Weight loss for athletes?

RobynLB83

What strategies are their for maintaining athletic performance while cutting calories? I like to train hard twice a day: boxing for 60-90 minutes, and running, cycling, climbing, at a slow to moderate pace for an hour or more per day. I also have a fairly active job. When I try to restrict my calories down from 2500 (maintenance) to under 2000, my energy and performance just plummet. What can I do?

gdyment

Well at some point you DO have inferior performance at a lower weight. Even in runners. And there's no way to tell except lose, race, see if faster, lose more, race, see if faster, etc. But generally you would have a deficit in the pre-season/off-season to get close to race weight 12-16 weeks out then NOT have a deficit for that training cycle up to the race. It's more of a trick to not overeat and gain thinking you've burned more than you have.

Trying to stay at optimal/race weight all year is a fool's errand.

HelloDan

Unless you're cutting to make weight class for a specific event with a deadline (even then, next time plan it better!), just go easier, only drop 250 a day instead of 500, find the point where you cut and have enough energy for your life.

Florida_Superstar

For your best performance, you need the calories, as others have said. How much are you trying to lose? If your photo is even close to what you look like now, you may already be at or pretty close to your ideal weight. If so, losing will be tough for you. Something interesting happened to me -- I was eating 1430 calories (so a lot less than you, but I'm also older than you) and trying to keep up my very intense workouts at that caloric intake. I was miserable, burned out, and exhausted after awhile. So I increased calories to 1900ish and that's when I lost a couple pounds. I think basically your body will try to protect you if you're pushing hard and not getting the fuel you need. For me, a couple pounds is all I could really expect because I wasn't overweight--may be the same for you. By the way, when I increased the calories and felt better, my energy jumped up and workouts got much stronger.

sijomial

My strategy was to only "diet" two days a week and to eat at maintenance the other five days (5:2 diet).
I also followed the MFP eat back exercise calories method on the five maintenance days so my exercise was fuelled appropriately.

Even my exercise/training performance on the two very low calorie days was pretty good (after a period of adaption) as I was going into the low calorie days fully fuelled.

For me the two best options are either a short duration but large deficit planned around your training / sporting commitments or a very small calorie deficit over a long period of time.

With only 7lbs to lose you could go either route, slow and patient or short and sharp.

SueInAz

HelloDan wrote: »

Unless you're cutting to make weight class for a specific event with a deadline (even then, next time plan it better!), just go easier, only drop 250 a day instead of 500, find the point where you cut and have enough energy for your life.

This. If you don't have a goal, you shouldn't be trying to lose 1 pound per week while expecting to maintain performance. Eat a little more, lose a little more slowly and you should have better workouts.

20yearsyounger

SueInAz wrote: »

HelloDan wrote: »

Unless you're cutting to make weight class for a specific event with a deadline (even then, next time plan it better!), just go easier, only drop 250 a day instead of 500, find the point where you cut and have enough energy for your life.

This. If you don't have a goal, you shouldn't be trying to lose 1 pound per week while expecting to maintain performance. Eat a little more, lose a little more slowly and you should have better workouts.

Agreed. With only 7 lbs, a small deficit would work for you.

Florida_Superstar

Just curious how some of you knew she was trying to lose 7 pounds. I didn't see that in her post or her profile...

20yearsyounger

It's on the profile- view progress

Florida_Superstar

20yearsyounger wrote: »

It's on the profile- view progress

Thank you!

cwolfman13

smaller deficit...there will probably still be a dip in performance, but it will be less pronounced. I've personally never bothered to train and diet...in fact, it's not a-typical for me to put on a couple of pounds when I'm training for an event...if need be, I cut when I'm not actively training for something.