Food Channel

This study allegedly shows that a low fat diet has no impact on cancer and heart disease rates. Yet when I read through it all, finally it states that the low fat group "reduced the percentage of fat in their diet to 24 percent of daily calories, and by the end of the study their diets had 29 percent of their calories as fat." That is considered "low fat?"

From the USDA's Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005: "Keep total fat intake between 20 to 35 percent of calories."

From the Complete Guide to Sports Nutrition by Monique Ryan: "For most athletes, a diet adequate in calories for their training requirements and weight goals should supply about 20 to 25 percent of the total calories from fat." And, "The American Heart Association sets 15 percent as the lower limit for fat intake, because very low fat intakes may not benefit the general population and could cause nutrient deficiencies in some individuals."

Most days, I get 10-15% of my calories from fat, but then there are days (like yesterday), where my body tells me to eat more fat, and so then I indulge. The benchmark I use, though, for my core diet is 15% of calories from fat. Since I am taking in a wide variety of foods (and weird ones, at that--I love chicken liver, sardines, liver sausage and smelly cheeses), and my sports nutrition is highly vitamin-enriched, I don't think I'm missing out on any key nutrients.

About 10 years ago, I began eating a very low fat diet (maybe 10% of calories from fat) in an effort to shed bodyfat. It worked, but the reason it worked was that I also dramatically reduced my carbohydrate intake and increased my protein intake. I was eating maybe 1800 calories per day, lifting 3-4 hours per week and doing maybe 3 hours of cardio per week. I only ate that way for about 6 months, and it taught me that there are a lot of tasty foods that don't contain a lot of fat, and I learned to eat better than I had been. I hadn't been big on fruit before this, so that was a great habit to acquire. Then, in 2001, training for my first Ironman, I was a little less strict on the fat intake, but went nuts on the carbohydrates, and I ended up gaining weight (and plenty of fat!). What did I learn this time? Fat is not necessarily the culprit; total calories are.

Now I still adhere to a low fat diet most of the time to keep my saturated fat intake low (yes, I eat lots of chicken breast, turkey, very lean beef and fish), and I am more careful about the timing of my carbohydrate intake in relation to my training. Since I train twice a day most days, and I follow the modified Paleo diet principles as best I can (starch and sugars only directly before, during or after training, limit processed foods), I can pretty much indulge in carbs all day long, and I do. But the higher glycemic ones come only right before or during training (Power Bars, Gatorade, Ultra Violence), and post training I always do the combination thing of carbs plus lots of protein (generally brown rice with lots of veggies and lean protein).

I think the key for me has been to build a solid aerobic engine, and then I feed the fire continuously. If there was a "Sheila Cam," you would see me eating something right when I wake up (with Kona coffee), then drinking Gatorade, Ultra Violence or a voodoo-concoction in the pool, then eating fruit, maybe some pretzels, maybe a (gasp!) Lean Pocket for my mid-morning snack, lots of water, maybe some Ultra Violence before my second workout, more Gatorade or voodoo mix during the second workout, then Endurox R4 and lunch (typically a Lean Cuisine that has rice in it), and probably something salty like a few Pringles or string cheese for a mid-afternoon snack, and then finally dinner, and maybe later another snack like a 1/2 of a PB&J or Swedish Fish or more fruit.

But no way am I buying into the 25% of my calories from fat. I've got a system that is working for me, and most of the time, I just don't want a lot of fat. I generally don't get cravings for pizza, fried foods, pastries, ice cream or McDonald's very often. When I do get them, I just acknowledge the thought and move on. And moving on reminds me that I have more workouts to do the next day and that if I put crap in my body, those workouts will feel like crap.

