and first half iron distance triathlon. It was a banner year all around

Funny

I've been reading some of those posts again, and I was pretty consistently funny back then. The first oly race report has been repeated called one of the funniest race reports ever. I think the funniest post happens to be meme for 10 things about me. I don't know where that humor came from, but man that one cracks me up.

Funny things just seem to happen to me, like getting passed by a guy who farted as soon as he passed me while running in a half ironman, or getting offered a hit from a joint 16 miles into my first marathon. Too funny. Now I get really excited when something funny happens to me.

2011 was the big year with Ironman Florida as the highlight. I still talk about that trip and race like it was yesterday. So much fun. I also set a TON of PR's in 2011, because I had the most room to grow. 12 races where I set PR's, and only 4 where I didn't. crazy. But every single one has a race report on here. I also did the "half marathon every month" challenge, which was a lot of fun. Sometimes they were just 13.1 mile runs and sometimes races, but the times ranged from 1:39 to 2:13. crazy times.

After IMFL I got really depressed with no big goal like that to look forward to again. That meant in 2012 I just threw together anything I could think of. 300 days of yoga?  Sure, sounds like fun. 27 races? yes please. I'd race anything since it was an off-ironman year and I had no real target. 4 marathons, both the spring and fall Grand Prix series, open water swims. I'd race anything I could get into. It ended up being a really fun year.

This year I needed to focus on multisport and dedicated training for my second ironman. Beach 2 Battleship is only a few weeks away now, and the training is going smooth.  PR's are pretty hard to come by these days, but I certainly feel stronger now.

Next year is going to be a blast too! Kelley and I are going to try the 3-star marathon maniac thing, doing full marathons on 4 consecutive weekends if we can get into them all.  Challenge USA is talking about putting on an iron distance race in the 3rd weekend of June next year, so I might try and get into that. Ironman Chattanooga sold out too quickly, and I didn't have the cash to get in anyway. But we are planning on going to spectate my friends, volunteer for  something, and the plan is to register for 2015. And since I'll be 40 then, it could mean that I'll be making a run for a kona spot or it could end up being my last ironman. Who knows.  So that's what you have to look forward to for the next 500 posts here.

Speaking of old stuff....

20 years difference of me. The weight loss is a typical thing that I talk about, but it's harder for me to describe how thin I was when I was younger. That first pic is Christmas of my senior year of high school. Yes, that also means that my 20th high school reunion is coming up next month, and I will not be attending. For girls it's ok to be that skinny, but for guys it left me weak and unstable. I tried everything to gain weight. No matter how hard I lifted weights or what I ate I could not gain a pound. Of course I didn't know anything about healthy eating or gainer's nutrition then either, but being that thin was really tough.

Fast forward 10 years and after Kelley and I got married my metabolism started to catch up. Around age 23 or 25 the weight really started to come on, and I started being able to lift heavier weights too. I embraced it, then let it take over and I ballooned up 100 lbs heavier than I was out of high school. For my height (6'1") that was considered overweight but not obese. And the weight loss story is well documented on here.  Kelley did the weight watchers thing, I lost some. I went vegetarian with calorie restrictions and lost the rest. Now I'm sitting around 180 lbs, and it is a happy medium. I can have muscle definition and a neck.

This week I got some pictures of me that my grandmother had kept, plus plenty of others like my dad's high school pictures and lots of shots of his dad. Really cool stuff in there, but here's a few more that you might get a kick out of.

Me with a beard when Evil Genius was a wee tot

Bigun and I working the garden when we lived in SC

Kelley and EG in really big hats

me with my brothers Morgan and Michael. I had long hair in college, it's pulled back there.

Why Vegan?

Going into the start of ironman training on Saturday this new vegan lifestyle has an important purpose.  I wanted to write something up that explains the expected benefits and reasons behind why I made that switch.  We've had plenty of stints with vegetarianism before, usually lasting about 6 months and resulting in weight loss and a more ideal body composition.  Sometimes we just get to poor to afford to buy meat at the grocery store.  It is a great thing to cut out to save some cash.  But this time was very specific.

Being vegan means cutting out meat as well as all other animal products including dairy and eggs.  I love eggs.  Even doing the vegetarian thing I would still take in sometimes 9 eggs a day.  And for the record, as long as my body weight was in a normal range and I got plenty of exercise my cholesterol stayed at normal levels.  Every day since I was a kid I finish off with a bowl of cereal in milk about 10 pm.  As a family we used to go through a gallon of milk every day.  And don't get me started on cheese.  Lowfat colbyjack, pepperjack, and american cheese are staples in the fridge.  I also had yogurt almost every day.  These things are much harder to cut out than chicken or pork.

So why do it?
Some people go vegan for ethical reasons. They think it's wrong to kill animals just to eat them or drink the lactation of another species.  I come from a family of hunters and am squarely not in the ethics camp.  I'll gladly take the head off of that chicken for you, just don't put it on my plate please.  Farms raise animals that are meant to become tasty morsels on our dinner plates.  Say what you will about factory farms vs free range chicken, that's another debate.  I'm not going vegan for ethical reasons.

The other primary reason people choose vegan is for their health.  A vegan lifestyle has been used to correct the body's imbalances and purify or flush out things like excess body fat and impurities stored from HFCS or the chemical additives in a McDonald's hamburger.  Like in the China Study book, veganism is used to extend life spans or fight cancer.  I am a huge believer in anything that is going to keep me in optimal health for as long as possible.  So I started doing my research.

Here's my sources:
The Paradigm Diet - written by an MD in California, very medically oriented
The Thrive Diet - written by retired pro triathlete Brendan Brazier who started Vega One
Forks Over Knives - documentary covering the China study and lots of other studies. If you only take one thing from my list watch Forks Over Knives. It is amazing and eye opening.
Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead - incredibly interesting study of juicing and weight loss
Food, Inc - study of farming and organics
Food Matters - incredibl documentary about farming
Freakonomics - made me shift the way I interpreted things
Eat & Run - Scott Jurek, I'm still reading this one now

My Focus
The breakdown of an ironman training plan is to workout twice a day six days a week for about 9 months.  It starts to get a bit long in the build phase.  There are two main keys to surviving this regimen, fuel and recovery.  Typical whole food vegan fare breaks down to about 80% carbs, 10% protein and 10% fat, also known as 80/10/10 or 811.  It's all fruit and veggies.

