Carmichael on Salt and Resting Metabolic Rate -- Info

A few interesting links...first, an article on how much salt an athlete should consume. Nothing too exciting, but good to know. And i recommend using a 'whole' salt, like Celtic or Real Salt. Both these include a bunch of other minerals.. Table salt and sea salt are little more than sodium chloride. (Yep, 'sea salt' is actually almost no different than 'regular' salt. Both are heavily processed, and all the other minerals are stripped away.)

The second article is on resting metabolic rate. (Scroll down to the second question.) RMR is basically how much energy your body needs to maintain itself if you were basically 'resting' all day. This is an absolute baseline, and you should avoid going under this if you are training. (Even if you are trying to lose weight. If you go under this, your body's metabolism will actually slow down, and you'll start to store even more fat!)

You can use this page to calculate yours, then refer to the link above to see how much you should eat in a day. My RMR is apparently close to 1,700 kcal...so i need to eat this much, plus however much i excercise (my heart rate monitor gives me an estimation.) Last Saturday, after my 5.5hr effort, i would need to add 3,500 to the above (plus a bit for other daily activity, and recovery) to meet my energy demands. That's alotta pie! =)

It's also good to use this to make sure you aren't eating too much as well...no sense in putting on weight in fat if you can help it, it's just dead-weight up the hills. (If your velodrome has hills. ;)