What I Eat In A Day – Amy Kilpin Ironman Triathlete
Share
As a triathlete, training for three sports means that sufficient fuelling becomes essential. Not only is it about getting the right nutrition in order to hit each session optimally, it is also about recovering sufficiently in between sessions.
I have also been a vegetarian for life, so managing protein consumption can sometimes present a challenge, especially during harder training blocks.
As I also work (I run a marketing business), my weekdays usually consist of lighter training, usually one or two sessions per day at no longer than 1 hour each. Weekends tend to involve longer training days with multiple sessions.
In this respect, I usually increase my protein consumption early on in the week to help my body recover from the increased output over the weekend. Mid-week tends to be lighter and lower in carbs, as my body doesn’t require as much fuel when training is reduced. Towards the end of the week, I increase carbs in preparation for the weekend’s training, and over the weekend, I tend to increase my calorie consumption to compensate for harder/longer training days.
What I Eat In A Day
6am – Coffee and usually a light pre-swim breakfast of 3 Nutribrex (gluten-free sorghum cereal) with a tablespoon of pecan butter, a handful of blueberries, and hazelnut milk, or homemade blueberry and almond bircher muesli.
6.30am – 2.5k-3.5k swim, usually either a focused drill session or a threshold set.
10am – I am usually in my client's office or in my own home office by this point so I will eat a banana and have another coffee to keep me alert for meetings.
12.30pm – I try to take a salad into work most days or if I'm at home I prepare one. Usually a base of dark leaves such as watercress, rocket and spinach, with plenty of fresh salad ingredients such as tomatoes, beetroot, cucumber, celery, and then usually some protein such as falafel, quinoa, lentils or hummus. I always have 2 squares of dark chocolate after lunch – guilty pleasure!
3pm – I’m usually hungry and need to fuel for my second session, so will often have something like rice cakes or oat cakes with seed butter and a piece of fruit. Usually also a herbal tea.
5pm – Indoor bike session on the turbo, usually hard intervals lasting one hour. I take a Nuun hydration tablet in my water as I tend to sweat a lot during these sessions.
6pm – Before I jump in the shower I will have an Active Edge Cherry Active sachet in water for recovery and also probably something like a CocoPro for an instant protein hit.
7pm – Dinner is usually something fairly quick and simple with lots of vegetables. My go-to dinner is stir fried vegetables and tofu in soy sauce (no rice or noodles) as it’s so easy to make and so rich in micronutrients.
7.30pm – I usually have a piece of fruit, something like a passionfruit, stirred into 0% fat Greek yoghurt maybe with a half teaspoon of turmeric or cinnamon.
8.30pm – I tend to have a hot drink, usually Amber Aminos from Aminoman. It contains all the necessary amino acid complex and herbal remedies to help improve recovery, reduce inflammation, boost energy and optimise performance.
9pm – I go to bed pretty early due to my busy days!
About the author: Amy Kilpin has qualified for the Ironman 70.3 World Championships twice as well as representing GBR at the European and World Long Distance Championships.
