Oh man, I need some help

Nutrition Discussions
1

Ok guys, here goes. I’ve been out of competitive sprint training for about 6 months now, due to an injury/burnout. During that time, I became extremely picky with my eating habits, reading up on all the nutritional principles (as well as actually having a solid academic background in a lot of that stuff) and basically living the “bodybuilder” lifestyle in terms of diet.

I wanted to minimize fat gain while I wasn’t running, so I did this to control my weight, and was actually able to lose fat (and a little bit of muscle, even though I have been lifting semi-regularly during the time).

I am now trying to get back into sprinting, and will be starting up a sprint program just as soon as I can plan one out.

Which leads me to my problem:
I’ve become so obsessed with counting calories and meal timing and all that jazz that it’s ridiculous, and I feel that it is going to hinder my training. I’m always paranoid about how many calories I’ve eaten in a day, how many I need to plan out in order to have enough energy to do my sprint workouts I’ll be doing without overeating.

I never had this problem before I became extremely nutritionally “aware”. Granted, I was probably carrying around a little extra fat during that time, but ignorance, as they say, was freakin’ bliss.

Does anyone have any advice for me? I want to be able to eat enough so that I have PLENTY of energy to do intense sprint work/lifting, but I don’t want to just eat with reckless abandon like I used to do years ago.

Can anyone help?!

2

same thing here…

if anyone can help us…

p.s im not geneticaly lean!!!

p.s2 damn you quickazhell!!

3

:D…

4

Anyone??

I really need some help here before I begin a sprint program.

5

a banana or two post-workout.

6

Thank you for not reading my original post at all.

7

  1. quit worrying so much!

  2. you seem to know what to eat, why not just eat more of it?

8

Haha, easier said than done. I told ya, it’s like a disorder with me right now, I think I need better advice/motivation than “stop worrying!”

The problem is, I don’t know how MUCH more I need to be eating, and like I said, I have the obsessive/compulsive desire to measure out all my food and count all the calories and I’m afraid I’m gonna end up trying to do that when I’m sprint training too, and get all screwed up.

I know it sounds easy to tell someone to snap out of it, but it’s a big mental block for me, so it doesn’t really feel as easy as that…

Thanks for the reply though!

9

god damn same thing here, i CONSTANTLY wory about how much im eating!

its like, if i eat clean foods without counting i end up starving my self because im woried im gonna get fat. Its very frustrating, i spend half my day reading biology just to figure out excactly how many kcals i need in order to train with maximum efficiensy and whithout gaining fat

shit, whitechocolate, we sould found A.C.C (anonymous calorie counters)

-my name is john and i have a problem, i obsesivly count calories hindering my progress
clap clap clap clap
.
.
.
-Today i counted only breackfast and dinner!
hawling cheers

10

Admitting you have a problem in the first place is the first step in the recovery process :smiley:

Being aware of what you eat isn’t neccessarily a bad thing, in fact many would benefit from your diligence. My advice would be to stop looking at it as a negative and just accept the fact that you do it and use it for you. Plan your sprint program and work out what your calorie requirements are. If you track them all the better as it gives you something quantifiable you can refer to.

11

Plan your sprint program and work out what your calorie requirements are.

which brings us to the real question

HOW THE HELL DO WE DO THAT?!

what are the calorie requirments for 10x30 sprint with 3 mins recovery? of 8x200 tempo with 60sec recovery and calisthenics in between?

more than that, how many cals do i need if i dont train at all and just live my completely sendetery life?

argllll, its horific!!

12

John Berardi’s site has a couple of articles called Massive eating reloaded 1 and Massive eating reloaded 2 a calculator although some (many??) reckon his calorie calculations are too high they are a good place to start.

I recently saw this posted elsewhere that may be of interest (or confusion :cool: )

[i]Ratios and macronutrient percentages are relative measures and are overrated. Rather than focusing on the percentages of the various macronutrients, focus on the grams - an absolute measure - instead.

I’ll use an example to illustrate

Let’s say you’re eating 1800 calories and you weigh 140 lbs.

Protein - could be anywhere between 1-1.5g per/lb (could be total body weight or lean body weight. If you don’t know, then just go with your total bodyweight. So let’s assume 1.25g/lb just for sake of the example.

140x1.25 = 175g protein (700 calories)

Carbs - here is where you need to make a decision. How many carbs do you want to eat? Decide in grams, not percentages. So maybe on non-training days, you eat very low carbs, and on training days, you eat a moderate amount of carbs. For the sake of the example, let’s assume you’re going to eat 125g of carbs on a training day.

125g carbs (500 calories)

Now, you have two of the three determined, and your fat intake simply serves as a caloric ballast to get you to 1800 calories.

Fat calories = 1800-700-500= 600

So you have 600 calories to get from fat which is 67g fat.