But check back with me in 2 months when I'm out doing 5+ hour rides. I'm not talking about going out and "JFR," either. It's steady, Ironman pacing or faster (usually faster). After one of those, Italian beef, pizza, fried chicken or pasta with eggs, bacon and cheese are good ways to get lots of calories. But since I'm used to not eating a lot of food by volume at any one sitting, I am not in any big danger of overdoing it. Remember, though the most important thing you can do on those very long ride days is to try and eat 3 ACTUAL MEALS, which is the very best tip I got from my very first triathlon coach. On those days, typically I awaken at 4:45, eat breakfast plus drink a carbohydrate supplement of about 300 calories (it's important to load up the tank for these things), then I drive maybe an hour (including bike setup, etc.), am riding by 7AM, take in about 250 calories per hour, finish around noon-2PM, depending on how much riding I'm doing. Next meal is technically lunch, and it's huge. I eat as much as I can, to the point of slight discomfort, and then I just lay down, digest and relax. And then I try and make myself eat later before I pass out. The following day I am usually still hungry, since it's likely I didn't replace all the calories I burned the previous day (but be careful on this--some people take in too many calories during training, underestimate their burn rate and then use the long day as a license to pig out), but then it's back to the business of fueling the machine properly.

It can take many years to understand how your body works and calibrate your eating, not just calories, but nutrient breakdown (fats, carbs and protein) that will yield the very best performance that your body can give you. When I look at the Olympians, I think about the tremendous sacrifices they have made in their lives to be able to reach the pinnacle of their sport, and I smile, because even though I am "Joe Average," (or Jane, if you will), I think I understand a little of what they put themselves through and can relate to it. They say that if you want to get ahead in business that one thing you should do is emulate others in higher positions than you are. I think the same is true in sport. When I look at the Olympians, I see dedication, hard work, attention to detail, intense focus, and total unadulterated joy in what they are doing!

Now that's what I call FUN!

172, 173, 171

LOVE those average wattage numbers--from today's bike workout of 3x10' FT (2'). I hafta push when I can to see if I can go harder. YESSSSSSSSS!!!!! And the beautiful thing was that they came at a lower average HR than my 2x20' FT test last week, where I averaged a paltry 165 watts.

My new number to meet or beat for FT interval watts is 170. What the hell! I think my coach threw the number 175 at me knowing that I would try to beat it. If I can make 180 by Ironman Brazil, that puts me in the "Very Good" range for power to weight ratio--the bottom of the Very Good range, but I'll take it. For reference sake, my coach is striving for body composition changes and power increases to put himself into the middle of the Very Good range, so that tells me I must be doing well, huh? Not bad for a 49-YO almost geezer chic.

OK, let's not overreach here, but based on this week, 175 is attainable, with continued hard work. My goal is to make it there in 3 weeks. Can She-Ra do it? I'm going to work my ASS off (and believe me, my ass is getting worked plenty) to give it a shot. After that, I've got effectively 9 weeks to work it some more before Brazil.

Yikes. This is a little freaky raising the stakes every week. But believe it or not, I feel GREAT after the workout. It was only 1:05 total.

This makes 4 days in a row of breakthroughs, which has got to be some sort of personal record for me. I have never felt this awesome in my entire life! Thank you, COLLECTIVE! I'm psyched about my swim workout tomorrow morning. It's a tough one, but all I gotta do is eat well tonight and rest up and I should be good to go.

She-Ra Scores the Hat Trick!

Yes, that's right, members of the Collective and the Swarm.

She-Ra has completed a Hat Trick by achieving breakthroughs in all three triathlon sports on consecutive days:

2/7/2006: Highest ever average watts for 2x15' FT intervals of 167 and 171, at LOWER HEART RATES THAN FOR THE FORMAL FT TEST LAST THURSDAY.

2/8/2006:
AM Workout: Fastest 200's so far this season (the main set was 10x200, 15" RI, 1-3 descend, 4-6 negative split, 7-9 descend to faster than #3, rest 2', then #10 all out), and they felt GOOD and I was swimming with GOOD FORM the entire time, so now I KNOW I CAN GO FASTER NEXT WEEK!!!

PM Workout: Repeat of last Wednesday's tempo run, only added 5' more tempo time, same speeds but HR was just not moving up much and it didn't feel hard so I increased the speed. And it still felt too comfortable! So that means I NEED TO RUN FASTER NEXT WEEK.

