[doc_davo]

I need advice to stop eating – its driving me crackers!!! (no pun intended)

I work mainly an office job – so have very little activity in a day, but my training volume is pretty high, up to 20hrs per week. I’m 6’2″ and weight 160lb, so according to what I understand my BMR should be approx 1800kcal + 200Kcal for extras of what I do, if I do 2hrs endurance tonight at 240W then i am looking at approx another 1700 Kcal giving a total requirement of 3700Kcal a day.

I have read loads of books an articles, most say that ave food intake natrually tops out at 3000-3500cla per day on it but basically I have tried 5-7 meals per day, 3 meals and 2 snacks etc but based on racing weight theory of

– Breakfast 25% cal
– Snack 1 12.5% cal
– Lunch 25% cal
– Snack 2 12.5% cal
_ Dinner 25% cal

would mean that I have 900 cal for each main meal and 450 for each ‘snack’. Problem is I am sooooo hungry doing that

this morning for breakfast I had 60g porridge oats, protein shake, 2 banana, ground nut mix – tot 800 cal
break 1; 50g mixed nuts and 5 oat cakes 500 cals
lunch; 2 x turkey, stuffing salad sandwich, 1 large grapfruit, 1 bag soy/corn chips – 900cal
snack 2; 9 bar and another pack of fruit oatcakes – 450 cal

thing is I’m sat at 13:00 typing this having already eaten all of that, feeling really hungry, as I do every day and most likely what I’ll end up doing is splitting my remaining calories into another snack and dinner, but then try and fill up on bulky fibrous veg with very little calories to see me through to bed – I don’t particulary want to loose any more weight as I am pretty happy and am currently prob around 10% body fat, and this will natrually drop by the end of the base building period but body weight should stay the same – it varies by 1-2kg per week when I weigh, and cause I concious with the massive appetite that I have about my weight so weight in the morning 3 x per week.

anyone any tips or thoughts on this – I always have eaten plenty, but being from athletics background and running max 70miles per week haven’t really needed this many cals or urge to eat like this and last 2 seasons of cycling my volume has ramped up so a bit unknown terratory, but need to control this constant hunger and urge to eat! even doing a 5hr ride on a weekend becomes difficult to manage cause the hunder is worse!!!!

Topic

[Shep73]

Far too much carbs, you only
Far too much carbs, you only need that much if you want to build muscle, ie getting the body to go anabolic. As said drink more water but don’t over do it. Too much can deplete sodium levels which can make you tired, plus you need sodium for cycling.

[doc_davo]

Thanks for all your
Thanks for all your feedback

Re macros – I will have a at least 1 – 1.5g of protein per kilo in a day no problem, and as for essential fats with my breakfast I take a mixed nuts/seeds mix with my breakfast plus use udos choice oils as well.

When I was competing athletics I was 6.6% body fat at lowest and performed well at this – no injuries/illness

Yes I will put on weight if I eat more, but find it hard to be realistic hence have been slightly obsessional with the scales – not so much to loose weight by to make sure I’m not loosing too much and realise that 1-2kg lost gained in a few days is prob fluid but if it stayed off for a week i am light on cals esp if my fluid levels are good – all in all i do think its largely psychological and think I want food rather than need food, but that doesn’t really help when you are close to eating your desk!!! – always have enough energy to hit numbers in training – sessions and can tell if I have been light on my calories, think worst time though is on Monday/Tuesday when I have done 3 long rides fri/sat/sun and have I creased calories due to those – have tried splitting my training load into 7 days and eating across those days – have also messed with different foods, with different satiety levels – but feel the need to balance energ levels to function across the day with no highs or lows and train on an evening or morning and evening.

