Caloric intake for Triathlete

[wrestler07]

Hi I was wondering what the caloric intake of a 32 year old female 5'5 135 lbs should be a day and the ratio of carbs protien and fat. The said person weight trains 2 or 3 days a week trying to put on some muscle. and does cardio exercises for a total of 5 or 6 hours a week and the occasional long bike rides on the weekends. She is training and has competed in triathlons.

Thanks

 

[wrestler07]

any help please would be really appreciated anyone

 

[Synpax]

Hi I was wondering what the caloric intake of a 32 year old female 5'5 135 lbs should be a day and the ratio of carbs protien and fat. The said person weight trains 2 or 3 days a week trying to put on some muscle. and does cardio exercises for a total of 5 or 6 hours a week and the occasional long bike rides on the weekends. She is training and has competed in triathlons.

Thanks

That's a pretty mild workload. Just eat normally, get maybe a good protein shake after the workouts.

For any athlete, losing FAT is a great way to get faster so maybe cut carbs after 6 PM and cut alcohol.

 

[Nathan]

Caloric intake is a tricky one since I am not positive of how much she is burning but from what you have laid out there it sounds as thgough around 2000-2400kcal a day should be plenty, though maybe too much. Hell, it coul dbe slightly too little as well but I woudl start there. I think that will result in getting leaner and if she is eating enough protein and is working out properly should help take her physique to looking like what a triathlete's does.

I think triathletes tend to train a fair bit more than that usually though I could be mistaken, so most might ordinarily eat mroe. I would recommend and isocaloric diet for the most part (30/30/40 ois the ideal ratio of calories from prot/fat/carbs), though she may want to make it more like 50-60% of her calories coming from carbs.

As for types of food, I believe she will want high fiber, low glycemic-index foods in the am like rolled oats, brown rice, whole wheat pasta, yams, etc., simple carbs like gatordade and fruit closer to workout time. Hope that helkps - I am not a triathlete so these were suggestions. I woul ddo a little more asking around and then some to your own conclusions.

 

[*Bunny*]

Hi I was wondering what the caloric intake of a 32 year old female 5'5 135 lbs should be a day and the ratio of carbs protien and fat. The said person weight trains 2 or 3 days a week trying to put on some muscle. and does cardio exercises for a total of 5 or 6 hours a week and the occasional long bike rides on the weekends. She is training and has competed in triathlons.

Thanks

It's been my experience, although limited and what ive learned read, seen etc, that if she is trying to put on muscle excess cardio can be counterproductive, esp if she is natural and has a hard time putting on size in the 1st place.

I would think with adding muscle she should train 4-5 x a week with weights a keep cardio to the 2-4 days. Not sure how that would affect her triathlete training but if her priority is add muscle then make THAT the focus... and when she has reached her goal she can add more cardio back in to get back to the conditioning while trying to maintain what muscle she added.

She also would need to eat for muscle growth and high activity if she keeps all that cardio in...
WHat is her diet current like, cals? Macros?

Lets see where she is coming from 1st...

For example I can say 12-15 x bw can be suggested for bulking for females, but I can cut on that with the training I do... make sense?

 

[wrestler07]

First off thanks for all the responses I appreciate everyones help. Ok she isnt so much concerned with putting on size so to speak but just make herself a more rounded athlete by adding weight training to her workouts. So maybe suggest the 30/30/40
for weight training days. and 30/20/50 on days with more cardio based training
pro/fat/carbs?

 

[Nathan]

First off thanks for all the responses I appreciate everyones help. Ok she isnt so much concerned with putting on size so to speak but just make herself a more rounded athlete by adding weight training to her workouts. So maybe suggest the 30/30/40
for weight training days. and 30/20/50 on days with more cardio based training
pro/fat/carbs?

Something like that would make total sense to me. Like Bunny said though, it will be hard for her to gain muscle unless she specifically focusses on doing that for a while - it doesn't have to be long though. She can focus on putting on muscle for only a month or two and then go back to her other training. She can probably even keep the same daily calories in switching between phases so long as durign the muscle gaining phase she lowers her cardio dramatically.

 

[Quadsweeps Sister]

First off thanks for all the responses I appreciate everyones help. Ok she isnt so much concerned with putting on size so to speak but just make herself a more rounded athlete by adding weight training to her workouts. So maybe suggest the 30/30/40
for weight training days. and 30/20/50 on days with more cardio based training pro/fat/carbs?

Depends on the person really. Depends on her goals... does she run a pretty damn good mile or does she need to be faster? A Triathlete is a bit different than marathoner and would do well to retain or gain lean mass if possible. But it is true for most...leaner = lighter/faster. Hell, I competed in bodybuilding for 8 years and then powerlifting. During BB, I took a year and trained for a Triathalon, the running liked to have killed me. My partner (lighter/smaller runner) left me behind on the run portion ~ 5 minutes, but I caught her on the bike portion. The muscle I had helped me and hurt me so to speak. So - this is why I first mentioned, "What are the goals..."

Once the goal is determined, the nutrition will be easier to figure out. I'm going to suggest she give a try to something in the 2300 - 2500 calorie range, but clean food. Fresh protein sources (no packed meat or lunch meat), brown rice, sweet potato, fats from vinagrette dressing, flax oil, all natural peanut butter, walnuts...salad, vegetables (fibrous - not carby). See how that goes. Gallon of water daily per 100lbs bodyweight will help too. There are about a million diets floating around here, but first nail down the goal and go from there.