Now, I have read several of you good peeps mentions this over and over. Sounds like Chinese Water Torture og a unsustainable 80s thing 
Anybody knows the ups & downs of this? Thx
It’s a completely unsustainable method to attempt to get down to an arbitrary “race weight” when, well: train, eat a variety of things, and worry a whole lot less about the numbers on the scale and instead worry about executing a race plan.
But basically – you eat nothing but cabbage soup and water for a week and voila, you “lose” weight. It’s dumb. It’s very 90s. I remember my parents doing this and trying to force us as kids through it, too.
Unless you have covered the 99.9% of training / fueling and are looking for that last 0.1% when, you know, being a triathlete is your job, don’t do dumb shit like this.
(Note: post is solely my opinion, not an official position of ST, etc.)
I remember my parents doing this and trying to force us as kids through it, too.
Oh my God.
Oh yeah. Lots of eating disorder boot camp disguised as “for your health…â€
Why I get pretty grouchy around this stuff…race weight is the number you wake up on race day with. Don’t try to manipulate it. You’ll be way faster properly fueled and a couple kilos heavier anyways…
haha Amazing! I thought these was a thing of the 80s along with TV preachers and Cyndi Lauper
It’s very 90s.
other diet hacks from the 90s/early 2000s
grapefruit
cool whip - Halo Top has nothing on eating an entire container of cool whip.
special K diet
It’s very 90s.
other diet hacks from the 90s/early 2000s
grapefruit
cool whip - Halo Top has nothing on eating an entire container of cool whip.
special K diet
Do NOT do it.
My wife tried using it after having our second kid. She dropped the weight all right. And the weight kept coming off after she stopped the diet. It messes with the thyroid.
So I will say she “coincidentally” got Graves’ disease exactly with the timing of her diet. She had to get her thyroid ablated, her weight has doubled and, needless to say, she can no longer do the ultras she loved to do.
Something that worked for my parents from the '70s, with permanent weight loss of 20 and 30 lbs:
The “Eating Man’s Diet” which roughly speaking is this:
Alternate days:
(1) 90-100% of the calories needed for your ideal weight (you must NOT go under)
(2) 900 calories (you can go under)
I think it helps lose the weight because the “eating” days keep the metabolism from going into starvation mode (and you only have to diet “one day at a time”), and it helps keep the weight off because you become more attuned to the calories in the stuff you eat.
This is helpful especially when one is injured or on “old fart mode”; I unfortunately suffer from both.
But did Macca infact use this - or is that an urban legend?
It’s a completely unsustainable method to attempt to get down to an arbitrary “race weight” when, well: train, eat a variety of things, and worry a whole lot less about the numbers on the scale and instead worry about executing a race plan.
But basically – you eat nothing but cabbage soup and water for a week and voila, you “lose” weight. It’s dumb. It’s very 90s. I remember my parents doing this and trying to force us as kids through it, too.
Unless you have covered the 99.9% of training / fueling and are looking for that last 0.1% when, you know, being a triathlete is your job, don’t do dumb shit like this.
(Note: post is solely my opinion, not an official position of ST, etc.)
Especially if you have covered the 99.9%, don’t do dumb shit like this. It’ll just undo much of the hard work you’ve put in.
In fact, whether you’ve done the work or not, don’t do dumb shit.
But did Macca infact use this - or is that an urban legend?
Did you ever seen Macca at Ironman 201? I have a picture with him and I look like a beached whale at 160lbs next to him. Had an extremely gauntish look that day. Had to do something for prep for that race.
Typical Slowtwitch posts. Truth is somewhere in-between.
Who Counts Grams for Cycling? (Page 2): Triathlon Forum: Slowtwitch Forums
It’s very 90s.
other diet hacks from the 90s/early 2000s
grapefruit
cool whip - Halo Top has nothing on eating an entire container of cool whip.
special K diet
I am fat right now, but at one point I was 270lbs. I did the grapefruit diet for awhile in high school and it helped me shed 50lbs.
But did Macca infact use this - or is that an urban legend?
I remember back in the day it was rumored that Dave Scott would rinse his cottage cheese. I asked him one time if it was true. He said he couldn’t remember, maybe.
It’s very 90s.
other diet hacks from the 90s/early 2000s
grapefruit
cool whip - Halo Top has nothing on eating an entire container of cool whip.
special K diet
cool whip full of hyderogenated oils to clog your artieries. unfortunately halo top is also using them now, disguised as ‘monoglycerides’ . I go with the ‘keto’ or ‘rebel’ brands to avoid this
But did Macca infact use this - or is that an urban legend?
Did you ever seen Macca at Ironman 201? I have a picture with him and I look like a beached whale at 160lbs next to him. Had an extremely gauntish look that day. Had to do something for prep for that race.
TG - What year are you actually talking about???
Oh yeah, Ironman 201 sucked. I remember that year, when everyone got cholera from the aid station at mile 18. My race weight dropped to 110 lbs.
But did Macca infact use this - or is that an urban legend?
Did you ever seen Macca at Ironman 201? I have a picture with him and I look like a beached whale at 160lbs next to him. Had an extremely gauntish look that day. Had to do something for prep for that race.
TG - What year are you actually talking about???
Mulen wrote:
But did Macca infact use this - or is that an urban legend?
I remember back in the day it was rumored that Dave Scott would rinse his cottage cheese. I asked him one time if it was true. He said he couldn’t remember, maybe.
I thought that was a Lance Armstrong thing. (I suppose others could’ve picked it up)
Now, I have read several of you good peeps mentions this over and over. Sounds like Chinese Water Torture og a unsustainable 80s thing
Anybody knows the ups & downs of this? Thx
It’s a diet from before they invented Ozempic.
But did Macca infact use this - or is that an urban legend?
I think it is an urban legend, but each time Rob Gray (Ultraman 2017 world champion) and I feel overweight (and that is most of the time), we make jokes about the urban legend of Macca going on the cabbage and water diet for his Kona 2010 win (but he was still heavier than Ralaert for the Alii drive downhill sprint haha)
.
it wouldn’t surprise me if there was some truth to the core of it. Macca went through pretty big weight swings in and out of season. I was basically 158 +/- 5lbs all the time. But Macca - and this seemed to be generally more true of the Aussies - was like +/- 20lbs. I remember one time he came to a FIST camp in the winter and I was like, “who’s that fat guy that looks kind of like Chris McCormack?” Hard to know if it’s causation or correlation, but I think I probably could have done well to gain a bit more weight in the offseason. Though, admittedly, I think a fair bit in Macca’s case came from him being a rather heavy drinker, which I am not. But regardless, Macca always had the ability to both put on - and take off - quite a bit of weight, and - based on results - that approach certainly seemed to work for him. He was always very good and being able to peak for the races that mattered and to be more laissez faire in other cases, which I certainly think was a factor in both the degree of his success and his pretty remarkable longevity.