Losing weight can be a confusing business for endurance sports, often choosing between a higher calorie intake to support training that will not aid weight loss, or a lower calorie diet that doesn’t provide enough energy to train. You might think that as you build up your mileage the body fat will automatically drop off, but this is sometimes not the case, with most of us simply eating more to refuel the body’s stores and suppress an increasing appetite. As we continue to train our body becomes more efficient at our regular training pace which also leads to a reduction in the calorie burn of our workouts and this can make fat loss harder work than you might think. So how should you go about losing fat while you progress your performance too, after all that’s what most of us are after!
Eating to control your appetite, promote good energy levels, preserve muscle and burn more fat calories in and outside of training is the key to getting lean. Executed in the right way, with the right workouts too, this can support the development of speed, helping you to progress your performance and get faster too. Here’s how.
Eat regularly
A regular training programme will keep you burning calories but if you don’t eat regularly to support this you could find yourself missing workouts and upsetting this calorie burning pattern. Indeed, a regular eating pattern is the key to providing stable energy levels that will support one or even multiple training sessions across the day. We have all probably experienced training sessions where we have started hungry and were much more inclined to miss the session and go home for dinner than complete the set workout. Ensuring you eat three main meals and a mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack will give you a good framework around which to organise your training, ensure you are fuelled and ready to go for pretty much every training session. Timing your workout for 2 to 3 hours after your last meal sitting depending on its size, just making sure you give your body time to digest your food before training, provides a perfect strategy for energy.
Think nutrients not calories
Of course, in order to lose weight we do need to take on board fewer calories than our body expends across the day. This is where many of us are tempted to cut calories drastically in an attempt lose weight fast. The problem with a high calorie deficit is that it often leaves us hungry and lacking energy as well as leaving the immune system vulnerable.....hardly an effective combination for your training requirements. This is where you can benefit from looking at food management in a more sophisticated way. A sensible dietary deficit which can support training whilst encouraging weight loss is one providing approximately 250 calories from your weight maintenance need. If looked at mathematically this appears to offer a weight loss benefit of approximately 1lb every two weeks. Although this might not sound like amazing progress, combining this small deficit with an increased protein intake and reduced carbohydrate intake can increase fat loss over and above this amount. As protein requires more energy to be digested, it creates a higher calorie deficit than carbohydrate or fat, so simply increasing your protein intake from 15% of your dietary intake to 25%, whilst maintaining a modest carbohydrate intake equal to 55% and capping off your fat intake at 20% of calories, offers a faster method for fat loss than the typical 15%/65%/20% pattern that many endurance athletes follow, whilst not compromising your need for any nutrient.
Protein benefits
One of the additional benefits of lifting protein intake is that you’ll feel fuller for longer on the same calorie intake too. This can help you control an increasing appetite and keep the fat loss coming, whilst also supporting muscle repair. Indeed, the International Olympic Committee, support the use of protein supplements for athletes when recommended correctly, stating that “Foods or snacks that contain high-quality proteins should be consumed regularly throughout the day as part of the day’s total protein intake, and in particular soon after exercise, in quantities sufficient to maximise the synthesis of proteins, to aid in long-term maintenance of muscle and bone and in the repair of damaged tissues”. So, protein will help you manage your appetite, accelerate fat loss and help you recover from training too.
If you’re struggling to meet your protein needs, Maxifuel’s Protrient provides 24g of easily digestible whey protein, making this perfect to meet your needs for snacks or immediately after a training session.
Include fat busting foods
Once you’ve got you’ve organised your small regular meals with a small deficit in calories from your needs for weight maintenance a slight increase in protein for an extra fat loss effect, the next step to boost your fat-burning power is to add ingredients to your diet that stimulate the metabolic rate. Fortunately, many of these ingredients also have the dual effect of increasing alertness and focus too, helping you to work out harder or longer and improve your performance. Indeed, Maxifuel’s Viper Boost capsules can provide an often much needed motivation boost prior to a training session whilst increasing your alertness so you can take your workout to the next level. All this whilst increasing your metabolic rate and the use of fat as fuel.
A Viper Boost bar or gel can provide the same boost mid-way through a long ride or run, helping you to keep going, keep focused and again, lifting fat metabolism.
Fuel your workouts
You might be tempted to cut out carbohydrate support for your regular runs and rides in an effort to reduce calorie intake and increase fat loss, but with most of the research suggesting that fasted workouts are simply followed by a rise in the appetite and greater food intake outside of training to compensate, you’re better off fuelling your workout to support better performance. Supporting your workout with 45-60g of carbohydrate per hour in 750ml of fluid will allow you to train harder for longer which in turn will increase post exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) and therefore calorie burn. Viper Boost is perfect to do this, providing a carbohydrate fuel source with the compliment of caffeine and taurine to accelerate fat burning.
Choose Fat busting workouts
Interestingly, it’s often when endurance athletes switch to more speed and strength work that body fat is easier to lose. Contrary to the logic that if you’re out there for longer you’ll burn more fat, it is likely that high intensity work will produce the best results in terms of achieving the most favourable body composition changes. Indeed, high intensity interval training has been shown to be superior to long slow distance if you’re in the pursuit of a leaner body. Choose from these fat busting sessions to get the best results.
Fat Busting Workouts:
Instead of running steady, swap one of your weekly runs for a short, sharp interval session. This one is perfect to replace a steady 6 mile run. Take Viper Boost capsules, gel or bar prior to your run or sip on 500ml of Viper Boost in-between efforts.
Run Session:
- Warm Up: 10 – 15 minutes easy jog warm up
- 1st Set: 5 x 400m @ 5k pace with 1 minute rest recovery
- 2nd Set: 5 x 800m @ 10k pace with 1 minute rest recovery
- Cool down: 10 minutes easy jog cool down and static stretching
- Bike session: Instead of a 1 hour steady turbo or ride outside on your bike, swap this for the following interval workout to boost your calorie burn. Remember to fuel this with 60g of carbohydrate per hour and some fat busting additions as found in Viper Boost for best results.
- Warm up: 20 min easy riding to warm up including 4 x 30 second spin-ups
- Main set: 10 x Power Intervals for 3 minutes at 10 mile time trial race effort (50rpm ) with a 2 min recovery spin between each set. Increase your resistance on each set.
- Cool down: 15-20 minutes easy spinning followed by static stretching.
- Swim session: Instead of a 1 hour/2000m swim break your workout into faster intervals, sipping on Viper Boost in-between sets.
- Warm up: 200m easy,200m pull bouy and paddles,100m kick main set: 10 x 100m with 15 sec rest 400m with paddles only wd: 100m backstroke
Working in sets across these sports will push up your basic pace whilst increasing the calorie burning effect of your workout and fat burning following your higher intensity workout.
Tweet
