trouble loosing weight

Agreed. Alcohol is very sneaky that way...it's much higher in calories than you might realize. 

Try logging in everything you eat for a couple weeks.  I mean EVERYTHING.  You might find that more calories than you suspect are sneaking in there, in the form of drinks and bars.

The biggest culprets generally are sweetened drinks (even juice), alcohol, pasta, breads, and sugar.

Johnny Kay nailed it.

Weight loss is simple: burn more than you eat. Done.

That said, it's the discipline that is difficult. It isn't about diets, supplements, special shoes or clothes or food or books or vitamins.

Eat less. Do more. Wait six months. Done.

A friend of mine sent this list to me yesterday. It made me thirst for a Bloody Mary.

I recently watched a friend celebrate her 50th birthday by washing down at least 8 cosmo's. 1600 calories in one wild evening.

• Pina Colada (6 oz): 378 calories
• Mojito (8 oz): 214 calories
• Cosmopolitan (4 oz): 200 calories
• Chocolate martini: (2 oz each vodka, chocolate liqueur, cream, 1/2 oz creme de cacao, chocolate syrup): 438
• Margarita (8 oz): 280
• Skinnygirl margarita (4 oz): 100
• Green apple martini (1 oz each vodka, sour apple, apple juice): 148
• Martini (2.5 oz): 160
• Port wine (3 oz):128
• Bloody Mary (5 oz): 118
• Red wine (5 oz):120
• White wine (5 oz): 120
• Alcohol-free wine (5 oz): 20-30
• Beer (12 oz): 150-198
• Light beer (12 oz): 95-136
• Ultra-light beer (12 oz): 64-95
• Champagne (5oz): 106-120
• Coffee liqueur (3 ounces): 348
• Godiva chocolate liqueur (3 oz): 310
• Wine spritzer (5 oz): 100
• Eggnog with rum (8 ounces): 370
• Hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps (8 oz): 380
• Hot buttered rum (8 oz): 292
• Spiced cider with rum ( 8 oz):150
• Mulled wine (5 oz): 200
• Vodka and tonic (8 oz): 200
• Screwdriver (8 oz): 190
• Mimosa (4 oz): 75
• Gin and tonic (7 oz): 200
• Long Island iced tea (8 oz): 780
• White Russian (2 oz vodka, 1.5 oz coffee liqueur, 1.5 oz cream): 425
• Mai Tai (6 oz) (1.5 oz rum, 1/2 oz cream de along, 1/2 oz triple sec, sour mix, pineapple juice): 350
• Rum and Coke (8 oz): 185
• Rum and Diet Coke (8 oz): 100
• Mike's Hard Lemonade (11 oz): 98

• Beer (12 oz): 150-198

This is my nemesis.  That last five pounds will never go away and I'm getting tired of fighting it.  I am starting to think there are more important things to worry about.

I respectfully disagree with the suggested serving sizes for the drinks above

Thanks, Renee, that's actually a handy list to have around!

Are you lifting weights a part of your training? If not, some light weight high rep stuff might help. Your weight might not change but it could lower your % of body fat.

x2 - With a second hobby of brewing beer, I've chosend to live with the 5 lbs and keep drinking my home brew

15-20 hours of training a week and your not able to lose weight at will?  If you objectively think your not taking in too many calories (and to balance off 15-20 hrs it should be a lot of calories), perhaps you should go see a nutrionist/dietician.  They will be able to give you a much better analysis than us here on the boards.

Do what I do.  I try to watch what I eat during the weekdays because the training on these days are 1.5 hours up to 2 at the most.  Lean white meat and salads most of the time but there's the occassional burger from In n Out.  Of course I have to have my daily dose of Miler Select.  55 calories per bottle...  How the hell can you beat that???

Let go on the weekend.  Eat and drink whatever you want.  That is if you know you will have a pretty high volume weekend.  That's what I've been doing and I'm down to my desired race weight without even thinking about it.  My weekends consists parties, booze, and a lot of desserts.  But then again I always have at least a 50 mile bike ride followed by a 3-6 mile run on Saturdays and maybe another longish ride, bike hill repeats, or a long run.  For a short and light guy (5'6 144#), I can eat and drink a lot...

thanks to everyone!!!

i think every younger triathlete can find VERY good advice here if he has no girlfirend and has  to go "hunting" every weekend. i know i have to change something, cause i actually know quite much about healthy nutrition, but it doesnt have to be the best solution for a triathlete and i also wanted to know what to do with the crazy weekends. 

thanks again. and as  RITTE athletes would say. train hard, party hard

• 
  Pina Colada (6 oz): 378 calories
• Mojito (8 oz): 214 calories
• Cosmopolitan (4 oz): 200 calories
• Chocolate martini: (2 oz each vodka, chocolate liqueur, cream, 1/2 oz creme de cacao, chocolate syrup): 438
• Margarita (8 oz): 280
• Skinnygirl margarita (4 oz): 100
• Green apple martini (1 oz each vodka, sour apple, apple juice): 148
• Martini (2.5 oz): 160
• Port wine (3 oz):128
• Bloody Mary (5 oz): 118
• Red wine (5 oz):120
• White wine (5 oz): 120
• Alcohol-free wine (5 oz): 20-30
• Beer (12 oz): 150-198
• Light beer (12 oz): 95-136
• Ultra-light beer (12 oz): 64-95
• Champagne (5oz): 106-120
• Coffee liqueur (3 ounces): 348
• Godiva chocolate liqueur (3 oz): 310
• Wine spritzer (5 oz): 100
• Eggnog with rum (8 ounces): 370
• Hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps (8 oz): 380
• Hot buttered rum (8 oz): 292
• Spiced cider with rum ( 8 oz):150
• Mulled wine (5 oz): 200
• Vodka and tonic (8 oz): 200
• Screwdriver (8 oz): 190
• Mimosa (4 oz): 75
• Gin and tonic (7 oz): 200
• Long Island iced tea (8 oz): 780
• White Russian (2 oz vodka, 1.5 oz coffee liqueur, 1.5 oz cream): 425
• Mai Tai (6 oz) (1.5 oz rum, 1/2 oz cream de along, 1/2 oz triple sec, sour mix, pineapple juice): 350
• Rum and Coke (8 oz): 185
• Rum and Diet Coke (8 oz): 100
• Mike's Hard Lemonade (11 oz): 98

With beer.

