Quote Originally Posted by Owlie View Post
How you do any physical activity on just a banana is beyond me.
They are big bananas. Seriously, though, a banana is ~ 100 calories and digests pretty quickly. So, it's enough to get me through the swim. I figure I probably burn 300 calories in an hour of swimming. I'm usually hungry by the time I'm done, though, so I have to have something else before I can run. Sometimes I have a Gu instead, which is also 100 calories and is less likely to sit in my stomach. If I were going to do a longer run or a more intense run (my runs are very slow/low HR right now), I would do the Gu for sure, supplementing every 30-45 minutes *during* the run with another Gu. On *really* long runs (over 1:30 or so) I have a GU every 30 minutes. That's only 200 calories in per hour, and I burn 660 per hour at my aerobic threshold HR of 143, which is where I'm doing most of my training right now.

Finding the right balance of consuming enough calories to fuel the workouts, without eating *so* much that I either a) get a cramp or b) don't lose any weight, is a challenge. Right now I have "a"pretty well dialed but am struggling with "b". I'm down 7-8 pounds since the beginning of the year, but still have 8 more to go before getting back to my race weight. Mostly because I'm always hungry and sometimes make poor choices instead of good choices!

Speaking of which, I'd best get off the computer and head home to make that chicken breast NOW before I get ravenous. Otherwise, I'll end up deciding it's too much work/takes too much time and go out to eat instead.