The diet should be in balance with your expenditure. You can't expect to 'get strong' and lose weight at the same time.
As far as training stimulus, the stimulus has to be progressive, causing a manageable overload, followed by a period of deloading (so that the training can be assimulated). An example of a loading period would be 3 weeks of progressive stimulii targeted at specific energy systems. Then deload for 1 week. The deloading period would be filled with easy recovery sessions and maybe 1 day of full rest.
After the season is over or if you plan to peak twice in a year, you do a more extensive deloading period.
Repeat.
This is very simplistic, but explains how to train in a nutshell.
Last edited by NoRacer; 01-26-06 at 09:29 AM.