Macro Nutrition Guidelines from Helen Money

Helen Money of The Bosworth Clinic has provided a great general guideline of what you should be eating and how much. This is a general guideline and as always, if you are unsure it is best to get the professional help of someone like Helen! Here we recommend you look at tracking what you are eating and reflect at the end of a week and see if there are areas you can improve. You can track using an app like myfitnesspal which links straight into your Training Peaks account! Nutrition is never a stationary goal post, it changes with the season and your training load or cycle. So it is always worth reviewing how you are doing with it. Read below to see where you sit and if you are unsure, chat with your coach to get more advice.

As the triathlon season starts and training intensifies it is essential that athletes adapt their diets to support performance improvements and reduce risk of injury. It is during this phase that it is common for athletes to not increase calories and carbohydrate sufficiently. Below is a guide for calorie and macronutrient intake.

Daily intake averaged over the week based on an average of 2 hours training a day (5@2hrs, 1@4hrs, 1 rest day). If you deviate significantly from those figures, check out how to adjust it below.

The calorie and carbohydrate target ranges, shown in brackets, are wide as requirements vary depending on the mix of training. The bottom end of the range is based on low intensity training and the top end on high intensity. These are quite big brackets and we recommend discussing where you would sit with your coach.

Below is a  guide to calorie requirement increases/decreases per extra/fewer hours of training a day. As training increases carbohydrates move to the higher end of the range shown in the table above and reduce with lower training. Again, if you are unsure, you should speak to a coach if you are unsure, or seek the advice of someone like Helen!

Bear in mind that we are talking generally, but remember, with an online coaching package, you can work with someone like Helen for as little as £12/month. For more information about our nutritional packages which integrate with your coaching, click here. Otherwise, we hope you can use these tables as a quick check to see you are on track!