What a typical day of eating and training looks like
I find it useful to periodically check-in with what and how I am eating, and how this is serving my training. Writing it down helps me distill the thoughts and often brings to the surface some patterns that I am missing.
It can also be helpful to people out there doing hybrid training as I do (running and weightlifting), or simply looking for information to better regulate their energy intake and their energy expenditure.
So there you go, In this post I will first quickly cover my training schedule to provide an overview of my active calorie expenditure and of my basal metabolic rate.
I will then explain what I eat, how much, when, and why on a typical day.
Finally, I will review my log to find how this relates to my condition of type 1 diabetic, how my body responds to the different types of training, how intermittent fasting and a plant based diet fit into the frame, and what I am revising in my approach as my training schedule changes.
Weight Training and Running
The past months have been less focused on running due to a fracture on the right ankle, and more on strength training. My training regimen includes:
7 strength sessions a week. Strength training hits the upper and the lower body 4/7 days with the big classic exercises (squats, bench presses, deadlifts, etc.), while the remaining 3/7 days are dedicated to the core and more complex movement patterns to develop explosive and rotational strength and work on coordination and full body activation. These workouts usually take place in the early morning, in a fasted state, and vary in their intensity and in the type of stimulus to the muscles: I alternate days with less repetitions and more weights to days with more repetitions and lighter weights to improve my metabolic conditioning.
2 runs of one hour each, adding up to approximately 16-20km a week. Depending on the intensity of the workout, I will run either during my fasting window (if the workout is less intense or shorter) or right before eating my first meal (if the workout is more intense or longer).
various shorter sessions focused on mobility, stretching and overall body maintenance. These sessions typically involve yoga flows (more or less intense, depending on the day), exercises to develop and keep a good range of motion, active recovery to strengthen the joints and the feet (why? Read here!), and more static stretches. I don’t have a fixed schedule for these trainings, I just do them whenever I have some time available.
Two additional details:
I will soon trade some of my strength training sessions for running sessions, as my injury is healed and I can put running at the core of my physical activity. (I’ve been waiting a long time for this, and I am super happy!).
Lifestyle is everything. I walk or bike to commute, I sit in stretching positions while I work, read, eat. I try to avoid chairs if I can help it, and I like to insert small “movement snacks” during the day, making the most out of work breaks or other moments when I need to rest my mind. These things do burn more calories and help with lubricating the joints, but another big reason to keep my body active outside the typical training or workout schedule is the mental benefits that physical activity delivers. I find that alternating mental work with light physical activity helps me stay focused and control stress.
All things considered, my basal metabolic rate (BMR) is around 1600 kcal. To this, I add 500 daily kcal burned during my daily workout, 200 kcal burned during yoga and mobility flows, 400/500 kcal burned through walking and biking for errands, and 200/300 kcal burned in daily tasks (cleaning, carrying and moving stuff, etc.)
On running days, I tend to walk less. However, I more than compensate the calories burned from walking with running: the rule of thumb is: bodyweight x km. For me, this is 65 x 8 / 65 x 10, depending on the day and type of training. This adds up to 650 kcal burned from running in a week (this figure will soon increase).
In terms of calorie requirements, I currently need around 3200 kcal a day to maintain my current body weight. If I was trying to lose weight, I would eat something around a 500 less daily kcal. Since weight loss is not my goal at the moment, I enjoy big meals to meet the 3200 kcal target in full… and here is what I eat to reach it!
Plant-Based, High-Carb Foods
First of all, I eat a plant based diet, high in whole carbohydrates and lower in fats, to minimise my insulin resistance, limit my insulin needs and promote more stable, in-range blood glucose levels. Eating whole plant-based high-carb low-fat foods fuels me up incredibly well, gives me clean energy, decreases my insulin resistance and keeps super stable in-range blood glucose levels. In a nutshell, it makes me feel great.
I am also intermittent fasting, eating for 5 hours and fasting for 19 hours on average. This is helping a whole lot with controlling my blood glucose levels, but I may soon need to review my approach as my training volume increases. When the workout frequency increases to up to twice a day, it is important to take full advantage of the 2-hours metabolic window after the workout to give the body the nutrition it needs to recover properly from the stress induced by a workout. Failing to do so on a consistent basis could hinder the ability of the body to recover in-between workouts and lead to injuries in the medium terms.
All that said, here is what I typically eat in a day:
MEAL 1 - between 1000 kcal and 1200 kcal.
200 grams of oats
10 grams of chia seeds
2 medium bananas (circa 200 grams)
Sometimes I add some pure cacao, chocolate or a few medium sized apples.
MEAL 2 - between 1000 kcal and 1200 kcal.
