so i used to be a rower, and for the 2.5 years i was doing it, i tried the entire time to put on muscle/gain weight, because i was too light for a heavyweight but too tall to get down to lightweight. i was unable to put on more than a pound or two, and even lost a lot of weight during a developement camp during the summer. now, i’ve gone back to triathlons, and am a few pounds heavier than when i was rowing, and am struggling mightly, eating way less than i need to not be hungry. i usually lift weights but am unable to right now due to my work schedule and when our athetic center is open. has anyone experienced a smiliar sort of thing? is my metabolism slower because i am doing less strength based activity? despite my frustration over this, my results in races have been very good - 1st, 4th and 5th out of 200 or so women for my first season back at this, and the bike/run are my stronger events. i just want to be at an optimal weight when i bump up to bigger races. right now i am 5’ 9.5" and am 146 lbs. was 142 when rowing. i eat extremely healthy, and have cut out sugar, cut back on fat in general, and have even pretty much (gasp) stopped drinking…and i’m a senior in college!
been struggling with some weight gain myself recently. nothing to drastic but am 6’4" and up to 195. by far the heaviest I have ever been while in shape (we won’t talk about my 1.5 years of inactivity right after college)
i’m partially chalking it up to metabolism slowing down after you hit 25 and also the two weeks I just had to take off b/c of schedule. I eat healthy and not big meals. I don’t really know what the deal is but I have been talking to my g/f (a couple different certifications in nutrition) about what i need to do to lose some of this extra weight.
My friend says it’ll drop off fast once I start ramping up for FL so we will see.
Anyway, I don’t think the triathlon training would slow your metabolism, more likely that it’s slowing as you age. But I have no idea, I’m not a doctor.
Perhaps you are just building a couple pounds due to increased muscle and bone density?
5’9.5" at 146lbs seems like a really good weight…in fact, are you single? =)
Not eating enough will.
I think this really ties back to the often brought up discussion of weight training. In most peoples’ quest to shed lbs to get quicker and to spend time sbr’ing at the expense of weight training, muscle mass is lost and therefore metabolism is in fact decreased. Now, believe what you will about tri performance, hell, I am a BP’er not even a BOP’er (Behind the pack), so I make no claims as to the effect of weights on tri performance, but if you are just talking metabolism, then I’d say the shedding of muscle mass is really slowing you down metabolically. At the commonly accepted rule of thumb of 50 cals/day/lbm muscle, putting on an easy 4 lbs of muscle with no change in caloric intake would yield just shy of 1/2 lb a week in weight loss
In fact, to take a small leap that will likely get bashed, I’d make a case for the following chain of logic for the non-pro: Stopping weight training to go from a good amount of tri training to a great amount–> lowered metabolism as a result of lower muscle mass (albeit at the tradeoff of a likely increase in tri performance) → higher bfat % → negative mental effects of worse body composition → lower desire to train → decreased tri performance.
I do weight training. Albeit only once a week as the coach has on my schedule but I do make it twice a week on occasion. My g/f chalks up the weight gain to muscle gain which I did believe b/c I had put on a good deal of muscle mass once I started a more regimented tri training program with the addition of weights, however I am noticing more sag around the mid section (as they say) lately.
hahaha i’m not singe actually, dating newbz on here 
however, we tri girls give guys like you huge points for appreciating athletic bodies and not waifs!
i think i’ll try and add the weights back in and work on spacing out my calorie intake a little better.