Back to Basics

It amazing how getting back to basics can not only improve performance, but open your eyes to some BAD habits.

As many of you know, between now and Christmas – it’s all about strength. So yes, plenty of hills and a few weight training sessions this week (and oodles and oodles of patience).

Overall, I got in more riding this week than in the past. (Super happy about that!!) My week started of slow… but quickly picked up steam. Of course, the weekend was grand. I stayed in town, which meant a fun Friday ride with EJ, a long solo Saturday ride and Sunday shake-out of the legs.

What was REALLY eye-opening was my diet. As I’m trying to lose a few pounds, I thought it might be good just to log and keep track of my diet. Since this is the first time in my life that I’ve had a muffin top – and I’ve always been able to eat as I like – I thought this might be a good first step.

Well – I don’t know how to say this nicely – my diet sucks. Now, I do realize that I could plice and dice my nutrition in many more accurate ways, but I’m lazy – and this is a good first step. All that formal education in sports medicine and exercise physiology… poof… apparently doesn’t apply to me. My diet is super high in fat… as in 30-45% of my calories.

Yeah – that’s pretty bad… really, in big broad strokes, it should be ~20% (especially if I want to lose some of my blubber).

Lesson #2… I’m not eating enough carbs to fuel me.

Thursday’s commute SUCKED. All the hills felt like Mt Everest. My legs were dead. I huffed and puffed. I blamed it on the previous day’s letting session. Nope – after looking at ONE day’s food log – I knew it… only ~100gram of carbs (oh, don’t worry – I got plenty of fat in)… so that’s why I was sluggish.

I consider that a good week. Decent riding and lessons learned.

I’ll continue to monitor my diet and still do my best at the workouts. This coming week will be tough – as I’ll be working (and playing) in Florida…

This week: