After Ironman Recovery and Off-season Nutrition

Having just completed Ironman Florida for the 4th time…in a row…geez…hard to believe 🙂 …I’m now turning my attention to recovery and nutrition.

Burning 10-15,000 exercise calories a week allows for quite a range of eating and drinking options….that’s 3-4 pounds a week (@ 3,500 calories a pound), so I can really pack it on fast if I don’t make some rapid adjustments to compensate for the lack of calorie burn during the ‘off-season’.

General wisdom is that if you want to drop a few pounds, the off-season is the time to do it…therefore right now through the next 8-12 weeks…since you need the food energy to support training, once the volume and intensity picks up…sort of counter-intuitive to some degree…although I’ve found it to be true for me…difficult to train hard, and maintain energy for each daily workout, and also run a calorie deficit to get a few pounds off.

With exercise down to a relative whisper for the next 4-8 weeks, I’ll be re-focused on tracking what I eat every day, and tightening portion control…hard to break those in-season portion habits…and see if i can trim off a few pounds in the off-season, before ramping back up in January…coming out a least even by January 1, with holidays and all, would be the first goal…5+ pounds thinner even better…5 pounds heavier wouldn’t kill me, and some argue even desirable, so we’ll see how it shakes out.

I think though, that I may _really_ add in a weight/fat loss goal this year, to get down to a ‘lean’ racing weight…even though my weight’s been about the same for years, I know that I’m carrying around a few fat pounds that aren’t doing anything useful…I know that I’d be faster, if I was lighter.

A very useful site that I’ve used over the years to track calories and nutrition is www.myfooddiary.com

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