AND it's a very well-known fact that along with the alcohol consumption comes the post-consumption "munchies" and that's one of the reasons you're encouraged to limit alcohol consumption when trying to drop pounds...

similar to watching TV... an activity that most people tend to eat while doing...

BrianRunsPhilly - 2012-02-21 7:29 PM  On a different note, a bottle of red wine is about 625 calories, or a 10k

Ouch!   That one hurts!   Red wine is my nemesis.  I've just sworn off alcohol for lent (actually a few days in already) to try and get down to this season's race weight - so far so good, we'll see how it goes before I go off the deep end!  

The more I train, the more accurately I eat exactly what I need to maintain my weight.  Exactly.

If I want to actually lose, I have to pay a lot of attention to my food intake.

The guy is already training 15-20 hours per week.  You think some light weight, high rep work is going to materially change his body comp?  It's not activity that's his issue.  It's diet.

Exactly! Count your calories and you'll be shocked at what you consume.   Cut out the alcohol, fancy coffees and breads and you'll lose the weight.

Find out what you BMR is for your height and age, calories required to maintain this weight, and subtract your calories burned during training.  By becoming more aware of the calories you are consuming on a daily basis and then cutting back, you'll reach an attainable weight goal.  Losing weight at your age should be easy.  Wait till you get a couple of decades older when you metabolism really slows down and dropping 5 pounds is really challenging. 

Good luck.

zimzelenac - 2012-02-21 3:50 PM i have been competing in tri races for 3 years now, doing some kind of sport my whole life. Im 24 years old, 180 cm(5.9) and weigh about 79 kg (175 pounds). I train quite hard and the results arent bad. I have about 15-20 hours of training every week and the training program i use was made just for my needs. I finished a quite hard Half ironman in 5 hours and can run almost every race in 4 min/km. the thing is I cant loose "the last" 3-4 kg. My body fat doesnt seem to get under 11-12%. I now thats not the most important thing, but since i train so hard i think i would do much better on bike and running with a little less weight. I eat very healthy and almost every food i take is organic since i live in croatia and we use almost only homemade products here. I think my biggest problem is that i go out almost every weekend and drink alcohol when im in bars and clubs. Until i was 15 i was quite chubby (just so you know). Any advice is welcome. (quiting the bars is very difficult for me so please be creative )

A fewof things that stand out for me. First off you are young and single. Live it up unless you plan on going pro. Second, Seems like you have some decent muscle mass to be 5'9, 175 and 11-12% BF. This is a good place to be and realistic to maintain. If I was you I would be very happy with that as a walking around weight and only try to drop a few more BF % points prior to an big race.

Oter than that like most have already said if you are insistent on losing weight (although I dont think you have much to lose) eat less or drink less but either way you need to cut some calories out

Am I the only one who thinks that complaining about his weight when his body fat is already around 11% may be a sign that his body is pretty much where it wants to stay?

There was an interesting article in the Guardian this week that reiterated what we have known for years (especially those who have had struggles with weight) - that your metabolism changes with weight loss.

There was an article I read somewhere in the last 6 months that focused on the project following people who had lost and kept off significant amounts of weight. One of the the things they found was that those metabolic changes are pretty permanent. One of the couples in the article made maintaining their weight essentially a full time affair, since they kept logs and charts and recognized that if they followed the usual guidelines about diet and exercise, they would end up with a calorie surplus of several hundred calories each day. In other words,  if they were "supposed" to be eating 1800 calories a day, they actually needed about 1500. And that if an hour of biking would calculate out to 800 calories burned, their bodies actually only burned 600 (the numbers -being based off my memory of the article- are not accurate, but the trend is).

So if the OP REALLY wants to get into single digit BF%, he might do it with more deprivation and activity. I guess the questions are (1) whether it is worthwhile when he is already at a healthy point and (2) if it is sustainable in the long run, especially if he ends up changing his metabolism such that returning to his current diet and exercise pattern will result not in stability but in weight gain?

JollyRoger - 2012-02-22 9:06 AM

BrianRunsPhilly - 2012-02-21 7:29 PM  On a different note, a bottle of red wine is about 625 calories, or a 10k

Ouch!   That one hurts!   Red wine is my nemesis.  I've just sworn off alcohol for lent (actually a few days in already) to try and get down to this season's race weight - so far so good, we'll see how it goes before I go off the deep end!  

Actually I was trying to make that sound positive. A healthy dinner and splitting a bottle of wine is a good thing. That 312.5 calories is hardly even a short run. I find it more enjoyable to have the wine than say two good beers. Problem with beer is the first one goes down too quickly.

Safety note: This does not scale. I am not suggesting if you do a 18-mile marathon training run you should consume 3 bottles of wine as fluid/carb replacement.

I don't disagree in general.  But he appears interested in performance, not 'sustainability'.  He's at a very healthy body comp.  If he wants to eke out more performance, then he needs lose some more weight.  Again, he just has to decide what's really important to him.  Nothing wrong with deciding that the bar scene (or whatever) is more important to him than ekeing out that last bit of performance.