If you train so hard, why do you gain weight?
“I train so hard, I do my long runs, I’m improving as a triathlete, I can endure long hours in the bike… but why I can’t loose weight? In fact; why in the world am I gaining weight?”
Does that sound familiar to you?
You are way ahead of the average population, you train long hours, you consider yourself an active lifestyle person, You go to the gym, you are runner a cyclist of a triathlete, you look at your wearable device and you are proud to burn thousands of calories. If so much burn and so much fitness why are you not loosing weight? or even worst, why are you gaining weight?
This is a very common situation for many of us, myself included. I been lost in that weight loss journey limbo many times, without having a clue what I was doing wrong.
The Internet is full of information in the subject, some are extreme technical and some are vague, and it has become frustrating that nobody can’t seem to have a straight answer, or at least not much concrete information out there that you can follow.
I’m going try to put a simple guide for you to follow, take out all the technical aspects of it, because we can easily get lost in the numbers and is stressful to approach this goal from the scientific side of it. so; you will not see numbers here, perhaps in another post I will go technical and be a nerd.
Tip Number 1. Food Timing
The time of the day you ingest your food has a tremendous impact on your weight loss goals. We have told to eat X number of calories per day to loose weight, but eating in the wrong time of the day causes weight gain. For example, eating late night is not the same as eating in the morning, due to the fact that during the day we are active and burn more calories than when we are sleeping.
Every time we eat a clock starts over (If you want to thinking that way) your belly starts digesting the new food you just ate in a meal, this process takes several hours to complete and all that time your body is busy digesting and not burning fat.
The more time you give between meals the more time you give your digestive system to finish digestion then it switches to burning fat, if you don’t give it enough time, you simply are always in the state of digesting food.
One way create this larger gap of time between meals is by having early dinner and take advantage of the sleeping time to let the body switch to fat burning while we sleep, here as a practical example:
- Joe wakes up a 6:00 AM
- Joe has break fast at 6:30 AM
- Joe goes to his job at 7:30 AM
- Joe has lunch at 12:00 PM
- Joe is out from his job at 3:30 PM
- Joe has dinner at 4:30 PM
- Joe goes to sleep at 10:00 PM
In this case Joe is creating every day a gap of 14.5 hours between his last meal of the day and the next day meal. His body ends digesting his food around 11 pm or so and his metabolism switches to a mode called Ketosis (i’m gonna break my promise a bit here and use a fancy word) this mode is basically his body using a mix of carbohydrates and fat to simply be alive, and later in the night switches to pure fat burning while he is sleeping, every day Joe is burning fat.
Tip Number 2. Carbohydrate Timing
Sorry another fancy word for something simple as choosing what to eat at certain time of the day.
Let me explain; Carbohydrates are not bad, they are the source of energy to simply do everything in life. Now, there are several types of carbohydrates, so we want to consume the ones we need at the right time of day, here is practical example:
- Joe has Toast or potatoes, or rice with eggs for his break fast, with orange juice.
- Joe has Brown rice and steamed veggies with chicken or salmon for lunch
- Joe has Spinach, Tomato, Mushrooms, green pepper, with a bit of turkey for dinner.
Notice how Joe chooses from Starchy carbohydrates in the morning to whole grain and vegetables (non starchy carbohydrates) for lunch to a fresh salad at night.
This sets Joe in a perfect carbohydrate taper as the end of the day approach by choose less condensed and less carbohydrate focus meals as the day pass by. We want to prime our bodies to set it to fat burning mode at night by eating low glycemic index foods and controlling sugar spikes in the blood (sorry another fancy word). This means, your body will be more ready to burn fat as is not in a high sugar state.
Tip Number 3. Fuel your workouts
Active lifestyle demands energy, after all we burn hundreds if not thousands of extra calories per day. We don’t want to stop enjoying or damage or hard earned fitness by having low energy.
Simply put; During workout FREE-FOR-ALL! Yes you read it right, High sugar sports drinks, Gels, Bars, Caffeine, anything your body is used to for fueling high intensity work outs is allowed, basically simple sugars are a GO!
Now, Every training plan includes recovery or easy workouts, in this case, you don’t need to go wild with fueling, these workouts are a great opportunity to train the body to burn fat a low intensities.
Take advantage of these workouts to simply burn calories while recovering for the next intense workouts. Recovery workouts are usually between 30-90 mins long and usually just having water or some electrolyte beverage with no sugar is ideal.
Tip Number 4. Measure your progress
Weight loss is not always an indicator of successful fat burning, being able to measure your body composition on a daily basis is a powerful tool for not just motivation purposes but for learning “the feel” of your metabolism.
This is very hard for me to explain with words. But I like to record in my brain what it feels every time i measure myself. I ask myself; Do I feel bloated? Do I feel light? Do I feel Heavy? Do I feel clean from the inside? Do I feel nauseous? and I like to relate this feel with the results of the body composition measurements, and take mental notes.
This allows me to know better myself and see what works and what not. What I’m doing wrong and what I’m doing right. With time this brain-body connection helps you make choices during the day knowing what will work for you.
I highly recommend the use of smart scale that not just gives measurements for weight, but also for fat, water and lean body mass percentage. This will help you track progress and create that brain-body connection.
Having this data being sent to your phone and to be able to track history numbers (at least for me) is motivating, here is an example of what my tools are:
I use the below smart scale that connects to my phone and sends data to my Apple Health as well as my training peaks account, is important to be consistent on the time you measure your self as weight fluctuates during the day. Choose a time of the day, I recommend first thing in the morning after you wake up.
Tip Number 5: Balance
Life Balance Signpost Showing Family Career Health 3d Illustration
A sustainable long lasting lifestyle is something that can be realistically achievable. I don’t believe in any diet that promise short-term results, I don’t believe in food restrictions, because for some of us, restrictions feels more like a temptation to break, I don’t like to the feel of defeat because I broke and ate something restricted, After all; what goal is worth if it is going to make you feel unhappy in the process. Key of all this is long term sustainability, and if you “fail” one time is not failing is simply life. You are new life style, there is no end.
I once read someone saying that a weight loss journey is like sailing a boat, you are never on a straight line, you are always loosing or gaining and but you are never in single straight line.
So don’t worry if you gain for a day or even few days you will loose it, if you follow these steps. I have done this approach for several years, season after season, it ALWAYS works.
Sergio Is ex-obese person that lost more than 100 pounds of excess body weight. He is a triathlete and Coach mentoring and helping other people like him to help them achieve their athletic and weight loss goals.