The Paradigm Diet does a really good job of explaining fuel and digestion.  The primary purpose of the book is to identify the foods that can be easily consumed, taste great, need minimal cooking or prep, and fuel up for a tough day.  It comes down to sweets, greens, beans, and seeds.  By sweets, he means fruits.  Berries, apples, bananas, etc.  The best thing about paradigm foods is that you can eat unlimited quantities, the more the better.  In fact if you can get 3000 calories a day from paradigm foods go for it.

All foods have to be liquified in the stomach before they can be absorbed.  If you find chunks of steak or mushroom floating through a blood vessel then something has gone horribly wrong.  The stomach has to produce acid that liquifies animal products, and that acid actually breaks down most of the protein anyway.  It leaves the body in a more acidic state and promotes indigestion and reflux.  Fruits and veggies get absorbed in the small intestines, carry lots of water to keep the body hydrated and tons of vitamins.  Keeping the body alkaline has lots of benefits too, including helping with fat burning.

The Thrive Diet promotes recovery.  It's a much looser stance on vegan than just paradigm foods.  Since the author was a pro triathlete he knows what it takes to train and race on plant power.  The stomach digestion stuff?  The body has to work very hard to produce all of that acid and get rid of it after the food has been broken down.  Animal products including meat eggs and dairy are very hard for the body to handle.

I don't want the body to work that hard to digest my food.  I want the body to work very hard to recover from my workouts.  All those carbs are going to give me plenty of energy to fuel the next workout.  So faster recovery times means that if I hit the bike before work, I should be totally recovered by the time I hit the pool in the evening.  Get plenty of sleep after that and I'm ready to do it all again the next day.  The extra fuel means that I can push this workout hard, and the faster recovery times means I can push the next workout even harder. 

Whole foods vegan also means nothing out of a box.  This means my beloved breakfast cereal in cow's milk is out.  Regular vegan CJ could still do cereal with almond or soy milk.  But whole foods means no dried pasta or cereal or anything processed or out of a box.  Shopping at the farmer's market time.  Tofu/tempeh is about the limit of processed that I want to do.

Kelley's in as well.  We went vegan as of Jan 1, and absolutely love it.  I love it!  Vegan meals have so much flavor.  It's all new textures, new combinations, there's nothing plain or boring at all.  And we really haven't gotten into too many salads yet.  I bring my lunch to work a lot more.  One of my favorites has to be 3 bananas and 2 apples, plus whatever other fruit we have laying around the house.  Tons of energy and hydration.  I've been working out pretty hard, and the recovery times are a lot faster.  Scott Jurek talked a lot about recovery times in Eat & Run.  And he put lots of recipes in there too. 

So if you take the best parts of Paradigm in fuel and digestion, and combine it with the recovery aspects of Thrive and Eat and Run you get my basic plan.  I want to stay healthy, happy, and awake during the entire training plan, and I really believe that a whole foods vegan approach is the best way.

The Plan
So getting my ironman finish time into the 11 hour range is going to come by volume.  There is no substitute for miles.  and miles and miles and miles.  Training for IMFL I was putting in 300 mile + months on the bike, and this time in the build phase I'm going to be staring down some 200 mile + weeks.  On the bike, volume breeds speed.  You don't put in 200 miles a week going 15 miles an hour.  It's only possible by reaching up into the 21 or 23 mph range.  In running, you can do speedwork, intervals, hill work, etc to speed up without volume.  For swimming, volume leads to a more efficient form so you end up getting in more yards per workout in the same amount of time = speed.  But on the bike miles are miles and you just have to hit the volume to get fast.  And if you do enough volume you get fast. The key is being able to keep the heart rate low.  When a zone 2 effort starts to produce 21 mph instead of 18 mph, you've got an 11 hour ironman.

Guess what maximum volume workouts take?  Patience, time, and fuel.  I'm starting Ironman training on Saturday with a very small swim/bike brick, 1000 yards in the pool and a 15 mile ride.  The 2 week warmup period is very low volume, but it will help my body get adjusted to the pattern of working out twice a day.  I'm going to tweet every workout - @SendCJToKona - just to be really annoying.  My build phase is 12 weeks.  6 of those saturdays will have 80 mile rides and the other 6 will be 100 mile rides.  That's going to take a lot of veggies to fuel those rides.  And I'm going to have to recover quickly from the bike saturdays to get in my bike run bricks on Sundays.  I'm not going to do 6 20 mile runs or anything that crazy.  But it's going to take a lot of fuel and really fast recovery to get in the volume that I'm looking for.  I really think that the vegan lifestyle is the best way to achieve that goal.

2013 Goals

This year's mantra:  Lean and Clean in 2013!

2013 is going to be a great year!  I am so optimistic about this year.  The new mantra is really keeping me motivated already.  I haven't had a good mantra since it was Great in 08 and Fine in 09.  This year is going to be lean and clean, mind body and soul.

Mind
This year I have to be the leader my family needs me to be.  Strong, confident, providing direction and inspiration for the kids and keeping our long term future in today's mindset.  At work we call it building technical debt, taking the short term solution for something that will eventually have to be fixed later with interest paid - interest in the form of man-hours working in what should have been done in the first place.  My goal for the mind is to prevent any more of this techical debt from creeping into the family.

Body
Go vegan for recovery.  Specifically during Ironman training, but Kelley and I are starting Jan 1.  I'm going to write a separate post about my approach to Ironman training this time, and why I'm doing this.  It's a really cool plan.  And for the record:
Current body weight on Jan 1: 186 lbs
Goal body weight: 11% body fat, whatever number that says.  11.9% is also acceptable.

Yep, I'm going to be tracking the MMNW (monday morning naked weight) through Ironman training again.  186 is a bit above my "happy weight" range of 171 to 180, but there is an allowable offseason fluffy factor built in there.  Built by cookies & Reece's cups, that is. 

