The late eating doesn’t actually matter - the calories you consume are the calories you consume - regardless of timing. The reason people suggest not eating late is because it is an easy time to be in deficit and still resist cravings (because you’re asleep for them) - the calories aren’t any more or less effective at causing or preventing weight loss
These are the things you should consider dropping:
Fried hash brown with onions and peppers. Also the eggs if you’re cooking them in oil - instead hard cook them or poach them in water. Also the cheese. Basically your whole breakfast is a mess of fats
Pot pie is also going to be pretty calorie dense - double down on the chicken leg as long as it isn’t fried or covered in breading. Don’t eat the skin
Granola bar or uncrustable - replace with fresh fruit and some yogurt. Roughly the same calories but much more filling
Nuts are extremely calorie dense - if you aren’t weighing the portion of nuts you’re eating I strongly recommend doing so for a few days and seeing how many calories you’re getting there
I’d recommend fueling more during your rides so you don’t binge later. Another trick is to brush your teeth after you’ve eaten dinner but long before you’re ready for bed - might help reduce the cravings
Basically - you’ve got a lot of low hanging fruit you could remove or replace from your diet fairly easily
I second the advice above: that cleaning up your regular intake is the way to go. More fruit and veg, less fat. Keep the high quality carbs in there and see if you can replace the uncrustables or “whatever” with whole foods. You have a lot working for you already in that you’re active and eat home cooking regularly.
OK so bumping this back up. Buddy of mine gave me some tips.
Cut out drinking and only indulge on weekends, not every night
carbs only before and during workouts. If workout in the AM, have carbs night before. If in PM, have carbs that afternoon
Eat between 730am and 730pm only
Cut out sweets, junk, etc.
Make veggies the biggest portion of my meal
Weigh food on scale to get proper portion size
Supplement with low calorie low sugar low carb whey protein for post workout recovery or substitute a meal with this on off-days
Sound about right? Anything else I can implement? Already started today with a cleaner packed lunch, less cheese on my eggs this morning, and subbed my usual sweet coffee creamer for 2% milk, no sugar
Most of your bullets are logical to me. The first I would take exception to is #2 - carb timing doesn’t necessarily make sense. Definitely eat carbs during the workout - but as you make the other shifts in your diet (in particularly 4 and 5) you will be cutting a lot of the ‘bad’ carbs from your diet and should make it possible for you to eat carbs throughout your day and not specifically time them
Also the 12 hour focus (no eating before or after 7:30…) doesn’t make much sense to me either. Why wouldn’t you eat earlier or later?
Typically my evening workouts are done by or after 730, and it just creates a larger time window of not eating so lowers overall caloric intake. Kind of like IF I guess, my coworker does something similar where he only eats between 11am and 6pm or so, but hes more into lifting and not endurance sports
We have a thing called Bagel fridays at work, usually I’ll have one in the morning and one before i leave, with creme cheese. Probably won’t have any this week, or perhaps just one with peanut butter instead
If that, combined with your note that you don’t intend to eat after 7:30, means you’ll often be working out and not consuming calories afterwards for 10-12 hours - I’d put a huge red flashing warning sign over that path. Do not short change your recovery fuel!
So should I stick to that type of caloric defecit for non workout days and modify it for days when I have trainer rides? I can also try to move all my workouts to the morning before work if that will help.
Goal weight is 170, target date is 5/1/2020, current weight is 183
I’d suggest you run the deficit every day you can - but don’t stop eating at a certain time just to hit the deficit. You have to manage your calories throughout the day and arbitrarily stopping based on time is not a great path in my experience
I just know my diet is pretty good till I Get home from work and then I start munching on random food and not stopping myself. That’s kind of where the idea to have a cutoff time came in.
Then get that crap out of your house…I find it much easier to maintain control at home because I can control what food is around. If you only have healthy options you can’t go too far astray
Start with the easy stuff: less booze (set a weekly allowance); no eating unless you’re sitting (cuts out drive-by snacking); no eating your kids’ leftovers (maybe it’s just me).
Level 2: track your intake for a few weeks. Myfitnesspal is pretty good. Don’t use it to make changes, just to gather info at this stage.
Level 3: read some books, probably by Matt Fitzgerald (Endurance Diet, Racing Weight Quick-Start Guide are both useful).
Level 4: Cook more. Quality of your food will go through the roof, even if you don’t do anything particularly “healthy.” Then you can steer toward better choices. Three years ago I struggled to make scrambled eggs; you can do this.
All levels: don’t be a sucker for someone else’s fad.
Couldn’t agree more on this one - cooking also helps you better understand where your calories are coming from. The difference between a chicken breast you cook yourself and one you buy from a restaurant or pre-prepared from a store can be a huge amount of calories simply due to the oil and fat it was cooked with
This may work for you but doesn’t mean it works for everyone.
The important thing about all of this is to have rules. It doesn’t really matter what they are, but stick to them. Your rule is to not have things in the house. Someone else’s rule might be to treat themselves every now and then to keep morale high and have a cut off based on time instead.
He was asking for opinions. In my opinion riding in the evening and not eating until 7:30 AM the next day is not a good recipe for success and he would be better served by eating less during the day and making sure he fuels after his workout while maintaining the same caloric deficit
A bit unrelated but I also did two easier outdoor rides this weekend and did not eat as much in the morning, also drank just water instead of gatorade, and did not use gels, felt that it was better suited for lower intensity. Correct?
For rides that are below sweet-spot level, I usually nix the full hydration mix in favor of water with a pinch of Skratch mix. It gives a bit of a nicer flavor (so I drink more), and the bit of sodium and glucose is supposed to facilitate hydration over water on its own. For hard workouts, it’s full drink mix plus quick energy (e.g., toast and honey right before the workout, or chews/gels during).
So yes, by all means adjust your intake in light of your workload.
I got a ton of the SiS gels to use for my winter training plan, figure for something thats SS or higher intensity I would take it about 1/4-1/3 of the way into the workout.