Pete Plan 2017

[IefTheChief]

@hjs, so you think it's likely that my current PP training program plus my current food habits now have reached a balancing point which leaves me at 88kg, no matter how hard or how many meters I row? Because on these habits I did lose substantial weight in the last months. That kind of makes sense, I used to weight 88kg 20 years ago so it may be my "natural" body weight before I started my unhealthly lifestyle. I will do exactly what you say, i.e. focus on natural protein and cutting (even more) carbs, thanks very much!

[hjs]

@hjs, so you think it's likely that my current PP training program plus my current food habits now have reached a balancing point which leaves me at 88kg, no matter how hard or how many meters I row? Because on these habits I did lose substantial weight in the last months. That kind of makes sense, I used to weight 88kg 20 years ago so it may be my "natural" body weight before I started my unhealthly lifestyle. I will do exactly what you say, i.e. focus on natural protein and cutting (even more) carbs, thanks very much!

Atm yes, but if you would row of anythings more not.
Have faith, its perfectly possible to lower your weight.

[Anth_F]

Using a general tool to "calculate" your energy needs is very flawed, thats a very rough guide. Calorie counting is useless. Nobody in his right mind will do that for the rest of his life. The mirror, scale and tapemeasure are much more handy.

Definitely a flawed tool on the calories side of things. Half the stuff is guesswork as it doesn't know many specific product types etc, so basically it's useless.

The scale and tapemeasure never let me down once.

[Street]

@Ivo, you'll probably find now you've lost body fat and are exercising more you're putting on more muscle which weighs more which is why your weight seems to have plateaued as although you are losing body fat, you are gaining muscle. You also probably need to adjust your calorie intake downwards if you have lost weight as your BMR will have dropped. There are a few calculators around to work out your Total Daily Expenditure from your BMR and if you calorie count your meals it'll probably show you are eating around your TDE amount, hence no weight loss.

Sorry, l need to react.

More muscle means a higher BMR, so you would burn more, clearly not the case.

Only in the beginning erging will build some very untrained muscle, but thats stops soon.

Using a general tool to "calculate" your energy needs is very flawed, thats a very rough guide. Calorie counting is useless. Nobody in his right mind will do that for the rest of his life. The mirror, scale and tapemeasure are much more handy.

To be fair, he is quite new to rowing so probably has had some beginner muscle gains and lost fat at the same time. I found the calculators handy as a rough guide and by calorie counting for a couple weeks you can see where you are eating too much and gives you an understanding of what foods and amounts give certain calorie amounts. You don't have to do it for the rest of your life. It's just very easy to eat too many calories if you are unsure which will be detrimental to weight loss and can help you see what needs to be done if you've plateaued.

[hjs]

To be fair, he is quite new to rowing so probably has had some beginner muscle gains and lost fat at the same time. I found the calculators handy as a rough guide and by calorie counting for a couple weeks you can see where you are eating too much and gives you an understanding of what foods and amounts give certain calorie amounts. You don't have to do it for the rest of your life. It's just very easy to eat too many calories if you are unsure which will be detrimental to weight loss and can help you see what needs to be done if you've plateaued.

Certainly true.

I find it not easy to gain weight, but I do eat and drink a lot a stuff not. When on holliday and not training much I gain a bit, but thats mostly waterweight.

After the easy "gains" in weightloss it simply gets a bit tougher, when we are far overweight the body easily drops in weight, but when we get leaner ot gets tougher, the body sences reserves going down and "protects" itself by lowering energy use.
What used to work, is now not enough anymore. So you have to changes things.
A point is also expectations, at first loosing 1kg or even more goes well, but later smaller numbers are to be expected.
I myself am never really fat, but have leaned down a few times. That always goes slowly, so I need patience.