Going vegan should provide my body with the best fuel for the hard workouts and the recovery from those workouts.  Whole foods vegan is all real foods (nothing out of a box or processed) and no animal products.  Lots of fruits and veg, all I can get in fact.  And when you only eat foods that contain less than 5% fat, you will also contain less than 5% fat.  That's the theory anyway.

But I'm also not going to be a prick about it.  Restaurants don't serve much vegan fare, and I would never expect anyone that wants to invite us over to dinner to cook something special just for my crazy ironman nutrition plan.  We'll take whatever we can get get when we don't have to cook, but the target is to make as many vegan meals at home whenever possible.

Forks over Knives should be on your Netflix queue.

Spirit
Continue to sing in the church choir, but be a little more diligent about getting to the church on time and on a regular basis.  This really keeps me grounded and connected to the church and I absolutely love it.   Joining the choir was one of the best things I did in 2012.  I smile every time I walk into a rehearsal and smile the whole time I'm in there.

Speed
Keeping it simple after the 2012 speed goal fails.

• 5k race under a 7 minute/mile pace
• See how close I can get to 11 hours at Beach 2 Battleship

That's it and thats all folks.  No goals about age group placements or open water swims.  Set a 5k PR and finish an Ironman under 12 hours.  The A+ super secret goal would be to break 11 hours, but I'll call it a win at 11:59.

Beach 2 Battleship is really a test run for a Kona qualifying spot at the 2015 IMWI.  I want to see if this approach to training (volume, speedwork, recovery, vegan) can bring out the results that I'm looking for.  If this approach works I can ramp it up again in a couple of years and turn that 11 hour finish into a 10 hour finish.

Long Term
It's time for the Cast Iron Club!  The Cast Iron Club totals all of your training and racing distances to add up to 30 ironman distance races over the course of a calendar year. That's a total of 72 miles of swimming, 3360 miles of biking, and 786 miles of running between January and December. I came pretty close (300 bike miles short) during 2011 Ironman training, but this year I'm planning to hit the bike a bit harder.  My training plan actually adds up to 5400 miles on the bike and only 852 miles running.  I'm kind of hoping to get closer to 1200 miles running this year so I might swap some of those workouts.

After last year's successful 300 yoga workouts this long term goal is really exciting. Takes some serious badass factor to cover 30 ironman distances in one year.  Bring it on!

Travel
Destinations online this year: 

• Washington DC for Shawn's wedding - can't wait!
• Atlanta just for a social weekend.  Atl peeps give me a good race to meetup at!  Haven't picked a time of year yet.
• Cincinnati to visit my old buddy Vince one weekend.  Really looking forward to that one.  We always have a blast and I haven't seen him since before we moved to NC.

That's it!  Please comment if you want to meet up when I travel to your city.  I'm trying to keep my goals simple this year.  Not too many, challenging but still totally achievable.

I'm a winner!

I've been listening to the podcasts from the Brilliant Body Summit in the afternoons lately.  It's a really interesting take on the raw vegan approach to healthy, weight loss, and fitness.  It's a great way to hear from raw food life coaches, nutritionalists, and people who have changed their lives in ways that they are very passionate about.  It is very interesting to me to hear other people talk about their passion the same way I might talk about Upper Cervical Chiropractic care or triathlon. 

Chris Kendall has to be one of my favorite speakers there.  He's really fun to watch and listen to.  Freelee and lots of the people from 30 Bananas a Day are on there.  Today's speaker is DurianRider, a controversial activist who's incredibly passionate about the 80/10/10 lifestyle.  These people all give away books or promote their products at the end of the podcast.

Yesterday's speaker was Drew McCall Burke, the Sexy Raw Vegan herself.  At the end, I won a copy of her book "Be a Sexy Raw Vegan in 30 Days" and it looks really interesting.  She promotes a combination of juicing, smoothies, and whole fruit.  The book has menu's, shopping lists, and lays out the whole plan very clearly.  It's a good read, and the authors (including Mitzi Mager) have been through some really impressive transformations.

I've been really digging the Fruit Detox Mondays' and I'm thinking about stepping that up a little bit.  Instead of doing just a full day of fruit on Monday I'm going to start increasing the fruit consumption throughout the week. It's the kind of thing that you can't eat too much of, if anything you can't get enough calories from raw fruits.  I'm leaning towards doing more green smoothies for breakfast and fruit/melon smoothies for lunch.  Then whatever Kelley cooks for dinner (which is usually sensible anyway).  I did look up more details on yesterdays food.

Breakfast green smoothie:
2 baby bok choy
handful of spinach
4 bananas
2 small apples
handful of blueberries
3 dates
2 cups of Orange Juice

1009 calories, 249 g carbs, 4g fat, 16g protein

Lunch melon smoothie:
half a Canary Melon (found at local farmer's market, any melon will do)
1 banana
handful of blueberries
2 cups OJ

878 calories, 211g carbs, 1g fat, 17g protein

So I'm up to almost 1900 calories by lunch.  The target is to get between 2000 and 3000 calories a day just from the smoothies like that, so that's pretty close.  But if all you eat is raw fruits and veg you don't get enough protein, right?  33 grams is enough for a full day.  and I still had dinner to go.  It's 91% carbs, 7% protein, and 1% fat.

For dinner last night, Kelley made red beans and rice, and some cabbage with carraway seeds that is really tasty when it's all mixed together.  Vegan, yes, but not raw.  Delish?  absolutely.  I also had a bowl of cinnamon toast crunch as a late night snack.  The beans and the milk also had plenty of protein.

But you can't fuel Ironman training workouts like that, right?  Well, actually I think maybe you can.   Yesterday I did my Ashtanga Primary series routine both in the morning and late at night. Over lunch I hit the weights for a quick circuit and did running intervals on the treadmill.  8 x half a mile each at 9.0 speed (6:39 pace) with recovery in between.  6 miles total.  The last time I tried that workout I could only do 4 intervals, so I was really pleased.  And I still had energy at the end, but instead of doing 2 more intervals I had to go back to work. 

