UKC

Currently on a pretty intense training programme, but am also aiming to shed weight ahead of a trip to Kalymnos in April. 

Having looked at things on the internet, opinion about dieting whilst training is somewhat split. However, I’ve come to the following conclusions based on my very imperfect understand of what is probably quite complicated science, at least when you get into the nits and grits. 

Anyway:

it seems to be ok to diet and train so long as I’m eating enough protein. At present I’m restricting my daily intake to around 1700-1800 calories a day, but to make that up I’m eating over 100g of protein daily from lean animal sources (eggs, tune, chicken) daily

The exercise that I am doing is almost exclusively climbing focused (aerobic cap, aerobic power, an cap, fingerboarding, general conditioning, core, mobility), so my thinking here is that i need less fuel anyway to perform such exercise which is mostly strength based (ie it’s not like I’m doing hard cardio which needs a lot of energy to perform well in)

In addition, for the first time I’m not doing cycling or running on my non-climbing days, because of the “false economy” risk of having heavy legs despite burning fat (many years of football, general running, and cycling = quads that are not optimised for clambering)

I’m into week 4 of the training and 3.5 of the diet. Down from 78.2kg to 74.7, but some of that is from going low carb so reducing water retention. 

Training felt tough this week but I think that is normal at this stage in my first meso cycle (I can still complete all my sessions, just feeling it a lot more than in previous weeks before and after).

Anyway, I wanted to hear what people think. I know that eg Pete Whittaker not so long ago said he had given up trying to diet and train at the same time, but he is an elite athlete who will be completing training loads in volume and intensity far beyond a punter like me - and I’m interested in the view from down here in punterdom rather than up there in Wideboyz Land.

By diet do you mean calorie restriction? It's often used to mean that but it's a strange term, we're always just changing one diet for another aren't we?

Anyway...

I've changed my diet many times, always struggled to get under 70kg. Currently about 64/65 kilos. I eat in a time restricted window, say between 2 and 6 hours, avoid refined carbs, pay no attention to calories, I eat until I'm full, and then eat some more. And I don't often get hungry outside that window. Strange because I've always struggled with controlling my appetite.

And I climb/train 3 days out of 4, but all short sessions, typically less than 3 hours inc. warm up and warm down.

Works well for me.

I cut out all processed sugar and slightly reduced portion sizes and lost about 15kg over 5 months. As our bodies don't need processed sugar at all, there is no detrimental impact on you. Of course, you maybe don't eat as much as I did, so might not work the same for you!

It probably depends on how overweight you are to start. If not very, I'd not try and lose any until you start tapering. Just eat a sensible diet with no sugar or booze. 

Depends what you mean by overweight. 

By general population standards no way.

By climbing standards...heavier than I could be. 

Really you just want to lose some body fat. It's just a fuel store so I'm not sure why it'd be a problem to burn some off training. But I'm not an expert.

You just need to make sure your body can access the fat store. Insulin will stop you burning fat and cause you to store excess blood sugar as fat.

Keep your insulin levels down. It's good for your health too, from what I understand.

Refined carbs tend to have a high insulin index. And your insulin levels drop off after an initial spike when you eat. So cut out the snacks between meals. And cut down the number of meals if you want to go further.

I did what you are doing a couple of years ago and lost 13kg in 4 months 

Got down to about 14% body fat before the weight loss stopped being easy

Loaded most of my calories into training days and ate less on rest days

It worked and the weight stayed off till i started doing cardio again and my appetite went through the roof

Mind I ask how tall are you?

Do you want to train hard and actually get stronger, or do you want to shed weight and appear stronger? If it’s the former, you need to eat more. The reason your training sessions feel hard is because your underfueled. You can probably maintain your performance over the short term whilst in caloric deficit, and you’ll appear to improve simply by getting lighter. Obviously this isn’t a long term answer, firstly because you’ll hit a point where you struggle to shed more weight, and second because you’ll get sick as your body lacks energy to go about it’s daily business.

RE: weight - the absolute maximum fat you can burn in a week is about 600g IIRC, which is rare limited metabolically. You say you’ve reduced your carb intake - I’d suggest most of the weight loss you’ve seen is water and glycogen stores - now the later are getting low, you’re going to find training harder as your body has less fuel to draw upon - fat metabolism is slow, glycogen -> sugar -> energy is fast.