[mdpfirrman]

Very true what all are saying about weight loss. I certainly know a thing or two about that. I lost 70 lbs and have kept it off for over 4 years. I gained around 12 back but mostly muscle over 4 years. I'm just a percent or so more body fat now at 188 than I was at 170 lbs. From 240 at my biggest, I started losing weight with working out 5 times a week or 6 times a week. Did walking until I could do Spinning classes. Added in weights. Could only get to 215 or so until I started tracking calories online. Find an online calorie counter. I used Loseit. There's also Myfitnesspal and others. I'd use Myfitnesspal. Loseit is losing support and it seems to be losing features. Most scan food on your phone. They also track macros for you (protein, fat, carbs). Buy a food scale. They're cheap and they teach you about portioning. What I thought was one serving of cereal (which I don't eat much of now) was actually 3. Agree with Henry on the grains completely. When I was eating more meat (your in Europe so your meat quality is better than in the US), I was normally around 40 to 50% fat, 30 to 40% protein and 20% carbs most of the time. I'm not in the shape Henry is, but body composition wise, sound similar. I'm around 18% body fat and if I lean up, I'm pretty defined. This from a fat guy that thought I'd never be thin again. That old saying about not being able to out exercise a bad diet is very true. One of my online weight loss buddies is an ultra marathoner. We started losing weight at the same time. We both lost 70 lbs. He went from starting running to running marathons to ultras. He's gained most of his weight back while running 50 to 100 miles a week. He eats double or triple what he used to. Recipe for disaster. If he ever gets injured, he's going to balloon up.

[IefTheChief]

@Street, thanks for your feedback, too. I have used the Fitbit app to track calories in the first month when I started rowing. I did record everything I took in, and took the real energy values from the packaging, not the default ones from the app. It did help me to get a good idea what I was taking in and where I could make easy changes (the low hanging fruit). But so far I did not really balance things out, let alone focus on less carb and more protein (apart from taking protein shakes). Don't use it anymore now, I think I know what it means to eat say 2.500 kCals per day. I do still record energy usage with the Fitbit - although I know it won't be exact, I do think I'm burning around 3.250 - 3.500 kCals per day currently. I am 99% sure I don't take in that many kCals, more like 2.500. So I am surprised my weight doesn't go down anymore.

But you're absolutely right - I am a beginning rower (although after 4 cycles PP I certainly don't feel like a beginner anymore), and my body has changed completely. Most fat gone, muscles developed. My scales have shown a downward trend in terms of body fat, going from 27% in january to 23% now. The % don't mean much to me, but the trend does, and this fat % has also been constant on this plateau. I really wonder what my body is doing now, it's an interesting process for sure!

@hjs, already did research on low carb diets after your post. Not at all a punishment to go in that direction it seems so looking forward to embarking on that journey.

[rlboyles]

Yikes - the Pete Plan speed pyramid got me again! I have never done this workout correctly in the 4 or 5 times I've tried it!

I intended to go what I thought would be an "easy" 1:42 pace all the way up thru the 1000m piece, then really hit it hard on the way down. Weeeelllll, I ended up crashing and burning after the 1000m and barely holding on for the the way down (even after the 6:00 minute rest after the 1000m!). I think the times are not that bad, but I had this obviously unrealistic vision at this point, that I could do better.

After realizing I was toast, my logic on the way down shifted to... just make sure to keep things under 1:45 pace, which is about all I could do.

I also figured that no matter the pace, as long as I was pushing my hardest, the workout would end up being a positive benefit, so keep pushing.

250m @ 1:41.9 pace
500m @ 1:41.7
750m @ 1:41.7
1000m @ 1:40.9
750m @ 1:44.7
500m @ 1:44.6
250m @ 1:40.3

[mdpfirrman]

@ rlboyles - that's a tougher workout to control on the way up. Most people believe the middle part of the pyramid is reflective of your 2K potential. According to my bad math, you averaged around a 1:42.3 through the 750 / 1000 / 750 portion. However, you did a bit of a crash and burn (fly and die, whatever you want to call it). The fact you stuck to it and didn't HD is impressive first of all. Also, I've found if my pace is off (even slightly) on the way up, it will impact my average and make it inaccurately high. Looking at your pacing, you just went too fast on the 1000. That's it. I don't think your 1:42 estimate was far off. Even that bit too fast on the 1000 can make all the difference in what you have left in the tank on the back end. I wish I was showing a 6:4X something 2K projection! Nice to have your problems!