So if I can get in yoga, strength training, and 6 miles of interval running on nothing but smoothie power, I think it will work. 

I made the smoothies on Sunday night and kept them in the fridge overnight.  Everything held it's consistency and texture overnight, and was still quite tasty all through the day.  With my new job, the plan is to make these the night before so I can drink the breakfast smoothie on my drive into work and keep the melon smoothie in the office fridge until I want to drink it at my desk.  After yesterday's performance, I feel pretty optimistic about this plan.

The final theory is that if you consume enough food that contains less than 5% fat, you will also end up with less than 5% fat because you are what you eat.  Yesterday's monday morning naked weight (MMNW) was 178.8 with 19.8% body fat.  Today's weigh in was 176.2 lbs with 19.1% body fat.  So the scale shows a 2.6 lb loss overall with 1.8 lbs of that being melted bodyfat.  My "safe" zone (or what Drew would call the Sexy range) is under 180 lbs and under 20% bodyfat.  So I'm totally in the safe zone.  But the last time I was getting this close to 175 lbs was in the middle of an Ironman build phase where I was working out 20 hours a week.

This is not an Ironman build phase.  This is the very beginning of an endurance base phase leading up to the half ironman/marathon/ultra set coming in the winter.  You may remember that last year, to get ready for Ironman training, I went totally vegetarian and restricted to only 1800 calories a day and it got me down to about this weight.  With this plan I get to eat more than 1800 calories just before lunch, and I still get to melt bodyfat?  I don't need to drop any more pounds, but the reduction in bodyfat is something I never could do last year.  This is going to be fun.

This Week's Fruit

Monday's fruit detox day went pretty well.  I went with mostly bananas, eating about 20 on the day.  I also had a bowl of cut fruit like canteloupe and whatever that green melon is, and downed 2 apples.  Plenty of calories for the day, I stayed full the whole time.  Monday night I went to the gym and did some strength training and rode 20 miles on the stationary bike.  I also did yoga that morning.  And I had plenty of energy for all of those workouts.

Monday's weight was 182.6 lbs at 21.7% body fat, which is up slightly from last tuesday's 181.4 lbs and 20.8% bf.  But that's normal, I would still consider the effects from last week's fruit detox day to be still there.  I didn't go straight back to 185+ lbs like I was last monday.  So how did it go this week?   Tuesday morning's weight was 179.6 lbs and 20.2% bf.  That's the first time since Jan 13 that I've come in under 180 so I'm very happy about that.  I'm also very close now to getting under 20% body fat, which is another goal.  At the peak of my Ironman build last year I was around 175 lbs with 18% body fat, and if I can get close to that by just adding more fruit to my meals instead of adding another 20 hours a week of training then I'll do that and be happy about it.

I'll call these Fruit Detox Monday's a huge success.  Others are starting to agree with me too.  Several people at the swim practice last night remarked how thin I was looking.  Plus others are starting to catch on.  My friends Jeff and Christina are going all fruit today.  Christina also has another friend that is giving it a try.  Even Kelley is getting on the bandwagon. So that's pretty cool.

Workouts are also going great this week.  Saturday was a fun 1800 yard swim with a 20 mile bike ride for a new brick.  Then sunday was Bigun's birthday so I squeezed in a time crunched 18 mile ride/3 mile run brick.  Monday had the 20 mile bike ride, and yesterday was a fast 4 mile tempo run in 29:52 over lunch followed by 2700 yards in the pool for a RAM practice. The most interesting thing about the RAM practice was seeing Erica there.  Erica qualified for the olympic trials in the 50m freestyle, so I thought she was going to be in Omaha this week.  I have really enjoyed watching the swim trials on tv and looking for her.

The end of June is almost here!  Have a great week!

Fruit Detox Report

We all can remember that gluten free sucks, right?  Also right now Fruitarian is all the rage.  I really like seeing the trend towards more whole, natural foods and away from processed stuff.  I've been finding and reading a lot of blogs about whole, raw, & fruit based eating, and it's getting really interesting.  So I've decided to try a little experiment with Mondays.

Supposedly this is from 1917, stole it from facebook

 The fruitarian picks one fruit and eats only that fruit each day.  His theory is that in nature you wouldn't visit a peach orchard and an apple orchard in the same day.  So he buys his groceries in bulk from a restaurant supplier, has 4 refrigerators at home, and stocks them heavily with fresh fruit.  Today's eats might consist solely of a 40 lb watermelon.  Tomorrow might be 10 lbs of apples.  He eats massive quantities of fruit every day, all raw and natural.  And he wins 100 mile ultramarathons.  We cannot question his methods.

Scott Jurek's new book Eat & Run is getting very popular, and I can't wait to get my hands on it.  He promotes a vegan lifestyle with proper training and he's been winning ultra's for years now.  I will read this before my first ultra in December.

I also found this great documentary called Pure Fruit if you've got an hour to watch it.

I'm totally sick of reading Wheat Belly, but determined to finish this incredibly boring read.  It does a really good job of putting me to sleep at night, but the theories are sound and medically based.

If you choose to eat nothing but fruit as a lifestyle, that's called Fruitarianism.  Fruitarianism also allows some nuts and seeds.  If you stick to only fruits for 1-3 days, it's called a "fruit fast", and if you only go all fruit for one day it's known as a "fruit detox".  I'm going to start taking Mondays as Fruit Detox days, starting this week.

You learn different things trying a fruit detox like this.  I decided to take the Fruitarian's approach and start out with an apple day.  Figuring that you could have multiple varieties of apples in the same orchard, I went out Sunday night and bought a shitload of apples. 

There is no concept of timed breakfast, lunch and dinner when you eat all fruit.  You just eat more fruit whenever you feel like it. I still drank coffee all day.  I still drank a bunch of water.  But whenever I got hungry I grabbed another apple.  Monday night I hit the gym for some weightlifting and an hour on the stationary bike, just like every other monday.  The workout just happened to be fueled on apple power.