See now the thing with all of this is it means I have to GO FASTER NEXT WEEK IN ALL 3 SPORTS. And I will do my best to achieve that. Here comes Peak #2 for Ralph's 1/2 IM. I can't believe the fitness level I have, especially since I know there's MORE ROOM FOR GROWTH! After Ralph's then I begin to pile on some volume (14 hours is not so much to me) and see if I can maintain the speed gains over longer distances. I am SO blessed for all of this to be coming together seemingly effortlessly; yet the work behind it has been, well, something else. I've never worked at this level before, and it's paying off in spades.

Now lest you think this is something that just "happens" by training a lot, that's only a small part of the story. It has been accompanied by an increasing level of mindfulness and some extra special attention to the care and feeding of the machine--lots of stretching, more strength work and a conscientous effort to minimize stress that I can control. With all that has come a sense of peace and calm that I carry into every single workout that I do and also into my workday activities. I have built a strong foundation that can carry me through so many things, and while none of us enjoys being tested emotionally, by being used to testing myself weekly in sport and knowing where I stand, it gives me confidence to withstand all sorts of other things that come my way that I generally don't write about here. Not like my life is all peaches and cream! But it's the best I can make it, right now, and that's all there is.

That's My Girl!

Do you know who she is? ME!!! SHE-RA!!! One of my nephews used to call me this when he was quite young. So did one of my former boyfriends. OK so I don't have her boobs, and my hair is short, not long, but man I felt like She-Ra this morning in the pool. Alas, where is He-Man? I'm still looking for that dude.

I slept oh-so-well last night, even though I had a little bit of the Ultra Violence during yesterday's highly successful bike session. I had a great massage in the evening, took a nice, hot shower, got into my jammies, snarfed down a big bowl of pasta (with a beer), looked through the Inside Triathlon "Gear Review" issue (unfortunately, I don't really need anything except some new rubber this spring), then fell into a deep, peaceful sleep.

I woke up just before the coffee pot clicked on, and I waited until I could smell the coffee before bounding out of bed. Even though my massage was great, I looked forward to some good stretching before heading to the pool, since my calves were still a little tight from the beating I gave them yesterday. But overall, I felt really good, even breaking into a smile thinking about what I had accomplished yesterday, and for some reason, I figured I didn't need to complete my full swim workout today. I've been working damn hard on all fronts, so something like 2500 yards would be fine for today.

I drank my coffee and ate my breakfast, and then I did my stretching. The calves certainly needed it! I headed to the pool with a smile on my face.

The suit I decided to wear is relatively new, and it is quite tight. When I first received the suit, I had ordered a size 32, which normally fits me just fine, but this past 6 months or so I'm closer to a size 30. The company had told me the polyester suits ran a little smaller, which is why I ordered a size 32. Then I received it and tried it on, it was just a teensy bit too big in the middle, so after trying it on over the next few days, I decided to return it (and another suit I had ordered) for a size 30. When the size 30 arrived, I tried it on and was like, whoa, now this is a challenge! But I kept it, figuring that if I wore the suit enough, it would eventually stretch out a little.

So I put the suit on, and it's snug, but not constricting, and when I began my warmup, I felt strangely more hydrodynamic. Was it the tight-fitting suit? Who cares. I could tell from my warmup, even though the pool was a warm 85, that I was on deck for a good swim.

Everything just felt good--my legs, arms, lats, shoulders, body position, and I thought to myself, "Finally my swimming is going to start coming together." And it did. Big time. While I'm still not a fast swimmer, I regained my 200 speed that I had towards the end of last season, and now I think I can surpass it. Woo-hoo!!! She-Ra is back! And of course, I did the full 3,300 yards in the workout. It felt so good, there was no reason to cut it short!

Of course, now I sit here wondering if I can go for the hat trick and really nail my tempo run this afternoon. All signs point to it.

