Quite the contrary - I drink plenty, more of a Belgian beer lover though. I do try to limit my alcohol intake to only the weekends. If I do drink during the week I have a pretty small glass of wine. It’s just one of those things that, for me, can start building on itself pretty quickly. One beer a night turns in to two, then I feel like crap for the early morning workout.
Ok you’re about to get a thesis so settle in:
Eating philosophy is mainly eat as much real food as possible. I try and substitute whole grains (or relatively whole grains) in as often as possible. So brown rice, whole wheat pasta and bread, quinoa, barley, steel cut oats - the less processed the food the better. I try to focus on the things I can add in to my diet instead of take out. If we only focus on the negative aspects of food, then what positive relationship do you have. I focus on adding in as many fruits and vegetables as I can. I keep a pretty healthy stock of dried fruit and nuts because those are my most convenient snack foods. Raisins, figs, dates, prunes - Costco is king here. Like they alway say on the podcast, it’s hard to overeat on health food. I eat whole fat dairy which mainly includes kefir every morning and whole milk in my protein shakes. I attempt to sneak in vegetables in non traditional meals. Like adding carrots or beats to my protein shake, or not even using protein powder and adding these veggies in. I try to eat more fresh meat than processed meat. But, at the end of the day I live in the real world and I keep my food choices as flexible as possible so that they are sustainable. If I was denying my self certain things, cooking a different dinner for my self and my family, being that guy at the restaurant who can’t eat anything on the menu - I wouldn’t be able to maintain a relatively health eating habit. That’s my 2 cents on food. Also, eat a ton on the bike. I can burn 1500 calories in a 1.5 hr ride and there’s no way to keep up with that, but I try.
I used to go to the gym several days a week for an hour or so at a time. Over the last few years I’ve shifted to less and less. I was going 1 day a week for an hour long session, but found that led to too much inconsistency. If I missed one weekly session, I’d then have had no time lifting for 2 weeks straight. I’ve tried to increase frequency of session and decrease actual time in the gym. I only plan to be there for 15 - 20 minutes. I pick 4 exercises and complete 2-3 circuits of these exercises. I just do variations of those same 4 exercises each day I go. Lots of pull up variations, bench press variations, squats, dead lifts and lunges and trunk stability exercises. I keep the legs super light. It’s important to load those tissues, but I don’t even get close to squatting or dead lifting my body weight. I like to be able to go frequently and have it not really interfere with my workouts.
Workouts and riding. It just has to be done. If I have to give up on an interval, I make it up in the cool down. Once you get past the point that all hard workout are going to hurt, it’s just all mental. I feel like I personally got the biggest bang for my buck on sustained power build and the 40k TT plan. I did this during the initial parts of the pandemic once my events where canceled and I felt like superman toward the end. Those workouts suck from and endurance and monotony standpoint, but they really do build and you can see the progress very easily. I use a lot of mind tricks and mental gymnastics to get through. Everything from mantras, distractions, shifting cadence every minute, activating different muscles for 10s bouts, visualization, music. All of it, I don’t have a steel trap for a mind so I use every trick I can when I’m struggling. My last resort is to picture that one person I never want to lose to, if I revert to this - the end is near but I can make it. I’ve been riding and racing since 2007, before that I was a cross country runner. I’ve got a lot of endurance training in the legs, but more mentally just being used to how it feels to be uncomfortable. There is no substitute for riding and spending quality time in the saddle.
The secret is that there is no secret. You’ve got to find what works for you and stick to it.
