Aside from some adjustments to _what_ I’m eating, I’m finding that I have two things in particular that are coming into play on a daily basis…as it turns out, both attributable to ideas by Matt Fitzgerald that I wrote about in earlier posts.
http://www.active.com/running/experts/mattfitzgerald/
The first was on Emotional Eating.
https://irondaughterirondad.com/nutrition/emotional-eating/
T
o recap, his ‘Emotional Eating’ chart, his point is to only eat when at #7 or higher, and only eat to #4, never Full to Stuffed:
10.   All I think about is food
9.    Ravenous
8.    Quite hungry
7.    Ready to eat
6.    Snack hungry
5.    Neither hungry nor not hungry
4.    Satisfied
3.    Full
2.    Uncomfortably full
1.    Painfully stuffed
I’ve been really watching this carefully every day, and it’s shed quite a few calories each day, particularly during the day…I’ve overshot a few times into #8, and even heard the odd stomach growl…weird…but it’s saving me about 300 calories during the day that I’d eat out of habit…and about the same at dinner, although again I’ve sometimes eaten to the #3 Full mark…but not much past…so that’s all good.
The second is tied to the first…and working out without deliberately hitting the carbs before my shorter workouts during the week…Matt had noted that some studies say that this can be beneficial in a number of ways…details in my earlier post:
https://irondaughterirondad.com/should-you-workout-when-hungry-intentionally/
Prior to the focus on squeezing off a few pounds, I would eat more before and after those shorter 1-2 hour workouts…and during the workout, start with Gatorade on workouts over 1 hour…now I typically stay on water through 2 hour workouts to keep off the calories.
…on high intensity workouts, or longer stuff over 2 hours, I still do add in carbs and calories to make sure that the tank is full…although again, I’ve been experimenting with staying on the short side of calories each exercise hour to both save the calories, and keep my body from sending too much energy to my stomach for processing food, while it’s trying to keep my legs going, and working like a trojan to try and keep me cooled off in 95F weather.
Part of this is that in my transition for a few weeks, before turning up the training volume and intensity for Ironman Florida, I feel that I can focus on the weight reduction without compromising training, and come back to the heavier training as a leaner, meaner racing version
…we’ll see how it shakes out…promising so far though 🙂