Sorry to rain on your parade a bit, but you’re trying to do too much. Work out your training plan, work out the energy requirements you need to meet this and get in balance. You can then think about running a slight deficit (500cal/day ish) to lose weight more sustainably. If you really want to ditch a bit more for a glory dash at a trip diet hard in your taper, like you’ve done the past 3 weeks or so, and it’ll be fine. 

Also if you haven’t already, get a sports nutrition textbook (with references) from a someone who knows what they’re on about an read it, if you haven’t already. I’d suggest Bean (2013) Complete Guide to Sports Nutrition. Although there’s probably a newer one. Far too many n=1 monologues from people lacking knowledge both in book form and online, alongside a large amount of snake oil sales from the nutrition industry and others.

5ft 11 // 180cm

Thanks Ian, I get what you are saying, and it makes a certain level of intuitive sense, however:

1) you don’t need massive energy reserves to do eg fingerboarding or even an an cap workout. The forearms are too small to tax your aerobic system as a whole, and failure is induced in eg pumping out: not by lack of energy/fuel but lack of capacity to clear the blood (I know it’s a bit more complicated, but you get me)

2) although I’ve felt tired this week I think it’s normal to feel tired at 4 weeks on this programme, and also this is a harder week than others. Today I did my best an cap performance of the programme, though, so energy deficit wasn’t a problem.

3) what one wants post recovery is for the stimulated muscles and fibres to grow stronger and for that you need protein - which I’m getting an awful lot of 

4) Eric Horst seems to think you can run a calorie deficit and still successfully train for climbing: https://trainingforclimbing.com/optimizing-body-composition-for-climbing/

So that’s why I’m not sure it’s obvious as you suggest.
 

Also, I’m unsure about the idea of “really strong” versus “appearing strong”. This isn’t about me picking up a heavy object of fixed weight - climbing strength is indexed to your own body weight. If I lose 3kg then I am 3kg stronger insofar as the strength I had before is the same but is pulling a smaller weight. No? Ok those gains will also be lost fast if I put the weight back on, but if previous years are to go by i won’t be doing that until September. 

Not saying you’re wrong, just that I’m not yet convinced. What I’d ideally like to see is climbing-focused or climbing-relevant sports science studies if anyone knows of any?

Eric Horst's book has a fair bit on nutrition, and does talk about glycogen stores. My understanding is your glycogen store is the muscles energy store, as opposed to the fat storage which is more general. In training for climbing he actually recommends some carbs immediately post training to replenish the glycogen stores, as if you deplete these then they can take a while to replenish and you won't be able to do any quality training until they are. It's when you've had a really massive session and you have that feeling of real weakness and can no longer hang even the easy holds. 

if you're just getting regular pumps and still having quality workouts I doubt you're actually depleting your glycogen, but it might be worth not overdoing the calorie deficit on the main days of training. Most of the advice I've seen is that to get the most out of your training you want to be properly fueled! As someone said above, you can always diet as you taper off your training

An cap fingerboard session should lead to being powered out, not being pumped. Different energy system.

For around 10 years i've purposely cycled between circa 85kg at 12% body fat (abdominals visible) and 78kg at very low body fat % on a yearly basis. This year, for the first time i've managed to cut weight whilst gaining strength rather than losing it. The sweet spot has been losing around 0.5 - 1lb per week (average a 250cal deficit each day), protein at or above 100g per day as always, keeping carbs as high as possible, eating carbs around workouts (including right before bed if training late), keeping fats as low as possible (around 20g per day - don't go to 0 or there's possible consequences) and eating more on training days. No cheats whatsoever, good sleep, no alcohol. YMMV. 

If you have a large appetite, the 500g pots of skyr yoghurt (50g of protein) with an entire 350g pack of frozen blueberries mixed in is a godsend - a filling, healthy meal that is low cal. Also going crazy with the quantity of veg in every meal helps!