I also learned that apples are very acidic.  Towards the end of the day my teeth really started to hurt when biting into the apple.  So I switched to a banana before and after the workout, and had some nuts about 10 pm as well.  Overall I still ate about 2000 calories on the day.  Aside from the painful teeth there were really no negative effects.  But on the positive side, we can start by comparing weights:

MMNW: 184.8 lbs, 22.7% body fat
Tuesday's MNW: 181.4 lbs, 20.8% bf

When you multiply that out, I lost 4.2 lbs of pure body fat, and 3.4 lbs overall so I must have retained some water.  But that was only in one day!  One day people!  The theory is that when you only take in food that contains less than 5% fat, the "you are what you eat" rule dictates that you will then have less than 5% fat.  The effects were residual too, as 181.4 is the highest I've weighed since tuesday morning.  I went right back to eating natural, unprocessed foods for the rest of the week. So that fat melted off of me and has stayed off so far.

So I was full the whole day, ate as much as I wanted to, ate constantly the whole day, had plenty of energy, got in a great workout, and melted away bodyfat.  What would I change?

I still don't want to try and sustain eating only fruit all the time.  For a one day detox it worked great, and I'm really looking forward to next monday.  But one day a week is enough.  Eating only one type of fruit for the whole day is also a really bad choice.  I got so sick of apples by the end, ugh.  I can see having a primary fruit with some secondary stuff to back it up.  But you need more variety in the day than just that.  It's supposed to be seasonal fruit anyway.  Apples were a bad choice for the one fruit I was limited to, they are really too acidic.

I'm already looking forward to doing this again next monday.  You never know, I might just eat 30 bananas.  But mango's are in season right now too, and the berries are starting to come in.  So there will be a variety of fruit, and we'll have to see how that detox turns out.

Ironman gave me a gluten intolerance

I've been seeing some new health research coming out about wheat and wheat gluten and how our bodies can handle it.  I've also been fighting some personal demons recently that made me want to research this topic more.  So now I get to be honest about some not-so-glamorous aspects of Ironman recovery and the 7 months that have followed.

Since this year has had a heavy focus on yoga, I've started reading more yoga blogs.  I've seen enough people posting on both running, diet, and yoga blogs about gluten intolerance, gluten allergies, and I've had some friends declare a gluten allergy recently that it just made me want to dig in more and research.

Turns out there are three flavors of gluten problems; gluten intolerance, gluten allergy, and celiac disease.  Celiac disease can carry some serious lower bowel problems, and there are tests available for that.  Your doctor can also test for any number of allergens, including a gluten or wheat allergy.  But there is no test for an intolerance.  The only test is to go two or three weeks without eating any wheat products and see if the symptoms go away.

Since the Ironman on 11/5/11, I have experienced the following symptoms of gluten intolerance:

• Rapid weight gain
• Excess abdominal fat
• Gastro-intestinal problems
• Aching joints
• Depression
• Eczema
• Headaches
• Exhaustion
• Irritability and behavioral changes

and I have not had any problems with these symptoms

• Irregular menstrual cycle
• Slow infant growth

So there is that.  Then I started finding book reviews on yoga blogs about Wheat Belly, a new book written by a doctor whose wife is a triathlon coach.  The doctor asks why do these triathletes, who are in prime physical condition aerobically, stick to strict training plans and dietary regimens -- why do they still have excess belly fat hanging out over the spandex shorts?  His theory is that modern wheat is the culprit.

Disclaimer: I purchased the book yesterday and have only read the introduction last night.  I'll share more Wheat Belly thoughts after I read the whole thing.  Any other information is what I've gleamed from other online reviews and blogs about the book.

In the two weeks after IMFL I put on 20 lbs.  That fits my definition of rapid weight gain.  It put my weight back up around 185 lbs, and the most disturbing part is that my bodyfat% went from 18.x% up to 22.x% depending on the week.  Since then I've been between 185 and 190, twice putting up MMNW's at exactly 189.6 lbs and over 23% bodyfat.  190 lbs is where I hit the absolute panic button and start thinking about amputation as a weight loss method.  My goal is to stay close to 175 lbs and keep my body fat in the teens.  At 11% bf is typically when the 6 pack abs start showing up.

Every winter I get these small patches of dry skin thanks to running the central heat in the house.  Usually I put some lotion on and the spots go away. This year they didn't go away entirely, but left a discoloration.  The dermatologist gave me some eczema medication that cleared up the spots.  Aching joints?  My back has been killing me for months now.  I'll go to the chiropractor when it gets bad, there's usually some migraine headache and heartburn problems kicking in by then too.  But the lower back pain is more of a constant aching thing that doesn't really clear up entirely.  Depression?  Exhaustion? yes and yes.  It comes and goes.  I can't imagine why running 4 full marathons in 4 months would leave me with exhaustion.  oh wait.  Still, a symptom is a symptom.  Irritability?  Behavioral changes?  What mood swings?  I have no idea what you're talking about, but I'll break your glass jaw if you question me again.  yea, it hasn't been a pretty couple of months for anyone in the household.   I've just felt out of balance for a long time now.

So my nutrition has been on point all year, and I still have some serious belly fat falling over my race belt.  Strangest Dunlaps Disease ever (my belly done lapped over my race belt).  I've run four full marathons, more 5k's, 10k's, and half marathons than I can count, and nothing I can do in training or traditional eating seems to shrink the belly.  Last Saturday was the FS 50 mile triathlon, last week's Monday Morning Naked Weight (MMNW) came in at 189.6 and 23.7% body fat.  Something has got to change.  Maybe I do have a gluten intolerance.

With the first Aquathon also being last Wednesday, it ended up being a recovery week.  Don't push the workouts super hard on Monday or Tuesday, race it up hard on Wednesday, then look into any real changes.  I decided to just go off of gluten for a while and see what happened.  So officially Thursday was my first day being gluten free.

