Sunday, September 18, 2016

Wait, what? Be patient.

Did you ever notice that when you begin something new, let's say changing your daily nutrition plan for the sake of example, that your body doesn't respond how you think it should initially?  Your mind is flooded with thoughts like "I really thought I should be losing weight now", or "why isn't the fat around my belly decreasing?", or "shouldn't I be running faster?".  Yeah, it happens to all of us.  Immediate gratification it's called.  Unfortunately, when it comes to manipulating your biology (via nutritional changes), it is not that easy (or fast).

I experienced this first hand the last four weeks.  Coming off of a stagnant triathlon season plagued with two sinus infections and walking pneumonia, I was ecstatic to begin really training again four weeks ago for two late season sprint triathlon races and two Spartan Beast competitions. As I began my training, I noticed the obvious fatigue seen with increased training load but I also changed my nutrition just a bit to be more Metabolically Efficient.  I increased my fat a bit and decreased my carbohydrate a bit to balance out. Protein stayed the same.  For some reason, even though I have been through this before and I teach it every day to athletes, I thought my body would change faster than it did. Body weight remained stable. I didn't see any change in body composition (aesthetic, not quantitative measurements). I thought it was strange but had to remind myself that this is biology and while things may happen quickly in our body (like cellular turnover), the results are not immediate.

Why am I bringing this up? I was patient after I reminded myself that immediate gratification simply does not happen when changing daily nutrition strategies. The body acts and reacts differently with every change that you induce and in the end, we must all remember that anything that you try to change will take time to adapt, just as it did on the front end when you may have let it slip from your normal routine.

Personally, it took my body two weeks to begin to see changes to my altered training load and nutritional changes. Will it take yours two weeks? Probably not but perhaps. My point is: remain patient, trust the process, and stay committed. You will be rewarded in the end.

Enjoy your week!

Coach Bob
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