At the moment lots of health and fitness professionals will say:
“The best diet is the one you stick to”
To be fair I think that is true but…….
How do you know which one you CAN stick to without trying them all?
Fortunately for you I have worked with hundreds of triathletes on their nutrition and I have noticed some themes.
I have also taken part in pretty much every diet protocol there is (plant based excepted).
I have noticed some better results with me and others and the main factor which influences success is convenience.
This is why so many companies now offer liquid diets.
By saying you only eat one meal a day and the rest are taken care of by a shake, takes some of the thinking out of things.
It’s also why something called a “mono” diet can help in the short term.
This is when you essentially find certain meals which fit your needs and then eat them every day.
There are obvious problems with this in the longer term, mainly nutrient deficiencies but it can work well for some people short term.
To me, one method which works for many is some sort of fasting protocol.
The problem with the popular 5:2 for triathletes is that on the 2 low cal days you would find it hard to do any quality training.
If you only train 5 days a week this may work but to me the low days at 5-600 calories are so low they are likely to affect the next days training.
The fasting approach I prefer in an Intermittent Fasting approach known under many names like 16:8
The 16:8 basically means you fast for 16 hours and then eat all your calories in an 8 hour window.
Why is this good?
During the fast, you will use a lot of the available glycogen in your body and if you train at low intensity like most endurance athletes do you will convince your body to become better at utilising fat for fuel.
The body composition benefits here are obvious.
When you train during the day will affect how you set up your day in the long run but to begin with you need to allow your body to adjust to the 16 hours without food.
This is pretty painless in comparison to most diets with minimal hunger.
The convenience benefits to this approach are:
For most people they are at work during the day and the first part of the day, usually 12-1pm is without food.
Then you eat all your calories before 8-9pm – a good portion of which you are likely to be at home.
At home with a cooker and fridge full of food.
In my Private Coaching Group – The Total Triathlete:
I have just introduced this to the members.
Hence if you want to give it a go with some guidance, now would be a great time.
On joining you get access to my private Facebook page in which you can ask as many questions as you like, where we can tweek things so they work optimally for you.
It’s £10 a month (12 USD ish) and you can leave any time.
On sign up you will also receive a FREE copy of my E book – The Triathlete Nutrition Code.
Check it out:
Jamie “Convenience = Success” Leighton