The biggest change was in breakfast.  For the last 5 years I've had the same thing every day: oatmeal with raisins, a banana, honey and flax seed.  The new breakfast is scrambled eggs with bacon, sausage, or some other meat.  Gluten free doesn't mean low carb or no carb.  It means no wheat, which includes oats.  Rice, corn, potatoes, all fine.  It's just bread, pasta, oatmeal that are really off limits.  So my typical lunches are an omelet with toast or a sandwich have to become an omelet without toast or a sandwich without bread.  Or leftovers from last night's gluten free dinner.  The worst part about going gluten free is giving up beer.  That might not happen.  I don't drink much beer to begin with, maybe averaging one beer a month with one or two exceptions where I'll really tie one on.  I'll still have my one beer a month without guilt.

Saturday was a fun night.  An old friend of mine from high school moved from DC to Raleigh last week, so saturday we got to babysit her kid for a few hours while they were unpacking boxes, then they came over for dinner.  It was the first time I'd seen Jenny in almost 20 years and it was like no time had passed at all.  I'm really excited to have such good friends close by again.  I had a beer with the otherwise gluten free dinner of rice, marinated tomatoes, chicken, and black beans.  One of our favorite meals to begin with, easy to make into a vegetarian version, and they loved it.

This weeks MMNW?  185.0 lbs and 22.3% body fat.  That means I lost 4.6 lbs overall and 3.2 lbs of that was pure fat loss.  My pants are already fitting better.  My workouts over the long weekend have gone longer and harder than I was expecting, and they just seem more manageable.  This week is going to be more solid base and speed work, and I"m just going to keep letting this gluten free thing work its magic.  Stick to the plan.  Keep reading the book.  Let's just see what happens here.

So far I feel a lot better, more balanced, I rode 30 miles yesterday (on the stationary bike) with no back pain, ate good and felt good.  The joint pain seems to be gone, irritability is gone, depression is gone, and overall I just feel better than I did last week.  It may just be the perceived resolution to the problem, but I'll take whatever I can get.

Three Things Thursday

1. Every pair of pants I own is now 2" - 3" too big in the waist. I bought most of those pants in the spring when I was "done" losing weight about 10 lbs ago. It's a nice problem to have, and I'm sure it won't last long after Ironman. For the record, I'm 36 years old, 6'1", and the 32" jeans are pretty loose, most of them are 34's which is still a really small size for a grown-ass man's pants.

2. Winter has arrived in NC very briskly. High temps for the week and weekend are only 61*. I'm taking bigun camping for the first time saturday night with her Indian Princess tribe, we are both incredibly excited. It will be chilly though. At least I'll get some good pictures.

Also remember that with winter settling in, our natural vitamin B12 and vitamin D levels are going to drop. I like to supplement since the sun just doesn't shine for 14 hours a day anymore and we don't have as much skin exposed. But if you've got a food source for those I'd love to hear about it!

3. Ironman Florida is only 15 days and 22 hours away. ZOMG!

Half Preview

First, a final word on nutrition.

Thank you all so much for the great comments and feedback on the weight loss post! It was a good article and fun to write. I'll finish out the series over the next few weeks.

I would also encourage you to do as much research as you can about health and nutrition. I know Racing Weight was the only book I mentioned, but I really did a lot of research. Read some Michael Pollan, David Wolfe, even Skinny Bitch and the basic Weight Watchers guidelines play a huge part in my nutrition plan. Watch Food, Inc and Food Matters on Netflix on demand, I'm obsessed with documentaries right now anyway. Watched Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead recently, it is amazing!

I start out each day by filling a 20 oz bike bottle with water and chugging. I take in at least another 64 oz of water each day. Drink with every meal? water. I gave up soda's in college - best decision ever - and when you eat out you don't have to pay for a drink. saves hundreds $$ every year. From Food Matters I got the concept of superfoods, and started putting chia seeds in my oatmeal every morning. The first thing you put in your body after waking up should be water. It will break the fast you were in during sleep. Not coffee, not vitamins, but water and lots of it. That makes the rest of your morning consumption easier to digest. Food has to become a liquid form before it can be digested, so the earlier it gets into liquid form the easier it is to digest. This is why people lose weight by eating soup for lunch every day. It's much easier for the body to convert a smoothie into a liquid than a steak. That's also why juicing is such an easy way to get nutrients.

I like a 60% carb, 20% protein, 20% fat macronutrient ratio. Veggies all count as carbs, some (beans, tofu) also have plenty of protein. Avacados, olives, plenty of non-meats with good fats also have lots of protein. So that's how I made the ratio work. It really wasn't a conscious thing though. Training Peaks gives you a pie chart with a macronutrient breakdown. Racing Weight suggested 60/20/20, and that's what Training Peaks told me I was getting. The biggest concern about being a vegetarian (usually expressed by overweight meat-hogs) is that you won't get enough protein. There's plenty of protein out there for everyone.

OBX Half Ironman

Tomorrow is the OBX Half, the only half ironman I'm doing this year. It comes with 56 days left before Ironman Florida, so it's really a guage of my iron prep. My training plan actually calls for 6 hours of swim/bike/run tomorrow, so with any luck a 70.3 race will actually be a disappointment and not take as long as the plan has prescribed.

You might remember back in 2009 when I ran the Beach 2 Battleship half and was incredibly (and rightfully) concerned about it. I had specific goals that were not all met. The ones that I did not get then were passed into my second half iron last year (Patriot's half, which is also this weekend), and were still not met thanks to a challenging swim. So those goals have to roll over first:

1. Break 3 hours on the bike split
2. Break 6 hours overall time

I think if I can break 3 on the bike, then 6 won't be a problem. Those 6+ hour times also were fueled by 2:4x:xx half marathon times, and I hope to break that this year for sure.

And as I just mentioned in the weight loss post, not being able to break 3 hours in the Patriot's Half bike split last year was the main catalyst for starting the Racing Weight program. I knew I wouldn't be able to push 200 lbs to a sub-3 bike split. Now that I have lost the weight, it's time to prove my theorem.

Swim 1.2 miles: Goal 40 minutes

Swimming has been going really well this year, the RAM team kicks ass. It's a salt water swim, perfect prep for IMFL. No idea if there will be a current to deal with, but 40 minutes is a 2:04 pace which is what I've been averaging in the open water lately.

