08/06/2011

Too Vain to Gain

2 months into my 6,000 calorie diet

I am often informed that I will have to gain some fat to swim the Channel, or ‘bioprene’ as Dan Martin calls it (a man who has gained a good few kg's for his exploits, far bigger exploits than me), as I have a severe lack of it. This, I am told, will help protect me from the elements and stop me feeling the cold so much. I have taken this advice on board and have spent the last 4 or 5 months eating 5,000 – 6,000 Calories every day, so far all I have managed to accomplish with this diet is losing around half a stone in weight. I have been running 2 diets simultaneously, a healthy diet, as you still need good food to help you train, and my usual diet of utter rubbish to gain some precious pounds.

The problem I have is that I have always been able to eat a good amount of food, the majority of which is, for want of a better word, ‘shit’. I am on first name terms with the Dominos Pizza delivery man, I rarely have to tell them what I am going to order as they already know. I consider a giant Cornish pasty and a family pack of Monster Munch a snack for in between meals, and I would never even contemplate half finishing a meal. I usually finish my girlfriend’s meals as well, usually when she’s not looking. However when it comes to putting on fat I am not the most capable. I also appear to have to metabolism of a particularly hyperactive Humming bird.

Simon's Dr Pepper belly
Far from massive but psychologically huge?
Simon, my swimtrek/channel friend, has managed to get himself quite a belly, not outrageous at all but nice and noticeable. He is very proud of it, and puts it down to his Dr. Pepper diet. This basically involves eating a lot of takeaway food and drinking a lot of Dr. Pepper, I am not a massive fan of this drink so have experimented with the Coca-Cola diet with no great success. This has been a massive advantage for him and has helped a lot, but personally I think a lot of it is down to having his confidence knocked on his first Swimtrek tour. Sometimes having the belly is just like having a comfort blanket, plus it eliminates one of the excuses for failing a swim ‘lack of fat’.

After speaking to Kevin Murphy at the weekend he told me that it’s a fine line when gaining weight. Obviously the more you weigh, the more you have to pull through the water. This means in turn that you will be a slower swimmer and therefore you will be in the water for a greater time period, thus feeling the effects of the cold for longer. Not that all heavier people are slower swimmers of course, far from it, but if you are like me and suffer from a lack of fat then suddenly gaining some will definitely cost you some pace. It’s a classic ‘Catch 22’.

Nick Adams has told me about a lady who has made 2 attempts on the Channel so far (She’s making another this year) and failed due to not having any fat to burn in the later stages. The second time getting pulled out around 800 metres from France. This would be devastating, but it would appear that no matter how much I eat I struggle to get fat. I’m not the smallest and already weigh well above what I should for my height, according to the ridiculous thing that is BMI (Body Mass Index). Seriously never ever pay attention to your BMI, it takes nothing into account regarding body composition and is based purely on height and weight – nonsense.

The other thing is the only part of me that ever really gets cold is my hands (not even my hands, just my right little finger, the bastard) and legs. Now I know for a fact that if I were to spend the next 2 months eating nothing but buttered chocolate I would still struggle to put any fat onto these areas, and I would also have a pretty massive heart attack. So it would appear that I am going to have to accept that on the day I am going to be cold, and have full faith in my feeding plan giving me enough energy towards the later stages. There's worse things to be than cold.

All sorts of different shapes and sizes are present at Dover. There are some bigger ladies and gents yes, but I don’t think this is purely due to attempting a Channel swim, they are just big. There are also some really lean people who are doing just as well with the cold, obviously the test will come on the longer swims but so far so good.

The moral of this post is to not get too worried or stressed about your body fat if you are thinking about attempting a big swim in cold water, there's already too much to worry about. If you convince yourself that you are going to be cold before you get in the water then guess what? You’re going to be cold. If you decide however that it’s going to be ok, then you probably will be.

This is of course just my opinion and there will be plenty of proper swimmers who will disagree, and they have every right to due to my extreme lack of experience and recent cold water performances. I just think a lot of time is spent unnecessarily worrying about this subject, and the more you worry about it the more you will psych yourself out and feel the cold. This is definitely what happened to me on my last trip to Dover. I have been far colder and carried on swimming than last weekend, but I was just weak minded. Of course I immediately blamed my lack of fat. Just another excuse.

Anyway I’m going to eat some cake and chips off of my belly…

2 comments:

  1. Wow! Thanks for sharing. Only 14 months ago you learned to swim? Amazing! that's totally awesome. I wish you the best!

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  2. I could swim a length of a pool, but very poorly, slowly and embarrassingly. Thanks a lot for the good wishes, I will need them!

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