Paleo Diet, Losing Weight, & Half Ironmans-Advice?

Erik,
First of all you can enter and finish an Half-Iron distance race(with the current generous time limits) even if you are 30#or 50# overweight. Go watch the finish line of an half-iron or even an ironman race and you will see all shapes and sizes finishing. It is not an extraordinary human feat or anything. However if you lose weight obviously you will be faster. IMHO do not stick to any particular diet. Diets are fads.
Watch and write down what you are eating, and try to create a deficit of some sort. Carefully monitor your energy levels as well.
You do not want to overdo the deficit part.
Good Luck

I'm eating Paleo and training for 2 70.3 and an IM this year along with my husband but he is a bit more lax and does eat dairy.

I agree don't put pressure on yourself to lose xx amount of weight by zzz time frame.

You have until September for your HIM so you have plenty of time not just until March. As another poster said you can do a HIM if you are overweight plenty of people do. Weight will effect your time but training is key to preparing you to complete the race.

I don't think you need to adjust Paleo for weight loss. Are you following it exactly? Doing the Paleo for Endurance Athlete method with pre and post excercise foods? Do you cheat?

For me dropping dairy has helped.

There is a thread in the nutrition forum below on Paleo you may want to check out.

You have 6 or 7 months to lose the weight for that Half Ironman, why do you want to do it in 2 months? 6 lbs is very good for 4 weeks. If you are 30 lbs overweight it's not like one of the people on Biggest Loser that can drop 10-15 a week because they are overweight by hundreds of lbs. If you stick with Paleo or any reasonable nutrition plan and work out an hour to two hours a day 5 or 6 days a week you should lose the weight in time for your HIM. I also suggest weight training, crossfit or P90X as mixing these with endurance sports is quite helpful to lose weight.

Yes. You can. I'm a lard butt who did 3 HIMs last year. Not the fastest but I did 'em and enjoyed every day coming up to the races.

You'll have enough to worry about along the way, don't let a weight goal/time become another way to stress yourself out.

I actually went down near my goal weight at one time and found my BP was 97/40 and Karen Carpenter's diet kept going through my mind so I relaxed slightly on the diet front and put back on about 10-15 pounds. Not my BP is 120/70 almost daily and I've got a RHR around 45 most days. I'm a lot healthier according to my Doc, with a bit of weight than I was when I weighed less. This year I'm doing a full iron and I'll probably drop another 5 pounds or so but we'll see. If I don't, oh well.

Edited by DanielG 2010-02-01 9:22 AM

I lost a little more than 40 pounds training for IMOO. One thing that I had heard, and found to be true for me, is that the slower you lose the weight, the more likely it is to stay off.

Kathy, when you say dropping dairy has helped, do you mean in the sense of weightloss or in other ways?

I'm in the same boat.  Started training beginning of January for my first HIM in June.  Lost 11lbs in Jan from 210 to 199.  I plan on losing another 10 by the end of Feb.  I'm really not torturing myself, just cut out the soda's and pretty much fried anything for a while and eating more vegetables and fruits (which I like and should be doing anyways).  That of course and swimming, biking and running mixed with some strength training.

The way I see it, trying to go up and down the stairs with a 25 lb bag of dogfood is hard enough.  running 13 miles with it sounds like a pain in the butt....I'm trying to cut weight fast and running, biking and everything else will be easier.  It already has gotten easier with the gut shrinking.  In another month I won't watch what I eat as much but with the training the furnace will be burnin' it!

I have no idea what the Paleo diet is.

In 2000 I went from 220 down to 170 in about 4 months, maybe slightly less. Back then I was not a triathlete or runner, and my main form of exercise was biking. Essentially I cut my daily calories to less than 2000, and rode my bike about 20 miles daily. Daily meaning every day for several months. The biking was performed at modest speeds, but with constant pedaling because coasting does absolutely nothing toward burning calories. I also did some weight lifting, but nothing very aggressive, as well as some core work. My motivation and timeline did not involve any sports. Now, almost 10 years later, I weigh about 165 and have been as low as 155.

You have more time than I did to lose less weight. However, you are also training for a long distance endurance event which will require some solid nutrition to have sufficient energy to perform the training. Trying to lose weight too fast may be very detrimental toward the training. Simply by focusing on reducing caloric intake and increasing caloric burn at modest levels, you should be able to lose about a pound a week without negatively impacting your training. My suggestion is to consume about 60-70% quality carbs, and 15-20% each of proteins and fat. The specific foods you use are a matter of personal preference. Weight doesn't always drop in a linear fashion, so don't be discouraged if some weeks are zero because others weeks will likely be more. Having a goal and working consistently over a long period of time will get results in both weight loss and racing. Many people are too impatient and give up quickly when results are not immediate. Don't be one of those people.