Thanks all.

i can see from the dislikes button that my logic is not being widely endorsed! Sounds at any rate like I can up my intake a bit, at the very least. 

which is nice because I don’t like being hungry. 

good tip on the yoghurt + blueberries - going to be smashing that combo from now on!

Yes sorry i know that; I was running two different thoughts together there in a confusing way. 
 

Regarding weight and climbing performance, how hard are you climbing at the moment?

Simple deficit is what works. As Ian laid out above, a manageable deficit whilst training is around 500kcal. Use a calorie tracker for a week or so to figure out your baseline and then simply knock 500kcal off - this is your daily allowance. Concentrate carbs around your sessions so you don't feel weak, and crack on. 

Stick to homemade meals cooked from whole foods and you'll be absolutely grand. If you're eating more than +/-150g protein per day then it's too much and those calories would be better spent on carbs to fuel training. 

Exercise some logic over time to assess whether you're still losing weight or just dragging out the deficit with poor results. If you plateau for more than a week, then you either need to reassess your daily intake, or just accept that this is your healthy baseline. Don't pay attention to what other people weigh, as they're not you. Case point: I am 5'9/173cm. I weigh 76.5kg and my body isn't keen on getting much lighter (yes, I've tried over the long term in a sensible way). Losing weight is no longer on the cheat-sheet for me without somehow dropping muscle mass in my legs which they're also not very keen on. 

Therefore, when you get to the point where your weight loss plateaus and you are reasonably lean, it's time to increase calorie intake again, especially carbs as these are what you need to train hard. You'll probably go back up about 1kg or so and then stabilise.

You're incorrect in saying that strength training/performance is not affected as much by fuelling - there is a huge difference in terms of power between my 'deficit form' and when I'm eating normally. For high quality training and good strength gains, your body needs food. 

Hope this helps. 

That helps a lot, thanks. I’ll reduce my deficit to c.500 calories a day, supplementing with some extra carbs (yum).

Alx: onsight up to about 6c, redpoint 7a in a session. Would like to get that up to consistently onsighting 7a. This is mostly so I can start pushing solidly in to E3 later in the year after my Kalymnos trop, with the goal of climbing Resurrection (E4 6a) onsight. 

Out of curiosity: why is "refined" sugar (presumably often meaning sucrose) specifically to be avoided. Its chemically the same as "natural" sugar and  all carbohydrates are broken down into their component monosaccharides in the gut and absorbed in the intestine eg starch to glucose (remembering my school biology). Does "refined" really  just mean any simple sugars from whatever source that don't take as long to break down as more complex carbohydrates and so are ready to be absorbed earlier, resulting in the insulin spike ?

Anecdotally, I see no difference in body composition when keeping quantity of carbs the same but switching between 'refined sugars' or 'complex carbs'. I do notice the effect on energy levels, hunger and mood though where simple sugars are more of a rollercoaster. This can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on timing, e.g. a quick boost before training.

disclaimer: N = 1

TL;DR: Foods with lower energy density leave you feeling full and meet macro intake goals without overshooting your deficit targets.

Broadly speaking: Nutrition 'quality'. 

When we're trying to lose weight, we're naturally eating less in order to achieve a calorie deficit. This means overall less food in stomach which means less opportunity to get all the things we need in our diet (adequate macro intake plus the various micronutrients). For this reason, it makes more sense to avoid simple/refined carbohydrates, because they don't tend to contribute much to the system except for energy (usually a good thing), and not much in the way of protein or fat etc. 

For example, 100g of white bread contributes around 250kcal. 100g of courgette contributes around 17kcal. This means you can eat a big bulk of food, get loads of micronutrients and feel really full, whilst reserving the main bulk of your calorie allowance for the higher density foods that contain the other macros i.e. 200g chicken breast which has 330kcal but crucially 60g of high quality protein. This is the main reason why low carb diets are often successful, because low carb means low energy density and therefore easier to feel full whilst eating less and thereby having a deficit. 

