One interesting thing about this plan is that my macros end up resembling The Zone Diet (anyone remember that one).
I tried the Zone Diet in the 1990s and had some of my best ever cycling performances. I was too dumb then to relate those performance directly to the diet. And then I only lasted 2 or 3 weeks on the diet. And maybe it was just a coincidence.
The Zone Diet was a macro formula of 1/3 each of protein, fat and carbs. Dr. Kyle’s and Don Layman’s diets end up being pretty much the same.
Since this was the 90s, counting macros was by pencil and paper and using charts in a book. No apps or even a web page to keep track of stuff. Thus, I couldn’t maintain it. Plus is was sold with maintaining strict adherence to the plan. Plus, it didn’t compensate for increased athletic activity. On the Dr. Kyle plan, protein and fat stay static and carbs increase based on workload.
Those Progresso bean soups are a great emergency backup to keep around. There’s a chickpea one that I really like. Lots of protein and fiber and it’s pretty filling too. 7g Fiber, 17g Protein, and 50g carbs in a can.
I think this episode from the roadman podcast is worth a listen for those who didn’t quite follow what Dr. P barely touched on regarding fueling prior to and during rides and when to eat less. He said it so briefly during the podcast but basically said eat two good meals prior to the a longer or harder effort and then fuel during the event but that the carbs don’t need to be refueled after… if there’s a rest day next there’s no need to “refuel” as long as you ate well prior. On a rest day, there should be a focus on fueling for the next day if that’s a hard day.
In this podcast they suggest actually tracking calories from post ride to post ride the next day, rather than midnight to midnight.
In the TR podcast, regarding the listener question that was asked, I am surprised that they didn’t directly suggest (or if they did it was buried in the rest of the convo) that the most likely reason for a new rider’s weight increase is that they are simply eating more because they’re thinking “i want to lose weight so I’m going to eat less before and during a ride” and then … “I worked hard - I need to refuel after" and completely overdoing it bc they’re famished and feeling like they can eat whatever since they did a workout .. when apparently what we should be doing is fueling reasonably before and during and then eating normally after.
In other words, here in the US we should be doing the turkey trots on Friday, not Thursday.
Update - I’m down 7 pounds this year doing basically this plan (hit the protein and fat macro targets, more carbs before big workouts, less after and on rest days, fuel the work.) I have to weigh and track everything in MFP to stay on track. I can’t do it by feel.
I didn’t do it by their name, but I did similar. (Mind you I wasn’t trying to lose 15kgs).
In the short term, tracking daily calories helps. In the longer term switch to a net over the week approach. So rather than doing 2000cal on rest days and consuming the extra exercise calories on other days, smooth it out. Saves a lot of hunger…
The protein works well when you’re training. I shoot for closer to 2g/kg. I don’t track fat intake specifically.
Key things are to lose weight slowly. Else you’ll start to suffer on the bike and suffer mentally.
I have a calorie target each day with mfp, but I don’t know how well it lines up it with my true base needs, or if I’m getting credit for the correct number of workout calories. But it does track the macros and force honesty about what I’m eating and whether it fits my nutrition plan.
I sort of transitioned to the Don Layman plan - link posted above. It’s very similar and I believe that Dr. Kyle has quoted some of Dr. Layman’s work in his papers.
Basically, I came up with protein and fat targets based on Layman’s work. They are:
protein 1.4 to 1.6 per kg
fat 1.0 to 1.2 per kg
The rest is obviously carbs.
If you are cutting calories, you take it mostly from carbs and try to hit the minimum targets for protein and fat. if you are training, it can be challenging.
When cutting, calculate targets based on 5 or 10 pounds less than current weight.
Ok, nice topic. Started one week ago again, tracking my intake with MFP. Goal was about 2000-2100kcal intake per day. This for a day without workouts. I did not focus that specific on macros.
Using the calculators mentioned in this post (I had a dexa scan a few years ago also) I have a rough idea of proteïn take necessary.
Been around 72-73kg for years now, with around 17-18% body fat I guess. Getting towards 50 is not helping me. Loosing fat was way easier before. But ok…This is my plan. I hope to go towards 14-15% body fat. That would bring me around 70kg.
Protein intake daily = ±120gr
Fat intake daily = ± 55gr
Carbs around 250gr
