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Cycling diet and Japanese groceries

If you have a few days to order - then for sure Tele Amigos blows everyone away for meat.
http://www.tele-amigos.com

Now I'm experimenting with some of the pre-minced meat from Hanamasu - not so great. Will be much tastier minced fresh. And lower fat as well.
 
Strange how this thread ended up focussing on bread and sausages.

hot-dogs-diabetes-af.jpg
 
It seems like I went to ONE small enkai and I gained a kilo. WTF!

I know I didn't drink and eat 7000 calories...
 
If you walk from Kichijoji station toward NishiOkikubo along the JR tracks (north side? non-park side) you will pass a discount food place that has some fruits and veg along with all the packaged stuff. Also before you find the gym (a block or two before) there is a little old lady who sets up stuff under the tracks and keeps weird hours. She sells stuff really cheap but those vegetables need to be picked over and cooked soon. Similarly, she sometimes explains that the oranges and things are better for juicing rather than eating.

About when Rt 7 crosses the tracks there is a つるかめランド吉祥寺店
Japan, 東京都武蔵野市吉祥寺南町2丁目37−11
What is cheap varies by season, but often there are good deals if you get there earlier in the day.
Seiyu is cheap, too.

Let me know if you have other recommendations!
 
One thing you have to remember is that Japan imports around 70-80% of its food so unless you live in the suburbs or countryside you will never get cheap fresh fruit, vegetables and dairy products.
 
The Farm Life

Thats what I love about my wifes famly,
We grow our own rice, cabbage, potatoes, melons, plums, onions, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, raddish, beans, spinach, pumpkin, asparagus, eggplant, sweet potatoe, I know I am forgetting some too:p
but trust me when I say it is the hardest most back breaking work you would ever experience. Makes alot of other tasks seem much easyer!
I milk cows 6 days a week, but I dont drink the milk so often, trying to watch my figure:eek: but we cook with it. I usually stick to soymilk.
Its funny cause I teach engrish 3 hours a week (kinda got dragged into it, was trying to avoid it) and it does not feel like work at all. Its like fun time for me, I know my father in law can't call me and say I need to come work when I am there (he loves to do that as soon as I put my knickers on to go for a spin....DOH) and I am stragely relaxed and I can be the biggest goofball I want!
 
I`d said I`d post again when I had more time to read some things. This study followed 2 groups of people, one on an endurance program for 20 weeks, the other on a high-intensity program for 15 weeks. The endurance group burnt twice as many calories overall (50% more if you accomodate for the extra 5 weeks trained) but the high intensity group (despite training for only 3/4 of the time as the endurance group) had the bigger reduction in their fat deposits.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8028502

These studies showed that high intensity training increased the rate at which fat is burnt (but they don`t have a comparative study against a group who did endurance training):-

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19088769

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17170203

The studies I have read show that high intensity training results in a greater increase in power than low intensity training and I would posit this is why you are able to put out more power for less effort, another of the seeming gains of LSD training. My post was just because I read all these articles in cycling mags that promote riding round for 2 hours at low intensity as some kind of magic fitness bullet (increasing the body`s efficiency: i.e. more power for the same effort, best way to burn fat) and it isn`t going to happen. Doing it for 4+ hours (5-7 hours seems a good figure for cycling) day after day is valid but not 2 hours. As has been said before, if you ride slowly for a long distance, you will just get better at riding long distances slowly.
 
I missed this more up-to-date article (Nov 2010) which summarizes a lot of recent research on types of exercise:-

"Abstract
The effect of regular aerobic exercise on body fat is negligible; however, other forms of exercise may have a greater impact on body composition. For example, emerging research examining high-intensity intermittent exercise (HIIE) indicates that it may be more effective at reducing subcutaneous and abdominal body fat than other types of exercise."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21113312
 
As has been said before, if you ride slowly for a long distance, you will just get better at riding long distances slowly.

I run slowly - often for over an hour and up to 2.30 - and the ONLY thing it makes me good at is running long distances slowly. I don't have the power to go faster at shorter distances nor is it useful cross training for lugging my body up mountains. Incidentally, as my running has been getting slower and slower (same weight, so must be age :eek:) yesterday was the start of my twice weekly interval program. Hideous but I believe it is the only way to add power and speed and true endurance.

I am still very much a novice cyclist but put in a lot of SLOW miles and so far that looks good only for riding long distances slowly!
 
Izo,

Now is a good time of year to add more intensity to your training. A couple of hard efforts (ex. hill climb or intervals) in a week, with lighter riding in between will indeed be good for power and speed.

Good luck with the training!

Andy

www.jyonnobitime.com/time
 
Incidentally, as my running has been getting slower and slower (same weight, so must be age :eek:) yesterday was the start of my twice weekly interval program.

