When to weigh

One thing I've noticed is how much my weight can vary, even during the course of a single day.

Yesterday for example I gained 6lbs between the end of my workout (an easy recovery ride) and bedtime. 

The reasons for this are varied but I think the primary one is glycogen being added or used up.

Anyway for reasons of future consistency I'll be using my weight immediately pre workout as a basis for my w/kg goals.

4x16 3/4 2/3 aint bad

The main set each week for the next four will be 4x16@97% of FTP. 

I'm doing this as part of my polarised plan, following a study mentioned at the end of this presentation by Stephen Seiler 

https://quantifiedrowing.com/2015/09/27/from-polarized-to-optimized-new-lecture-from-prof-steven-seiler/

Yesterday was my first shot and I was a bit apprehensive. It certainly proved hard and I didn't quite hit target my numbers being 297W>290W.>287W>266W

Given my FTP is around 300W atm this makes 99%/97%/96%/89%

So a bit of a decline and last rep didn't quite hit the mark.

Still I'm more than happy with the result. Firstly it's a useful benchmark for the coming weeks.

More importantly though I want to get away from just focusing on power. I also want to work on my weight and mental toughness. 

Both of these were great. Following the workout I was under 150lbs for the first time in ages and approaching my long term target. 

But even better was my mental approach. For the final interval I didn't beat myself up for being low but just focused on form and getting through. I made it and in the process banked some very useful memories for the future.
 

Simple cheap food

A key reason why I feel I have my weight under control is that I've established a simple backbone of 3 square meals a day.

• Breakfast 85g of porridge made up with milk
• Lunch 85g of basmati brown rice and 350g of frozen vegetable
• Dinner the same as lunch

For variety I may add a bit of fruit at breakfast. Lunch and dinner I'll add some protein perhaps fried up with some onions and/or some extra vegs or fruit. A tablespoon of sauce or pickle also helps keep things different.

All this makes for a diet that I find remarkably satisfying. It's quick and simple to prepare and leaves me full. It's also pretty much perfect in it's macro breakdown for high volume workout training.

It's also pretty cheap. The basics above work out as less than £1 a day for over 3000kcal per day. 

Weight way back

Way back I got myself some scales that talk to the interweb. A bit of an extravagance but the advantage is that I can easily see a long term picture of how my weight has changed as shown in the chart above.

The first measures are from back in 2013. I'd forgotten that I was under 70kg back then. I'd also forgotten about the slow but steady rise to mid 2015 and the reduction down to Xmas of that year. Another slow but steady rise since then to a plateau.

Then right at the end the line starts going down again, pretty consistently since the start of 2019. 

All in all I'm pretty happy with this picture. It provides some evidence that I am on the right track and is pretty motivating to boot.

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.