Lifestyle Part 1: Nutrition

Everyone knows the foods that are ‘good’ and ‘should’ be eaten. Everyone knows the quantities of these foods are also important. Allowing the occasional treat is also a great way to stay sane and maintain an adequate caloric intake during heavy training. I started out my triathlon career with an extremely disciplined lifestyle. I still have maintained may of those priciples but gone way off track. Because of this my body composition has done the same. From being too lean to race well all the way to the other side of the coin.

In setting goals for 2011, I have my eye on Kona. That is no joke. For me to qualify for Kona I will need to be on the top of my game, and race well many times during the season. I have decided that in order to know that I am taking this season as seriously as I can to qualify I need to make some lifestyle changes. Why blog about this? Putting this in writing makes it much more real. So this is my attempt at making REAL lifestyle changes. The Irony is, I am writing this over a beer. Here is my nutrition strategy:

The best way to start out a strategy is to give your self an out right off the bat. I am going with the 90% of the time rule here, so may eat out once a week, grab pint of Ben and Jerry’s another night, and go out for quite a few drinks after a great race. Now that I have some exceptions here is the plan. The basic principle is to eat fresh vegetables, fresh fruit, and lean meat. Avoid all proceed foods, all flour, dairy, and most chemicals. I am going to limit my coffee intake, and pretty much cut out alcohol.

This diet may seem too strict at first, but they have breads, cereals, tortillas made from sprouted grain, not flour. Milk and cheese can be supplemented with almond milk, and almond cheese (the pepper jack is delicious!) I will also do my eating early in the day, so no foods after 8pm. This rule will be broken on regularity because of the exception that if I finish a workout after eight, I will eat some sort of recovery food before going to bed.

Another point to mention is that this type of lifestyle sometimes eliminates tubers, and legumes from your diet. I will not be doing that. I enjoy sweet potatoes too much! They will be a regular part of my diet in order to eat enough carbs to train well. The important thing about any lifestyle change is to make sure you are eating enough for recovery after workouts. I plan on going to the blender and recovery drinks to help that.

The final exception is during exercise. Then I can eat the fuels I will be racing with even if they contain flour and are highly processed. This crosses over into recovery drinks as well. If I lived in a perfect world and had the time and energy to make these myself, then I would. But here in the real world…I will just eat a Powerbar. Part one of the 2011 Kona push has begun. Back to a strict lifestyle, and dreams of Kona constantly rolling around in my head!