Nutrition advice - cutting weights whilst still whilst training a lot

[hellarda]

*EDIT* Title should say weight not weights!

Hi all,

Just wanted to ask for some advice regarding how I can change my nutrition to achieve where I want to be.

Bit of background - I have been rowing at uni the past 3 years, and since Christmas we (senior mens team) have been lucky enough to have been given a training program, and receive coaching from a GB coach. We currently train 15 times a week, morning water session 16km, ~90 minutes steady state (we call it UT2 training 59%-67% of HR max), followed by a UT1 12km or 18km ergo (67-75% of HR max), followed by a weights session. We do this everyday bar Sunday which is our rest day, and wednesday where we only have two sessions (Thursday and Saturday we also do no have weights).

This amount of training has been a massive step up over what we used to be doing, we used to do a reasonable amount (maybe 6/7 times a week) but this is much more intense and higher volume.

I currently weigh around 98kg, I've been sat around that weight for a while now and since starting the new program just before Christmas I have dropped from about 19/20% body fat to around 15%, but remained the same weight. I gain muscle (and fat) relatively easily. I am currently eating around 5000/5500 kcals a day.

My coach spoke to me yesterday about improving my power:weight ratio and reducing weight in the boat, by mainly dropping my weight down to under 90kg and preferably around 85kg.

Now I literally have no idea how to go about this. He has suggested cutting carbs after training in the evening which I'm going to do but I'm just worried about now not eating enough with all the training I'm doing.

Does anyone have any advice? or is it a case of trial and error and finding the line where I'm losing weight but still eating enough to train? I also don't see how I'm going to not keep putting on muscle and just continuing to reduce BF% whilst remaining the same weight?

Sorry for the long post

Ta in advance

 

[D.P.]

For me, I can't cut much weight during peak training. i am ravenous and spend the day snacking. I'll wake up in the middle of the night hungry sometimes. I try and get weight loss between peak training cycles.


You could probably cut a little carbs because 90 minutes at HR Zone 2 is not that long but you will need to see how you feel in days that follow, e.g. if you are tired and can't finish your "UT1" session then you have probably emptied your glycogen supplies.


IMO, it would be better to drop fat. There is nothing wrong with fat pe se but it is calorie dense and eating even a small amount of meat will liekly get you all you need. You will need protein to repair muscles and carbs to do the workouts. When i am in peak training I try and cut fats down a bit and maintain a lot of carbs, often around 80% of my calories.


The weight session should also be closely examined IMO. You can put on substantial muscle mass without corresponding strength, conversely you can gain strength without excessive muscle mass. And you only want to be strengthening the muscles directly useful your sport. E.g., a marathon runner doesn't need strong biceps (but other core muscles), so bicep curls will only ever slow them down, so that is why they have very lean upper bodies. Hopeful your coach closely supervises what weights you are doing, how many repetitions etc., to be muscles that make you both stronger for the rowing and less liekly to get injured.

 

[Somnambulist]

As ever, you'll need to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight - not a severe one given all the training you do - and see if you can keep dropping weight slowly without it being too impactful on training. The closer you get to 10% bf and most especially once you go under that, the more effort is required by your body to tap into what remaining fat stores are left (ergo sparing LBM while dropping weight becomes harder because muscle is pretty easy to break down and use for energy) so usually the rate of loss has to be slowed down to mitigate this. A safe rate would be something like 0.5% of your total bw lost per week (aside from an initial drop due to water being flushed out).

Also - and forgive me if my maths is terrible here - if you're really 15% at 98kg then that's 14.7kg of fat on you, 83.3kg of FFM (not all of this will be muscle), so at 85kg you'd have to only be carrying 1.7kg of fat? That sounds like something a bodybuilder would have on stage which is also when their performance is at it's absolute worst due to that level of leanness being unhealthy - how was your bodyfat tested if I may ask? I would wager it's probably higher than 15% (which is good in a way as you'd be able to lose it a little faster - more like 1% of total bw lost a week).

If you're maintaining on 5000-5500 then see what results 4500-4700 yields and adjust as necessary if there's things like stalls for more than a couple of weeks. Keep protein relatively high since it's muscle sparing, fats can go as low as 15% of your calories and the rest carbs, making sure they're kept spread sensibly around your training.

Recomposition (fat loss concurrent with muscle gain) tends to happen primarily in people who are new to training and people with plenty of fat to lose. If you're not a beginner and you're pretty lean, then really any gains in a diet are going to be strength-related things like improving efficiency in your technique, less of you to move around (for something like pull-ups) and being able to recruit a higher percentage of a given muscle's fibres through a better neural connection. Fat loss is a quick process in the grand scheme of things, especially if you're already under 20% so it makes sense just to cut it down and then you can get on with either filling out your weight class or in your case getting as efficient at that bodyweight as you can.