FUELLING YOUR BASE TRAINING
WHAT YOU EAT OVER THE NEXT MONTH OR TWO CAN EITHER HELP OR HINDER YOUR TRAINING ADAPTIONS. HERE’S WHY IT’S TIME TO INCREASE YOUR FAT CONTENT…
To complement your eight-week training plan, you also need to assess what you put into your body. “That’s why body composition is so important to this period,” says sports nutritionist Drew Price. “You’re looking to lower your weight and now’s the time to perfect time to do it because training intensity should be low.”
Beyond cutting the pounds, improving your aerobic capacity is key, achieved via long sessions at an intensity that’ll focus on utilising oxygen to create energy. Nutritionally this means you can reduce high-intensity fuelling carbs and increase the proportion of energy derived from protein and good fats.
“Depending on the amount of training you do, your carbohydrate intake should be between 6-9g per kilogramme of bodyweight,” says Price. “Six is for athletes on less training with a higher body fat percentage. Protein nestles between 1.21.6g per kg with fat around 0.9g-1g per kg.”
You might think cutting carbs and increasing fats is counter-intuitive to losing weight, but an excess of carbs is absorbed into the body as fat. Good fats, like olive oil, avocado, nuts and seeds, are also more satiating than carbs, meaning you’re fuller for longer. Lower glycogen levels and lower intensity also guides your body to becoming a more proficient fat-burning machine, heightened by integrating fasted sessions where you enter the workout in a glycogendepleted state. We delved into this deeper in issue 306, but once a week is fine for many, ideally before breakfast following the night’s fast. However, for those of you regularly shadowing the age-group podia, you could experiment with more fasted sessions during the base phase.
“I tend to do a couple of runs each week and a longish ride (2.5-4hrs) in a fasted state,” says Michelin chef and world agegroup duathlon champion Alan Murchison. “However, this is for experienced athletes only as there’s a real chance of bonking.”
And if you’re concerned that your glycogen-deprived work output is simply too low for your ego to handle, there are tweaks that can help. “When athletes train with low glycogen levels, their power output is reduced by 7-8%,” says Professor of Exercise Metabolism, John Hawley. “However, we’ve shown that you can reduce that deficit by consuming caffeine, cutting power loss to around 3.5%.”
The preparation phase should also see an increase in antioxidants to boost immunity. According to the NHS you’re 80% more likely to pick up a cold in the winter, so cut down on pasta and rice, and take on more carbs from colourful vegetables. They’re a great source of vitamins and minerals, as are liver and kidney.