Transitions: 5 minutes total

perfectly reasonable. Should be 90 seconds each.

Bike 56 miles: 2:30

That's a 22.4 mph pace, which is slower than what I was averaging in the Lake Logan oly a few weeks ago before hitting the big climb at the end. It's a flat, fast bike course with only a few turns and lots of chances to pass people so I am optimistic.

Backup bike goal: 2:45 which is 20.3 mph, or what I averaged after the big climbs at the end of Lake Logan.

Most important bike goal: Break 3 hours - it hasn't happened in a half iron yet. Please let this be the year. This is why I lost all that weight.

Run 13.1 miles: 1:45

This takes roughly an 8:00 pace steady on the run. Who knows how long I'll be able to hold it after the swim/bike portions, but it's my target. Don't go any faster than that, don't walk unless it's really needed. In practice, I've been able to hold that pace for longer than that distance after shorter bike rides, but that is practice. So I have confidence in the goal.

Backup run goal: Just PR. Anything faster than 2:42:xx is a win.

Overall time: 40 + 5 + 2:30 + 1:45 = 5 hours

I'm quite sure that will end up being 5 hours and change, not 5 hours exactly. 5:07 is still a win.

Backup overall time goals: 40 + 5 + 3:00 + 2:00 = 5:45 or anything under 6 hours will be great.

Online is only showing 130 registrations for the half, and I'm sure some of those people will bail thanks to hurricane Irene blowing out most of the outer banks a few weekends ago. So a small field and a 5 hour time goal, I like my chances here. Could be a decent ranking in the age group or overall standings. Check back on monday for the race report, or on facebook to see how I did!

MMNW Catchup

I have been slack about posting my Monday Morning Naked Weights over the holidays:


12/13/10 - 189.8 lbs, 22.7% body fat
12/20/10 - 188.8 lbs, 22.5% body fat - last one published
12/28/10 - 188.0, 22.0%
1/3/10 - 187.2, 21.8%
1/10/10 - 187.0, 21.8%


The holidays were not kind to the scales. I was plateau'd and spent 3 weeks floating between 187 and 189. I'm supposed to be averaging 2 lbs a week, not 2.6 lbs over 3 weeks. Even that was just dumb luck. Some days each week until Jan 3 I showed a number over 189. Following the average I think I should be closer to 181 by now.

Plateau's suck. I know it's January now, reaching mid-Jan soon. The end of February is when Ironman training starts. I knew going into this weight loss plan that it was going to be tough to lose this much before March. I still think it will take into march before reaching my goal weight. At this point I think about 174 is going to be the lightest I can hope for when I start Ironman Training. I'm ok with that. I have to be ok with that.

At work they are putting together a Fantasy Fat Bowl that looks really cool. They are doing it in teams, and I have volunteered to coach one of the teams. They are doing it Biggest Loser style, with weigh ins every monday morning, and measuring the total % of weight lost compared with a starting weight. Should be fun!

I forgot to mention something in my 2010 Year in Review post! All of the other fun blogger meetups I had in 2010. Meeting cool people in real life that you talk to online is so cool:

• Wes and I met up for lunch during a trip to Atlanta right before he ran IMAZ
• The Snail and I met up at the Duel in the Dunes back in Feb, where he spanked my half marathon time. Then later in November we ran Kennesaw mountain together in Atlanta
• Heather with a Side of Sneakers and I did the Tobacco Road Marathon
• Sarah the Sun Runner and I met up in Charlotte before she ran the Thunder Road Marathon
• Meredith started blogging. She's an old and very close friend from college who married one of my fraternity brothers and lives in Charlotte.
• Now that Calyx and I live close together we get together sometimes (but not often enough) for mostly social situations
• I thought I was going to see Sarah during a trip to atlanta, but she ended up with the flu and we only got to talk on the phone. booo, but my next trip to atlanta it's on.

Gah I hope I didn't forget to link anyone. In 2011, I know I'll be meeting these guys:

• Ryan is going to help me get through Ironman training with some power work.


• Frayed Laces is also running Ironman Florida


• Healthy Ashley just moved to Asheville and got engaged, I'm sure we'll meet up, maybe even at a race!


• Joe RockstarTri is also racing Ironman Florida. I'm going to enjoy making him look slow.


• Tammie is doing the Umstead 100 again, maybe this year I'll actually be able to pace her for a lap!


• Carol. I'm bound to run into her sooner or later. Hopefully sooner.

I've also made a gym change. Got out of Gold's and joined the Planet Fitness ($10 a month? really?) that's right across the street from our house. Kelley's been going there for a while now, and it is very convenient. There is no pool. To make up for that, I'm joining the Raleigh Area Masters swim team. I'm *hoping* that a master's swim team is going to be the right way to go to make it through Ironman swim training. It's cost effective and they meet at the right times.

Allright, it's kind of a wild week around here. There was a ton of snow falling everywhere around Raleigh, but we only ended up with ice inside of the city. Have fun!

A New Dawn

October is here, and yes it's halfway over and this is my first post. It's time to be honest and open about a few things though, starting with September.

September Totals:
Swim: 4 swims, 4112 yards
Bike: 4 rides, 159 miles
Run: 7 runs, 36.3 miles
Strength: 2 workouts, 30 minutes total
Yoga: None at freaking all.

In September, I did the half ironman and a 5k and that was about all. I'm into solid offseason mode and enjoying it. I'm also enjoying eating anything I felt like through September. MAYBE 1 workout a week. Same trend through the first half of October too.

I totally blew off the Pinehurst Oly. Offseason, I am fat and slow and out of shape. The truth is that I was pretty overweight and sluggish through the half ironman too. This year I timed my peak (NOT on purpose) about mid-summer, maybe even early summer. This obviously did not bode well for the late summer/fall racing.

I love October. The leaves, the cooler temps, it finally feels good and looks good outside after months of that hell we call summer in the deep south. Normally this time I'm dying to get out on the bike, climb some hills, see some leaves. Instead I'm getting excited about the orange halloween boxes at the Krispy Kreme. I'm still loving the college football, the baseball playoffs, all that stuff is great. but my body... not so much.