However, it's important to point out at this stage that this applies specifically to creating a deficit and not to general life. Good, energy sources of carbohydrates such as rice, potatoes and whole wheat bread are important dietary components when training hard for the very reason that they are energy dense. When training hard we want as much energy availability as possible and carbohydrates are by far the superior source. The closer to exercise we get, the more access to quality carbohydrate we want to have, which brings us to the next point:

Broadly speaking, yes. As climbers, this understanding of energy availability is really advantageous as it allows us to ignore the classic 'sugar is the devil' spiel and understand that the closer we get to climbing, the more access we need to high-energy foods, culminating in the minutes directly before the climb where we have a window of opportunity to put the fast-digesting sugars to their best use - providing a blood sugar spike that will optimally fuel our performance for the next 5-15 minutes that we'll spend on the wall. Anyone wondering about this - try eating a couple of sweets or a biscuit in the minutes before your next onsight/redpoint, and enjoy the extra strength it brings! Generally speaking I tend to eat things like oats before training as I don't really like eating sweets a lot, but before redpointing they're ideal and definitely tip the scales in your favour. 

Hope this helps! 
 

Yes. Take the sugar in fruit as an example. The fibre will help to mitigate the spike in blood sugar. If you remove the sugar, or blend it into a smoothie, you lose that.

EDIT: I didn't mention sugar BTW, I was talking more generally. For example, flour is a refined carb. And things made from it like bread and pasta.

Doesn't fat have twice the calories per gram than carb and protein? Doesn't that make it more dense?

Thanks to yourself and others for the detailed explanation.                                 Incidentally for several years I misused sugar, reasoning that I needed loads of quick calories before going on the hill. Breakfast included 3 pint mugs of coffee each with about three desertspoons of sugar (plus sugared cereal and tin beans and sausage). Felt terrible for an hour or so and able to vomit slightly without breaking stride on way to crag. Great later though.

Pete Whittaker talks about getting lighter in the latest trainingbeta podcast if it's of any interest.

Correct, fat is very energy dense - however, it doesn't have the same problem status as sugar because it's hard to eat serious amounts of fat, and it's also not addictive in the same way. Think about it this way - it's far easier to eat a few tablespoons of honey than it is to eat a few tablespoons of pure olive oil or a big piece of butter. 

Fat also tends to be used in small quantities to enhance food by frying or in dressing etc. When combined with carbs this gets a bit tricky as a lot of calories can go in quickly, but in a low carb diet fat forms the main energy bulk along with proteins so again, it's hard to eat too much. 

I wasn't saying anything about sugar. 

Still not sure why that means low carb is low density energy. Add more fat, less carbs equals more energy dense. You said low carb was low energy density. What am I missing?

Is it? That view is largely outdated now isn't it? 2000 calories of sugar doesn't have the same effect on your weight as 2000 calories of fat and protein. Equally, 2000 calories consumed evenly throughout the day doesn't have the same effect as 200 calories consumed in a 7 hour window. 

I read somewhere that if you eat the right things you don't have to count the calories. And I think there's a lot of truth in it. From personal experience anyway. 

Ended up going on a special treat to Pizza Express. They f*cked up our order and so the manager gave us free deserts and drinks. Definitely not running a calorie deficit today!

Deja Vu much? We've had this conversation before. 

We're talking about a scenario where the diet is already full of whole foods, the OP is getting enough sleep and is not abusing caffeine etc etc.  

Personally its my feeling, and probably an unpopular one, that calorie restriction and weight loss should be an absolute last resort, once all other avenues for improvement have been exhausted, presuming you're at a fairly healthy weight to start with (which it sounds like you are). The potential risk to training efficacy and general health far outweighs what you stand to gain (in the long term). Fair enough if you've maxed out on training for years then losing enough weight to look like you've just been rescued off a desert island is probably the best thing you can do to make improvements, but in my own experience (n=1) training heavy and then losing the weight rapidly and temporarily is far more sustainable.

Currently I'm 80kg at 5'11''. Last summer when I was climbing and biking and working loads I was a steady 75kg, if not less sometimes, and yeah I was climbing hard (for me). But currently I'm doing a lot of pure strength training (max hangs, heavy weights etc) and being well nourished, especially with quality carbs pre and post workout, massively improves the quality of my training, and recovery thereafter. I'd much rather get as strong as I possibly can at 80, and drop 5 for a project later in the year (or not), than put loads of effort into training which isn't working anywhere near as well as it might be, all the while feeling like an undernourished ghoul who salivates all over his front-cover-of-Men's-Health 6 pack every time he passes a Burger King. 