With regards to the article link I will have a read, however I am of the belief that so-called marginal gains are as important if not more important to a committed amateur – as they are to a pro, provided that a maximal gain has been achieved where possible in all given areas, and as long as it had minimal impact on my life, family etc – I will never have the time to sleep 11hrs + per day, Sit with my feet up, not be able to ‘not have to work’, or be blessed with amazing physiology – areas that I can improve on easily and without too much effort I will, such as good power to weight ratio, using a coach, training with power – but the one thing that is biting is this constant appetite! So as for not enough food/too little body weight etc I’m still getting improvent in my power, very low % decoupling at AeT yet still getting a gradual improvement in power within endurance zone circa 250 watts at 135bpm (approx zone 1.8)

I am curious to experiment further with eating slightly earlier in the evening, am wondering whether like last year it dropped when it got warmer and sunnier or whether that was just a drop in volume of training and will mess further with my diet and see whether it continues, but the mind boggles when you read of ‘pro’ doing a a 5 hour ride and eating an apple at the end of it – think there is some poetic licence being used there!!

[Shanefutcher]

Think theres too much science
Think theres too much science and analysis nowadays.i run 5 miles in morning before my 20 mile cyle commute to work,weekends i run 10mile a day then cycle 50miles.im 5’11 and weigh 170lbs.when im hungry i eat,simple.my body tells me when i need food

[glynr36]

Seems to be a lot of carbs
Seems to be a lot of carbs there, it’s not just about calories as a total, but your macros.
I think (there is a lot of trial and error with nutrition, so you need to try different things to see what works for you) that a reduction of your carbs, and add some good fats instead.

[SideBurn]

Have a little look at this;
Have a little look at this; http://www.velonation.com/Blogs/Ben-Greenwood/ID/181/Food-Glorious-Food.aspx You say you are 10% body fat? What is wrong with that? As Ben suggests loosing weight can be taken too far. But do not forget there is more than one process going on here; you walk into a room not hungry, smell food, you are then starving! Why? If I sit down at home I just think of food constantly, however going out on a ride will stop this feeling! What I am saying is, are you hungry because you want food, or are you hungry because you need food, and how do you know the difference? I loose weight by going on long rides and then eating no more than usual. It is not easy! One thing I ‘use’ is good old pasta + pesto but substituting some (or all!) of the pasta for carrot or parsnip, with cheese on top of course! It works for me! But remember what Ben says!

[ilovemytinbred]

Maybe it is not quite enough
Maybe it is not quite enough kcal? 3700 sounds right, but it is hard to work it out perfectly, do you actually put weight on if you eat a little more?—I Just read the above reply, looks like I was beaten to it.

Apart from eating low energy density food one thing that helped me was just not eating until late in the day. I realised that if I did not eat past 8ish in the evening I did not wake up hungry, breaking the habit of breakfast just took a couple of days. Then I just waited untill 2 or 3 to eat. At the time I could do all my training in the evenings on weekdays so it was no problem. On the weekends I ate breakfast lunch etc. and did long rides. During this time I knocked out 96 hours riding in a month and was gong really well. It sounds kind of odd, but I hate being hungry all the time and it seemed to do the trick. I am doing a similar thing now and it seems ok, but the trouble is I have some morning workouts that would be rubbish without some fuel i the tank.

[jason.timothy.jones]

Doc without going to deep
Doc without going to deep into your maths, it does look right to me, but just monitor your weight/body fat after a few weeks to make sure its right, as Im sure you know, the stuff in books is good as a guide only.

Your diet looks fine also, protein does give you the fuller feeling longer and there is plenty of slow burning fuel there also, but be careful with the corn chips and 9 bar, if they have any hydrogonised or chemically altered fats in them from cooking at all it could be causing a problem

As far as keeping the pangs down, the old drink lots of water works, I have low cal cup-a-soup to get my through if need be, you can also try psylium husks http://www.myprotein.com/sports-nutrition/whole-psyllium-husks/10530061.html?affil=mpppc&gclid=CPHsx5DCnrwCFSvHtAod6gkA5w its a bit of a last resort, but its basically soluble fibre that will swell a little in you gut

If weight is not a problem, add some more fruit or a egg white omelete, in fact 6 egg whites is only 100 kcal and a good dose of protein

[Author]

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