Do you guys watch what you eat over the holidays? Or do you splurge and make up for it later? In other words, do you try to maintain your weight? I’m interested to hear from the more dedicated/competitive folk, but any thoughts are appreciated.
I’m not one of those competitive folks yet. From reading interviews with pros it seems that most of them tend to relax their diet and gain some weight during the holidays. With the volume of activity that pros do and attention to diet most pay, they’ll burn off excess weight early in the season anyway.
Hell to the no. Life’s too short.
That 5kg gain during the winter/holidays is due to all that delicious seasonal food and delicious seasonal beer. That 5kg will be gone after a month of kicking my ass back into gear. My training has gone into “maintenance mode”
I’m a stone heavier (6 and a bit kilos?) today than I was at my last race, and it’s not even christmas yet. It’ll be gone before I try and race in the Spring, in the meantime I’m trying not to be too depressed about my mile/min pace on my lunchtime hilly run. But, y’know, I’d been eating toast without butter for the previous 6 months and I wanted some pie.
Yes.
To me, “the Holidays” means 3-4 total days. On those days when I’m with family and friends, I feast. The rest of the time, I pay attention. I’ve noticed that if I treat it as 3-4 weeks of feasting, I am most unhappy with the creature that stares at me after New Years.
I pay attention to it but I don’t deprive myself of extra treats and good food. I have found that if I keep working out, whatever I may gain, I can quickly lose. Enjoy it, eat up!
I work out enough to justify a fair amount of daily calories.
During the holidays I more or less swap sweets and decadent food for whole grains, veggies, etc…but my total calorie intake doesn’t change too much.
Granted, some days are a little overboard, like Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve/Day, but they are only a few days.
yes … I stop when I get to my annual 8 lb weight gain in Dec. 1/2 there as we speak
If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere I’m guesing you are solidly in the “off-season.” Talking to my friends (some local pros, IM and IM70.3 WC qualifiers, and other competitive folk) and none of us are really concerned about weight, workouts, or a race schedule at the moment. We are working out more for the enjoyment of it rather than trying to hit a certain target. Pretty much we all will start getting to work after the new year.
My advice, enjoy the time off and have fun. Triathlon is a sport, there are other more important things in life.
Do you guys watch what you eat over the holidays? Or do you splurge and make up for it later? In other words, do you try to maintain your weight? I’m interested to hear from the more dedicated/competitive folk, but any thoughts are appreciated.
I actually use this time of year to clamp down on my diet and try to get to next year’s race weight. At 47 (soon to be 48) it is a whole lot easier to put on pounds than take them off. In fact, taking them off takes weeks of hard work and supreme discipline just to get the scale to tweak slightly the right direction. So no . . . I won’t be splurging. That Christmas cookie might taste good for 30 seconds but it won’t be worth the week or more of playing catch-up. That said, my metabolism is ridiculous. It can turn a teaspoon of consumed fat into a couple pounds of added body weight (or so it seems).
SInce volume is a little lower in my plan this time of year, I try to use a little discipline, and if nothing else, make up for “bad days” by eating lighter during the week.
Otherwise, looking at my plan for next year, I have little concern about achieving race weight. During a 4 week block in Nov. I upped my training load… sort of as a test of what I could handle and dropped 3 lbs.
Overall, I’ll be satisfied to get ot Jan having held weight constant, then work on dropping 3-4 lbs during a 12 week base period where my volume peaks for the year.
Nope.
I know I gain a couple of pounds, typically 4-5, due to less activity. Once the weather clears up and I can bike commute again that couple of pounds is gone within a week or two.
I relax a little bit. I let myself have dessert, maybe some cheese and crackers during the actual holiday day. I just ran a marathon and I always let myself eat brownies the few days after a marathon.
I think what gets you into trouble is extra cookies and fun food every day. Come home from work-eat a cookie, take the dog out-eat a cookie, get a glass of water-eat a cookie. So, I’ll eat the good stuff with family and friends, but leave it there. After the party, it’s back to greens, whole wheat and egg beaters. An extra few pounds isn’t terrible. Especially if you’re consistant with getting back on track with your regular diet and exercise.
