Fastest Way to Lose a Stone

[944fan]

Over the last year and a bit I have been slowly losing weight, 2.5 stone thus far. I am about 1.5 stone away from my racing weight. My first triathlon of the season is 4 weeks away and I want to get in as good as shape as possible for that. I want to lose about a stone of FAT.

I am currently swimming 3/4 times per week covering 6-8Km. I am then doing 3 weights sessions a week, fully body routine each time with mostly compound exercises and a few core and arms/back isolation exercises for swim specific strength.

Haven't done much running and cycling recently so should probably add some of that in. Should I go for slow distance on these or intervals? I have been minimising these due to injury.

Don't want to do anything radical with my diet as I still need the energy to train. I gave up booze 3 months ago and have given up sugar now also.

Anything else I can/should do? Are any supplements worth it? I currently use protein shakes (as I weight 17.5 stone is hard to get enough from food) and creatine to help with swim intervals and weight training.

Other than taking something illegal or getting disentary anyway I can maximize weight loss over a short period?

[944fan]

Thanks for the tips. I am put off dropping carbs because of all the exercise I am doing.

Not sure what is wrong with my diet. As I say I dropped booze 3 months ago but I do still like a sweet treat and perhaps I have been over doing that. I use MFP to track what I eat but I wonder if I am over estimating the amount I burn through exercise or actually underestimating the quantity of food I eat.

I have now dropped sugar completely also. I have also dropped caffeine as I used to drink loads of strong coffee and I read something that said too much can increase cortisol which makes you store fat. Not sure if it is true but thought I would give it a go.

Injury is in the ankle due to flat feet. I have orthotics which help a bit but give me blisters and make my calves hurt. Will start adding in a couple of runs a week and see how it goes.

[944fan]

Digger said:

Oh. . . get a HRM which guesstimates calorie expenditure through exercise. I find my Polar invaluable for my workouts!

Got a Garmin Forerunner for the bike and run with HRM and a Garmin Swim for the pool. The Swim doesn't have HRM but they both give a calorie estimate. Its that which I put into MFP. Perhaps they are not that accurate.

[944fan]

Terminator X said:

If you can stand it perhaps drop out all the carbs for 3 of the 4 weeks that you have left? Certainly seems to remove fat in my experience albeit you can get a bit light headed etc due to lack of sugar.

TX.

Took your advice in the end. First week dropped them completely but that totally buggered up my training. Was loosing 5sec/100m in swim training.

Towards the end started cycling carbs, fueled up days I was lifting weights, then very light carbs on swim days (these followed weight lift day so had enough energy to complete it). Then had almost zero carbs on rest days.

Threw in a couple of rides/runs too.

In the end I lost 9lbs so about 3/4 of my target, but I think my BF% decreased a lot. I had to buy a new belt and a a few said I looked much slimmer. I am 6'5'' so weight changes are not normally noticeable.

Will keep up the carb cycling as it seems to have kick started the fat burning again.

Triathlon is tomorrow. Weather looks to be st. Wind and rain. Think I will lose a lot of time on the bike as usually it is one of my stronger disciplines but I am a bit too cautious in the wet.