I have decided that I cannot push this 200 lb + body any faster than 18 mph consistently on the bike. I cannot push this 200 lb + body any faster than about 9 minute miles while running. I need to be more aerodynamic in the water to swim faster. That means this belly has got to go.

Racing Weight:

Last night I finished reading the book Racing Weight. It was very good overall. It is not a diet book as much as it is a book about your diet and how it relates to your training plan. The author is a nutritionist and avid triathlete, and he really does know his stuff. As a nerd, I could certainly appreciate how much science went into this plan.

The book's plan is based around a 5 point system:

• Improve your diet quality
• Balance your energy sources
• Timing Nutrition
• Manage your appetite
• Training Right

The basic approach is to keep a 60% carbs, 20% fat, 20% protein macronutrient mixture. Which really means to eat a shit ton of vegetables. I can certainly get on board with this. The author likes to give food types a point system where you can add up what you eat instead of feeling like it's a restriction.

I like the parts about timing nutrition around your workouts. The funny part is that most of the log entries are simply suggesting "a balance of high quality foods". You go high carb, mid-protein, and low fat before and after the workout, then get a good balance with your other meals.

He also likes supplements, which I find unusual since the rest of the book is all about grass fed and organic everything. But still I'm willing to go along with it. I know the Gatorade I've been using has way to much sugar.

I was expecting the training chapter to be more concise. It basically came to the conclusion that high intensity interval style training and medium intensity long slow distance (LSD) workouts in commbination will provide the best weight loss formula for both carb stores and fat stores. So you mean I need to do an interval run, a tempo run, and a long run every week? Good thing I haven't been doing that for the last year. Oh wait.

Basically, this book breaks down the same thing every other book says with science. and the science is cool. And he is a big advocate of tracking both nutrition and workouts.

My Plan:

I'm starting today. It's monday. I started an account on Training Peaks, and I'm logging everything. Even that I drank 6 cups of coffee at work today. I'm actually cutting down on the coffee, so I'm hoping that tracking it will help.

The starting point: 10/18/10 Monday Morning Nude Weight (MMNW): 208.6 lbs

This is a far cry from the 195 of the spring that got me into those tiny jeans. But I'm not interested in tiny jeans. I'm not interested in fit of anything. I want speed. The racing weight theory is that thinner leads to faster. and when I was 135 lbs I was running sub-6 minute miles all the time.

The finish line: 160 lbs goal weight

There is always bounce back, so I'm going to try and get down somewhere in the 150's and then allow a "comfort release" to stay around 160. I know this means losing almost 50 lbs. and that ain't easy or fast. But it is time.

I'm going to get there slowly and by making smart choices. Calories in, calories out. I'm only going to run through the winter. Sure I might occaisionally bike or swim just as cross training, but abandoning my last tri of the season was really a precursor to totally running dominance. The book does a good job of examining the different endurance sports The author is my same height, and has the same basic build by his own description. His starting point was also right around 210. He is now very comfortable and fast at 157. He purposely keeps a different weight and uses different supplements during tri season than when he's just running.

Today I took in 1781 calories and burned off 823 with a fast 5 mile tempo run after work.

Get a body fat scale. I just picked one up and haven't figured out how to use it yet. The biggest goal of getting lean is to get (for me) down to a single digit body fat percentage. The program is supposed to keep your muscle and help shed just the fat. We should already be in pretty good shape as endurance athletes. So muscle is there, just bring it to the surface.

Eat real foods, mostly plants. During the time when I allowed myself to eat whatever I wanted, I put down a lot of chicken wings and drank a lot of beer. Both are off limits. A vegetarian or mostly vegetarian lifestyle will provide the fiber and carbs needed to hit the 60% mark. Veggies are carbs any way you can get them. Fruits are carbs, and they are really good. If you're not hungry enough to eat an apple, you're not really hungry. The author stresses calcium intake as well, so be sure to get plenty of milk and yogurt. Whole grains are great.

Watch the calories around normal times. After getting into the office I would eat a Fiber One bar (150 calories) around 10:00, then a PowerBar (240 calories) before working out over lunch. Lunch is sensible, but sometimes also had a protein bar on the way back to the office after working out. then a 3:30 snack, another energy bar (Clif Bar anyone?) before the post-work workout, then maybe another protein bar. Now I'm going to start out with only one workout a day, and one energy bar before. I still need to get new supplements for pre-during-and post- workout consumption. But the total of the three should not exceed more than 150 calories and must contain a 4:1 ratio of carbs to protein. Most gatoradeish drinks have no protein. This should make a huge difference.

No spring marathon. This is a tough one, as I love a spring marathon and really want to run the Tobacco Road full marathon again. But marathon training does not promote weight loss. Get lean to get fast means a bunch of 5k, 10k, and half marathons. My main goal for next year is still Ironman Florida. So the summer and fall will bring on all the century rides and full marathons that I can handle. Until I see 160 lbs, it's all running and no long distances.

At 190 lbs, I'm getting my next tattoo. I need a mid-point motivator. And I'm not going to reveal what it's going to be, but I've wanted it for several months now. And I haven't seen 18X lbs since around the time we got married (12 years ago), so this is a real milestone.

I made the best snack tonight. I started with a piece of wheat toast, and added ketchup and mustard, and some texas pete. Then topped it with a Boca Veggie burger, and topped that with a fried egg. It. Was. Amazing. Small carbs from one piece of bread, but good protein in the veg burger and egg, and some fat being fried in olive oil.

Olive oil and avacados are your friends. So are nuts, specifically almonds. Limit the use, but don't be scared of them. I'm also going to start taking fish oil supplements and adding flax seed into my morning oatmeal to be sure I get enough fat.

At 160 lbs, Lance Armstrong is considered to be one of the heavier cyclists on the pro tour. I have no hopes of Lance speed, but I know the correlation between body weight and speed. Body weight and Ironman have a special relationship too. So am I crazy or do you think this sounds reasonable? Get a copy of the book if you want to try it. I'll be glad to share my tracking along with anyone else if you want to give it a shot too.