HOW DID WE DO?

Just how much fat did I shed with Will’s help? At my first test in August I weighed in at 67kg and 19.6 per cent body fat, and as a 175cm male I was proud of neither figure. Will, however, was not surprised. “It is pretty much what I was expecting,” he told us that first day, “and your lean mass is at 51.2kg. The fat mass you have available to lose is 12kg, so I’d say you need to lose four to five to get you down to around 62kg, which I think would get you around 14 per cent body fat. And then you would look a lot leaner because a lot of your fat mass is around your trunk.”

Following a tailored nutrition plan that can be summed up as eating between 250 and 450 extra calories per day depending on training load, made up of massively increasing my protein intake in line with Will’s recommendations, curbing fat intake (to somewhere between 25 and 50g per day, so nothing impossible) and altering carbohydrates depending on training load for three months – and with those three interval sessions added to my training week – the results were visible. I went back for testing, however, to check the numbers.

I clocked in at 63kg, but most importantly had a body fat percentage of just 12.8. I had lost 5kg of fat (from 12.5kg to 7.5kg) but only lost 4kg in total due to adding a kilo of lean muscle (up from 51.2kg to 53kg). My RMR had also increased. Eating more and losing weight, just keep me away from those doughnuts… Will Girling has been offering regular nutrition advice in Cycling Plus for well over two years now, is head nutritionist with both the One Pro and Trek-Drops professional cycling teams. willgirling.com