100 grams of some grain (buckwheat, bulgur, rice, barley, …)
200/300 grams of some legumes (chickpeas, beans, peas, lentils, …)
A big salad with mixed seasonal vegetables and leafy greens dressed with vinegar, spirulina and beetroots powder, and lemon juice
Around 500-600 grams of fruits (more apples, bananas or a mix of frozen berries)
SNACKS between meals - between 600 kcal and 1000 kcal
I don't have a specific food for my snacks, I just eat whatever I fancy. Sometimes it is more fruits, other times a plant based yogurt or beverage, a can of legumes (yes, I eat chickpeas as a snack!), some nuts, or a combination of them.
Broadly speaking, I try to alternate different kinds of food items per each category. I will rotate among different kinds of grains, legumes, vegetables and fruits to keep a good balance of different kinds of vitamins, micronutrients and antioxidants. Also, depending on the season, I will change the type of food I eat. For instance, during winter I love feasting on potatoes, lentils and grains, whereas in summer months I tend to lean much more towards fresh fruits as my main source of carbohydrates.
Looking at my macronutrients, in a day I usually ingest
350g-400g of carbohydrates
100g-130g of proteins (I don’t use protein powders)
30g-40g of fats
I also do use some superfoods as spirulina, turmeric, pepper and beetroots powder to my salads. Spirulina is an incredible source of B and E-vitamins, proteins, calcium and magnesium, while beetroots contain nitrates that help regulate the pressure in the arterie. Turmeric is yet another incredible dietary compound to combat inflammation. When the cur cumin in turmeric is mixed with the piperine in black pepper, the absorption is increased by up to 2,000%…yes, you read it right!
Notes: Intermittent Fasting, Diabetes, and Fiber-Rich foods
So far I have maintained my body weight exactly where I want it to be. Having no particular goal in bodybuilding nor in weight loss, but aiming at a body that is toned and functional to run, the way I eat so far has served me well.
Intermittent fasting has proven time and again to be an incredible ally to control blood glucose levels, especially when combined with a diet designed to master type 1 diabetes - a diet centred on clean plant based foods, rich in whole carbohydrates (my food list of reference is, as always, the Mastering Diabetes Green Light Food List)
However, I have noticed that since I started to increase the intensity and frequency of my running workouts, intermittent fasting is getting in the way of recovery. More specifically, not refuelling my carb tank immediately after a workout, I find my heart rate in the following training session being higher, a potential symptom of lack of fuel and sufficient restoration.
While training fasted is incredibly helpful to train the body’s fat adaptation (the ability to use fats instead of carbohydrates as a source of fuel, much needed to get past the infamous ‘30 km wall’ during a marathon), recovery is just too important. As my training and weekly mileage will increase in the coming months - I will, indeed, prepare for my first marathon -, I want to make sure my body is in its best shape at all times and able to sustain the effort, the stress and the intensity of the training cycle all along the way. If this means widening my feeding window, or even suspend intermittent fasting for a while, I have no problem doing that. Intermittent fasting works great for less active days and even when I train once a day, 7 days a week. But I will have more and more days with two hard workouts going further, and at that point eating food in the 1/2 hours metabolic window immediately after the training becomes essential for performance and good recovery.
Lastly, another thing I will decrease is the amount of fibres I eat before a run. Do not mistake my words: fibres are extremely important and I eat plenty of them (so should you!).
But I have noticed that when the meal preceding a running workout is higher in fibre (say, eating rice and a large salad bowl), I tend to have some stomach issues while on the streets. The same happens if I eat a larger portion of whole grains and legumes, which are richer in fibre content.
Moving forward, when a run is on the schedule, I will experiment with eating less vegetables and possibly less fibre-rich grains in the meal before: instead of a whole-grain and a salad bowl, I may eat some white rice or pasta, and just a few bites of vegetables. Although this is surely not the best approach to manage diabetes in the short term (refined carbohydrates do spike the blood glucose and certainly do not help with insulin resistance), nor in the long term, I think that “sacrificing” a couple of meals a week, if they allow me to train more comfortably, is still a sustainable solution. After all, 90% of my diet will still be centred on whole plant based foods - the ones that promote insulin sensitivity and stability in the blood glucose. Moreover, I am just eating white rice instead of whole rice, not a sugar-and-oil-caloric-bomb type of cake!
To conclude…
In the first two paragraphs you have seen how I have trained and ate until now. In the third paragraph I have exposed some of the factors I will revise in my diet and lifestyle as my workout schedule and my body needs evolve.
But a Curious Diabetic’s goals do not change! I am always working towards:
long-term health,
safety as an endurance athlete with type 1 diabetes,
90% time in range with my blood glucose,
minimal insulin resistance while enjoying all the food I eat, without caring at all about the quantity.
But as a Curious Diabetic, it is my duty to test, test, test, and then test some more. Adapting the strategies when needed, experimenting new solutions (like putting intermittent fasting on hold and consuming more processed carbohydrates that may help with my endurance training), not being afraid to change the paradigm for a while. That’s a path to continuous improvement and improve my (our) understanding of how all things work!
I will keep you up to date! In the meantime, don’t hesitate to share your experience, thoughts or any constructive critique. I am all ears, always open to learn from others! Catch you in the next post, or running in some street out there!
