Racing weight....

So I've been home in Wales for over a month now.  I came home from Uni a moth-eaten, exam-stressed, over-trained stick.  I'd lost close to 5kgs since I'd been home at Christmas, which I put down to a pretty big increase in my training load and the stress of taking the biggest exams of my life....which I passed by the way :) .

However, a month of plentiful, rich food has seen me put this weight back on and I'm back up to 11st 10lbs (75kg) with a body fat of 10.1%.  Now this is by no means a weight I'm worried about.  I wouldn't worry if it was 95kg if I'm honest.  Least I'd be warm in the cold weather.

It's well known that weight makes a huge difference to performance in all 3 disciplines.  A little bit of fat helps for the swim as fat floats.  It doesn't hurt if you're a TT'er on a flat cycling course as it keeps momentum going, but if the course is hilly it's an extra few lb's to be dragged up the climb.   Runners, particularly longer distance runners, will have a very low body fat percentage.  Triathletes tend to have a compromise between all of this, with pros having a body fat of 6-10%.  Ideally I'd like to be around 8% body fat come race day and I see this as quite a reasonable goal.  I'm naturally fairly lean and already at a fairly low body fat without any form of diet control.

I'm trying to concentrate a little more on the run side of training and this weight/body fat loss should contribute to that and also help my climbing on the bike too.  Hopefully it won't affect my swim too much as a consequence.

So...

Current weight - 74.6kg with 10.1% body fat

Since 10.1% of my body is fat, that means 10.1% of 74.6kg is fat.  Therefore 89.9% is bone, muscle, heart, lung and a small amount of brain.

That means 89.9% of 74.6kg is weight that I essentially cannot lose, it won't change.  My lean body mass is 67.1kg.

If I reach my goal body fat of 8% the 67.1kg will become 92% of my body weight.

( 67.1/92 ) x 100 will give me my race weight

Racing weight = 72.9kg

I'm not going to "diet" as such, just cut out some unnecessary extras (that second glass of wine after dinner.....that second plate of dinner.....that second dinner....etc.) and see how I get on.  The only difficulty I can see is at work when boredom quickly leads to snacking.  Going to make sure there's a plentiful supply of healthy snacks and ensure all my meals are as filling as possible.  See how we get on.

James out.