I was in Leeds today working with Simon on the details – strength and conditioning (more on that next) and nutrition. Nutrition can make a huge difference to your performance, and importantly, your recovery. Turns out training is as much about rest as it is about work. “And proper rest too, that means sleep, sleeping lots, and cutting out stress on rest days too”.

Phil Hayes at Northumbria University said this to me when I spoke to him about why we train:

“So there’s a really good quote from a guy called David Costill who was an exercise physiologist who was probably the most prominent person through the 1980s. And he did lots of stuff on running and then got into swimming in his later career. And he said ‘The purpose of training is to stimulate growth, growth only occurs with periods of rest and recovery’ …which I really like because it tells you everything about training you have to work hard to get the body to adapt and grow and you also need to have periods where you rest and recover to allow those changes to take place because…if you just work hard all the time eventually everything breaks down. So I like his quote because it gives you all of what the process is. We train to grow and adapt, and the things that grow and adapt are the structures in the body, so within the muscles, the muscle structures change, within the heart the heart structure changes, the blood vessel structure changes, and because of those structural changes we then get a change in the way our body functions”

Work, and recover, fuel and rebuild.

Food is fuel.

It’s also a bunch of other things; it’s a gift, it’s a comfort, it’s family and friends and loved ones, it’s an enemy, it’s a friend, it’s sinful, it’s beautiful, it’s ethical, it’s bad for the environment, it’s harmful, it’s good, it’s bad, it’s super, it’s….

It’s really hard to take control of. The right kind of control. The light touch life-long control. There are times when I’ve been too controlling of food. There are times when I’ve not and that was good for me in some ways but in others I’ve felt like I’ve been wearing a costume of myself for a body. There are allergies and intolerances and ethical choices I have made that means I’m vegetarian, I can’t have milk or cream, and I can’t eat peppers. There are unpredictable things to my lifestyle which mean I often have to eat on the run, or I’m cooking for friends and it’s one of my favourite things to do, to show love in that way.

I can’t separate food from these things. But I do need to find a balance of them.

So today I asked Simon about nutrition. And he explained that it was simple: “the difference between healthy eating and performance eating is just really when you eat, timing intake to training. He has a set of guidelines – not rules – which includes no calorie restriction, no ‘bad’ foods.

Roughly, this is what he recommended

• Eat every 2-4 hours, around 5 meals a day.
• Have complete lean protein in every meal (plant based protein is fine!). If you’re training hard you want 1.4-2g of protein for every kg of your body weight. If you weigh 70kg, that’s 100-140g per day.
• Have veg with every meal. Eat 4:1 veg to fruit throughout the day.
• Eat healthy fats daily. Eat non-veg simple carbs only after training.
• Drink water, black coffee, peppermint tea.

and plan. plan plan plan plan.  Set time aside for it

1. keep a food diary.
2. take your measurements
3. make a weekly food plan
4. write your shopping list
5. go shopping, and stick to the list
6. prepare the food so it will fit into your life
7. stick to the plan
8. mark a X on meals you hit O on meals you miss and ? on meals that aren’t to plan. Work out your weekly adherence.
9. reward yourself with 10% do-what-you-like meals for 90% lean eating
10. track how your measurements change.

Now I’m not overweight. But I’ve been lighter. Moving to London 2 years ago stripped my lifestyle of a bunch of time and stability which killed my ability to plan and stick to plan. I want to lose weight. Which is a tough thing for a feminist to say – but it’s not about looking, you see. It’s not about being a thing looked at, it’s about building a body for doing. And if you are leaner, you are faster, you have less weight to drag up a hill, or lift off the ground with every running stroke. Power to weight ratio. I want to be faster. I want to be powerful.

So. Here goes. Here’s my plan for next week. Links go to my food blog, in case you’re interested!

Day	Meal 1	Meal 2	Meal 3	Meal 4	Meal 5
Mon	eggs on toast	Nuts	carrot soup and wholemeal bread	carrot and hummus	falafel or hummus wrap
Tue	mushroom cheese omelette with beans	granola + yoghurt	falafel or hummus wrap	carrot and hummus	Moroccan chickpeas with quinoa and avocado
Wed	porridge with berries yoghurt and seeds	avocado and tomato	carrot soup and wholemeal bread	apple and orange	courgette quinoa
Thu	porridge with berries yoghurt and seeds	avocado and tomato	carrot soup and wholemeal bread	Nuts	hazelnut quinoa
Fri	mushroom cheese omelette with beans	granola + yoghurt	falafel or hummus wrap	Nuts	courgette quinoa
Sat	mushroom cheese omelette with beans	granola + yoghurt	Sweet potato and halloumi falafel with salad	carrot and hummus	10% meal
Sun	porridge with berries yoghurt and seeds	Apple and orange	10% Meal	Nuts	hazelnut quinoa