Your 14-Step Guide to Weight Loss During Base Training

NorthCascades

I’m posting this here for a few reasons. Obviously, MFP is mostly a weight loss site. It’s mid-October, and many here are probably getting ready to transition back into base mode for the winter. Although in a few places this article goes up against MFP dogma (it “obeys the spirit but not the letter of the law”) I think there’s some good advice in here specifically for people who have important seasonal events (these could be races, but don’t have to be) and who keep in shape out of season. It can be difficult to balance the goals of weight loss and athletic development, and this article offers some advice as a starting point.

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/your-14-step-guide-to-weight-loss-during-base-training/

I’d love to hear your thoughts, and more importantly what works for you.

shagerty777

Interesting article. Definitely for higher level athletes but overall good advice.

sgt1372

I think it's a GREAT article because it lists virtually everthing that I did to lose 38# without ever knowing whether doing those things would be effective or not.

LOL!

AnvilHead

Honestly, overall it looks like something from an episode of the Dr. Oz show. Some useful suggestions, but a lot of derp as well. "Starvation mode", "Whole 30", cut out all soda, don't eat after 8:00 pm, demonization of certain foods, etc. I would have expected a lot more educated and evidence-based advice from a site such as Training Peaks.

sijomial

Really surprised that such a poor article appears on Training Peaks - there's some reasonable advice in there but a whole lot of stupid too.

Post Christmas and into early Spring I will typically want to lose a few pounds.....
What works for me:

A small calorie deficit that varies in line with training intensity. I can tolerate 1lb month indefinitely, 2lb month with moderate training volume, 1lb week is only sustainable for a short duration when training really hard or I hit clear signs of over-training/under-recovering. Ideally I taper back to maintenance 2 weeks before a big event.
As for hunger - both weight training and intense cardio intervals create hunger out of proportion to the actual calorie burn. Long duration low intensity causes very little hunger and can be under-fuelled without performance or recovery impact.

I do a mixture of indoor technical and precise indoor training (a lot will be intervals) plus ramping up the volume of traditional low slow miles/hours for base building. Some of the long slow work is indoors watching TV as I can't tolerate cold very well (Raynaud's cuts the blood supply to my hands and feet at even slightly chilly temperatures).

When the cycle training gets into the more intense and higher volume phase I have to reduce my weight training intensity, not just virtually eliminating leg work but generally my strength training has to go into "maintenance mode" or I start to feel burned out.


I like this article on the merits of using high intensity as part of base training program and tailoring a program to fit the time you have available rather than copying what the pros do when you aren't a pro with unlimited available time.

https://roadcyclinguk.com/how-to/should-you-do-high-intensity-training-rather-than-base-training-during-winter.html

NorthCascades

AnvilHead wrote: »

Honestly, overall it looks like something from an episode of the Dr. Oz show. Some useful suggestions, but a lot of derp as well. "Starvation mode", "Whole 30", cut out all soda, don't eat after 8:00 pm, demonization of certain foods, etc. I would have expected a lot more educated and evidence-based advice from a site such as Training Peaks.

A lot of people eat well and appropriately sized portions throughout the day and then undo it with late night snacking, especially in front of the TV.

Some people do really well with a choose your own adventure style of weight management, like we have here. Other people do better with arbitrary rules. I was talking to a guy who lost 30 pounds doing low carb after "calories didn't work" for him. I pointed out that that's another way of saying he was willing to break the don't go over your calories rule, but not the no carbs rule. He shrugged and said yeah.

I had tacos for dinner, around 9 pm. Protein heavy meal because I'm lifting heavy again.

JustRobby1

As others have pointed out, there is some useful information here but it is sadly intermixed with too much bro-science gobbledygook which tarnishes it's credibility.