I've noticed that some athletes become almost obsessed with how much they eat between workouts, on the bike, before lifting, on off days, after swims, the list goes on and on. I was able to study a little bit about eating disorders in school, but it didn't hit home until I get to encounter it every day. The worst part is that some "fitness professionals" encourage this behavior thinking that the athlete is being diligent. There is a fine line between being well informed and keeping track of your food to take the best care of your body possible, and then there's obsessive and being dangerous. I have discovered that a lot of women, and a surprising amount of men, will count their calories to oblivion and still wonder why they aren't making progress. Your body requires good calories. Strong calories. Being "vegan" and only eating lettuce and berries will not give you the look of:
Now, you most certainly can be "Vegan" and still obtain this image, but you're going to have to be creative with your protein sources, calorie dense foods, and getting enough calories in the day on top of your working out. I fortunately? unfortunately? get to talk to a lot of people every day, and they all want to talk about food at one point or another. I had a very sweet gal talk to me about getting in shape. She wanted to know how much she would need to work out, eat, lift, run, etc. Her goal was to lose another 5lbs so that she could "look like me", I weighed her in and she was 100lbs, 5' 2", 17% Body Fat. She was tiny.
The big misconception here was that she thought the way to get the lean and defined look was to keep losing weight. She was well on her way to looking like a short runway model with absolutely no body fat or muscle tone. I asked how many calories she ate per day and how often she worked out and we both about fell over with each others responses. She worked out, doing cardio of form, for a minimum of 2 hours per day, she only ate between 1000-1200 calories per day. This is the reason she's so tiny and has no muscle. Strength training isn't in her repertoire and she's not eating enough for her body to repair itself even if she was lifting weights. She would end up injured.
The biggest problem with Eating Disorders is that there isn't a lot of reasoning you can do with them because they are a mental disorder of form. In her head she still had a mental image of someone who was overweight and wanted to get smaller. The body image that she wanted to obtain, mentally, meant that she was going to have to lose weight. Athletes do the same thing, they want to look a certain way, perform a certain way, and have a certain body image. There is some truth in getting to "Race weight", but it's still a healthy weight.
When you're talking about getting to race weight, you want to be as light as you can be while still being as strong as you can be, you want a good power to weight ratio. It does no good to be stick thin and look like an Ethiopian as a triathlete because then you don't have the arms to swim, or the legs to bike, you just have the tiny body to run. That won't work out too well with anything longer than a sprint distance.
Just think about this, if you're not fueling your body correctly, or with enough calories, then your body is going to suffer. Your mental health is going to suffer. Your friends/family/supporters are going to suffer because you'll be miserable to be around. There isn't a magic number that we can slap on someone and say "yes, this is exactly how much of x, y, and z that you need to eat and you'll be perfect", it doesn't work that way. Very few people believe that in early training right now, I'm eating about 2200 calories a day. That may not sound like a lot, but I'm also 4' 11" and 103# training about 10 hours a week (give or take a couple of hours). When Ironman season is in full swing later this summer, I bet I'll double that number and still weigh the same just because of the demand I'll put on my body. If you're training hard and getting injured, not healing, and feel like you hate the world. Look at how much you're putting your body through and how you're feeding it. If you're dropping weight like crazy and are miserable, then it's time to reevaluate your nutrition and get on track to a stronger, healthier body.
The big misconception here was that she thought the way to get the lean and defined look was to keep losing weight. She was well on her way to looking like a short runway model with absolutely no body fat or muscle tone. I asked how many calories she ate per day and how often she worked out and we both about fell over with each others responses. She worked out, doing cardio of form, for a minimum of 2 hours per day, she only ate between 1000-1200 calories per day. This is the reason she's so tiny and has no muscle. Strength training isn't in her repertoire and she's not eating enough for her body to repair itself even if she was lifting weights. She would end up injured.
The biggest problem with Eating Disorders is that there isn't a lot of reasoning you can do with them because they are a mental disorder of form. In her head she still had a mental image of someone who was overweight and wanted to get smaller. The body image that she wanted to obtain, mentally, meant that she was going to have to lose weight. Athletes do the same thing, they want to look a certain way, perform a certain way, and have a certain body image. There is some truth in getting to "Race weight", but it's still a healthy weight.
When you're talking about getting to race weight, you want to be as light as you can be while still being as strong as you can be, you want a good power to weight ratio. It does no good to be stick thin and look like an Ethiopian as a triathlete because then you don't have the arms to swim, or the legs to bike, you just have the tiny body to run. That won't work out too well with anything longer than a sprint distance.
Just think about this, if you're not fueling your body correctly, or with enough calories, then your body is going to suffer. Your mental health is going to suffer. Your friends/family/supporters are going to suffer because you'll be miserable to be around. There isn't a magic number that we can slap on someone and say "yes, this is exactly how much of x, y, and z that you need to eat and you'll be perfect", it doesn't work that way. Very few people believe that in early training right now, I'm eating about 2200 calories a day. That may not sound like a lot, but I'm also 4' 11" and 103# training about 10 hours a week (give or take a couple of hours). When Ironman season is in full swing later this summer, I bet I'll double that number and still weigh the same just because of the demand I'll put on my body. If you're training hard and getting injured, not healing, and feel like you hate the world. Look at how much you're putting your body through and how you're feeding it. If you're dropping weight like crazy and are miserable, then it's time to reevaluate your nutrition and get on track to a stronger, healthier body.
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