Well said, if you eat right and keep the motor going, you are going to burn the butter.

Thanks for the reply! I cheat a bit... trying to stay in the 95/5 ratio except Sundays (its a family day and I tend to let go a bit, within reason of course). The reality is that my wife doesn't really buy in the idea of low carb, so she eats them, thus I do as well... to an extent. I plan on stocking up the fridge with fruits and veggies and avoiding breads, but she loves pasta and cheeses. Generally, I am able to avoid the carbs and dairy on my own during the week, but the weekend is another story. Thus far, I have noticed better overall health and more energy during the day. Workouts are about the same, but I am exercising in Z1-Z3 ONLY!! I tend to use Muscle Milk post workout and eat very little before. I will eat fats in an effort to train my body to burn fat for energy before workouts. As I get longer and more intense with the workouts, I planned to switch over to pre and post carb re-loading.Thanks for the advice on weight! I have struggled my entire life with being overweight. I really want to be in Ironman shape when I show up to start the race this year. Part of my weight goal is an extension of that overweight condition I have always known.Thanks again!

Starting end of September I did Primal which is a slight variation of Paleo but allowed dairy....while doing that I actually gained weight. Dropping dairy has helped me lose weight again. My Crossfit gym is doing a Paleo challenge so have extra incentive to be strict. I have done Paleo before but never cut out dairy fully before this time.

In talking with other women I know who have done Paleo or Primal cutting out dairy was often the key to losing body fat.

So now I'm doing strict Paleo, eating only lean meat mostly grass fed, veggies and fruit. On longer workouts I may do the endurance athlete Paleo which may mean a low glycemic snack before workout and after I may eat a sweet potato. I don't take in calories on my workouts until I started running longer than 1.5 hours. I did my 90' run with two gels this past week just because I suspect my glycogen stores are a bit low with limited carbs only from fruits, veggies and what my body can convert daily.

I've been at this losing weight gig since 4/2003. When I stop normal tri training like I did post IM, I gain weight even when I try to eat well. I'm trying to get to my IMLP weight  (down 97 pounds) and maybe 5-10 pounds lower this season.

There are going to be some that disagree with me here but pay attention to this. I've found carbs are something I basically cannot do except during the race or 2+ hour workout itself. After about 4 years of playing around with diet I've found that I cannot have more than about 50-100 grams of carbs a day outside of exercising. More than 100 gms and I gain weight, even if the calories remain the same. Fewer than 50 and I can lose weight. You may or may not need or want to pre load and you might want to hold off on the recovery stuff until you get into the 2 hour runs and 3 hour bikes, even if then.

Don't swear by any one diet, way or method no matter how enthusiastic the poster is about "this is the only way" until you've found out what works for YOU and your body/lifestyle.

Physically impossible unless you've managed to change the laws of thermodynamics.

I would guess that your calories aren't remaining the same.

You can guess all you want. It happens.

Congrats on changing the fundamental rules of the universe.  Your Nobel is on the way shortly.

See what I mean? People who don't have a clue what you did or how many Drs you went to trying to figure out why all the stuff other people raved about wasn't working always think they know better. It's amusing to a point.

Turns out it's not how many calories you take in, it's how many your body KEEPS in versus how many just pass through and how many you burn. Your body might very well be set up to burn carbs well or it may hold on to them and burn something else well while passing other things right through.

Whatever you do, don't bother trying to share it here or you'll get shouted down by people who were not there for your journey.

It's not shouting you down.  It's pointing out that what you're claiming isn't supported by objective evidence.  A review of the available literature will show that isocaloric diets show the same effect on weight regardless of macronutrient content.  If you have something that shows otherwise, I'm all ears.  Otherwise it's just a nice sounding theory.

I'm glad I amuse you.  I'll stick to evidence based practice rather than anecdotal tales from an internet message board.

In the past, I went super low carb and dropped 20 lbs. I avoided milk products though... only ate hard cheeses and eggs, meats, nuts, veggies, a few fruits. I cut breads entirely. This is basically the Paleo Diet, only Paleo allows for more fruit. Having the fruit allows for more vits and mins. and it satisfies a sweet tooth. What really dropped weight for me was when I got into the long runs, so I am looking forward to that... but that's a little while away yet...OH the other thing I did, and do, is calorie count. I make sure I am 200-400 under basal requirements. Anything burnt through a workout, I generally try not to replenish through diet and hope it comes off my waist.

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Congratulation on returning back to Tri.  Welcome back!  You know what to do.  Eat right and work hard.  The weight will come off.

Semper Fi!