Worms don't listen to bassoons

Mrs M and I went to see Robin Ince. It was great fun, with many highlights, one of my favourites (and Mrs Ms to judge by the chortles coming from next to me) concerned Charles Darwin's last book 

This showed that even at his latest stages of life Darwin was still the consummate scientist. His investigations into one of nature's more mundane species Included testing to see if they could hear sounds.

He did this by submitting them to various sounds, including a whistle, a piano and, remarkably, a bassoon (completely sensible of course, it's quite possible that worms would react to low notes from a bassoon while being insensible to others)

While no means in the same league as Charles Darwin, I do share a lifetime's passion for science with him. That's what I find most absorbing and motivating about the training I do. I love all the facts/figures and experimenting with what works and what doesn't.  

Just listening

Much of my training atm consists of long "fatburn" or "sweetspot" sessions. 

This is proving to be a great opportunity to actually listen to music again. 

Building up to target power then just zoning in and actually concentrating on an album rather than just have it in the background is a great experience. 

I'm combining catching up on old favourites with listening to some of the new tracks I have inherited from my children.

Great fun.

Test four

After a bit of a break carried out test four today. 

Went remarkably well, especially as I have been concentrating on keeping weight down.

Good, if slow, news on that score. Tested weight is 68.8kg, lowest to date, still on the upper side of the BMI range but heading towards the middle.

As for the test itself

Results of the test were:
Bike used: Wattbike
Position:    Upright
Weight> >>>>>>68.8kg
20 min power>> 340W
FTP power >>> 323W
w/kg >>>>>>>> 4.70 
Avg HR 158bpm
Max HR 164bpm
Last 17 min drift 1.73% 

Pretty damn good. What was especially impressive was the quality of the test. I set an initial target pace of around 330W+  then just held steady for the whole effort, just upping the effort slightly in the second half. 

HR remarkable.  Average was 6 bpm less than previous test, despite extra power. Ditto max at 164 was 5 less and well off my red zone of 172bpm+
Drift once warmed up was only 1.7%, compared to 5% last time.

In part this will be down to the nature of my training atm, which tends to lower HR. However the HR results are matched by how it felt. Subjectively this was easiest test so far and I was genuinely surprised when I saw I had touched 340W. 

Cals in vs Cals Out

For the past 3 and a bit weeks I have been keeping a food diary, as accurately as possible, counting calories in vs  calories out. 

The results to date make interesting reading. 

I started at 71.1kg and my latest weight is 69.8 (measured last thing at night). So 1.3kg lost to date. Over this time I averaged a daily deficit of 764 calories. 

I am also measuring body fat% using some Tamita electronic scales. Now, while at least as if not more important compared to weight, this measure can be a bit hit and miss. It varies quite a lot during the day and day to day can shift quite a lot.

Still it's not entirely random and I think safest thing to check is a moving average over a week or so. This shows a reduction from 15.9% to 14.3%.

Taking the two sets of figures together 

• At start I weighed 71.1kg of which 15.9% = 11.3kg was fat
• Now I weight 69.8kg of which 14.3% = 10.0kg is fat

Difference = 1.3kg fat lost which matches weight lost. 

This is good news as it seems to indicate the weight gone is fat. One issue with diets is that you can easily lose a lot of weight (2-4kg) just by burning off glycogen. But this only takes a very small calorie deficit (2000kcal or so in total so can be done in a day) and comes back just as fast.

It's a bit of bad news though. In total my deficit is 18000kcal and this should mean more than 2kg of fat should have gone (assuming a pound of fat = somewhere between 2800 and 3700kcal (see here for source of these numbers))

It's possible I may be overestimating deficit but don't think so. I have been pretty assiduous in keeping the food diary for cals in and my cals out is based on power data which is pretty accurate.

This leaves one other variable which is base metabolic rate (BMR). I have set this quite low at 2300kcal, which is 200kcal less than the 2500 average for males that appears on all the nutrition advice panels on food.

But it looks as if this is still too high, by a factor of around 300kcal. 

This makes a sort of sense. It would account for my lifetime's fight vs the scales. It may also be linked (or even caused by?) my capacity to perform well in endurance events. 

Whatever, I will reduce my BMR to 2000kcal and see how that changes things.

Weght>Power

Right now my first focus is on losing weight. I plan on keep doing this until I get to the point where

• I can't lose any more
• My power is affected (i.e. I can't replicate previous test power)
• I get sick of it

I'll also be keeping an eye on my BMI and note that along with any tests. 

On BMI I am 5' 8 1/4" tall which is 173.4cm. My weight atm is 69.2kg which according to the NHS site here  gives me a BMI of 23.2 which is on the higher side of the healthy range.

While OK from a general health pov this goes to show I can still aim to lose a bit. Top cyclists will be much closer to the other end of the range while still maintaining power