Diet

slowmart

So I'm starting my winter training plan for the next few months with a relative high work load for myself and a dietary input which equates to 2600 cals a day.

This is broken down to 350grams of carbs, 89g fat and 98g of protein.

So I've gone through various iterations on myfitnesspal and I've got near enough. However any suggestions general aspects I should consider to hit these daily target sets would be gratefully received. I would prefer wholesome food rather than supplements and I'm not adverse to the odd recovery drink but these usually have equal protein and carbs?

Thanks in advance

homers_double

We watched Jamie Olivers super foods the other night and some of those seen high protien etc as well as tasty dishes.

Might be worth a look?

buckmulligan

I was doing something similar earlier in the year and one thing that I found a major help was to come up with a library of 'balanced meals', where you're hitting the correct ratio of carbs:protein:fat each mealtime and then all you have to do is adjust the quantity to hit your daily calorie targets.

If you're mostly cooking for yourself it's pretty easy to do, e.g. switch out cheese sandwiches for tuna, add a bit more chicken to one recipe, a bit less rice in another. As you probably know, MyFitnessPal makes it very easy to plan and log all of this stuff. A couple of new recipe books to give you some fresh ideas might are always a good investment too.

If your main meals are all well-balanced then it acts as a strong buffer against any snacks/pre- or post-workout nutrition etc so even if these aren't in the correct macronutrient ratios, they'll be a relatively small contribution to the day and shouldn't skew the overall stats too much. Don't get too hung up on hitting the numbers exactly, as long as you're in the ball-park then you're doing fine.

I'm guessing with a high training load and only 2600 calories per day, the aim is to lose some weight? In that case, the most important thing is to keep it sustainable. If you're new to it, I wouldn't go for a 500+ daily calorie deficit right from the start and risk burning out after a couple of weeks. I'd start the training plan and get used to the workload for a few weeks before looking at controlling calories on top of that.

It worked really well for me, so stick at it!