Calories Burned vs. Calories Consumed

I burn a lot of calories. It's just the nature of the beast. Training for long distance triathlons requires high volumes of swimming, biking and running...which all burn lots of calories.

Depending on what my week looks like, I usually burn around 1000-1200 calories a day from training. This doesn't include the calories I would burn anyway, without exercising, which is around 1900 per day.

I looked at my distances for the last month, and even with the knee injury, I still burned an average of 3562 calories per day (workout + normal activity). Calculated based on this website.

So that seems like a lot...which I guess it is. The question then becomes...how do I replace all of these calories??

Before I get into how much I eat, I want to share something that is written in Joe Friel's book titled "The Triathlete's Training Bible":

[A group of researchers] had six endurance-trained men create a 1,000-calorie-per-day deficit for seven days by either exercising more while maintaining their caloric intake or eating less while keeping exercise the same. With 1,000 calories of increased exercise daily - comparable to running an additional 8 miles or so each day - the men averaged 1.67 pounds of weight loss in a week. The subjects eating 1,000 fewer calories each day lost 4.75 pounds on average for the week.

Cutting back on the amount of calories you eat appears to have a greater return than increasing the amount of exercise you do. So don't think that because you exercise a lot, you can eat whatever you want!

A few weeks ago I logged what I ate and how many calories I consumed each day over a 3 day span. I scarfed down around 2800-3200 calories per day. I try to eat healthy, so finding healthy foods that are packed with calories isn't easy. I eat every 1-2 hours all day long, starting with a beagle and PB around 5:00am and ending with a snack before bed around 8:30pm.

Good news is that even though I'm burning more than I'm taking in, my weight has remained the same over the last month or so...meaning that I've shed most of my excess body fat and I'm probably close to my ideal weight. Joe Friel describes the ideal male triathlete as weighing 2.1 to 2.3 pounds per inch of height (1.8 to 2.0 for women). I'm 5'11" (71"), which translates to a weight of 149-163. I currently weigh 175, but anything that I lose at this point will be muscle mass...which I'm trying not to lose!

TODAY'S WORKOUT:
2 hours on the bike. 45 minute spin class, followed by 1:15 in zone 2. Some good hill intervals in spin class.
Avg HR = 133 (right in the middle of zone 2)
15 minutes of weights (legs)

Here's a few pics from last Saturday's Anthem 5K...all photo's are copyright of Brightroom Photography.