Many say the 4th discipline in Triathlons is nutrition. It’s all about what your body can handle, and taking good care of it. I admit, I’ve never been a healthy eater, but a good way to improve that is to be aware of actually what is being consumed. Before all this started, and I think I’ve mentioned this before, I was tracking all my food intake and fitness calorie burn via the Livestrong iPhone app and website. Everything I eat, good or bad, is tracked. I’ve set up my target calorie count (which I’m still not sure if I should aim higher since my level of activity has increased), and for a few months now I’ve recorded everything. I don’t think I’ve skipped a day yet in these past four months.
From the consistency of doing all this, I’ve got a pretty good idea of how much I’ve been eating vs how many calories I’ve been burning with all these workouts. Weekends are tough because if you look at the chart above, I’m burning thousands and thousands of calories, and I’m still not eating enough! I also have to be careful not to load up these calories with junk food calories though. What do I do?? I still don’t know. Is it better to be at a comfortable negative net calories than even net calories filled up with unhealthy calories? Time to do some research or talk to my coaches, and I’ll report back here.