[mdpfirrman]

@ Ivo - I mentioned this earlier in the thread. My wife and I are trying to go mostly vegan. Because of that change in diet, my macros went from mostly fat and protein (by definition of vegan) to more of a 33% split of protein, carbs, fat. Even this took a lot of effort on my part not to be 60% carbs going vegan. First week or two I've never felt so exhausted in all my life. I function MUCH better on a higher fat, higher protein diet. I'm feeling OK now for the most part, but it took some adjusting. Your body is well equipped to function off of both carbs or fats for energy in my humble opinion. You just want to stay away from the grains, especially in the US, where they dump unbelievable amounts of herbicides on it. I'm convinced that's what made my wife sick. Now, in my opinion, the meat supply in the US is also the same (thus the vegan). Just small macro changes can effect performance dramatically, especially in the short term.

If you European folks are smart, don't let Round-Up into your country. I've read they are already paying people off to get it into the region and tell you "it's safe". Well, it isn't!!

11300 or so today for me in 50 minutes (SS work). Mostly 2:10 pace but a friend stopped to talk the last 15 minutes (and I mean talk a lot!). My pace creeped to 2:15 while talking, so ended up at a 2:12. I'm feeling good enough that I plan on joining back in next week. I lifted and did some intermediate intervals yesterday. Was hard, but I didn't feel any residual after effects.

[IefTheChief]

@rlboyles - impressive session! I like the positive attitude, keeping it a hard row knowing you've failed the target. Indeed all work counts.

@mike I am very much a novice on the food front, never checked what went in, although almost everything we buy is organic so no round up in our house I think. I do indeed want to go higher protein but don't want to go all-in with meat, actually wanted to cut down. So will focus on eggs, cheese and fish (we live by the sea so that won't be an issue) and trade the beer for whiskey . I think that cutting all bread, beer and white pasta/rice will already make a big difference, will see where that takes me in the next weeks and report back. Very impressive the weight you've lost. I also want to be 18-20% fat but think that is going to take a couple of years to achieve. My goal is to be fitter than I was 20 years ago.

Just finished cycle 4 with a 10k SS @ 2:13.9. Used the Liverowing app for the first time and paid 35 euros for it. Like the interface, but unfortunately it doesn't sync session details to the C2 log, only the summary. That's not an option, so back to ErgData. Too bad, I wanted this to work! Being an app developer I'm itchy to build something myself, maybe a (B)PP app would be handy, but too niche I guess and too much a hobby project. If anyone ever has an app idea for the erg let me know.

Rest day tomorrow, then cycle 5!

[mdpfirrman]

@ Ivo - I'm waiting on the LiveRowing Cable to come (to hook up to the old PM3 at my gym). Once I get that, you can I can race (though you'll probably destroy me)! We're currently roughly the same pace. As for the protein, I don't know if they have vegan options there but they have some really good ones in the US now. I love SunWarrior. It's no grain. Though I hate supplementing, with less meat, it does help to get more protein in that way. Plus, SunWarrior is grain free and made with all vegetable proteins.

[calalli]

rlboyles - tough session there and good job hanging in and finishing strong.
ivo- nice 10K, keep up the good work
Mike - glad to see you at it again


10/5/17 BPP 7.3 8000M - goal was to match last time pace 2:10.6 - Had a hard time. could not match the pace and HR was significantly higher than 2 days ago.
Time Meters /500m Watts Cal/Hr s/m
35:07.8 8,000m 2:11.7 153 826 22
7:01.1 1,600m 2:11.5 154 829 22 143
6:58.4 3,200m 2:10.7 157 840 21 148
7:02.1 4,800m 2:11.9 153 826 21 149
7:05.7 6,400m 2:13.0 149 812 21 153
7:00.5 8,000m 2:11.4 154 829 23 156

[hepting]

BPP Wk 11 - 10k 40:51.8 2:02.5/avg - low energy effort, but got it done.

[gregsmith01748]

Used the Liverowing app for the first time and paid 35 euros for it. Like the interface, but unfortunately it doesn't sync session details to the C2 log, only the summary. That's not an option, so back to ErgData. Too bad, I wanted this to work! Being an app developer I'm itchy to build something myself, maybe a (B)PP app would be handy, but too niche I guess and too much a hobby project. If anyone ever has an app idea for the erg let me know.

You might want to try painsled. It's similar to ergdata but lets you get at a bunch more data. If you are serious about wanting to contribute to a erg related project, a friend of mine is working on a raspberry pi based logger. It's basically just a logger with no real UI that will link to the PM via bluetooth or USB and collect strokes for analysis later. If you are interested, I can put you in touch.