I love to eat, it makes me feel good.
Like most people I have dieted and restricted my intake which isn’t a particularly pleasant experience, especially when you are training hard, ever had that “wiped out” feeling?
The more you train, very often the more you want to eat.
I get that 100%.
This is OK if you do it right but most people don’t.
The increase in appetite through increased energy expenditure is completely normal, how you replace that energy is however key.
Some of you may have heard the phrase:
“A calorie is not a calorie”.
Now this is a phrase which has had a lot of debate.
You see, a calorie IS a calorie because quite simply a calorie is a unit of measurement like a KG.
However as is so often the case we must dig a little deeper.
Compare the calories from a 1000 calorie pizza with the calories from……….
200g grass fed mince meat
2 jacket potatoes and butter
1 fist full of kale
1 cup full of broccoli
200g face greek yogurt
20g 80% dark chocolate
The second is clearly an awful lot of food and would take some eating, the pizza on the other hand – well I’ve nailed many of those and then had cake!
My point then is two fold:
1 – it is harder to consume “clean” calories than those from junk, the cleaner food just makes you fuller.
2 – You will be getting far more nutrients from the second option than a pizza and that helps your health, performance and body composition.
One of the things I have learnt over the years is that if you have a BIG appetite like me, you will want to eat and that is where dieting is hard.
If then you can find a way of being satisfied from wholesome, nutritious and TASTY food then you really will struggle to fail.
I am really passionate about this because there is no reason why athletes doing as much training as you do should be hungry, even if you need to lose some fat.
In fact you need to make sure you are fuelling your training and recovery.
Restricting calories won’t help with either.
And…..
Nor will eating pizza or excessive proceeded calories from any source.
So how do you get it right?
To be honest its pretty easy as long as the food tastes nice and satisfies you.
My book “The Triathlete Nutrition Code” has many a tasty recipe and is designed to leave you feeling satisfied and refuelled whilst also improving your body fat %.
http://www.nutri-tri.com/e-books/
If though you are wondering whether to buy it, let me tell you this:
It is not for
- People who like a fad
- People who jump from diet to diet
- People who love to over complicate things
- People who like to whinge
Its for people who are serious and want to make a difference.
Thats why I wrote it because I’ve been there and I wanted to know what to do but had nobody who got ME – just off the shelf cook books for your average Joe – This is for athletes, whatever your level or ambition.
Here’s a video of me explaining more:
Have a good weekends training wherever you are in the world – It’s freezing where I am (UK) so if its sunny, put in a few miles for me!
Jamie “always full” Leighton