I rode out to Seward Park on a miraculously non-rainy Sunday morning. My mom had just mailed me some whole-wheat chocolate chip walnut cookies, so I decided to eat them on my ride. I packed them in the adorable reusable popcorn bag Sara made me. Gifts are wonderful things. What a great treat to eat while enjoying the cherry blossoms. They are in full bloom this weekend!
The best mid-ride energy snack ever
yum!
I am obsessed with these muffins I discovered from a blog over on MyFitnessPal. The blog was about things to do with over-ripe bananas. Brilliant! These are so easy and forgiving, which is what I love most about them. All you have to do is throw a cooked sweet potato in a bowl with a couple of over ripe bananas with an egg and mash them together. They mix really easily, although the last batch I used a food processor because I made 4 batches at once. From that you can put in whatever additional “boosters” you want. I like the chocolate chip, dried cranberry, coconut combination so much I keep doing that. In my most recent batch I didn’t add chia seeds, but I did in the batch before.
The moist and spongy texture of the muffins reminds me more of cake than a muffin. So often “healthy” muffins are dense, heavy, and dry. These are light and fluffy. It’s easy to eat one after the other. I noted on the recipe site regular (non-dried) cranberries, which I would love to try!
These muffins have no added sugar, but the ingredients are so sweet you would think sugar was added. They have to be wrapped, and while they might get smashed in a jersey pocket, they are still easy to eat. Because they are so moist, they break down into large pieces, not crumbs.
Progressing toward goals
This guy makes me chuckle every time. From BikeSomewhere.com
Today I had my second monthly assessment with my trainer today. Three months in, I am finally seeing some progress after all this work! I didn't gain any muscle weight (my main goal). However, I am not discourage because I did loose 5 pounds of weight. The weight came nearly entirely from fat, which brought my lean mass/fat mass ratio closer to where I want to be. My current body fat percentage decreased by 2%, which means I am at 27.3% fat. It sees like forever before I'll get to my goal of 22%, and I don't think I'll get there is I don't start building lean mass, but at least I'm headed in the right direction. I have another 5.3 percent to go. If I keep up this 2% a month rate, I should get there by the first of June.
I could be discouraged knowing that I was only 24.8% exactly one year ago, but I'm not. I really feel like I am moving forward with every decision, and what I do today matters more than what I did years ago. I have this new health club to blame. Something about it just fits, it feels right. I've spent years not feeling that way; lamenting at the greener grass over there; the grass from my past, from my future. But I feel good when I go to this place. It's like "Cheers"; everybody knows your name. I feel like Norm every time I start my workout.
How did I make this progress?
- I visited the health club 16 times. I lifted weights as prescribed and offset the drain of biking with yoga the rest of the days.
- I kept my cycling up as per usual.
- I followed the prescribed food plan. I resisted at first. They wanted me to eat a lot more protein and a lot less carbohydrate. I have seen too many fads come and go, flip flopping nutritional guidelines. I assumed the slowly growing hatred of all thinks carb over the past decade was just that, a fad, and an intention by America's corrupt agriculture market; pushing things on us that we don't need, like milk, corn, and meat. But, I said, what the hey. Body builders have been pumping protein since before the war on carbs. I increased my protein intake to 20%, reduced my fruit intake to just 2 servings a day, and reduced my whole grain portions to just one meal a day. This accounts for 70% of my eating decisions. The other 30% is either an extra carb or a "splurge" like dessert or pancakes for breakfast. The recommend I follow the plan 80/20, but I haven't gotten there yet.
average week of macro consumption for February
What obstacles do I foresee?
- Keeping up gym attendance. I like going in the morning the best, I don't have to modify my routine due to crowding. I wake up easily at 5. But I often feel like I didn't get enough sleep, or it's raining too hard, so I ignore the natural wakefulness I feel at that time. I spent so many years not ever feeling wakeful that this feeling is weird and I am not sure what to do with it. When I wake up at 6, I drag, I fall asleep again mid-sentence, my alarm sounds like a silly joke someone is trying to play on me. My hands and feet are lead bars without phalanges.
- Putting the prescribed food plan aside to placate others. When eating in a group setting, I either eat something delicious and indulgent or I eat something I don't really feel like eating because it's there, or I have limited choices, or it seems like fun. But why eat food I don't even feel like eating if it counts as a "splurge"?
- Putting the prescribed food plan aside to feed stress. I am not very stressed or busy right now. But I worry that, my 70/30 ration will drop the second a drop of stress comes on.
Overall, I feel good. This goal is obtainable. I am enjoying myself along the way.
Does Eating the "Right" Combination of Macronutrients Improve Cycling?
Recommended daily allowances for protein in America have been a loaded topic for years. It seems obvious that the federal recommended daily allowance (RDA) for protein is bloated to support America's bloated beef agriculture, fast food industry, and the midwestern "meat and potato" diet. For that reason, I ate a significantly lower amount of protein than "recommended" for years. If you eat a balanced 2000-calorie diet where your main source of protein is low-fat, sustainable nuts, beans and plants, you will never reach the recommended 46 grams of protein. At the same time, the current cultural hate on carbs stemming from the fad-love of the Atkins Diet has further bloated the American idea of protein consumption. However, as a physically active adult prone to falling asleep after eating, I've found that eating more protein, especially for my first meal, helps sustain my energy and level of wakefulness throughout the day. It goes without saying that my protein needs would be decreased when I am less physically active. I found it easier to loose weight under the Weight Watchers plan by cutting out exercise. It is much easier to stay within the Weight Watchers point system, which depends on eating large amounts of fiber, by eating 15 or less grams of protein a day.
Now that I'm focusing on athletic training and not weight loss, I am not sure how much protein to eat. You can find as many different recommendations as you can sources. So when the Cycle Oregon spring training handbook came out with it's 60-20-20 recommendation, I decided to follow that. I started tracking my food intake on MyFittnessPal, a much simpler, faster, and more comprehensive tracking software than the WeightWatchers tracker. I manually adjusted my macronutrient goals to match Cycle Oregon's 60-20-20 recommendation. Over the past couple of weeks, I've gotten closer to meeting my goal, but have yet to reach it. A great sale on avocados stymied my goal, as eating a half cup of avocado every day for a couple of weeks always shot my fat consumption up too high. However, even in my first avocado-free week (see above), I still haven't reached the 20% protein goal. It continues to go up every day, and there are several days I meet my protein goal in grams, but I haven't reached the ratio quite right. I'll keep trying, just to see if eating at this ration does improve my training and energy level. We shall see.