so it’s 1240am and i’m super hyper.

just got back from my second (rather late) training session and i feel great! and hyper.

did a 15km run at 630am this morning (technically yesterday morning) before work and i managed to drag my woozy ass for a second 15km run after work at 930pm, followed by a gym session from 11 to midnight. one of the perks of cali gym, is the fact that it stays open till midnight, when there’s absolutely no one around for me to have to share weights machines with. =D

anyway, the best part about training, is getting to eat a hell lot. these days, i’m faced with the happy problem of counting calories to ensure that i’m actually overeating. yep. i’ve been trying to put on weight before the cho oyu climb. on average, a climber will lose about 10 to 12kg for a 2 month 8000m expedition, depending on how much freeze-dried food, myoplex, power gels and chocolate one manages to keep down. from personal experience, once the weight loss seriously kicks in from the cold, the sheer volume of physical exertion and the appetite loss, the energy level drops all the way down as well. hence, anticipating the debilitating weight loss, panda and i have been consciously trying to gain 3 to 5kg within a month so that there’s at least that bit of buffer mass to lose.

unfortunately, the math hasn’t been too kind with the realities of eating. my basic metabolic rate says that i should be eating a ballpark of 1500 calories if i were to stay in bed and sleep all day. add in a very very modest 500 calories to account for walking around doing normal daily stuff, that’s 2000 calories on the low side (not taking into account things like higher BMR based on percentage of muscle mass etc. that’s like verging on rocket science and i prefer not to go there and kill myself). since my total 3 hour cardio session today burned a little over 2000 calories, thanks to my trusty HRM for the estimate, that’s a minimum of 4000 calories expended, not inclusive of my weights routine which i can’t calculate energy expenditure for.

so to gain (or lose) one kg, one needs to eat (or lose) an extra 7700 calories. on average, that’s an extra 1100 calories per day. considering i spend about 2.5 to 4 hours each day for 2 training sessions, with more on weekends, that’s about slightly over 5000 calories i actually need to be eating each day to at least gain 1kg per week.

anyone who counts calories will quickly realise that it’s damn hard to eat 5000 calories. i mean, obviously the easy way out will be to down oil shooters, but erm, no thank you, i would like to avoid a premature artery clog, if ever at all. hence, it figures that the more heart healthy way to gain mass will be through the “body builder theory” of eating more protein and complex carbs, but even then, it’s still damn hard to be eating 5000 calories a day, even with all the 5 full meals a day. anyway, www.thecaloriecounter.com is pretty handy when it comes to estimating caloric values.

recently, i’ve been eating kyo flat under the table, much to his awe and still a colleague asked me today if i lost weight. with two weeks left to go till cho oyu, this is becoming a slight problem for me, especially since i tend to get cold really easily and force-feeding on climbs isn’t really my thing.

i realise i’m sounding damn paranoid, but at this juncture, i would think that having more “padding” is going to stand me in good stead. for once, i’m going to stop laughing at panda’s roundness.

xxx

speaking of food, i had the most decadent ”last day of work” division lunch today at this tiny little authentic (cuz the chef is actually from italy, none of that franchised imagined italian cooking crap) eatery tucked away at the corner of prinsep place. it’s called trattoria lafiandra. i ordered the tagliatelle bolognese, ate a chunk of lasagne bolognese and a tiramisu, all of which were superbly yummilicious. i totally recommend it for ppl looking to pile on the calories, especially since the lasagne came drenched with cheese and it was soaked in some liquid cheese sauce thingy. can you imagine? warm bubbly liquid cheese with hunks of beef.

ok now i’m hungry again.