Hope yesterday wasn`t too bad for you, but yes, intervals are the way to go, but if you have not done them before, usual advice applies: start off slowly and build up. The classic is a 2 x 20` session at/above lactate threshold but work up to that gradually! Here is a good discussion on increasing power:-
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/forum/Slowtwitch_Forums_C1/Triathlon_Forum_F1/Adding_10-15_watts_to_FTP_(Final_results)_P2932430

This is an interesting article on the benefit of increasing your lactate threshold for improving your performance:-
http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/how...will-improve-your-fitness-and-performance-678

Also, as you are starting off with intervals, don`t do them back to back - either have a complete rest day the day after each interval set or no more than recovery level/very easy exercise. Each set will only produce very small gains, so it will take a few weeks before those gains cumulate into a noticeable improvement. Intervals will also be less tiring on your joints than the length of running you are doing now, and despite the less amount of time training you will see improvements. By the way, high-intensity exercise has also been shown as the best way of offsetting age related decline – there are some studies referenced in the lactate threshold article.

I started training properly after I commenced riding the hills here and was embarrassed to find I wasn`t able to hold the gear or cadence I would have done when I was younger and last lived somewhere with hills. I have been following a mainly hill interval program with recovery riding/commuting and I can now maintain the cadence, just not the gear. Still not quite in a straight line on the main hill I train on, but the last half-mile (0.8K) at an average 12% is what does the damage. My times have improved by around 25-33%. Trouble is, I might have to change the hill, as it no longer takes me the 20 minutes (or more) to get up – my 3 sets yesterday took me 53 minutes. Practising what I preach, today was a rest day.

Hideous but I believe it is the only way to add power and speed and true endurance.

I don`t mind doing the intervals, I find them enjoyable in a kinda masochistic way! Must be the runners high which is apparently due to `increased blood levels of endocannabinoid molecules`:-
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/phys-ed-what-really-causes-runners-high/?src=me&ref=general
 
Back to genmai rice ... Does anyone have a rice cooker that germinate the ungerminated kind? It seems to be a function reserved for the uber-expensive models.

Failing that, can someone give me some tips on germinating the old-fashioned way? (in a bowl of water)

Thanx
 
Thanks Sikochi and Andy - will read your links later - need to head off for interval training this morning :eek:uch: Don't worry twice a week will be tops!
I can masochistically run marathons but the running intervals literally make me want to throw up. I'm a slow twitch girl. With the LSD I can stay on my feet for hours but I need to push past some pain threshold as I want to climb some big mountains over the next couple of years and it is inevitable that I will be at my limit. The LSD keeps me in too much of a comfort zone (which is why I like it) - the more two hour runs I do the easier a two hour run becomes but with these nasty intervals they will always hurt.

Will wait till after my ePerformance training with James before I look at cycling.

Anyway, back to genmai ....
 
Personally I find it very hard to motivate myself to do LSD since my attention span and endurance are only good enough for maybe 45 minutes of solid exercise tops. I would be able to ride longer with music but I'm not willing to give up the safety of being able to hear cars coming, and to guess speed and direction by sound.

On the other hand, I can't motivate myself to do any serious HIIT because every time I do, I feel like I end up cutting the length of my workout far too short versus the total calories burnt/effort expended.

...hmm...

I think my best solution would be to just try to run more seven-minute miles and climb more hills.


Does anyone have any tips to preventing mucus buildup in the back of the throat at VO2max (especially in cold weather)? I find the need to cough while doing heavy efforts makes it even harder than it should be.
 
Thanks Sikochi and Andy - will read your links later - need to head off for interval training this morning :eek:uch: Don't worry twice a week will be tops!

For running I can give you this link, but it links to many articles so if you have time to burn whilst recovering from those intervals...;)
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?post=1612485;search_string=runtraining;#1612485

When I was a teenager I used to run but found it caused problems with my breathing (turned out to be asthma) so switched to cycling, which was much easier on the respiratory system. These days, I try the odd run now and then, but always end up with some little niggle or pain somewhere or other :thumb1:
 
Personally I find it very hard to motivate myself to do LSD since my attention span and endurance are only good enough for maybe 45 minutes of solid exercise tops.

Try this: 10 min warm-up, 10 min (threshold/above threshold), 5 min recovery, 10 min (threshold/above threshold), 10 min warm down. Fits into your 45 mins allowance and if you swap these sessions for 2/3 of your normal rides per week, then after a month see if you notice any difference in your performance. As the study I referenced earlier (endurance vs high intensity) showed, don`t fixate on the number of calories burned and I`m sure you will find that workout requires more than enough effort.
 
@Snoogly - thanks to to the not-so-modern miracle of life, germinating rice is fairly easy. Just wash your rice well and and then let it 'rest' overnight until about 24hr is passed. That's it! If the temp is much below 30 then it just takes longer - less than 20hr and chances are its not yet germinated. Over a couple days and you start making rejuvelac - that's not bad either. So - in every case its a win-win, actually. GBR is awesome. You will feel stronger and cleaner than you ever did.

The old pilgrim method is to let the rice germinate while you are walking. Then prepare a single bowl each day. Chew competely until its liquid in your mouth. Every bite. If you could eat more than a single bowl of rice this way it will be amazing. This will both nurish and cleanse your body. Just try 5 days of this. or even 3days.
 
Stopped at a Hanamasa today for some bananas, came home with this......

730_yen.jpg


For 730 yen :D

Going to have a banana or two a day for a week :thumb: and I love that Kabocha too :D
 
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