This is just an outstanding week. Key bike and run workouts are all harder than last week (the bike is by choice; the run is planned), my strength sessions are longer and harder, and I'm swimming faster. I think that a little more attention to ensuring I get plenty of calories is making a difference--I'm not letting my glycogen stores become depleted. And that little bug my coach put in my ear keeps telling me I can do better.

Stay tuned!

Rut-Ro!

After yesterday's festivities, including a bit of whining, I managed to get 10 hours of peaceful, decaffeinated sleep (I did not partake in the Ultra Violence yesterday despite starting the day tired and completing 3 workouts). I felt pretty good this morning upon waking, and looked forward to a productive day of work and strong workouts.

The day began with a fire drill for a customer that belongs to a colleague of mine. My colleague is on vacation this week, and of course before departing, he told me, "Nothing major should come up." Yeah, OK, right, like I believe THAT (and see you thought I didn't even have a job!). So after spanking someone for failing to contact me directly and jumping over my head to my manager, I got down to business and got the issue moved along and under control, where it currently sits.

Another fire drill that began late last week resurfaced, as I had decided I would do nothing about it yesterday, and I finally got the right people on the phone and found out what was really going on, and of course I volunteered to communicate this to the customer, as I am quite confident in dispensing whatever message needs to be given. After getting the message out to all involved parties, I found time to finish up my strength work (biceps, delts and 4 core exercises) before eating lunch and trying to decide when to fit in my bike workout.

Which brings me to our friend, Astro, here. He's sitting on his doggie treadmill, but I had to get on my people bike treadmill and put out some wattage. When I fired up the machine, the watts weren't coming out as quickly as I hoped, but it was just my warmup, so it didn't matter. I had popped in the Ironman Hawaii 2005 video tape, and I have to tell you I didn't even watch it. But whenever I would glance at the TV, there was all this nice colorful stuff, like Natascha Badmann (my idol) and Faris Al-Sutan (hottie par extraordinaire).

As I neared the “moment of truth,” or when I would begin my FT intervals, I still felt like I didn’t have a whole lot of wattage in the cottage, if you know what I mean. Yet I was hell bent on having a good session. I think that Tuesdays are just hard for me until I drop some of the stress of my Monday strength sessions. Frankly, I’m amazed I have ANYTHING left on Tuesdays after what I put myself through on Mondays. But I digress and/or I must be a wimp.

I like to look at my average watts every 2-5’. I decided to start out the first interval with a bang, and just go really, really hard and see where that put me. Well, after 2’ I was at my current FT of 165. I thought, well, now there’s the gauntlet. I can’t let myself go any lower than that, and gee, even higher would be nice. So I’m pushing and pushing (just like Coach told me to do), and at about 10’ I’m seeing 167. Perfect! I wonder, though, if I’ll have anything left for the second interval. I decide what the hell, just go for it, it’s not like I’m dying or anything (and I am paying absolutely no attention to my heart rate, either), so I finish off the first interval at average watts of 167. Never did that before!

I pedal easy for 2’ and then fire up the second FT interval. My aim is to not dog it and go any lower than I did for the first interval, but if for some reason I can only manage 165 watts, that is just fine, too. But I typically like to go a little harder on my second interval “just because.” After 5’ I’m seeing 168 watts. Looks good. After 10’ I’m seeing 169 watts. I’m thinking, “Rut-Ro. Can I hit 170? That’s a number I didn’t even DREAM of seeing this year.” It’s getting real hard, but I push, push, push, and I end up at an average of 171. ONE-HUNDRED-FREAKING-SEVENTY-ONE. That’s 6 watts over my FT that I hit last week, which was essentially after a 5-week layoff.

Goes to show you what happens when someone puts a little bug in your ear to “Always be pushing” and you throw off the shackles of what you THINK you can do and you just go and DO IT.

So now I have just raised the stakes and I want to push my official FT up to 170 watts within 2 weeks. Can I do it? I think I can. Stay tuned.

