After the IRONMAN events of 2017 (Texas, Santa Rosa, Chattanooga and Florida) I wanted to recover for a couple of months (although I still did two marathons in December and the Dopey challenge in January) and I put on about 6 pounds. Here we are needing to train for this years IRONMANs and wanted to lose the 6lbs and my wife also wanted to lose some weight so we made a bet of it. Who could lose the most body fat percentage in 5 weeks (we started last week) with the final weigh in being my birthday (4 weeks from today). Now this is slanted in my wives favor because we are talking percentage and I weigh a lot more so while 1% is 2lbs of fat loss for me its substantially less for her but I made up the terms so can’t complain 🙂
Last week I was at 11.2% body fat and I’ve trained my butt off and I felt I ate a lot better the past week. I weigh in on Saturday before my training so between weigh-ins:
- Saturday – 3 hour bike ride (63 miles, 2200 calories) and 1 hr 10 min run (7 miles, 1150 calories) so 3,350 calories and consumed about 1600 during the training so 1750 deficit
- Sunday – Rest day
- Monday – 30 minutes bike (400 calories) and 1 hour hill running (1200 calories) and 1hr 15 of chest, triceps and abs (400 calories) and consumed about 430 during training so 1570 deficit
- Tuesday – 30 minutes bike (400 calories) and 1 hour cross trainer (840 calories) and 1hr 15 of back, biceps and abs (400 calories) and consumed about 200 during training so 1440 deficit
- Wednesday – 18.3 mile run in 3 hours (3000 calories) and consumed 1300 during training so 1700 deficit
- Thursday – 30 minutes bike (400 calories) and 1 hour cross trainer (840 calories) and 1hr 15 of chest, triceps and abs (400 calories) and consumed about 200 during training so 1440 deficit
- Friday – 30 minutes bike (400 calories) and 1 hour cross trainer (840 calories) and 1hr 15 of back, biceps and abs (400 calories) and consumed about 200 during training so 1440 deficit
So in total a deficit of 9,340 calories during the training. One pound of fat is 3,500 so I was feeling pretty good. Based on my body size and muscle mass my Base Metabolic Rate (BMR) is about 2000 calories which is the calories the body burns just to exist and not moving so normally you would actually burn about 50% more than that through walking around, driving and doing various things but my job is basically sedentary sitting at a computer all day so I’ll say mine is 2,200 for the hours I’m not at the gym.
Now what do I eat each day on average?
- Pre-workout whole-wheat English muffin with jam (200 calories)
- 60 grams of protein after training (300 calories)
- Breakfast microwave muffin (300 calories)
- Lunch (totally varies but lets say normally about 1000)
- After lunch riesen chocolate (45 calories)
- Mid afternoon protein shake (20 grams of protein and 100 calories)
- Dinner (varies but lets say normally 1000 calories)
- Post dinner tea-spoon of cookie dough (120 calories)
- Pre-bed casein protein shake (20 grams of protein and 100 calories)
About 3,100 calories a day. Now I had some slip-ups this week as had to travel for a couple of days which meant what-a-burger one night, butter croissants one morning as I couldn’t find anything, extra snacks as couldn’t have my normal afternoon protein shake, half a donut Friday and extra pizza Friday lunch (beyond the normal Friday night pizza at Grimaldis). But still felt I was going to do great as even with those things on average food was about 600 calories less than what I should have burned a day so I was thinking 1 lb of fat loss, maybe a little more and was hoping for .7% fat loss. This morning I weighed in.
11.1% body fat and actually was also about 1/4 of a pound heavier than last week. A grand total offffff .1% or.2lbs of body fat. WTH!!! So not the .7% I had wanted. Clearly I had eaten far worse than I realized. I have 4 weeks left and still would love to lose the 3% which means 6lbs of body fat or 1.5lbs a week. That’s a 5000 calorie deficit a week or about 700 a day. This is high and I’m really at the tail end of what I can lose but I’ll give it my best shot! What can I do different? Well I’ll cut out my riesen and cookie dough treat, be strict about my meals and try to cut out cheese and bread as much as possible. I guess we’ll see how next weeks weigh in goes.
It’s always darkest before dawn
I missed my week 1 goal completely however the path to success is failure. I look for what I can learn and also there are other considerations.
Firstly the machines are not 100% accurate and I’ve seen swings before so I’m not going to super obsess over this one reading.
Second I always try and judge by how my clothes feel and how I look. I’ve felt that I’ve lost some body fat based on my upper body look. Below is some biceps from Friday last week.
Third, my training has been awesome the past week. As I listed earlier I have done a stack of training this week, most days in addition to the cardio I did about an hour and a quarter of heavy weights. I’ve not felt tired during the day and my training today went great and even now after 5 hours this morning of hard training I feel fine!
So while I want to lose some weight I don’t want to risk my training which is ultimately the most important thing. That’s why my plan for next week is not really focusing on taking out food but rather the junk aspects but I want to keep in the good calories.
The other good news is my wife didn’t lose any weight last week either so I’m not at any disadvantage so its all about the next 4 weeks 🙂
Wish me luck 🙂
The Iron Brit 