by Gordo Byrn
Superior relative performance is about making a habit out of things that your competition is unwilling (or unable) to do.
Last week, I wrote about the three fundamental aspects of pace. At it's most basic level, pace is about overcoming ourselves. Nutritional improvement has many similar characteristics to pace with one big exception -- our existing habits are much more visible to the outside world. This visibility is one of reasons why the topic is packed with emotional power -- spend a week training with me and I'll have a good idea about your nutritional habits. The exception would be folks with "hidden" illnesses, such as bulimia.
When you look at what most athletes "do," you will quickly see that their training is not about goal race performance. Rather, training is driven by other factors in their lives -- most typically habit and peer group. If performance matters then understanding the emotional component of your nutritional choices is an essential starting point. Having been around thousands of athletes -- as well as observing my own idiosyncrasies -- I'll share a few drivers.
Most of us are either over- or under-eaters due to:
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A desire to eat more: This was the reason I started training. It was a key driver in pushing me towards the ultradistance end of our sport -- more exercise equalling more food. It took the combination of being in love and not being able to train to provide the motivation for me to break this cycle. This pattern manifests in extremely rapid offseason weight gain.
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A desire to eat "lots" but run a calorie deficit: Endurance sports allows anorexic athletes to hide their condition. Some traits that you'll want to watch:
- Counting with a focus on calorie deficits and weight loss -- rather than performance
- Performance that declines despite appropriate training
- Chronic illness, injury, fatigue and/or mood swings
As a coach, you will receive a lot of push back from the anorexics on your team -- the most popular tactics that they will use on themselves (and you) are finding high performing anorexic role-models and track their body composition, and making their nutritional choices about "health" and excluding entire food groups (meat is a traditional one; now carbs seem to be in vogue for exclusion). This pattern manifests in athletes being "breakable."
Basically, ask yourself if you tend towards being an overeater, or an undereater. The tactics that you'll need to employ to become an appropriate eater will vary depending on where you fall.
What is appropriate nutrition?
Just like our search for the magic workout, many of us are on a quest for the perfect meal plan. How do we know when we've found it? Three things:
- Stable weight over time
- Rapid recovery
- High quality training
From a performance point of view, the above is where you need to focus. Not grams of macronutrients; total kcal ingested; total kj burned... etc. Nutrition "tools" (including your scale) all reinforce your existing patterns. Focus on quality, not counting.
Your goal is to find a stable, powerful weight not "race" weight.
Race weight is a socially acceptable destination for being underfed.
Enhancing Performance
So the first step is creating the framework for a stable, powerful body. Once that is done, you can start fine-tuning towards performance.
Three key concepts:
- Replace sugar calories with good fats: Nuts, olive oil, avocados -- these are far better sources of calories than sugar.
- Replace boxed food with real food: Foods without labels are best. Just like the eskimos have 20 different words for snow -- the "performance" nutrition industry has a lot of ways to sneak sugar into our diets.
- Never get hungry: If you have a multi-year habit of overeating carbs then this one takes time. To tackle this issue in my own life, I over-ate protein and veggies for many years. It wasn't until I had achieved a stable weight that I was able to shift towards balanced, consistent nutrition (smaller, frequent feedings). I still like to overeat when I'm excessively fatigued. It's one of the warning signs that I have a little too much stress in my life.
As you become proficient at the above, while training moderately and reducing total stress in your life, you'll find that your body changes naturally.
Sustainable weight loss is about a kilo per month (half a pound a week). A kilo a month probably appears really slow to you -- and it is. However, your primary goal remains stable weight, not weight loss.
- If you tend towards overeating, then you want to address your weight gain periods, rather than worrying about maximizing weight loss.
- If you tend towards undereating then you will need to focus on the performance gains that will come from creating a more powerful body.
Simple, not easy.
gordo