Whining

I had a big training week last week, and it gets more intense this week, and more intense the week following, and one more friggin' really intense week before I get some sort of taper for Ralph's 1/2 Ironman. Did I say my training is pretty hard? I'm not complaining, and it's generally not like me to whine, but I see many others doing it, so I thought I'd indulge in a little myself.

When I woke up today, I was tired. Dead tired. Muscularly tired. Fatigued. The week that was caught up to me big time. Not to mention I had trouble falling asleep last night, even though I was pretty tired.

Did I want to get out of bed at 5:15 when I heard the coffee pot click on? Hell no. Waah, waah, waah. I was tired. I was comfortable in my big bed. Once I had fallen asleep last night, I slept pretty soundly and enjoyed a few interesting dreams. But I did not want to get out of bed. Waah, waah, waah.

I knew if I was going to swim I had better get my ass on the floor and stretch first, as I could hear my damstrings talking to me and also my back was acting a little creaky. The stretching felt good, and at least I could moan out loud without anyone judging me or making stupid remarks like, "Are you going to be OK?" Yes, dammit I'm going to be OK I just have to warm myself up a little bit before I throw my tired body into a hole in the ground filled with water so I can get more tired, so I need to eat more and then do another workout and get more tired and eat again and one more workout and more eating. Waah, waah, waah.

Did I want to swim this morning? Hell no. I always know going into a swim tired I am going to not like it so much. Waah, waah, waah. I went anyway. 3100 yards. The pool was too warm. But I swam the full 3100 yards. And I even did pretty good on my 100's, much to my surprise, even as I could feel my arms and lats about to fall off and my legs not having any power.

Waah, waah, waah. Then I needed to lift weights a few hours later. In my power and endurance phase, this week the power exercises moved up to 3x8 from 2x8. So an extra set there. I was tired when I woke up, and I was tired after swimming. But I made sure to eat a couple of bananas, drink lots of water, and even had a snack of cheese with salt to get ready for the weight session. God, I was freaking tired when I started lifting, but I still had strength. Waah, waah, waah. I decided to work my legs first today, just to punish myself even further. I figured if I got that pain out of the way first that when I had to run later maybe some of it would be gone. Waah, waah, waah.

Apparently I had plenty of strength to get through a solid hour of strength workout. And did I say it hurt like a mother and left me wanting to curl into a ball on the floor and cry, "MOMMY?" Waah, waah, waah.

More work, and actually I was quite lucid for a training session I attended and focused attentively for the entire time. But of course, in the back of my mind I kept thinking, "I have to freaking RUN yet today." Only this week I wasn't stupid--I ate lunch during the training session so I wouldn't be all depleted going into my run. And I also had some Black Forest brand Gummy Bears. Did you know that 1 serving is 17 bears? Like I freaking care. I can eat as many bears as I like, and you won't see any excess weight here. Waah, waah, waah.

Finally, it was time to run and believe it or not, I didn't feel too badly. Some friends of mine were at the Y, so I did some chit-chat and got on the treadmill, and surprise, surprise, my HR was in the dumpster. Like I didn't see that coming! But no matter, my legs felt fine, probably because I knew I "only" had to run for 50', easy to steady, with 10' of strides. The run was a cinch, and then I came home.

WAAH, WAAH, WAAH. Man am I T-I-R-E-D. All I can hope for is that I fall into a deep, deep sleep (no alarm will be set!) and that my legs come around for my bike session tomorrow. Something tells me they will as long as I EAT THE ENTIRE CONTENTS OF MY HOUSE.

The funny thing about all of this is that Mondays are an EASY day on my training schedule. Ah, the power of perspective! If I'm going to whine, it's going to be on an easy day. But I'm done whining for now. It's not like me. What IS like me is to train freaking hard and grow stronger. And I'm doing that. It's all good. I will rest, recover and get stronger from today. When was the last time I bailed on a workout? I can't remember. I don't want to.

