Start as you mean to go on
Happy New Year everybody! Hope you all enjoyed your Christmases and saw in
2013 in style. The Trihard household hosted a party which saw Smug Running Guy in attendance so we finally got to have a run together. If
you recall we had planned to do this when he last came to see us in
November but unfortunately some overindulgence the previous day put us
out of action. This time round we did the sensible thing and did the
running before the partying. Unfortunately the weather wasn't as kind as
it had been on Boxing Day which made for a rather wet, muddy run.
After my
exertions on Boxing Day, and a 5km time trial with EGTC on Saturday, I
have to confess that I struggled a bit on the hillsbut it was good to burn off some
calories before the New Year's Eve blow out. So what are my goals
for 2013? Essentially it's to get faster in all disciplines in triathlon
but the overarching aim to achieve this is to lose weight. One of my
Christmas presents was a heart rate monitor that I can use in the water
so now I know exactly how much energy I use during each training session
whether I'm swimming, running or cycling.
However the other part of the plan is to also monitor how many calories I stuff in my face. I know I burn off a lot of calories but it doesn't take a dietitian to work out (especially when you look at the photo of myself and SRG) that I'm consuming way more than I need.
If I lose weight I know that I can get a lot quicker without doing anything other than staying away from the cheese counter and chip shop. To put it bluntly I know that if I demonstrate a fraction of the dedication towards my diet as I do training then I will see a dramatic improvement in my performance.
To help me achieve this I'm using a clever little app called My Fitness Pal. You enter in your vital statistics, the amount of weight you'd like to lose over what time period. It then tells you how many calories you should be eating to achieve this, allowing extra for any exercise you do.
You then update it with everything you eat, it even has a handy barcode scanner as well as a recipe calculator so it doesn't matter whether you are grabbing a ready made snack on the go or cooking something at home so it's quite easy to keep track of calories. So as long as I can ignore the crisps, dips and other leftovers from the festive season I should be in business...
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However the other part of the plan is to also monitor how many calories I stuff in my face. I know I burn off a lot of calories but it doesn't take a dietitian to work out (especially when you look at the photo of myself and SRG) that I'm consuming way more than I need.
If I lose weight I know that I can get a lot quicker without doing anything other than staying away from the cheese counter and chip shop. To put it bluntly I know that if I demonstrate a fraction of the dedication towards my diet as I do training then I will see a dramatic improvement in my performance.
To help me achieve this I'm using a clever little app called My Fitness Pal. You enter in your vital statistics, the amount of weight you'd like to lose over what time period. It then tells you how many calories you should be eating to achieve this, allowing extra for any exercise you do.
You then update it with everything you eat, it even has a handy barcode scanner as well as a recipe calculator so it doesn't matter whether you are grabbing a ready made snack on the go or cooking something at home so it's quite easy to keep track of calories. So as long as I can ignore the crisps, dips and other leftovers from the festive season I should be in business...
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