How to avoid muscle loss when doing endurance training at a calorie deficit

I'm in the process of losing weight (sw 183, cw 161, gw 145?). I maintain an average deficit of 500 calories with some zigzagging.  I get 70-80 g. of protein per day.

I am planning to do a short triathlon in October (1/3 mile swim, 15 mile bike, 4 mile run). I'd like to reach my goal weight (or close enough) before starting focused triathlon training.  Before then, I'm building up basic stamina and speed in running and cycling, with a longer bike rides 20-40ish miles and longer runs, currently 3-4, building to 5-7 miles, plus intervals.  

I'm currently doing weight machines and vinyasa yoga for strength.  Plan to replace weight machines with freeweights probably in April.  

Is there anything else I should be doing (in addition to moving to freeweights) to keep from losing muscle mass while dieting?

 

 

 

 Use a sports drink while racing - Trhawley can probably hook you up with more specific recommendations, but a dilute solution containing about 1.5g protein per 100g sports drink at roughly Gatorade strength is the recommendation I've seen.

 About a half-scoop of protein in one litre of Gatorade, or thereabouts - sip while doing endurance training. The simple sugars in the sports drink raise your insulin levels slightly, and insulin is anti-catabolic and protects against muscle loss in these situations. The addition of protein gives you an amino acid reserve in your bloodstream for the occacions where your body goes to protein metabolism for energy anyway, though with the help of a sports drink or energy gel the effect should be small in any case.

 Also, check what Trhawley and jc343 have to say on the subject - they're the distance/endurance guys and know more than me on the subject :)

Interesting.  On long bike rides I drink 1 bottle gatorade and 1-2 bottles of water. On longer rides I take a snickers bar (4.6 g. protein for normal size, twice that for king size), and eat 1-2 hours in.  The snickers bar tastes less disgusting to me than sports bars I've tried, and it doesn't upset my digestion to eat instead of drinking.

Does this fulfill the requirement you're describing? 

 

More or less - I think the important part is the sports drink and the simple sugars, really. Insulin prevents the formation of glucagon, which is the enzyme responsible for metabolising amino acids into glycogen in a crisis situation.

 The addition of protein is more or less extra - helpful, but strictly speaking not critical. Though I'd perhaps recommend that you check out options in the direction of - oh, skim milk. with 3.3g protein per 100dl it's pretty much already at the right concentration, so if you can tolerate a shot of skim chocolate milk every now and again it ought to help as well.

 Though check with the endurance guys - they may have more specific recommendations:)

Thanks so much! I'll try the chocolate milk sometime, too. Will see if that contributes enough energy. That would be 200-300 calories in a bike-sized portion, so it might!

I got to the snickers solution after trial and error -- I need to eat to keep from losing energy at 1-2 hours, and couldn't persuade myself to stand powerbar/cliff bar/nutritionally-branded candy.

 

BCAA's and L-Glutamine

greenkev, what are those and why would they be appropriate to the situation I described?

I agree with greenkev.  Body builders take BCAA and L-Glutamine when they are cutting (dieting).

those are to fairly cheep and common supplements, just add 5 grams of bcaa's and 5 grams of L-glutamine per water bottle, maybe though in some crystal light just for taste.  I always have these in my water bottle no matter what i am doing, lifting weights running, hell i even have them in my crystal light during the day.

BCAA's are branch chain amino acids, the building blocks of muscle, outside of protein and water, calorie free and very anti catabolic.  L-Glutamine is a non essential amino acid that helps prevent muscle breakdown.  See when your body breaks down muscle it is not doing it for the protein it is doing it to get these amino acids, so when you take them in during an event it gives the body the amino acids it needs so it does not have to go to your muscles for them.

Would this same line of thinking go into weight lifting for weight loss? 

yep, i always have them when lifting as well.

Eat a ton of protein (mostly guys) and work out...but no matter what, unless your calories are high enough to build muscle your going to lose some muscle mass!  I tried to keep all of mine, but ultimately I lost a ton!  You have to decide what your goal really is...and doing triathlons will lean you out enough...make sure your hitting the gym and eating enough, remember if you build muscle your body will automatically burn more calories!  Muscle burns more than fat! 

For the distances you are training, you shouldn't need that many calories during exercise.  Not sure what your long ride is right now, but generally about 250 calories per hour is recommended once you go over an hour, mostly in the form of carbohydrates (sports drink or gel).  Protein is generally added for longer durations of 2-3+ hours and races in the half iron distance and up (something like Hammer's Perpetuem will give you this in the drink format).  Chocolate milk is a great recovery tool - you want about a 4:1 ratio of carbs to protein and this fits the bill nicely.  Personally, I think sports drinks are very overused in short workouts among endurance athletes, which can contribute to the reason why so many of us have a hard time losing weight.  Instead, focus on pre-workout nutrition and post-workout recovery.

During the sprint race, you should be fine with a sports drink and some gels.  You don't want to be messing around with any type of solid food during the race, because it's going to be a waste of your time - you're not going to have enough time to absorb much of what you eat.  You're probably looking at anywhere from 1:10 to 1:45 for this race, so just focus on getting enough in pre-race and in recovery.

If you are trying to lose weight, Snickers bars are probably not the best choice for exercise fuel.  As far as endurance training goes, I'm sure it's not a digestion issue currently, but it could become one if you start with longer distances.  And probably a really messy solution for training in the heat.  I'm not sure what speeds you are training at, but you can probably skip food solids altogether.  If you are looking to move on to the longer distances, you should consider finding a new product.  I know a few athletes who are intolerant of solid food altogether while racing, and they have successfuly completed iron-distance races on no solid foods.

Finally, I have been very successful at losing weight while training roughly 9-12 hours weekly (this includes the normal SBR training and a 2-3 full-body weight training sessions).  I am doing regular bodyfat testing and finding that I am not losing much muscle when I pay close attention to my overall protein/carb consumption.  I keep protein at around 1.8g per 1kg bodyweight (about 90grams daily and I weigh 110 pounds), and I am keeping my carb intake at around 45-50% unless I am doing single sport sessions of 2.5+ hours.  So your protein intake definitely looks quite low to me. 

If you are more interested in the topic, a good book to read is "Sports Nutrition for Endurance Athletes" by Monique Ryan.  Hammer Nutrition's website also has a great fueling guide that you can check out for ideas.  They're obviously promoting their own products, but it gives you some simple caloric guidelines to follow.