A short shopping list

Time to STP: 141 Days

As alluded to in my previous post, I have been reading "The Cyclist's Food Guide" and in the first few pages of this guide, there is a great shopping list of things that you should just generally have in your cupboard to healthy eating.  One thing that I have really discovered as of late is that a lot of foods that you eat when you are working to train for anything (in this case, a tour) are really protein heavy. But at the same time, you want to make sure that you are not overly depleting your glycogen stores daily (see previous post for chocolate milk recipe that is quite useful in getting some of this back to your body after a run/ride).  Really, keeping your body fueled before and after a long workout really quite important.

Although you may be trying to trim up, I have found, you can't rely entirely on your typical caloric intake for the day to fuel your body.  On a typical 1 hour ride, I burn around 660 calories.  For someone in my age bracket, just to maintain, I should be eating around 2400 calories a day. If you want to lose weight, then the recommendation is cutting your caloric intake by around 500.  So, even if I am trying to trim up a bit, I still need to consume around 2500 calories per day just to keep things working.  It has been a terrifically interesting trying to learn these things as I am trying to not only shed a few pounds from when my daughter was born, but also feel more energized on a ride.

As an aside, I saw something at New Seasons the other day and wondered if I could replicate it.  This is really a meal unto itself depending on your proportions, and will last for days.

Quinoa Salad
2 Cups Quinoa (cooked)
1 Cup dried cranberries
1 bunch of spinach (chopped) or 1 cup of baby spinach
1 can chick peas
2 tbs pine nuts (optional)
2 tbs olive oil
Herbs to taste
Mix together and chill.
Serving size  is what you like of it, but I found around a cup works good and puts you at around 300 calories, give or take.