My advice would reflect that of others. Eat well, especially on training days. Don't run a surplus, or you'll put on weight, but don't worry too much about dropping it whilst you're training really hard. If you really want to, then lose some weight while you taper, but ultimately your training will have far more longevity (after this trip) if you aren't mentally and physically exhausted from not eating enough and feeling tired all the time. If you associate training with feeling good, then you're much more likely to want to continue doing it.

I can't be the only one who eats clotted cream by the spoonful?

You’ve achieved a significant weight loss in a relatively short space of time. Well done.

It sounds like your quest is open ended though. I’d suggest working out a target weight based on previous experience of what lows have been personally sustainable for you and an indication of body fat %. Aim for that weight and maintain at that level (often psychologically harder than losing weight)

Sounds like you are on a Programme. Maybe invest in dietary advice? Not gone down that route myself but Rebecca Dent’s credentials are excellent: https://www.rebeccadent.co.uk/nutrition-for-sport

Yes, I’m definitely one of those people who finds it easier to lose than to maintain. As I understand it, the physiology of weight loss and weight maintenance are quite different, and the phenomenon of homeostasis means your body tries to get back to previous weights (this is one reason why people who have been very obese, who lose a lot of weight, cannot then start eating a normal 2500 calorie diet if they want to maintain weigh as their metabolism works differently due to the effects of being obese earlier in life - or so I understand).

but in my case it’s probably also a will power and concentration thing - so yes, reshaping my attitude such that I maybe don’t lose so much now, but aim to keep it off and steady for longer, is a wise strategy.  

Yes, but I LIKE having abs! (Ok they aren’t exactly cover of men’s health but hey ho.)

Yes, I was being facetious. In reality I think the best reason not to worry too much about dieting is that it's the easiest way to improve your climbing. In the short term that might be worthwhile, but I see plenty of climbers who diet constantly, train loads, and rarely worry about improving their technique. Those climbers have generally reached a plateau and seem to find any further improvement excruciatingly difficult, even if they're not climbing all that hard. And by hard I mean middle 8's upwards for sport climbing.

To my mind there aught to be a hierarchy of measures towards improvement in the long term. Technique is the hardest to improve so work on that first. When you've done all you can, get stronger/ fitter. If that stops working then maybe it's time to look at dieting - you've done the hard work and the relatively simple avenue of weight loss will cause big improvements. By contrast, if you become dependent on climbing at your lowest sustainable weight early on you'll have nowhere to turn other than more severe dieting with the possible health repercussions. You might find you never even need to start dieting to reach your goals if you follow that hierarchy, all the while with greater over all enjoyment of existence through eating well and not being exhausted.

I may be mistaken but from posts I've seen on these forums you are relatively new to organised, proper training. You've probably been climbing for a long time and your technique is probably quite good (though perhaps like me you have a lot of technical improvements to make on steeper, powerful stuff). If that is true then I'd suggest that you have a long, long way to go before you need to think about perpetual calorie restriction. Save that for when it will be the thing to make the greatest difference. For now I suspect being well fed and training hard will be far more beneficial.

Edit: the caveat being that if you LIKE dieting and feeling light then go ahead. I just think that there's a slight cultural issue within climbing regarding dieting which needs to be addressed, and so I'm voicing the other side

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense. You’re right about my training, and in particular the need to improve technique. I’ve already seen massive gains just from concentrating on climbing from the hip, twisting more, and dropping my heels so core engagement is primary rather than driving through tensed shoulders all the time. On steep stuff this has been a revelation. 

And yeah, I do basically just like dropping weight around this time of year. I don’t do it all year, because I like junk food too much. But it feels nice to feel light in the spring, then not really worry about it through summer and autumn. 

Yeah agreed, its easy to get out of shape over winter and therefore maybe some care needs to be taken to go into the summer in good shape, I definitely have slightly more timber around the waist than I'm used to but I reckon it'll drop once the weather improves. And getting a sport trip in around April like you're doing always sets off the British trad season on the right path. Sadly none for me this year.