I think I read somewhere that the average American gains 7 pounds from Thanksgiving to the New Year. That’s too much. Especially when they’re not out there bike commuting to work and swiming before the sun comes up.
I actually use this time of year to clamp down on my diet and try to get to next year’s race weight. At 47 (soon to be 48) it is a whole lot easier to put on pounds than take them off. In fact, taking them off takes weeks of hard work and supreme discipline just to get the scale to tweak slightly the right direction. So no . . . I won’t be splurging. That Christmas cookie might taste good for 30 seconds but it won’t be worth the week or more of playing catch-up. That said, my metabolism is ridiculous. It can turn a teaspoon of consumed fat into a couple pounds of added body weight (or so it seems).
^^^^ This. I find its easier for me to watch my diet now that my training is a bit lighter than later during the heavy training when I really feel famished from all the calories I’m burning.
I actually use this time of year to clamp down on my diet and try to get to next year’s race weight. At 47 (soon to be 48) it is a whole lot easier to put on pounds than take them off. In fact, taking them off takes weeks of hard work and supreme discipline just to get the scale to tweak slightly the right direction. So no . . . I won’t be splurging. That Christmas cookie might taste good for 30 seconds but it won’t be worth the week or more of playing catch-up. That said, my metabolism is ridiculous. It can turn a teaspoon of consumed fat into a couple pounds of added body weight (or so it seems).
^^^^ This. I find its easier for me to watch my diet now that my training is a bit lighter than later during the heavy training when I really feel famished from all the calories I’m burning.
Same. If I can be at a good spot January 1, I feel like I am in a better spot for the year. As I do throughout the year, I may have a bad meal every now and then…a few too many cocktails once every now and then…I treat the holidays no different. I ate bad thanksgiving day…might eat bad on Christmas…either way, it will be a one meal issue, not a month long issue. It is actually sort of a challenge for me, with training reduced can I maintain my weight through proper diet.
Nov/Dec I don’t weigh myself. I splurge a few times (right after A race, a few days for Thanksgiving, a few days for Christmas). If I put on 10 lbs, I will have a solid 3 months before a race that I care about.
I think that I only feel this way because I have done it before. First time, I was very nervous allowing myself to put on pounds that I worked so hard to lose. But like others have said, life is short and it is probably not a good idea to be ultra lean all the time anyway.
I am 5’7", I have raced around 135. I won’t be surprised if the scale says 145 on January 1st. If it is a little higher, I will be a little surprised, but either way, the solution is simple. Start eating less, keep working hard and repeat. The pounds will come off.
Do you guys watch what you eat over the holidays? Or do you splurge and make up for it later? In other words, do you try to maintain your weight? I’m interested to hear from the more dedicated/competitive folk, but any thoughts are appreciated.
I actually use this time of year to clamp down on my diet and try to get to next year’s race weight. At 47 (soon to be 48) it is a whole lot easier to put on pounds than take them off. In fact, taking them off takes weeks of hard work and supreme discipline just to get the scale to tweak slightly the right direction. So no . . . I won’t be splurging. That Christmas cookie might taste good for 30 seconds but it won’t be worth the week or more of playing catch-up. That said, my metabolism is ridiculous. It can turn a teaspoon of consumed fat into a couple pounds of added body weight (or so it seems).
At age 51, I concur with your post. Before training ramps up and I really need to fuel my training, this is the time of year to lose weight. The holidays makes this task especially difficult, and for a few select days I may indulge but otherwise my primary goal is to get down to race weight - for me this means losing about 6 lbs.
This year I’m trying a 16/8 fasting schedule to lose those 6 lbs. Since I train in the afternoon (and need fuel to ride well), I have an eating window from noon to 8:00 p.m. From 8:00 p.m. to noon the following day I fast (except for morning coffee and water). During weekdays this schedule works well for me. On weekends I eat normally. All the while I try to eat the right foods.
More food, more weights, less “workouts”. It all evens out once the sun comes back.
I like to race around 160 and i’ll allow myself to get to around 170 during the holidays. Gives the mind a bit of a break but more importantly I notice it really helps me stay warmer through the winter and thus train more.