#racingweight

[applekelly]

As she ages, less tiger 🐅 more sweetheart.❤️ She’s so grey! (First pic - September 2010, 2 years old. Second pic - today, 10 1/2 years old.) #applethegreyhound #slatexapple #gracanada #retiredracer #racingweight #petweight #wereallgettingold (at Riverdale, Toronto)

[normalgirlruns]

Weight Loss and Marathon Training

No question, when I started running, it was motivate by weight loss. Over the last two years, I have consistently lost weight while increasing my mileage but it has been a very gradual approach.

Let’s get numbers out of the way: I weighed in post-Christmas at 159-160 pounds, slightly over my post-Half marathon weight of 157 pounds. I woke up on marathon day weighing in 152.5 pounds. My original goal was to get to as close to 150 as possible, that bit closer to a longer-term goal of 145 lbs (my racing weight as calculated according to the book by Matt Fitzgerald).

Note: I am 5’ 7” and my lowest recorded adult weight is  ~135 lbs in university, albeit post-hospitalization with GI issues. It was not a good look thanks to muscle wastage.

I weighed in this morning at 155 lbs. and that is the weight that I would like to now maintain.

The funny thing is that it may only be 6 pounds but it has made a huge difference to how my clothes fit – I’ve lost at least a size on both the top and the bottom. Most of my clothes were getting too big at Christmas and now I’m swimming in most of them. 

I went into marathon training with my eyes open around weight loss. I know weight gain in marathon training but I didn’t want to fall into the trap of rewarding myself with food.  I would say that my appetite stayed under control until April (20-25 miles per week),  it totally moved up a gear when I moved into the 30+ miles weeks. I often woke up hungry, I thought about food A LOT (unless I was thinking about running) and it could feel tortuous waiting to eat.

In short, it took A LOT of discipline to manage my appetite and focus on eating quality foods.

Food as Fuel:

Since I started  losing weight three (!) years ago, I have moved away from eating big meals to eating much lighter meals and supplementing with a 11:00 and 4:00 snack. 

With the increased appetite during marathon training, I ended up significantly increasing the number of snacks but not the size of my meals. Cue me becoming the snack master:

Breakfast 7:00am: GF toast + natural peanut butter (170 cal)

8:00 am: Skinny double-shot cappuccino on my way into work  (80 cal)

10:30 am: Small handful of almonds (100-150 cal)

11:30 am: Couple of oatcakes, more almonds (70 cal + 100 cal)

Lunch 12:30 pm: usually combination of protein (smoked salmon/chicken/hardboiled egg) + salad + soup or 6 veggie sushi rolls + some fruit (500-600 cal), sometimes a coconut water

3:00 pm: small bag of popcorn (130 cal) 

4:00pm: Greek yogurt (160 cal)

5:30 pm: pre-run LARA bar (200 cal) or Go Nak’d bar (130 cal), depending on hunger levels

7:00-8:30 pm: run home

9:00pm dinner:  protein (steak/chicken/pork) + big salad + carb (potatoes/brown rice/corn tortillas) + green veg (400-450 cal)

Post-dinner snack: 1-2 oatcakes + cheese or handful chocolate buttons (200 cal)

Total calories in: about 2,050 -2,600

Total calories out: ranging 400-1,000

All those small snacks add up, meaning half of my calories in a typical day come from meals and half come from snacking. Hmm, is this good or bad? 

Call in the Experts

My coworker’s husband is a certified nutritionist and personal trainer who is used to working with active people. He kindly offered to look at my diet and make some recommendations for me based on what he read.

His advice was pretty straight forward. I need to increase the size of my breakfast and possibly lunch to better match my activity levels with my meals.  Dinners can stay light – I need to refuel properly from my runs but I don’t need to go crazy, maybe have a glass of skimmed milk while I am cooking. He was concerned I wasn't getting enough dark green veggies to help with iron and calcium absorption. Finally, he suggested getting retested for food intolerances because it might allow me to broaden my diet again.

Also, I have to start strength training once a week. According to Jayson, as a runner, I should be able to lift my own body weight (as in a pullup). HAHAHA. Time to bring on the squats and lunges – maybe adding this to the end of my Satruday runs, now they are shorter?

While my hunger levels are a bit more normalized, I am now making a real effort to eat the way he has suggested.  I’ve started taking pictures of everything that I eat to send him. 

Eating and Running

No question, running can be a great way to lose weight and it can be a good way to keep it off

Running a marathon might help you lose weight because it complements the work you are doing to improve your eating habits or other lifestyle factors.

Running a marathon might help you lose weight because you can compensate for disordered overeating like bingeing.

Running a marathon might help you lose weight because you can accelerate disordered undereating too.

However, three years later, weight loss and vanity are not what motivate me to keep signing up for races. I run to feel good about what my body can do for me physically and mentally, to feel strong and yes, it is a great way to stay active and stave off morbid obesity. Running helps give me structure and control giving into temptation because most vices negatively affect running performance. But weight loss or vanity doesn’t motivate me to fight onwards on bad runs and it certainly didn’t get me across that finish line last month.

If you aren’t seeing any improvements as a runner in measurable ways like getting faster, fitter, or walking less, then you have to ask yourself why you are doing it. If it comes back to weight loss, I think the time has come to hang up the running shoes and find another activity that you can become passionate about.