Has the dietitian helped?

Yes and no, but mostly no and that's because I've put on weight. About 5 kgs in fact.

Part of her advice was to decrease my training because she believed it was making me hungry and over-eat to compensate but it turns out that's the only thing keeping my weight where it is. Any less than an hour a day and I put on up to 2 kgs a week. On the one hand I'm ok with that because I enjoy my training immensely but another part of me worries that I'm a ticking time bomb and I'm just an injury or illness away from turning into a blimp again.

I'm eating healthier and eating less so I should be losing weight and I should be feeling great, but I'm not. I feel washed out and tired and the scales are going up.

However, it's probably not fair to blame the dietitian. Her advice has been good and it should work and the only reason I don't think it is, is because of stress. The collapse of the Aussie dollar has caused the Aussie economy to slow right down so on top of the usual amount of daily headaches, I've seen my business turnover drop by more than a third! That keeps me awake at night which makes me feel tired and raises cortisol hormone levels which increases my cravings for bad foods, and this type of stress also causes my body to go into protection mode so it tries to store every calorie possible while making me feel hungry all of the time.

The other issue is depression. Exercise increases endorphin levels which helps keep depression at bay. If I'm depressed, I eat, and I'm less enthusiastic about getting up and doing something, but if I make the effort I start feeling less depressed fairly quickly and I soon find I become enthusiastic about it. Also, the more vigorous the exercise, the greater the endorphin rush and the better I feel.

Things are starting to add up...

Going over my blog posts and measurement records I've been able to pinpoint when I was having my best results and what I was doing at the time to achieve it. That happened around June 2007 when I was doing 30 minute blocks of high intensity cycling in the mornings before breakfast and 30 minute high intensity weight routines straight after work. I'd also follow up with lower intensity mountain bike rides on several nights and on weekends.

So it seems short duration, high intensity exercise is the key for me. The only reason it failed then was due to a severe bout of the flu followed by drinking excessive cappuccinos when I bought a coffee machine. I gained about 7kgs in around 6 weeks due to these two factors.

The dietitian's had me eating more dairy too and lactose also seems to play a part in slowing me down and possibly causing weight gain somehow. For the last few years I haven't been able to handle it as well as I used to. It seems to cause bloating and a general feeling of unwellness, which may explain why those cappuccinos caused such rapid weight gain which I was able to lose even more rapidly just by stopping them. I lost 4 kgs within the week straight after!

The other aspect may be "overreaching". If I push it things too far and don't keep on eye on things like sleep, hydration and nutrition it's easy to burn out.

The solution for me I think is to have two training cycles of around 4 - 6 weeks each.

The first consists of 30 minute gut busting sessions twice daily before and after work with some light aerobic activity thrown in at nights and weekends. My primary focus here is power and strength building. Every training session is about setting records (apart from the light aerobic sessions).

I'll switch to the second phase every 4 - 6 weeks or when I notice overreaching symptoms such as extreme fatigue or a lack of enthusiasm. This training phase is about building base fitness, endurance and aerobic capacity rather than strength. There's fewer sessions and they're longer duration (1 - 2 hrs) at a much lower intensity, and I'll be having at least one full day of no scheduled activity at all so I'm getting adequate recovery.

Diet wise, I do have faith in the dietitian's advice which is basically to eat whole unprocessed foods and keep the animal fat and high GI foods to a minimum. However, I think I might keep the dairy to a minimum too. At the very least my family will thank me for that... ;)