I have lost over 20 pounds this winter. I never looked heavy (dressed). Now I look to thin dressed but very buff for a 48 year old undressed. At first I wasn’t as strong but my strength seems to have returned. I have been lifting all along. I added push-ups and it seems to help my swimming and MTB biking.
My running is a lot better. I can’t wait until warm weather to test my new fitness.
Has anyone else lost 20 pounds? How did it help/hurt your raceing? I’m hoping for good results, I feel great!
You’re making me feel bad. I’ve gained seven lbs since my last tri. Always gain 7-10 lbs over winter and then lose it over the tri season.
I’ve never been heavy, but had an extra 5-10 or so I could lose up until last year, when I finally decided to really get off my ass and get as lean as possible. Even at half your 20, I found it immensely helpful in terms of bringing down my times, reducing stress on my frame and overall fatigue, speeding recovery, and so on. To say nothing of the power v. weight benefits you’re probably seeing. You’ve done yourself a big favor my friend and are in for a treat of a season! Race fierce!
If you buy Judy Molnar’s book “You Don’t Have to be Thin to Win” you’ll see a little story about me in there- I’m the fat kid with the paper route who has done Ironman, Eco-Challenge, Raid Gauloises, Desert Cup, Antarctic Marathon, Marathon des Sables and climbed the three highest mountains on three continents. Losing wieght was hard but it opened up a whole new, enormous world for me. I could do things myself I only dreamed of before. It was huge. I can’t tell you how much of a difference it made in my life. That and the military have made the largest contributions in my life. Good job to you. You’ll be faster, stronger, more confident, etc. Way to go.
How did you lose the weight?
Congratulations!! It takes a helluva lot of discipline to lose weight!
Over the winter of 2001 I went from 173 lbs, 12% body fat (as measured by the Tanita scale) to as low as 138 lbs, 2%. I have since stabilized out at a racing weight of 145-147 with a winter weight of 150. A weight of 138 was just too low and I found I was more prone to injury, oddly enough. I found that my running improved 20 seconds per mile per 10 lbs of weight lost. I went from a middle of the packer to a consistent age group winner. (Confidence plays a big part of it too!)
Couple of stats for you: (pre weight loss/post weight loss)
5K: 19:31/16:51
half marathon: 1:28/1:17
1/2IM: 4:43/4:21
IM: 11:59/10:28 (IMLP vs. Great Floridian)
Just be careful not to get too addicted to the scale, you can go too low. You definitely need to retain strength. But expect to see some big dividends. I will also say that as with most people my training has increased in both intensity and volume over the years so you still have to do the work.
Congrats again!!
I don’t lose weight easily. I trained for an ironman all last year and my weight was about 173-178. I was in good shape watched what I ate but did snack etc.
I decided to lose weight becouse I had these small rolls when in a tight tri top. Most people would not have noticed but it bothered me.
I know this is not a great way to lose weight but: I ate a balance bar for breakfast-----fruit/figs/dates (small amount) at 10:30---------Balance bar for lunch----------2:30 snack was fruit/figs/dates------salad or pasta for supper. I made sure I had beans, chicken, beef as part of supper.
I continued to work out. Don’t want to say this but I do have people stop me in the gym and ask how to look like this!!! Also have people stop me in my dress clothes and say don’t lose any more!!!
That’s sounds pretty tough. How long did it take you?
I could afford to lose 20 or so pounds. I try to watch what I eat but find it hard to. Especially after a tough workout. I just finished an hour PC workout on a trainer and ate 3 bowls of granola.
Over the winter of 2001 I went from 173 lbs, 12% body fat (as measured by the Tanita scale) to as low as 138 lbs, 2%. Wow! How tall are you? What did you do to lose 40 pounds? Last year I did most of my races at about 163-165. I’m currently about 173 and 15% and for my marathon in May I’m trying to get my weight down to between 155-160. At 160 my body fat is around 10% What is the optimum body fat for endurance events? One of the things my tri friends like to say is we train so hard to enable us to eat well and drink good beer! I like to be in good shape, but I’m not obsessive about it.
I do it every year! During the summer months my race weight ranges from 170-173 and during the winter I tend to gain weight. I was 192 lbs last year on February 1 and 173 for the Canadian Long Course Championships on August 31. It makes a huge difference. This year I was a little more careful over the holidays so I’m around 185. Plan to get back on my 40-30-30 disciplined diet soon and see if I can sneak under 170 this summer. It makes a huge difference in your running.
tri2havefun,
Height: Im 5’10".
