About a week ago two guys showed up to the gym and both decided simultaneously that Thais only eat two meals per day. Maybe they’d asked the trainers how they should be eating by asking what the trainers eat, and somehow that answer came out as how many meals at the camp the trainers eat – which is in fact two. But Thais snack a lot and pretty much eat all day. They eat like Hobbits.
These guys were having a hard time with not eating before training in the morning. You get the the camp at 6:30 AM, so there’s not really time to eat before training unless you’re waking up at 4:00 AM, which nobody does. When I first started training I would actually set an alarm, wake up and eat a banana and some peanuts and go back to bed, just to have something in the tank. I don’t feel the need to do that anymore.
So I’m explaining to them that I eat after training and then go to sleep, so I don’t really eat lunch except maybe some fruit and then eat two dinners at night. I’m not hungry in the middle of the day very often.
And then this week I’ve been totally exhausted. My training has increased because I’m working with different trainers who are on the attack all 5 rounds of padwork, and not just holding for called shots. J.R. and Daeng are brutal and push me really hard. And I’m also doing an extra 45 minutes in the ring every day with my husband before going for my afternoon run. I figured I have good reason to be tired, but I’m way more fatigued than I’ve ever been and feel like I need to solve it. I can never just let stuff be what it is – gotta sort it. But my trainers see that I’m tired and don’t seem concerned by it at all, like this just comes and goes in the life of a fighter.
My husband told me that I need to eat more and I don’t feel like I do. I’m not really hungry and I’m not losing weight, so I figure I’ve got a good base. But my upper-body muscles are somewhat less than they were a month ago, so I decided to just write down my average daily intake and see what’s what.
Good God! My calorie intake sucks. I used a calorie counter and came out to 1,880 calories, whereas my daily burn (again, calculated through programs) is around 3,000. My weight isn’t changing, but I’m probably eating muscle and sleeping like the dead in the middle of the day because I’m not eating enough.
Now I have to figure out how to get more calories – good calories rather than just lining up ice-cream bars. I have started shooting (drinking) coconut oil before training, which is a good way to jam calories and is a fantastic source of fat, but I can’t make up for 1,200 calories that way. I’m going to need to devise a system. But ultimately, I hope to be feeling a lot more energized in the coming weeks and reach my full Hulk potential, ripped purple pants and all.