Daily totals:
175g protein
125g carbs
67g fat

The percentages don’t matter.
[/i]

13

John (we have the same name…along with the rest 3.000.000.000 john of this earth) thanks for the reply but i have tried to use berardi’s calculators to no avail.

for starters, what is my training? Sprinting for 30m ten times with complete rest calculates as what? second what is my body fat? is it 9%? is it 12%? body calipers have me within these bountries…

moreover, if a figure grams, then what do i need? i reckon 200 grams of protein are more than enough and say what, 300 grams of carbs and 60 of fat should suffice? that totals to 2540 kcal/day, i train like 2 1/2 hours a day so 2500 kcal are enough? if so why elite athlets consume 5000-6000 kcal/day?

my questions are also from an academic-training science standpoint so if charlie could help us with some technical info?

the thing is, everyone keeps saying that nutrition is to be fabricated to the personal need of every individual though they all tend to keep secret the basic premices upon wich the diet is fabricated.

well clean food is a start, and i guess 3-3500 kcal actually is the maintanence for an amateur sprinter (perhaps a bit more) but no one seems to discloses WHY these are as they are:)

14

LOL You guys are hilarious.

Counting calories is part of being an elite athlete. Learn to live with it. It’s not obsessive compulsive at all - if you want to be at the top, you’d better get used to weighing your food, timing your meals and counting calories.

If you want the bare bones basic version of knowing how much to eat, simply do the following.

Get your BF tested, using an accurate technique by someone who knows what they’re doing - when you’re done this figure our your LBM

You could either:

a) Determine how many calories you’re presently eating and make systematic weekly or biweekly increases or decreases to your present intake until you start to gain weight or lose weight. For example, if you determine you’re eating 2500 calories, start adding or dropping 250 to 500 calories every week or two.

or

b) Determine your maintenance calories, and start there. From this point, follow the same advice – make systematic weekly or biweekly increases to your present intake until you start to gain weight.

The theoretical models like Berardi’s and can be off by as much as 20 percent. I’d personally keep it even simpler and assume the number of maintenance calories is approximately 15 times your LBM - lean body mass (11 if you want to lose weight) and adjust upward or downward (depending on your goals) from there based on how you’re progressing.

You’ll eventually arrive at the caloric intake that allows you to start gaining muscle, but not too much unnecessary fat or losing fat without losing muscle.

Ensure you’re eating 1 to 1.5 grams/lb of LBM per day of protein, and 3 to 12 grams of fish oil and the rest (carbs/fat) can be filled in depending on how your body composition is coming along.

Seems simple and it is - it’s certainly not exhaustive, however it beats not knowing at all if what you’re eating is too much or not enough.

15

Seems like a good formula…And although the maintainence calories seems about right for me to survive on I dont think I could maintain all my LBM and get stronger and recovery properly eating only 2205 calories. I am 153pounds and around 5% bf which gives me about 147 LBM.

Can you go further into this?

16

Quik, about how many calories do YOU take in during a given day?

17

I havent kept track in a while but I try and get 3500-4000.
Acording to berardi I need 4500 on High Intensity Days. I know soemtimes however even when I get 2000-2500 I do not lose weight. I guess thats because I get enough during the week on other days. The main thing I keep track of is protein and Im sure to get around my weight give or take 25 grams per day. So thats usually around 600 calories right off the bat.

18

Quik, about how many calories do YOU take in during a given day?

the man eats like a frieking tiger. As far as i have colected reading his posts he eats like 3500kcal on non intencive and 4500kcal in intencive days. AND HE WEIGHS 153lbs!!!


Ironhead66

what you propose is ofcource the right thing to do, but it does take a couple of months:P moreover it doesnt agree with some things.

for starters with a 2800kcal diet i seem to gain weigh wich is frankly imposible, i train ALOT. On the other hand i was rather untrained so i could be gaining muscle still…i really dont know. Besides that, eating 2500kcal/day makes me STARVE, im CONSTANTLY hungry, i mean all the time. Now, you could say thats my old fat brain telling me to eat some sugar, but i have in the past survived with 1800-2000 kcal/day feeling the same (if less) hungry, though i trained a lot less, and i mean alot.

so who tels the truth, my hunger, the scale, my performance?

AND, i im 5’10’’ weigh 175lbs my body fat is (visually) 11% (i can see abs but i have flab) so should i do a “body builders” cycle to get leaner and ad some muscle as fast as possible or what?

19

shit, i got owned…

how about eating that banana or two pwo and realizing that the training session will make up for it.

20

Quik, I hate to be a real pain here, but do you think you could take the time to post a typical day’s diet, perhaps for both a high intensity day and a lower intensity/off day? I’d really appreciate it. I just kinda wanna see where you’re at and compare it with what I’ve been doing and try to use both to figure out how much I need to be eating at what time throughout the day.