Weekly Training Report: 1/30/2006-2/5/2006

It was another good week, pretty much a repeat of last week, except for more intensity running, more reps in my strength workout, an FT watts test workout, and I negotiated with my coach to add a brick run on Saturday. I had a slight scare feeling like I was coming down with a cold, but I think it was glycogen depletion (imagine that???).

Today after I finished my workouts, one of the trainers at the Y asked me how I was doing as we were both headed out the door. I said, "HUNGRY!" He said, "I hear you!" And so we chatted for a few minutes about our respective target calorie intakes and body fat. It was nice to converse with someone else who is so conscientous about his health. For comparison sake, he weighs 175 at 6% body fat, and I am 112 at 11% body fat. I am needing about 3,500 calories a day, and he is about the same. There is the power of the cardio workouts! But we were both talking about how we have to work to get adequate calories to prevent further weight loss. Marty said, "Other people hate us, I know." I agreed, but pointed out that we work damn hard for those calories, and that we don't eat much junk, and hey, we look fantastic! And we both shared that we enjoyed being functionally strong, so that we could DO stuff, and that we don't just want to sit around looking pretty. While we both appreciate a stricly muscular physique, we agreed that unless you do something with it, it's pretty pointless.

Here are the details of the week that was:

Swim: 10,300 yards in 3.68 hours; 25% of weekly workout time
Bike: 4.63 hours; approx. 81 miles; 31% of weekly workout time
Run: 4.75 hours; approx. 30 miles; 32% of weekly workout time
Strength: 1.67 hours; 11% of weekly workout time
Total Hours: 14.73
Approx. Calories Burned by Exercise: 6,530
Average Sleep: 8.93 hours/night
Stretching: 2.15 hours
Goals from Last Week:

• Meet or beat my previous high FT watts (162) on my Tuesday test. Did not achieve this on Tuesday, but did on Thursday. New FT watts=165. Coach says he "wants to push me up over 175 watts by Ironman Brazil." Also, my new mantra on the bike is "ALWAYS BE PUSHING." I did that on Thursday, and also during my Saturday intervals. In 4 weeks my strength routines goes to maintenance mode--at that point, LOOK OUT! I will be one hugely strong cyclist!
• Meet or beat the speeds I hit this week on my Monday and Wednesday swims for 100’s and 200’s. DONE! I think the increase in volume is helping me to just push harder in every workout.
• Average at least 8 hours of sleep per night. DONE!
• Stretch at least 15’ per day. DONE!

Accomplishments This Week:

• Achieved higher FT watts on the bike.
• Regained some swim speed (more of that to come)
• Recovered from a slight crash on Tuesday, that I think was a glycogen depletion crash combined with fighting off some sort of cold. I felt the cold again yesterday, but stuck with my hydration and increased carb intake and felt fine during today's workouts.

Goals for Next Week:

• Average 8+ hours of sleep per night.
• Stretch 15' per day.
• Meet or beat 165 watts during all FT intervals.
• Meet or beat 100 and 200 speeds in all swim workouts.

Workouts Completed this Week
Monday: Swim 3,100 yards in 1:07; Strength :48; Run :50 including strides.
Tuesday: Strength :22; Bike 1:10 including 20' and 16' at "best" watts. I was unable to hit my previous FT watts--I just felt like I didn't have any power to give. But I didn't let it get me down.
Wednesday: Swim 3,300 yards in 1:11; Run 1:05 including :20 tempo
Thursday: Strength :30; Bike 1:13 including 2x20’ (2’) FT, watts=165, 165 (new FT established)
Friday: Swim 2,900 yards in 1:03; Run :40 including strides.
Saturday: Bike 2:15 including 20’ FT at watts=166. HIM watts were also up to 149 from 142 the week before; brick run 30' where I felt absofuckinglutely fantastic! I hadn't done a brick run in 5 weeks, and I wondered how this one would feel given I did FT time on the bike, but it went well.
Sunday: Run 1:40, including 20’ Upper-Steady and 15’ Tempo; Swim 1,000 yards in :20