Weight

Last year, I tried to lose weight. I knew that the lighter I was, the easier it would be to climb Mt. Ventoux. I did end up losing weight but it was 90% down to the increased levels of exercise and little to do with better eating habits.

I am now in a similar position with a need to lose weight to aid performance. And so far, its going well. The difference? Well, its the swimming. Not that actually swimming makes me lose weight but wearing nothing but a pair of small swimming shorts makes you very aware of yourself. Every time I think about a chocy bar or a bag of crisps, I just picture myself in a wetsuit and I eat an apple. Vanity is a powerful thing.

My first aspect of my diet I changed is bread. I have blogged about it before but bread is my weakness. I love it in all its forms. I worked out I ate thousands of calories a week on bread as well as all the things I put on bread (butter, jam, pate etc.). It has now been 6 weeks since I ate any bread and it has been a real boost to the diet.

The other is fruit and veg. I ate it when ever possible. Often when I don't feel like it. It just keeps me full all day. It doesn't stop some of the sugar cravings but it helps.

After reading Ironwit's blog, I have a few other things to think about. I train for treats. Doing a hard session on my bike or running tends to give me guilt free eating. I feel I can spend an afternoon eating what I want. With a big event like the Fred, it lets me eat what I want for the rest of the day but I just can't turn if off. I eat like a horse for a week.

The other problem is that I need to up the calories to take into account my growing levels of exercise without eating bad things. I'm fine at the moment but when my training gets to 10+ hours a week, I know that a bowl of soup at lunch won't be enough.

Finally, I have no physical target for my weight loss. I have found that setting targets usually results in disappointment. I will likely end up missing the target and feel like I failed. My aim is to continually have a downward trend in my weight until at least May with a blip in April as I eat bread for 1 day after the marathon. Yum!