What I did: Bear in mind that loss of body weight depends on where youre starting from as well as what your starting diet is. At 173 I didnt look fat by any stretch, but didnt look lean either. My “old” diet was total garbage (now I realized this). Basically it consisted of 5 to 7 glasses of Coke a day, BIG servings of pasta for meals 4 to 5 times per week and of course, I wasnt shy when it came to eating chocolate chip cookies. I started with a very high “carbohydrate” (read…junk) diet. So I really had much to gain. I did the protein/atkins/maffetone thing where for two weeks you eat no carbs, then slowly add carbs in. Lost 12 lbs in two weeks. Dont know that Id recommend this diet as it puts a heavy strain on your kidneys. Regardless of how much I drank I was always dehydrated. Also my workouts suffered amazingly…for example, a flat 4 mile run at an easy pace before would take me 30 minutes, during the diet I went no faster than :44 minutes. After getting off the protein diet I basically just changed my eating habits. I gave up coke and havent had one since. I rarely eat pasta. I think you just have to make sure that the food youre consuming is quality. (Notice I didnt say anything about giving up chocolate chip cookies). What I found most useful was to keep a food log. You think you know what youre eating until youre forced to write it down and face it every day. All I kept was what I ate, portion size (I went out and bought a food scale) and the calories. Thats pretty much what I do now. I will say I was totally obsessed with my weight and was a miserable human when I got down below 145, ask my wife…also (and this is why i said you can go too low) I got some blood work done to find out i had anemia. So you must be careful. Regarding an optimal weight…Im not sure…I ran my fastest 5k on Jan 1st this year at a weight of about 152. But Ive also raced well at 145. I think its totally personal and you need to be sure you dont sacrifice strength for a few extra pounds. (I have found its hard to lose fat without also losing muscle mass)
Hope this helps
Mass is not all bad. I’ve put on some weight since the fall (75 kg to 78, more or less, on a height of 182 cm), although some of that is probably muscle. Of the rest, I needed more last night. I was using a rather anemic “three season” sleeping bag and a bivvie bag for a test run in my back yard, and it was not comfortable at -15C. Fortunately, I’m renting a decent sleeping bag for the Canadian Ski Marathon (http://www.csm-mcs.com).
After the CSM I’ll decide whether I care about my weight and whether I’m going to do anything about it. For now, a bit of winter fat is acceptable.
Cheers – John
marty,
We’re almost the same height. I’m 5’ 9.5".
I know about losing weight. 3 years ago I was at 218 and I lost all the way to 158. Mostly I just cut down on fats and total daily calories and biked about 20 miles daily. I’ve never been much of a soda drinker or chocolate eater. Most of my weight gain came from simply overeating and being sedate. My diet was a sorta modified SlimFast plan. I had a drink for breakfast and lunch and something like a Lean Cuisine for supper. My snacks were high water content fruit like plums and grapes. I also drank a huge amount of plain water. Ever since then I still have a SlimFast for breakfast, but I also usually have a bagel too. Lunch is a sandwich or yogurt and supper is whatever the rest of the family is having. I gained some weight over the holiday season by overeating and having cookies. I did the same thing last year and it took me a couple of months to work the weight off. So far this year all I’ve been doing is running in preparation for a marathon. I will be starting back in the pool and cycling very soon and expect the combination of the extra exercise and fewer calories will put me on track to get to my weight goals by racing season. If I race well at 155-160 I may try to reduce to 150-155 by later in the summer.
I don’t think I want to try the Atkins diet while I’m in the middle of marathon training. I’m working hard as it is to try to build my speed and endurance and Atkins sounds like it would hurt that effort.
Tri2HaveFun,
I agree that doing the Atkins thing would probably not benefit your training as you are preparing for a marathon. It takes a toll on you…Also when you diet (as Ive found out this week) and try to run long, your form goes to hell and you end up with injuries. My guess is that if youre not at your ideal weight your probably pretty darn close. To take it to the next level you could focus on body fat %…Honestly over the last few years of trying various diets (Ive just experimented with food combining theory…cant eat carbs and protein in the same meal) I think it comes down to a few points: 1. Total calories makes a difference, 2. Quality of food is critical…are you getting 2000 cals of Big Macs or 2000 cals of fruits, veggies and good carbs 3. Timing of eating is important as well, I try to eat only protein and veggies for dinner (but must admit Im not perfect on this one)
Sounds like your diet has improved in similar fashion to mine. If youre familiar with coach gordo one thing he says over and over I think is true: get your protein from lean meats, chicken and fish, avoid processed food and avoid starchy foods other than after exercise. In addition it seems that the more “natural” the food the better…though that is the same as saying avoid unprocessed food. I think this is the most sound advice for nutrition. Last year I did experiment with Atkins again, around this time of year as well, and it didnt do anything for me. I think I lost 5 lbs only to regain it within a week. Oddly enough my weight went down to 142 by May of last year and slowly creeped up over the rest of the season. I seem to really cycle my weight over the course of the year…granted, last spring I put in the biggest training volume I ever had. The thing Im starting to focus on when Im trying to shed those few extra pounds is to cut out the “bad” habits I pick up on at the end of the season. Im notorious for hitting the peanut butter jar for a few teaspoons a few times a day. PRoblem with that is a few teaspoons quickly become a few hundred calories…stuff like that and any snacking between meals, I think, kills me in the off season. Based on the amount of weight youve lost it sounds like its the small things that would help the most…but sometimes theyre the hardest to change…the last 2% of nutrition perfection seems to be harder to acheive than the first 98%. (Also, all I drink now is water.)