Training has been going steadily over the last couple of weeks. The weather has improved slightly, which has meant more outdoor rides and less time on the turbo trainer. Swimming pools are unfortunately still closed, but I’m hopeful they will open soon. On the plus side, I have recently gained access to gym equipment and a rowing machine, making my strength and conditioning sessions more productive.

My Saturday long rides are now three and a half hours long, and I’m really enjoying most of them. I have done one or two with sore legs, which made them a bit of a slog, but overall I’m enjoying the rides. With the weather being a bit kinder, I am able to take in the scenery and just enjoy myself. I am training in the same area as when I prepared for the Hamburg Ironman in 2019 and am currently covering many of the same routes. Over the next month or so, I aim to discover some new routes and do a bit of exploring. The Mourne Mountains are about an hour's drive from me, and I hope to explore the hills there.

As the swimming pools have been closed, I have been substituting the swims with a run and a bike session each week. I now have access to a rowing machine, and I plan to replace the swims with rowing sessions. My aim is to mimic the swim sessions on the rower as closely as possible. The idea is that it will give some of the muscles I use for biking and running a rest while still working my cardiovascular system in a slightly different way. I also hope it will mix up the sessions and prevent boredom from setting in.

Another positive development over the last month has been the impact of good food. If you have read my older blogs, you will know that at the beginning of the year I had to work away and ate a lot of takeaway food—a poor diet for someone training for an Ironman. I am now back on healthier food, and the results are impressive. I feel more energetic, more alert, have lost the extra kilograms I gained while away, and feel stronger overall.

During the first lockdown in March 2020, I realized I had put on too much weight and wanted to do something about it. I was the heaviest I had been in years at 92kg, and that didn’t sit right with me. I listened to a podcast by Dr Chatterjee called Feel Better Live More. Specifically, I listened to podcast number #29 with Amelia Freer. She offered simple tips for healthy eating, which I understood as: stop eating sugar, eat far less bread and pasta, and avoid processed foods. She also has a book that provides more detail:

After reading the book and listening to the podcast, I was motivated to try this new lifestyle. I did not want it to be a temporary diet, as diets imply an endpoint after which you return to old habits. I wanted a permanent life change—and that is what it became. I still follow the same style of eating today. I cut out sugar and milk in my coffee, stopped eating bread and pasta, and mostly eat whole foods.

I still eat meat, but it is no longer the main focus of a meal—it has equal importance with the rest of the plate. Some meals contain no meat at all. I have realized that nutrients are what truly matter, and a high nutrient-to-calorie ratio is very important, especially for someone like me training 12+ hours per week. Nutrients help maintain stamina and strength while aiding recovery. Meat is low in nutrients but high in calories, so there are better alternatives. That said, I enjoy meat and will continue to include it in my diet.

Since March 2020, when I weighed 92kg, I have been following this lifestyle and now consistently weigh 80kg. My weight fluctuates slightly depending on the training load. However, I lost the majority of this weight without additional training—I simply changed my diet while maintaining the same training routine, and the weight dropped off naturally. I used to think that weight loss was mostly about training; I was very wrong.