nom nom-bers

Well, I survived the 10K race on Sunday. My finish time was 55:45 and I’m a happy camper even though I didn’t beat my time last year. I ran as part of a team for my company and the top three for both girls and guys get a prize...turns out I took the number 3 spot for the female employees! Totally unexpected but gratefully accepted! I felt pretty good for most of the race; my legs got a little heavy towards the end. Could it be because I worked out legs on Saturday morning? I didn’t even “carb up” the night before like I would for a half marathon.

I think I said in my previous post that this journey is a constant learning experience for me. Well, I’ve once again changed up my workout routine and I’m going to introduce carb cycling into my diet. Three weeks left so I gotta step up my game a little! Hopefully this will give me a bit more energy when I need it and keep my metabolism high. Here’s what the plan is:

Monday – chest, shoulders and cardio – low carb
Tuesday – legs and abs – high carb
Wednesday – back, traps and cardio – low carb
Thursday – biceps, triceps and cardio – moderate carb
Friday – legs and abs – high carb
Saturday – cardio – low carb
Sunday – rest – moderate carb

So to get technical for a little bit, I did a few little calcs to find a benchmark for moderate carbohydrate intake, this being 1.25g/lb of body weight which reflects a goal of losing fat. On low carb days I would consume 75% of the moderate intake and on high carb days 125% of the moderate intake. I calculated my BMR which is a function of weight, height, and age then used the Harris Benedict Equation to find out how many calories per day I would need to consume to maintain my weight at my current activity level. This number gets reduced by 20% to arrive at how many calories to consume per day to achieve fat loss. I used some general guidelines for protein, carbohydrate and fat consumption per pound of body weight (1.5g/lb protein, 1.25g/lb carbs and then the remaining as fat). And when I say protein, carbs and fat I really mean lean protein, complex carbs and healthy fats or else I’d already be at McDonalds getting my intake of fats for the day! I would probably get that from just looking at a Big Mac. I assumed 4 calories per gram of lean protein, 4 calories per gram of complex carbs and 9 calories per gram of healthy fat. So to make an already long story only a little bit longer, here’s what I came up with:

Total calorie consumption: 1841 calories/day
Total macronutrient consumption high carb days: 217g protein, 226g carbs, 12g fat
Total macro consumption moderate carb days: 217g protein, 181g carbs, 12g fat
Total macro consumption low carb days: 217g protein, 135g carbs, 12g fat

So now what am I going to do with this info? Not what you think. I don’t plan on counting calories that closely or writing down how many grams of what I eat. I don’t operate that way. Some people do. It’s a personal thing. But it does give me an idea of what I can add in to my high carb days and what to cut out on low carb days. When I first saw the amount of daily fat, I thought it was quite low, but it’s the carbs I’m watching.

Should I blame this long blog entry on the fact that today is a high carb day? :D