Regarding technique I've always been very good at engaging and digging deep when I'm really pumped, on sport or trad, but recently realised that I struggle to give 100% on the hardest moves. It's like there a switch I'm failing the press in the last 10-15% of what I'm physically capable of when doing powerful, dynamic climbing. I was planning on doing lots of limit bouldering over the winter to remedy this but sadly had to have an op on my foot in December so that's the main reason I've been doing a lot of training. But ultimately I know that its my brain not my arms and fingers letting me down on hard boulders/ cruxes

Interesting and informative thread. Thanks! I haven't been on a diet, but I know that one thing is to lose weight, another thing is not to gain it again when you stop dieting. 

Yes, it’s amazing when you get into it just how much is involved in climbing at even an intermediate level. 

I cut my weight from 78kg to 72kg over a couple of months prior to a trad trip to Sharpnose. Build wise I basically look at a weight and put on muscle and am around 9% body fat when properly measured in a lab, the excess weight is largely quad muscle. 

Cut out bread, pasta, refined sugar, meat, cheese and crisps, and ate as much as I wanted of everything else and the muscle seemed to melt off.

Training wise did loads of bouldering traverses on the Orme or the Pass, a few hours of that burns as many calories as standard cardio I reckon

Girlfriend didn’t like it too much but managed my hardest onsights that week, and felt like I was floating up the wall!

That floating feeling is the best! Forget “nothing tastes as good as sending feels”, it’s “crisps and beer are nice, but floating is divine”!

Similarly, I reckon I could smash in 1,000+ calories of cheese every day quite happily. Also, it turns out that cream, mascarpone and coconut flakes is pretty damn nice. 

In that case, maybe I N=1'd this example... Oops! 

A time-restricted widow between 2 and 6 hours? What is that?

You eat for a period of 2-6 hours every 24 hours.

Loads of replies here but just to add in, it could be worth you time to listen to Tom Herbert's Climbsci podcasts. He works under the name "useful coach" and is very into using peer reviewed research to support what he teaches. They are very long and conversational in style, one each for fat, protein, carbs, weight loss.....the recent Q&A one was really interesting but maybe worth listening to the earlier ones first......

I would also add some caution into trying to loose weight while starting a new and more intense training plan, the last thing you want in an injury just before you go! Not saying don't do it but 1800 calories (I think you said you were cutting down to this?) does not sound enough to fuel quality training. You will need carbs to fuel your training. so as others have said maybe reduce them on non training days but keep them in around training as this is what will power you to get stronger. 

good luck with the training and have a fab time in Kaly  

Thanks Emily!

I eat for the whole day in just a few hours. So I might just eat between 3pm and 5pm for example, or maybe 12pm and 6pm. Depends what I'm doing and how I feel.

It's an old thread, and it's probably been covered above, but my 2p...

Personally, when I'm training with intensity, I don't worry about what I eat. Especially for climbing; tendon repair (and bear in mind training = damage) requires the 'building blocks' being present from food, and I'm more concerned with maximising the results of the training than I am in maintaining a certain weight.

That being said; I don't drink loads, don't eat huge amounts of junk food, and whilst my diet is essentially 3x carbs (porridge for breakfast, pasta for lunch, rice for dinner) I cycle to work and have a dog, so that gets burned off relatively quickly. I had a body scan recently, and I'm sat at 9% body fat and about 77kgs at 5' 11". So I'm the top end of the BMI range, but it's mostly muscle.

I've not looked at the study myself, so can't comment on its accuracy, but the Lattice Training guy's dataset implies that there's no correlation between the weight of a group of climbers and the grade they climb, as long as they're in the healthy BMI range.

My basic point is that, for long term health and long term fitness / capacity, I would worry less about calorie restriction and more about ensuring that as much of what you eat isn't "junk", regardless of the amount you're eating. Ensuring you eat healthily to support an intense training regime is important, and you're probably going to see more benefit from adopting long term, sustainable diet changes and ensuring you sleep well each night (both maximise the effects of training) than you are if you're trying to calorie restrict and train at the same time. Who knows, if you eat more, you might find you can train harder.

If you then have a big trip coming up and want to drop a couple of kilos in advance of that, go for it.