When you cross the finish line of an Ironman, the reward for a long grueling day is to be told “YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!”
What does this mean to you? Why do people of all fitness levels register and compete in an IRONMAN Triathlon?
Does this mean that you are super fit and lean? Are you in the best shape of your life when you train 10-20 hours per week for five or more months for an Ironman Triathlon?
This may sound wrong… but I have been competing in Ironman since 2001 and I have become involved in the sport. I love the sport and the people involved… it is another family and a community I am involved with. But as I observe people year after year, I wonder one common trend. Why are many age group triathletes still overweight?
Please help me figure out why so many Ironman participants don’t look fit? Many actually look overweight and not very lean. I am not being critical or mean but just making an observation. Why do people not lose fat weight when training for endurance events as the Ironman Triathlete? They put in the training hours…but do they change the way they eat??
People often exercise to lose weight, to deal with stress, to look and feel better but do they lose weight with exercise alone? I often see athletes at various endurance events as marathons and triathlons that are higher percentage of body fat than others athletes who do short distance events and more strength training or interval training workouts.
Losing weights isn’t only about exercising more. More endurance exercise may actually cause you to consumer more calories than you need. The mainstream media and training articles often tell endurance athletes to eat more complex carbohydrates and “healthy grains” as well as load up before a race or long training workout. During workouts or races we were always told to eat every 45 minutes to one hour and drink one bottle of water or sports drink each hour. Then we are told to eat within the hour after working out or race. Is this correct? What is the right way to eating for endurance events and fat loss?
Maybe it is our mindset…we reward ourselves with food. After a long hard bike ride or run or even race we then eat whatever we want since we just exercised for 3 plus hours.
Please answer a few questions for me and return your answers via an email or Facebook to my FITNESS FORWARD page or our podcast “FIT FAT FAST” Facebook page.
What is your mindset?
What makes you register, train and race in an Ironman Triathlon or another endurance event?
What is your motivation to register for an event or IM?
What type of food are you eating when training? Racing?
Do you reward yourself for a good workout with food and overindulge?
Are you the weight you want to be on race day?
Do you get monthly body fat measurements for baseline data?
Do you eat a high carb, low fat diet? Why?
Are you training and pacing by heart rate?
If you are doing an endurance event then you want to be burning fat for fuel. If you are not burning fat for fuel then what? You are using sugar for fuel… then you are hoping on the sugar burning roller coaster.
Don’t you want to become a fat burning machine? Learn how from my individual coaching program and listening to our Podcast “Fit Fat Fast”.
Don’t you want to look like a “lean mean fat burning machine” on race day? We should all look and feels like an IRONMAN triathlete… but what should that look be?
Coach Debbie Potts
Fitness Forward Studio
FUEL. TRAIN. PERFORM.
Personal Training-Metabolic Testing-Coaching
118 105th Ave NE, Bellevue, WA 98004
(425) 466-3653
http://www.fitnessforwardstudio.com
http://www.fitfatfast.com/
http://myshakeology.com/DebPotts
