Triathlon diet and supplement questions

gearhead426hemi

I am doing my first Triathlon this year and I am wondering about diet and supplements. I currently take a pre-workout when I plan on training hard. I take BCAA's now post workout and will mix them in my water for long biking trips as well. I plan on eating clean similar to a Paleo diet. I have a farm so I raise goats, chickens and ducks and grow or raise a lot of my own food. Should I be tracking calories? Normally when I am eating clean I track everything but I don't really focus on total calories. If I am hungry I eat, if not I skip meals. Since I will be totally changing up my training routine should I keep using my current supplements or should I add more? Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.

Djproulx

I suspect that you will get lots of different answers to your post, since triathletes can be pretty geeky about food and fueling. With that said, my guess is that you don't have to overthink it and will do just fine with a simple approach.

First, my assumptions about your situation are:

1. You are fairly healthy and eat fairly well currently, but you don't obsess over calorie/macro counts.
2. I'm guessing that you are not primarily focused on weight loss, but rather "eating to perform" in the race.
3. You are training for a Sprint distance race, so you will be increasing your cardio training volume somewhat, but this won't be a "zero to 60" increase for you in terms of training load. I'm guessing that as a first time participant, you may be expecting this race to be a 1.5-2 hr effort.

If my assumptions above are correct, then I think a diet based on whole foods is a great way to go and you wouldn't need too many adjustments. For example, last summer I ate a whole food diet (I guess you'd call it "clean") based on roughly 2600 calories/day during training for two different 70.3 distance races. The only other nutrition I consumed were various gels and liquid fuel during my long workouts (1.5 hr runs or 2hr bikes and longer).

So I would start training and see how you feel. One point to consider as you begin is that endurance athletes burn lots of calories, so we need enough energy to fuel workouts. That means you need to consume enough food, including carbs. If you feel like you are fading while doing a longer cardio effort, then you could try including a gel or liquid fuel during your longer bike/run sessions. (Say anything 90 minutes or more) Also, you may find that a recovery drink post workout (chocolate milk!) helps you replenish energy stores and help muscle repair. Finally, If your workouts are suffering and/or you feel very tired after a few weeks of training, take a look at your food intake and don't be afraid to increase it. Its a learning process.

I'm sure others will offer suggestions, since this tends to be a highly personal approach, but it shouldn't be too difficult to get comfortable with your nutrition during training.