The new Athlete eating plan: week 1

Just before my head injury, I planned to reduce my body fat, as a result of seeing this picture after the European championships in Spain in June. Although I am aware I am by no means ‘fat’, I felt like I looked that way standing next to two lean athletes.

It has been a tough road, let me tell you. There is so much to learn, I hardly know where to begin. I enlisted the help from Martin MacDonald, a well renowned nutritionist that came highly recommended. I was instantly ordered to:

·        Remove all processed sugars – no biscuits, sweets, cakes, chocolate, ice cream, or, quite frankly, deserts of any kind!

·        Increase protein intake – more meat and fish, nuts, etc. I don’t eat much meat, so whey protein was also added in.

·        Delete all low fat options from my cupboard and eat MORE FAT. I do know a little bit about this from talking to Becky White, a nutritionist friend of mine I know through twitter. However, I have now got to use butter not margarine, full fat milk and full fat cheese too, the three low fat options I had hung onto!

·        Decrease carbohydrate consumption and try as best as possible to tailor when I eat it around training sessions. I was also told that carbs should mainly come from only bulgur wheat, quinoa, sweet potato and oats.

·        Have one ‘eat what I like for dinner’ day per week.

This made a drastic change to my diet. All my food is weighed out and my instructions come in athlete specific quantities. What basically means is that my daily food intake looks roughly like this:

EXAMPLE

Breakfast:

Carb: Oats / museli (only if I am training during the morning)

Non carb: Omelette, eggs bacon and tomato

Lunch:

Carb: chicken and quinoa salad, chicken and bulgur wheat salsa

Non carb: Chicken or tuna and mozzarella salad, homemade chicken soup

Dinner:

Salmon, sweet potato and veg, beef casserole, Spanish omelette, homemade spag bol, chicken salsa

Changes I noticed:

·        Not used to breakfast not being porridge – it’s all I used to eat!!

·        Finding eating so much protein rather a struggle! I feel like I am constantly eating meat!

·        Snacking on nuts just seemed strange. I love nuts but had switched them for fruit, because I thought nuts were too high in fat! I miss my fruit!

·        I am sooooooo bored with salad!! I need to find a way around that!

·        I have never eaten so many eggs and so much fresh veg before in my life I don’t think!

·        Seems strange to not be allowed the regular normal potato L

·        I miss crackers, rice cakes, cereal bars, vegetable crisps, cottage cheese, eating whatever soup I like, veggie options, chips, ice cream, baked beans, brown sauce, honey... I could go on for ever!

Unexpected bonus

The start of this new way of eating (‘seeing the light’ as Martin calls it!!) came unexpectedly at the same time as a serious head injury following a cycling accident. I was originally intending to get leaner for the world championships. Now, suddenly, even attending that is in the balance. However, we adapted the plan a little to compensate for the fact that I was not training anywhere near as much, by doing two basic things:

·        Cutting down on Carbs – trying to make only one meal a day carb based instead of the usually recommended 2.

·        Cutting out the protein recovery shakes.

In one week, these simple measures resulted in an unexpected bonus on the scales. Despite also going out for dinner as well during this week (my ‘eat what I like’ evening.. and oh boy I DID!!) I lost 2lb.

It’s hard working to such precision. I haven’t really ever considered food as a fuel before. I think this will take lots of getting used to.